And so another year closes to an end. With it comes the usual wrap-ups and so longs and farewells and so here's mine. Now, the crazy thing about this year is that I can acutally say it was a good year. Which I hardly ever say because it's been awhile since it was a good year and because I'm afraid that saying something was a good year will lead to horrible, horrible things.

We shall see.

Other than a few detours here or there, everything was good. Occasionally great and somtimes completely blah, but still kind of good. And a lot of things happened in it: went to Austria & Germany, got written up in the Examiner, got a raise, won fantasy football, reconnected with some old friends, discovered I loved playing volleyball. But actually, as I look back at the past year, the coolest thing that happened was my getting the foul ball at the Phillies game.

I know, weird, huh.

See the thing is that while all the rest of it was cool, it was all things I had some level of control over and something I worked for. Going to Europe, for instance, was a matter of waiting on friends to make their plans and then pressing a few buttons on a computer et viola. Getting the foul ball was the one completely random, totally cool thing to happen.

Which is why it was so cool.

That and the fact it took me about 36 years of my life to get one of those suckers and I know plenty of people who've been to more games and lived more years than I have without getting one.

And the verdict on the video iPod? While it's really cool and all (and I mean really cool), there's definite problems. I downloaded the first episode of "Lost," which I've never seen before and watched it on my way home from work on Tuesday. Now, did I mention the fact that being able to watch "Lost" on an hour long commute is really cool? But not great. The pictures is great and the sound superb, but it's hard to get really into it when you occasionally hear an anouncement on the PA about stops. Or keep everything steady while the bus is jostling or slamming on the breaks. And it's hard to pay attention when the screen is so small that you're also aware of other riders or traffic or anything going on around you. Which means don't expect to be emotionally blown away by anything you're watching.

But did I mention how cool it is to be watching "Lost" on the BART ride home?

PS- the best part about burning CDs onto your hard-drive to put onto your iPod is that you can totally delete all the songs you don't like so it's basically a better version of the CD. As much as I love the Pumpkins' "Melon Collie...", there's way too many songs on there. Goodbye Billy's experimental electronic crap. And there's a few filler songs on U2's "All That You Can't Leave Behind" (pretty much everything that would make up the second side if it was an LP). Goodbye filler. And all those Beatles discs? Sayonora cutesy Paul tunes.

And we move onto Sunday...

Go try and see Narnia in the middle of the afternoon, but it's sold out. So I basically just went downtown and back for nothing. That's okay, I got plenty of stuff to do at home, like play with the new toy. Evening comes and I sit down to watch a DVD that I rented the night before (Dig).

It doesn't work.

But wait, have no fear! I have TiVo and there's the second part of the documentary on the Crusades that the History Channel showed that I haven't watched yet. I accidently deleted it. No documentary. Oh well, but I have English version of "The Office" on. It's a bunch of repeats I've already seen a bunch of times (the BBC pretty much shows the same four episodes whenever they do show it).

Now what? No DVD, no TiVO and there's nothing on TV. Plus, it's Christmas night so it's not like I can quickly go out and get a new DVD. I could read a book, but that's just so boring and un-festive. What to do? What to do? It looks like your humble narrator is stuck.

But wait! There's On Demand. So I watch Rushmore. Isn't the 21st Century wonderful?

Then I get a call from a friend at 11:30 at night, the one who was supposed to call me to let me know about some kicking Hannukah party but didn't. Instead, she called after the kicking Hannukah party was over to see if I was doing anything.

You know how iTunes has the Tripometer where you press a button and instant light show on your desktop? The geniuses at Apple have made there so good right now that it's too good. When I put it on, it's completely distracting because it's so colorful and pretty and so all I want to do is watch it and watch it and watch it and I'm having all sorts of flashbacks to laser light shows and incense and the time I constructed an entire 3D video in my head while listening to U2's "Bad." And the thing is I'm realizing that it's probably not constructive to put on the Dead Lights because it completely sucks me in, but it's just so gosh darn pretty to watch.

I'm also noticing that because the new Powerbook has one of those Think Pads (I think that's what they call it) instead of a mouse, I'm no longer getting carpal tunnel from using the mouse. Instead, I'm getting callouses on my thumb from manipulating the pad.

And on this, Christmas Eve of the year 2005, a 37 year old Jewish man discovered the true meaning of Christmas-- he won his fantasy football league. Say hello to $2000 of his new friends.

He also picked up his brand new laptop and purchased his first cd on iTunes too. But wait! That's not all! The icing on the cake was this-- "Wrath of Kahn" was on TV.

I love Christmas.

-You know my new credit card company, the one that seems to go out of it's way to make it so I can't pay? Today I went to go pay it and logged onto the Web site. I got in this time, but I was unable to pay the bill because it said it was due to some "credit problem." So I called up and got Najimbi in Bangladesh who knew nothing about my "credit problem" and said she'd help me pay my bill. Which led to a hilarious exchange like this:

Me:"My checking number is 6573 4432"
Najimibi: that's 6572 44332."
Me: "No, 6573 4432."
Najimibi: "6572 4432?"
Me: "No, (really slow) 6573 4432."
Najimbi: "Okay, 6573 4432?"
Me: "Yes, that's it."
Najimibi: "Okay, just to confirm, then, your checking number is 6572 44332?"

They still haven't sent me a new card yet and while I should really get on them for it, I'm kind of okay with not having the card only because if I got the card, I'd use it. And that's the last thing I do. The company sucks so hard I'm that much more motivated to pay off the card just so I can tell them to f off.

-When I leave for work, I usually grab fitty cents for the paper and some additional loose change in case I need it. On Monday, I was in a rush and couldn't find more than two quarters so headed out the door thinking I wouldn't need the loose change because I never really need it.

You know where this is going, right?

Get off BART and Millbrae only to discover that I'm five cents short of the full BART ticket. Which means I can't get out of the station and have to use the machine to pay the five cents. No problem, right, because I can use my ATM card. Except the amount is so small it won't let me. Another no problem, right, because I should have some change on me. Nope. Not only did I not have spare change on me, which I usually do and never need, I can't even find any in my backpack. Euros, yes. Nickels, no.

So I had to ask the guy at the station to let me through and he gave me the nickel to get through. Have to give the guy a tip of the hat for being so nice about it.

-Having a conversation with my kind of boss and another coworker about seeing the dentist and how much we all hate to see the dentist. She tells a story about how she went for an appointment and walked out with four teeth pulled and three years of braces. So I said in response, half joking, "that's why I never go to the dentist." Her reply? "Well, that's why....no comment."

How can you say that and then stop? Now I'm totally paranoid that something's wrong with my teeth.

Actually, I'm kind of glad she didn't say anything because that would make me even more neurotic. "Oh no, I can never open up my mouth because everyone will see I have yellow teeth." Or "Always remember to cover my mouth when talking so people can't see how crooked my teeth are.

Every once in awhile, I like to check on my friends at the Nation Review Corner online to see what the right's take on the world is. So today I logged on to see what they had to say about the news that Bush just went off and ruled that people can be spied upon without any sort of legal niceties, something I have a hunch just might be against every precept of American constitutionality. And there reaction? They're more outraged that somebody leaked it and that there are no calls for an investigation. Not only that, it's the height of hypocrisy that we're making all this kerfluffle over the outing of Valerie Plame and not the outing of illegal torture cells in Europe or illegal wire tapping.

It's a matter of national security, of course.

At this point, one has to wonder what the reaction would be if it's ever leaked that Cheney and Rumsfield themselves went to Gitmo and sodomized terror suspects in an effort to get them to talk. Would they finally acknowledge the wrongness of it? Would it be just a central question of there being ass-fucking involved? Or would they be more outraged that the story is leaked than of the ass-fucking?

I also noticed that somehow, the Culture Wars have ensnared "King Kong" as everyone is rooting for Kong to fail and for Narnia to shake the Box Office moneymaker this holiday season. The reason is because Kong is a godless, secular, Hollywood flick that makes the military out to be the bad guys (they kill Kong, after all). "Narnia" is, of course, a good wholesome, Christian flick because it's supposed Christ-y ness.

Now, first of all, does everything have to be sucked into the blender of the Culture Wars? And second of all, while I haven't seen "Narnia," I'm pretty much sure Kong is better movie. Ferocious dinosaurs and giant apes on top of tall buildings is always more cooler than talking Beavers.

But mainly, is "The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe" that big of a Christ allegory? Yeah, Aslan sacrifices himself to save people, then gets resurrected. That's Christ-like, but it's not exactly like He's cornered the market on sacrifice/resurrection stories. If that makes the movie "Christian" then you can say the same about Buffy. She sacrificed herself, she died, she came back to life. Hell, so did Obi Wan Kenobi for that matter.

If just that makes the Christians get all wet and spend tons of money to they can stare at the God-head, then sign me up-- I wanna write a movie in which somebody sacrifices himself and comes back to life. Then I'll market it to all the churches, make tons of money, and blow it all on hookers & blow.

So on the other site, I went after a SF blogger for writing something a little on the anti-semitic side. Yay me. But on the other hand, it's been a little stressful. Nothing like calling someone an anti-semite in a place people read to make you a little nervous-- it's not exactly the nicest thing to say about someone and it's something that gets thrown around way too much.

I was a little worried about the reaction but then also kind of hopeful that all those who support Truth, Justice, and the American Way would rally to the cause and help fight the good fight. And so far? Most of the comments support the anti-semitic stuff.

Stupid SF progessives.

And just for the record- I think I speak for Jews everywhere when I say we're really sorry that somehow we became too succesful here in America and have lost "oppressed minority" status and have now become, the Man. And we're sorry that the numbers of people who died in the Holocaust weren't as high as other minorities who got killed over the years.

In the future, we'll go back to our little ghettos, wear our silly little hats, and beg for mercy when the cossacks come. My great grandparents didn't flee from Russia to be hated on by a bunch of trust fund hippies still rebelling from their upper middle class privilged background.

It's so easy to hold up signs at protest rallies attacking "racism" isn't it? Not so easy to actually confront the one who's saying it, now is it?

This was my Friday morning....

