I prefer the other Dan.

I took today off and to prevent myself from being tempted to check work email, I left the house at 10:30, hit the gym, hit the Public Market for lunch and then paid way too much money to see Steve Carell's latest endeavor.

Commentary in my head throughout the movie:

"I don't know any 14 year old who acts like that... wouldn't it make sense just to TELL people that she's the one from the bookstore?... why does that actress look so familiar?... man, I REALLY don't know any 14 year old who acts like that... this is getting painful to watch... how is no one else noticing their googly eyes at each other?... hey dumbass dad, you forgot to see what your adorable daughter made you... OMG just effing tell everyone already... but not THAT way you dumbasses... who the heck IS THAT WOMAN??"

There were moments where I appreciated Steve. He actually did a really good job with a really crappy story.

OK, it wasn't a crappy story. It had a beginning, a middle, and a happy end. Maybe that was my issue with it. I suppose it would be a good date night movie.

Me, I should've opted for The Mist instead. Roger Ebert called it "a competently made Horrible Things Pouncing on People Movie." Sounds good. Maybe Sunday.

I did see a preview for Alvin & the Chipmunks featuring Jason Lee as the human. I have a soft spot in my heart, both for Jason who has worked magic in many Kevin Smith films and as Earl, and also for Alvin. I must've listened to Chipmunk Punk a thousand times as a kid. (I don't think any of the songs covered on this album were appropriate for kids' ears, but hey, neither was REO Speedwagon and I listened to that a thousand times as a kid too.) Point being, it didn't look terrible and I might have to check this out with my parents over the holiday.

And that was my day off. Could've been better, but it was a million times better than a day at the office.

(The familiar woman was Susan from Friends. Whew, thank goodness for IMDB. I can sleep tonight.)

Friday five.

Top five reasons I politely declined a second interview at a really cool company, in no particular order:

• I have enough road rage driving from home to Emeryville, can you imagine how bad it would be with a 2-hour commute each day?
• There were typos in the job description. (Seriously. To a normal person this wouldn't be a factor, but to me? Nix.)
  
• The position didn't really seemed like it belonged anywhere specific; it wasn't assigned to a particular project.
  
• My friend kinda wants the job.
  
• I hate technology.

I suppose one of my answers should've been, "I still have hope for my current job," but at the moment I can't honestly say that is true. Upper management is nothing to write home about, nor is the specific job I have ended up doing. It's been a tough week, but I could say the same about at least one week a month since I started, and it's not fixing to get much better. At least, not anytime soon.

So in the words of the great Billy Joel, "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints - the sinners are much more fun."

Oh, wait, I meant, "momma, if that's moving up, then IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'm moving out."

Belated Friday five.

OK, it's time for the obligatory "what I'm thankful for" Friday five. (Actually, I guess it's past the time. Whatever.) So here we go, in no particular order:

• I'm thankful that I have cabinets and a refrigerator/freezer full of food even if I don't always want to eat any of it, and that the food I AM eating has caused me to put on a few pounds so that my clothes aren't falling off me anymore.
• I'm thankful that I have money to spend on movies even if they sometimes suck, and on crafty gadgets like this one even if this card making thing is just a passing phase, and on books even if I've had them for three years and haven't cracked them open yet.
• I'm thankful that my building manager let me hang a bird feeder on my balcony so that I could spend an hour or so each day watching the teeny little sparrows flit and fleet about, and the big pigeons waddle around on the railing getting the scraps, and the squirrel leaping from the balcony to the tree whenever Her Majesty runs to the window. (Her Majesty is also thankful for that. It's the only fun she has these days.)
• I'm thankful that the weather seems to finally be turning, and that the leaves are crunchy under my feet and the air is crisp and clean.
  
• And of course, I'm thankful for my family and friends and that they are healthy and (generally speaking) happy.

I think that's more than five, but what the heck.

"It's bad enough that the movie is about uninteresting people's problems...."

"... what's worse is that it's about snobs..."

You would think that by now, I would know to read Stephanie Zacharek's movie reviews in advance.

"Is that a true story?" "It's true that it's a story."

