How To Save $100k On Business School Tuition

Last week, I was pleased to begin a public speaking course (of sorts) with MBA students from the Marshall School of Business at USC. My curriculum would not be unusual at all were it not for the fact that I am not, nor have I ever, been an enrolled student at the Marshall School of Business.

I receive a lot of strange looks, as well as the oft-asked question, "Are you a first year?" My joke is, "Hey guys! I'm getting all of the networking without paying any of the tuition!" That one goes over really well, let me tell you.

Four times a month, we meet in an elaborate circular classroom that evokes the notorious Star Chamber of British criminal justice history. It's a room more suited to the wearing of robes and powdered wigs than khakis and loafers. The atmosphere is quite casual, and many people bring lunch into the room; the b-school kids are a genial crowd, if a bit vague about their actual career aspirations (beyond making a lot of money).

We go around the room and volunteer to deliver a spontaneous two-minute speech on a topic drawn from a hat. The room appoints four judges. The first two judges are the official timer and the grammarian. Then there's an "um, like, you know" counter, whose job is to count your verbal time-fillers. And finally, a judge known as "the posture police", whose task is to critique your physical mannerisms.

I've only been to two sessions, and I have not volunteered yet. Even in a relatively safe environment as a b-school classroom, the pressure of speaking before a crowd of relative strangers is palpable. But even as a mere spectator, I've already learned quite a bit about public speaking:

1) There is no such thing as speaking too slowly. No. Seriously. It's. Totally. True.

2) The actual content of your speech is completely insignificant. The smoothness of your delivery is everything. Even if you have absolutely nothing to say, if you are able to say it without awkwardness, you have won. Congratulations. You are now ready for a career in politics.

3) The ability to transition from one point to another is the layup of public speaking. You might also call this ability "improvisation". If you can master it, you've got public speaking licked.

4) The crowd wants you to succeed. They're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt a thousand times over, because they all know how hard it is. So relax.

5) Stop doing that annoying thing with your body already. It's a defense mechanism you're using to protect yourself from the crowd. See point #4. (And now we see the cross-disciplinary benefits of yoga, which trains one to confront all situations with a body balanced and at peace. It's all coming together.)

Fiscal Report: October 2006

As promised, here comes the red ink. Last month, I issued guidance that the era of large budget surpluses was coming to an end, and identified increased leisure spending as the would-be culprit. I was only half-correct.

I was utterly stumped by the depletion of my food budget this month, as I hadn't dined at any particularly fancy establishments. And then I realized that I spent the majority of October trying to fell my research stack, chopping away at the piles of books and dvds about lobsters and butterflies that sit on my desk. Due to my intense focus on research, I opted for take-out instead of cooking more often than not, and the expenses added up. Take-out, I've decided, is for chumps. It's much better to cook cheaply for yourself and occasionally splurge on the good restaurant, than to order mediocre take-out often. As my budget will attest, the two cost roughly the same.

But take-out did save me time, and as should become increasingly apparent over the next few months, the time constraints upon A Very Big If are only increasing in number. More on that in a bit.

Additionally, a large sum was spent on the Household Improvement Initiative, which I'm pleased to report, is a success. Although my apartment will never aspire to any status greater than Late 90's Dorm Room, the interior of my freezer compartment is immaculate, and no longer a exhibit of natural history.

UNDER BUDGET SPENDING CATEGORIES

Entertainment: 114.57
Dining Out: 5.51

Total: $120.08 under budget

Tonal Shift

I'm headed into a period of time where the number of things I must accomplish and the amount of time I have to accomplish them are not commensurate. There's been a definite shift in tone for my grand adventure; whereas the early, salad days of the endeavor had the promise of an eternal spring break, we're now settling into a definite back-to-school rush. Some brief updates:

• Outlining my new writing project (Lobsters vs. Butterflies). It's coming along slowly but surely; a little too slowly, for my tastes. I've been plowing through every movie that is remotely related to the project, and the Los Angeles Public Library is dutifully delivering new research materials to my local branch on a weekly basis.


