Apple released their new operating system yesterday- Tiger. Between it's previous name, Panther, and the new name, Tiger, I can't help but wonder if their next operating system is going to be called either "Blue Steel" or "Magnum"

About Last Night

I'd like to thank the guys doing construction on the store next door for starting work at around 8 this morning. And not just for all the hammering noise and the knockings down noise or the moving things around noise, but for causing all my neighbors who were also awaken by all the noise to all crank their steros at once to dry and drown out the construction noise.

So last night I took a cab ride with a cab driver who possibly had the worst case of B.O. We're talking homeless guy B.O. He was Sikh so I don't know whether or not it's a cultural thing, but man, oh man, did that guy smell. He had all the windows up during the ride too which made me think even he knew he reaked.

And speaking of last night, one of the woman I was with got into a conversation with some guy who it turns out was 25 and had a two year old kid. Which didn't stop him from laying down the heavy cheese in scamming on her. And you know what word best describes a twenty-five year old with a two year old kid scamming on someone at a cheesy bar? Yep, it's so Federline.

One more note, one of those eternal mysteries is why when women wear some dress that bascially puts their breasts out on display for all the bar to see, they get all huffy when guys leer or make comments about it? What do they expect will happen? Of course, said girl also got what she wanted in that it looked like she was about to hook up with Federline guy, but on the other hand, she was about to hook up with Federline guy. Isn't that all you need to know about what happens when you take the twins out like that?

In one of those "kids, don't do this at home, leave it to trained professionals" moments I have followed up a ten day trip back east and a late night arrival to San Fran with two nights out drinking. Not good. Do you know when you're so tired that the bags underneath your eyes hurt and you feel like screaming "cut me Mick!"? Well, that's me.

I do have to say this however: Star Wars tickets, bought 'em. God, I love the internets.

Flying Home

Flying home from Philly, I noticed as I was boarding that one of the people who was in the group called to board with me included a cute girl. As always, I got to wondering whether I should be so lucky as to have her sit next to me. I have heard about the airplane pick up but have never experience it as I usually sit next to the frumpy fat guy in a football jersey. So I got excited. And then I started to think about just what would happen if she sat next to me and I started to think that if she did, I would probably spend the entire flight trying to get the courage to talk to her. I probably wouldn't so would then beat myself up the entire flight and post-fligt commute for it. But if I did talk to her, I would then probably beat myself up for thinking that I said something entirely stupid and/or bugged the hell out of some poor girl who probably wanted nothing more than to sit on a five hour flight and not be bugged. Which made me think that it would probably be best if she didn't sit near me and therefore I could spend the entire five hour flight doing nothing but reading "War and Peace."

I read a hundred pages of "War and Peace" in peace. And it was okay by me.

Another Pet Peeve

Super Mondo has cafeterias in all of their buildings and all of the cashiers have one of those ATM credit machines so you can charge your meal. Which is pretty cool. Unfortunately, it also brings up one of my (many) pet peeves. That being people who charge something under five bucks. Especially those people who are merely buying coffee. I mean it's only a couple of bucks, you can throw out some bills. My main problem with it is that even if it's just a simple order, it takes awhile for the transaction to happen.

So today I'm getting breakfast- some coffee and a bagel and get in line behind one of those Khaki clad marketing types. The dude is buying a coffee and a breakfast burrito, for the total of like $4.35. While in line he pulls out a muni clip full of tens, twenties, and God only knows what else but instead of using it to buy his breakfast, the dude uses his ATM card to buy his breakfast.

I hate that.

2nd Night of Passover

Woo-hee, I just learned a new blogger trick. About two years too late, but still...

So tonight was Passover, Night Two. And yes, Passover is two nights- because just one night of brisket is never enough. The Seder? About seven kids around ten years of age, a bunch of my dad's friends, and an eighteen year old girl. I start hanging out with kids, thinking that my place was at the kiddie table, then realized that all the old folks there was my crowd. Then I started to think that my role was to hang out with the eighteen year old whose probably hating the fact that she's there with a bunch of kids and old folks, just like me, until I realized she probably sees me as one of the old folks too.

The eighteen year old, by the way, is about to go to college and I got to listen as all the older types told her what to expect at college and how to survive. When one of them said that for every hour of class, you should schedule in your calendar at least two hours of study time I almost choked. Calendar? Schedule? Planning on studying? Wuh? I did not, however, make any comment about my dad's "woah, I was so crazy back then" story about being hospitalized for drinking too much....drinking too much coca cola.