I'm going through another bout of insomnia so I hadn't slept for much of the week. Thursday night I was able to pass out early, thanks to half a bottle of wine, and found myself waking up at what I thought was a reasonable hour. Turns out it was three in the morning. Not a reasonable hour.

So I tossed and turned til the alarm went off and tossed and turned some more, finally getting into the shower a little later than I like to. Since I was so tired (not to mention a little hung over), I did the thing in the shower where you just stand there, zoning out, and letting the water wash all over me. This meant I got out of the shower way late. So late I didn't have time to make breakfast. Or pack for a possible trip to San Jose that night. So late that I didn't even have time to brush my teeth and instead, brought my toothbrush and toothpaste with me to work.

I did, however, have time to shave that morning, which is another reason why I was late. Because as what usually happens when you're late and half asleep, I cut myself in the spot I always cut myself and caused a full-on gusher. That meant wasting time trying to get the thing to stop bleeding.

I made it to BART just as BART pulled into the station and so I made that by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. Everything was cool up until I hit the airport, the second to last stop on the BART part of my commute. Right in the middle of the tunnel that takes you to the airport, the train just stopped. We waited there for a few minutes when the driver got on the PA and announced that somebody at BART HQ accidentally pressed the wrong button and made it so this BART was supposed to be heading in the complete opposite direction. This meant he had to switch sides, back us up for a bit, then wait until everything is fixed.

We backed, something that took a lot less time than the driver thought it would take. It was, however, just enough time to make sure that I would miss my SAMTrans connection and so would have to take CalTrains. Which meant I had to wait that much longer for my coffee, my breakfast, and my teeth-brushing.

It was at this particular point that I started bleeding again.

We pull into Millbrae and just as I go to the CalTrain section, I see that Caltrain had pulled into the station. I went to get a ticket so I wouldn’t get in trouble in case they came by and checked tickets (which had happened to me years ago when I applied for the job) but the ticket machine wouldn’t accept my dollar bills. So I had a choice- wait for another fifteen minutes or risk a possible ticket if they actually got around to checking.

I risked it, hoping that the karma achieved in putting up with all the crap I had put up with so far this morning would bail me out.

Needless to say, it didn’t. As soon as I sat down in my seat, some meathead of a failed cop came down the aisle checking tickets. In my head, I was all prepared to unleash the full venom of how I was feeling, being a little hungry, a little sleep deprived, and a little pissed off about all this. Just as he was about to get to me, though, some Chinese guy who hadn’t sat yet went up to him and started asking him a question about tickets. The Chinese guy barely spoke English and so the conversation between him and the meathead conductor went on for a stop and by the time it was concluded, the conductor had gotten so frazzled by the whole thing, he forgot to check my ticket and moved on.

I was safe. Or, at least safe for now.

Be cool, be cool, I said to myself and did. I kept my eyes to the paper and never looked up as he spent the next ten or so minutes going up and down the train. At one stop, he even kicked somebody off the train for not having a ticket, but for whatever reason, he never said anything to me. Karma? The fact I looked either too cool? Or too pissed and had a noticeable cut below my lip that was bleeding?

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided not to risk it anymore so I got off at the stop before the stop where the shuttle comes to pick people up and take them to Super Mondo, I got off. The stop is actually closer to SMC but because it’s a smaller stop, they don’t have shuttles to take you to work. It’s only a fifteen minute walk to work from there and I thought besides the fact it would ensure me from getting ticketed, I could get some coffee and the wind and cold could finally stop my bleeding shaving cut which I was going so profusely I was out of kleenex.

So I walked to work, coffee in hand, kleenex glued to my face as I was bleeding all over the place. The good thing is that despite it all, I wasn’t that late to work. And all in all, it wasn’t half bad of a walk. But as I was walking to work, I started thinking, boy, I really hope I don’t run into somebody I don’t want to run into until I get some coffee, clean myself off, and brush my teeth.

There’s somebody who works in my building at Super Mondo who I met once before, years ago. In fact, I think I went on one of those internet date type things, a Dead Man Walking type date where I was pretty much nixed within the first few minutes of meeting. Which is fine. Anyways, after months of staring at each other and giving each other the "hey, do I know you?" look, we’ve progressed to making small talk and saying hi to each other. It’s still a little awkward, though, only because we haven’t had the talk yet, the one about why it is we kept on giving each other the "hey, do I know you?" look. Which, again, is fine. I got nothing bad to say about her and it’s good to know somebody else in the building. She’s also pretty friendly and a good person to know at the company. Unfortunately, everytime we run into each other, usually in the elevator, it’s not at a great time to have the talk. In fact, I usually run into her when I’m least into having the talk. Like just coming back from the gym and holding in my hand my lunch and not able to think about much other than how much I really want to eat. Or when the security system was being fixed and the elevators weren’t working and we were scrambling to figure a way into our corresponding areas.

Naturally, I ran into her. when I haven’t had coffee, was bleeding profusely, and hadn’t brushed my teeth. She’s in a really, weird, chatty mood too. I, however, am not. So once again, we just make small talk and I try to do my best to not be too freakish and sociable.

As the elevator hits my floor, I get off, sit in my cube, drink my coffee, and thank God I finally made it into work.

PS- BART broke down that night too, so I got home half an hour later than I should have. Friday was a good day.

For my Secret Santa gift I went looking through the bookstores in the Mission for a cookbook. Should have known better as this isn't the best neighborhood to find simple cook books. Books on transgender issues in Uzbekistan, yes, cooking deserts, no. Or at least, it's impossible to find cookbooks for anything that isn't organic and/or raw.

I thought about asking people in the bookstores if they had bookstores, but though the better of it lest I get lectured on how I could possibly want something as trifling as a cookbook in these times. Or how cookbooks are supported by the agriculture/industrial complex and in buying them, I'm supporting big coporate over some organic farmers in Belize who are being crushed by "the Joy of Cooking" folks.

I did something I haven't done in a long time and played chess today at lunch.

When I was a kid, I actually was into chess. In fact, I was pretty gosh-darn good, so much so I dominated my 2nd grade gifted class. I was so into it then that I actually read books about chess and started learning all the big moves. At some point, however, I backed off from playing chess probably because I realized being into chess would doom me into a life of loserdom and geekdom. So I joined marching band instead.

Actually, one of the reasons why I stopped playing is because it's one of those games where it's all up to you. It's all about the mental, about being logical and smart and seeing things steps ahead of you. There's no die rolling, no alliances, no randomness involved. Whicis why I hate playing it- if you lose you have nothing to blame. You can't say you had a bit of bad luck or you lost it in the sun or you were injured or what have you. If you lose it's because you lose.

And the thing about losing is that when you lose there's only one real excuse for it- you got outsmarted. Which, in it's way, means that you lost because somebody was smarter than you. I hate when I think somebody's smarter than me.

So that's why I hate playing chess.

Man, I hate those days where you're friggin tired and exhausted from not enough sleep and you can barely make it through work and all you want to do is go home. Then you go home and all of a sudden you wake up and have tons of energy and you wish you followed up on those plans you thought about doing but didn't because you thought you'd be tired and spend the whole time watching TiVo and wishing that either you would have gone out or went immediately to bed because at least you accompolished something other than watching all the Tivo you hadn't watched yet because you went out the night before.

And I hate when you have those super-realistic dreams, the kind that aren't crazy or surreal or nuts, but more realistic and about real things and totally detailed and even a little stressful and scary in it's depth and width of realism. Then you wake up, realize it was all a dream and that it what happened in the totally realistic dream was way more exciting than your actual life and all day you're kind of depressed because you're life isn't nearly as good as the one that you saw in your dream world.

I mean, envying other people for what they have is one thing, envying something you had in your very own dream is another thing.

Anyhoo... it being the Holiday season, err excuse me, I mean Christmas Season (sorry, Bill) that means Secret Santa time.

Is there anyone who actually likes doing the Secret Santa thing? It seems to me it's one of those office things that nobody likes but you wind up doing because you're kind of expected to do it. Like if you're a boss and you don't do Secret Santa you'd be hated by your employees because every other department is doing it and you're not. Even if most people hate it except for the one's who get really into Christmas and bring out the lights and the decorations and wear pendants every day.

Nobody likes those people.

So you have to go around and buy presents for some coworker that you maybe know well enough to buy a decent present, but probably not. Then you go hand that present over in hopes that they like it, which hardly is ever the case because you usually never know the person well enough to get them a good present. But you have to pretend you like the gift and the person who gets the gift from you has to pretend they like it when it usually winds up in the trash as soon as the person goes home and it's all awkward and strained.

And all this for a holiday that's not even mine.

Today I did something bad. Really bad. Something totally awful and evil and lame and wrong and something I know with every inch of my fibre is bad.

I ordered something after looking at some junk mail that was sent to me.

Yes, I know, I am now the problem and not the solution. I have just justified millions of dollars and thousands of trees that are all wasted in the great waste that is direct marketing.

But wait! It's not what you think! I swear!

It's from my DSL company and a new offer they're giving out. So, in fact, it's not that bad of a thing. I already pay for my service. And the DM they put out was actually helpful and informative. Not to mention a matter of good timing because I was a day or two away from switching services. Besides, as I work for a DM department, DM is my friend.

So next time your mailbox is cluttered with junk mail, blame me.

Sorry for the no post in awhile, but my trusty Ruby Red iMac has been acting up lately which prevented me from posting. In fact, it's kind of sad what's going on. It's like "Brian's Song" when Brian starts getting sick-- one by one, things that it used to have no problem doing is now being problematic and I have a feeling it's going to end with my getting all weepy and teary and giving it a speech as it bid it buh-bye.

So sad.

Anyways, here'a few quit things:

-To the girl at the bookstore on Saturday. If you've gotten so fat that the skirt you are wearing no longer can be button so you have to wear a belt to keep it up, maybe you shouldn't be wearing the skin tight, baby-t shirt. I know having a huge, prodigious beer gut maybe "empowering" and yeah, some of us guys do it, but ugly is ugly is ugly. Big shirts- look into it.

