The Sasquatch Journal

Whenever I shrug off the stereotypes of L.A. women as shallow, self-absorbed exhibitionists I meet someone like Mandy, a oversexed 28-year old single mother of three, who in a short 15 minute conversation while waiting to board our plane to Chicago on Monday, told me the following things without my prompting:
1. Her boobs (carefully placed so they would be peeking out of her shirt) were real.
2. Though she had three kids, she still had a hearty sex drive.
3. Lately she's been into being choked until she is near the point of unconsciousness during sex.
4. She's been thinking about joining the "Mile High Club" lately.
And that's not even mentioning the terrible Holocaust joke she told that Jacob (who is Jewish) heard while he sat on the floor next to me...oh, or that she spilled half of her Starbucks coffee on the floor, causing some to splash up on an old woman's leg. Miss Mandy neither apologized, nor cleaned it up. But hey, can a hot blonde chick who works in the movie industry (scouting locations at least, not acting) be expected to say "I'm sorry"? Not likely.

-The software company I'm temporarily working for is aesthetically interesting to say the least. It's in an aging blue collar neighborhood in Menands, New York, just outside of Albany. When we first drove up to this huge haunted looking brick warehouse, we wondered out loud if we were at the right place until we saw the sign. But it turns out, past the empty concrete corridors, Vicarious Visions transformed part of this circa-1940's Montgomery Wards into a hip, modern office building.

It's definately the coolest place I've ever worked from an architectural point of view. It's large, curved pillars incorporates scooped walls, warm colors, huge, airy rooms and it feels very comfortable. I wish more companies would take chances like VV has with investing in a smallish town and resisting the bandwagon movements to booming metropolises or the Silicon Valleys of the world.

-Hotel life has been relaxing, but exceedingly boring thus far. It's been a lot of watching one of three Showtime channels, reading Sherlock Holmes stories, eating bananas and Pop-Tarts (though not at the same time) and writing these thrilling blog entries. But the University of Albany, conveniantly located across the street, is cool to walk around in....The New York Giants is also holding training camp there, so I plan on possibly catching a practice sometime soon. Maybe I'll ask Eli Manning if he's worth keeping for my fantasy team.

Perhaps my most exciting adventure thus far involved getting attacked by a skunk. Well, sort of. While walking in the bushes late at night last night, I saw this weird darkish shape sniffing around in the grass. It took me a second to realize that it was a skunk. Seriously, I bet I've only seen a live skunk maybe once. It didn't look like too alarming of a creature, so I slowly slunk up to it while taking pictures with my little crappy cellphone camera. It seemed oblivious at first, but as I walked into the light, it made a quasi-hissing sound, arched it's back and thrust its bushy tail at me like a scorpion ready to sting. I was startled and amused at the same time. What could this harmless little skunk do to me besides get a little stinky? Well, it was about that time that the skunk charged me. Oh crap, I thought, as I took a few hasty steps back. The skunk really wasn't interested in a fight however, he just wanted to intimidate me.

Sufficiently intimidated, I walked back to my hotel to watch Better Off Dead on Showtime 3.