I haven’t been updating the blog of late as there has been a significant change in August. After almost 5 years of being functionally unemployed, after losing my house and my savings to this recession, I finally found a job. Not just “a job,” either. But something I’m enjoying that is in the entertainment/media sector. Which was where I wanted to end up when MkIX passed away and his start-up likewise expired.

Anyway, I am the entire web/IT department for a start-up TV station in LA. The senior management come from places like E! and there’s already been some buzz on the station in the trades. The offices are right on Hollywood Blvd. – so my morning walk to the office from the parking lot is … interesting.

So now I have to deal with the financial fall-out of the last few years. And it looks like I will be filing some manner of legal action against a “friend” who embezzled money from me. Neither of these will be pretty.

I’ll post more about Hollyweird and the station in weeks to come, when I have more time.

Boston drivers are the most aggressive and New Yorkers probably the most rude. Drivers in the Bay Area tend to be kind of lazy and inattentive, and in Texas they … drive pickup trucks. But now that I’m forced to commute through LA traffic every day I can state without question that these are the worst damn drivers in the country.

But we really need to qualify this. Saying they’re “bad” isn’t enough. And it isn’t just that they’re bad in one way. Again, using Boston as an example, Boston drivers are “bad” because they’re so aggressive – never make eye contact, let the older car go first: he has less to lose in a confrontation, etc.

But LA drivers are bad in so many areas. To whit:

I don’t know about everyone else, but I for one became positively sick of seeing everything from lunch meats to vodka bragging about how it supported the “Atkins-Approved” “Low-Carb Lifestyle.” It’s good to see these greedheads go under.

Atkins Nutritionals Goes Belly-Up (08.01.05)

(forbes.com) Atkins Nutrionals, the New York company founded in 1989 by the late Dr. Robert Atkins to cash in on his low-carb diet, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday. The company cited weakening demand for its products. Ironically, the Atkins diet–affectionately known by some as the “cheeseburger-hold-the-bun” diet–had been blamed in recent years for earnings shortfalls in companies ranging from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (nyse: KKD) to Kraft Foods (nyse: KFT ) to Interstate Bakeries (the maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies).