The Fault Is Not In Our Includes, But In Ourselves

I have to go and lie down.

Computer people buy books? It is to laugh.

Thanks to nojo for resurrecting the beloved vuvuzela.

Speaking of geeky pleasure (and when aren’t we around here), please check out Smarty Pins, Google’s new game that combines geographic and trivia knowledge. The test is to see how many answers you can correctly answer without running out of your allocated miles. My current record is 39 in a row correct.

@SanFranLefty: Very fun, but there are too damn many sports questions.

@mellbell: This, from a would-be Jeopardy contestant? I’ll take Willie Mays for $2,000, Alex.

How sophisticated am I? When I write Mike’s Blog Roundup for Crooks & Liars, I sign in here and use a blog post to make sure all the HTML is correct. Sad, really.

@blogenfreude: Five cents, please.

@mellbell: Sport questions?!!? I didn’t get a single one.

Well, it’s been nice knowing you. I’ll be playing this game for the next 5 years.

So tomorrow’s my last day at the white collar sweatshop–my own personal Litchfield–which sadly lacked the hardcore lezbian prison seXXX. My boss actually was shocked when I resigned, and I’m thinking “are you freaking kidding me? The past year has been a total trip to hayell.” I can’t believe that I lasted that long, and all I can say is that crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy. Clearly.
To celebrate my imminent release, I’ve got a beer in hand and George Michael’s Freedom 90 blasting from the speakers. Good news/bad news though, as I’ll soon be enjoying my new vocation as a wino on a bench, grasping a bottle of Boom Boom with both hands and talking to myself until I pass out. Expect to see updates on Linked In!* (Which thank the FSM charges exactly what it’s worth).
But wait there’s roar: Bearmania! Don’t try this at work, BTW.

*After Pareene and the commenters, that hobo was the greatest thing about W______e ever.

@TJ/ Jamie Sommers /TJ: Sports questions in the sense of knowing where a team or venue is located, which combines my biggest trivia weaknesses (geography and sports). Based on the hint to one question I knew that the answer was Pebble Beach, but I had to zoom in really far and scan the Southern California coast to find it.

@mellbell: And the Googles tell me that’s actually Central California. Point made.

@¡Andrew!: I’m coming up to your great city in November for a conference, so maybe we can hang out on a park bench together.

@mellbell: I was looking for a Brazil v. Germany joke here but it’s not working.

@Dodgerblue: ¡Como emocionante! I hope that you’ll have time for us to show you around town.

Since it’ll be in November, I strongly recommend bringing one of those fancy sun lamps, or at least a full-spectrum light bulb. Seattle in the fall/winter makes the Mariana Trench look like South Beach. (And bring a vaporizer for enjoying our totes lee-gal MJ. They’re gonna have to build another airport to accommodate the visitors, srsly).

@¡Andrew!: Indeed — my wife has an old friend in town so we’re going to add a day or two. And I forgot that ganga is now legal in your great state. We’ll have to look into that.

@Dodgerblue and ¡Andrew!: Seriously? I mean, seriously? Really? Hello?

@¡Andrew!: I’m glad you’re free. (fucking great song, that – and damned good video)

All you have to do now
Is take these lies
and make them true

All you have to see
Is that I don’t belong to you
And you don’t belong to me

Yeah yeah!

@¡Andrew!: Ah, the Northwest Gloom, God’s wrath on SoCal arrivistes.

Me, I prefer my colors saturated.

@JNOV: Sweet–we’ll have a proper Stinque-up!

@nojo: You know you miss it.

@¡Andrew!: Yay!

@JNOV: Since I have forty years of gloom backlogged, it’s gonna be awhile yet before I need a refill. NojoBro lives in Everett; he can have it.

@¡Andrew!: Congratulations on quitting! Your sanity will thank you.

Hm. Seattle in Nov. I sure could use a look-see. I just have to find someone to fly me out. One question: is there a Ritz-Carlton in town?

@¡Andrew!: WTF. They had an oil spill in P’town? I was there last year. Not for the bear thing for obvious reasons. They don’t react well to being called ‘darling’.

@Benedick: Couldn’t you write this off against your project?

@Benedick: Hey now I had to watch that video three times to, uh… appreciate the artistic message.

We don’t have a Ritz Carlton, but Seattle has some real gems.

I would humbly recommend the Alexis Hotel–this is where celebs with class stay and totally dawg-friendly–or The Arctic Club, which is legendary.

Mistress Cynica stayed at The Arctic Club during a recent visit, and I was thrilled to finally see the hotel’s interior after spending years pressing my nose against the windows.

@¡Andrew!: @Benedick: The Arctic Club is lovely, and it’s owned by Hilton, so you can use points if you have them. That’s what I did.

In the current Atlantic there’s an article about creativity and genius. For obvious reasons I was compelled to read it. The writer finds what is to her a persuasive link between those who write and mood disorders. And among the various subsets of those who write she found playwrights to be the most prone to mood disorders and all around instability. Haven’t laughed so much since the old king died.

@Dodgerblue: I like them to prepay.

@Mistress Cynica: @¡Andrew!: Arctic Club it is. If I can get away. I’m kind of house-bound right now and don’t see it coming to an end any time soon. I also need to go to Evanston WY.

@SanFranLefty: I thought about becoming a psychiatrist, and then I realized that I’ve spent a decade in the investment industry. Been there, done that.

@Benedick: “The writer finds what is to her a persuasive link between those who write and mood disorders.”

That explains a lot of the brief-writing legal eagles around here. Or just speaking for myself.

Oh, and the Arctic Club is a cool place. There’s also an awesome bar nearby to that hotel (I think adjacent to a sushi place) that I got shitfaced at when I was in SEA a few years ago for a conference. The good thing was a colleague of mine got pukey so nobody noticed (I think) how drunk I was. Good Irish girl I am, I can hold the likker 90% of the time.

@¡Andrew!: Actually, investment banking causes more vicarious trauma than being a shrink. Was today your last day? Are you decompressing yet?

@SanFranLefty: It was Wednesday, and already I can feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders begin to relax after countless months of stabbing tension pains. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

I’ve had an offer to join the Others on The Island. Should work out great.

@¡Andrew!: This would seem to be an excellent opportunity to catch up on your drinking.

@¡Andrew!: High five.

@¡Andrew!: Yay for you!

@¡Andrew!: Wow. It looks like we might have a good crowd. :-) I’ll be spending the night in a downtown hotel. It’s got to be hellacheap in Novembre. And I did not know you were an investment banker. Dude. You were an investment banker? I’m glad you’re sane, and I’m glad they didn’t pillory your commie ass.

@¡Andrew!: Play Candy Crush Saga for awhile.

@JNOV: My stay at the Arctic Club was a work trip. When I stay in Seattle (and pay for it myself), I go to the Moore Hotel. It’s a lovely Euro-style (i.e. some shared bathing facilities if you want the cheapest rate) hotel that seems to scare all US ‘Merikan tourists off because they have to walk down the hall to take a piss. Great location too. And dog friendly, if memory serves from a 2005 trip.

In November, the Arctic Club is running around $169/night plus crazy Seattle tax.

Bene, we should share a room.

I’m in that effin Omni club thang. I don’t think they have anything here. There’s always The Green Tortoise. Young Aussies. Young Aussies.

@JNOV: Mmmmm, young Aussies.