rusty_halo

Here’s my first post of vacation photos from my two week trip to Sheffield, London, and Paris.

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Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.

I'm so very tired.

I had jury duty Monday, went to work afterward and worked until 10pm, then had jury duty again the next morning. Jury duty requires getting up early and taking the subway and walking far. WAH.

I did have a nice lunch in Chinatown -- vegan dim sum at Buddha Bodai. And I read the equivalent of a Sharpe book over the two days (the last half of "Sharpe's Eagle" and the first half of "Sharpe's Enemy"--this is definitely the best period of the Sharpe series).

I didn't get called to a trial yesterday until 3:20--we were all cursing, because we'd been so close to getting out. I got called up to the jury box and interviewed (god, it's scary), so I answered the questions honestly and glared miserably at everyone. They dismissed me. Yay! Apparently the key to getting out of jury service is to look really mean, or perhaps to wear a purple shirt decorated with glittering silver spiders and webs. (Hey, it was Halloween.)

They actually told us (the eight people who'd been interviewed and dismissed) that we'd have to come back the next morning to pick up our forms, since it was already after 5pm, but we objected and they printed out the forms for us there. Yay! I'm done! Four years of freedom!

Then I rushed to the Astor Place Barnes & Noble, bought Courtney Love's book, and got a wristband which allowed me to wait outside in line for two and a half hours. I finally got in around 7:15 and got my autograph at about 8pm.

The book is huge and cool and expensive. It's mostly drawings, diary entries, and clippings.

Courtney was trying to look serious in black framed glasses, was wearing lots of makeup to cover her bad skin, and she's clearly had lots of plastic surgery. I have mixed feelings about her--she represents a lot of contradictions in American culture, I suppose. She's smart and observant and her critiques of society's attitude toward women and celebrity are great, and yet she wants to be part of everything she criticizes. I was really sad when she quit being punk rock and went to Hollywood.

But anyway--I waited in line and went up to get her autograph. She said "Nice to meet you, Laura" (we'd written our names on post-its so she could personalize the autographs) and I said "Nice to meet you," and that "Live Through This" is an amazing album and that it really means a lot to me. (True.) She said thanks, I said bye and happy Halloween, and that was that. She was nice.

Then I went to meet jaydk and drujan at a place on 14th and 9th that has Belgian beer, but it was impossible to get across 6th Avenue because of the parade. It took me a half hour just to walk from 8th St to 9th St on 6th (and was a little scary, with all the people trying to get through and the crowd not moving) so I walked to Union Square instead, dropped off my heavy stuff at the office, and took the L train over to 8th Avenue. "Borat" sat next to me on the train and spoke to me in character, but I grinned and ignored him.

There I met my friends and had the only vegan dish on the menu (pasta with garlic, pretty good) and three delicious beers. One was a raspberry lambic that was awesome--not as sugar sweet as the more mainstream ones, richer flavor.

Then we went up to "Evil Dead: The Musical," and got there just in time. Third row! But jaydk hadn't realized we were in the splatter seats, so she moved back at intermission, and drujan covered herself in plastic. I was all like "Bring on the fake blood, it's Halloween!" but it missed me. The guy next to me got soaked, though.

The play was awesome. It was just what you'd expect--Evil Dead, only a musical, and funny, and the guy playing Ash was good, and the crowd was awesome and went insane at every reference to the movies. I couldn't imagine a better time to see it. (Although I will be missing Bruce Campbell, because he's there tomorrow and I'm seeing Alice in Chains then.)

So I got home at 1:30am, and then had to come to work today. (And my boss called me at 8:30!!! WTF???) Because yesterday while I had the gall to be busy with jury duty, one of our sites got mentioned on Slashdot and the server slowed way down. Now I am trying to explain The Slashdot Effect to my boss so that I will not have to move all of our sites to some gigantic new server based on the remote possibility that we get mentioned on Slashdot again someday. *sigh*

On the plus side--a site I built got mentioned on Slashdot!

And tonight (and tomorrow) -- Alice in Chains! And let's just hope that I manage to stay awake and remain standing for it.

I am wearing my new favorite t-shirt today: babydoll size, full (and accurate) color, sun logo. I used to draw this thing in all of my school notebooks--Layne Staley designed it and it's on the inside of "Dirt"--so I am very happy that they finally made it into a tshirt that fits me.