the last week or so has been a bit of the crazies. babysitting, dogsitting, chickensitting. but it's been a major blessing to live on the cheap (read: free) while i get my employment figured out.

it's coming time to get a place because even I am getting sick of my freeloading. but where to live? how much to pay? where does income come from? do i really need a kitchen? all of these are questions i ask myself on an hourly basis.

though the help of my friend davel., i did score some part-part-time work as a sound tech at fuller theological. i think i said that last post, but it's doing wonders to offset day to day boredom and the lack of worth that comes from being jobless. and it will eventually pad my pocket nicely. this month i think i've made enough to offset either my car payment or my food & drink (choose one!).

since i'm the sound guy, i've gotten to spend the last 2 saturdays at christian conferences. today was a conference for foster parents of at-risk (read: unwanted) kids. those are children of drug addicts, minority children, and deaf children (as well as other handicapped). also included in that bunch were kids over the age of 5.

by 8 o'clock this morning i was heart broken. most children are abandoned because of parental drug abuse. then there's physical abuse. and sexual abuse. terrible terrible terrible.

sitting in my sound booth today, i picked up on a theme that Christianity seems to be rethinking a lot lately. the world in general seems to be rethinking. is it just postmodern deconstructuralism? something deeper? or is it just uncreative book titles?

sorry this is so stream of consciousness. i think i'm so tired and i've just thought about a lot these past few weeks. and that's why blogs exist.

oh- i bought that book i was talking about. and i might go to an anti-slavery rally in Orange County tomorrow. that's right. an anti-slavery-rally. it's 2000 fucking 7. World, we got problems.

i also bought a book on Ajax - so i'll be able to make web sexiness.

well this post is finished.

y yo... el matador.

this week has been a definite change of pace. since moving into the petting zoo my life has changed a bit. the dogs are the biggest and most vocal members of the household. for the first few days they forgot who i was and would bark and nip at me while i let them into the house.

my impression of chickens has change a bit. as humans we tend to picture chickens as stupid, since they're dumb enough to end up in our food all the time (all battered and delicious crispy golden brown). but i've discovered that chickens really fast and they have large talons that dig potholes. and their eggs are not the store-bought white, but blueish green! not super appetizing, but delicious all the same.

sleeping has changed a bit too. the dogs jockey and snarl for position on the bed. the first night i awoke to a dog licking my face. the next night that dog laid down on my legs and utterly pinned me preventing me from rolling over. last night, that same dog fell asleep with it's feet on my face, when i complained and rolled over, the dog rolled over and pushed it's back into me trying to knock me off the bed.

my biggest trouble with the dogs is to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't kill a chicken. that and dog farts.

the cats are no problem. i don't see them much.

the boys i'm babysitting for are pretty hilarious. 9 and 10 years old. they live in a huuuuuge house in near the Rose Bowl stadium. i think the Dad is some kind of producer.

apparently i'm the "first boy babysitter." i wanted to correct them and say "it's nanny, kid". but i didn't fight it.

i asked one kid about rules at his school and he said matter-of-factly "we don't have rules, we have agreements. you can break an agreement and put it back together to make it better." hippie school without rules. sounds like trouble. it totally ruined my "Unkie Dave only has 3 rules. No punching. Listen to me. And Paaaaarrrr-tayyyy!! WooooO!!" speech i worked up.

they even dispensed a little wisdom on me - "when you're rich you can buy everything you want but it doesn't last and you'll get bored with it." and i've also learned that ADHD can't be explicitly blamed on TV and video games, because these kids don't really play videogames or sit motionlessly infront of the TV. they wanted to play 2 hours of basketball.

fun kids. fun time. it's nice to have a little chump change in my pocket and i've picked up an extremely part-time job at Fuller Seminary. i'm even planning on seeing a movie tonight without feeling slovenly.

but i am itching to get back into websites (or Japanese), you may even notice a couple few changes around wimpkiller as i cure my boredom with it. if i get a job, mark my words: t-shirts. t-shirts. t-shirts.

so i've been in LA for a full 2 weeks. as could be expected, most of my time is spent dominating the internet. but i have managed to get out of the house some and i'm averaging 2~3 concerts a week. which is a welcome change to my social life.

at one club, i talked to the bartender, a young hispanic man, and asked him if any Tejano (they call it Norteño) bands come through here.

