Day Sixteen: The Blog is Finally Old Enough to Drive

Rossanna disapproves of the "press briefing" thing from a couple days ago; she thinks it was inappropriately gimmicky. So, henceforth, Day Fourteen will now be known as the day my blog jumped the shark. It's all downhill from there, kids.

Side note. In the past hour or so I've been trying to write something, a fictional piece, based on recent events in my life. I started with a play (which I've been wanting to try for a while), then moved on to a story. But as soon as I started to read both of them, they just seemed... well, boring as hell. I think it's best explained with a quote from that most quotable of sources, Winnie the Pooh.

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you sometimes find that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

So yeah, maybe it's better if this particular thing just stays in my head. For the time being, at least.

Anyway, on to what happened today. There really isn't much, which is why I kind of needed to pad the beginning. I got up around 9, ate breakfast, watched a few episodes of Dead Like Me. Also cleaned the apartment a little more, which mainly consisted of vacuuming and taking out the garbage. Then, at some point, it became three o'clock and I had to drive up to UCLA for a doctor visit. Just the usual six-month follow-up on my thyroid levels and boring stuff like that. My blood pressure is 110/70; honestly, I think that's lower than I deserve, but I'm not complaining. I got some blood drawn, mainly for the thyroid stuff, but they're going to check my cholesterol too. Last time it was fine. After the checkup I walked around Westwood and snagged a burrito from Jose Bernstein's (still the best name ever for a Mexican place) and an ice cream/coffee drink from Baskin-Robbin's.

On the lengthy drive home (there's just no quick way to get home from Westwood in the 5:30 area) I called AT&T Wireless customer service to sort out this issue about my bill. See, when I got my spankin' new phone I was told that I'd have to pay $300 up front but I'd get a $150 credit later, making the effective cost of the phone $150. To avoid any squabbles down the line, I charged the whole cost of my phone to my AT&T account and waited to pay for it until I got the credit. But I never got the credit, so I called to complain about a month or so ago, and the customer service dudes said they'd check on it. I never heard back from them, so that $300 charge was still on my account as of today, and the AT&T financial dudes were getting restless. So I talked to them today and, like the last time I called, they didn't see any reference on my account notes to my being owed a $150 credit. I figured that didn't bode well: I don't like the phone enough to pay $300 for it, and it's way too late to take the phone back and get a refund. So after some hemming and hawing, the customer service person tries to call someone in the "resolutions" department. And she's on hold for about a half hour, which means I'm on hold for a half hour, and I'm just praying that I don't drive through a no-signal area. Finally she gets back on the phone and says they'll credit me the $150, but that the people in the store should have just sold me the phone for $150 in the first place. Bottom line: AT&T is a bunch of incompetent goons, but at least when push comes to shove they're nice enough not to screw you out of a Benjamin and a half.

By the time I got home it was already pretty much time to head over to the Arclight, where I was meeting Rossanna to see "Before Sunset" (as mentioned yesterday). While I was getting ready I talked to my mom, who is also presently unemployed but much more bitter about it. What she needs is a blog of her own. Although, given that she types about 20 words per minute on a good day, that might not be such a great idea. Anyway, I left for the Arclight at about 6:40, got there by 7:15, and shelled out $20 for my ticket. Rossanna and Tiago got there around 7:40; the show was technically at 7:30 but we weren't even late. After we sat down and saved seats for other people who ended up not showing, a couple of announcer people from GenArt (the non-profit somehow-entertainment-related company who sponsored the screening) came out and talked about stuff. Then they showed the pre-movie movie, a short film from Sundance called "Dysenchanted" about a bunch of fairy tale heroines (and one real-world woman) in a support group. It was amusing enough, but I'm not loving this trend wherein all these indie films are filled with big-name actors (the cast of this one included Jim Belushi, Alexis Bledel, and Sarah Wynter) and shot on 35mm. I just don't think anyone would have taken a second look at this film were it not for its polished looks and star power. Luckily, the actual film of the evening was really, really, really good. It's just an hour and a half of two people talking (and most of it appears to be improvised), but somehow it's very compelling. After the movie there was a party in the upstairs bar area, so we grabbed some free drinks and looked around at all the non-famous people for a while, and then we all went home.