-Are bars getting louder or am I going deafer? It seems lately that whenever I've gone to some, crowded, happening bar, I can't hear anything and I spend all my time yelling "what?" at people. Is this always the way it's been and I'm just know not liking it? Am I getting deafer in my old age? Or are they cranking the steros up in the bars because all the younger kids are deafer from having iPods on 24/7?

-My feeling is that part of the reason why people are collectors is because of the buzz you get when you find something you've been searching forever. Like record collectors. They hear about some Monkees bootleg that was only released in Sri Lanka and it becomes all about getting their hands on that Monkees bootleg, even though it is a Monkees bootleg. For me, that's what I love about downloading music-- it's not necessarily having the songs to listen to, it's about finally being able to download it. Half the songs I've downloaded I barely liten to, but I'm super psyched I downloaded it.

Anyways, over the past couple of weeks, I've finally found the Holy Grail of downloading (well, for me). The first is the Afghan Whigs covering "the Temple" from JC Superstar that was on their album "Congregation." Now, it's a great song with a great riff but the fact that it's from a credible indie band as opposed to an original broadway soundtrack makes it something you can get away with cranking a lot more (cranking Andrew Lloyd Weber, after all, is verboten if you're a straight male). Plus, I loved that Whigs album back in the day and might just go out and buy it again. Then there's the one I've spent months and months searching after, a bootleg version of the Who's "Naked Eye" from their '82 tour. Today, I got it.

And for that, it was a good weekend.

PS- I also stumbled upon an acoustic version of "Mayonaise" from Siamese Dream, a pretty great one, in fact, that is totally ruined by Billy cracking up and laughing towards the end. Which kind of sums the Pumkpins up- something totally great that was totally ruined by Billy cracking up.

-In case anybody asks, no, I do not want printer ink. Even if it is 85% off.

Not that I'd see "Rent" anyways (puh-leeze), but any chance, any smidgeon of chance, we'd have about seeing it was totally shot down when we saw "Team America." Cause there's no way anyone could take that stupid-ass play seriously after what "Team America" did to that play.

C'mon everybody we got quilting to do!

Not going to go into much detail about Thanksgiving vacation, but let's just say this: Fear the low-flushing, family room toilet after a turkey and mashed potatoes dinner in a cabin with only two toilets and fourteen people.

(actually, for those of you new to this here blog, there's a lot more to say, about family and snow, and eating all day long, but there's nothing inherently funny in that. Toilets break downs,however, are funny).

The weirdest thing happened on one of my flights back from the East Coast yesterday- they actually played a movie I wanted to watch on one of the flights. Usually, when you open up one of those in-flight magazines to read what movies are available, you’ll see that all the other flights have movies like "The Godfather," "Star Wars" and "Zoolander" (I love Zoolander) showing while you’re stuck with "Herbie the Love: Starring Lindsey Lohan" (which I actually watched coming home from Germany out of boredom and wasn’t half bad for a movie that you watch only to kill two hours out of a ten hour flight).

The movie was the redone "Willie Wonka" which is the perfect in-flight movie: a movie that you kind of want to see, but don’t want to spend any money in seeing. It wasn’t that bad, actually, although, yes, the original is a hundred times better.

On the way over, they actually showed the redone "Bad News Bears," another movie I thought would make a perfect in-flight movie. After fifteen minutes, I gave up and went back to reading. Unlike "Willie Wonka," which was original enough to make it interesting, "Bad News Bears" was pretty much like the original and since I’ve seen the original about twenty times (especially lately as it’s been on cable a lot and it’s one of those movies that’s totally watchable whenever you click on it), I already knew what was coming. Why sit through the movie when I had already seen it. Or kind of already seen it. Besides, I kept on saying to myself things like "what’s up with Engleberg? That’s totally not Engleberg. And what the hell is up with Kelly Leak?"

Oh yeah, one more plane flying note: to the family sitting behind me at the Albany airport, if you’re all doing the People Magazine crossword puzzle and have to resort to going to Google on your Blackberry to get answers to the questions and still can’t figure out the answers, I’d give up on the idea that one of the kids will someday grow up to win a Nobel Prize. Or any prize, actually. Except for maybe "Most Popular Kid On Campus" at the local Community College.

Well, it appears I hit the blogging big-time these past few days. First I discovered that bloggers can actually party like rock stars. And then I checked my e-mail this evening to see if the Commish had sent out the Fantasy Football recap yet (7-3, baby!) only to discover that I pissed off a real live Live 105 DJ. That's way crazier than pissing off a Neo-Nazi.

Zoinks.

Now if somebody would just friggin call me back.

PS- for those of you keeping score at home, so far I'm managed to piss off a neo-nazi, some religious conservative freak, the Bay Guardian, the society columnist of the Chron, and Live 105. I am a bitter, bitter man.

Great Moments In Television History:

As I was flipping through the channels, I noticed that CNN Headline News was conducting an interview with THE Tony Orlando and Dawn. As a still-moustached Tony Orlando began talking about how their brand new, thirty years in the making reunion album is some of the best work they've ever done, the studio host leans and excitedly asks: "is the magic still there?"

So whose the crazier one here? The one who couldn't make it to Harry Potter because they really wanted to wait in line to check out the new H&M even though she could go any time else or the other person, being me, who couldn't believe that their friend didn't have time to wait in line for a couple of hours to get good seats to see Harry Potter even though it'll be playing in theaters for awhile?

And by the way, Harry Potter was really good.

A few quickies:

-Somebody at work keeps on pissing all over the toilet lids. Which means that whoever is doing it is not only not pissing but not lifting the lid to piss. And I'm not pissed because of the mess it leaves on my favorite stall (the big handicap one for a floor with no handicapped men) but I'm pissed because it breaks some kind of guy code. We all have lousy aim and we all make messes, but we all know this and so don't leave messes all over things we might be sitting on.

-Is South Park showing signs of the Shark Jumpage?

-I went to get a flu shot today so I'll stop being sick but they wouldn't let me. Because I'm sick.

-You know how there was that car crash with Paris, Paris' BFF Kim Stewart, Paris' boyfriend Stavros, and one of those lame-o's on "Laguna Beach" which they all survived? Just think, the world came that close to being a better place. Seriously, would that really have been considered a tragedy? You know, the scary thing about it is that if Paris had been killed, with the way the world is going, she probably would have achieved some Marilyn type martyrdom. You know, the whole live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse. So maybe it was a good thing she survived.

-The problem with Bush's approval rating at 34% is that it really can't get that much lower. At some point, he'll go up to like 42% or something and the press will be calling it a comeback and saying he's rallying when in reality, his numbers have gone from dreadful to still entirely sucky. And the thing is that now that the Republicans are trying to fight back against all the bad news, it's only a matter of time before the press goes pliant again and buys into the shtick. It's already happening. Deep down, we know they'll all get away with it.

Stupid, friggin ABC. The whole country is travelling next Wednesday and you decide to go show a new episode of "Lost." Not only a new episode, but a gosh-darn, everyone reunites and Anna Lucia and Sayid get medieval on each other.

Thanks a friggin lot. I'll be in the Albany airport when that episode airs and I know I'm not the only one.

I'm not, right?

PS- loved the scene with Anna Lucia and the "Peace Corp" guy up on the mountain. You just know something bad was up, you just didn't know when it would happen.

PPS- Is this a sign of geekitude when while watching the "Extended" part of "Lost" and the "extended" bit just turned out to be scenes from the previous few episodes, my reaction was "oh, I bet the message boards are burning up right now." Worst. Extended. Episode. Ever. Plus, if you noticed, they totally could have gotten that into the hour, but instead they just upped the commercials. Why do that? Was it just to fuck with people's Tivos? It did with mine (I think) because it didn't flip over to "South Park."

I got nothing.

Well, actually I do-- I have one of those stupid bugs that's going around. It's quite hellish, actually-- it's one of those low-grade type thingies that just never goes away. Never, ever, ever, ever. And it changes up on me too in that every day it's something new. Before, it was a tired, schleppy thing and now it's a tired, nauseous, trouble swallowing type thingy. And it's making me even more apathetic and lazy than I normally am, which isn't good and totally frying my brain at work.

I'm sick of soup, sick of not having energy, sick of only drinking tea. I want coffee, damnit.

I miss coffee. I miss the smell of it, I miss having it with the morning paper, I miss the first rush of caffiene as it courses through the body and wakes everything up. And you know what I miss the most? It's having the coffee cup in one hand and walking around with it, like it's an extension of the arm. I don't know what it is but it's kind of a reassuring thing, walking around with that cup. It says "I'm a man on the go. I'm a man who appreciates the finer things in life. I'm a man whose totally addicted to something that might not be great for him."

While in Vienna I broke down and went into a Starbucks for some coffee. It wasn't because there was no coffee to be around (there is the Vienna blend coffee for crissakes) but you couldn't get coffee without having to sit down at some cafe and wasting a half-an-hour to an hour just to have coffee. Which is great in some ways, not great when you just want to get some coffee and go and don't want to spend half-an-hour philosophizing and waiting for the waiter to come by with the bill.

The thing was in looking back at, part of the reason why I think I went for the Starbucks coffee is I missed walking around with the cup of coffee in my hand. Like I had gone half-way around the world and needed the cup of coffee to walk around with to give me just enough feeling of home and feeling of who I am that it was something I needed to kick the trip in high gear.

Or aybe it was the jet lag.

On Friday night I thought I was just going out for a drink or two with a friend. So we went to North Beach and ran into some other people I know. And a drink or two turned into, well, a bit more. Not to mention getting home around 2.

Drinks turned into dinner, dinner turned into the Lusty Lady, and the Lusty Lady turned into taking a tour of Coppola’s Zoetrope Production Studios and infamous Flatiron building, you know the one on Columbus that’s green and kind of triangular. It’s one of my favorite buildings in the city and one I’ve always wanted to take a tour of. Well, I got to. I also got to see the private bar and screening room down below.

And yeah, it was so more exciting than the Lusty Lady, which is what I’m sure most people are going "wait, what was that again?"

Wasn’t my idea.

