I spent the afternoon on a bus.

Not riding it around the city seeing cool things and meeting interesting people (and one does meet interesting people on city buses in Los Angeles), but changing the fluorescent tubes in the bus to a movie-friendly type of tube.

This is more complicated than it might seem - to prevent passenger breakage, the tubes are sealed in screwed-down plastic covers that get brittle over time, so they have to be removed very carefully since I can't imagine that's an easy item to replace. Once the tubes are changed, the covers have to be very carefully re-installed with one person holding the cover in place while another one screws it down, which is fun in a bus with limited floor space. Damn good thing we're all thin.

Of course, the type of tube in the bus was a type (single pin connecter) that we don't use, so it had to be ordered through a vendor, and the bus had three different sizes of tube - 4', 5', and 6'. No one could find a 5' tube, so we had to do some re-wiring to make a 4' work (yes, the bus company knew about it).

Also of course, the bus was parked in the sun on a hot day and most of the windows wouldn't open, but the upside is that I think I sweated off a couple of pounds.

At some point today (I think it was on stage while we were all breathing paint fumes), we decided that our boss' slick new chopper-like lot bike (it's one of those that look like a motorcycle and is very, very manly) needs a pink Hello Kitty (tm) handle bar basket to really spiff it up.

Now, as it happens I know where there's a very pink Hello Kitty (tm) handle bar basket (with aftermarket sparkle glue hearts). The trick is just going to be persuading it's current owner to part with it, but her mom tells me she's just about out of her "pink princess" phase, so if I replace it with one that suits her current tastes I'm golden.

So, while we were waiting for our tube order to arrive, we sat around trying to figure out how we could attach the basket to his bike so that it would be difficult to remove, but not damage the paint or chrome on the handlebars.

We think we've got something worked out, but my boss knows all the tricks so once he sees the basket, it'll have about a five minute life span - so it's all about parking the bike where the most people will see it as they come into the stage.

Couch of the Day: