Yet another semi-enjoyable double shift...at least, remembered enjoyable due to the fact that I'm no longer at work.

Taking the night to catch up on sleep & get a lil' bit of my geek on. I've acquired a few new random CD's over the past two weeks. So, I'm going to perform a bit of the old importation & center-cancel the tracks I'd care to transcribe. Then I can burn the results & absorb what I can through car stereo osmosis.

So, my Matrix tickets are burning a hole in my pocket. I'm going to the North Haven Showcase Cinemas 10pm showing. Should be fantastic by my reckoning- I'll be meeting some of my favorite people in the world at the Barnes & Noble next door, getting hopped up on redeyes from their lil' Starbucks inside. I plan on smuggling two things: 1) Spicy trail mix stuff & 2) The cheese topping from Annie's Mac & Cheese...thus, instant Smartfood!

I was interested in reading any reports here on the grapevine but, none have floated past. Than again, I doubt it really matters. Everyone I'd expect to have anything particularly bad to say would be those same people who said they "didn't get" the second film... You can only enjoy yourself as much as you allow.

So, tonight was number five of an ongoing series of nine classes I'm taking within my agency. Basically they're all courses on how to better teach autistic adults and students based on the characteristics of the disablility. I was struck on an amusing parallel... All of the methods to track data & results, standards of tables & protocols to teach skills are also used by another population-obsessive complusive shred guitarists!

It made an embarrassing amount of sense (I can say this having given up my former ways due to developing tendonitis and taste ). A small geeky flock of my friends and I used to methodically record and track metronome settings and chart our abilities to play 128th notes, string-skipping altered japanese pentatonics and all the other things one has time for when you're convinced you'll be attractive to women.

All of this made me happy to have left behind my graph-papering ways in favor of acoustic-based soundscape Frippertonics and chicks.

I'm not sure how it is in your neck of the woods but, Fall in these parts is remarkably bi-polar. I've becoming accustomed to the time change...it getting pitch black at 5pm & all. I've also been bracing of cold weather, wearing three shirts, scraping frost off of my car and all the other nonsense that goes with Fall turning into Winter in New England.

Today has been sunny and 72 degrees! It's the absolute nicest weather I can recall in the past 2-3 months! So, I'm signing off and at least making some use of it before the sun sets...< hour.

Another random thought: A number of people save ALL of their Xmas shopping 'til the day before. During exchanges with like-minded friends, they can gauge, pat each other on the back for originality, etc.

Does anyone out there parallel that to Halloween...costuming and the what-not?

So, true-believers it's the end of another work-week. I would go on to mention a long list of Halloween plans & events but, I have none. A few friends have threatened to drag me to a few parties of choice but, I've never really been a party-person. I'm saving my enthusiasm for vacation upcoming, going to see one of my favorite bands and the new Matrix movie (out on 11/5).

I'm also dying to finish the book I've been reading, The Siege by Clara Park... Not for the fact that I need to find out the ending because it's non-fiction- I know how this works out! I forcing myself to finish otherwise the 950 pager I have lined up next will obscure everything else for a few weeks. Quicksilver is Neal Stephenson's first piece of fiction in something in the neighborhood in five years. It's also the first book of his I had ever read. So since then, I've poured over every one of his other titles easily 3-4 times. Trying to put this off is serving to be a interesting exercise in how long it'll be before I crack- two weeks, three?

I randomly just happened across the new Me'Shell Ndegeocello album on ITunes...strange. Happy, of course since I snatched it up but, strange. Haven't happened across any press for it, etc.

I also got the story straight on a local King Crimson appearance... There had been a conflict between their website, The Oakdale & Toad's Place (both local venues). The short story is they play Toad's on the first day on my vacation in mid-November. So, most random art-rock, ambient-ish fans will be flooding out of the woodwork for a medium-sized club appearance. -Kooky!

Went to the Hamden Library and ransacked their Art Nouveau section... I've been looking for some Mucha, hoping for some Aubrey Beardsley bookplate designs. Found both and a good deal others to think about in a probable backpiece by Xmas. I also picked up Gaiman's new Sandman collection- Endless Nights...planning to tear into that after I sign off here, right now.

Let's see... Worked a double though, since I work in a group home, I'd be performing all the same mundane tasks at my abode- Cooking dinner, calling folk, a load of laundry or two and it's a day. Planning to finish this entry, make a phonecall, pour a drink & finish reading Sandman- Brief Lives. I always feel like an ass for all the time I lost in not having read Neil Gaiman but, can't be too hard on myself. Had I picked that series up any sooner and it wouldn't have had the same impact (crater).

Being new here and for the shear sake of having a journal entry, here is a journal entry- I was ditched out tonight by a pal. She took a caravan trip to Ikea in NJ & made it back far too late to go out and nab a drink. Made plans to try again for Friday but, Friday is Halloween! That won't do. So, I spent the time here plugged in, screwing around w/ I-Tunes for windows and practicing scales. I also discovered an unopened bottle of Jameson so, maybe everything worked after all.