Our New Orleans trip is still happening. Our hotel, paid for back in June when everything was different, has wireless internet access. That makes me happy. I'm very shallow. (I may even get to hear some of Temple guest-hosting my show a week from tomorrow, assuming Pirate Cat Radio is back on the air and netcasting by then. And, really, there's no reason to assume that it will be.) I'd like to think the fact that I don't give a shit about the cable teevee says something good about me, but it probably doesn't.

Things will change in 2005.

At a party at Collette's last night, we heard tell of Page's Bar in England. It's a huge sci-fi geek hangout, replete with a giant model of the Enterprise D hanging above. That's almost as cool as the movie-era Enterprise at Star Trek: The Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton. We've been planning to go to England eventually anyway (I'd like to see at least some of the world before I die, y'know?), and that just makes it a pilgrimage.

11:17am

Ah. Never mind. Now that I view their site in IE rather than Opera, I see that Page's Bar has closed. Oh well. Fuck England.

The left turn signal of my car needs to be fixed. If the wheels of the car aren't pointing in the just the right direction, the signal won't go on. It's been like that for a few months now, but it's something I can live with. One of my big plans for this job was to be abe to afford to get it fixed. There are lots of little things in the car and the house which need work and/or to be replaced. I was looking forward to doing so. I was starting to breathe again, to relax just a little, to think everything was going to be okay.

One of the first things I do on any new-to-me computer is install Ad-Aware. It found four hundred and seventeen, count 'em, four hundred and seventeen foreign objects on the hard drive. Not the most computer-savvy office ever. Indeed, that seemed to be one of the things The Boss Lady liked about me in the interview, my technology experience.

Yesterday, as I was filling out my W-4 (they hadn't given me one yet), The Boss Lady asked about that new icon on the desktop. I explained the concept of spyware as best as I could. Don't know if she really got it or not. Maybe installing that was my big mistake. Made her realize I can't be trusted. She's no fool.

The digital video company said they'd make a decision in late December. It is now officially mid-December. I couldn't help notice that a week after I interviewed there, they reposted the job listing, a hi-fi version which almost seemed inspired by my interview, like they'd learned a thing or two about what they don't want in a candidate. My usefulness as a negative example is endless.

Lightning usually doesn't strike once, let alone twice.

1:23pm

See, here's what hurts. It's not just that I'd begun to breathe again, that I was looking forward to settling into a comfortable employment rut, and for fairly good money. Not at all like I was making at CNET, but I'll never be making that again, and it was certainly more than my previous employer would have ever considered paying me. (This is not me being bitter. He underpays as a rule, especially His female employees. He doesn't deny it. If asked, He'll tell you that He pays women less because He can get away with it. A truly hateful creature.) I have no income otherwise, and having to rely on Maddy (or anyone) to support me financially, especially during these rough times between us, is very scary. Then there's the location, and near-absence of customer contact, and the solitude, and...

It wasn't evil.

This is important. My defintion of evil In this context, is "convincing consumers to spend money." You know, capitalism and all that. The business was not predicated on consumers buying stuff they don't need, or even stuff they do. That's what all my previous jobs have been about, and the last few months I spent at the last job was quite possibly the most vile example yet. It was a relief to no longer be on His radar, but the majority of the daily work involved the sale of online stiffy pills. No, we weren't involved in email spamming (nor did we use any of the 600,426,974,379,824,381,952 ways to spell it except for the correct way), but it still did not do my self-esteem any favors.

There was no sales element to this business. None. Lots of money was involved, but itl flies around between subcontractors and city governments and stuff. No marketing, no advertising, no parting of a fool nor a reasonably intelligent person from their money. If there were any sketchy business practices, I didn't have enough time to discover them, but frankly, I really got the sense that everything was on the up and up. It was even doing good work, ultimately. Sure, it's very annoying when traffic is slowed down because of a construction crew tearing up the street, but, well, it's necessary. If you want your toilet to work properly, deal with the occasional bottleneck.

I was happy to be a part of it. I didn't want to leave.

Pictures of me, Lynnee and Dattner (among others) at the Pirate Cat Radio Listener Appreciation Party a couple weeks back, and me on Election Night. You know when that was.

1:37pm

I received my first paycheck from the new job. Unfortunately, it also doubles as the last paycheck; the girl training me has decided to stay with the company after all. Ergo, I am no longer needed. The Boss Lady was very apologetic, and says that she learned a lot during my cumulative week there. I have no idea what that means, and didn't ask. Oh well. I'd always known it was a trial period—that's one of the reasons I didn't raise much fanfare about getting the job, beyond the simple fact that making a fuss about these things makes me very uncomfortable—and I guess I can take some solace in the notion that it isn't my fault. Unless, of course, there's more going on than what I've been told, and "learning a lot" means not hiring people like me in the first place. I don't know. I can't let myself think like that. I'm assured that if my now ex-Trainer changes her mind, they'll give me a call. I'll hold onto that hope for a while, and dive back into the fucking fray, not ruminating too much on how perfect that job was for me. If something's too good to be true, it usually is. And if it is true, it'll slip through your fingers. Everything goes away.

I want to do bad things.

This evening is the second night of auditions for Macao, the play I'm assistant-directing at The Dark Room next year. So far, it looks like we've got Jon Fast involved. We acted together in Night of the Living Dead, and he was in my Twilight Zone episode earlier this year.

On Sunday we finally saw The Princess Bride, the play I made a point of not auditioning for. It didn't really do much for me. At least, I don't feel quite the same regret as I did at not getting the part in Clue. Admittedly, I've never been much of a fan of the movie (The Princess Bride), nor fairy tales in general, so that probably has something to do with it.

In a week and a day, we're heading for New Orleans.