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Saturday, September 06, 2003

It feels very weird to me right now, that I flew to LA this morning and now tonight I'm back home in San Francisco. I know I got on a plane and left the area, but it went by so fast that it doesn't even feel like I was away.

But then again, I used to fly to NYC for the weekend from San Francisco three or four times a year, leaving Friday night and coming back Sunday, so maybe I have to leave the state to feel like I'm really away.

I'm exhausted. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art was great! I definitely need to back and see their regular art exhibits. I was so burnt out from so much visual stimulation that after about four hours I couldn't take it anymore.

I looked at stuff, but didn't stop to study them, didn't marvel and at the end didn't really care. LACMA has some great exhibits too and it's huge. There were parts of the museum that I didn't even get to because I was so tired.

All in all a very worthwhile trip, except for their transit system although I learned alot from my mistakes. Their Metro, BART like system is great. Their bus system is confusing and worse than the NYC bus system. No wonder people don't take the bus in LA.

I definitely want to fly back down there perhaps in December, and see the rest of the museum that I missed. I was so tired I didn't even want to go into their museum store. Now that's tired.

Friday, September 05, 2003

I keep wondering if I should play Fantasy Football league every year. I've always wanted to do it, just to see how I would do.

At this one company I worked for, there was an in-house fantasy football league. My boss, the director of Planning and Analysis, said I could be part of his team, but it all seemed like a big deal. All the bigwigs (the CFO, COO, Pres, VPs and directors) in the company played, and you could only play by invitation only.

And I think if I had played, I would have been the only girl playing. Like either the guys played by themselves and if there were teams, there were all guys. I was only allowed to play because I worked in Finance, and since the league was started by the CFO, anyone in Finance could play.

I didn't play because I didn't know any of the players. These same people played in either the weekly football pool and/or the March Madness pool, which I always participated in.

I didn't play because all of the horror stories I heard about the draft. The big thing in this fantasy football league was the draft. You sit around the room with everyone and dicker over players. My boss kept telling me how nasty people got, especially about picking quarterbacks and running backs.

The whole thing sounded like one giant testosterone fueled nightmare, only now played by people I worked with, sent reports to, sat in meetings with, even reported to.

I mean, it was bad enough sometimes having to sit through meetings where I was the only woman in at the table. It was part of my job, and I put up with it and everything was very business like and very civil.

I couldn't imagine having to do the same thing, but now for fun with bigwigs in my company who took the fantasy football thing way too seriously. Just reading the memos that were sent via email just to put the draft meeting together were enough to scare me off.

The draft had serious rules, you couldn't be late for it, and there was a whole bunch of warnings about the kind of behaviour not tolerated. I was reading them thinking, guys it's only a game, it's not like you're even a real owner of a team.

I mentioned this to my boss and he gave me a stern look and told me "if you aren't serious about it, maybe you shouldn't play because these guys are really, really into it." And I was like, fine, whatever.

It's just a game right? How serious can you really take fantasy football?
Watched football last night, and wanted to the Jets to win but I guess not. I like Herman Edwards way more than I like Steve Spurrier, especially after the way the guy was so hyped coming from the college ranks.

Poor New York Jets. The Redskins picked up four of their free agents, their young star QB is hurt, and poor Vinnie Testaverde looked so old.

Heard on the radio that Jimmy Johnson is interviewing Bill Parcells on Sunday. That will be an interesting interview, seeing as how Jimmy Johnson used to also coach the Dallas Cowboys.

I like Jimmy Johnson. For an older dude guy with helmet hair and leathery skin, there's something about him that's strangely attractive, like I would definitely not kick the guy out of my bed. I'd have to think about whether to boot Antonio Banderas or Brad Pitt out of my bed, but not Jimmy Johnson.

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

So I've gotten myself hooked on a TV show, this time a Brit one called MI-5 in the states and Spooks in the UK.

I've watched bits of it here and there, but there was a marathon on Labor Day and I really got into it.

I'm in love with Tom, the main character. He's definitely a stud-muffie, femmie boy brit style. Oh those femme boys from the Brittish Isles ... what is it about them that are so attractive?

This one is on paper is not even that physically attractive with his pasty white face. But at least thank god, he's doesn't wax his chest hairs. The hairless chest look on a guy is just so icky!!!

They're femme, but they look like they could slit your throat open without a second thought. It's such an odd combination, but bizarrely attractive.

They have the femme boy eyes and mannerisms, the skinny but buff bods, and that sense that they're mean as heck underneath it all if crossed and or in the right mood, but also sweet too like puppy dogs. Like I said, they're attractive but you're never quite sure why.

Maybe I just love his character. He's so sharp, knows everything, and boy can he fire that gun and kill those terrorists.

Tuesday, September 02, 2003

The comments website is still down, which is a bummer.

It's been foggy in my neighbourhood all weekend, so I headed downtown just to see some sun.

I saw 28 Days Later, the movie by Danny Boyle of Trainspotting fame. I liked it, but it had nothing new to say in terms of survivalist type films. The Trigger Effect is the best survivalist movie in recent times, and that old Brit scifi series "Survivor" was good as well, showing all the different groups of people that will probably emerge if a disease wipes 99.9% of the planet out.

I loved the opening of how the disease gets spread though. It was an evocative political commentary.

On Saturday, I went to see an exhibit of "Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance." I love this stuff. I saw a ton of it England at the various museums I visited.

The colours are so vivid and I love all the little painting they artists put in letters and those amazing borders. If I had oodles and oodles of cash to burn, I would love to buy and have the stuff hanging in my house.

I have a friend who owns a couple of museum quality pieces of italian manuscript, and I am so totally jealous. To see them up close and unframed is just fantastic. The colours are so alive and beautiful.

On Sunday, I ran errands, worked out, even wrote for a bit, which was nice. I'm still recovering from my cold, and I've been feeling too tired in the evenings to write. My cold is over, but the cough is hanging for dear life.

If I don't leave the house and go somewhere and write, I don't write. It's just too tempting to watch TV, zone out, or putz around the place when I'm at home. I have to leave and go somewhere and make myself sit down and write.

I was invited to go see Shakespeare in the Park on Monday, but I just couldn't stomach sitting in the freezing fog and being sick for another week.

I went to see "Step into Liquid" the surf movie instead. What a great movie! If you love surfing, you have to see it. I'm definitely adding it to my surfing movie collection when it gets released on DVD. The surfing footage is just spectacular and beats anything on TV or that movie "Blue Crush".

I also finally watched the movie, "The Shipping News". Cate Blanchett was amazing, and overall the movie was good but not great. All the reviews say to read the book, so I might just end up doing that because I loved the story.