So, I'm outta here in about an hour. Candice is picking me up in her band new car (courtesy of the parents, who just bought it for her as a surprise) and we're gonna drive all the way through Pennsylvania (Hell!) on our way to Northwest Ohio. We're gonna hang out with Andrea tonight and ride on down to St. Louis tomorrow. Then it's off to Nebraska, if you can believe it, before visiting my Aunt and Uncle outside of Denver. From there, we go to the New Mexico/Arizona border for the night and drive past the big old canyon to Los Angeles.



I am: happy, excited, nervous, anxious, sad.



Peace out, New Jersey.

Wow. I cannot believe it. Another singer dead because of a plane crash. This time it's 22-year-old Aaliyah. I've never been a huge fan, but I know her music pretty well and I just saw that MTV show "Diary" featuring her. Apparently, she was in the Bahamaqs filimg a music video. It's going to be extremeley cathartic and overwhelming to see that video get maximum airplay, which I'm sure it will, on MTV. 22 years old!

Have you ever burned your finger? I mean, really burned it. Like, with an iron, maybe? You know, maybe by mistakingly grabbing the tip of an iron with your finger? The kind of burn that cause an inch-long blister to form the next day?



Well, take it from me, it sucks.



The only remedy is going into NYC with friends for an enchanted evening of drinky drinks.

1. There's a really cathartic journal entry from yesterday.



2. Rolling Stone has the Britney Spears cover story online. I really love that they're putting audio clips of their interviews on the site - very voyeuristic.



3. I'm bouncing back east tomorrow and beginning the cross-country trip in about a week, so updates will be sporadic...unless I can figure out how to update via my Palm, in which case they will probably be very frequent. What else is there to do while driving through Route 80 in Pennsylvania?

I really like Michelle Branch, whose pop-rock song, "Anywhere But Here," has been in heavy roation on radio and MTV lately. She's got a great female rocker voice - sweet and pure but able to belt, sort of like the lead singer from Letters 2 Cleo. There are a couple of songs and videos on her site. Check them out.

You will have such an amazing time. As tough as the first year can be and as hard as it seems to leave home and friends, you will be astounded at how quickly and how deeply you fall into new friendships. Spending one semester living on the same floor as someone creates stronger bonds than spending four years in high school with a friend - it's incredible.

I caught the last few minutes of The Weakest Link. The last question, which cost one guy the money, was "The American tricentennial is *projected* for which year?"



His answer? 1897.



No wonder the prize the team earned was a lowly $27,000.

Monica Seles (6) def. Serena Williams (4), 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2)



Yay!



"Monica Seles fought off six match points to beat Serena Williams 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (2) in the estyle.com Classic quarterfinals Friday. Williams, the two-time defending champion ranked eighth in the world, saw her 12-match tournament winning streak end before a rowdy sellout crowd of 4,324 at Manhattan Country Club."

Serena Williams (4) is tied with Monica Seles (6), 2-6, 6-3, 6-6



That's the best and worst thing to see. On one hand, she's a game away from beating Serena for the first time, but on the other hand, she's also a few points away from losing a true heartbreaker.

When I first saw the trailor for "The Others," I thought it looked lame - like a cheesy British version of a movie we've seen 20 times during the past few horror flick-filled years. But the reviews are amazing and now I'm really anxious to see it. I like Nicole Kidman and, to be honest, all of the chaos surrounding her divorce is making me more sympathetic and, in turn, making me root for her.

Ugh.



Once you start, you can't stop. In the process of changing the rest of the pages over to this design...

Hmmm.

Well, now, as you can see, everything is all spiffy. I love this design. I took a jpeg Ben made and fiddled with the idea before figuring out how to make all of the elements in Photoshop. I put everything together in Dreamweaver - first time I'd used it - and I fucking love it. So fun.



I think I'll leave everything else, but some of the old sections are unlinked. RIP.

In case you bypass it, the splash/index page is new and, I think, spiffed up. But if your resolution is less than 1024 it will probably look insane.



I'll fix some other site-related things tomorrow...

I used to write a lot of vignettes or journal entries that were shrouded in anonymity. They were vague and, I thought, sort of poetic. But while all of the mystery and sweeping generalizations left me feeling satisfied, I doubt anyone else had much fun reading them. During the past few days I've (re)visited some websites that follow that formula - and they bore me to tears. It might be necessary to hide truths (which was the case, sometimes, in my entries), and that's understandable, but in a lot of situations, I think it's just a cheap ploy, a way to appear intelligent and artistic.



Does that make any sense? My point is, big words and intruiging statements do not quality writing.

Photos from around the house and from our impromptu picnic by the SF Bay in Richmond are here. Photos from L.A. should be up soon.

Monica Seles is heading into tomorrow's semifinal against either top-seeded Martina Hingis or Ai Sugiyama after defeating two impressive opponents. Seles, who has basically been out of commission since mid-Spring because of a foot injury, missed the French Open and WImbledon, but is playing top-notch tennis this week at the Acura Classic. She just defeated the hottest player on the tour, Jennifer Capriati, in 52 minutes. Yesterday, she beat Meghann Shaughnessy, who has come out of nowhere and reached the top 15. Hopefully, Seles can kick some ass tomorrow and increase her fitness (which is already better than it has been in recent years) during the final few weeks before the U.S. Open.

Repetitive... Every day, the weather forcast is exactly the same in the Bay Area:



"Morning fog and low clouds in most areas...clearing to near the ocean by midday. Otherwise sunny. Highs from around 60 at the ocean to the upper 70s inland."

"A 20-year-old house wife, Lami Gwarma'u has prayed a Sharia court in Gusau, the Zamfara capital to dissolve her marriage to save her from developing vesico-vaginal-fistula (VVF) and untimely death. Lami, who was testifying before the court at the weekend, claimed that her husband, Gwarma'u Chiwake possessed an over-sized genital that had not been able to penetrate her organ since they were married three months ago." |More|

So, now the news is that Mariah Carey has suffered an emotional breakdown. Do robots have emotions? I guess they do realize when they desperately need publicity to jumpstart upcoming album and movie sales, though.

The battle to tame the beast has begun.



Three years after my first attempt at learning to drive stick, I'm at it again. Since I won't be bringing my car to San Francisco and Ben's is manual, I have to learn this time. So, last night found me, mostly successfully, zooming around an IKEA parking lot (at breakneck speeds of up to 30 mph!). The security guards were ... intrigued. At one point, I pulled into a psuedo parking spot and waited for a man to come out of a nearby building because I was totally afraid of stalling in front of anyone. He asked if I was waiting for someone inside the building. "I'm learning to drive," I said. Needless to say, he sort he rolled his eyes and quickly walked away as Ben tried to save face by shouting, "Stick!"