Mind-Numbing Monterey

...And right now everyone is saying, "...huh?"

Hello from California! I am here for a top secret conference, which I can't really talk about, so just imagine that I'm here to talk about installing lasers in my brain so I can kill people with just a look, and you wouldn't be far wrong.

Unfortunately the technology isn't quite ready yet. (Or maybe fortunately. Because I know people who would happily sign up to be part of THAT testing. People that I will not name here because it is not good for your health to piss off people who really, really want lasers to shoot out of their eyeballs.)

Anyway, not only is THAT technology not ready yet, but neither is any OTHER technology. My own laptop crapped out four days ago, went to that great big Circuit City in the sky. This was a big deal four days ago, when I was in the middle of traveling here and I didn't have my hotel reservation information, and no way to look it up, plus no phone numbers of people to call, and it got to the point where I was accosting random people at SeaTac, hoping their power cords would work with my laptop. (Pipe dream. My own power brick was fine the whole time.)

And then I learned that my flight had been overbooked, which sounds like a bad thing until I realized I had plenty of time to give up my seat, happily accept a free round-trip ticket as thanks, and also get bumped up to first class. Readers, I have not flown first class since I was thirteen. Let's just say that soon I forgot all about my laptop problems.

Sunday night I tried to post three times from a sticky (!) and ridiculous mobile keyboard, on the TV INTERNET (!!) from my hotel room here at the resort before I gave up and crawled into bed. Today, Wednesday, I am more than halfway through the conference, I am tired of talking about eyeballs, I just sat out in the sun with friend and ate lunch while being eyed by some damn aggressive geese (fortunately sans lasers) and this evening I have to attend a large banquet featuring old men and food I don't want to eat, when all I want to do is have a big salad and take a walk on the Monterey Coastline, and maybe bark at some sea lions.

Because at least the sea lions won't talk about eyeballs.