Monday, January 21, 2008

MLK Day, redux

Last year's MLK Day was a comedy of errors on my part. Little did I know it would become an annual tradition.

I met Omst and Neha in the afternoon at Ritual Roasters. Neha is starting grad school at MIT, and the two of them are flying to Boston tonight. Once again I found myself saying "I will miss you" and "Send photos" and "I hate change".

The outflux of my friends moving away is significantly higher than the influx of new friends. If this trend continues, in two years I will have no friends living in the same city as me.

Then I can start acquiring my 19 cats, or my 1 pig.

After departing the cafe, I was greeted with a parking ticket on my windshield. The meter had run out fifteen minutes prior, and the parking maid had already come and gone during those minutes.

I wrote a check for the ticket and ran out in the rain to drop off the wet envelope in a mailbox. I drove to my nail appointment, got the address wrong, and arrived late after walking four blocks in the rain. The salon cancelled my pedicure, but still gave me a manicure.

It was shortly after dusk, the hour of melancholy, and I sat in my car looking at the torrent through the streetlamp lights. I decided the solution to fix this day was to go to Sugar Cafe. Specifically, I would go eat their mini-burgers and write on my laptop.

When I arrived, the barista informed me the kitchen closed early.

"I still see plates of mini-burgers coming out of your kitchen!" I protested, to no avail.

I sat down next to Sugar's gas fireplace with my laptop, and pressed the un-hibernate. To my absolute horror, nothing happened. The screen stayed black. My laptop made no acknowledgement of my action.

This has never happened before. Did it rain on the laptop earlier? How much work was on it that was not backed up?

Fortunately, after I arrived at home and plugged it in, the laptop turned on.

There's a xkcd comic, where the protagonist says after six hours of fiddling with his computer, "I'll be happy if I can just get it back to the state it was in before I started."

That describes my day today.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it a thousandfold more hideous."
--H.P. Lovecraft

It's okay, Niniane. (pat pat)

Anonymous said...

it's actually quite reassuring to know that such things happen even to you - thanks for blogging!

Strider Aragorn said...

A lot of my friends have been having a miserable year so far, so I hope things change for everyones sake.

As for friends... I've been living in mountain view for around three weeks now and have... two friends here.

I'm still trying to figure out where everyone hangs out. Oh well, I'll always have castro street.

Anonymous said...

Is this how you celebrate MLK day? Shameful!

Anonymous said...

In the 1950's, a black reverend in an American South defined by institutionalized racism and the memory of slavery is inspired by the teachings of an Indian revolutionary leader. Adopting non-violent resistance techniques, he leads a series of protest actions that change not only the South, or the nation, but stand to this day as a shining example of the power of taking a principled stand for what you know is right, for change without destruction, for love and dedication and harmony.

He is later assassinated. Fifty years later, the man once monitored by the FBI as a dangerous radical is now the subject of a national holiday. The country and the world still struggle with racism, but have at least one memory that not everything we do ends in fruitless misery and that not every wrong is eternal.

Also, you got a parking ticket on your day off, and you were late for your spa treatment.

Is that about right?

N said...

Yeah, that's right.

Well put.

N said...

Also, you should not read this to mean that I don't respect MLK. After listening to a 6-CD collection of his greatest speeches in 2002, I have huge respect for his ability to create change.

The fact that my post is not a long diatribe about MLK's accomplishments does not indicate a lack of awe for the man.

Anonymous said...

The most surprising statement in your missive is that there was actually a meter maid working on a Federal Holiday. I am shocked, shocked to discover such ambition among the bureacratic ranks!! In truth, most meters in the Bay Area are exempt from parking citations on Sundays and Holidays; your meter probably even had something like that printed on it in small font under the bubble. Mailed your check in already? That maid deserves a raise.

You should have fought that one.

xerxes_blue

Anonymous said...

Did you know that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust? HOW DARE YOU WRITE CHEERFUL BLOGS YOU HORRIBLE IGNORANT SLATTERN!!

Anonymous said...

MLK like all men with power was cheating on his wife and banging hookers.

Same as Bill CLinton in Arkansas way before Monika Lewensky.

Are there truely and heros with a clean moral record?

Any?

Or all men pigs given the chance?

Can anybody name one? Just one?

jorrel said...

Here is a link to the comic mentioned.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but this post sounded so pretentious. "the hour of melancholy" - what the heck!

Anonymous said...

What a disgusting blog. Absolutely no respect to MLK.

Anonymous said...

Yes, quite digusting. Niniane have no respect for MLK at all. Does anyone really believe she listened to a 6-CD collection of MLK speeches?