I haven't left the house this early in awhile. Today I get to start working in the SF office though, so no 2+ hours of commute! It's a cold and dreary day, but a good one.

Christmas evening was spent at a party at Nimby. Quite a few leftover christmas trees had been collected and were being burnt throughout the night. What better way to close out a christmas than friends, burning xmas trees, fire art, flamethrowers, spinning rope dart, and watching people do aerials. More pictures are on a flickr set. There are some great ones of me spinning rope dart on fire for the first time.

A selection of some of the fun found at Fort Something, one of the coolest houses in Oakland. Cats, movies, video games, mirrors, and more.

I finally got one. My roomba arrived today. Now that I have hardwood floors it's going to come in handy. It got it's first test run tonight. The results? One pissed off kitty, one eaten cable, and one kitty litter mat dragged across the kitchen. Oh and a cleaner floor. :) the thing is kind of funny to watch. It basically runs around bumping into things like some drunk kid. And when I see it getting "stuck" in the same area I want to jump up and rescue it. But like a responsible parent, I figure he'll learn eventually and enjoy my seat on the couch. Although I would like to see the AI that's going on inside as it runs around the room.

Now I just need to come up with a name for him. And I'm half tempted to put a webcam on him.

Enough waking up and feeling like crap. Besides, they don't seem to have my cigs of choice in San Francisco.

Of course, not even a week since I threw out the receipt and one of my 1gb flash drives breaks. Its still functional, just can't keep it handy on my keychain. Oh well, at least it happened in my pocket and I didn't lose it like the last one.

Three and a half hours, an oil change, smog check, license plate swap, written test, $300, and a lot of sitting around waiting, and I'm officially a California driver. Now I just get to wait several weeks for my real license to show up and get a parking permit and I should be done. If it wasn't for the long wait, the San Francisco DMV would have gotten two thumbs up. Everyone was nice and cheerful, even though it was a monday.

After a long afternoon of santas, zombies, rain, and then the nicest hot shower I've taken in awhile, I met up with Justin and Lucy at his place down the street. He welcomed me with a PBR and then it was off on the 22 to Bottom of the Hill where there was a punk show. Several Guinness later we found ourselves waiting forever for the 22 to show back up after unsuccesfully trying to ride Justin home. (We crashed spectacularly in the middle of the intersection). One of the photos is of Justin laying on the sidewalk waiting for the bus. He assured me this was not out of the ordinary, but Lucy demonstrated how easy it might be for someone to accidentally step on him. On the way home Lucy and I stopped for pizza at Mythic Pizza and somehow managed to consume it walking uphill back to Justin's place.

You haven't moved to San Francisco until you've been in a zombie mob attacking a large number of drunk santas. Quite the afternoon. The guy at the corner store didn't even miss a beat when I walked in looking like this either.

Saturday was spent running all over the city with some friends for what was called Flags Day. We hit Yerba Buena Gardens, Union Square, got kicked out of a hotel before we were even past the lobby, and headed over to Oakland to the castle where Nicole and Mella had prepared a pool full of jello as a surprise. It hadn't set yet, but it was ready in the morning for fun. I only managed to take two photos with the sidekick. The rest were with my digital camera and will be flickrd soon. The one is obviously of the pool full of jello. The other is of a group of kids playing with an interactive game. Kicking and stomping to play a video game. All in all a great day full of adventure around the city, spinning flags, and watching the crazy shopping public.