• Serving as a frequent demontration model in yoga class. For some reason, I am called to serve ever more frequently by my instructor; this would not be so worrisome were it not for the fact that she often calls upon me to demonstrate poses I've never done before. I know I'm getting good at this because the adjustments my instructors are making to my stance are becoming downright nitpicky - we're talking millimeters here.


• Upgrading to the six-out-at-a-time on Netflix. Between the daily red envelopes in my mailbox and the yoga classes, it's hard to declare a bigger indulgence. The problem I had with the four-out plan was that I was watching movies faster than Netflix could send them to me. I have at least twenty more movies to watch in the name of researching LvB, so I consider this a temporary upgrade.


• Optimizing my daily schedule. Back in the salad days of my tenure on Pillow Crisis, I engaged in ad hoc scheduling of my day. It worked back then, but without a writing partner cracking the whip, productivity and focus have flagged a bit. I have at least one post coming up about schedule optimization for the self-employed.


• Cleaning the apartment AGAIN. This is really a process that never ends, but I need to reach and maintain a certain threshold of cleanliness within the next two weeks. My roommate is off on a jaunt to Taiwan and Thailand, which provides me with a slight advantage: whatever I can clean, will stay clean. (For now.) I am devoting an hour each day to housekeeping, because that's the only way my humble adobe will ever be presentable.


• Thinking quite a bit about travel. After all, the blog's description mentions travel as a unique selling point, and to date I've only visited cities on the North American contienent, none of which have been new destinations for me. I've been thinking a great deal about Italy lately; I'd like to see Florence and Venice (before it goes under).

Jury Duty: Day Seven - The Verdict

The pulse races when you read a guilty verdict to a defendant. You are very much aware that you are defining a significant portion of a life's trajectory. And the court reminds you of this act, by asking each juror to verbally confirm the verdict.

Last Friday, I voted guilty to convict a defendant accused of two counts: driving under the influence, and driving with a blood alcohol level of .08% or above. Until I voted guilty, the jury was hung, with myself voting against the rest.

I wasn't convinced that the prosecution's case was strong enough, as the field sobriety tests were inconclusive, the field breathalyzer was unreliable, and the defendant's reading at the station breathalyzer was well within the stated margin of error.

What changed my mind was actually looking at the prosecution's exhibits. Buried within a stack of papers were the calibration records for both the field and station breathalyzers. Looking at the numbers yielded some telling findings. First of all, the field brethalyzer's deviation from normal was about .013 grams per 1000ml - for the sake of discussion, we could suppose that the unit was overstating the defendant's blood alcohol content by .013 on a reading of .099. Which places the defendant well above legal limit.

But what if you throw out the field breathalyzer (as you should, since the unit died with two weeks of the field test)? Well, it turns out that the prosecution wildly overstated the margin of error for the station breathalyzer, much to the detriment of its case. The prosecution stated that the margin of error for the station breathalyzer was + or - .01. But a quick perusal of the station's calibration logs reveals that the machine never deviated from a test sample by more than .001. In other words, the machine was a whole order of magnitude more accurate than the prosecution claimed. The defendant's reading of .08 was almost certainly a .08.

The practically infallible accuracy of the station breathalyer established (for myself) the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So I changed my vote. And we ended jury deliberations after an hour.

We almost made minimum wage that day.

Jury Duty: Day Six - Deliberations

After a couple short days of testimony, today we had our first day of actual deliberation. I'm playing the contrarian, cracking a lot of jokes, and annoying the FUCK out of some of my fellow jurors, many of whom just want to go home. They have full-time jobs, after all. Guess what? I don't. So let's deliberate, motherfuckers!

The justice system in the United States appears to be quite wobbly, but still servicable. Generally speaking, I'm apalled by widespread lack of understanding of "presumption of innocence", as well as "margin of error". But on the other hand, I'm encouraged by the feeling that most people seem to want to do the right thing, if given a proper chance. And enough cookies.

As with our surfeit of sugary confections, there is no shortage of distractions in the jury room. Today, we discussed a wide range of topics, ranging from Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys to stoplight avoidance strategies. And one of my fellow (and older) jurors had the gall to hit on me while we were in the jury room. And this is not some ambiguous flirtiness I'm citing to boost my ego - we're talking full-on forearm touching, which in my experience, is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Ladies, please - I'm trying to administer some justice here.

