I'm waiting to hear about a job in which last week I was told that I would hear back from them "late" this week. Meaning now. Having been through this thing, I know "late this week" usually means Wednesday or Thursday and Friday means you didn't get it only because they like having an answer wrapped up before the weekend comes. Of course, that could mean they haven't decided but if they said "late next week" that means there's a hitch. And all this despite things going what I thought was relatively well (see posting about hour and a half interviews). I mean, they brought me back to the boss's office to talk about when I could leave Oracle and full time vs trial period.

And then...then... I sent the usual "thank you" notice and since it was Thanksgiving, I added a "happy thanksgiving" to my thank you notice and one of the people I interviewed with sent me a note back saying "thanks, Jon. I hope you have a happy thanksgiving too." Now, they wouldn't respond to a thank you email if they weren't serious about hiring you, right? That's totally leading you on.

But now that I'm in the waiting stage, it's torture. Just torture and I forgot how awful it is. Hell, it's so tortourus (yeah, I know I spelled it wrong-- get over it) that even Dick Cheney would think it's too much. I'm clicking on my email account every minute to see if I got an email and doing the "ring, damnit, ring" thing to my phone.

Today, while going off to the gym, I got a phone call around the time the company usually does their official stuff (after 5). So I nearly swerved my car trying to get the phone out of my pocket and naturally, I missed it but I did get a voicemail. I furiously tried to get the voicemail message but after running into somebody, realized I could wait the two minutes before I made it into the gym's garage.

The voicemail message? A recorded message about carpet cleaning.

So, yes, I finished the first "Left Behind" book, but right now I'm reading a book about life as a pickup artist and the debacherous lives they live. Up next will be the second in the "Left Behind" series. Yes, two books about Jesus sandwhiched between a book about tons and tons of sex.

What can I say, I'm pretty cultured.

Anyways, my latest favorite thing is that show "Everest" on Discovery channel about a group of people trying to summit of Everest. It's pretty great, not the least of which is that it looks awesome on my 27" HDTV. Of course, the drama of the whole thing speaks for itself, picture "Survivor" or "Real World/Road Rules Challenge" except with the very serious possibility of death. Like how many shows actually show real, live, dead bodies on them? Or frost bitten toes that will very probably be cut off when they get off the mountain.

The thing is so good, I'm nervous watching it. And when they show one of those wide shots of the mountain, I can feel my fear of heights hitting me and my palms get sweaty.

Last week, I finished the very first of the "Left Behind" books and, as completely suspected, it's just awful. I mean, just horribly, horribly written. All you need to know about the quality of the writing is the names: the two main characters are Rayford Steele and Cameron "Buck" Williams, and Hattie Williams. "Buck," by the way is called "Buck" because he's a famous journalist who "bucks" the system and when was the last time you heard that word actually used? But besides just the usual signs of bad writing, it's also horribly paced and without one whit of suspense. Like millions of people have just vanished out of thin air and "Buck" and his editors are consumed about some sort of international financial goings ons. You'd figure something like that would be a big deal.

But you know what? It actually was a bit of a page turner and I finished it in about a day. Even crazier, I wanted to finish it and I couldn't put it down. Say what you want about the complete ridiculousness of the rapture (apparently, when somebody gets raptured, their clothes are left behind in a neat, pile, as if God is OCD) and the dicey relationship about the Jews (we help the Rapture get started than are mainly left behind to either be slaughtered as non-believers or have to convert, kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition), it's a fun story, full of mysteries, death, destruction, wars. Just as long as you don't really pay attention to all the Jesus stuff, it's kind of fun.

So I actually ordered the next two. I know, kinda crazy but you can get it off Amazon, used, for a penny. Throw in shipping, and the whole cost is about four bucks. Plus, how can you not get into a plot that is described as "In this best seller, Apollyon the Destroyer, leads the plague of demon locusts as they torture the unsaved."

Awesome.

Two notes form the weekend-

-I was walking down 16th street wearing my baggy Giants sweatshirt. I like baggy things. Harlan and I pass a homeless guy and the guy actually said "I like your sweatshirt. It looks good on someone as big as you."

Yes, some homeless guy just called me fat.

-Walking down 17th street (or was it 18th street?), Harlan say a sign that said, and I quote: Put Your Trust in "Jesus"-- just like that, with the quotes around "Jesus." As she pointed out, doesn't putting something in quotation marks make it ironic? Like they're saying Jesus with air quotes around it. So, was it just a weird sign put up by somebody not clued in the ways of irony or was the irony intended? It's so hard to tell in the Mission.

I had one of those hour and a half long interviews today. I hate those-- they're an ordeal. By the end, I couldn't speak, my throat hurt, and I had long since passed the point of going from being on-topic and sharp to a blabbering, incoherent idiot.

Ick

You know you're in a weird mood when you hear "Where the Streets Have No Name" on the radio and the line "blown by the wind" makes you giggle


Being at the corner of 22nd of Valencia, we have determined that Boogaloos is the Official Brunch Place of Hipsters. In fact, I think it could be deteremined that it has one of the highest HPSF in the Mission (that is, of course, Hipsters Per Square Foot), something that we noticed the last time we were there and what looked like a 70's rock band, with groupies, showed up for breakfast.

