ich bin ein auslander

I can’t believe how out of touch I am with most of America. Actually, yes I can, but it’s still surprising to see how everything I voted for lost and everything I voted against won. Even in California, which is supposed to be full of weirdo environmental, liberal-leaning but not wanting new taxes Libertarian type people like me.

Anyway, since we’re entering 2 years of utter darkness, I’m happy to announce that we’ve gotten our first unsolicited approach for work in a loooong time. I have no hopes that this signifies a turn around in the industry or economy in general, I’m just going to make damn sure we get the project since I don’t think there will be much more coming down the pipe for awhile.

On other fronts, I’m awaiting an ASIO driver release from Digidesign for my music system which means everything will actually work, for once, and I can stop spending 95% of my time patching and changing settings and 5% doing music. Maybe even reverse those percentages. And when animals attack … apartment complex four houses down is being sandblasted today (even with all windows closed, I think we’re getting about an 80db sound blast in here) and it’s sending all the ants into a frenzy. So far none have made it into our house, but our front porch is a moving carpet.

What a nightmare. I’ve been staring at cheaptickets, flifo, expedia and all the others for days and days. Going back to Wendy’s hometown for christmas in upstate new york, then swinging by Chicago for New Years… going to visit Jason and watch a client do a new year’s show at the House of Blues there. Never been… on a diet now so I can enjoy tons of Chicago-style pizza.

Voted today. Yippee. Looking forward to the Daily Show election broadcast tonight… and the West Wing tomorrow, which I’m sure will do a little re-writing and re-shooting if anything particularly amazing occurs this election.

Went to an art show down in Manhattan Beach (d00d) last night… met up with Jon and ended up catching a late show of Jackass. I was convinced I’d hate it and have been putting up opposition since it’s been released, but Wendy finally found a peer pressure situation I couldn’t weasel out of.

Damn, that was fucking funny. I was laughing pretty much for the entire 90 minutes. I’m so ashamed of myself…

I’d quite like to be in New Orleans today and head down to the cemeteries and watch the whitewashing, but i’m not…

Went to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival last night. Pink, Berlin and a host of other not so great bands played to roughly 350,000 people jammed into a few blocks of Santa Monica Blvd. I’d say only roughly 40% of people were dressed up - note I say “dressed up”, not “in costume”. Probably only 20% were in costume. I don’t want to go off on a rant here, but really - girls, putting on your sexiest regular clothes, pushing up your tits and donning satan horns does not a halloween costume make. And gay guys - yes, great body, but you wear chaps with nothing else every day. Again, not a costume. A little more effort, people.

Oh, and the only way to get a drink was to go into one of the clubs - Rage, whatever the rest of them were called. Too much effort. They had food stands, where were the damn beer stands?

So, another Halloween has come and gone… next year, more exciting plans. Off to a sort of Halloween party tonight, a quick swing past Finn McCools, and some art opening in Chinatown that’s going until 2am. With any luck, they’ll still have some booze left by the time we arrive.