Fiscal Report: August & September 2006

I'd like to issue some forward guidance, and warn our investors that this month most likely marks the end of large budget surpluses. We foresee substantial increases in leisure spending across the board, and the increases are, at this time, not within our capacity for projection. However, it is a testament to our sound financial planning that a large percentage of surpluses was earmarked for a budget category named "Utter Frivolity", an as-yet untapped source of supplemental leisure funds.


UNDER BUDGET SPENDING CATEGORIES: AUGUST

Groceries: $98.79
Dining Out: $79.25
Auto Fuel: $42.91
Unallocated: $157.89

Total: $378.84 under budget


UNDER BUDGET SPENDING CATEGORIES: SEPTEMBER

Groceries: $119.10
Dining Out: $40.05
Entertainment: $81.94
Auto Fuel: $97.91
Unallocated: $155.91

Total: $494.91 under budget

Jury Duty: Day Three

This was quite possibly the most difficult day of service. I spent all six hours listening to testimony, some of it impossibly dull. My rate of yawns per hour skyrocketed, despite some truly catty performances from the trial lawyers.

Something that bothers me about the legal process: the judge neither specifies nor defines the law that applies to the case before the trial. Instead, this absolutely crucial information is not disseminated until all the evidence has been presented, a sequence of events that seems quite backwards to me. Sitting on a jury is an evaluative process, and to begin the process without all the necessary information feels like a deeply flawed approach. However, not knowing the exact criteria by which I will decide the defendant's innocence encourages me to take really good notes. Which may be the point.

Jury Duty: Day Two

Well, I'm on the jury. I have a feeling I should have kept my mouth shut and been more inscrutable, as that strategy seems to have been effective for a fellow Asian-American juror candidate who was excused.

The trial should last until Wednesday. I get $15 a day, and a free weely Metro pass. I also get Monday off, so I can at least make an appearance at the Center for Hot Moms during my tour of duty.

I'm not allowed to discuss the case, but I'm finding the experience at least somewhat interesting, as I'm interacting with people I wouldn't normally encounter during the course of my day. Not only that, but I get to hear some deep and dark secrets from total strangers. And trial itself, despite being a lowly misdemeanor trial, has no shortage of theatrics from the players involved.

Jury Duty: Day One

The great irony is that when I was punching a clock, I couldn't get on a jury to save my life. But as soon as I quit my day job, the justice system issues a summons.

I spent most of today reading in the juror lounge in the Washington Blvd. courthouse, a masterpiece of 70s Brutalist architecture with space-age lighting fixtures and oak-veneer walls. My fellow juror candidates represent a fairly accurate cross-section of Los Angeles - it's like the cast of Crash up in there.

"Is there an elderly black woman?" asks my roommate. "Yup." "Gotta have the elderly black woman."

We were this close to escaping the courthouse without being called to a courtroom, when a judge summoned us at 2:30. We spent the next two hours receiving lectures about the criminal justice system and answering jury selection questions from the judge and lawyers. I'll be back tomorrow, to find out if I'm actually selected as a juror. There are 24 candidates, so my odds are even.

I'd much rather be in yoga class.

The Arrival of Autumn

Something my yoga instructor reminded me of today is that last Saturday marked the beginning of fall, and the end of summer.

I'm inclined to pick fall as my favorite season - a preference I elegized in one of my scripts - despite growing up in a place in which the leaves don't turn. My wardrobe is heavily tilted towards cooler weather, I don't have to be so obsessive about wearing sunblock, I can stock up on school supplies, and the tone of the days turns a bit more serious.

I don't really think it's a coincidence that I happen to be starting a new writing project and performing website maintenance at this time. And now that I think about it, every infatuation and/or relationship I can remember began in autumn. There's clearly some sort of internal Aztec calendar at work here, demanding the modern equivalent of fresh human sacrifices at the appropriate solar-mandated moment.


Tetris at the Hollywood Bowl.

