Today's Halloween (duh) and I'm feeling kind of humbuggish about the holiday this year. Usually, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, or at least my favorite holiday that doesn't involve lots and lots of eating. It's basically just an excuse to be really silly and get all decked out and get a little crazy. I'm always a little down for that.

This year, I don't know. Maybe it's the whole unemployment thing. Not working tends to make one all apathetic and ambivelant about everything. All that isolation and all the strength it takes not to be freaking out about unemployment tends to make one that way. Then there's the fact that every day is so much like the other- an endless string of days straight out of "Groundhog's Day"- that it's hard to get excited about any particular day. When you're unemployed, every day is the same.

On the other hand, it could also do something with the fact that I don't have any great parties to go to.

So ESPN.com is one of my favorite sites online. It's got an amazing array of writers, including Hunter Thompson and David Halberstam, and what seems like an unlimited budget to do whatever they want. Unfortunately, their Web developers have loaded up the site with so many bells and whistles that it often crashes my computer. Considering I have a top of the line iMac and a halfway decent (free) dial-up service, I should be lucky.

They got animated bobble-head dolls popping out of pages, ad banners galore, those little tabs that let you choose parts of the site (which always tries to lead you to the stuff you have to pay for by the way) and links galore. But all of that stuff just screws up my computer. Which is one of my pet peeves about Online life- Web Developers who throw as much crap as possible on a Web sites just because they can. Just because they all have T3 lines doesn't necessarily mean we all do. Isn't one of the basic rules of Web design & development not to overwhelm the site with so many bells & whistles that people can't download a page? Even I know that rule and I don't know that much about Web Development. Or maybe it's not a rule, but it should be a rule.

Even worse, the site seems to have some sort of connection now to the MSN network. I don't know whether it's just because I use Hotmail, which MSN seems to think means I want to be part of their stupid MSN network, and some cookie is reading it and adding all that gibberish. Or, it could be that somehow Disney and MicroSoft are now in cahoots over something and that's even scarier. Kind of like Stalin hooking up with Hitler during WWII (well, not that bad, but you get my point). What sign it is of the upcoming apocolypse I don't know......

So there's a local columnist who I like, Laurel Wellman, who used to do Dog Bites in the SF Weekly. When she was doing Dog Bites, she was bloody brilliant. Now she's working for the Chron and getting to do the big column on Page 2. No, she's not as funny as she used to be and the column's not as good as Dog Bites, but the world's not as funny anymore.

Anyways, I sent her a letter saying that I liked an essay of hers criticizing the anti-war movement (the letter I wrote to her is almost exactly like the one posted below). She sent me a really nice e-mail thanking me for my support and told me it was a really thought out piece. So today I get the paper, get some tea from Muddy Waters, sit back and read the paper and as I turn to Laurel's column, I notice that I'm quoted in the first couple of paragraphs. Nearly spit the entire cup of tea all over the sofa. It's quite a shock to open the paper and see you're name there, right there, on page 2.

Saw "Mullholland Drive" over the weekend. All I can say is, huh?

I think that's the point of David Lynch movies anyways, to make you leave the theater going "huh?" but being dazzled by the "huhness." Which is also why he always seems to get good reviews, because the critics can't understand it either, so they think it has to be good.

While baseball is my favorite sport, I am not that excited about this World Series. In fact, I haven't been really into the playoffs at all. While some of it is because my Giants aren't in it, for some reason, playoffs seem anti-climatic. It's like the season is this great, big, overstuffed novel or movie and the playoffs are kind of a tacked on prologue after the climax. Or maybe it's because it always ends with the inevitable victory by the Yankees who neither have a great rival to keep you interested (like they did in the '50's against the Brooklyn Dodgers) or superstars to compel you to watch (like the Bulls with Jordan or the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe). Instead, they just win. Boringly, efficiently, bloodlessly. Yawn. And I just can't root for the D-Backs. Can't root for a store-bought, brand new expansion team with no history, lousy fans and the worst uniforms in baseball. What's up with that? Purple and coral green? Who'se bright idea was that? And they have at least four or five different variations of the same uniform, as if they knew they had ugly uniforms, but thought that if they would keep on trying out new variations of them, they'd eventually either find one that works or that nobody would notice how ugly they are.

