Grocery chains being sued over revenue sharing pact.

Escondido cleared in library cat attack lawsuit.

Watching more of the caucus on C-SPAN. The man in charge of one caucus, with a camera and microphone in his face, proceded to read the phone number for reporting votes, and his pin number, on live television. I was tempted to call up and report 100% support of Al Sharpton, and then tell Iowa they've been punk'd.

I've watched a few minutes of the Iowa caucuses, and no matter how this turns out, I must say if this is what determines our president, we're all in trouble.

In my continuing effort to spend money on things I really don't need, I'm seriously considering buying a DVD recorder/digital television recorder. I have lots of VHS tapes I would like to get organized, with various stuff I've taped off TV over the years. I've previously considered purchasing a dual-unit VCR for editing them down. I thought a DVD recorder was too expensive. But $500 for a recorder that doubles as a Tivo (without the program guide or automatic recording features, but also without need of a telephone hookup and monthly fee) sounds like a damn good deal. Amazon's price seems fair, and I have a gift certificate for them. I definately want it, I'm just debating if now is the time to buy. Panasonic has a new one out with double the hard drive space for $1,000, so I wonder if I wait, will that get cheaper soon, or will they simply stop making the cheaper models, so I'd be stuck with a more expensive unit? I have a feeling I'll buy it, but I do need to give it some thought.

Possible restaurant names for a themed slot-machine/race-car/tokens-and-prizes establishment that has an overwhelming amount of seafood dishes on the menu.

I'm sick again, though I was never really well, so I guess I shouldn't say "again." I was feeling pretty good Thursday, but was feeling tired, so I went to bed early. Around 11:15, I woke up and threw up, figured my dinner wasn't sitting well. Then I proceded to get up and throw up every twenty minutes, for most of the night. Very unpleasant, I hate dry heaves. I'd drink water and gatorade, and couldn't keep either down. And I was feverish and somewhat delusional, which is sort of fun, I suppose. So I missed school on Friday, and felt pretty crappy. I didn't throw up as often on Friday, but for most of the day I still couldn't keep anything down. But I had some cereal around 9 PM and kept it down, and so far so good today, so hopefully I'm through the worst of it.

Spalding Gray reported missing.

School is now in full swing. I do not anticipate this being a difficult quarter; it will also not be a particularly exciting quarter. But the class on words is interesting enough, and quite different from anything I've done previously in the literature department. I will be happy when this quarter is through, however, mostly due to the awful schedule I have to keep, which I have complained about enough and will try not to mention again.

Having so much time at school to study, I have been able to play a fair amount of Final Fantasy X-2. It is a good game, I'm enjoying it. But it seems rather easy, once you get the hang of the new battle system. The mission system is interesting; I'm not sure if I like it or not, but I do like the fact that there are lots of side-quests, and the game makes it relatively easy to find them. Some might say too easy, but I prefer that to Final Fantasy X, where it seems that, without using a strategy guide to find all the sidequests, you end up missing out on a lot. I try to use the on-line walkthroughs as little as possible, and as such feel like I missed a lot in FFX. I suppose it adds to the replay value, but I don't find it fun to read what to do on-line and then follow instructions.

I went to Cecily's on Saturday to use her CD Burner. Met her husband. Turns out they already got married. I was under the impression that the wedding was some months away, and was planning on attending. They still might go through with that, as their wedding was a rather minor affair. Slightly miffed at not being told earlier, mainly because a friend was down for Christmas and asked if I heard about Cecily getting married, and I explained to him, no, she's not married, yet. So I look like an idiot, and he already knew, and he doesn't even know Cecily directly (a friend of his was apparently the "minister"). But no big whoop. It was nice to get to meet the fellow. Nice enough guy, likes Sanford and Son, which is one of those nice things to know about someone, because it makes you like them more, yet you can still make fun of them for it. Bit of a pothead, I think. But we're none of us perfect.