Instead of the character film about "a mess of thrashed relationships and exposed family secrets" (saving that for tomorrow, it was too close to Thanksgiving to see such a thing), I took in the Coen brothers' latest endeavor, a masterful, beautiful tale of pure evil in search of $2 million and a sheriff in search of the good old days when being evil made sense.

I think I will be thinking about this film for days to come. It's stories like this that make me wish I still had that part of my brain that could write a five-page paper on foreshadowing through lofty prose and the symbolism behind the cattle stun gun. (Did you know that Simon from Lord of the Flies symbolized Jesus? ... Well, everyone knows that NOW, but did you know it in tenth grade?)

Then I hit BBV for my frakberry fix of disc 2, season 2.5. Because there is no way in hell I can wait until Tuesday's Netflix delivery to see what happens next, and the local indie video store only had disc 1, season 2.5, which I demolished yesterday when I got home from dinner.

DAMN YOU, CONNIE. I will never, ever listen to another one of your infotainment recommendations. You have stolen YEARS of my life from me. YEARS!! (OK, probably just weeks, but still. You made me resort to BBV. For shame, for shame!)

Moral dilemma.

On this lovely Black Friday, do I pay round-trip BART fare and full price for a movie ticket to see What Would Jesus Buy, or do I walk to the Piedmont and pay 1/2 price for a matinée of Margot at the Wedding?

I'm thinking the latter.

Would Jesus have bought paper towels today? (I really needed them.)

Courtesy of my aunt...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Would Jesus get up at 4am for a bargain?

I have to say, I'm morbidly curious to see who actually shows up at Mervyn's at 4am Friday morning to shop. I doubt I will make the effort to get up and observe, but the curiosity is definitely there.

As for my Friday, I'll be watching this movie... you know, to celebrate the fact that we've seen the back of another black (Fri)day.

And in today's news...

... we're number four!

Sigh.

Public service announcement.

I HATE VISTA.

That is all.

And oh that blowfish blow.

Food + wine + whiskey + The Little Mermaid. Good times, good times.

Frakkin' addicted, indeed.

OK, Connie, I finally get it.

Season 2.0, here I come! New PR: must finish 2.0 and 2.5 before season 3 of Lost is released...

God, I need a life.

Facebook explained.

"I like the low-pressure stay-in-touch ability it offers. Meaning, I would like to keep in touch with people and let them know that I'm thinking of them without having to engage in a time-consuming and potentially stilted conversation. It enables me to be friendly without fear of social awkwardness, when I can just poke someone or send them a jello shot. I really like the status update feature. It's concise and present-tense. So you stay updated on your friends' lives without having to actually talk to them.

"Plus, I've already become friends with 3 long-lost childhood friends, who I'm happy to know still exist on this planet, but I don't really have anything to say to them."

This was one response I got when I asked several friends what this Facebook thing was all about. I'm still not 100% sold, but this explanation definitely encourages me to play around more...

Or makes me want to run screaming to the hills at the utter lack of human contact our lives have resorted to.

One or the other.

Public service announcement.

Dear Planned Parenthood,
I really like your organization and everything, I do. But actually, barring any unforeseen Christmas miracles, no, it COULDN'T happen to me. Thanks for the big, bold reminder on the outside of the envelope though.

Love,
Jen(n)

All joking aside - support Pill Patrol, which is what this mailing was really about.

And do not under any circumstances support Fred Thompson, who said "We could not get to first base on an amendment [to ban abortions] when we controlled both houses and the presidency." And isn't it ironic.

Randomly opening the Magic Book to the page that says I write about...

Blowing my budget. (Page 33 of the magic book.) Apparently, I just came into ten million dollars. Assuming that the GET BENT TAX MAN will take 33%, as he is wont to do, I will be left with approximately $7 million.

Anyway, here's how I would spend what's left:

• First, I would allocate enough of it to ensure that my parents could fix up their house, sell it at a much higher price than they're estimating, move wherever they wanted and live happily without needing to worry about income for the rest of their lives.
  
