By far the best thing I did in Cannes was to rent a scooter, thus avoiding having to take buses and taxis from my hotel to the festival and back.

Driving the scooter from one town to the next, I realized I initially hadn't entirely understood what Dr. Chen meant when he said I should relax. I think I may had forgotten what exactly that meant. Thankfully, I pinpointed the exact feeling of relaxation while scooter-riding, which I guess is to say that I really enjoy driving scooters around the south of France -- duh, like, who wouldn't.

The advertising festival has been fun but, at times, a logistical nightmare, mainly due to my leaving important things like my power converter, laptop cable, and USB key back in my hotel room in the next town over. I haven't done anything "official" like the various seminars and workshops. (Why should I? I'm not in advertising.) But the nights have been pretty late and the parties have been a lot of fun.

At a party last night I showed the pictures on my camera to a attractive young woman I'd just met. She spoke perfect English with an American accent, despite having never set foot in America. She'd attended the American school in Dubai. She had a prom.

So I'm showing her the camera, and we come to one picture of me and a another girl named, let's just say.... Arlene. (For some reason I don't want to say her real name, so I picked a random name. I realize now that I must have picked Arlene because I went to the prom with a somebody named Arlene.)

"Who's THAT?" she said.

"That's Arlene. Do you know Arlene?"

"Yes, I know Arlene. Who's that?"

"That's Arlene."

"No, who's THAT?"

"That? That's me!"

"Oh!"

"What, does the picture make me look better or worse?"

"Better."

I said, "Fuck you! I'm hot in real life, too, you know."

Shockingly, Salad Nicoise is much better here than in other parts of the world.

Finally, I learned something today. I learned that Odie, from the Garfield comic strip, is not actually owned by Jon, at least not originally, but by another guy named Lyman who was eventually written out of the comic strip.

And this -- Garfield, but with all of Garfield's thoughts removed, leaving us with a lonely man talking to his cat -- is insanely moving.

I'm in Cannes. I don't know anybody here and my hotel's not even in Cannes, it's in the next town over. I fell off the wagon last night quite intentionally and today instead of rays of Chinese energy shooting out of my fingertips I feel small and sad and insignificant and my life feels devoid of meaning.

I met a local guy named Laurent and watched the US-Italy match at a pub. I didn't know who to support: The Italians are my team because I picked Italy out of a cup in the office lottery, and the US, well, because I'm American. Happily, it ended 1-1.

Afterwards I ate pasta, and it was quite yummy. The red wine was quite cold. I had to take a taxi home because the buses stop running at night.