I got bit by a yellowjacket today, for the first time ever. Damn, they hurt. It's a fibrous sort of nerve pain through the immediate area, and many hours later my finger still hurts. No wonder people die from this sort of thing: a hundred of these bites would send anyone's nervous system into shock from the pain alone.

On Saturday night we went to see the long-awaited 3-D porn at the Act I & II Theater in Berkeley. As expected it was pretty awful, but a good time was had by all. I'd hate to see it again, as it doesn't really have any redeeming value, in fact a number of strikes against it: the 3-D is awful, the dialogue and acting are awful, and there's some "brutal misogyny" which just...isn't funny.

    11:19 <Zizzah> the only thing that was really 3d were the penii, which
                   were all softserve for all their purported length
    

Remember how Jerry Falwell, that shining icon of American greatness, said Mohammed was a terrorist? We have the predictable followup. What's interesting to me is the politics involved with his apology being accepted at all; I wonder if President Dumbshit had to call him personally. In any case, kudos to the Lebanese clerics for staying pissed, although at the end of this article the Malaysian guy gets it right, I think.

I wonder to what degree I used to write like this.

It's not been a good day, nor even a good week, as these things go...I feel boxed in to a couple of different corners, and they're not even all my fault. There's a feeling of despair when you lose a certain minimum amount of control over things, and I often feel like I'm hovering around that point. It's not just me, at least with the employment thing; people are justifiably nervous. A friend told me today that people with twice my experience come into interviews being really nervous about getting a job. So I'm toying with all kinds of ideas, like moving to the Peninsula/Southbay where more work is more accessible, to trying to find a job in Seattle and moving up there, or at least living in some rathole up there and keeping my room down here, or something. Just listing the options. I'd consider going back to the Northeast, but work is guaranteed to be harder to find there, and I'm not equipped to deal with that, especially without the social system I have here. But, it's only been two weeks, and unemployment should kick in soon, which will help me go another 5-10 months, maybe.

So I hauled my butt out of the house to go to Tranquility Base (the special night) at 26 Mix (the bar hosting the special night) in San Francisco. I don't usually go, but Rachel was opening (I missed all but the last two songs) and her friends T-Spigot were playing. They're very good, and I got to see people like Lamont and Cook and Jason who I haven't seen in some number of months. I've been in a severe funk all day, just locked in a bunch of sadness...on the highway through the city, I decided that if nothing else, I like the part of me that laughs and engages with the world, even if I don't always engage properly; and tonight I would laugh and smile, because there's only so much time I can spend feeling lousy before I start getting a headache and I have to let the tension snap. So I laughed and smiled, which doesn't really do anything for any of my numerous problems, but was better than not. And the music was good, too, and how could it not be with such a flyer (front and back, be careful about viewing them at work).

    15:50 <rachel> it has a naked chick AND a robot