As is my wont, I spent part of the time playing "Picture What the Kids Will Be Like When They're Older." I love that game. For instance, you have-

Girl Who Spent Entire Seder Cutting Things Into Little Pieces, Including Parts of My Shirt- total soon-to-be psychopath. Probably something involving fire.

Girl Who Spent Almost Entire Time on My Dad's iPod- eventual indie-music snot. She was already rocking the Lisa Loeb glasses.

Girl Who Brought Along Older Brothers Copy of "Back in Black" and Tried to Get Everyone to Play It, Finally Finding a Sympathetic Ear with Yours Truly (Who Also Figured Out that The Song She Wanted To Download was by System of a Down)- Bad, bad news. But one with a good taste in music.

The Sweetest, Most Adorable Girl In the World Who Just Wanted to Hug & Kiss Everyone- someone to lock up inside the house and never, ever, ever let outside because the world will only break her heart into a million, billion pieces.

Oh yeah, according to the kids, Avril Lavigne and Britney are totally out. Which is bad news for them because when your a teeny bopper and you lose the eight year olds, it's over. Green Day, however, is totally in. Which, I guess, is a good sign. When one of them bops up and down to the strains of (the totally edited version) of "American Idiot" you tend to think that maybe the kids are alright.

Some Odds & Sods

-Spied on a t-shirt of a pregnant and non-wedding band married girl at parking lot in Philly, the line "Birth Control is For Sissies." Whu?

-Wore a Giants cap to an Orioles/Sox game (great game by the way) thinking that in a battle between American League East powers, I'd be considered neutral and get off easily. As I was leaving, I heard this: "Hey BALCO! Want some steroids?" The O's, by the way, not only have a tradition of playing "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" during the 7th inning stretch, but cheer when whoever is singing the national anthem says the word "Oh." That's also cool.

-I overheard two guys at the coffee shop at the train station today discussing the pros and cons of using AFLAC car insurance. If not the most boring conversation I've ever heard, it has to rank right up there.

-Did I mention I got a foul ball? Speaking of which, in retrospect, I kind of liked the nowhere quality to the Phillies ballpark. Since we were sitting low, we couldn't see anything outside of the stadium. In that way, there was kind of an other-worldy quality to the park, like we were in some vast desert where out of nowhere, this funky little stadium can be found. A little Road Warrior, actually. It was, in a way, kind of trippy.

-I made the off-hand comment to my mom that I like coming home for Passover because I miss Jewish food. So she loaded up her house with bagels & lox, mazta ball soup & brisket. I am so sick of all of them but because she bought so much of it, I have to keep eating it. The brisket, which was huge and not that good, is like this albatross around my neck because I can't leave for the West coast until we finish it and after having it two days in a row, we're not even halfway done.

-When do you know that you're getting to old for kickball? When you're team name is "Just Another Excuse to Drink."

-There was a big story in the Washington Post today about how voters across the country are disgruntled because the economy is still kind of icky and congress is spending most of it's time trying to save some vegetard. Turns out they're suprised congress is acting this way and can't believe what our government is doing. I've said this before and I'll say this again- suck on it. You guys voted for him, I didn't.

Yeah, I'm back. Sorry, I forgot I was a writer there for a second. Anyways....

After thirty-six years and a half years of life and over a hundred baseball games to my name, it finally happened. I got myself a foul ball. At a Phillies game no less (I'm in Philly right now). Ball came flying into the air, crashed down two seats to me, and rolled towards my foot after the two guys who leapt across the aisles both crashed into each other and missed it. I'd like to say I made the bare handed catch but I was actually a little scared there- that ball came awfully fast. Well, I also remembered what my dad always said: "it's never the first guy who gets the ball." And it's true. I was the third. In fact, if you were to watch the game, and I'm sure nobody did because it was like 16-4 at the time, I would have looked totally cool and collected as I swooped in all crafty-like to get the ball.

And yes, it's totally cool.

After I got the ball, some kid came down to look at it. I thought for a second that I should be the totally classy person and give the ball to the kid, but then I thought screw it.

Oh yeah. I had a cheese steak at the game. With Whiz. At a Phillies game. In Philadelphia. In other words, not a bad night.

Mmm.....cheesesteaks.....with whiz.....