Today's brunch was no exception. In fact, it was pretty hipsterific-- so much so we had a contest (well, kind of) about which Hipster was the most tragic of the bunch.

So let's meet our three candidates-
1)The bus boy with expensive and well pressed black jeans, dangling key chain out of the back pocket (natch), and some sort of comic strip panel sewed onto one of his back pockets. His shirt? Lumberjack, red and black checkered flannel shirt. To top it off, he not only had a trucker hat, but the tip of the hat was pulled upwards. We also couldn't tell, but we think he had a mullet burried underneath the oh-so-2002 trucker hat.

2)The guy in a sideways baseball hat (can't remember if it was trucker or not), cut off jeans, an Iron Maiden t-shirt, and a handlebar moustache. But what made him especially awesome was that he was covered everywhere in tattoos, even going so far as to having a tear drop tattoo under his left eye. For those who don't know, that's the gangsta symbol for doing time in prison. This despite the fact that it was pretty apparent, that in the words of Beavis to Butthead, "you've never been to Compton." We wanted to kidnap the dude and drop him off in the Bayview.

3)Early thirtysomething girl waiting outside with a Shelley Duvall-like body. She wore platform sneakers that were at least six inches high, white knicker pants that went down to her knees and white stockings that met up with the bottom of her knicker pants. She sported a maroon vest sweater and as a topper, a tie. Naturally, she also wore big sunglasses.

And our winner?

The Bus Boy! Why? Because the dude was so committed to his hipsterness that he wore his hipster costume to work. I mean, he was walking around filling people's coffee mugs while still looking like he had just been picked up from the bus station, such was his commitment to coolness.

Bravo, dude, bravo and well played.

Jesus frickin' Christ, Led Zeppelin showing up on iTunes might just be the best thing ever.

Last night, Super Mondo Corp had their big trade show party. And by big, I mean big. Like Cow Palace and parking lot big. Playing that night as entertainment was Lenny Kravitz, Steve Nicks, and Billy Joel, who headlined.

Now, at one point, Prince was going to play. While he was supposed to play, some sort of fight broke out between somebody and one week Prince would headline, the next week Joel. Now this seemed kind of crazy to me because while Joel is deserving of some respect, we're talking about Prince. I guess it was a generational thing with the older execs thinking Joel is their cup of tea while anyone young enough to see "Purple Rain" thinking that nobody, but nobody gets higher billing then the Purple One. And seriously, would you rather watch Joel tinkling on a piano or Prince doing some sort of thirty minute funk jam. I'm not sure, but I wondered if they would both play the main stage and I'm thinking does Joel really think Prince should open for him? And I'm not talking about in terms of who is a bigger star, but I'm talking about the fact nobody can really top prince.

But whatevs-- Prince did not play anyways.

Billy Joel did get the headline and played the Palace central. While I think playing the corporate party circuit is probably a humiliating venture, Joel did manage to fill the place so I'm thinking it's in a way, the biggest audience he's played in front of years. While I'm not a fan (I'm kind of apathetic-- I don't hate him but don't really like him but think he's kind of talented anyways), he did put on a good show, except....

To play with the whole idea of playing in San Francisco, he did a few minutes of "Somebody to Love" and, then, God help us "Purple Haze."

I left the arena immediately in protest.

You know how the old saying was that there's a little Elvis in everyone. Well, you could say the same about Hendrix and there is no Hendrix at all in Billy Joel. Not even close. I heard from someone that they played a few snippets of "Highway to Hell" and, dear God, there is no AC/DC is Billy Joel at all. Ever and never.

So Harlan and I checked out some Stevie. She was actually pretty good-- her voice was phenomenal. She played all the big Fleetwood Mac songs (with Mick Fleetwood on the drums), Dave Mathews' "Crash" (?) and a few solo hits. Towards the end, there was a miny drum solo, then a beat kicked in, the guitarist started wailing, and then out came the recognizable groove to "Edge of Seventeen."

Yes, I was about to hear Ms. Nicks herself sing about the White Dove who sings a song sings a song ...and Sounds like she's singing... whoo...whoo...whoo. She wailed too.

Now I've seen a lot of bands. I've seen a lot of great bands playing a lot of great songs. I've also seen a lot of completely random bands doing randomm songs (the Hooters anyone? Madness?) but that had to be one of the most random moments of my musical life, the fact that I can say I have now seen Steve Nicks sing "Edge of Seventeen."

Top that.

See, the thing is that when I first started listening to rock radio, Steve was HUGE. Her first solo album had come out and every half an hour, the station (WYSP, represent) would either play "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (an underrated gem if ever there was), "Leather and Lace," and, yes, "Seventeen." All I needed was Tom Petty himself to hop onstage to sing "Stop Draggin" and my inner twelve year old would have been happy.

And all thanks to Super Mondo Corporation.

