Okay, seriously... what the F***????

It seems that every encounter I have with my neighbors lately is under the cloud of crime.

Down the hall from me is a lovely family of four. I like 'em. The kids are sweet. The parents are good folk. So I ran into them as I did laundry and the mom called me aside.

I talk to the family a lot. I helped them with moving stuff while the mom was pregnant. When someone tried to break in via their balcony, I took a look and helped where I could with what they should do (call the police!!!).

I've also kept them in the loop when I've had my crime encounters around the building (encountering vagrants coming from the garage area, hearing from other neighbors about burglary, etc.). So today, the mom told me that she and her hubby are friends with a family in a house across the street.

Today they were the victims of what is called a home invasion. Someone came in through the unlocked back door with a gun and... well... robbed them at gunpoint.

Prior to this, we've had maybe annual burglaries. A car gets rifled through. A couple storage units got broken into. Maybe trespassing by homeless. Stuff like that.

Introduction of a gun to a crime around here is a whole new level of scary.

I've since spread the news to the folks next door to me and across the hall. I'm not sure how productive that is, as I'm really spreading fear, but I figure people should be aware of what's going on and be alert.

I gotta admit. Armed home invasion... this is freaking me out a bit.

Just sayin'

miscellanea

If only for that pun, he must die!

---

So last night I went out to dinner at Havana, a Cuban restaurant in Alameda for my friend's birthday.

Up to that point, I haven't been a huge fan of mojitos. I like rum drinks, but I'm not a fan of soda water and mojitos have never done much for me.

It helps that prior to this, I'd only had mojitos during really horrific, liver-abusing outings that resulted in... shall we say... services at the porcelin altar?

Ain't I diplomatic and tactful?

Anyway, I'm not all that familiar with Alameda, so I got there early, found some parking, and had nothing to do. So I sat at the bar.

And I drank mojitos.

I only had two. That was more than enough. My motor skills were hosed after the first one. The second one had me spilling water, slurring my speech... yeah. Good times.

And they were delicious. So very, very good.

Thankfully I had a full dinner to sober up during. I likely only made a moderate ass out of myself. Eh. By this point, it's par for the course.

Tasty restaurant.

---

So, according to my office calendar, today (9/11) is "patriot day". When did they come up with an official holiday-ish name for 9/11? Did I miss something?

I was trolling through My Confined Space. Not surprisingly, there's tons of tasteless commentary on 9/11.

I think I'll just avoid the news today. The rhetoric is tiresome.

---

I taped Tuesday night's "Fringe" pilot. Thanks to last night's plans, I haven't had much time to watch it. I saw the first fifteen minutes as I ate breakfast this morning.

Nothing like eating oatmeal and watching someone's face melt on the telly.

Mmm...

Quotes

Sick like a socially inept fox.

Science is the foot that kicks magic square in the nuts.

Aaarrgggh!

A half-hour of slow PC.

Two reboots.

I hate Microsoft's Windows updates. I hate how they deploy them. I hate how a reboot is required.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

If hate leads to the Dark Side, then in my mind, I'm taking a lightsaber to all of Redmond, Washington.

Hate!

Coincidence?

Today they're turning on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

My atomic clock, which is supposed to be more accurate than my crappy, battery-powered, travel clock, failed me this morning and as off by a good three hours and change.

Is that a crack in the time-space continuum I smell?

Smells like bacon.

Mmm... bacon...

I'm hungry.

Spaced 2

I'm now on season two of "Spaced".

One of the main characters got fired from his job for tearing into a child for wanting a Jar-Jar Binks doll and "isn't over Episode One."

I haven't seen a show this consistently funny since...

... um...

I'll have to get back to you on this. Gotta think.

The Joy of Doing Nothing

It's funny how I can just fritter away time doing nothing. That's pretty much how my Saturday went. I can't think back on anything constructive I did. I just wasted time.

And it felt really, really good.

I watched ABC Family's Samurai Girl mini-series (which, for the record, is about as Japanese as I am... and I'm not Japanese). It was a very corny, cheesy, guilty pleasure (mainly 'cause Jaime Chung is hot). It wasn't a good show, but I was entertained.

Oh crap. I forgot to tape my anime shows on Saturday night. Goddamnit.

And that was my last free weekend for September. After this, the month gets crazy. I have to truck inland to visit my grandmother a couple days this week (yay! Rush hour commute! Gosh I've missed that...). Mid-week I hit a birthday dinner at a Cuban restaurant for one of my friends at work. Somewhere in this mix I'm taking yet another friend out for a birthday lunch.

Then the weekend is nerd-gaming-time as we continue last month's cliffhanger... oh you don't care. Suffice it to say, the day will be busy.

The following weekend is the BBQ I'm actually organizing/hosting. I'm starting to feel a little anxious about this, truth-be-told. I've never mixed this particular crowd of people in one place before and I'm rusty at organizing social gatherings altogether, so I'm having some trouble with logistics (soda? what do I tell people they should bring? does it matter? gah!!!)

I take the week after that off completely as Autumn arrives (likely with a heat wave). Hopefully I'll be able to recharge my batteries over that time 'cause the weekend of the 27th, I help some friends move to San Jose.

And then September is pretty much over a couple of days after that. October isn't looking very relaxed either. I have a wedding to hit the first weekend of October, then the gaming cycle starts again.

At least it won't be boring.