Well, I can’t really say it was the band’s fault. For those people who recognized the songs, it must have been OK, but the sound was muddy and I couldn’t make much out. I figure it was the third time I saw them, the first time in 1992 at “The Bite” on the waterfront, once in 1999 at Portland Brewing’s Oktoberfest, and once tonight. So not much was that familiar.

But the worst part was being treated like a criminal at the Roseland. They have a metal detector and they wanted my Leatherman Micra because it was a “weapon.” It’s a pair of folding scissors. I think it’s a popular thing for 40-something guys to carry, because when I got there at 8:30, before most of the crowd, there were already a half dozen in the confiscation box. I guess aging 40-something frat boys are likely to cause fights using tweezers and scissors.

When I tried to retrieve my scissors after the show, they gave me nothing but attitude.

“Stand here in line.” (The line had one person in it: me. The two 21-year-old girls were just exercising their power.)

“There’s only one Leatherman in here.” (Another guy came up beside me and got his, so that wasn’t true.)

“So that’s not yours? You have no choice. That’s the only one in here.”

Well, I gave it back to them. Who knows what kind of crap someone else used it for? Unfortunately, it slid all the way off the counter into the security girl’s drink.

Oh, the band wanted to sell merchandise after the show, but the staff was busy trying to get us all out of the building. Very friendly people there at the Roseland.

Well, at least I got to see Megan.

I have no idea how I got my antenna up the last time. I’m going to need to put a ladder up on the roof to get high enough to mount the thing. In the mean time I cut myself on a pipe and had the ladder fall down. I thought I might have to jump off the roof. Fortunately, I’m fine and my friend Greg is coming by to help me tomorrow.

In the mean time, I dropped a speaker onto my foot the other morning.

OK, so here’s a picture of the Nike t-shirt I’ve been complaining about:

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Huge, isn’t it? And that’s a men’s medium.

Also, notice that there’s an image of an alien on my shirt. Some people get the virgin Mary on their tortillas, I get a scary creature from a horror movie on my shirt.

Fortunately, when I started putting antennas on the garage roof I had the forethought to cut the overhead wires. The little lightbulb out there wasn’t doing much good, anyway. I’ll rewire it someday, but for now it’s off.

So I took down my old vertical antenna. It was 26′ long, and the bottom of it is about chest high on top of the garage roof, mounted on a tripod. Taking it down means I had to unbolt the base, hold the bottom of it and lift the bottom to about head-high, and then ease it to the ground. You can imagine how hard it is to maneuver a 26′ long aluminum pole from the bottom 3 feet. It came crashing to the ground.

The new antenna is 24′ long, and much thicker. I tried to put it up the same way (big mistake) and ended up with it in the neighbor’s tree, with the bottom u-bolt all bent to hell. There was no way to get it off the pole with it bent like that, so I had to cut it off with a Dremel. This means standing on the roof, with a high speed cutting wheel that’s likely to shatter, with no safety glasses, in the dark. I couldn’t leave the mess the way it was. Fortunately, it’s all down on the ground, and I didn’t break anything other than one u-bolt.

I did this all in a hurry because there’s a rare country on the radio. I think the antenna will be finished too late to talk to them.

I think it’s because I keep staying at work late. I got home around 8PM and I didn’t even go to the gym. My legs were sort from the 10K yesterday, so I decided I better run a couple miles to get the muscles moving. But before I ran, I had to call my brother-in-law, who told me more than I needed to know about large sailboats and then I had to go feed Morticia, a cat who hates me. She got me good, though, peeing all around her litter box but not quite in the litter box.

Dinner was a bit of cold tofu with bonita flakes, grilled zucchini (cold by the time I got it), some Ritz crackers, and a couple of biscotti. And even though I need to write a few cheques to pay my bills, I’m typing in this box.

Time management skills. That’s what I need.

10K, and I made it in an hour and three minutes or so (I can’t find the official results), slower than I was hoping, but I hadn’t run in months. Plus, Warren Finke, the ultramarathoner, ran it in 1 hour exactly so I don’t feel so bad. He was fooling around, though.

At the end of the run, Devo played a concert that was mostly songs off their first couple of albums. They sounded great and they looked like they were having fun. Along the route the bands were kind of pokey and the one band I wanted to hear, General Public, wasn’t playing by the time I got to them. I ran the extra 5K so I could hear two extra bands and it really wasn’t worth the extra pain to hear Tommy Tutone and whoever replaced Kajagoogoo at the last minute. When I got to the mystery band I was expecting General Public and when I saw the singer wasn’t Dave Wakeling, I just ran by without paying muhc attention. I think the best band on the route was was Tone Loc since he was early and having fun.

I knew that if Patty Finke of Team Oregon saw me, she’d tell me that being a weekend runner was a good way to get injured. Guess who I ran into at the finish line? It was all good fun and mostly worth the dehydration headache I got from it. If only I got to hear General Public or Bananarama (like they got at one of the other races) it would have been perfect.