I forgot to post details about the Video Games Live concert. Essentially, if you have to ask what this is, you're probably not going to be interested. The VGL concert consists of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra covering video game music from the seventies to the present day. The quality of the show was acutally a bit lacking - the sound engineering was problematic, and some repertoire selections were questionable. But the show began on a stroke of brilliance: the orchestra performed a stirring rendition of the score from Pong. Which, as you may or may not know, consists entirely of two notes, repeated over and over again, as the pixel bounces between the paddles and the walls.

The best part of the show is merely sitting at the Bowl and chilling. The actual music on offer is kind of irrelevant, really. And with ticket prices for VGL starting at $3, you can be sure I'll be back next year.

"Site Maintenance"

As you know, we here at A Very Big If are committed to providing you with the best possible blog-reading experience. As part of that commitment, we recently performed some "site maintenance". Unfortunately, as part of this "site maintenance", certain content went offline, including some reader comments. We sincerely regret the disappearance of the content. Thank you for your attention and understanding.

The $1400 Apartment

This is the view from my brother's new apartment: a two bedroom-two bath affair located near the University of Texas at Austin campus. The building was brand new, and in fact, had not actually been completed when we arrived. The asking price? Fourteen hundred dollars a month.

For comparison's sake, one of my friends recently moved into a studio apartment in a very nice area of Los Angeles. A studio. As in no second bedroom, no full-size kitchen, no second bathroom, and no separate living room. The asking price? Fourteen hundred dollars a month.

Let's take a closer look at Jon's apartment:


Hey kids! Can you spot the three things in this photo that don't belong in a Los Angeles apartment? 1) The laundry machine. 2) The free fridge. 3) The wine rack.



The living room, with the kitchen in the background.


The kitchen. Note the marble counters and the modern appliances.


The living room. Note the polished concrete floor.


The shelves in the living room, and the door to Jon's bedroom.


Jon's bedroom. Sup ladies.


One of the two bathrooms.

The Hollywood Tooth

I was at the endodontist's office to check the status of a tooth that the doctor had repaired about nine months ago. It's impossible to evaluate the tooth visually, as the problematic area is inside the bones of my mouth; I don't have any symptoms, either, so an x-ray is necessary. So the doctor took an x-ray of my tooth, told me nothing had changed, and asked me to return in a year. She told me we won't know for a full year whether the tooth is healing properly - that's how slowly a tooth heals. So even if I were able to see the affected area (which I can't), I would still be unable to see any progress due to the glacial rate of change. And the first thing that popped into my head was: this tooth is an excellent allegory for Hollywood.

Pillow Crisis is on hiatus. We sent the treatment off to our contacts a few weeks ago, and proceeded to hear absolutely nothing from them. A week passed. Then another. Then another. Huili went through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I leveled up my characters in Final Fantasy Tactics. Another week passed. Finally, we decided to reinitiate contact: even if our contacts hated the thing, it would still be valuable to get the studio notes for use as a calibration tool.

Out contacts returned the message. They were really busy, and still hadn't read the entire treatment. However, they liked what they read a lot. I'm inclined to believe in the sincerity of the liking, but sincere liking is not exactly a primal motivation in this industry.

So we continue to wait. My career, like those of many others, is an extremely stable mixture of waiting and non-committal liking which may or may not precipitate into action.

In the meantime, I'm on to my next writing project: Lobsters vs. Butterflies. My intention is to finish this script within six months, which is an utterly laughable ambition, given my project history. But LvB has a simplicity and an energy that my other projects lacked, and I have a pretty good feeling that nine months is wholly doable. This was supposed to be my "easy" project, but if there's one thing I've learned from myself and other artists, it's this: there is never any such thing as an easy project. There will always be unforeseen difficulties. Already, LvB is requiring more research than I had anticipated, which implies a graduate student-like existence for myself. Admittedly, my graduate school is located in California and has very low graduation requirements, but still.

Rise From Your Grave

So I'm back from Dallas. One thing I've noticed about trips home is that time seems to pass more slowly when I'm there. I suspect this temporal phenomenon has much to do with the utter lack of responsibility I have to shoulder. Someone else cleans up, someone else does the groceries, someone else gets the mail.

