So there's this whole flap about photos that Bush is shilling at a fundraiser, a picture taken on 9/11. In the photo, he's shown acting commanding and decisive, when in fact we all know he was pretty much doing whatever Dick was telling him to do. Whatever. Doesn't matter.

The thing I don't get is why people would actually want to plunk down $150 bucks for photos of W. No, not because it's W., but it's not exactly like were talking about photos of Anna Kournikovia or Bobba Fett. If it was Anna Kournikovia, I'd understand, but of W.?

I'd like to personally apologize to whatever Shark's fans are out there for their loss as it's all my fault. I'm pretty sure that if I wouldn't of said "Go Sharks!" they probably would of won. I have that effect on things.

Anyways, in that vein, go Yankees and D-Backs! I'd like to say go Lakers, but I have Shaq on my Fantasy Basketball Team and so I know find myself rooting for them.

Just saw this on the NY Times:

Bush Was Warned bin Laden Wanted to Hijack Planes

"The White House said tonight that President Bush had been warned by intelligence agencies last August that Osama bin Laden was seeking to hijack aircraft but that the reports did not include the possibility that the hijackers would turn the planes into guided missiles for a terrorist attack."

Ruh-oh

So a little job interviewing advice from the friendly folks here at Hooray For Anything- if you have a big interview, one that you've been preparing for in a way for a couple of days, do whatever it takes to make sure you sleep that night. Whether it by drinking a bottle of wine, taking sleeping pills, or hitting yourself over the head repeatedly, just make sure you get some sleep. Interviewing on three hours of sleep the night before is not a good thing. It's bad. Bad. Very bad.

Yeah sure, after two cups of coffee you might be awake and plucky enough to do it, but it's the second hour where things get tricky. You might find yourself like Ultraman after being out in the sun a little too long, little red-light on his chest blinking away, knowing that you have to get out of their soon or it could be a disaster but feeling your power quickly ebb away. And yeah, you might be able to handle that nasty split-finger curve that's thrown your way just as you think it's over (sneakily snuck in at the end, in one of those "oh, by the way" type manners as your almost out the door), but how many can you foul off before striking out?

Not that any of this happened to me, I'm just saying......

Those damn spam-mailers are getting smarter. Either they've got some great software going or they've just gotten really lucky, but someone's using the exact same e-mail name as a friend of mine. So, when I get an e-mail from them, I'm not sure whether it's my friend or spam.

I really don't think these e-mails are from my friend as it's nothing but Britney Spears hardcore porn, but if she is sending them to me, thanks :)

Cool...earthquake......

Saw this piece of graffitti in a bar tonight (before the quake)-"The Roman Empire was a Shatner."

Okay, that's pretty cool in a hip, pop-cultural Dadaesque kind of way, but, still, huh?

Then I looked at it some more. The original scrawl was: "The Roman Empire was a sham."

First of all, totally historically inaccurate. Second of all, what does somebody have against the Roman Empire and what compelled them to scrawl some drunken protest on a paper towel dispenser in a dive bar?

Because, as we all know.....(wait for it).....

...apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

So this whole Poetry of the Palestinian Resistance thing is getting to me. And not just because I'm not exactly down with it's politics. Or that it's just a pretty fucking ridiculous subject for an English class. It's just that, well, considering what the title is and the warning about it, then what the hell is the class for? Isn't class supposed to be about learning, discussion and debate? Basically, this class is gonna be just a bunch of people sitting around all agreeing with each other, getting into arguments only when there's a debate about whose more pure about the cause.

But isn't the point of higher education to get you to think for yourself?

Anyways, found this thing I wrote way back when. It was like the first thing I put on blogger, but for some reason, it's no longer there. I think this kind of sums what I'm trying to say about the whole thing….

"So me and the writing group (excuse me, my writing group and I) went to go see Sherman Alexie last night. Sherman is a Native American author with whom I knew nothing about but went to go see on the promise of drinks before and after. He was pretty cool (especially when we wound up having dinner with him and he bought our drinks for us) and his stuff was pretty funny and interesting. There was one thing that bugged me about the evening, however…..

At some point, during the Q & A session, Sherman went on a rant about the lack of a minorities and minority views in the entertainment industry. As his rant reached it's inevitable crescendo, some in the audience began to applaud in agreement. Not that there was anything wrong with what he said, because he is right, but by applauding, what's the point?

