This time tomorrow, I'll be in Los Angeles on the first leg of a two-leg trip. Sunday will be spent in Las Vegas while Monday will be the long trip home so that on Tuesday, I can work on the growing stack of papers on my desk. If you're going to be in these places over the weekend, hey, drop me a line and we'll go do something. Probably won't though...I'm almost booked for the weekend.

Now that I'm firmly planted at my job, some people wanted to know about the search that preceded it. Boy, in the three months of searching, it was filled with frustration, anxiety, and false hopes. Just when you feel desperate enough to go to the temp agency, another company calls for an interview only to reject you later. Officially, these companies gave me interviews for business/finance jobs only to brush me aside: Kaplan, Lockheed Martin (2), Quinstreet (2), some mortgage company I forgot the name of (definitely the worst interview of the bunch), National Semiconductor, the California Department of Labor, the Santa Clara County assessor's office, some car rental place, the Federal Reserve (2 phone interviews), and Payment Processing. And of course, countless more e-mails and phone calls. After all that, I was happy to land anywhere and coincidentally, it's down the street from Lockheed.

I'm still a little steamed that at the War of the Worlds screening, the guy who parked in front of me left it touching my car. The least he could do is back it out just a smidgen and create some space. At least he didn't make any dents. It's bad enough that there are already some chips from rocks on the road.

Haven't talked about the Orioles for a little while. A lot has happened, but most importantly, they've fallen behind the Red Sox for the AL East lead. Injuries have certainly taken their toll and the pitching inexperience is showing. But here comes word though that Jason Schmidt or A.J. Burnett may be coming their way. That will help tremendously on a staff with no true pitching ace. As much as you want Sidney Ponson to be that guy, that will never be the case and Ray Miller can only do so much. But the price for such help is pretty high. Julio should have been on his way out a long time ago so I don't mind losing him, but Cabrera and Penn are possibly on the block, which could be devastating since both have so much potential, especially Cabrera who just needs to develop some consistency.

Truthfully, I was supposed to write reviews for Batman Begins and Madagascar before War of the Worlds, but I've been putting it off. I'll write full-blown reviews after the trip (or possibly on the trip since I'm bringing the laptop) but to sum it up in a sentence, Batman Begins is great once you figure out what the heck is going on, which is about halfway through the film, and Madagascar is solid entertainment, but not destined for greatness the way Disney classics and Pixar animations are.