My visit to Dallas seemed to be some sort of Zen koan revolving around the utter futility of making plans. My trip was originally scheduled to last only a week; just long enough to visit my parents and help my brother move into a new apartment in Austin. And then a ridiculous chain of events began to unfurl, straight out of the first act of a Hollywood road movie.

My youngest brother's apartment wasn't finished. So I spent a week longer in Austin, surviving off of microwaved fried chicken and biscuits, as the tardy contractors rushed to finish the project. We spent much of our time hanging out in a temporary condo, surrounded by unassembled, boxed Ikea furniture as we competed for high score in Metroid Prime Pinball. I also ate Thai fajitas while watching the sun set over Lake Travis, hung out in UT Austin's library, pondered the fashion choices of Austin coeds (they all dress like desperate housewives), and got to know my brother's girlfriend's pets: 2 cockatiels, a dog, and a hamster. For sheer comedic value, there is nothing quite like the sight of a dog playing with a hamster. If I ever wanted to know how a hamster expressed the notion, "WTF?!", that curiosity has been satisfied.

(One thing I can recommend in Austin is the bookstore Book People - it's easily one of my top five book shops of all time. You know how Barnes and Noble has little handwritten recommendation cards for about twenty volumes in the store? In Book People, every other book has a card like that.)

On our last day in Austin, my mom arrived to help us move into the new apartment. The three of us, along with Jon's roommate, set up an efficient assembly line, in accordance with the principle of division of labor developed by American industrial tycoon Eli Whitney. Together, we assembled a bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room's worth of furniture, all in about eight hours. This might very well be a record of some kind.

Then, as my mom and I drove back from Austin. We encountered a classic Texas thunderstorm. The kind of storm that may or may not erupt into a fullblown tornado. Visibility diminished to about a ten foot radius, allowing me to just barely make out the tail lights of the car before me and the headlights of the car behind. Lightning strikes were followed almost immediately by thunder, suggesting an extremely proximal storm center. The rain hammering on the car's roof was deafening. Simultaneously, all traffic on the interstate slowed to the pace of a funeral procession, as everyone switched on their hazard blinkers and their headlights. As we crawled beneath a massive, elaborate highway interchange, I saw torrents of water spouting off the freeways, incongruously reminiscent of tropical waterfalls. I pulled off the freeway, and we waited for about half an hour for the storm to wither. My mom, having glimpsed the Nintendo DS Lite, decided to play some Zoo Keeper, and I read a Scandinavian novel. In over a decade of driving, this was the very first time I've ever had to stop the car because of the weather. For some reason, it had been decided that I was to leave Austin as slowly as possible.

Then my mother decided to have back surgery. She's doing quite well, and the hospital discharged her early. I spent about a week in the hospital as she recuperated, eating surprisingly decent hospital cafeteria food and plowing through more of the Scandinavian novel. Meanwhile, my middle brother developed some strange ear malady. His earlobe swelled to the size of a walnut, and doctors were unable to ascertain the cause of the condition, and just preemptively decided to cut the ear open. So I spent a lot of time with my family, cleaned out much of my parents' garage, did some gardening, discovered a long lost cache of old video games, reached the halfway mark in Final Fantasy Tactics, and most importantly, began the outlining for my next story (more on this in a bit). Lobsters and butterflies have never been more exciting.

A pretty good vacation (from my preexisting vacation), all in all.

And now it's over. There's a been a sudden shift in the tone of my life upon my return; more urgency, more nervousness. Pillow Crisis is on hiatus (more on this in a bit), I'm beginning a brand new writing project, and I am opening serious and formal inquiries into recent individuals and events that have given me pause. It's an exciting time.

Once Again

Due to some unforseen circumstances, I find myself in Dallas AGAIN, and my departure date is indefinite. The timing is a bit inopportune, because my life was in the process of unraveling some pretty exciting plot threads, which will now hang for a few weeks while I enjoy 100 degree weather daily.

I came prepared, though, possessing the foresight to slip a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics, all my Netflix DVDs, and a few books into my suitcase. That should tide me over until the next Ice Age.

