Thursday, October 27, 2005
First day back to work after being sick. We have a new temporary employee in our office named Timothy, or rather Timmy, as he prefers to be called. He's our new but temporary pathway assistant in place of Kristina. I introduced myself briefly before today's webcast, and I let him know his e-mail and computer account were in the process of being arranged. Received two packages for work: one is a replacement battery for our 3-year-old Canon G2 digital camera, the other is a cheap keyboard and some 1/8-inch stereo extension cables. Joel found a video projector on MUNI a few days ago but has been unsuccessful finding its owner. He was excited to show it to me because whoever had owned it labelled it just like I would have. That's when I pointed out the name and phone number on one of the labels—he had missed seeing this until I pointed it out. He made some phone calls but got someone's voicemail, so he said he'd try again after lunch. Lunch with Joel at Cybelle's Front Room. Mushroom burger with potato wedges for me, some kind of burger for Joel with steak fries. Worked on VPN web pages for ITS. Helped Chris print out a floor plan of MSB1. Snacks during the day: a banana, an orange. Movie at Cole Hall with Patrick: Crash. The film was sponsored by UCSF Diversity something or other, so it was free and so was the popcorn. The room was pretty full, more full than usual for Cole Hall Cinema. Patrick and I both enjoyed the film very much. It's very worthwhile seeing because it really makes you think about how you interact with others around you on so many different levels. Suspend your disbelief of the all-too-impossible coincidences throughout, and just let it tell its valuable story. Everyone should see this film. Dinner at Dragonfly: something rolls, hainan rice, shaking beef, stuffed mushrooms, rocky road deep fried ice cream. Everything was delicious. Service was slow mostly at the start of our meal, but the food was so good we didn't care that much. The shaking beef, made from filet mignon, was particularly tender and tasty. Thai iced tea for me, jasmine hot tea for Patrick. The other tables around us had interesting dishes, too. One had a giant crab for two. Another had a birthday celebration with what looked like a big chocolate cream pie or tart. Patrick had overheard that it was brought in by the diners from Tartine. Another neighboring table had the fondue dessert which I thought looked tasty but Patrick wasn't that fonda it. It's the small touches here that make for some of the most pleasant surprises. For example, rice is served in individual portions in origamied banana or ti leaves placed inside round woven baskets, complimentary starter bread is served with pate which comes in a glass dish with a matching cylindrical glass dome lid, deep fried ice cream is served with a sugar cube atop dowsed with liqueur and then ignited—it burns ferociously for a minute or two and goes out by itself, oil-based incense sticks instead of a spray can of Glade in the restroom. Cloth napkins, candle and live flora at every table, padded seats—it's all good. Afterwards we had a few minutes to maim before the 10 o'clock bus, so we walked to 9th and Irving so that I could show Patrick the window display at (formerly Luba but I don't recall the new name) which has some of the same hanging screen things we bought at Ikea for Mom Ryan but which we haven't yet set up. You could tell that they had problems installing the screens in the window display because some of them were additionally tied at the top with plastic zip ties which to me meant that Ikea's equipment was faulty somehow. We bought the hook and clips instead of the metal bars, so we won't have the exact same problem, but I'm already anticipating a less-than-happy result. On the way back to the bus I pointed out how the awful window display at (not Luba) matched the awfulness of the window display at On The Run and Patrick agreed. How shameful for some shop owners if someone (probably a gay man) were to create a blog critiquing window displays, I thought. Perhaps someone is already doing that and I don't know about it. On the bus ride back, Patrick and I talked about his idea of fixing our mass transit system by forcing everyone to drive nerf-bodied instead of metal-bodied vehicles and also drive a lot slower because rushing everywhere is bad. I didn't discount it outright, but he admits he hasn't thought through the whole plan just yet. Halloween is coming up. Neither of us plan to have costumes—we've been too busy or sick to deal with that. Tomorrow is Sam's birthday, so we're taking him to dinner and a movie—Wallace and Gromit. Saturday Patrick will study while I will attempt to build a shelving unit in one of our closets and we have a party in the evening. Sunday we plan to help Mom Ryan find a coffee table for her new place. The weekend is pretty much accounted for, so just one more day to go before then.