I’ve been there a few times, back when I was younger and maybe a few years later when we discovered a co-worker was working occasional nights there. What I remember is basically you go into this booth, a screen comes up, and just like in Madonna’s "Open Your Heart to Me" somebody dances in the center while everyone watches from a booth. The main advantage of the Lusty Lady is unlike all the other places in North Beach, there’s no cover charge. In fact, just a minutes worth of "entertainment" is only $2.

Usually, when the screen comes up, you get to look at a couple of naked women maybe dancing but mainly looking completely bored trying to pretend to look sexy. I swear that one time I went, it looked like someone was doing homework. But this time the screen comes up and there’s a woman completely in front of me shimmying. And when I say completely in front of me, I mean completely in front of me.

She does a couple of moves and looks down at me and realizes that between my trying to do as much as possible to keep as little of my body from touching any part of the booth of possible and my discomfort in the whole, shall we say nearness of the whole thing, I didn’t look like I was enjoying myself. Plus there’s the fact that I’m not quite into the Suicide Girls look and my dancer was completely into the Suicide Girl thing and so I was probably spending too much time looking at the much cuter non-Suicide Girl behind her. So she leans down and starts talking to me, telling me that I should try to enjoy myself more. And not in a nice way, either, more like kind of a bitchy, "I just showed you parts of me only my doctor really sees, the least you can do is try to look slightly happy to be here" tone of voice.

Let’s just say the moment the screen went down, I got out of their as fast I could. It’s one thing to see way too much of someone’s anatomy, a whole other thing when they try to engage you in conversation, but a whole other thing when they start giving you attitude for not being impressed.

Now that the Republicans are in their Winter of Discontent and are busy either fleeing in the sinking ship or busy purging from their ranks the non-idealogically pure, we of the Bluish persuasion are not supposed to take much glee from it. The world is a dangerous place, they say, and while the GOP has seriously fucked themselves, considering there's still three (!) more years left in the Bush Presidency, it's not good for our country that things are this way. Which is true in a way. We are at war not just in Iraq but with terrorists and you can't but help think that in whatever damp, dark cave (or probably more like Pakistani chalet) Bin Laden is holed up in, he's lighting up a big fat stogy and drinking some champagne in truimph knowing that his little 9/11 stunt managed to do some serious fucking shit up.

To which all I can say is screw that. Karma can be a bitch sometimes and as the Greeks know, when the hubris kicks in, it's nothing but entertaining. Personally, we won't be happy until Rove is getting bitch-slapped by someone in prison, Cheney has to go into hiding for real, and Bush is chased out of DC all tarred and feathered and wearing a sign that says "Worst. President. Ever."

But in all of this hoopla, there's one thing that gives me some pause. Which is this- think of one Democrat who makes your heart go pitter patter and makes you want to go out right now and fight.

Can't do it, can you? Biden? Whatever. Schumer? Putz. Hillary? Too busy trying to appear not scary. Kerry? Blogga, please. Watch any of them on TV and they all look the same- mealy mouthed and whimpy and unable to say anything or think anything that shows even a glimmer of cojones.

Want more evidence? Which Senators are leading the fight against torture? John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two Republicans.

Sigh.

The Unforgettable Fire

For whatever reason, I went to listen to my CD of U2's "Unforgettable Fire" (yes, I'm still in a U2 mood and yes, it's one of my favorite albums. "A Sort of Homecoming," which for some random reason reminds us of driving around Toronto, is one of our fave U2 songs). Anyways, when I put the disc in, my iTunes thingy said I put in "War" and even went so far as to list all of the songs from "War" instead of "The Unforgettable Fire." So while listening to "Homecoming," my computer says I'm listening to "Sunday, Bloody Sunday." And while I think I'm hearing "Bad," my computer is telling me I'm really listening to "Two Hearts Beat as One" (another fave song, by the way, and one I can't figure out they never play anymore or isn't played on the radio).

I can't even begin to figure out why this is happening.

OH MY GAWD. Thanks to Cherry and Mrs. Cherry I snuck down to first level seats and was like 30 yards or so away from Bono! He sang right in front of me! In fact, I think he LOOKED RIGHT AT ME!!!!!

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. What I'm here to talk about was all the Jews for Jesus people out in front of the Oakland Coliseum handing out flyers. Why? Because while most Jews for Jesus look like schlumpy middle-aged people, the kind of people who have cult member written all over them, the one's outside the arena, for the most part, we're cute Jewish women.

Which is sad.

What happened? How did they get all screwed up? Is it one of those whacky things that we Jews sometimes go through, like the whole BuJew thing? What do their parents think? And what would the reaction be if a Jew, like, say me, were to bring a nice Jews for Jesus-ish girl home to meet the parents? Would it be good? Bad? After all, they are Jewish. It's just that they believe in the one fundamental difference between us and Christians. On the other hand, I don't think the "For Jesus" part would make much of a difference to little Lynx and Lamb of Prussian Blue or any of their fans.

I can't believe "Seinfeld" or "Curb" ever dealt with this subject before and left it up to me.

You know how they always come out with these dumb studies about wasted work time. Like "we lose on the average 8,345 hours a day due to people checking e-mail?" Or "people talking about 'Everybody Loves Raymond' the morning after the show causes an average of five minutes of lost productivity a day?"

I wonder what the study would say about lost productivity due to today's big story:Cheerleaders Arrested After Allegedy Having Sex in Stall

I didn't do pretty much anything this week as I've been on the edge of being sick since last Wednesday or so. In fact, I was pretty sick on Thursday, but still managed to make it into work on Thursday and Friday.

So I decided that not being a big fan of being sick, I'd take care of myself and rest up this weekend, trying to recover. Which wasn't a lot of fun. I wasn't sick enough to actually be sick (you know, bed ridden), but just sick enough that everyone in awhile I'd just get this general feeling of schleppiness. The worst thing, though, is that I was just well enough to feel completely energetic and up. So I spent most of my time like the proverbial rat in a cage all weekend, too afraid of feeling worse to do anything, too well to really be sick.

The worst part, by Sunday afternoon, I thought I had beaten it. I mean, I spent pretty much all day Friday and Saturday doing nothing but reading and watching TV. And then, right in the middle of seeing "Jarhead," I got that feeling again that I'm sick.

And it's like, if I'm going to do nothing on a weekend to try and recover and not be sick only to find out that I'm still sick by the end of the weekend, I should have gone out.

I saw "Jarhead" today and I have to say, it was pretty good. I especially like the decision the director made throughout the movie that to help convey the sense of on-the-edge of insanity, he occasionally throws in dissonant sounds, like the sound of a crying baby. Throughout the movie, in just completely random places, there'd be the sound of a baby crying or gurgling or just making baby noises. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I have to admit the big scene, where they finally get a chance to do something, the baby crying doesn't quite work, but that's just my opinion.

And you're probably wondering, what baby crying on the soundtrack? Well, it had to be on the soundtrack, because only complete idiots would bring their baby to see "Jarhead."

Just for shits and giggles, here's my favorite recent musical downloads:

Jefferson Starship "Find Your Way Back"
The Black Crowes- "Descending"
Triumph- "Magic Power"
Mariah Carey- "We Belong Together"
Guns N' Roses- "You Could Be Mine"
Afghan Whigs- "The Temple" (it's a cover of a song from Jesus Christ Superstar and yes, it rocks)
Badly Drawn Boy- "The Shining"
Led Zeppelin- "Your Time is Going to Come"

And "We Belong Together" is a great song.

Anyhoo, a friend and I were talking about what we've been listening to lately. I've been having trouble with that question lately as I don't really know what I've been listening to. Or there's nothing really that I've been listening to, I'm just listening to crap that I've downloaded, which, as you can see, is a bit all over the place. My friend, who is a musician, said that he's only been listening to the discs of his friends' band that were burned for him.

Which is when it occured to me that one of the things about all this new fangled music stuff is that in a way, it's making what we listen to more insular. Because a lot of people, like me, aren't really out there listening to new stuff that's out there in the pop culture landscape, but are mainly listening to stuff that they can find elsewhere. Which is great in a way- I have about eighteen hours worth of music on my computer, all of which are songs that I like. When I'm home, all I pretty much listen to is my mp3s off a computer. But I've lost a lot interest in checking out what's out there because I'm completely happy with what I can find online. Same with my friend- he's only checking out his friends' stuff.

Which is a great thing for music in a way in that there's more stuff out there and more stuff accessible but also really bad for music because it's so much harder to get anyone to care to give it a listen.

So it turns out I can make decisions. Good one's too, one's that make me all warm and fuzzy inside. I, in fact, woke up this morning knowing full well what I wanted to do.

Fred Taylor for Eli Manning.

Which I guess makes me a huge Giants fan now.

Anyways, tonight there was the Dia de los Muertos thing going on in the Mission. It was pretty cool. But all I can say is people here in the city really like dressing up in costumes and dancing to drums.

In fact, considering half of the people who were either walking around or marching, it looks like if you want to hold a parade, just bring a drum circle and certain people will follow, like rats following Patchoulie Pied Piper.

I was actually amazed at how much work into a whole bunch of the stuff there, including the costumes. Between Burning Man and Halloween, how do these people have all the time to put this stuff together. Or did they just grab their Burning Man costumes and wear that? And aren't they burnt out on all this stuff?

And finally, there is this observation- does everything in this city have to carry with it an anti-war, Bush is Hitler protests? Yeah, you can make kind of a connection between a Day of the Dead thing in the war, but do you have to? And is attaching an anti-war flyer to one of the altars appropiate?

When I go to work, I get off a bus that stops across the street from my building. To get to my building, you have to cross a street with a stop light and a very long wait. There's not that much traffic.

At the cross walk, if there's no car coming, I walk. Even if there's no "Walk" sign. And sometimes, if there's only a few cars or cars coming but still far away, I'll cross anyways. Cause I hate waiting.

I've noticed, however, that when I cross, I'll look back at all the other people who got off the stop with me and they're all standing there, waiting for the "walk" signal. They'll sit there and wait, and wait, and wait even if there's no cars to be found.