I didn't think my life could get any more mellow and relaxed, and yet here are some of the things I've been up to: leveling up my characters in FFT, dispensing ant poison, selling my college textbooks (for $65!), watering plants, buying cashmere sweaters, hanging out at Costco, donating old things to Goodwill. I also found this photograph, and thank goodness the developer timestamped it, because there was actually some confusion as to who (among myself and my brothers) is posing.

Some updates:

The Pillow Crisis is a day or two away from completion. Our project management software indicates that this milestone is over 90 days late. What can I say? The job was harder than we thought. But the story is in quite good shape, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the studios make of it.

A couple days before I left Los Angeles, I had the unique experience of pulling out of my garage, and swerving to avoid A HORSE. Some cowboy had pulled up his trailer, and let a white pony prance about in the street. Despite the fact that it was late in the evening, the dude was absolutely mobbed with young children, stengthening the case for ponies (over candy and trips to Disneyland) as the ultimate pedo bait.



The Los Angeles Metro has recently unveiled a new service for air travelers. The Flyaway bus provides nonstop, 24 hour service every half hour between downtown's Union Station and LAX, which allows me to hop on the subway and be at the airport in less than an hour. All for the mere pittance of $3, which is an astronomical savings over Supershuttle's asking price of $22. As if I needed any more excuse to visit Union Station, one of the most picturesque locations in all of Los Angeles. I was talking to a girl on the ride over, and she told me that the shuttle also provides service from LAX to Union Station. I said to her: "I think this bus is my NEW BEST FRIEND."

Fall is on its way, and that means it's time to rock some layers. I was in the store looking at sweaters, and noticed the last cardigan in my size was displayed on a mannequin. So I asked a sales clerk if I could try it on, my curiosity piqued by the issue of removing the garment from the display. The salesperson walked up to the mannequin, grabbed its arms, and with a kung-fu-like motion, dislocated both shoulders, peeled off the sweater, and handed it to me. It was a very sudden and surprising act of violence, one you wouldn't expect fo witness while shopping.

My favorite book store in Dallas is Half Price Books, which unfortunately does not have any branches in southern California. A couple reasons why I love this place:

• 1) They pay cash on the barrelhead for old books with the speed and justice of Amoeba Records.
  
  
• 2) I found a beautiful first edition copy of one of my favorite novels: Haruki Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicles. It was sitting on the shelf with a sticker price of $10. I've been looking for this book for ages, and let me tell you something: you simply don't find this book for less than $100, and the prices go as high as $1500 for a signed copy.
  
  
• 3) As I was paying my purchases, I noticed that the sales clerk was wearing a very unusual necklace. Oh wait - it wasn't a necklace; it was a Konoha forehead protector from the Hidden Leaf Village. Now that I'm into Naruto, I can't get away from Naruto. So me and the clerk talked about the Nine-Tail Fox, and she's clearly a bigger fan than myself, because she's seen more episodes than me, and downloaded them all over DIAL-UP.

August Third

David writes:

Happy Birthday, you old motherfucker! I don't know exactly how old you are now, but it's aged. Congratulations on living so long!

Regards, Dave

Fiscal Report: July 2006

Well, somehow I ended up spending a lot more this month and I'm not sure how. I think it's a combination of buying more food, yoga, and going to Comic-con. This is my smallest surplus yet.

UNDER BUDGET SPENDING CATEGORIES

Unallocated: $186.89
Dining Out: $24.63
Entertainment: 8.71

Total: $220.23 under budget

San Diego Comic-Con

This is the view from the Pacific Surfliner Train as you roll to and from San Diego.

Downtown San Diego is what happens when you leave the Crate& Barrel in charge of urban planning. It's filled with restaurants and nightclubs that are so tastefully decorated, you want to kill yourself out of the boredom. Two pretty good restaurants to check out: Ch1ve, a restaurant so pretentious it uses numbers as surrogates for vowels (I didn't just have fries, I had spicy feta cheese shoestring fries), and Rama, a Thai place with excellent decor and decent food.

I found San Diego's pedicab subculture fascinating. It's something I haven't noticed in any other American city: immigrants from some indeterminate Central/Eastern European nation (they always have thick accents) pedaling bicycle taxis through the streets of San Diego for exoribtant prices.
You even have female pedicab drives, which is pretty amazing and unexpected in and of itself.