PS- At one point during the game, they were doing the thing where they show people in the stands on the big video. They cut to two hot girls who did a little dance for the camera. Then they cut to two more. One of them stands up, spins her back to the camera, makes it look like she's about to take it off, then starts in on this totally skankalicious dance move straight out your generic rap video. They show that for a couple of seconds, then cut to two more hot girls who realize what's going on and so one of them stands up and begins to gyrate. Just then, the scene cuts to a shot of kids dancing. Totally wholesome, totally cute, totally clean kids. Coincedence or not?

PPS- how was the Phillies stadium? It's a nice place, although a little too gimicky. The main problem though is that the stadium is in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere Philadelphia up past the oil refineries. No ambience. No ambience at all. It felt like it was at the edge of the world there.

You know what says hip and now? 78 year old men being elected heads of church. You know what says even hipper? The name Benedict XVI.

Yeah, I know John Paul ain't that hip, but it ain't that bad. It's not only two of the Beatles, but the main two. Not to mention Zep's bassist. So, I guess what I'm saying is that if you're going to try and hip up the pope, go with something like George Ringo. Or J-Pope. Or Justin Joseph. You know, hippify the dude.

It's all about increments.

First it's just a matter of getting out of bed. And then out of the apartment and to BART. And then to work. Once your at work, it becomes a matter of making it through the sending out of the morning reports. And then making it through the work day, hour after hour, minute after minute. Then you make it to lunch. Halfway there. Then mid-afternoon seista time. And then to the end of the work day. Then home.

You made it. One increment at a time.

Making it to closing time at Yancy's last night was so not a good idea.


PS- east coast bound over the next week, starting with Cleveland. Then Philly, then DC, then Baltimore. As usual, I'll post when I can so the two people left reading this will be psyched. I might even post more while I'm away then when I'm at home because I'll have nothing else to do.

I was with friends driving around SF when we pulled behind this guy in a maroon, convertible muscle car. And not only was it a maroon, convertible muscle car, but the guy had zebra-skinned patterened seat covers. When I saw him, I realized what he was- he was just so Federline.

It being one of my goals to introduce a word into the blogosphere, that is going to be my new word- Federline. As in that guy was so white trash, he's Federline.

Or, I guess you could say, Spederline. It's up to you.

Every week, the Examiner has a column where some intrepid reporter goes to some high falutin society event and takes pictures of all the beautiful people wearing their beautiful clothes. Everyone is rich, good looking, successful, and tastefully dressed. In other words, they're all totally annoying. Anyways, for every picture caption, the columnist writes who they are and whatever fabulously designed designer duds their all wearing.

One of these days, I want to offer up my own parody of the column. Like post pictures of some random kegger full of not quite so beautiful people and their not so beautiful clothes. And have captions like this-

Biff Weatherall is wearing a Gap t-shirt that he bought for $10

Owen Somersby is wearing a Sigma Tau Spring Fling t-shirt he got for organizing the pledge class.

Harold Hocklemeyer is wearing some raggy t-shirt he found at the bottom of his closet

Joe Shlabotnik is wearing a vintage Black Sabbath concert t that he bought at some thrift store even though he's never listened to Black Sabbath but thinks the t-shirt makes him look cool.

And, of course, for every woman at the party, there will be this caption.

Muffy Pendergast is wearing pants and shirt from Banana Republic.

I guess as a blogger, I'm pretty much mandated to write about the announcement that Britney is going to have a baby. When you sign up with blogger, they pretty much require it. That being said, this is all I'm going to say about it- there's no way this is going to end well.

I went to two games at SBC this week, one on Thursday and one on Saturday. For Saturday's game, Van Hoser and I were hanging out in the right-field promenande when Michael Tucker hit that grand slam Splash hit that eventually landed in the water. Considering it was a grand slam and the Giants were behind at that point, it was pretty fricking excited, one of those only in SF moments when you get to watch a ball fly over you and into the water to win a game. I have to admit that the ball was so directly over our heads that for a few seconds, I thought it would land pretty much right on top of me. Which left a little scared. I mean it's one thing to catch a line drive in the stands, a whole other thing to catch some moon shot launched from 450 feet away and with a whole crowd about to explode the moment the thing lands. For a couple of seconds I stood there thinking catch or duck. And yeah, getting the hell out of the way may sound kind of wussy until you realize that no matter what happens, there's going to be a huge scrum match breaking out the moment the thing lands right on top of whoever it happens to land on. Which could be me and that would be bad.

Luckily, it didn't land on me.

Saw these things on the TV while flipping through the channels-

-One of those Entertainment shows getting thoughts on the Pope from Queen Latifah and Will Smith.

-A commercial for Bono's new Save Africa fund starring pretty much every member of Hollywood royalty (Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz) and Pat Robertson. Yes, that Pat Robertson.

Speaking of Boner, I didn't have tickets to see U2 at San Jose this weekend and while I kind of wish I did, I'm kind of glad I don't. From every report I've read, Bono's in full preach mode, giving five minutes speeches about Africa and what have before every song. And while I'm down with the cause and think he's right about Africa and third world debt, well, did Zeppelin give political speeches before songs? The Stones? Van Fucking Halen? I think not. Hell, Pete Townshend once shoved Abbie Hoffman off the stage in mid-speech.

I wonder if at anytime during Boner's speeches if Adam has ever glanced at Larry or vice versa and just rolled their eyes. Or maybe the Edge, Adam, and Larry have this cue figured out where whenever they couldn't take it anymore, they'd just signal each other and somebody would start a cue to play a song. Kind of like at the Oscar ceremonies. Like if Bono goes over five minutes in a speech, Larry just kicks in with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" just to shut him up. Or maybe it's like what happens during drum solos and all the members of the band go off-stage and get blown by groupies in the middle of it all.

What kind of year was it last year? I finally filled out my taxes and I have a W-2 form with a total of $92 for the entire income. And that's one of two W-2 forms in which no taxes were taken out because the amount of money was so low. It looks like I'm getting a huge refund from the state but I'm paying a huge chunk to the Federal Government. The reason? Unemployment isn't taxable in the state of California, but taxable to the Feds. Which makes total amount of sense- I just got taxed for money earned because I wasn't working. Fucking Congress. What's up with that? I bet if I had sent my unemployment to some tax shelter in the Cayman Islands, I wouldn't be paying a cent in taxes.

Overheard on the shuttle on the way to work in a conversation by a Brit and an Irishman- "she's your typical American woman, kind of controlling and on lots of pharmaceuticals."

Dunno what that means either.

Went to the Giants game tonight. First of all, it's weird when there's no Barry. When you go to a game when Barry's playing, the entire game is a mathematical calculation of when he could bat. Everything depends on that- when to get food, when to leave, what to root for. And part of the reason why the Giants win when he plays is because you know the other team is thinking the same way. Well, not when to go get a hot dog, but always aware of when he could possibly bat. When he's not playing, it's like there's this big void there. You keep on thinking, well, what do I think about now?

Anyways, there was the guy behind my friend and I, a total Ned Ryerson who spent almost an entire inning pontificating on interest rates, stocks, and real estate. It was easily the most boring conversation I have ever heard in months. It was so bad I wanted to turn around and tell him to be quiet, not because the conversation was so offensive but because it was so boring. Won't somebody think of the children?

And when I was leaving the ballpark, I passed what looked like a cute young girl, maybe college age, dressed up in a winter coat, handing out little cards. So I took one, thinking it was for some school fund raiser or some sort of promotional thing. It was. For a strip club. Either I'm getting older or they're getting younger.

I guess it was inevitable but it's still kind of depressing- Jane's Addiction's Mountain Song is now being used to sell Coors.

I got my first flame on SFist today, being called both dumb and "reactionary." I also got a little flame from some crazy lady who is so obsessed with Scott Peterson that she started ScottisInnocent.com and who blew all of her money attending the trial. Throw in that religious right dipwad and that's a pretty motley group. In other words, that's pretty good.

I swear I have this great posting all ready to go, it's just that whenever I sit down to write it, I forget it. But when I'm sitting at work, all bored and feeling lazy, it pops into my head and I'm like "wow, that's a damn good post." And yes, as I'm sitting around right now trying to write it, it means I totally forgot it.

Wow, what a game on Monday night as the Roy Williams beat the Bruce Webbers to win the NCAA Basketball tourney. Gotta love how Roy made that big steal to seal the game and how valiantly Bruce fought back, hitting threes after threes after threes.

And yes, for those of you not getting the joke, it's about how the sports guy spend so much time talking about the coach that they always forget that it's the actual players who play the game.

Oh, Giants won 4-2 to be 1-0 for the season. Wheee!

