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The car relocation folks met me at the rental place at LAX bright and early this morning, and delivered my car to me, pretty much in exactly the same condition as the last time I saw it. Well, except for tooons of dirt and stuff it got going across the country. Must get car washed soon.

Giving up the rental meant giving up the GPS, so of course, I immediately got lost trying to go from LAX to work. I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of that until I get a hang of the geography. All worked out ok, though, I just kept driving…and driving…and driving until I found a familiar street name. I turned, and ten minutes later was back on familiar ground.

I should probably just spend some time this weekend roaming around LA - I did that when I was here on my house hunting trip, but I did it with the GPS. I don’t seem to pay too much attention to where I’m going when I’m using that - I don’t need to. But when I get lost, that’s when I REALLY learn my way around.

My car’s here, my stuff will be here Friday, and by Saturday, I’ll be fully moved in…a resident of Los Angeles.

It’s just so weird. I’m living in LA!

Sure enough - no movers.

I am back at my hotel, which, as nice as it is, I am starting to detest. But, I suppose this is all for the best (see, I’m looking for the bright side here…), the movers were going to try to get everything moved in and put together (and I have a lot of stuff to put together, including one huge wall-unit) in an hour. So not gonna happen.

My new move-in date is Friday, and they swear they’ll be there by 9am.

Another bright side - I get to watch the season finale of House tonight, which I would have missed in my apartment - I don’t get cable until Saturday.

Now to calm myself down, and just relax. Friday. I get to sleep in my own bed on Friday. And really, what’s three more days in the grand scheme of things?

Heard from someone else at the moving company (someone who works with the woman I’ve been talking to, still haven’t heard from an actual dispatcher), who told me that there were ‘issues’ with the other move going on today, and there was no way they were going to be here before 5. He asked for contact information at my complex, and was going to call them to see if he could arrange something.

That was 20 minutes ago. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad sign? At this point, part of me would like to just say forget it, I’ll reschedule for Friday and take the day off, but then again, I’ve been sitting on my kitchen counter (the only place I get wireless) for four hours now, took the afternoon off of work, and would like this to be done and over with.

So…still waiting…

…and I’m starting to get a horrible feeling that they’re not coming today. The moving coordinator person (or whatever I call her - she said ’she’s not a dispatcher’) said that the movers may get here sometime around 4:30…and I only have the elevator until 5. The movers are busy moving someone else right now, evidently.

Now, the main reason I’m really, really annoyed about this is because it was the MOVERS who insisted on moving me in today - I wanted to wait until later in the week so I could avoid taking time off from work immediately after a 3 day weekend. But they insisted on doing it today, and then they don’t show up?

I told her that the movers should leave where they are, come here, move me in, then go back to the other place, since the chances that the other place has policies like this one are pretty slim. I mean…I’m moving in to the largest apartment complex in the country. Beat that. But saying that only got me the “I’m not a dispatcher” line. I haven’t heard from the dispatcher, though - she’s my only connection to the movers.

So now I’m whiny and angry and tired (I didn’t sleep so hot last night…nerves, I’m sure) and really not looking forward to having to take more time off of work to do the move that I was supposed to do today. I also was REALLY looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, in my own apartment. Maybe actually cooking something, even. But it’s becoming more and more clear that I won’t be.

I guess I give the movers another half hour, then call the coordinator to officially call this off and reschedule. There isn’t a chance in hell they’ll be able to move me in less than two hours. Even if they have a ton of people doing the move, elevators don’t move that quickly (I’m on the 8th floor).

Bah. I’m annoyed. One good thing - the car moving people just called - they’re meeting me at the rental place at LAX tomorrow morning at 9:30. Not sure how long it’ll take me to get there at that time of day, but I suppose if I’m back at the hotel tonight I can always ask them. Prolly an hour or so, but I’m thrilled that they’re meeting me at the rental place, makes my life MUCH easier. And, of course, I’m very happy to be getting my car back.

Sooo, my next update will (unfortunately) most likely be from the hotel later tonight, although I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the movers will magically appear within the next 20 minutes. Life’s all about wishful thinking, right?

Here I am in my empty apartment, listening to everything echo (including the sound of me typing) and waiting for my movers to show up. I’m trying not to get nervous - I have the elevator booked between 1 and 5 (it’s 1 now) and I haven’t heard from them since last Friday when we arranged all of this.

And obviously I’m online, using a network called “default” that I’m hoping is my complex’s wireless. It’s a really nice, really fast connection, so…maybe? I HATE hijacking other people’s wireless connections, and certainly see a lot of other open networks, but “default” just sounds like a stupid name that a public connection would have….right?

But all’s good, or will be - I’d forgotten exactly how big and bright this apartment was until I came by yesterday - I really do love it. Very much feeling the love for my apartment (and for the adium duckie bouncing up and down…so cute). Also feeling the love for the hot boys I keep spotting here, including one absolutely drop dead gorgeous (and very nice) guy on my floor. Not my type, but still, I can recognize gorgeous when I see it, and I have more than a few friends (male and female) who would die if they saw this guy. Eyecandy in the building is always nice, though, no complaints about that.