Is it wrong for to cross? It's breaking the law in a way, or at least going against order. And if you don't do what you're told and follow order, there's anarchy. On the other hand, it strikes me as totally stupid to sit there and wait at a cross walk for imaginary cars to go past. Is it just my complete inability to follow any rule deemed as silly? Am I just smarter than anyone? Or am I a scofflaw?

I have noticed, however, that one of my fellow travelers, the Ignatius Reilly character, is starting to follow me across. Sometimes he's even more daring than I am.

And this kind of makes me proud.

In my head, I think I'm decisive, able to make the big decisions come big decision time. I consider myself as having good instincts, good intellect, good senses. And then, when it's time to make a decision, I can't do it. And I hate myself for it.

Here I am, at a crossroads, about to make one of the biggest decisions somebody can make at this time of year and I have no idea what to do. Not only do I not know what I want to do, but in my desperate attempt to come up with a workable solution, I made things worse. I carved myself new options, new choices. And I'm totally stuck.

I mean, so Daunte Culpepper went down. So I have no Quarterback right now. It's not like he's been that good to begin with. Yet, I've won six in a row. Six. I'm in second place and on a roll. Do I trade Fitzgerald for Bledsoe? Or trade Fitzgerald for Brunell and Jurvecious? Or Taylor for Manning? Or do I just hold tight, don't ruin a good thing. After all, I haven't gotten that much production from my QB position to begin with.

And in a weird way, this whole thing would be easier if I wasn't winning so much. If I was 4-4, the decision would be easy. Even if I was 5-3. But 6-2 with a six game winning streak? The Yankees or the Sox would totally be dealing, but the White Sox won and they very noteably didn't change a damn thing come trade time. Neither did the Astros. On the other hand, when the Sox traded Nomah last year, it was the catalyst for them to win it all.

Damnit, how does anyone make decisions?

PS- I was at a friend's house on Sunday. He and another friend also do fantasy football. All afternoon, each one of us would peak at the scores, or fight the urge to peak at our score.

Damn you, fantasy football, damn you.

have to go out (the best thing about being in a relationship, of course, is having an automatic excuse to not go out). And also because I actually get a huge kick out of Halloween. It’s a great holiday. The moment I stepped onto the 22 and saw somebody get on dressed up like Princess Leia in Star Wars (the bun look, not the gold bikini look), I felt better about dragging my frumpy ass out into the night.

So I went to a party. I knew of a couple, all of them sounding not-so-exciting, and chose the one I went to after making a calculated decision that it would be the best one. Plus, the friend who invited me was the first one to invite me to a party and it was the path of least resistance. I’m all about taking the path of least resistance.

The party was in the penthouse of some apartment complex off Van Ness. How much of a dude apartment was it? The reading material underneath the coffee table consisted of football magazines and Playboy. And as befitting people who would have that as their reading material, the people attending were a little on the young side. Like early 20’s. All of which made me feel that much better about going out on a night I much preferred to rest my weary bones on. Cause nothing makes you feel your age like being way over ten years older than everyone at a party you’re going to. And for the record, part of the reason why I went to this party is that my friends who invited me are 30 and 39 and didn’t think the party would skew that way.

It was kind of a fun party, kind of one of those parties that never quite kicks into full party mode. But whatever. People came in really good costumes and there was jello shots and unlike other parties, people knew that my Star Trek red shirt costume meant that I’m supposed to die everytime I go to a new planet. Which makes them okay in my book.

Towards the end of the night I sat down on one of the really nice couches and found myself unable to get up. Part of it was because I was nominally supposed to save my friend’s seat, part of it was to save their beer and to hold onto part of their costume, and part of it was just because it was a damn comfortable couch and I was pretty much done with the night. Anyways, one of the people at the party, a black woman who could be described as somewhat bootylicious came up to me while sitting and told me that I had no excuse to just sit there and that I had to dance. So she got me moving a bit, first while sitting and then right by the couch. After a few butt bumping moves, she dragged me onto the dance floor and got me to dance.

Now I know I’m treading on way dangerous territory here and that I’m skating on un-PC thin ice, but when you’re a white guy who can’t dance and feels like a total uptight, uncoordinated white dude when dancing, having to dance with a big black woman who can dance is a bit intimidating. Cause deep down, the feeling is that as a white person, it’s just genetically impossible for us to dance like black people. Throw in being Jewish and, well, you get what we’re trying to say. Dancing with a black woman is, in a way, the ultimate worst case scenario. It’s like going out drinking with a couple of Irishmen. Or playing poker with a couple of card sharks. It’s something totally out of the league.

And so I danced, baby, danced. And forced myself to overcome my inate uptightness and fear of looking dumb and got into it as much as I could. But no matter how hard I tried, all I could think to myself was this- "oh God, just don’t do the white man’s overbite…just don’t do the white man’s overbite…."

Editor’s note- for those of you going "what the hell is he doing here and how lame can he be?", remember if anyone else was in my shoe’s, they would have been thinking the same damn thing. Well maybe not everyone, but a large segment of people would have it flash their minds. And if not, they’re lying

Now here's a shocker...

Sulu's gay.

You know, I was actually going to post last night, but I got caught up in last night’s game and decided to wait until the end of the game and, well, so much for that.

The big news here is that on the other site, I posted about the Nazi Olsen Twins, little Lynx and Lamb. Because twelve year old blonde girls singing songs about white power is kind of hilarious in a demented kind of way (very demented). In response, I got a post from an actual Neo-Nazi.

I’m pretty proud of myself.

In fact, here’s the actual posting (and yes, I realize I’m toeing a fine line but everyone’s going to be asking anyways. Besides, as a wise man once said, mock the devil and he will flee from thee).


Email Address: Wssav2@aol.com
URL: http://www.nationalvanguard.org
Comments:

I think what Lamb and Lynx want is to live in a white society that has traditional values, the kind of society that most whites would want to live in, especially if they plan to have children.

Who came up with the idea that white, traditionally Christian societies are evil-ism, but the Jewish State is good-ism?


When I got the e-mail with the response, I quickly took the comment back. Not necessarily because I was freaked out for myself, but more for the site. Internet spat fights with racist overtones never go well-- people feel free to post anything because of the anonymity of it all. And besides, it’s not like you can logically argue with these people because, well, I think the term would be bat-shit crazy.

And yes, so far I’ve gotten fan mail from a far-right religious freak, someone calling me "the dumbest" something or other in the city, and from a Neo-Nazi. Which is kind of a badge of honor, but all too easy in a way. Pissing of Neo-Nazis, after all, isn’t that much of a challenge. Especially when your Jewish.

PS- yeah, I posted the guy’s e-mail address. Go ahead and spam the dude all you want. Or sign him up for Martha Stewart newsletters. I did.

Here’s what making good money will do to you-

I booked tickets today to go back east for Thanksgiving. In booking tickets, I had a choice between tickets that were really cheap but involved getting up early, spending three hours at Chicago O’Hare Airport, and getting into Albany (yay, I’m flying into Albany! Another world-class city I can check off my list) before the rest of my family does. Or, I could spend about $80 more to get up late, only spend about two hours in Chicago, and get in a little after my family does.

Now, there was a long time in my past I’d suck it up and go for the cheaper tickets. In fact, I feel kind of guilty in not getting the cheap tickets. But I, of course, went for the most expensive tickets, $80 be damned. Cause is sleeping in, not having to kill three hours in Chicago and an hour in Albany worth $80? Hell, yeah.

By the way, I was having trouble booking my tickets online because, for some whacky reason, it’s kind of hard to find flights from San Francisco to Albany around a national holiday. My dad threw out all sorts of possibilities to do it and even suggested I call a travel agent to help with my tickets. To which I responded, "travel agents? What are they?"

And here’s the random thought of the day- I’ve always had a pet peeve against people who put exclamation points at the end of sentences. I wouldn’t say I broke up with somebody over it, but when you add up all the points in somebody’s favor, the use of exclamation points is a definite negative.

For some reason, I’ve been using more and more exclamation points in my writing lately.

It started out, like most things in life, as an ironic statement. But then ironic statement became normal and I realized it was starting to be used non-ironically. Kind of like most people and listening to Journey. Now I find myself using exclamation points more and more.

If there’s anything I hope to accomplish, it’s to kick myself of this habit before I turn into one of those people who end everything with an exclamation! I hate those people!

Dear Republicans, when I hear you start talking about "the criminalization of politics" these days due to the fact all of your leaders are being indicted, all I can say is this: suck on it.

How excited am I about all of this? I'm not paying attention to celebrity gossip anymore. Yeah, I know TomKat is pregnant and Britney's baby photos came out and Paris dumped Paris, but who cares, really? Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are spending all of their waking hours contemplating the possibility of being prison raped. It's a beautiful thing. I mean, if nobody gets indicted or just Scooter does, it's going to be a bit of a bummer. Like a "Phantom Menace" type letdown.

Any day now......

I don't know why I'm really excited for the new Harry Potter movie, but I am. Really excited. Like hoping I see the preview excited. And it's not like the movies were really that good. Well, the third one was good, but not totally epic. It's just that the movies are now as much a part of the books and it's going to be awhile before the next book comes out. Or maybe it's because now that we're in our post-LOTR, post-Star Wars, post-Serenity movie days, there really doesn't appear to be anything that exciting to be released anymore.

When I hear people talk about movies, I always hear them say "there’s a lot of good movies out there." Which they always say, but that’s neither here nor there right now. What does it mean, then that the last three movies that I’ve seen are "Serenity," the Wallace & Gromit movie, and "The Corpse Bride?" Is there really that many good movies out there are am I just not seeing any of them.

Somehow, I don’t think it’s me. There really is nothing out there.

For instance, there’s that movie out there "North County" starring Charlize Theron, once again making herself ugly (as Bill Maher said "we get it, you’re a good actress, please be hot again…") in order to play some factory worker fighting against the system, this time in the cause of sexual harassment. This, of course, is one of those movies out there that’s supposed to be one of those "good movies" that everyone is supposed to be seeing and will probably get nominated a whole bunch of times. And all I can say is yawn. I mean, I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve seen it. I can pretty much picture the entire movie in my head already. Because I saw it when it was "Norma Rae" or "Silkwood" or "Erin Brokovich" and okay, I never saw any of those movies, but still.

