I added my blog to this blog ranker called TTLB Ecosystem, and out of 34,000+ plus blogs I am ranked 16,199. First of all, who knew there were so many darn bloggies out there. And secondly, I'm surpised I am the middle of the pack in this blog ranker. Thanks of course, to you my loyal readers!

My bloggie has sort of become more a personal journal right now I guess as I am not into writing about world events. But really, there's nothing that interesting happening in the world right now that I want to write about.

But there are odd things happening though. I received a rebate from my car insurance company for being a loyal customer. This is a first!

When I went to see my acupuncturist yesterday in my old neighborhood, I saw a ton of parking spaces open. I lived in that neighborhood for over 8 years and on a Saturday, I've never seen so many open parking spaces.

It feels like there is a dark economic undercurrent going on. Like things aren't as rosy as the government would have you believe. It's a just a feeling I have, little things, events, that have been happening. Not sure what it all means though.

All eyes are on the San Diego housing market because people are saying it is tanking. Vegas is advertising which I find off. I guess there aren't enough people gambling and throwing away their money. Starbucks keeps giving free drinks downtown. Business are a little too desperate about wanting business right now, which means business must not be doing very well.

I went to the Asian Art Museum to see the exhibit, Tibet: Treasures from the Roof of the World on Saturday. The artwork was beautiful but I started becoming upset because I had the feeling that I was reading a political retelling of history because practically every description mentioned China's relationship with Tibet. China took over Tibet on the pretense of the their historical relationship. They are trying to do the same with Taiwan.

In front of the musuem, people were protesting with signs that said "China stole my history." I think they are right. Tibet's culture was very distinct from China, and to emphasize China's closeness with Tibet was just very wrong and such bad karma. I wonder what his holiness the Dalai Lama thinks about this exhibit.

I loved seeing the art, but most of it was taken from monasteries so they are sacred objects. I don't know. The whole exhibit started bumming me out and I couldn't enjoy it as much as I probably should have.

I went to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and it was a great movie. People at the end the movie clapped, and in San Francisco it's so rare when that happens. Johnny Depp was his beautiful self as usual, and despite the fact that it's a character role he brought such depth to the actor. I was reminded of his performance in the movie "Donnie Brasco", which was excellent. Or even "Ed Wood" and of course "Edward Scissorhands".

I missed the Ooompa Loompa songs though. Danny Elfman did a great job of modernizing the songs, but I miss the Ooopma Loompa songs. Tim Burton's sense of art direction is just unbelievable. Every scene is beautiful like a postcard. I noticed this especially in his movie "Sleepy Hollow". And the special effects for movie were really great.

And all of the great characters were there, including the fat german boy and Veruca Salt the spoiled english girl. And the actors playing Charlie's family were excellent. The roles were small omes but the actors brought alot to the shallow characterizations.

If you loved the first one with Gene Wilder, you will love how Tim Burton and Johnny Depp modernized the story.

I’m starting to think it’s too bad I want to leave my company because it’s kind of starting to get a little better. Of course I think this always happens when you finally decide to get your butt in gear and start looking for another job. The universe wants to make sure you are making the right decision. A new person just joined my group this week and I spoke to her this morning and she is really, really cool. We seen to have a lot in common and she was hired to be a writer for the division. And I’m like too bad I’m leaving because I would have liked to get to know her.

But then the assistant for our group told me yesterday that they stopped accruing for our bonus next year because the company is doing really badly financially. It’s not that we’re not making money because we are, we’re just not hitting our plan targets. The mid-year budget reforecast meetings have been brutal, and everyone is cutting from the budget as much as they can. She told me they are also starting to look at open positions to see if those positions need to be hired.

Having done a five-year stint in a company’s budgeting department, let me tell you when a company starts looking at the open positions to see if they are really needed then it’s not a good sign. I also had lunch with a girl from our LA office, where most of our new business comes from, and she told me the sales people in LA were really depressed because they weren’t making their July numbers. And July is our second biggest month for sales.

The company also cut out an $11 million program that I was working on because they decided they couldn’t afford it. This move will have ramifications I think long term, but no one has said anything about it yet.

These are all bad, bad signs. And worse of all, our competitors have announced that they all made great profits in the second quarter. How come all of our competitors are making money and we aren’t?

So I think I’m still getting signs from the universe that I need to move on, but at the same time I guess I’m having some regrets only because there are four people in my group that I really, really like and I will be sorry to not talk to them anymore.

By the way, my boss knows I’m unhappy. She was finally able to drag it out of me, although I think she used underhanded means to do it. Oh well! She didn’t really sound surprised actually, only saying she thought it had gotten better. I told her that what I was going through probably wasn’t fixable, and I said this statement with great sadness in my voice. She said she was going to see if it was workable, but at this point it’s like I crossed a point of no return and can never go back. I’m not saying there aren’t room for miracles to happen, but the company’s financials are starting to really concern me.

It’s such a hot job market right now, and I have a feeling it wont’ be in the next two years when the company really has to start putting drastic measures to save money. If I don’t go now, I have a feeling I will my window of opportunity. I’d rather leave now, then when everyone else will be looking.