... somehow by the end of that conversation I managed to secure my Tejano band a gig at the club. if only I had a tejano band. and if only i spoke spanish.

netflix

The camel's back just broke and I've signed up for netflix. This isn't a big deal for most people and it's 3 years behind the times... but it's something i found blogworthy. because, as most of you know, i'm currently unemployed without residence and i feel like i totally broke a few cardinal laws.

LAW #1: Don't sign up for a service that you have to PAY FOR when you're UNEMPLOYED.
LAW #2: Don't sign up for a service that MAILS YOU things when you are HOMELESS (read - sleeping on friend's floors).
LAW #3: Don't reinforce the lazy unemployed guy image by sitting around all day watching movies (and Heroes).

But alas. I signed up. Living in Japan I missed a lot of smaller movies (like documentaries) that never made it overseas that I'd like to see. Also the networking features are totally enough to make me sign up. I love em. Being able to keep a list of movies I want to watch is fantastic.

One of my less moral roommates asked me why I didn't just download the movies via totally legit means, but knowing that a movie is coming somehow makes me want to watch it. i have movies that i've downloaded and never watched. and besides, the last movie I downloaded was the most fucked up movie i've ever seen. Despite the transaction taking a few days, now I know a movie is coming instead of watching the torrent speed slowly dwindle from 8 hours to 3 weeks.

On the flip-side of pirating, I've been "legally" catching up on Heroes at NBC.com (because the torrents are hard to find) and the NBC website absolutely sucks. The episode title is never right and i've never gotten the video to load on it's first try. It's the most unpredictably error-prone thing ever. Stopping, endless looping commercials, after I finish one segment it plays a commercial and then plays the same segment over again. At one point I had 12 errors on the page. It took me 3 days to watch one episode. So that experience alone makes me want to get back on the totally legit downloading scene.

exodus

Texas will be invaded by California this week thanks to SXSW. 2/3rds of the house I'm staying in (read: most of my friends) will be attending, so I'm going to pack up my stuff (not a hard task) and housesit for bodies of water's lead couple while they play music in Austin, TX. I'll be tending their 3 dogs, 2 cats, and 4 chickens. Also while everyone's gone, I'm going to be a part time nanny for these two kids who live in an enormous house. It'll be nice to have some positive cashflow to offset groceries, burritos, beer, and gas expenses... but it's no last paycheck from my previous job.

well... cheers. hopefully i'll either get a real job soon or i'll sell my car and spend the rest of my money on a boat that I'll sail back to Texas and park it in front of my mom's condo.

Q: TRUE or FALSE. On my third night in Los Angeles I was offered a job as an actor in the adult film industry?

A: TRUE.

However, I had to decline the offer because umm... I don't quite meet the "pre-requisites" of the job. I don't have an "outstanding" resume. You might say, I wasn't "up" to the "position". Entendre. Entendre. Entendre.

I couldn't make this up if I tried. Los Angeles is great if you don't mind homeless people meandering across the road at slow speeds just to exhort their "power" over you and your "car". My "family" here is great - extremely helpful and have not yet been wearied about my sloth-like couch-sitting skills.

I finally got my online resume up. Which means (after I get the kinks out), I should be able direct people there. As Lazlo said the other day...

"Submitting an application online is a lot like putting your application in a trash can."

Couldn't have said it better myself. the internet, and all it's awesomeness, can be really dysfunctional sometimes. which is why i'm a web designer. dave rupert for hire!

Well, I better get back to a long day of sleeping and internetting. Oh! and before I go. I had the best idea evAr for a (pardon my french) web2.0 (ahem) site and have started development in Ruby On Rails, but I'm having some sqlite3 issues. so if anyone knows anything about it, maybe you can help me.