AIM IM with Mark Luntzel <neckjonez>
2:02 AM
Mark Luntzel: religiois debates at bar closing are a losising thing
Mark Luntzel: now I am reme,bering the late night overfooding at my place in the mission and you should know that I do really love you

soooo busy. between the day job, the club, unpacking, and running the occasional game at Endgame on Monday nights, i've had almost no time to get together with friends. i've scaled my nights at the club back to 3/wk, but i still never seem to find space in the day to relax or see people. Creighton, Rebbie and Becky are in town this week too...

last night Finn reminded me of Grontar: the Frutang, possibly the most brilliant game ever devised. have a read of this play log - i think you'll agree.

saw Camera Obscura at the Great American tonight. so cute and charming. they messed up the encore and blamed it on some goofy indie rocker in the front row who was clapping out of time, so they brought him on stage and made him clap in front of the whole hall. ran into Elise and Jesse there - always nice to see friends again after a long absence. walking back up Polk the show, it occurred to me that i'm really happy to be back. the jury's still out on living in Oakland, as far as the social life goes, but with a car, and a couple of free evenings not at the club, i think i've got it covered. so if you haven't seen me in a while and want to get a drink or go for a hike, let me know.

my roommate Anjuna has game night at our house on Thursdays, bravely soldiering forward even though we have no furniture yet (side note: never ever give your business to California New York Express). tomorrow night she's expecting 14 people, and she came asking if i knew of any games that can support that many people. other than D&D, all i could come up with is Mafia. i couldn't remember the rules, but hey, the Internet is good for that sort of thing. so, if you want to play a fun game with a dozen other assholes, try this one.

quote of the day: "... new yorkers in particular have trouble with this concept, but funny shit is awesome, and laughing is a beautiful goddamn gift we've been given by our otherwise cruel masters." - oof

just wanted to mention that NetNewsWire is my favorite new toy. it's a new-style news reader - does RSS and other XML syndication formats instead of NNTP. i'm subscribed to 62 sites; when i started reading through them earlier tonight, i had over 800 unread headlines. yikes! all of my pals' blogs, new sites, many of my daily reads... all in one place, with updates on the hour. good stuff.

oh yeah: i picked up my car today. so nice. the ride is so smooth, it's like the vehicle responds to thought, my foot depressing the pedal an unnecessary gesture. just need to get a tape adapter for iPod satisfaction...

Check out the Boyjazz photos by Lisa!

hey! two great bands at the Mile High: JT & the Clouds of Chicago and SF locals Fojimoto. one of the many benefits of working at a club is getting to hear great music on a regular basis. i came home tonight with 3 new cds.

one of the club's neighbors was robbed at gunpoint while delivering a pizza in Berkeley earlier tonight. he told me about it when he got home. he made the mistake of calling 911 from his mobile phone, which goes to the California Highway Patrol, who kept him on hold for five minutes. "yeah this guy had an AK and stole my wallet and the pizza" - "please hold. your call is very important to us. this call may be monitored for quality assurance"

i signed a lease on a new car today: a dark blue Audi A6 2.7 T S line with black leather interior, and premium, luxury and cold weather packages. i pick it up Tuesday, if my head doesn't explode from the waiting before then.

my cable tv was installed wed morning. that afternoon i went down to the Comcast office to pick up a cable modem and high-speed internet self installation package. course when i tried the install, it failed on the connectivity test. the phone support person said this was due to either a faulty modem or a line filter that prevents internet service. ohhhkay.

so a technician was supposed to come out thurs morning between 8am-12pm. by 12.30, nobody had showed, so i called Comcast. they said ok, we'll have the local office call you. 2pm, nobody's called, so i gave the support line a ring again. okay, they said, the local office *really* will call you this time, extra super special promise. two more calls later, around 6pm, i finally got them to schedule another appointment for this morning (friday). that's right, you guessed it - nobody showed this morning either. cocksuckers. i was incredibly pissed off, and i called them one more time. i was assured that the supervisor had been paged and would call right back. nothing for the rest of the afternoon. i left fuming for work, expecting that i wouldn't be able to get another appointment until next week.

then i returned home from work at 1.30am to find all the lights on the cable modem lit solidly. the installer ran smoothly and now i have fast internet. a nice surprise to end off a moderately shitty week. thanks ka.

btw, i geeked about the awesome indie rock band Metric with two different people in the last two days. i would love to book them at the Mile High! tonight we brainstormed bands to invite to play. we got kinda crazy at the end. Alex (otherwise known as DJ Cubra Libre) suggested Del and Dan the Automator. yeah!!

oh yeah - i'm going to test drive an Audi A6 tomorrow. cross your fingers!

i'm sure you've all seen this before, but here it is again:

working 15 hrs in a day sure makes me tired, and yet when i get home i can't go right to sleep. someday i'll adjust to this new schedule.

it's almost 1am and i just got home from work. i'm really very tired. i've been working way too many hours, and i didn't get any rest this weekend, what with Finn's bbq on Sunday and a 6 hour D&D session at Endgame last night. gotta cut down on the number of hours i work for my day job. need some chill time to veg on the couch and watch dvds. tho i guess that's not so important until my stuff gets delivered, which won't be for another week or two. moving is hard, and i'm nuts for doing it so often.

the club is quiet in the early days of the week. i miss the booze culture of NYC, where i went to the local bar 3 or 4 nights a week and hung out with the other regulars. we haven't developed that sort of scene yet. the staff are all great folks, and i'm looking forward to hanging out with them more, but none of my friends live in the area and so are unlikely to pop down for a few beers after work. you lazy fuckers.

hopefully things will settle down once i'm fully moved in. i'm looking forward to establishing a routine. maybe i'll even be able to visit the city once in a while.

my friend Neil points out that the famous "what is best in life?" quote from Conan the Barbarian is a reformulation of a statement attributed to Gengis Khan:

"Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy,
sieze his total possessions, leave his married women weeping
and wailing, ride his gelding and use the bodies of his women
as a nightshirt and support."

(reference not available, but i believe him)

along those lines, i want to strangle whomever runs americanfit.com. i ordered some custom-made shorts from them like six weeks ago. of course, just as i prepared to move, they emailed that the shorts would be shipped soon. i replied with my new shipping address, but their mail server bounced the message. i tried again - another bounce. cruised their web site, and of course there's no phone number. so i guess i can kiss both the dough and the shorts goodbye. lame.

ps: the Mile High rules! we had just about 300 people for Tuesday night's grand opening, which featured some great bands, super hot dancers, a magician, and a burlesque bunny in a thong. tonight was much more mellow, fun in a different way, as various members of probably 7 or 8 local bands showed up. Oakland is representing well. i'm happy to be here.