Is NY Daily News reputable? I don't even know.

So sad.

Sadly, I think it's credible.

[link]

They're saying a massive heart attack in Italy. Shit, he's younger than me.

Also, Kim Thompson of Fantagraphics died. I worked with him side by side for about 7 months. Well, actually closer to 9 months because I was at Fantagraphics helping out before I was officially on the payroll and hung on to go to ComicCon with them.

Woke up at 2 and didn't get back to sleep. Am forcing myself to stay awake for another few hours so I don't screw up my sleep schedule.

ION: boss lady took new job, will be gone mid-August. I am sad and also relieved. At least this time I get five weeks instead of one minute like the last two bosses.

Intern seems to have improved by leaps and bounds since yesterday (old tricks didn't need to be retaught by much, and she actually figured out one of the tools for a new task without any outside input, one that usually stumps most people, yay!).

I had her in tears at lunch telling her about the time when I was 17 and got into the van of a Parisian dude at midnight when I had not place else to sleep and figured one pervy dude was better than spending the night with the three sketchy dudes at the train station.

I don't know what ages we had to do chores, but we had them, complete with a chart and stars of varying colours to mark our success (with rewards for accumulated gold stars). When I was picking up my little brother from highschool, I scolded his friend for something, which got me the reply "C'mon, you did that stuff when you were our age" to which lil' bro replied "she was never our age". I spent high school doing carpentry for community service for fun. Then there was the military. My first year of college I was shocked to know a girl whose mother called her to remind her to do her laundry. A professor tried psychoanalyzing me about my intense work ethic freshman year (shoot, I was a non-trad student at that point, 21 with a bunch of 18 year olds). So, yeah, my expectations of what kids should be like coming out of high school is biased.

We "fired" our probationary community service volunteer today. Lady is like, 45, and her catchphrase is "I give you my word". She was supposed to be in at nine. Texted that she'd be in at 9:30. Showed up at 11. I escorted her to boss lady while she tried to chit chat. Goodbye. We gave her nigh about 10 chances, all with the caveat that if she had the time on her end with the law to delay her coming in, if she had personal stuff to deal with, we were cool with that, but that if she said she was coming, then she was coming. And she refused that caveat and gave her absolute word that she'd be here. Ten times. (Okay, maybe five).

She was still at the arboretum five hours later, walking around. Guess she had to wait for a right. Dumb dumb dumb. We're cool fun people to work with. Get a little sweaty and dirty, but its got to be better than working at the dump. I dragged myself out of bed on two hours of sleep. Surely you can drag your ass out of bed so that you don't wind up in jail for not completing your hours? Or paying more fines, whatever.

HI DAISY!

I saw you ducking back into your cave. Nice to see you!

I'm still here! Sort of! I'm lurkerish.

I'm glad you're here, even if you're lurkerish! I feel pretty lurkerish myself a lot of the time, although I balance it out by being talky meat the rest of the time.

Bay area folk, if my friends need some SF advice (finding housing, neighborhoods, childcare, vets) can I point them your way? They are Cali kids, but I think mostly SoCal.

Bay area folk, if my friends need some SF advice (finding housing, neighborhoods, childcare, vets) can I point them your way?

Sure. SF Area advice, or SF specifically? Javachik & I can speak for the closer-in East Bay, at any rate (Oakland/Berkeley).

Many happy returns, Plei!

And what a shame about Gandolfini: 51 is just too damn young.

Yeah, that's a good distinction. I can help with my zone of hinterland if that's useful.