The premiere episode of The Surreal Life II was on last night. I have expressed my fondness for Tammy Faye on this site before, and have the pictures to back it up. So, I was excited to see the first episode. For those who don't know, Tammy Faye will be spending a week or so living in a house with Vanilla Ice, Erik Estrada, Ron Jeremy, some girl from The Real World: Las Vegas, and Tracy Bingham (Baywatch). The first episode was okay, though the presence of the Real World chick was annoying. She reminds me of Counselor Troy on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in her incessant need to make observations that are painfully obvious to everyone. Tracy Bingham is a primadonna, Tammy Faye is religious, Ron Jeremy is a pervert. It's especially annoying since she is the one person on the show whom I'm quite sure no one at all cares about. Tammy Faye comported herself nicely, I thought, and actually seemed to get along fairly well with Ron Jeremy. Vanilla Ice seems to be the powder keg on the show; apparently his anger issues have not subsided since his notorious trashing of an MTV set some years back. The previews seem to strongly suggest he makes Tammy Faye cry, which, while admittedly not difficult to do, is not nice. I never watched the first season of the show, which is unfortunate, because I hear it was pretty sweet. I don't think this edition will be that noteworthy, but I will be watching.

Watching Adult Swim last night, they showed the first episode of Sealab 2021 without Capt. Murphy (Harry Goz, the voice of Captain Murphy, died a few months back). I can't say I enjoyed the replacement character, whose name escapes me (some sort of sadistic football coach), but I must reluctantly admit they were right not to replace Goz with another character doing the same character. Last week's episode had Capt. Murphy briefly voiced by another actor, and it was off-putting. Interestingly, the voice of the new character is Harry Goz's son.

So, it's only January of 2004, but I've already got my 2003 Summer vacation photos online. Let no one say I'm lazy.

Gaming Control and IRS shut down Binion's Horseshoe Casino. Who didn't see this coming? Not that Vegas is known for protecting its history, but I hope someone who knows how to run a casino will buy it from Becky and keep it going. Harrah's is negotiating to buy the Nevada rights to the Horseshoe name, but they apparently aren't interested in the casino itself.

I went to Barona on Thursday and spent the night. A friend had a free room, so I figured it would be fun, like old times. And it was like old times; I lost an obscene amount of money, waited until mindnight, when the ATM daily limits reset, and proceded to lose all the cash I could get a hold of. My intention was to go play poker, but while waiting for a poker seat, I sat down at a Multi-Strike Video Poker machine, and after about ten minutes I could tell it was going to be one of those kinds of nights. I won right away, playing nickels, before realizing it was a multi-denomination machine. Kicking myself for not realizing it earlier, and realizing that my $200 win would have been $1000 if I was playing quarters, I proceded to lose a ton trying to replicate the experience. At one point, I was down to almost nothing, and then proceded to play the machine very, very close to even, but never quite got there, and was never quite willing to cut my losses. My intention after midnight, and the new influx of cash, was to play for smaller stakes, not try to get back into the black, but just make up a bit of what I'd lost, but I knew, really, that wasn't going to happen. So I spent a lot of time in the room watching TV and reading, had my coffee in the morning and went home. It was an experience I used to have two or three times a week, so it was nice for old times' sake. But I think I will save my money for trips to Vegas, for the sake of verisimilitude. Even if my gambling days started out in Barona, it was a very different Barona; Vegas may reinvent intself constantly, but it still seems the place to go, get some good food, free booze, and gawk at the crazy sights while losing one's shirt.

Appropriately enough, amongst my reading material I brought to Barona, in case I ran out of cash, I brought Double Down: Reflections on Gambling and Loss by Steven and Frederick Barthelme. I'm re-reading it; I've read it before, and it feel it is easily the best book I've ever read on gambling. I'll say more after I've finished re-reading it, but I can say I highly recommend it.

So, the internet rumor mill has it that Lucinda Williams will be performing at the Randy Newman tribute at UCLA this month, and that Tom Waits may perform as well. Very exciting.

Today was the first day of Spring quarter at UCSD. I had two classes today, one at 9 AM, one at 3 PM. The five hours between classes is going to be annoying. At least five hours is substantial, so I can leave and come back if I need to attend to errands. But with a twenty-mile commute each way, I'll have to keep myself occupied on campus for the most part. At least it means I'll have plenty of time to study. Then Tuesday and Thursday I work all day, then wait for a 6:30 class.

It's especially frustrating that the course offerings are so paltry this quarter. It's bad enough having these time slots, but when the classes do little to advance me towards graduation, it really eats me up. The only class that clearly brings me closer to a degree is Meteorology, which looks to be as fun as it sounds, so God help me there. Words and their vicissitudes sounds like it could be interesting. The professor, judging from the first class, will either be fascinatingly eccentric, or simply maddening. I suppose I'll tough it out.

Going to grab a late-night bite to eat with my recently unemployed friend tonight. Calls me up tonight asking to borrow a not insubstatial sum of money. I'd seen it coming, but wasn't looking forward to it. He's my friend, and he's getting the money (it's not that much money, not enough that I'll miss it for a month, but substatial enough that if he welches on me, it'll hurt). He's loaned me similar sums back in my early gambling days, and I've loaned him money before. If he hadn't bounced a check to me before, and misled me in the past as to when previous loans would be repaid, I wouldn't think much of it. But I just worry that this won't be his last request. Of course, I feel sorry for him, but he was making a substantial amount of money for the last three years (a teacher's salary is actually quite substantial, if one has no dependents), and he'd been talking of quitting his job for some months, so should have been saving up. Oh, well.

Remember that pizza delivery driver getting blowed up? That was weird.

So I've been sick for the past week or so. The day after Christmas was probably it's peak, but I'm still rather congested, with a bit of a cough. And I have a boil on my thigh, which is a nice way to wrap up the year, a festering sore pretty much sums up 2003. But I have been able to relax a bit, especially this week, not having to work between Tuesday and Sunday. I've read a bit; right now I'm finally reading Al Franken's new book. I'll withhold comment until I've finished it, but it is pretty good so far.

Wednesday I played shuffleboard for the first time. It was a lot of fun. I won't go into excessive detail about how soundly we whipped our opponents, but let's just say it was sad, really, how we schooled them. There was a lot of crying and whimpering, as I recall. Even Tanner was shocked. Actually, I was impressed by how well-behaved Tanner was, not really interfering with the game. We played in Balboa Park, so he got to explore a bit before and after the game, and met several dogs, including a one-eyed poodle. I saw a sign for an upcoming Richard Scarry exhibit at the Fleet Science Center, which sounds exciting.

Today I went to do some shopping, but Costco and another store I went to were both closed for New Year's. I went to the Costco in Mission Valley, hoping they'd have the Johnny Cash boxed set; the Costco by my house had it last month, but no longer does. Since I was in Mission Valley, I stopped by Dave and Buster's, and played games for a little bit. I got a bit mad, playing the sliding game (I don't know its name) that I'm quite good at. I wait until I'm about to quit playing to hit the big progressive jackpot, so I can get as many tickets as possible. Unfortunately, the machine I was playing malfunctioned, so I needed someone to come look at it; while I was waiting, someone came and played the machine next to me and hit the jackpot. So I went and played non-ticketing games after that, some pinball (they only have that bastardized "3-D" pinball--as if all pinball isn't 3-D), and then wasted more credits than I should have playing a horse-racing simulator, just amazed by how seriously people treat it. Especially considering how expensive it is to play.

This evening, I went to the Ken and saw Modern Times. It was alright. I prefer Buster Keaton to Chaplin, but it had its moments. Hadn't been to the Ken in some time, so that was nice.

I spent a bit of time this evening sorting through my summer vacation photos, maybe I'll finally get those uploaded before school starts on Monday.

FBI advises us to be on the look out for almanacs. I sort of assumed that almanacs were extinct, what with Google and all, but what do I know?

