Happy Halloween and End-of-Daylight-Savings-Day. So far, no trick-or-treaters here at my Glendale apartment. I guess that means I get all the glow-in-the-dark "Shrek" Twix bars to myself! Yesterday, my colleague Mark Essig and I formed a last-minute team to participate in an annual "Amazing Race"/L.A. event my friends Mike and Maria put on. I'd say third place is a darn good finish!

We started at 10 a.m. from a pre-race breakfast at Mike and Maria's house, among 10 other teams, travelling to 16 different clue locations from Glendale to Beverly Hills to China Town all the way to San Pedro.

One nun-baked pumpkin bread, two Grey Goose vodka shots, three obscure soda pop bottles, six sunken Holmby Hills golf balls, 10 semi-legal parking spots, 50 mariachi musicians and a swim in The Standard roof pool later, Mark and I (a.k.a. "Team Anonymous") finished up at 5:37 p.m. at Philippe's the Original in downtown L.A. -- just one minute behind Team #2 and ten minutes behind "Orange Crush." Not bad for first timers. Akhil stayed near a computer and phone and provided technical guidance/directions via Web searches -- he met up with us at Philippe's for the post-race party which included an appearance by actual "Amazing Race" winners Chip and Kim.

Does this all sound crazy and juvenile? If you'd raced, you'd understand. We had such a blast! For a full race report click here.


Clues...

Team Anonymous

Akhil at Philippe's

Mark, wife Melissa, Chip and Kim

We have our life back. Ahhh... No more television commitments, no more weeping. Maria Shriver apparently broke her foot in her Red Sox jubilation. Halloween's coming up, so we'd best get our plans together. Holidays, birthdays, and election day too. Suddenly life's abuzz again. We booked our Thanksgiving tickets this week --we're Seattle-bound.

Let the new paradigms begin.

Rain, baseball, work, all the same stuff still is consuming the average day this week. We may get 3 inches of precipitation this eve, in fact. This past science-themed weekend consisted of two perfect fall afternoons in which Akhil and I did some very exciting stuff - not the least of which was buying new Honda floormats for the Civic. This followed by Red Sox victory(ies!!!) and seeing a rather ill-designed movie called "What the X&@! Do We Know" starring (sort of?) Marlee Matlin that was all about quantum physics, perception vs. reality, and being your own "God." It had way too much cutesy animation in it, a few flighty "experts" and, well, put one of our companions to sleep. They also needed a more heavy-handed editor, but we got the point, at least.

Fortunately on Sunday we redeemed ourselves with a breakfast among the hippest crowd on the east side at Fatty's in, that's right, Eagle Rock, and finally, a trip to the Skirball Center to see the Einstein exhibit. It was packed. Absolutely packed. With a very overly determined mob of senior citizens who were a little too proud of their man Albert, who, one woman realized from the exhibit boards, was somewhat of a "ladies maaaaannnn."

I recommend it - but go early or you're at your own risk. It's a great, well-done, compact show and we'd never been to the Skirball, either, which is an impressive complex.

Otherwise, hmmm... see my Tonight Show feature at:
http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=26102

...and don't forget to check out tomorrow night's lunar eclipse.

It's on again. Baseball. Once in a very blue moon I get hooked on a series, and this is one of those times. I am not going to start watching the game until at least the fifth inning.

Rain still falls in Los Angeles as we speak. It's amazing because driving along the 101 in this weather it looks a lot like the Pacific Northwest. Lots of misty hills and trees - it's actually rather nice-looking, until you exit on Sepulveda Blvd.

RAIN. That's is the big news -- and I mean big -- this weekend. It rained all morning. Such a novelty. We're sitting here at home using it as an excuse not to go outside (even though by now I think it has stopped for the most part). You just don't get enough of those weather excuses out here, so if the skies even smack of precipitation you can stay home and read. That's the rule. I heard it from my friend's sister a couple years ago, who worked for a VERY well-known television producer at the time -- the day we saw her, this man had skipped work that day because of a 30 percent chance of rain... Ah, for the love of showbiz.

Okay people, if you tend to like to stay out of harm's way, don't be a Red Sox fan. Enuff said. Thank goodness for the Patriots. Akhil and I went to Book Soup yesterday just because we wanted to see what it's like to hang out on Sunset Strip on a Saturday. Afterwards we stumbled upon an art festival in Beverly Hills and had a coffee on Rodeo. Saw Mike Tyson. And a substantial number of tourists wearing inappropriate clothing. If not here, where, I suppose.

Come on, Red Sox. What the heck?! It's that time of year -- my poor friend-and-family fans are getting emotional again.

At work today I volunteered to become the expert on open-source programming. Now that's devotion. If anyone's got any story ideas, send them my way.

Wow, did I really volunteer to go see "Hero" last night? Well, it was no "Crouching Tiger" but we got through it ok. Today was Columbus Day and so traffic gave us all a little bit of a break. Spent an enlightening lunch hour with my new colleagues who revealed interesting details about their lives that won't be mentioned here. That's the trouble with blogs -- you become your worst censor-nightmare. Definitely necessary. Let's take a moment of silence for Christopher Reeve. A sad loss especially for the world's biggest "Smallville" fan (Akhil).

The youngster who created this blogging tool and sold it all to Google less than two years ago is leaving Google, he said on his blog (seen here: http://www.evhead.com/), to create something new. Such level of accomplishment makes the both of us feel like we're not living up to our potential. Remember those dot-com days? Everyone and his brother was doing stuff like that. Funny, I am once again working for a dot-com - this time, without the stock options. The ones that stuck around have become a little bit lackluster but knowing they might actually be here to stay allays certain job-security fears. Remnants of the old days include free caffeinated beverages and bagels on Fridays, but so far, no signs of home communications reimbursement, expense accounts, post-work cocktails and seafood dinners, or even business cards.

This weekend has, as usual, revolved around food and thoughts of our very hazy, non-directional future. It's been ages since I've been in touch with friends -- fall hits and people get busy. Halloooo out there.

Getting up at 5:30 to be a desk jockey is hard. I wonder if getting up at 5:30 to, say, perform cardiac surgery would be easier because at least the adrenaline rush you'd get would be a little bit energizing. Nevertheless, one week down, one day 'til sleep. I feel like I am in the Twilight Zone. Akhil was in Detroit for 4 days -- he flew back home last night -- so I had a few days of singlehood while adjusting to the new job and it really felt like I'd up and moved to a new city. The Valley is mysterious to me and seems disconnected from the rest of L.A. -- not to mention I no longer work with Hollywood types and that's pretty weird too after more than 3 years in the thick of things. Bizarre. I have to say, L.A.'s still sunny but just not as fun when you're distanced from the biz! Well, s'money. Just noticed my plants are dying. Got to go.