Being busy with work would probably feel better if a few more clients were current in their payments.

Regardless, tis the season.  The other season.  Blue and gold, and absolutely, unequivocally not red.  Big Game comes Saturday, and the local alums got together downtown for lunch today.  Good food, a private room, and besides, I always like hanging out with the Cal crowd.  Grr-ah, Grr-ah, Grrr-rrr-rrr-ah.  Three years in Idaho, and I’m still not sure what the sound of a Vandal is.  Maybe the sound of a spray can hissing?

This year’s lunch was held at a local alum-owned Chinese restaurant.  China Camp if you’re interested – I couldn’t find a link.  Eating chinese also gave the added attraction of watching some of the older more mature senior alums knock back a few and see what they could whack with plates and utinsels hanging over the edge of the lazy susan at my table.  It was off-center just enough to keep things interesting.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were some wagers being made on the other side of the table, but I didn’t see anything. 

These things are about having fun, and the news yesterday about Cal coming to the Holiday Bowl certainly helped with the good seasonal tidings too.

Back to it tomorrow.  Trying to entice an old client into some new business in the morning, and grinding out some pleadings in the afternoon.  No alums, no silly chants, no little shrimp thingees, but maybe, if I’m good, I’ll spot the other color of the season: a bit of green.

I certainly think this is wrong, but worthy of litigation? 

Enduring a harsh SoCal winter day (50s and not a cloud in the sky) while catching up on some transactional documents for clients and waiting for the dishwasher repairman, who has 22 minutes left in his appointment window. 

Admittedly I was hoping for something on New Years Day, and maybe involving some roses, but CAL’S COMING TO SAN DIEGO.  The Holiday Bowl is downtown on December 28, and it looks like the opponent will be Texas A&M.

Chuck the swimmer got some good laps in.  Chuck the pig ate too much good food.  Chuck the slug hung out and enjoyed himself around casa.  Chuck the procrastinator was forced to do some good billables.   

Thankful for my health, where I’m at and what I do.  Now on to the next holiday. 

Appropriate boxes were removed from storage on Friday.  Outside lights are up (first, best and brightest in the little condo community) and inside decorations are starting to spread out and take over the place, and the elves were photoshopping new banners this afternoon.  It will be a nice holiday, assuming the weather stays in the 70s and white Christmas remains an evil myth.

Before losing Thursday by being lured into a carb den and force-fed tryptophan* until I was nearly comatose, I had the pleasure of seeing Casino Royale Wednesday night.

Reading the studio hype about the movie being a reimagined use of the Bond character left me feeling that marketing flacks were simply borrowing the buzzwords from Battlestar Galactica’s success, and doubting any major change other than the lead actor’s hair color.  But as the new Battlestar is to its forebearers, Casino Royale is to such embarrassments from the same era as Octopussy and Moonraker. 

Casino Royale tells a story.  It has suspense.  The action scenes were well done, and in something that’s pretty rare, the Africa scenes looked like the Africa I remember.  Technology and toys, but no reliance on implausible gadgets to save the day.  A Bond who seemed like he was from the original stories of the double-0, and not the parody of the stories he became for a while.  Trying not to drop any spoilers, but a really good movie, particularly if you like the early Sean Connery Bonds.  And of course Dame Judi Dench rocks and still owns the role of M.  (more…)

Apparantly I’m a bad person for suggesting that I shouldn’t have to watch the entire Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade tomorrow.  Maybe I’m missing something, but couldn’t I just be called into the living room if any balloons break free with people dangling from the ropes?  With the magic of Tivo, I wouldn’t miss anything really important, would I?

I was supposed to be working this morning, because it’s been a slow month heading into the slow season, and I’m due in court in Farm Country at 9:00 Monday morning.  Then I was supposed to be surfing, so at least I’d get some exercise if I was going to blow off this morning’s yoga.  Now I’m taking the camera down to the beach with the plan being to get some sand between the toes and some caffeine over the lips.

The power to shift space and time is wonderful, and would be amazing if only I had a bit more self control. 

The inner geek melds with the pizza whore less than a mile from Casa: Killer Pizza From Mars.  The website sucks (except for the coupons), but the memorabilia throughout the restaurant, as well as the pizza and wings, make me proud to be a geek.

Not certain if the soccer mom thought the CHP car wouldn’t follow her into the car pool lane (because it only held one officer, naturally), or her all black, tinted-window Hummer was intended to have stealth powers, but in roughly 26 years of driving this morning was the first time I saw someone try and get around a CHP cruiser trying to set up a traffic break.  Not just get close and have to be waved back – repeatedly try to pass everytime the officer swerved the other way.  Wish he would have thrown out some spikes or something.