I went to go mail off my unemployment form and needed to buy stamps, so I went to the local Mailbox Etc places. It is run by a muslim couple, the woman in full head-gear, and the stamps they gave me was a quote from the Qu'ran in Arabic. I sent it off to the Unemployment Agency, but I wonder. Because the stamp is something in Arabic, am I about to scare the hell out of the poor postal worker? Even worse, when I put the form in, I did it wrong, so had to reopen the envelope so the lip is slightly torn. Will my letter be x-rayed, sniffed at and tested before it's opened? Will my form ever make it to the Unemployment Office? Am I about to get a visit by the FBI?

Two bits for today:

1)"The Daily Show" started off their news segment with a running joke about how much they want to make fun W. but can't because, well, we're at war and all that. Heh. I miss those days when W. was dumb. Or at least, we could make fun of it because the thought of it was too terrifying.

2)There's a new movie out featuring Joey and Lance from N'Sync (and yes, it is scary that I know that). The plot is that Lance sees some woman, falls in love with her at first site, and spends the entire movie trying to chase her down. Interesting that they use that plot and they use Lance considering he's the one who's rumoured by the gay one. Hmmm.......

I got nothing else to say today. I'm just so excited that it's "Fashion Week" on VH1 that I'm unable to do much of anything.

My walkman has presets for the radio part. I do not like presets on musical devices. I think this is one of those technological inventions that the makers add because they think it's cool only because it's some sort of technological doo-hicky and now we are forced to live with it. The reason I don't like it is because I'm a channel flipper. I can't listen to only one station all day and I refuse to sit through commercials. I am a radio programmers worst nightmare. Anyways, I hate the presets because I can only preset my walkman to five stations. While I like the five stations, I would like to be able to get more. It's like being forced into having presets for cable. Yes, you can get by with 10 or 12 preset tv statitions, but when you're flipping around, you just might miss a juicy documentary on the History channel or "The Great Escape" on TBS. That's what I feel about having to have presets, that I might be missing something on a channel that I'd really like to hear.

The walkman I have, however, isn't quite content with just letting me have the presets. It also makes a little beep whenever I change the channel. I do not know why the beep is necessary. Is it to let me know that the device knows what I want and is doing it? Which is great and all, but I think that if I was changing the channel because Blink-182 or Sum-41 or whatever lame-ass bubble-gum punk band is on the radio and all of a sudden I hear Sarah Maclachlan or Van Halen, I think I'd know that a change was made. Meanwhile, because I'm a flipper, I'm sitting there on the bus, beeping away on my walkman. Beep...beep...beep....beep. I'm sure it's driving the people sitting next to me crazy. It'd drive me crazy. In fact, some woman was sitting next to me yesterday on the bus and changed seats half-way during the ride and the only reason why I think she did it was because I was sitting there, beeping away. Stupid walkman.

PS- I think the moment Bernie Williams hit the home-run last night in the bottom of the 8th, I knew it was over. I think everyone knew that it was over then. Considering that it's 4-0 Yanks at this very moment, I think Seattle knew it was over too.

Damn Yankees. Resistance IS futile.....

As we all know, San Francisco is a weird place. Which is why we all love it so. Because of it, though, it seems like the loudest, harshest voices are those of the anti-war movement. It’s especially true of where I’m living now, in the Mission. Everywhere I walk, there’s posters or graffiti calling for Peace or something that attacks America. Some are rather tame, like about Teach-Ins or quotes from Gandhi, but some are rather provocative, like the poster showing one of the planes slamming into the WTC with the phrase "Got Terrorism? End the Empire." There was another thing of graffiti that I saw that was something along the lines of "Go ahead and wave the flag of the leading terrorist nation in the world."