PS- here's why fantasy sports can be such a dilemna? What do you do when you're #1 pitcher gets whomped but the major damage is done by one of your batters? Are you happy or are you sad? Which way should you cheer? And what do you do when you're #2 pitcher opens up against your favorite team? Is it okay to not root for your team as much as you normally would?

I love that picture of the Pope everyone's using and which was on the front page of the Chron today, the one where he's in some billowing white and gold cape and he's kind of looking down on the ground with a really determined face on his look. It's superhero-ish- Pope Man! Hell, throw on some sunglasses and it's the best U2 cover photo never taken.

I feel kind of bad because I couldn't help himself and have been snarking on the Pope's death for a week now, starting with this here bloggy blog. Then, the day he died, I let loose. Like my arguement that they should make the election of the new Pope into a reality TV show, like "American Idol" or something. All the competing Cardinals would compete on Catholic things in front of a world-wide audience who would vote for him. They'd do stuff like sing the pslams or do an Excorcism or argue how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Maybe even give a speech about what they'd do if they won. Then there was another discussion I couldn't help get myself involved in, one at dinner, where somebody speculated that on his death bed, the Pope's last dying wishes was to finally get some. And so the Cardinals brought in the Holy Ho's and let the Pope get down. I mean the Dude was basically an 80 year old virgin. You gotta think that as he's going through his life and remembering everything, he's kind of wishing he knew what it was like. You gotta figure too, that being the Pope, the dude's got so many points in his favor that excepting maybe murdering people, he's gotta be a first ballot shoe-in for getting into Heaven even if he finally has some sex. The dude ran the Church, fought the Nazis, led his people against Communism, and sacrificed his sex life. What else could he have done?

Oh wait, I'm snarking on the guy.

What I meant to say is that I feel bad about it because even I admit it's in bad taste. The guy just died. Not only that, I liked him. He was a good guy with a big ole heart who stood up for what he believed in. I may not agree with everything he preached or think a lot of the stuff about Catholicism is whacko, but you can pretty much say that about any religion, including my own. In other words, I'm sad to see him go. I think ultimate tribute to what he represented is that I saw on the news he was the first Pope to go into a Mosque, the first Pope to go into a Synagouge, and the first Pope to go into a Protestant Church. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it, not just the fact that he made it a point to preach inter-faith tolerance and to reach out to others, but that in the almost 2000 year old history of the Church, no other Pope did the same. In other words, R.I.P John Paul II

I was riding the F Line today, which by the way is something I love about the City, and it was coming up to my stop. I looked up to pull the stop wire, but noticed that there wasn't one. Instead, there was a stop button right by the door. Unfortunately, the person sitting in the chair right by the door and right underneath the stop button was some mentally disabled tweaker dude who would be still for about a minute or so and then go into kind of an epilpetic shake thing for another minute. And I had to reach over him to get it.

So you say excuse me to let the tweaker dude know that I'm reaching over him to keep him from shaking? Or do I not say anything and not draw attention to the fact? And if I say "excuse me" does it really matter? It could all be out of his control and I can go through the rigamorale of saying "excuse me" and he could still wind up kicking me in the shins.

I didn't get kicked.

I do not like April Fools Day. In fact, I realized this year that it's a pretty stupid thing. It just forces people everywhere do dumb jokes, most of which aren't very funny, only because it's April Fools Day so you have to make dumb, stupid jokes. Then there's the fact that somewhere down the line, somebody announced something that directly involves me on April Fools Day and went to somewhat elaborate measures to say it's not a joke but it's true. The thing about it was that it was so half-baked and un-thought out yet had some measure work put into it to make it seems like maybe it was a sudden thing. It also wasn't particularly funny at all, so unfunny that you maybe think it's true because it's too dumb to be a joke. But, of course, you can't ask some of the people involved if it's true or not because if you do, "gotcha!" Sucker, you fell for it. And nobody wants to let other people know that they fell for an unfunny, half-baked April Fools Day joke.

I was also the recipient of the April Fools Day prank at work, the only one in the Department. I came in and found my cubicle totally covered by funny pictures of animals. It was funny and it was cute and it was flattering in a way and everyone got a big kick out of it. The thing is that I'm just paranoid and neurotic enough to make me also wonder if there's a hidden meaning beneath it all. Like, why me? Why animals? And why the two people who are probably (and I say probably because they have been pretty good in keeping quiet about it) behind it all? And yes, life is much more difficult when you're neurotic.