If I'd have known at the end of October that I was going to be laid off in the middle of November, I wouldn't have bought a full-month transit pass. But I had one, valid through November 30th, that I hadn't used since November 18th.

I rectified that situation today by going out and riding all the rail lines of the Los Angeles transit system. It took 6 hours and 25 minutes to ride from the North Hollywood station all the way back to the North Hollywood station -- a little longer than I thought it might, because I didn't count on the layovers at the end of the lines, i.e., having to sit on a train for 10-15 minutes waiting for its scheduled departure time to come around. That's probably one-fourth the time it would take to do the equivalent trip in New York, which has a much, much bigger system, but also has the advantage of many of its lines crossing more than once, so a round trip on every line is unnecessary. (I have no idea how long Chicago would take -- that's right, I haven't even been to all corners of the 'L', much less all in one day.)

The Blue Line, the Green Line, and the Red Line spur to the Wilshire & Western station represented new trackage for me. The Green Line was very boring, because it runs most of the way in the median of the 105 freeway, from which there's nothing to see -- there isn't even a good view of LAX from the Green Line tracks. The Red Line spur is boring, too, but at least it's only two stations long.

Also, on the trip, two different trains I was on made unscheduled stops to pick up trackside workers -- once on the Red Line between Universal City and North Hollywood, and once on the Gold Line between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights, at the Gold Line shops (there's a very short platform on the elevated structure there for workers to wait to be picked up).

I'm thankful that this picture of a dog with an oil filter in its mouth is readily available on the Internet.

In May, I got fired a few days before Clyde Federal, a band fronted by a friend of mine from college, played a show in L.A.

Now, in November, I've been laid off and today's my last day, and tonight a different friend from college, Chris Mills, is playing in L.A.

If The Complacents ever get back together, I'm really screwed!

Wait a minute...they have, but there are fewer of them, they look completely different, they have different names, and they're living in St. Petersburg, Florida!

I'm logging footage of a first-grade Halloween party. Among the musical selections that were being played in the cafetorium: "The Addams Family" theme -- perfectly appropriate. "Jump in Line (Shake, Shake Senora)" by Harry Belafonte -- not really a Halloween song per se, but it's on the "Beetlejuice" soundtrack, so I guess there's kind of a connection to scary Halloween-y things. "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" -- huh?

So, TV Guide.

And I've now lost two jobs this year (I'm being laid off on the 18th -- this time, it is in no way my fault).

And they're discontinuing Vanilla Coke!

And the Bush-administration-lapdog Amtrak board of directors has fired president David Gunn, pretty much the sole reason my Amtrak trip in 2002 turned out not to be my last long-distance Amtrak train trip! (Go ahead, Amtrak board -- prove me wrong.)

And I've had a cold for a week and a half!