Quick recap:
Sunday – Work all day at Amoeba. The day passes swiftly, however, and after I get out at eight, I swing by Rocket to bug Ryan and Sara and pick up the external hard drive I use to back up Boss’s Powerbook. Since I have to get up early to meet with Boss, I go to bed early that night (midnight) … but only after posting here and then tooling around a little with the treatment for Blood & Mist.
Monday – Head over to Boss’s house at nine to do some routine backups and touch base on web design plans. The backup goes fine. Their desktop PC, however, is riddled with spyware and adware. A browser-hijack prevents all internet access. I end up having to use Boss’s Powerbook to do research on the bugger. By the time I have the thing wiped clean, the system is rife with conflicts and the DSL connection seems to have shut down completely. With increasing exasperation, I hammer away at the system, curse Bill Gates and wonder in the back of my mind whether I’m going to be able to make my date for the evening. It’s an internet date, and she seems like someone I want to meet. I hate the idea that I might have to call her and say, “I can’t make it tonight. There’s this computer, see, and I have to get it running…” There are only a handful of things I want to do less tonight than tinker with Boss’s computer. And then as if I weren’t annoyed enough, Boss hands me a phone and tells me to join him on a conference call. So for the next hour, I hang on to the phone listlessly with onoe hand and flail around on Boss’s desktop with the other while in my ear, Boss extolls the virtues of Herbalife to an international group of supervisors.
When that hour is up I gather the computer and tell Boss I have to finish the task at home where I can download the necessary tools. I hightail it home, set the beast up on my desk and after a mere sixty minutes, the thing is in perfect running condition. No spyware, no pop-ups, no nothing. Norton Antivirus purrs in the background, Ad-Aware is up to date and waiting to pounce. All security updates are in place. And most important, I’ve hidden all shortcuts to Internet Explorer and installed Mozilla Firefox in its stead.
To work off some steam, I go on a run up Runyon Canyon. I return just in time to scrub the dirt out of my pores, drink several gallons of water and traffic over to Los Feliz to meet my date. We have coffee at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at Hillhurst and Ambrose. I dig the vibe there.
Want more details? Sorry. I think I’ll keep the social life out of the blog for now…
Tuesday – I return to Boss’s house with the computer. Set it up. Get it running. Lambaste the son for downloading crap off the Internet and tell him that if I have to clean up another nasty infestation of crap off the computer again I’m gonna sic Ad-Aware on his face. Boss’s wife can’t thank me enough. I ride off into the sunset.
Actually, I just drive down Sunset to Amoeba and put in my nine hours. It’s another fine evening.
Wendesday – I return to Amoeba in the morning for another nine hours armed with a tall green tea and a scone, which I later regret eating. They’re very bad for the energy level. Sara and Jen drop by later for a visit. Sara’s in the neighborhood for an audition. Jen is just the chauffeur today. So I “have a cigarette” with them outside, order Sara to break a leg and go back in to finish my shift.
I get off a little early, make serious tracks across town to the Avco theater on Wilshire at Westwood and join Edgar for a screening of Collateral. It’s a good film, taut and violent. It’s set in LA, and is very faithful to the geography. When they say they’re going to a certain address, they go to that actual address, passing all logical points in between. And the downtown area, one of my favorite places, looks beautiful.
After the film, Edgar and I chat in the cool evening for a bit. I assure him that things are going well on Mist. I should have a completely new plot outlined, treatmented and wroted in the next few days.
Returning to my humble car, Mark Smith calls me and suggests that I get cracking on issues 2, 3 and four of the Blood & Dust comic book. No problem, I say. I’ll look at the issue outline and see what I can do.
As I hang up, I think about that for a second. Where on earth is this time gonna come from?
…
Anyway, I’ve got things to do, so I’m outta here for now. I’ll leave you with a photo. This one’s a strange one. Every once in a while I’m struck by moments, by oddities, and by the beauty of ordinary things. When I return to my car after the movie, I’m inspired for some reason to take a picture. I think it’s lovely. But really, it’s just my car.
