I've been burgled!

I visited everyone's pal, Russell tonight. Russell lives 4 miles away. So I figure, I'll drive to his place. I haven't driven anywhere for at least a week, I've been walking (as I did to get food the day I helped someone cross the street!) or riding my bike [side note about the bike: I got a bike. I was thinking of being maxlike and hoping I wouldn't be lukelike with it.] The car was in disarray. At first, I chalked this up three ways: a) It's rarely kept neat and clean inside, b) I just moved, so there's likely to be junk not familiar as car-junk inside, and c) I haven't been in here in over a week. But this little ball of shrinkwrap plastic I intended for a Spider-Man-like webbing effect was on the floor. Not in the console where it lives. The passenger seat had wrappers on it for some McDonald's sandwiches, and an empty plastic cup. HEY!

In the back seat, containers were opened - a box of computer cables, a box of business cards. I got out and checked the trunk - the toolbox and grip kit were closest to the hatch, along with some clothes. Nothing seemed out of place.

I drove to Russell's, examining further at each stop light. The burglar was either not good at his job, or some combination of considerate and practical. Item Missing: Power Inverter. It plugs into a cigarette lighter and then I can plug in electrical items and run them off the car battery - often an ipod, but a surprising number of kinoflos can run on a little inverter like this - worth $20-30, and gone. But the ipod charging cable, which was plugged into it, was left behind. As were some cheapie speakers I got for on-set work, as was my first mobile phone, which was and is still clipped to the sun visor. All my CDs were still wherever I left them. Ah! The plastic cup! I got it on the set of Zombies Ate My Prom Date when I took home a dinner of jelly beans. It later contained about $4 in loose nickels and pennies from around the last apartment. The burglar took the coins but not the cup. I was worried he stole my little Garindan action figure, but it had merely fallen under the seat. He might have gotten a chip worth $5 at the Venetian in Los Vegas, or that fell on the floor too. He did not take the pirate hat and swords seen here, or the arm covers of our ex-couch, or any of a big stack of sharpies, or my compass.

By chance, I'd taken my digital camera (which was under the pirate hat!) out of the car to take pictures of the apartment and computer. By chance, my GPS receiver had been in the house. My insurance cards and registrations were all left alone. I would, however, have really liked to see the look on the face of the burglar who opened up my glove box looking for valuables and found...GLOVES! Three pairs of warm winter gloves! It's a glove box!

So I'm out a neat $25 item and a few bucks in loose coins. He didn't even touch the compartment where I keep coins (and in the current case, a few bucks of paper money!). Maybe the burglar got spooked by something and aborted the mission early - hence the trash and food wrappers left inside.

It just adds to the recent sense of fracture - moving apartments puts things in disarray and unfamiliarity - moving computers (which, as I'm wont to argue in I'm From The Internet, is the real home) is much the same or worse. I just wonder what else might have changed inside that I didn't notice yet. I'll have to go through the debris carefully, and maybe get the inside cleaned somewhere, since I'm taking it in for work soon anyway.

I think I probably lost more things that I'll miss with the recent dead hard drive, so with this I'm not so much angry as disappointed...but still...

edits: -the windows are fine. Must have had a slimjim or some such thing. -And, this took place in the garage of my building. I should've parked on one of these nice safe streets of hollywood you hear so much about in popular songs of the day. -Russell and his ex roommate both had their cars broken into while in a garage not far from here. At least we all get burgled by burglars with a sense of irony.

Once an Eagle, always an Eagle...

I actually, literally, helped a little old lady cross a street today.

Connect the following:

Part the First: There is a natural progression, described by a 'learning curve,' that leads through a state of Unskilled and Unaware, to conscious incompetence, to conscious competence, and ultimately to a state of unconscious competence. You could probably plot it out, next time you try to learn a new skill.

Part the Second:

I have a stock position on things like television shows, and maybe comic books. I say that I don't plan to watch Lost or Battlestar Galactica until they're done, and I can sit back with the whole DVD series, or possibly when it turns out they were in a giant snowglobe I'll just know it doesn't turn out in an interesting way and not bother.

Similarly, I like reading history, but can't really be bothered with news and politics. The very same ubiquitous news coverage that makes it possible for folks to become rapt with that stuff is the reason that it's all kept under tighter wraps than ever. You can't get a chat with the president these days simply by tagging along on his walk to the senate, and there's no hope of getting the real story on any current event.

So: not knowing whether there's going to be a worthwhile ending, I guess I'd rather just read up on the election later. That feels more honest than cribbing opinions from an SNL sketch.

What a letdown. Boo!

Today was a miserable day, but I don't feel miserable about it.

If you haven't anything nice to say....

Separate thoughts:

1. Some websites have a space for users to leave comments on content. This is almost never a genuinely useful feature. Some blogs, maybe your slashdots or your ars technicas, they can attempt to foster a discussion of some kind. This is their purpose, they take the good with the bad, for the sake of community. Your imdbs, your youtubes, those comment sections are part of What's Wrong With the Internet.

2. Websites that 'take over,' (whether it's by stealing focus, or sneaky pop up triggers, or playing audio unbidden, or redirecting users to a rick astley video) are also What’s Wrong With the Internet. These aren't sites with a well-meant feature gone bad (comments), they're aggressively taunting users, flicking their ears and stealing their erasers.

3. I've sometimes been good at getting people mad at me without trying. I think this is because I assume things will work out great. Sometimes this occurs while trying to make friends, in events that backfire in spectacular ways.

4. I listen to more podcasts than I can hope to keep up with, and starting in on new shows from the beginning of their run doesn't help the situation any. I've been burning through one in particular lately, maybe more because of how it sounds than what it says. I don't learn anything, I don't think about it, it's just background chatter.

SO:

Why on earth would I write a message to a stranger and include any kind of negative comments? About anything? What good could result? In what situation does that turn out well?

...and this isn't even the first time a radio host has told me not to listen to his show.