The session was held in this alternative bookstore in the Mission, the name of which escapes me in my hungover state of mind, but it was one of those alternative type book stores specializing in Third World Literature, anarchist manifestos, "I'm a member of an oppressed minority" memoirs, and various other politically correct subjects. The audience was made up mainly of the crunchy granola types, the type with whom I can almost smell the patchouli even though I wasn't aware if anyone was even wearing any. In other words, it's the kind of crowd with whom not a single person would disagree with Sherman's rant.

And that's my problem with it. It would be one thing for Sherman to say something like that in, say, Mississippi or, hell, San Jose, and there's nothing wrong with him saying what he said where he said it, but it is a serious case of preaching to the converted. And yet the audience felt like responding to it as if by making this brave statement- this earth shattering revelation- and applauding to it, their applause would resonate all the way to Hollywood and make Jerry Bruckheimer burst into cold sweat and renounce his billion dollar mansion and credit account at the Heidi Fleiss Whorehouse.

Which is so not gonna happen. So why applaud?"

Make sense?

And yes, it is basically an attempt to get something up there that used to be, but isn't, but should be cause it's got a couple of funny lines in it.

So I know I'm originally from Philly and I grew up watching the Flyers and I know this is blasphemy, but......

Go Sharks.

And now I've just doomed them.....

With so much strife and turmoil going on in the world, with everyone on the edge, scared of what might come next and with the world seemingly poised from being one step away from some serious bad craziness, one wish echoes forth through the darkness. A prayer of hope and to ease the anxiety we all feel…

"Please, oh please, let Attack of the Clones be good….."

As a wise man once said, "I got a bad feeling about this."

Playing catcher. Fluky, lightly hit foul floats to my right, far enough to be a problem, but slow-moving enough to make me think I have a chance. We are behind but poised to rally. I give chase.

I so want to win. The team we're playing is made up of some punk-ass. white-trash rocker kids, all looking like they've just done MTV's Becoming doing a Blink-182 video. All except for the Rob Zombie wanna-be in left, the rocker dude with the gelled-up Tommy Lee hair too cool to put on a hat and play, and the geeky first-baseman allowed to play with the cool kids because he looks like he's the only one who knows how to play. The team's manager, a fat swishy kid who is more of the team mascot, is a dead ringer for the character in Boogie Nights with the huge crush on Dirk Diggler. They're the type of team that puts skull and crossbones with on their jersey's, half of whom write numbers like "666" and "420" on their back. Strangely, nobody has "69" on theirs. I guess they couldn't make it. I so want to beat them. I am having such a generation gap issue (and for the record, I have never done anything like that or played on a team like that- neither with fake funny numbers on the back or rocker dudes on the team and I'll deny to my death any photos taken of me with a 0 on my team t-shirt or with a shortstop with dyed black hair).

As I chase after it, realizing perhaps that I'm just a foot or two behind it, a voice calls out to me: "dive for it and it will come." I see it happen in my mind- the dive, the catch, the cheers. And then the rally that comes from my incredible, rally-inspiring play. I see myself never having to play catcher again and given an infield position. This is my big moment, my moment of truth.

And just as the vision of me divining and catching the ball comes to me, so does the vision of me in a similar situation, tearing my knee. And a vision of me in the doctor's office being shown an MRI of my herniated disc.

The ball falls in front of me, a harmless little foul. I pick up the ball, throw it back to the pitcher and go back behind the plate.

I hate getting older.

PS- We went on to get clobbered. Turns out we were the first team the other team had ever beaten. Oy.

Blogger added this cool thing were you get to track the traffic to your site. Which is totally cool and which I've just finally gotten around to playing around with.

I'm learning all sorts of interesting things. Like someone in my family actually reads this occasionally. That some friends have too much time on their hands and that some people are actually reading this who I don't know (some guy at SFSU spent like 15 minutes on this page). And, even cooler, if you do a search for "marina chick" on Google, I come up first.

Still, for some reason, I'm getting a lot of people who seem to click on the site once and only for less than a second. Some of them come from Google, which is fine, but some come from elsewhere, including from Blogger.com.

So, for those of you who've just logged on, kick back and read a bit. Hopefully you'll like it and want to read some more. For those of you with no interest, I once again repeat something I said before- that if you look deep enough through this blog, you will find links to Free Naked Pictures of Britney Spears

Need I say more?

Back…back…back…..

Got laid off from the temp job last week.

Laid off. From a temp job. Does it get any worse than that?

I'm not sure what happened, I'm not sure what the reason was, what the what was, but all I know is I'm back to the wonderful world of unemployment. Total Lucy and the football. Actually, it was even worse than that. It was more total Ned Beatty bending over and squealing like a pig.

Somehow knew it would happen too. It was just all too easy. Just too darn easy. Because nothing in life is that easy. The moment you sit back, put your feet up on the table, and light up a stogie is usually the exact moment that it's all gonna come crashing down.

And that's what happened to me.

I was so close, so there. I was Steve McQueen, on a motorcycle, just the fence standing in the way between captivity and freedom. That's how close I was.

It all went down on Tuesday. Last Tuesday, the day I was supposedly gonna stop being yo-yo'ed around and actually taught how to do my job. The boss was no longer off-site, the person I was taking over for was back from vacation, and all the forms were finally getting dealt with.

How close was I? I spent all morning training, met my staff, played phone tag with the Photo ID guy, and even heard Arlene write on all my forms that I'll be there til Oct. 31st. All that just in the morning. I was so there.

Which is when it all fell apart.

Went to make a quick run to the Temp Agency to pick up some time sheets (because PG&E used different time sheets, I had actually thrown away all of my Act-1 time sheets- stupid me). Just as I was leaving, they told me. Told me my assignment was over.

And just like that, a six month assignment had turned into a week long assignment.

This is what life as a Temp is like. First off, I lucked out to find out when I did. Usually they call the person that night. I found out just because I was at the right place at the right time. A friend of mine, her husband had the same thing happen to him, but because he got the phone call at night, it was too late for him to pick up his personal items, stuff like Palm Pilot and other semi-important things. Second of all, the Temp Agency just told me straight out and was surprised I was kind of shocked when they told me. Then, when I told Janice, the Outsourced Outsourcer that I thought the whole thing was "fucked" she was taken-aback and surprised. Why would anybody think I'd be kind of slightly pissed off that a six-month assignment only lasted a week?

The nerve of me for actually thinking it was a big deal. It's not like a blew off a possible interview, sent a huge check to my credit card companies, or turned down a few temp assignments during that time. No, didn't fuck up my life a bit. All Janice could do was to give me the "them's the temping brakes" speech and help me not have to deal with having my soon-to-be ex bosses sign my time-sheets.

The whole thing was just fucked. Plain, straight, fucked. You know how sometimes you get fucked, but it's all so quick and painless that it's not that big of a deal? This one wasn't like that at all. It was a slow uncomfortable screw against the wall.

What happened? I don't know. The Temp Agnecy said they decided to hire someone with more HR experience. Janice told me they were too busy to retrain somebody and so decided to do it themselves. Either way is just as equally depressing.

They could have decided to hire someone with more HR experience. I had been lucky to get what I got, after all. Really lucky. I had heard that they interviewed about five or six Temps before deciding on one, but when he disappeared, they called the agency in a panic. Enter me. No interview, no nothing. Just right guy at the right time. I always thought I had gotten too lucky. Had that little voice warning me about it. The only time I had met the boss, after all, was for a "getting to know you" type thing which, at the time, seemed suspiciously like more of a job interview than a "getting to know you type thing". Guess I didn't do that well in the interview.

But what the fuck did they mean by wanting someone with more HR experience? I was supposed to be a Senior Administrative Assistant fer crisssakes, not Senior VP of the HR Department. And how hard could HR be? The only thing I knew about people in HR is that they fill out a lot of forms, never return phone calls and gossip all the time. I could do that. I'm pretty good at that. And besides, it's not like they gave me a shot. I had worked an actual total of about two hours on my actual job, the one they had hired me for. All I had done before was filing and photocopying, something I did a pretty damn good job at, if you ask me.

Then there's the second possibility, that they were just too busy to train me. Which meant that I got caught in a total Catch-22. The catch being, of course, that I get a job because someone else bailed and so the company panicked, stressed out and brought me in at the last second to replace someone. But then they panicked and stressed out so much because of the guy leaving, they didn't have time to train me. So I get laid off. Thanks for coming.

And of course, there's a couple ironies to the whole thing. Because there's always ironies to things.

The reality was that I was a little unsure about the whole six-month commitment thing. I had, after all, seen how much trouble was created when the first person quit, so what would happen if I quit? They'd have to do it all over again. And here they were, giving me a really good, high-paying temp job. The thought of bailing on them because I was bored or wanted to take a vacation or got another job was starting to give me a guilty conscious. And while I was worrying about that, they just let me go, just like that. Stupid me for feeling like I was willing to commit to them.

The other irony is that I had a feeling that day. One of those something's quite not right feelings. It was the way Maggie rushed through training me. And the off-the-cuff remark she made about not knowing how much she needed to train me because I wasn't going to get all the tasks I was supposed to have. And then there was this, that my phone line was also connected to my bosses. Whenever his phone rang, my phone rang too. Once, by accident, I picked up his phone and noticed on the caller ID that he was talking to Janice. Hmm, I thought, I wonder what's up with that? And of course, there was that little voice telling me that it was all too easy and that I had gotten way too lucky. Things like that just don't fall into my lap. Never, ever, ever.

So now what? Saw Spiderman this week and spent Thursday muching on magic brownies. And two weeks til "Star Wars" comes out and I'm starting to get psyched. Plus the World Cup is starting at the end of the month and I've already talked a just-laid off friend to meet me there for pints.

All I can say is that I hope that whatever happens, fuck PG&E. I hope they get put through the ringer. The last election where there was a big referendum to get rid of them and put in public power instead? All for it now. Chapter 11 proceedings? Sick 'em. Stories about plant workers intentionally sabotaging the system? Go reporters go. And like I'm gonna be paying my bills on time.

Fuckers.

And yes, the world is going to hell in a handbasket....

It's the news. All from today's Chron:

Cramped speech at UC Berkeley- Teacher warns 'conservative thinkers'

"At UC Berkeley, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, a graduate teaching instructor who is a leader in the pro-Palestinian movement on campus has incited a nationwide controversy by trying to control the tenor of discussion in his class.

Snehal Shingavi, 26, a fifth-year graduate student in English, who will be teaching an undergraduate English class on "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance," in the fall included in his class description a "warning" that "conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections." Students who are required to take the reading and composition course can choose from a menu of classes covering different "

"The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance"?

I must of missed all that when I was an English Major. Too busy reading Shakespeare, Chaucer and Fitzgerald.

I know Berkeley's a state school, but somebody's paying for that crap. If it's not a parent, it's tax-paying me.


But, wait, it gets bettter, way better. I hope your not drinking something while you read this because your computer is about to get sprayed on:

Quayle's role models-Osbournes 'dysfunctional' but better than Murphy Brown

Although you have to read the full story to appreciate the sheer level of....of....absurdity, here's a few snippets:

" Ten years after he came to San Francisco to vilify single mom Murphy Brown as an agent of moral decay, Dan Quayle has found a TV character he can applaud -- Ozzy Osbourne.

The former vice president vigorously defended his decade-old condemnation of single parenthood Thursday and its glorification on television. He added "Friends" and "Sex and the City" to his list of offending shows and boasted that many politicians -- including Democrats -- had joined his moral crusade.

Yet when he was asked about MTV's hit series "The Osbournes," which documents in "real TV" format the bizarre daily life of the former Black Sabbath lead singer and his family, Quayle was eager to display his hipness.

"You have to get beyond this sort of dysfunctional aspect," he said of the Osbournes, whose expletives are bleeped out but whose frank discussions of alcohol, sexuality and body odors are not.

"You have a mother and a father involved with their children. And from the one episode I saw, they were loving parents," Quayle said.

Too many jokes to make. Too funny for too many reasons.

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Is it that Ozzie is now being praised by Dan Quayle? Has Quayle ever heard Black Sabbath? And if so, God, I would so of loved to have seen that. Or is it just that somebody's actually still paying attention to Quayle?

Oh fer fucks sake. It's just too much to. Too fucking much....

And on a sad note, there's this:

North Beach to miss deli, Panelli twins

North Beach, one of the city's most zesty and colorful neighborhoods, is about to lose a little of its flavor.

This sad news comes by way of the Panelli brothers, Richard and Robert, who recently decided to close their family's dynamic delicatessen after 82 years. And to say that people are unhappy about it would be an understatement. There's been enough salty tears shed in the neighborhood to boil a generous portion of pasta.