A belated Merry Christmas to you all. We had a rainy Christmas down here, and I was ill to boot, so our plans of visiting Legoland Christmas day fell through, which is unfortunate since I'd already purchased discount tickets at work (they don't expire for another year, however). Had a good Christmas, nonetheless.

Woke up at 6 to open presents, which took two hours or so. I was happy that the presents I purchased went over well. The Mexican wrestling masks I got my brother-in-law were one highlight. I got themed gifts for him; Mexican wrestling masks, Los Straightjackets CDs (I bought him one on-line, decided it wouldn't come in time for Christmas and bought one from a store, and then got the other one in the mail a few days before Christmas), and a Strong Bad CD, he being a fan of Strong Bad. My sister seemed to enjoy the case of Dr. Pepper from the oldest Dr. Pepper factory in operation. After getting it, I realized it would be a problem for her getting it home, but she was able to get some up with her this trip, and can bring more next time she comes down. I also got her a Dr. Pepper shirt and another Lemony Snicket book. My sister got me the Mighty Wind album (I already have it on CD, so I'll save the vinyl one in mint condition) and Simpsons Hit and Run, which is fun (better than Road Rage, I'd have to say). My mom got me several DVDs, including the Alec Guinness Collection and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I also got Simpsons Jeopardy, which is fun, except that no one can touch me on Simpsons trivia, so no one wants to play with me more than one time. And once you assemble the board, it won't fit back in the box, which is a bit of a problem. I got some CDs (Tom Waits, Texas Tornadoes) and books (Bob Zmuda's book on Andy Kaufman, some Johnny Cash biographies), and other stuff. I did not get the Johnny Cash Unearthed box set, which I didn't ask for, since I knew Mom was about done with her shopping before that even came out, but I was still hoping might turn up. I went to Costco on Friday, but they no longer carried it, which is a shame, since I haven't seen it under $50 anywhere else. I also didn't get the rare edition of The Bad Beginning, nor the Series of Unfortunate Events calendar (which I didn't ask for, but considering my sister ended up getting about eight calendars for Christmas, I thought someone might get me one). But overall, if I wasn't completely thrilled by my gifts, it's because I didn't ask for anything too thrilling. And I did like most of what I got, especially the above-mentioned. After we'd opened everything, I asked Mom if she got everything she wanted. She said yes (liar!), at which point I asked Tanner what he got her, and he told me to look in the front room, so we all went out there, where Mom's last gift was, wrapped in paper bags my brother-in-law decorated for me to look like a packing crate marked "fragile." I got her a desk lamp modeled on the "major award" from A Christmas Story. She had mentioned it at least ten times in the week leading up to Christmas, yet claims she never in a million years dreamed she would get it for Christmas. We all gathered in front of the house to gaze on it glowing at dawn, and it was truly a beautiful sight. So I was happy my gifts went over well.

The rest of Christmas was uneventful. We watched some of the DVDs people got for Christmas, The Ladykillers, as hilarious as I remembered it, and Finding Nemo, which I didn't care for, probably because I dislike the color orange. I think I liked Finding Nemo better the first time I saw it, when my screen saver came on at work. The day after Christmas was when my flu peaked, so I didn't do much of anything. But it did get me out of going to the airport to see off Michelle and Eric, though I guess it wasn't too crowded, since most people spent the weekend wherever they went for Christmas.

Things I've read/watched/listened to lately: The Triplets of Belleville, which I enjoyed very much, though the story was a bit weak at times. The grandma is the focus of the story, but they should have developed the grandson a bit, if the story is going to be driven by events around him. But it hardly matters. Great soundtrack, also. And as the father of an overweight dog, it's nice to see the issue handled on film. The short by Disney and Dali they showed beforehand, Destino, was also interesting. I saw both at MoPA, where I hadn't seen a movie in at least a year, so it was nice to go there again. They have a Film Noir series coming up, so I'm sure I'll be back.