What does it say that the most exciting thing that happened this weekend is that my fantasy football team won their fifth straight? In fact, I'm undefeated since I've been back in the States. And all this despite drafting Daunte.

So this weekend there was this Open Studio thing going on in the hood where various artists would show off their stuff. Some of them showed it off in their art space, some of them in various studios, some of them in their homes. And when I say home, I mean home- there were paintings in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the hallway, in the parking garage.

I have to say it’s a little weird to be wandering in checking out the artists work in their homes. It’s just a little, well, personal. It’s one thing to see their art work in a studio or some place. You're supposed to see art work there and possibly by it. Go into their home and they’re not only asking you to check out their art work and possibly by some, but also check out their apartment too. And yes, I didn't really want to engage any of the artists in conversation because it would make feel that much more guilty for not buying any of their ridiculously priced items.

As for the stuff, it was about what you’d think. Some of it was a little pretentious, some of it really good (seriously), and some of it really awful. One place we went to was this really fancy, big home up near Dolores Park. The artists' paintings were all nature stuff and animals. In fact, she advertised herself as someone who paints pet portraits (raising the question, of course, who the hell would get a painting of their pet?). Her non-portrait stuff was of nature pictures, like ducks taking off from a lake or a deer wandering through the forest. The duck picture, by the way, went for about $8000. The artwork mainly consisted of stuff you’d find in hotel rooms. I mean, it was just awful, like bad Thomas Kincaid or that guy who painted stuff on PBS. Except worse. The weird thing was that the artist in question was lesbian, as were all of her friends sitting around telling her what a great artist she was. I guess it really does show we've come a long way when lesbians can come up with perfectly crappy, cheesy nature paintings too.

Just wondering, but....

If you're going to pour tons of perfume all over yourself, why do it on a day that you're going to the gym? Because you're probably going to lose it all after you go to the gym. Unless, of course, you re-perfume yourself afterwards. Either way, you don't get that great, post-workout sweat smell, you know, the one that makes you think you had a great workout. Or maybe you will, but the people working out next to you who wind up accidently bathing in it won't.

Oh, and am I the only person who's going to the New York Times web site every five minutes or so to see if anyone's been indicted yet? It's like waiting for a package for a package to come in the mail, one that you don't what it is but just know that it's going to be really cool. Or like knowing that Christmas could come at any day now. I'm just guessing, but I'm thinking that once the indictments come, the Washington press & punditocracy might actually spontaneously explode if any of the rumours out there are true.

Yep. Oktoberfest again. This time at Fort Mason, not Munich. Still, it was my second Oktoberfest this month in two different parts of the world. Whee!!!! All I can say is that there's something to polka music and beer steins. In fact, there's just something about swaying back and forth, clinging steins, and singing "Take Me Home, Country Road" at the top of your lungs that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy towards humanity.

Or so I think.

Anyways, two observations of the whole experience.

The first bit concerns riding the bus. On MUNI, the whole front section of the bus is reserved for the eldery or the disabled. Totally makes sense. More times than not, when you get on the bus, there's not that many elderly or disabled riding so you have to sit in the front row. Which is fine, except you constantly have to be alert for the entire trip to make sure you don't take up the seat of an elderly or disabled person who gets on. There's a lot of pressure to it.

First of all, you can't slack off. The one moment you don't pay attention to who gets on the bus is the one moment some 85 year old woman with a cane gets on and needs a seat and everyone on the bus watches as totally oblivious you let's her work on by. Or, what could happen is if there's one of those questionable calls comes on. Like their kind of old, but not quite old enough to be senior citizen. Get up for them? What about if their not frail in any sort of way? There's a lot of 70 year olds who are probably in more shape than I am. And what qualifies someone as disabled? People get up for women with babies or people with lots of bags, but not all the time. In other words, it's a judgement call, judgements that you have to make within a few splits of a second. That's stressfull.

And for those who've been in the situation knows, what happens when it's obvious somebody needs a seat and all the seats are taken mainly by us young-ins. That's when this delicate communication dance starts between everyone to decide who gives up a seat and who doesn't. Sometimes a few people all try and make the move and it becomes a battle of who gets up first. And sometimes nobody is quite sure who is supposed to get up and so everyone looks back and forth, quickly, trying to communicate with each other who should do it. Or sometimes nobody really wants to get up, but everyone knows they should. So it becomes a Mexican standoff between people as they all dare each other to be the one to get up so they don't have to be the one who gets up.

The second observation concerns men's bathrooms. See, at Oktoberfest, there was long lines to get into the men's room. This isn't what we're used. Every guy in the line had this look on their face like something was wrong, like there's something off and there not sure what, they just know that it is- like everyone was forming in their head some scheme to get out of this situation but not sure what. I, for instance, was sure there had to be another bathroom or another way, but just didn't know what. I mean, I had even gone all the way to the other side to go, but the line was such that I thought I'd be clever and go across the way to check out that bathroom. Because there's never really long lines for the men's room.

The other thing that occurs is because woman know they have to wait for a long time, go early in the "needing to use the bathroom" stage. Guys don't. Because we just assume it'll be easy. So we go when we kind of have to go and when we get in a long line, we're much farther along than women. What happened on Saturday is that after about fifteen minutes, almost every guy who had been in line for a long time was busy hopping on one leg or two or crossing their legs or swaying to and fro- anything to hold it in.

Not fun, I'se tell ya.

So I didn't take today off and being the good Jewish boy that I am, felt bad about it. Especially since today wasn't that crazy. Even worse, I looked out in the world and noticed that Jon Stewart, Gawker Jess Coen, the guy who does ESPN's Daily Quickie, and Tony Kornheiser all took off.

I am such a bad Jew.

I finally saw "Serenity." All I can say is Joss Whedon is the Man.

Damn good movie.

It's Yom Kippur right now (sundown, remember) and no, I'm not fasting and I'm not spending all day contemplating whatever I need to atone for. I'm going to work in fact. There's two main reasons why not. First one is that I'm slammed right now and I'm still trying to catch up with all that happened while I was away on vacation. The second reason is that as a contractor, I don't get paid if I don't work. In other words, Yom Kippur is one expensive holiday.

I actually seriously thought about taking tomorrow off. I usually like to, but the reasons why I don't are basically one's of guilt and of trying to out Jew-y everyone at work. Two valid reasons, for sure, but not enough to lose all the Benjamins. And it's All About the Benjamins.

So you're not allowed dogs to bring dogs into work at Super Mondo. Which makes some dog owning co-workers a little miffed. We noticed today that one woman keeps on bringing in a dog, but we think she can get away with it because it appears she's training the dogs to be seeing eye dogs. We think so because the dogs all wear some little contraption that says "seeing eye dog training."

So, I'm thinking, maybe it's just a scam to bring in her dog. After all, how hard is it to make up some little blanket and put "Seeing Eye Dog Training" on it?

By the way, there was a point I reasoned that I'd rather be blind than deaf because at least if I was blind, I'd be able to get a cute seeing eye dog.

We interrupt this blog for some baseball talk. Sorry.

If you want to know why Derek Jeter is Derek Jeter and A-Rod gets no love, it's all so obvious after tonight's game. Bottom of the ninth, down by two, Jeter hits a single. And what does A-Rod do? He hits into a double play.

There has been a lot of disasters that have befallen us. Hurricanes, earthquakes, floods. Biblical type disasters. One has to wonder, exactly, what has gotten up God's butt? Because He's pretty pissed off these days.

One has to wonder too just what it is that we've done to piss Him off. After all, considering the Muslim fanatics in the Middle East, Jewish fanatics in Israel, and the people who think they run this country, the Down with God folks seem to be in control of things. Well, maybe not in control of things, but let's just say the God loving are on the upswing. And for this? We get disasters.

So, what I'm thinking is maybe this is a sign. Maybe this is God saying we're barking up the wrong trees as it were. After all, considering Hurrican Katrina. The only place in New Orleans, hell in the entire Lousiana area, that didn't really get hit was the French Quarter. If one perscribes to the belief that God does some smoting when there's some sinning going on in that Old Testament kind of way, wouldn't the French Quarter be the first place that got hit? Shouldn't it be entirely wiped out? In other words, is the message in all of this God isn't telling us to be more "Godly" but that He's telling we need more strip joints and jello shots.

Oh, what the heck, I'm in a writing mood tonight.

-Someone at work had some sort of bug then got a cut on her leg and the next thing you know, she's got flesh eating bacteria and they have to cut off a leg. It's unclear as to whether she knew that going in or she'll have a huge suprise when she ever wakes up and gets off all the drugs they're feeding her. For some reason, this story freaks me out. And I'm not the only one. Let's just say that I stepped on a shard of glass with a bare foot at home and I sprayed enough Bactine on it to sterilize a small African village.

-My opinion of the new Supreme Court Nominee? I've been reading the big right-wing blog, the Corner lately as they all seem to be in a rather depressed mood lately and most of the postings fall into the category of either "Gosh, maybe the President is a boob" or "cheer up little buckeroos." Even they think she's just some stupid crony And, of course, it goes without saying that the Replubicans, having sold their souls a long time ago, will let her pass and the Democrats will somehow botch it. And I hate to say it too, but I'm thinking about hopping on the McCain in 2008 bandwagon. I know, he's a Republican, but at this point, that's all there really is right now. It's like the baseball playoffs. I root for the Giants, but since there's no way in hell they can win, I might as well root for somebody who has a chance.

-And speaking of which, I really couldn't care less about this year's baseball playoffs. Sox/Yanks III? So over it. Naturally, I hopped on the Indians bandwagon last week, just in time for their massive choke job.

-I'm kind of liking "Rome" but think it's not nearly as good as it should be. It's just not epic enough or has enough sense of history to it. No sense of a Republic falling, no sense of the tragic consequences that led to the civil war between Pompey and Caesar (Pompey got sucker played by Cato into fighting the war) and the Caesar character is more like a plodding middle manager type than some guy who's name still connotes bad-ass leader and yummy salad. Is it me, though, that so far, the best episodes all featured tons of nudity and sex?

