"Because cashless spending is more convenient, industry reports suggest that visitors who use the wristbands spend as much as 25% more at resorts and parks."

from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wrist2-2009may02,0,3597459.story

Also, people don't see themselves physically spending dollars, which also prompts them to spend. Altogether an interesting article.

I went to edit my Activities in Facebook to add "Dungeons and Dragons" when I saw that my last activity listed was "JOB HUNTING." I quickly changed it to "NOT JOB HUNTING! YESSS." I still can't believe it. The first thing I did after the successful interview was tweet about it. The second thing I did was call my mom. She was so excited when I told her the news. She kept saying she wanted to take me out to dinner and just kept laughing with joy that I'd found a real job. "Oh you called me first (to say you got a job)!?" She was so happy that I'd called her and I didn't want to explain that I tweeted about it first or what that even meant so I just assumed that no one had read it before I dialed my mom and that technically she was the first to actually know.

A steady paycheck with steady hours in a steady environment... I can finally install WoW and not have to worry about scraping pennies together for my subscription fees or a work schedule that varies every week! Plus I can probably purchase an actual copy of Windows and just write it off for work--I can finally install Guild Wars too!

Yes, I know I am being ultra geek right now--I'm going to be able to afford it!! And so much more! Relatively speaking of course. I'm not going to be able to roll in a Rolls anytime soon.

Besides, I'm probably going to need these escapist outlets. My new job is assisting a criminal defense attorney so I'm bound to encounter some... shady characters, to say the least.

OH, but I love the building. It's The Gas Company building on 5th and Olive. I can take the train everyday and he said he'll cover my train pass! Suck it, LA drivers! But yeah, the building has this beautiful courtyard/lobby area OH and I'll need a badge to get in and I get that on Tuesday AHH a job! A job that isn't my current job!! Light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day http://www.freecomicbookday.com/fcbd_locator.asp

Also, the same day I got the job, I went to a meeting @ Causecast HQ for the Viral Marketing Interns. I'm glad I went. I'm reaffirmed and renewed in my efforts with them. If you see me talking about Causecast, please take a second to look! It's much appreciated! Once my schedule settles down, I'm going to look into volunteering with two featured organizations: 826LA (http://tinyurl.com/cc826LA), which provides creative writing tutoring to kids and Project Angel Food (http://tinyurl.com/ccprojAF), which delivers meals to people affected by HIV/AIDS, cancer, and the like. They're both conveniently located near me--one on Sunset, one on Vine. I'll probably contact them at the end of next week. Join me if you can!

Actually, there are a couple benefits coming up--one for each org, both on May 7th. The first is a screening of Sam Mendes' "Away We Go" (which I'm eager to see btw) @ the Vista Theater http://tinyurl.com/d2joxt. It benefits 826LA. The second is "A Cause for Comedy" @ the Hollywood Improv http://tinyurl.com/cyrgyu. This benefits Project Angel Food. I'm more likely to attend the latter since it's a little more wallet-friendly. If you're going, let me know!

Dialed up Mom on the ol' cell phone today.

Mom: What are you doing?
Me: Making ravioli.
Mom: Oh you know how to cook now? So what's up?
Me: Uh... I'm bored.
Mom: Me too. I'm making spaghetti and meatballs.

Got a Munny from Matt. Disneyland and bowling with friends and family. Pay day on Thu. Birthday money from family. Visited them and caught up w/ them before bowling. Getting paid to test a video game this weekend. Job interview and career fair on Mon. I'd say this was a pretty good week in a long while.

EDIT - Oh and how could I forget!? Matt got me a kitty! Her name is Sydney and she has REALLY beautiful eyes! She's adorable!

I read this story @ ABC7's website: "Suspect arrested in fatal USC hit-and-run" http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=6743393.

At the bottom, one user marxtvshow comments "I bet my house this was an illegal alien. And you know I'm right."

Oh really, you racist bastard? Because, you know, the victims were coming from a frat party and it couldn't have possibly been drunk driving USC students at the wheel.

Matt and I bought day passes and went to Chinatown and Little Tokyo. In Chinatown, we visited a shop called Ooga Booga. I bought one of those red fortune telling fish for a dollar. The guy at the store, Chad seemed to be an event organizer/promoter for stuff going on at the Grand Star jazz place across the way. In Little Tokyo, we perused the shops and found this shopping center we'd never been to before. From the outside, it looked deserted, but inside every other store bustled with business. We wanted to have dinner at one of the places, but since I'd just bought a crap load of shirts from Threadless, we decided against it. On our way home, we stopped to have Pinkberry off Hollywood/Vine. We saw a guy who looked and dressed like Mark Stone.