For some reason it’s really getting under my skin. It’s not necessarily because of the naiveté of some of the arguments (you know, that if we ask the Taliban really, really nicely and say pretty please with sugar on top, they’ll hand over bin Laden). It’s the tone that's associated with it. That if you support some sort of war effort you’re, at best, a victim of group think brought on by blind allegiance to the government and brainwashed by the mainstream media or, worse, a racist, warmonger. I deeply resent that. I consider myself fairly well informed (maybe more so than a lot of the people marching out in the streets), a pretty bright person and have a mind of my own. I think it’s a natural conclusion to draw that if some fanatic with a lot of money and followers declares war on you and turns four hijacked planes into missiles, killing 5,000 people that it probably makes sense to go into Afghanistan and get them. So, what if I get most of my information from CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Chron? What information am I missing? What is it that I don’t know or what lives have I bought into? Hell, the "Daily Show" spent most of last night’s show interviewing the Newsweek reporter who wrote that story about anti-American rage in the Middle East. He thinks we’re doing the right thing and he seems pretty bright. Is there something he doesn’t know? Has he been brainwashed too? And Tim Redmond, the editor of the Bay Guardian keeps on calling against the bombing, but Tom Friedman of the New York Times supports it. Redmond edits a weekly, free alternative paper that regularly rails about how Yuppies are ruining San Francisco. Friedman has covered the Middle East for years, lived there and has interviewed or talked too a lot of people who are now involved in what's going on. Now, why should I listen to Redmond over Friedman? Is Redmond more enlightened than Friedman is?

I don’t know. When I walk down the streets, I find myself wanting to tear down posters or write counter-graffiti. I find myself muttering things like "well, if you think this country is so awful, why don’t you move elsewhere" or "damn, dirty hippies." And I don’t like it. Sometimes I think that maybe I should start a group like "Liberals for War" or "Liberals With Our Heads Not Stuck Up Our Asses" and march in the streets just to show people that it’s okay to be liberal and intelligent yet support what we’re doing. But, of course, nobody would actually want to march in support of war or people dying. So the only voices you hear are that of the anti-war effort.

I'm just not sure I'm the one who drank the cool-aid.

And on a lighter note- why don't they just get Phoebe & Joey together? Everybody knows it's coming, it's the only couple they haven't gotten together yet. Maybe they're just how pathetic it'll look that all six characters wind up with each other.

Went for a swim at the Y this morning and the radio they have there started playing that song "Stuck in the Middle of You" by Steel Wheels (I think). For some reason, it cracked me up. I mean, here I am, at the Y, in the morning, swimming with mainly a bunch of old, fat Russian women and all I can think of is Mr. Blonde getting medieval on that poor cop in "Resovior Dogs." I wonder if the guys in Steel Wheels are ambivelant about that song being used. On the one hand, it probably revived the song and got it played a lot more. On the other hand, you can't hear it without thinking about somebody's ear getting sliced off.

When I lived in the Haight, I used to shop at Cala Foods, kind of a poor-man's Safeway. Now that I've moved, the closest place to shop is Safeway. As a store, I love Safeway. It rocks. When I first walked in and had various employees actually say hi to me and ask if they could help me with anything, I felt like crying. Cala Foods was kind of run down and you could at least count on at least one or two really smelly drunken homeless types to be either in front or behind you at the check out line.

Everytime I go to the checkout counter at Safeway, though, they always ask me if I have a Safeway Club Card. The card machine they have there is even geared towards the club card, so if your using just your lowly ATM card, you have to go through several more steps to enter the card. Whenever they ask me and I tell them no, they always tell me that I should and how much money I'd save by getting one.

I don't want one. I don't care about it and I don't like the idea of it. I know they say it's just a card and they don't do anything with it, but I don't trust them. No matter what they say, your name is still logged in somewhere, your purchases recorded and information is tallied. It's just a little too Big Brotherish for me.

Yet, since I've been going to Safeway, I've also been noticing that my groceries are a lot more expensive than they used to be. $20 to $30 bucks more at a time. And with every more expensive bill, comes that question from the checkout counter person "do you want a Club Card? You could save a lot more money...."

So I wonder, does Safeway jack up the prices on a regular basis, just to force people into getting the club card. Is this what I get for not wanting to be statistically analyzed and recorded? Are they basically screwing me over just to force me into getting me one of their damn cards?

