1:22 pm - Sun 5/29/05
Meanwhile, Back At The Internet Cafe...

Having my computer crap out on me is a sharp reminder of just how dependent on it I've become--To get business done, certainly (To receive email from JS, to check Backstage.com and LA Casting, etc), but by and large, just to make life more convenient and enjoyable. Hotmail, Diaryland, Mapquest, Moviephone, and of course, internet porn: How did I ever live without this stuff?

The computer became particularly important when I moved out here--Along with the California weather, it's allowed me to "weather" times when I felt depressed and discouraged. If all I had was the occasional letter or phone call from people "back home" to keep me from feeling lonely, I'd probably have been "back home" by now.

Sad, perhaps, but true.

Well, as I told Kathy B. in an email, the big thing on my mind now is waiting to get my new computer (I expect to get it sometime around the middle of this week).

(I hope I still have the startup cd for the Freenet somewhere...)

I've got a number for a company that offers the loan-signing class, so I could theoretically call and schedule that. But I'd rather wait to get my computer up and running again, and research it on the computer (If someone offers the class for $75, I don't want to end up paying $100).

I don't know if I should take that company's word for it, but their ad says you can earn $50,000-100,000 a year being a loan-signing agent. I imagine for that to be the case you'd have to really "beat the bushes" for work, or hook up with a big company.

Anita, my Notary friend, seems to be doing pretty well with it. Though each time we talk about it, she always makes the point of saying "You need to save your money", because it's the nature of the work that some weeks are busier than others.

(Which reminds me--I want to email her soon, and get her advice on how I should be proceeding here.)

Well, I wasn't sure I was going to, but I did end up going to see the latest Star Wars movie.

Opinion is all over the map at Geek Central (aka The bookstore), but my response to the movie was basically a big shrug--Yes, it looks really cool, and there are some fun moments, but "there's no there there".

If you're going to make Anakin Skywalker become Darth Vadar out of love and concern for his wife--He's had a premonition that she's going to die in childbirth, and is manipulated into believing he can save her by going over to the dark side of "The Force"--then the scenes with the two of them have to be really moving and effective...and they are, hands-down, the worst scenes in the movie.

Beyond that, Hayden Christiansen is just too much of a lightweight to make the transition tragic, or even just believable.

And without that, the movie really doesn't have any soul.

(I think it's quite a comment that the best acting in the move is done by an all-CGI Yoda. I was more invested in his battle with Darth Sidious--Who I keep wanting to call "Sid Vicious" for some reason--than I was with anything else in the movie.)

On Friday, Patricia Cripps had a very long talk with David in his office at the bookstore (Patricia is David's immediate boss).

It doesn't look like he's going to get drummed out of the corps, which was my hope, but everyone is noticing that he's making nice with people, almost like he were a human being.

Which actually bothers me, to be honest: Tim told him there was a problem, Joe told him there was a problem, Carl told him there was a problem, Brad told him there was a problem, I told him there was a problem, and probably a number of other people I'm not aware of told him there was a problem (With morale at the store). But none of that registered--We were all just "troublemakers"--until he had to get a spanking by the boss.

I'm sort of more and more "on the post" about this whole business, and with Borders in general--It's the place I spend a lot of my time, so I can't help but be somewhat invested, but on the other hand, I am not Borders and Borders is not me.

And David could start leaving candy and flowers in my locker every day, and it really wouldn't make any difference.

It's time to go.

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