• Next, I would pay off my brother's mortgage, my good friends' mortgages and any relatives' mortgages who I like and keep in contact with
• Then, I would pack up all my crap into storage, pay my health insurance for the next four to five years, find a permanent sitter for Her Majesty (or buy an RV so she could come along) and quit my job so that I could spend the years driving all over the place and traveling all over the world.
• Finally, assuming I didn't find any worthwhile places to live or worthwhile causes to devote the rest of my money to (both of which are very doubtful), I would invest whatever is left over into a killer retirement fund so that I could retire at 50 and live a wonderfully happy and fulfilling life.

And that's how I would spend ten million dollars should I someday, someway fall into it. Let the record show that life is too short to stay in one place for too long.

I only smile in the dark.

It's cold and raining and I'm as happy as Garbage on a complicated day. Not that I'm in a crappy relationship or that I'm monumentally depressed ~ I'm really just happy when it rains. It's a great excuse to curl up with a book and a kitty, or a cup of tea and a kitty, or a Battlestar Gallactica marathon and a kitty, or a bowl of soup and a kitty, or a Food Network marathon and a kitty...

Actually, when all is said and done it really just works out for the kitty. But in the end, it's all about her anyway so what difference does it make?

Not that SHE CARES, of course, as long as couch and lap are involved...

I am Jack's lonely hearts club band.

I was catching up on people I don't know tonight, and I realized something. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in addition to being incredibly hot and a fantastic actor once you get past that Third Rock crap, reminds me of someone. Is it Ed Norton from Fight Club? Is it Johnny Depp from all the non-pirate, non-English roles he has portrayed? Is it ~ gasp~ someone I already, actually, know?

I can't place it, but there's just something comforting and familiar about his mannerisms. And also, something confident and unassuming that you don't see in a lot of people.

Attention, people who are on the lookout for dates for me: take notes on this guy. He's exactly what I'm looking for... only 10 years younger. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing...

Friday five.

You know that saying... The one that goes, "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?" Well, what happens when the left hand doesn't know what the LEFT hand is doing?

I mean... I MEAN... First it was 1400 gallons, which was appalling in and of itself. Now it's 58 THOUSAND gallons, and "oops we responded too late"? Whose idea was it to let a big freakin' ship try to go under the bridge in low visibility fog in the first place? Those poor, poor birds and animals.

Not to mention, this has seriously derailed my Thanksgiving dinner plans which originally consisted of dungeonous crab. Now I might actually have to resort to Tofurkey. Meh.

(Just kidding, I would never, ever, EVER resort to Tofurkey. But I'll probably eat some other fake meat just to spite all you cow, lamb, duck, chicken and turkey killers out there.)

Unrelated, I've been pulling some "would you rather" questions for an icebreaker activity tomorrow. Top five "would you rathers" that I've come across, in no particular order (in fact, I'm not even sure how I would answer some of these... good thing I'm in charge of the activity!):

Would you rather...

• be burned to death or listen to Celine Dion music for the rest of your life?
• see proof of UFOs or proof of unexplained earth creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster?
• live the rest of your live with crayons for teeth or live the rest of your life with the hiccups?
• have a perpetual intelligent discussion with a stupid person or a perpetual stupid discussion with an intelligent person?
• have a lifelong belly-button that dispenses ketchup without warning, or have the American Idol theme song play whenever you walk in to a room for the rest of your life?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Behold the power of the InterWeb.

Less than 24 hours after posting this, I got a great tip on a Virgin Airlines flight (red eye going, which I've always dreamed that Southwest would do someday) that ended up costing me $350. It's slightly less convenient than flying out of Oakland into BWI, but to save $600 I'd walk to SFO, fly straight into Washington DC and walk from the runway to my parent's house, so in the end this is a better deal. For everyone involved. Yeah, I'm cheap. I'm not shy about admitting that.

And now I'm going to start posting all my daily problems on this blog so that everyone can solve them for me! Magic.

It's ONLY NOVEMBER SIXTH ALREADY.

So why are all the Christmas west coast->east coast flights either already booked or almost $1000? I've booked flights home around the Thanksgiving time frame several years in a row, and I've always been able to use a free Southwest ticket and still arrive and leave in a reasonable time frame.

I am SO SURE that George Bush is to blame for this. SO VERY SURE.

Maybe I'll just go home for my birthday instead. That will at least give me more time to Christmas shop if my family agrees to have Christmas on January 21.