Next time I go, I think I'm going to get a Safeway Club Card

So apparently, due to everything that's been going on, Drew Barrymore wouldn't attend a premiere of her new movie. And Rosie O'Donnell, who does her show live in the NBC building, packed up and isn't taping her show this week. Christy Turlington has supposedly cancelled her wedding and Ben Stiller wouldn't travel to NY to do SNL. Can you say chicken shits?

I don't know what's lamer about it, the fact that they're obviously doing what we are not supposed to be doing- giving in to fear. Or the fact that they're so self-absorbed that they think they'd be victim of of some sort of
Anthrax/terrorist threat (well, Rosie, maybe, but only because she's annoying as hell). Do they really think that somewhere, out in the cave where Osama bin Laden is hanging out, there's some sort of conversation between Osama and his minions (including, of course, Bert) along the lines of this: "you know, this infidel Christi Turlington is always appearing half naked on the cover of such American dog magazines like "Vogue," which I can show you as soon as Mullah Omar gives it back to me. Maybe, Allah willing, we can strike fear into the hearts of the scantily-clad infidels by having one of our martyrs blow up her wedding and whatever overly chiseled hunky guy she's marrying? What's that Mullah Abdul, it's Ed Burns? Wasn't he dating Heather Graham? Praise be Allah, what I'd do for a recent copy of People Magazine."

Let's face it, if Hollywood had to endure anything like the London Blitz, the only one's left in Hollywood would be the stars' illegal immigrant gardeners (the nannies, of course, would go to with the stars to their bunkers in Wyoming).

We are being tested like we never have been and are not fairing well. I think the biggest thing we need right now would be for W. to go on air and just say something like "just, chill people." Maybe, instead of yet another benefit for the families of the terrorist attack, we should have a major concert just to get people to do just that. Something like "Chill Aid" or "Artists for the Chilling of America." Just get a couple of reggae bands, that'll work. And a trip-hop artist. Or Dave Mathews. Frat boys all across the country think he's great to chill to. Or the Eagles, my friends from college always thought they were the perfect band to kick back, smoke a joint and drink a Corona too. Because that, my friends, is exactly what this country needs right now. To kick back, smoke a joint and drink a Corona and be grateful that it could be a lot worse.

I'm totally intrigued by all the slogans and graphics that the news stations have been trotting out for our current crisis. You know, the one's that say "America at War" or something like that with all these star-spangly graphics surrounding them. There seems to be a different slogan each day. Or maybe it's because, say, CNN wants to do "America at War" but then checks out MSNBC and seeing that they've already gone with "American at War," decides they have to come up with they're own, original slogan. Or maybe it just changes depending on the story. Like if it's about the anthrax scare, it's "America on Edge" but when they switch to pictures of flighter planes taking off, it's "America Attacks." I haven't figured it out yet.

Of course, meetings are held to decide all this stuff. At some point, the production team sat down and pitched slogans to each other and decided to call their coverage. They sat there throwing ideas back and forth to see what works best- maybe "America Strikes Back" or "America at War" or maybe even "America Opens up a Can of Whump-Ass." And you know too, that somebody's kind of proud of the work they did on the graphics or coming up with the slogan and is putting it on they're resume as we speak. Sometime in the future, somebody's going to be in an interview and saying "you remember that graphic for MSNBC, the one for "America Kicks Some Taliban Booty?' that was me. I came up with that."

Actually, the best one I've seen was on the Daily Show (of course). It's slogan for the news coverage concerning our past Anthrax anxiety filled weekend was "America Freaks Out." My favorite one, though, has to be the Onion's "Holy Fucking Shit." That just seemed to pretty much sum it all up.

Today's Musing:

A week ago I saw something I had never seen before. Somebody on the 33 Ashbury, which goes through the Castro, had these blocks or something implanted in his bald skull. he then took what hair he had, died a strand blue, and then twisted them together and had them coming out of each block. From the back of his head, it looked like he was just wearing crokies backwards. I kind of wanted to reach over and yank them just for the fun of it because, well, it's one of those things where at some point, that person is going to wake up and realize what an idiot he looks like, but I didn't. In some ways, I was kind of happy to see it. After all, the whole body mutiliation thing was so 90's and here was someone who was not only still mutiliating himself in this day and time, but had come up with an entirely new thing.

Bravo.....

I guess.