The best days to go to Comic Con are Wednesday and Thursday. By the time the convention hits Friday, pedestrian traffic inside the convention center resembles a pedestrian version of the 405 freeway. It took me about ten minutes to walk from one end of the floor to the other on Friday, which was compounded by the definite, inescapable man-stench about the event.

The show floor is a melting pot of corporate commerce, indie artists, vintage pornography, and obsessive nerdery. It's a much more overwhelming experience to sensory faculties than even E3, which is simply a collection of large media conglomerates showing off their home stereo systems.

I attended a panel on Star Trek, in which an eleven-year-old boy asked the show's creators about slight differences in the visual effects of phasers in two different episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. Star Trek fans never disappoint.

For research, I saw the pilot of the new NBC series "Heroes". It was solidly mediocre, although the Japanese otaku-telekinetic has some funny moments.

It's definitely worth your time to walk through the rows of indie artists who have set up shop on the convention floor. You'll most likely discover something you like - I picked up quite a few indie comics at the show, and while they're not completely successful, they all contain at least a few interesting ideas.

Somehow, American culture has meandered from the Great American Novel to the Great American Screenplay, and now, to the Great American Comic Book. I spend plenty of time reading novels, watching movies, and I am impressed by the surplus of young comic book writers who have interesting ideas, and actual stories to include them in. It's a medium that isn't drowning in its own orthodoxy and pretentions, and allows young writers to grow and develop their talents. I don't think I've ever read anything by Brian K. Vaughn that actually works as a story, but I don't know if I'll be saying the same thing five years from now.

Surprisingly, the most popular cosplay character isn't any Marvel or DC superhero, but rather various characters from a certain hidden village in the country of fire. Naruto is such a juggernaut that he singlehandedly takes up an eighth of the convention center floor. Judging from the massive array of Naruto merchandise on offer in its booth, the Mattel corporation owes its current solvency to Mr. Uzumaki, it seems. Anime chicks love wearing the Konoha forehead protector in the style of Sakura. Surprisingly, nobody dresses up as Naruto himself, probably owing to the extremely loud orange jumpsuit that he is always attired in.

Barbeque in South Central Los Angeles

One of the nice things about not doing the job thing is that you get invited to more social gatherings. The surge of invitations is due mostly to the brazen assumption that you are always available.

And guess what? You are. I've gone to more parties in the past three months than in the entire year preceding them.

Tonight I found myself gnawing at a pile of baby back ribs in the parking lot of Phillip's BBQ in south central Los Angeles, as a group of folks gathered underneath the tailgate of someone's Mercedes SUV.

Phillip's BBQ is such an exceptional (for LA) joint that they can completely omit any seating space - the restaurant consists of two windows: ordering and pick up. There's a sign next to the ordering window that reads: "Yes, the hot sauce is really hot." You can get the obligatory ribs and pulled pork with said hot sauce, or opt for a mild one or a mixture. And they have an intriguing array of uniquely Southern desserts on offer as well, including 7up Cake and Sock It To Me Cake. You know the place is authentic when you can smell the place before you can see it - heck, you can even see the place before you can see it, due to the thick plumes of smoke rising from the smokestack.

In south central, everyone seems to know each other, or at least act as if they do. Everyone greets everyone else with a surprising degree of familiarity - the security guard for the parking lot, the homeless guy, the lady in line in front of us, the random customer pulling up in a Cadillac. Despite what you see on the evening news, it's a friendlier place than the rest of Los Angeles. At least in the vicinity of Phillip's, anyway.

Packing For San Diego

I am charging four peripherals at once: phone, camera, iPod, DS. There's something weird about that.

I'm headed for the world's largest comic book convention, Comic-Con. Having never been to one of these things before, I'm really not sure what to expect.

I'm particularly excited about taking the train back from San Diego to Union Station; I haven't done that since... a very long time ago. And Sea World is close to the hotel - so that's a definite possibility.

When I return, I should have at least a few photos, and a series of somewhat contemplative posts:

• Living in Los Angeles


• Writing the Hollywood Blockbuster


• A Recap of this Experiment in Living