Nobody here is in a talkative mood, they're all just keeping to themselves (me included, although the presence of my headphones scares people off from trying to make smalltalk) and looking down at their shoes. Thinking about dinner tonight, it is Friday night after all, time for Friday night dinners, the likes of which have trailed off in recent months.

Our new shower curtain is blue with little tootbrushes and band-aids on it. The appearance of it in our bathroom rides that that small fragile line between childish and fucking-cool. It's one of those things that public opinion will have to decide.

I find out yesterday that alot of Chinese people in China eat rice soup for breakfast. Apparently, it's a watered down breakfast staple across the country, although I'm also told that the people in Taiwan drink a soybean drink for breakfast. I'm still wondering what Italians in Italy eat for breakfast. It's an ongoing project.

Friends from Texas are visiting today, I haven't seen them in a couple of years. I'll probably be pretty vacant, I'll be spending my time instead looking for good views of the bridge to show them.

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but while I was driving around up in Sonoma county I saw the same FedEx driver three times in three different cities throughout the day. Once in Santa Rosa, once way way out in the middle of the country out by Sebastopol, and then late in the afternoon on a side street in Petaluma after I got some coffee. Very, very strange. There also seemed to be an incredible amount of roadkill lying around, mostly raccoons and opossums. Nasty stuff. One thing I did learn: vultures don't move when they're chawing on dead flesh in the middle of the road. Yep, I almost hit a vulture with my truck.

Goserlin

Today I wasted time reading websites while putting these little labels on syringes, I wasted a good 45 minutes that way, and everytime my boss walked by I'd hit the alt-tab to go back into the pharmacy menu. Sometimes I'm surprised at how much I can get done without anyone noticing. At my old job, this wicked boss woman who I'll fear througout my entire life would know I was emailing someone because I typed faster in email than I did doing my regular work. She'd yell over the veal-fattening pin for me to "stop writing personal email on company time." I hate, hate, hate that woman. I really do. Strange to think that I actually *hate* somebody.

Saw Gladiator last night. Everyone spoke English (with English accents, go figure), yet all the signs in Rome were in Latin!. What the hell? If you're going to lead us into believing that the Romans and all their conquered people walked around speaking English like bad actors in a Community College rendition of a Shakespeare play, at least make it so we can read their writing. I don't think any group of people walk around speaking one language and writing in another, well, except for Catholics, although that's not really true either.

We also were wondering just how many extras that movie had that were paid to wave their arm in the air and shout nothing in particular. The Germanian mongrels in the beginning of the movie do it, the soldiers do it after winning battles, and all the people in all the stadiums do it. That's alot of extras, and alot of waving and shouting.

The movie was OK, in that predicable/unbelievable sort of Hollywood way. I grimaced many times at the lack of research (at the beginning of the movie, Russell Crowe tells to commander to "give them Hell," although the idea of Hell didn't really exist yet), but the acting was good, and it looked nice, I guess. Still, I think the Chariot scenes in Ben Hur were more exciting than the fight scenes in this movie.

I've started my Top-Ten Records list, but I'm having trouble writing the reviews at work. I can't concentrate when I'm supposed to be hiding what I'm doing. I'll finish when I get home.

Saw Dark Days last night. It kept me thoroughly interested, albeit a bit less entertained than I could have been. Both sad and uplifting, the movie less surprised me than tweaked my curiosity. I think the producer meant to shock people by showing the conditions the homeless live in, but anybody who has lived in a remotely large urban area has seen just about all they need to. I wonder how much footage of angry/incomprehensible crack heads they had to sort through in order to end up with some characters one could relate to. One thing I did learn: the rats get fat in the subway tunnels of New York.

It was hard going to work today after having three days off in a row. I'm looking forward to tomorrow though, it's the day I take a bunch of deliveries up to the pretty northern counties. Wineries and rivers and forests are good medicine when you're hating your job.