-I get lots of crap lately for my proclivity for doing nothing but watching a lot of Tivo. So I wonder, is spending a lot of time watching Tivo TV really that bad? Because it's not like I'm really watching anything that bad. In fact, other than my ESPN sports gab shows, the things I watch on Tivo are things like "Arrested Development" and "Firefly" and "Battlestar Gallactica" or "the Office." In other words, is watching a lot of tv bad if it's good tv? And now that "I only get Netflix" is the new "I only watch PBS" why is only getting movies on Netflix worse than watching good Tivo?

And yeah, no posting for awhile. By the counter I have, it looks like even the three people who read gave up on this ole blog. Sorry. I seem to have lost my Mojo lately, I think somewhere in Bavaria. Or maybe even before Bavaria. Who knows? All I know is that I got a bad case of the Block.

Case in point, today. I was all set to write, but a combination of a drunken sleep, early morning yoga, and a burritto have pretty much rendered me useless today. Total couch day. And yes, I’m rambling…..

Anyways, I'll try and start posting again by next week.

Apparently, if you're stuck in some voice mail hell, the kind where you have to say your reqests by voice over the phone, if you say "mother fucker" really loudly, you'll immedaitely get sent to an operator.

Ever since I've been back, I've been having trouble being motivated about anything. Work, writing, sports, going out, TiVO (!) I just don't seem to be movitated. I know, quelle difference. It's kind of a weird thing too in that the trip was great and I feel totally refreshed and rejuvinated in going, I just don't feel like doing anything. And it's kind of weird too in that for the entire trip, I was Mr. Motivated, Mr. Energy, Mr. Let's do This and Let's Do That and Who Needs to Sleep?

So, I'm thinking my lack of motivation is just plan ole recovering and tiredness and being burnt out on being Mr. Motivated. Or maybe it's just right now everything's one big let down. Going to the Love Parade and watching a bunch of ecastasy laden freaks dancing? Going out for drinks with friends? Going to parties? Who cares? I was in the friggin Alps last week hiking and bobsledding down a moutain. Top that, bitches.

Or, who knows. Maybe it's just that I had so much fun I'm totally satisfied for now. Spend all weekend on the couch catching up on "Battlestar Gallactica" (a show I found myself totally addicted to and I'm still not sure why)? Why not? I've had enough fun for awhile. Don't worry about me, I'm fine.

PS- Lost was sooooooo good last Wednesday. I think I'm now head over heals in love with that show.

Tonight, I watched the season premiere of "Lost" and an episode of "Battlestar Gallactica" while waiting for my luggage to be delivered. Lost, of course, has with it a huge theme of faith vs. logic. As does Battlestar. My luggage wasn't being delivered. I waited and I waited and I waited, but for some reason, despite all my best attempts to stress myself out, I had this strange feeling it was going to be delivered. Late. Like around 10:30 or so. 10:30 rolls around and the doorbell rings. My luggage is here.

Crazy, huh?

As we wait for the premiere of Lost the TV show and Lost my luggage, we decided to get back into this blogging thing. So, I’m back.

And before we start the Big Holiday Recap, I’m going to go with the rant, of course. Because that’s way more fun. Today’s rant? Airplane trips, yay! Because bitching about plane flights is never done.

Coming back from Munich, I had two flights. One of them involved me waiting in line for an hour and a half to get checked in, luggage cluster fucks, pulling an O.J. through the airport, and making it onto the flight with about two minutes to spare. That wasn’t the hell flight.

No, the hell flight was much worse.

Where do I begin? With the fact that even though it was a five hour flight (Charlotte to SF), it was one of those tiny, sardine can type flights. The kind where everyone is stuffed in and completely uncomfortable and there’s so many people stuffed in there that no matter how much ventilation they pump into the airplane, the flight is still going to be all hot and stuffy because of there being too many people in too small a space. The plane was old looking too, like it had faded carpeting and rinky-dink viewing screens and I swear I saw stains in the carpeting and it wouldn’t have surprised me if first class had wood paneling.

Flight takes off and they announce that in order to see the movie, you’ll have to pay $5 for the headphones. Which would be okay if it wasn’t for the fact that the movie was "The Sisterhood of the Lost Pants," a movie nobody in their right mind would want to see unless they were a thirteen year old girl. Didn’t really matter, though, because the video broke about ten minutes into it and so there was no movie to watch.

The food you also had to pay for. $7 for a sandwich or a salad. Since I was really hungry, I was kind of into the food, especially since I had this wacky idea that I’d get served on the plane and so didn’t buy some food at the Charlotte airport. Unfortunately, I was out of luck with the food because they ran out. The sandwiches were gone halfway through the plane and the salad about three rows in front of me. Now, how do you run out of food on a five hour flight that’s sold out? And thanks for making it fair for all the people sitting in the back, people like me.

But the final straw, the kicker in all this was the one, the only, the thing that makes everyone on a flight go "oh shit" -- the screaming baby. The screaming baby that sat in the row in front of me. And it wasn’t like the screaming wasn’t that bad, it was the occasional messy diaper and the messy diaper smell that wafted through the stuffy air. Then there was the fact that all the women in the plane thought it was just the cutest thing ever and so whenever they stopped by, would bend over and do the goo-goo-gah-gah’s with the baby. Oh, and did I mention the baby let loose with the binky towards the end of the flight and hit me on the head?

All this too, after a ten hour flight out of Munich, after a long week long trip through Europe, and after getting not much sleep the night before because two drunken Irish dudes knocked on my hotel door at 3:30 in the morning to ask if I wanted to go to a strip club.

Off to Europe for a couple of weeks. Be back in a week or so. Maybe I'll post from abroad, maybe I won't. We'll see.

Okay, we’re going to do this in two parts:

Years ago, a friend and I decided to travel through the South since neither of us had really seen much of it. We flew into New Orleans and drank in the French Quarter, ate crawfish, wandered through the streets of all the neighborhoods, saw a band play at a famous club, bought voodoo charms, and hang out in hundred year old bars named for Napoleon and pirates. The highlight of the trip was a haunted ghost tour we took at night. The tour guide, who could have been completely making it all up, took us around the city and told us all the various ghost tales. We half believed it all. It’s just that there’s this weird vibe to the city, like it was part of our world but not part of our world.

Then we took the highway up Mississippi to Jackson Mississippi for a blues fest. In a cotton field right near where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil, we saw B.B. King and Little Feat with hundreds of locals. The next morning, we discovered the glories of Waffle House.

Now, it’s all gone.

Second part:

I’ve read that the latest polls have Bush’s numbers pretty much where they were when this whole thing started. Somewhere like in the low 40’s. His poll number on how he handled all this were around 45% which pretty much means that all those people who’d support him normally are there with him. Which raises this question: WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

SERIOUSLY, COULD SOMEBODY SCREW UP MORE? COULD AN ADMINISTRATION COME OFF AS MORE ARROGANT, MORE INEPT, MORE JUST PLAIN FUCKED UP THAN THIS ONE? WHAT PART OF THIS WHOLE THING COULD YOU APPROVE OF? THE BEING LATE PART? THE BLAMING OTHER PART? THE PHOTO-OP FAKERY PART? HOW ABOUT THE JOKING AROUND IN NEW ORLEANS OR THE JOKING AROUND BY HIS MOTHER? AND WHERE THE FUCK WAS CHENEY? NOW THEY’RE DOING THEIR USUAL LIES AND USUAL SPINNING AND THEY’RE TRYING TO BLAME OTHER PEOPLE. SERIOUSLY. HOW MANY TIMES CAN THEY FUCKING SCREW UP, BLAME OTHER PEOPLE AND GET AWAY WITH IT? ARE YOU EVEN READING THE NEWS?

I mean, I’ve been watching the news and watching the media actually rise up and show a backbone. I’ve seen the media clips. And I watched Keith Olbermann today drop his aloof ironic-self and lay into the President. Christ, even the reporters on Fox News have been getting uppity. I’ve even been reading the Republican blogs and have been enjoying the fact that they’ve been all kinds of depressed and in denial about it. Some of them have even been saying blasphemous things like "oh, maybe he shouldn’t have taken such a long vacation" or "Geez, that Brown guy sure is an idiot." But now even they’re starting to spin the whole thing "oh, it’s not their fault." Which raises this question? IS THE PRESIDENT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING?

AND CAN YOU REALLY LOOK AT ALL THIS, AT THE WAY THE POOR WERE SCREWED OVER AND THE WAY THAT ALL THE VICTIMS WERE PRETTY MUCH BLACK AND SAY "WELL ,THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS?" SHOULDN’T THAT BE TELLING YOU SOMETHING? YOU KNOW, JUST BECAUSE AL SHARPTON AND JESSE JACKSON CLAIM RACISM EVERY TEN DAYS OR SOMETHING DOESN’T NECESSARILY MEAN THEY’RE NOT RIGHT A BUNCH OF TIMES. AND IN THIS CASE? OH, THEY’RE FUCKING RIGHT. DON’T YOU JUST FEEL LIKE ALL THE FUCKEDUPNESS OF THIS COUNTRY JUST GOT TORN AWAY AND EXPOSED FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE

IF THEY GET AWAY WITH THIS, I SWEAR. I’M SO FUCKING PISSED OFF I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF AND NO, THIS WHOLE POSTING HAS JUST MADE ME EVEN MORE STEAMED.

Don’t you get it? WAKE UP WHITE PEOPLE, WAKE UP!

All I can say is that it’s a really good time to get out of this country. And if I somehow declare myself a political exile in Germany, would anyone blame me?

Oh, New Orleans……

(Yes, I realize that in light of what's going on, this next post is a little bit over the top, but remember, it's all about comic effect here and I actually was able to keep things in a lot more perspective than I'm about to make it sound. Anyways).

Friday night comes and my after-work drinks plan never came to fruition. So I decide to make a nice mellow night out of it. Go rent a DVD, watch some TiVo, and hit some sleeping pills so I can get some good sleep. I've been battling some nasty-ass insomnia lately (seriously, some of the worst ever) and was a bit ragged. Plus, with me off to the Fatherland in a few days, I got plenty of excitement coming to me. So what's a nice, mellow Friday night?