In the past week/week and a half

-My DVR went kablooie and I went from being at around 40% capacity to 98%, thus losing all of my recordings and the thrill of spending at least in hour total of time dealing with Comcast

-I've been eagerly awaiting a book from Amazon, the first in the Left Behind series (so stoked) and got it, only to discover that they sent me the wrong book-- a book about Windows Office '97.

-Had my work email go down on one of the busiest days I've had in months

-Lost my ATM card

-The hot water in my apartment went bye-bye late Thursday night and continued that way until today

-Lost power sometime around 5:30 Saturday and was out of power until, again, God knows when as I camped out elsewhere. All of which means, I was without power and hot water for most of the weekend, full on primitive as it were. It also means that tonight, I am spending my time resetting clocks and throwing food out of the fridge.

Oh, and what does one do when there's no power and it's starting to get dark and the person you can camp out with isn't home yet? Watch downloaded shows on your laptop. Thank God for Apple.

Finally, I lost both of my fantasy football games this weekend, thus eliminating me from the playoffs in both of my leagues. In other words, this was one sucky week.

Lately, I've been discovering that I'm moving away from listening to Live 105 and switching more and more to KFOG. This concerns me.

For years, I've always thought of KFOG as the radio station listened to by either white-bred Yuppies or old, aging baby boomers still holding onto the rock. I did not want to be in either category so while I respected the station for it's enormously huge catalogue and variety of songs, I didn't want to be a Foghead. Also, they tend to play either Bonnie Rait or Robert Cray like every hour and I cannot abide by either of them.

But now, I'm starting to creep more and more to KFOG on my radio dial. Now some of it is because I once again find myself hating Live 105's playlist. They tend to play over and over "classic alt-rock" from the previous decade that I've heard already over and over again because I was actually around in the previous decade and all those just craptastic "emo" bands that are out there. Thankfully, they tend to go light on Fall Out Boy, but there's still way too many of those simliar, carbon copy bands out there. So while I like the fact they tend to play music that I might love (like the mighty Wolfmother), those moments come few and far between.

The main thing, however, is that I'm starting to move farther and farther away from wanting, for lack of a better word, "to rock." I'm starting to dig mid-tempo songs more than fast songs, acoustic treatmens rather than overfed electric guitars and kinda digging pretty over raw.

In other words, after years and years of trying to hold true to some sort of edge, I am slowly losing my edge. Is it almost being 40? The girlfriend? My hatred of emo bands? I don't know. All I can say is I'm getting a little concerned here.

Oh, KFOG may have a wide variety of songs and almost impecable taste, but they still, occasionally, bust out 4 Non-Blonde's "What Goes On" and this is absolutely INEXCUSABLE. There is no reason to ever, ever, every play this song. Ever. It's so awful it doesn't stand up as ironically fun due to it's pure suckiness and the yodeling over-and over again of the chorus.

Why is it that when you call a lot of utility companies or any type of service (credit cards, insurance, etc) they ask you to entire all your information over the phone and then, as soon as somebody gets on the line, asks you all the information you just entered?

I have an interview on Thursday and the thing is I've done so many job interviews and the marketing biz here in SF is so incestuous, I'm pretty sure I've already interviewed with this person, I'm just not sure where. I'm not sure that's a good thing-- I've already made my first impression.

The other thing is the job listing is like two page longs and details a whole lot of work that the job requires and as I read it, I couldn't help but think that the job involves a lot of work.

I'm still not sure whether or not that's a good thing.

Today, at brunch, we sat down next to a couple who were obviously either on a first date or an early date. Not sure how it went. This reminds me, however, of a couple who were obviously on a first date that we sat next two a few months ago. Since we were sitting pretty much within a few feet of them, Harlan and I couldn't do anything but listen to the conservation. How could you not?

Anyways, they both worked in some capacity at a hospital, so they had that in common, but it was pretty obvious that it was a mismatch. While the girl looked obviously like a smart, intelligent, capable professional, you could tell she had a bit of a fun, party girl buried down underneath. The guy, however, was one of those bearded, horn-rimmed wearing glasses hipsters who took himself way too seriously. At one point, she started talking about reading US Weekly and his response was "well, we all have our guilty pleasures."

I'm pretty sure that at that point, if it didn't happen then, but the girl pretty much decided in her head that there was no way in hell that anything was going to come out of it.

What a ponce.

And speaking of over-hearing things, we were at Blondies a week ago (don't laugh, when it's mellow and you get a seat outside, it's quite a nice little bar with yummy and incredibly toxic drinks) some girl dressed like Wonder Woman (it was Halloween weekend, and no, she didn't quite fit into the costume) was loudly gabbing on a cell phone to a friend when we swear we heard her say about a friend "that was before she Britney Spearsed her life."

Awesome. She, however, was not as she gabbed and gabbed loudly nearby. In response, Harlan's cousin made sure to blow his cigarette smoke in her direction to chase her way.

Here's a sign I want to make for the next peace march: "What do we want? Apathy! When do we want it? Eh...whenever."