Either that, or they think that runners are gigantic people.

I registered for a 10K (without running a step in months) since they promised that I’d get to hear some 80’s one-hit-wonder bands. But it’s a Nike thing, and they’re making us wear their shirts. You can guess that living in Nike’s backyard makes a lot of people a bit jaded about the place. Right now I don’t think I care either way about them but I do hate that they’re more a fashion house that changes shoe styles and clothing every few months.

The worst part is that I didn’t check the shirt when I picked it up and it’s HUGE. Hey, Nike, we’re runners, not basketball players. A men’s large should be a bit small on me, and I’m only 5′ 10″ and 165 lbs. It shouldn’t hang down below my crotch. I went back and tried exchanging it for one that fit (a men’s small) but they weren’t having any of it.

I mean, seriously, it’s a Drifit shirt with sticky printing on it. I’m never going to wear it as a night shirt so it’s going into the recycle bin if it’s too big. Not a great way to spend a $35 registration fee for a run.

A long one, too. On the way home, I passed by the park and I heard banjo and fiddle music. The kind that makes my ass itch. I work hard and usually get nothing from it other than upset at the clowns I work with. And what does the world give me in return? Okie music.

I even got an email today telling me that the party I missed, because of work, was a great one. The world is rubbing it in.

So, what’s worse, living a miserable life, or living a miserable life and feeling sorry for yourself? I figure I’ll just live the miserable life. It’s probably the only one they’ll give me.

The largest database company in the world, 0r4cl3, whose name cannnot be mentioned out loud, must just be messing with people. Since I’m the backup sysadmin at work, and the real (hah) sysadmin is on vacation, I have to do things like installing 0r4cl3. On an approved system, (RedHat L33tnix) you have to:

1. Install the pre-installation patch.
2. Run the installer and install the program (and get some errors).
3. Install the patch program.
4. Run the installer and install the patch installer.
5. Run the installer and install the patches.
6. While running the installer to install the patches, move some files around so the installer doesn’t die from errors.

Keep in mind that this is a program that you can’t afford if you ask about the price. In fact, when you ask how much it is, they ask you how much you have. Often they have a huge list price and make you pay as much of that as you have. You’d expect a little more from a true evil corporation.

I wish I could have known earlier about Mio Gelato’s first birthday today. They had a special, $1 per scoop, about half price! I had a couple of scoops and my friend the manager told me I’d get a stomach ache at the gym. (She goes to the same gym.) I must not be working out hard enough, because I certainly didn’t get a stomach ache.

Part of my problem is that I need to fix some of my antennas. The other problem is that a solar flare is wreaking havoc with all sorts of radio communications right now. So, I got the radio finished this weekend and now I have nobody to talk to. Oh, well….

Yesterday I finally finished my radio. The last part was the worst, but now I have a complete ham radio that works well and cost me too much compared to the one I already have. But it was a kit, which makes it all the more expensive. So, most of a month spent hiding in the basement, and it’s finished.

Another indication that I need to get out more: I was at the park for a free Celtic concert and I was sure I saw a woman holding a small corpse of a baby. It was lifeless and motionless, and everyone was going about doing their own thing. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t a corpse, it was a doll. I told my friend about it, how I thought there was such a macabre scene in the middle of picnicking families and kids running about. She works with Child Protective Services and she told me that when she looks out at the families, she sees all the potential cases for child abuse and molestation.

And I thought I had it bad. When I think about work and look out at people, I just think, “He doesn’t know how to use a computer, and she doesn’t know how to use a computer, and she doesn’t know how to use a computer…” You get the idea.

Anyway, I think I should quit watching cop shows and reading mysteries if I can’t identify a baby doll as a baby doll.

I was invited to a barbecue weeks ago, and was looking forward to it the whole time. Unfortunately, I had to work. On a Saturday evening. I have more to say, but I won’t. It just kind of annoys me. I’m supposed to have a regular job, and I had to work from 4PM to 8PM on a Saturday with one day’s notice. Ah, well, I’m sure I’ll get fired and the clown whose fault it was will be fine. That’s the way of the world.

At least it’s cooling off outside.

Today it was 103°F. That’s way too hot and a record for the day.

I sure wish we could use our new refrigerator to cool off the house somehow, but that’s not what it’s for.

On the way home I walked by lots of empty outdoor seating at lots of popular and trendy restaurants. Not a soul outside anywhere except for at the fake Chinese restaurant, P.F. Chang’s. I always thought people eating faux Chinois were not the sharpest pencils in the box and today they proved me right. At 6:30PM it was still over 100°F outside and there they were, following the trendy herd.

I called my friend Il and I asked him if he knew anyone who still owned a convenience store. We could tell them that, yes, popular belief was true and white people do steal. We, being Asians, do not. We would work as unpaid interns for them as long as they let us inventory whatever was in the walk-in cooler. We wouldn’t steal a thing. Just work back in the cooler.

Obviously, the heat is getting to us.