I read two children books recently. The New York Review of Books publishing arm recently republished The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzatti. Wonderful illustrations and a nice story about bears waging war against humans, setting up a enlightened kingdom amonst the humans, and struggling with the corrupting influences of human life. I enjoyed it, but didn't quite touch me as deeply as I thought it might. Some of the verse portions were wonderful, but others were quite awkward, whether from the original source or due to translation I couldn't say. Hyphenating a word to achieve a rhyme seems a bit lazy to me. But it certainly had its charm, and my eyes did well up a bit at the end. Giraffes? Giraffes! on the other hand, was quite a disappointment. The book itself, like pretty much everything McSweeneys puts out, is quite beautiful. The idea, reminiscent of Shel Silverstein's Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book, is clever enough (or perhaps too clever): A fairly insane scientist turning out children's reference books full of outrageous lies. Unfortuately, the sting of random absurdities lacks cohesion, and while occasionally good for a chuckle, overall left me cold. It is obstensibly a children's book, and I think I might have enjoyed it as a child, but speaking for myself, I was disappointed.

Daniel Handler and Jack Black discuss weddings.

Yet again, I find myself behind in posting to the site, about my many adventures. So now I'll give short shrift to things which probably deserve more elaboration, but that's okay.

I saw Paul Anka last weekend, at Harrah's. It was actually a fun show, what I imagine a Wayne Newton show would be like, except Paul Anka is talented. It was very tacky, and whenever he would introduce a song by saying, "I wrote this in the '70s," (as if he had to tell us), look out. But he was an enthusiastic performer, and especially the more upbeat numbers were a lot of fun. And I learned that Paul Anka wrote "For Once in my Life," a favorite song of mine. His "duets" with recordings of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. were a little unsettling, but I suppose he has more right to do it than Natalie Cole did, seeing as he did write the songs. And having to listen to "She's Having My Baby" in its entirety, I understand how it was once voted the worst song ever. But I enjoyed myself, and although we were the youngest people there by at least thirty years, I'm used to that kind of thing.

Of course, I was far more excited about seeing the Folksmen than Paul Anka. They were performing at a Dean fundraiser, along with the Bangles and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. The show was at 7, at the House of Blues in West Hollywood. I left around 3, figuring that should be enough time to eat before the show. And if I was running late, I could just skip the meal. Instead, I find myself outside Los Angeles city limits, my clock reading 7:45 and traffic barely moving. I know driving to L.A. is not fun, but its not supposed to take 5 hours. I didn't see an accident or construction or anything, but I was travelling about 10 MPH from Escondido on, with almost no relief. So I ended up turning around and going home (a return trip of one hour fifteen minutes). So that was a big disappointment. But at least Howard Dean got my money.

School is done; the quarter ended up going better than I anticipated, and I hope that next quarter will be the first unqualified success I've had in awhile. I've fallen out of my running habit a bit. I've been getting shorter runs in, but my long runs in preparation for January's half-marathon have been tough to schedule. I had hoped to get an eight-miler in on Saturday, but I was a bit hung over and I hurt a toe, so I decided to forego running. I'm planning on running the eight-miler tomorrow, and if that goes well, I'm confident I'll be able to complete the half-marathon (13.1 miles) reasonably strong. And if it doesn't go well, then maybe a very painful half-marathon in January will teach me to stick to my training regimine more vigilantly.

Friday was our company Christmas party. It was actually for the whole institution, not just the aquarium, but we aquarium folk sort of stuck to ourselves. It was fun, to an extent, but I wasn't in the spirit of either celebrating or getting drunk (though I got drunk anyway). Found the whole thing rather depressing. It didn't take a great deal of prescience to realize this would be a bleak Christmas for our family, and I can feel it beginning to take hold. Probably going to the cemetery on Wednesday (or was it Friday? I already forget) started it. I like going to the cemetery, but I don't like being there. I just like the idea that I am going there, as something to focus my thoughts on. But this time, Mom just walks in and asks if I'm doing anything, or if we can go to the cemetery right now, which sort of throws off my whole rhythm. But it was nice to go with Mom, because I can never find my Dad's parents' graves on my own.