I was in the mountains with this mostly Caucasian Christian cult. We were having a meeting in a big room in one of the houses about who in the community has been sinning. Long tables bordered the walls and everyone was sitting at the tables. While I was waiting for the meeting to start, I looked over to the door which was on my right and a gay dude was standing in the doorway and he seemed to be flirting with me. And then later on during the meeting, some chick on my left wrote some checkboxes for me to check on the back of her copy of the meeting agenda. I think one of the checkboxes had something to do w/ hooking up w/ her and the other checkbox had something to do w/ asking if I thought Rebecca Bruner was stupid/if I wanted to kill Rebecca Bruner. Becca was sitting on my left and noticed her name on the paper in front of me so she asked if it was about her and I said no and quickly hid the paper. Also, there was a random middle-aged Chinese couple who seemed to be tourists testifying at this meeting. Both sexual advances from the gay dude and the chick seemed tempting and I was thinking about how to pull them off w/out ending up w/ a noose around my neck.

( The fun's only beginning... )

From How To Select and Use Nikon & Nikkormat SLR Cameras, Chapter 8: Exposure Metering --

A very handy substitute metering surface is the palm of your hand. You should check your own palm but light skin typically reflects about one step more light than an 18% gray card. If so, you can hold your palm in front of the camera--in the same light as the subject or scene--meter on your palm and then open up one step. If your palm reflects only half a step more, obviously that's how much to open before shooting.

"If your palm reflects only half a step more" = if you're not white? Well, my palms are pretty light I think so I'd say they're one step more than an 18% gray card. And palms in general are the lightest part of the skin aside from the soles of your feet, right? So I guess you could meter with the soles of your feet too. Unless you've been walking around barefoot all day and your feet are dingy.

The other day at work, we were in the middle of morning rush. Basically, "rush" is a group huddle of a dozen employees where a couple managers spout off business figures us commonfolk don't pay much mind to and remind us of things like sell the latest promotions and don't forget the rules. One of the rules the manager brought up at this rush was about "No Call, No Show." It's basically a strike against us if one of these crops up on our CDC's (Community Development Calendar i.e. Permanent Record). It's pretty self explanatory--a No Call, No Show is when we don't call about why we don't show up for the day. The manager went on to say that he can understand if calling in slips our minds or an emergency occurs and prevents us from doing so. But he embodied this sentiment in a phrase something along the lines of "Life gets in the way sometimes" and I immediately thought, 'What an absurd thing to say.'

Imagine that, life getting in the way. Getting in the way of such a menial trudge. Granted, it's a menial trudge that keeps a roof over my head, a late-night-partying bass-bumping sound engineer under my floor, a Netflix account with instant viewing on my Mac, and a phone line with which to instantly view so for that I am, in a word, grateful. But imagine something getting in the way, obstructing your path from diving head first into a garbage disposal. And then someone calmly telling you to make sure you remove this obstruction whenever possible. Or you might lose your job. If this scenario tilts your head to the side with a whatthefuck, then you can imagine the feeling silently evoked in me as I stood among my coworkers.

Life getting in the way. Huh. Then I would have to ask, 'You don't do much living, do you?' Or maybe the appropriate question is 'How does life get in the way? Isn't life everything? Everything that happens?' Isn't it? I am just really boggled, my mind is just really boggled by a man saying this aloud to other people and issuing it as a doctrine. Granted, I know that the words of managers are not often heeded. I'm a first hand witness. But managers are elevated to their positions based on their qualifications which essentially state such persons are certifiably superior to you... are they not? The incompetence of upper management. I am not saying that everyone in an upper management position is incompetent, but certainly this concept is a familiar one. Enron. Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac. Countrywide. The White House from (among other years) 2001-2009. Generally, people in higher positions (however ascribed) are supposed to be those who lead the rest, those whom we aspire to become. Or replace. But in replacing we become because what is a replacement? (n. substitute, equivalent.)

And yet... and yet so many calamities at the few hands in which so many placed their trust. The incompetence of higher management. Just as absurd as the thought of life getting in the way. Why are these things presented as infallible truths and why do we accept them? Because then I can't watch 30 Rock from my Instant Queue.