I will stop throwing my socks at the TV during Buy To Support America commercials just as soon as I see a few fucking Hire To Support America ones.

It wasn't easy, but I managed to squeeze a fourth day out of last week's job. They even went so far as to cut my paycheck on Thursday, assuming that I'd be done that day. The project was large enough that I'd have to have been working pretty continuously since I arrived to have finished it in three days, and obviously I hadn't been, so I wasn't being entirely shifty, just mostly; I couldn't tell whether there was any resentment or annoyance at my continued presence, but lack of sleep and an early-morning binge on the free soda gave my paranoia what it needed to turn the whole experience into yet another Vietnam. In any event, I was paid for it, so that was nice. And now I'm unemployed again.

Here is an observation: there are plenty of California-based venture capital firms in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Menlo Park, but after four days of research, I did not find a single one in Compton. Perhaps a major part of why they say pimping ain't easy is the simple fact that pimps do not have access to the startup cash they need to establish a solid economic foundation for their bidness.

If you happen to know any pimps, please ask them about that for me.

Having free time and a high-speed web connection at work, I put together an Amazon.com wish list. I've never really pimped my webpage like this before, but I've seen other webpages do it, and anyway I've only ever ordered an Orson Welles book and a Monkees DVD from Amazon and I was getting kind of tired of the bizarre recommendations their system was giving me. So, if you would like to send me prizes, you can just go there, and pick which one you think I should have, and click! It's never been easier. Fuckin' e-commerce. Stay off my lawn.

I have been meaning to pass this page along since it was sent to me a couple weeks ago by Arden, a correspondent in Urbana: an index of voice actors from The Transformers. I've found that sort of thing worthy of study ever since the earth-shattering day in high school when I discovered that Grandpa Huxtable from The Cosby Show did like half the voices on Thundercats. And once I realized the degree to which Casey Kasem had managed to infiltrate my pre-adolescent consciousness through his unholy pact with Hanna Barbera, I knew that vigilance must be kept.

So, George Harrison died. I'm not even going to try to articulate what the Beatles mean to me, because, come on, it's just a webpage. But I'm still fairly miserable about it. George wrote "Something", which is what I've always thought love wound sound like if I ever fell in love, and I heard a drunk man doing a sentimental karaoke version on Saturday night, which didn't bother me at all; George also wrote the All Things Must Pass album, which is fucking magnificent, and that was played during intermissions at the ImprovOlympic, which was a nice touch. It's odd, the things that make you feel your age: not birthdays, not graduations or jobs or owning things, but unscheduled events over which you have no control, like hearing about an old friend's wedding through the grapevine, or the passing of a Beatle. In a small sense, every Beatle fan is now a relic from a bygone era when there were three of them. I feel older, and I miss knowing that George Harrison was out there. But, as I understood it, the message was always to mourn briefly and live deeply...