Assuming my movers ever show up (calm down, calm down), by 5pm I’ll be all moved in. Tomorrow, at some point, I get my car, and then I’m all set….I’ll really be living here in LA.

It’s weird, of all the places in the world, I NEVER thought I’d end up here. In fact, I used to swear that I wouldn’t - I think “anywhere but Los Angeles” was a regular phrase of mine. Of course, I also swore that I’d never leave New York, and look at how much I’ve stuck to that. Northern California, Northern Virginia, and now Los Angeles. I guess it just goes to show that you never really know what hand you’re gonna be dealt in life. You can do what you can to move things in one way or another, but I truly believe in fate…and fate brought me here.

Who knows what will come after this - that’s thinking too far ahead for me. This was unexpected, Virginia was unexpected, Northern Cali was unbelievably unexpected….whatever happens next will happen. For now, I’m here, and not really looking past this. I have a job to do, and a new city to explore, and I will enjoy myself doing both.

I haven’t used a Mac for any extended period of time since, hrm, the Apple IIc days, so getting used to this is really, really funny. I’m having very basic problems - like what on earth is “unmounting” a program (sounds very kinky), how do I copy and paste, and what do I do when I can’t right click?

I keep doing random things by accident, like accidently ejecting disks, sending e-mail, opening widgets, closing programs….I totally feel like a newbie with this thing. At least Firefox is still firefox, iTunes is still iTunes, and so on - the buttons may be different, but the basic functionality is the same.

A lot of mac programs are just so cute and pretty. Adium’s adorable (the duckie with the “away” sign makes me giggle constantly). Expose’ is just awesome. Even the new LJ client I got is prettier than Semagic (which I loved), it’s weird what a difference subtle colors and rounded corners make. I’m not sure how much I need my computer to be pretty, but I do understand the appeal. I have yet to install Office, but I’m very curious to see what that ends up looking like on here.

I’m still working on downloading the holy motherload of software updates the computer needs (well, and some season finale’s of tv shows that I missed. The important stuff, ya know.). I move in to my apartment tomorrow, and don’t have internet access set up there yet - Covad hit some problems trying to find room for a new line. I know I’m in a large complex (11,000 or so ppl), but still…it’s taken them three weeks now to find room for a line? I will be very annoyed if they can’t do it and I have to use Time Warner after all. No offense intended to my former employer at all - I’ve actually heard good things about Time Warner’s internet from folks at work - I just loooove Speakeasy. Hopefully I’ll be up and running fairly soon. My complex does have wireless running around the entire place, but I don’t know how good it is, or if I can access it from my apartment…I kinda doubt it. Who knows, I may be posting and downloading from the pool area in another day or two so I can get online. I know, sucks to be me…
Okie, off to the new apartment to drop off some stuff, check my mail and get ready to move in tomorrow!

MySpace vs. Facebook: It’s not a Decision, it’s an IQ Test.”

Overly inflammatory headline aside, the article linked to from this talks about the relative merits of creating a business around MySpace or Facebook. Now, come on, what company creates a business model that relies SOLELY on the success of another site, be that MySpace or Facebook?

NO company should build a business around another site. Ever. That’d be like someone creating a new glass that only works with Coca-Cola. Everyone would laugh, right? What about pepsi, what about water, what about juice, etc. The internet is larger than MySpace or Facebook (and yes, I do work at MySpace and would love to claim ‘the Internet is ours,’ but it really isn’t). If the only new idea any company can come up with is to make a Facebook widget, they need to think harder. Stop shrinking the internet. There is more to the world than MySpace or Facebook.

Unless the article’s just diggbait (which the headline would suggest - how could diggers not resist that?), in which case, it certainly worked. More people linked to Arrington’s summary of the article than the original. I’d just expect headlines like this from Valleywag (which I adore, but it does thrive on the dramatic and never claims to be objective), not from a ’serious news site.’

Ok, so one hour after I posted that whiny message about not being able to get online…I’m online. I have about 10 hrs of updates to download now, but at least it’s working!

It’s so preeetty. And I’m so happy.

Yay for my mac. And yay for the hotel finally getting those tubes working. They may be working slow (hence the 10 hrs of updates, and that’s even before I mess with installing Office), but at least they’re working…

My computer will connect to the bounce page for the hotel, but the following pages are all blank and no site loads. I’m annoyed,but mostly just surprised by this - the entire hotel (atm’s included) has been down for over 24 hrs now. oh well…

The weather here has been gorgeous, so today I met some friends in Santa Monica for shopping and wandering around the promenade/pier. I managed to do some damage to my wallet, got some clothes, and spent far too much at Lush (can a girl ever have too much lush?). And now I’m back at the hotel, tired from spending the day in the sun and walking all over. i also didn’t get as much sleep last night as I intended to - my phone rang at 7am when the car shippers called to tell me my car’s here. good news, but dude, time zones!!

I gotta get used to west coast time again…I have yet to call anyone on the east coast at any normal hour. It’s strange, what a big shift three hours is. seems small, but it’s not…

now I’m just hoping I can get online at some point this weekend - I really want to get my compie set up before I have to deal with unpacking. I’m not really up for doing anything productive tonight, but I really want to tomorrow. Fingers crossed…

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