Bah. I SOOOOOOO can't wait for 2009. I don't even care who gets elected, just GET HIM OUT.

Here's a penny! It's from the year I was born! It's a sign!

This morning waiting for the bus - which is always ten minutes late now, what's up with that?! - I realized my Purpose: I need to see every single Arcade Fire show that ever exists starting NOW.

"Purpose, it keeps you going strong like a car with a full tank of gas. "

"I don’t know why but I know I can’t stay... Keep the car running."

That can't just be a coincidence.

And in today's news...

A strange and unrelated example of why I don't believe in the death penalty.

Thank goodness I won't have to supply our garbage bins with charcoal doohickeys from Sur La Table for the next month.

Oprah ruined the marathon. (OK, I have a serious beef about this. Five years ago if you told me I would run a marathon I would've laughed in your face. Last year I did it, and to this day it's still my biggest accomplishment. I was so inspired by all the men and women in our running group who toughed it out and finished. Never mind the time it took, they - WE - finished. So yes, damn that Oprah making her bonbon-eating viewers aware that exercise is important. BAH.

Just kidding about the bonbon-eating part. I love Oprah.)

Look what my apparently-long-lost-relative made! I waaaaaaaaaaaant one!

Oh, and finally in today's news... I am tired of earthquakes, California allergies and balmy November days. I miss snow.

Belated Friday five.

Five recommendations from today, in no particular order:

• Picking up a copy of the 2008 EcoMetro Guide, featuring coupons for Bay Area green businesses and all-purpose green products. I got mine from Earthsake on Fourth Street. Rumor has it, you can get it from Elephant Pharmacy and various other East Bay shops, or just order online to save the paper bag.
  
• Planning your day around a letter of the alphabet. For example, the letter "R" could begin with breakfast at Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, followed by rowing a canoe around the estuary or running Inspiration Point, lunching on authentic rice and beans, followed by reading to blind people, recreating a dream through charades, replacing all of your light bulbs with energy-saving bulbs, or releasing a small spider into the wild via your balcony.
  
• Lunching at Tacubaya (the vegetarian chile relleno, followed by churros, is highly recommended).
• Exploring a new place in the Bay Area, like maybe Albany Hill, the lump by the freeway on I-80 near Albany that features lovely views, Ohlone-made mortal bowls in the rocks at the base of the trail, and no more manufacturing of explosives (may those victims rest in peace).
• Spending the day with good friends.

It's so easy (and so typical) for me to go about my weekend solo, but dinner last night, the adventures today and all the subsequent incidental or purposeful conversations were incredibly priceless, especially given my current state of mind. Thank you, friends. Canada 2008?

Gives Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a whole new meaning.

Another visit to my reptile friends at the East Bay Vivarium today prompted my non-reptilian friends to question the rule that turtles under four inches can only be sold for educational or scientific purposes. I'd seen the sign during every visit and thought it was odd, but the thought was always fleeting because I would suddenly become distracted with a baby tree frog or yellow anaconda. Turtles are cute and all, but they have never been my thing.

A quick Google search on the oh-so-eloquent phrase "why turtles less than 4 inches only educational" (yes, that's really what I typed in) revealed that this is actually an FDA regulation:

"The sale of turtles with a carapace length of less than 4 inches has been banned in the U.S. since 1975 because of the public health impact of turtle-associated salmonellosis."

OK... but all turtles can transmit Salmonella, so why restrict sales on just the baby turtles? A more eloquent search on "turtles under 4 inches" got me to About.com, which tells us:

"Four inches was chosen with the thought that most young children wouldn't try to put a turtle larger than this in their mouth (of course, putting a turtle in your mouth isn't the only way to be infected with Salmonella). However, restricting turtle sales to those greater than 4 inches probably also helps reduce the incidence of Salmonellosis by reducing turtle sales, since hatchlings are much more irresistible than larger turtles. Also, kids are probably less inclined to play with the larger turtles in the first place."

And here's the public service announcement: think twice the next time you order turtle soup.

South Carolina Public Service Announcement.

After almost seven years of our tax dollars going to a war we do not support, let us anti-Dubyah-liberals have some freakin' fun already... Scared of competition? Find a good candidate!

I mean, seriously.

Seriously!!