I pick up a DVD of Anchorman, a movie I only saw on an airplane and which some people swear by and which I really wanted to see. Since I have an old TV, I have to actually switch some chords around to get the DVD to play. The problem is that I rent so few DVDs due to the wonders of TiVo that I kind of forgot which chords had to be moved where. Which I kind of knew was going to happen.

I move a few things around and nothing. No Anchorman. And then after a few more moves, no picture on the TV screen. Nothing, Nada, No TiVO. Hell, no TV. I got nothing but snow.

Well, now what do I do? I'll go play online. DSL goes out. But wait, it gets better. You know that quiet night I was hoping for? The courtyard neighbors decide to throw a party that night so at about ten, their stereo cranks up and I hear all these people downstairs partying.

So now I have no TiVO, no TV, no DVD and no internet connection. In other words, I HAVE NOTHING. What does one do without TV or the internet? And even worse, there's a party going on across the way guarenteed to go to like three in the morning.

Luckily, I still managed to pass out around 11, more out of sheer boredome (and Tylenol PM) more than anything.

Ahh, so we're back. You know, I meant to post all this week, but blogger wouldn't let me in. I actually had to reconfigure a few things to get back in, including getting rid of all my cookies, which now means I have to resign up for all these things I was already signed up for. I usually use the same name and password, but sometimes I don't depending on the site and now I have to remember which user name and password I used and which e-mail address and it's kind of a pain.

Oh well.

It's probably a good thing too I wasn't posting because it would have been a week long rant about you know what and I'm trying to affect an attitude of Serenity Now in all things politics again as just a dip into say Salon or Wonkette was raising the blood pressure up to bad levels. But we'll all get to that later.

So, what can we catch you up on.....oh, I know...my volleyball game on Tuesday.

Going into the game, we were 7-8. The team we were playing were 8-7. So you can see the level of importance to the game. First game comes up, we rally from like 7-1 to win 11-9 (the games are up to 11). Second game we get blown out and lose. Which leads us to the third and final, game. We go up quickly 5-0 and are cooking. But then disaster falls as some guy starts watching us play. Now, I wasn't sure whether the guy was just crazy or just annoying, but he started watching and then started to make all sorts of comments towards one of our woman players about how hot she is. Which she kind of is, but that's neither here nor there. The thing about the guy is that he basically walked up and started in, making me think he was just your typical crazy dude, except he was a little too nicely dressed and looking like he was working out to be a crazy homeless guy. On the other hand, we were playing in the Marina. He was also black and some black guys have no problem telling women how hot they are when they walk by, which is something I've never been sure of is something I'm apalled by or kind of jealous of. But that's also neither here nor there.

So anyways, this guy is getting into her and the tension level just shoots up because there's really nothing we could do, or at least nobody willing to step up and say something back, least of all the girl who just tried to shrug it off (no holla-back girl her, but what are you gonna do?). We fall apart. After they quickly tie us and vault into the lead, the dude changes his comments and just keeps on shouting "relax, baby, just relax." The other team is getting pretty tense too and making snippy comments back to him. Total tension city.

But then, down 10-5 and down to match point, the dude leaves. And then we go on a rampage and quickly tie the game at 10-10. We go back and forth a bit, trying to get match point and then finally, after one of those sets that involved a lot of people running around and making tips to other players that had no business actually getting to where they were supposed to be, we won 12-10.

Pretty gosh darn inspiring story, ain't it? Total "Rudy"?

Well, I thought it was a good story.

I saw "40 Year Old Virgin" today and all I can say is it's worth it just because the movie has, by far, Best Use of Asia's "Heat of the Moment" In A Movie. Ever.

By far.

Not to mention the song "Age of Aquarius."

Actually, it was a pretty funny movie.

When I left the Metreon, though, some panhandler in a wheelchair literally chased me down on the street corner to ask me for spare change and got so much in my face he almost ran me over. Needless to say, he didn't get my money.

I'm in my apartment getting to go out and I hear some loud yelling echoing through the streets and into my apartment. Because I often hear loud clamoring, I couldn't tell whether it was just a crazy guy, street protest, or even one of those preacher types who occasionally sermonize on the corner. I head down and notice that it's a combination of them- it's a crazy guy with a bible sermonizing. Or at least I think he was sermonizing as he more liked barked stuff out and the only word I could hear was "God." The dude was loud, though, so loud I could hear him from a block away.

When I passed him, I couldn't help notice out of the corner of my eye that one of the local homeless dudes was busy staring into one of those ATM Machines. When I looked to see what he was doing, I noticed he was using the mirror attached to it to shave.

Ladies and Gentleman, the Mission.

Oh, the dude who was shaving is this guy who I've been seeing around a lot lately. He's kind of young-ish looking with face tattoos who's walking around selling those spin art things we all did as kids. As his story goes, he's holed up in a hotel room with his wife and kid and he's selling his kids art work to earn money to support the family. Which was a great story the first time I heard it. I mean, he could be just out there hustling money but he's trying to at least he's making an effort to give something for people's spare change. And the art work, well, I've seen worse.

But after a few months of seeing him on the street, I think I've lost sympathy for his plight. It's just that all that time and effort he's expending into trying to sell his kid's artwork makes me wonder if he could be using it more judiciously. Like looking for a job.

I went to go pay my PG& E bill the other day, you know, to keep the company going while they blow up more things in San Francisco. First thing I do is try and call the phone number on the bill to pay it that way. Instead of having a live operator, which, of course would never happen, or one of those voice mail systems that allow you to punch in numbers, they had a voice activitated system.

I love voice activated systems.

First of all, I'm in my friggin cubicle and I'm now supposed to say out loud things like my checking account number or my address or my phone number or my frickin' social security number. Not to mention the fact that I'm gonna come off sounding like a big ole dork since I'm just going to be saying a bunch of random things.

But the main reason why I hate the voice activated systems is because you have to speak almost perfectly in order for the thing to work. So you find yourself saying things like "billing....billing...bbbbiiiilllliiiiinnngggg" in order to get it through. And forget even trying to say those long numbers that you have as your account number.

So I tried the online site. First thing that I noticed was that somehow I was listed as already being signed up on the online site. Which I think I tried years ago but gave up on when I realized the site didn't work. But for whatever reason, the five passwords that I constantly use never worked with the screen name I always use. So I clicked on the button that said it would send me my password and waited for an e-mail with my password. I got it. They sent my screen name instead.

Naturally, I resigned up with a different name. That worked great except for the fact that everytime I'd type in information and hit "enter," I'd get one of those screens that say "error, try again." And so I did. And it would work until I got to the next screen where I'd type in all my information and hit enter only to be told to try again. I finally made it through, about ten minutes later and entered all my information with excitement in the fact that I had finally paid my bill.

A day later I got a notice saying the payment didn't go through.

Yeah, I haven’t posted in a few days. Sorry. Sometimes I do have a life.

There’s this guy who takes the bus into work with me. He’s about ten to fifteen years older, kind of fat and grey with a beard and a long, stringy ponytail that looks more like a rat tail than an actual pony tail. Despite the fact there’s no dress code at Super Mondo, he always dresses the same every day, in a button down shirt, dress pants, tie and suspenders. He also always wears a little black fisherman’s cap. When we take the bus in, he’ll push his seat all the way back and quickly falls asleep, snoring loudly the whole way. When we get into work, I often times see him in the cafeteria, getting usually the most disgustingly greasy eggs/sausage combo, which always makes me go yumm but never eat because I’m trying to watch what I’m eating. After searching for months who he reminded me of, it suddenly occurred to me: he reminded me of the one and only Ignatius O'Reilly.

Anyways, yesterday as I’m taking the bus back home, he sits across the aisle from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him shift in his seat and kind of lean over to the side. Once positioned, he then proceeds to let out a really loud fart and once done, sits himself back down into normal position and, without batting an eye, continues to read his book.

So there you are, having a mildly stressful, more like frustration onsetting kind of week when Thursday rolls along and all you can think about is "yay, it’s Thursday!" because that’s the day you’re going to see a bunch of friends you haven’t seen in awhile to go see one of your favorite back-in-the-day bands, Dinosaur Jr. But then, as the day goes on and things get more and more stressful and you can feel the storm clouds gathering like gathering gloom everything goes to hell in not just a hand basket but matching accessories. Which is how you find yourself becoming the victim of one department’s steam blowing off exercise. And is how you find yourself getting reamed out by someone in somebody else’s cubicle. Loudly and visibly and in front of the whole department. And not very nicely either. Best part of the whole thing? It’s by someone with whom you have somewhat of an off-kilter relationship with in general and with someone whose work is considered by people in the know as someone as a bit of a screwup and who you’ve been covering for months. The kind of worker to whom people say "what the hell does she do all day?" and "is she back from lunch yet?" The kind of worker who several times has missed important e-mails because the mp3's she e-mails her friends have clogged up her e-mail hard drive.

So you got that going for you.

Then, twenty minutes later, the loud, Hawaiian shirt writer with a notoriously bad attitude and in inability to realize that in joking around, there’s a fine line between being snarky and an asshole, is on the phone with you as he’s working from home. After spending five minutes trying to get an explanation out of him as to why he wrote something that doesn’t appear to have any purpose and to which he can’t remember if he wrote it or not, he puts his five year old son up to the phone to tell you to "stop busting my dad’s chops." Funny and cute, perhaps, but also all sorts of jerky and completely and totally unprofessional.

And so you go leave work and head off to your grand adventure, something you’ve been super-psyched with for months, and all you can think of is just how fucking pissed off you are. Instead of going "woo hoo!" to what’s transpiring, all you can think about is the writing and editing of the e-mails to them, coworkers, bosses even, in avengence of your honor. And as you hang out with the friends and go to the concert and hear one of your favorite bands play some of your favorite songs extremely loud and extremely well, all you can think about is how fucking pissed off you are and how lame it is that you just went through what you went through.


Man, Thursday sucked.