When I lived in North Beach, I went to that deli a lot. Usually on Sunday's cause Molinari's was closed. Although their sandwhiches were never as epic as Molinari's, they were still pretty darn yummy. I loved going to place, though, because of what it was- a family run business. When I went there, all three generations of Panelli's would often be found behind the counter, the 9'ers game on the tv. As they made their sandwhiches and took customer's orders, all they'd do was just completely bust on each other, giving each other shit for whatever was going on that they felt like giving each other shit about. Sometimes they'd even include the customer in on the joke, explaining as you'd sit there why it is that their son was so stupid or why the father was such a dork. It was all done with such love and affection that I'd just sit back and listen, not caring how long it would take for them to make my sandwhich. Half the fun of going there was just that, to sit back and listen to the daily comedy routine that began everytime an order was made.

Oh well. Sorry to see another great SF place close down. There seems to be too many stories like that these days.

Somewhere there is a line. It is a very thin line, but still a line between fan-dom and geek-dom. It is a line I don't ever want to cross and something I have always been proud about never crossing.

Until last Friday I crossed that line. I went straight into darkness, out over the line.

Last Friday, I went to go see an actress at one of those stupid-ass meet and greet appearances at the Metreon. It was an actress who was on Buffy. I even waited in line to get her autograph and shake her hand. Even worse, I brought something. But wait, it gets worse….. I went with two people I had never met, but hooked up with over the Buffy boards.

I am now a pathetic geek.

Of course, the move makes a bit more sense if you knew any of your Buffy. The actress I went to go see Eliza Dushku, aka Faith, the bad-girl gone bad Slayer. All push-up bra, bad-ass attitude, too many cigarettes voice, and ruby-red lips. She was a recurring cast figure in S3, the Moby Dick of Buffy seasons, and appeared in probably the greatest ten minutes of tv. Ever. That being the season ending cat-fight between Buffy and Faith- ten minutes of fight to the death kung-fu action, leather pants, and handcuffs. Not to mention a kiss.

In my life, I've flirted with the Star Trek and the Dead, but never went all the way. Which is probably good because God only knows what would have happened. I could be fluent in Klingon. I could have five brain cells left and have the first five chords of "Sugar Magnolia" cause a pavlovian reaction to light some patchouli. But I never went that far. Cause I don't like to go that far. I'm not a go that far kind of guy. It's the same reason I don't like to join anything, because all of a sudden, you're in something. I don't like being in something. I like to be on the sidelines, watching and observing, above it all,. Of course, also desperately wanting to be on in the inside, but maybe finding it way too easy to make fun of them. Or something like that.

Besides, just from seeing people who were really, really into these things, I knew what it was like. I knew that the infamous skit from SNL with William Shatner was pretty much dead on (the one where Shatner finally explodes at all the Trekkies asking if anyone of them had ever kissed a girl after being asked about what combination he used to unlock a lock in a scene). I knew too how obsessed people can be really, really boring. Because three hour long conversations about people's favorite China Cat/I Know You Rider is really, really not that exciting.

Once, a friend and I went to a Star Trek thing. It was a book signing for Nichelle Nicholas (Lt. Uhuru- duh). We went partly because we were both kind of into Trek but also out of curiousity. We wanted to see how bad it could be. So we went and found ourselves waiting in line for half-an-hour while Trekkies plunked down the thirty bucks to buy her autobiography and have her sign it. Most of the people, including the three people behind us, looked like this had been the first time they've stepped outside in years. While in the section about the Yugoslavian Civil War, I made a joke (don't ask, you had to be there and yes, I'm ashamed for making a joke about such a tragic event). The three next to us had obviously heard and in an effort to bond, Trek-style,one of them actually said "yeah, that's just like the episode where Kirk....." And with that, my friend and I looked at each other and quickly got the hell out of there.

My original plan was just to go by the Metreon and check it out. See the scene, check her out, check out what other pathetic losers would go see her, and then get out quickly so as to not be seen as one of those pathetic losers. You know, stay above it all. I even entertained dreams of going there for a few minutes, then hopping over to the Y. Doing something productive. Something good.

Didn't happen. What did happen was that I saw that a couple of other people were planning on meeting before checking out Faith, er Eliza, and found myself in conflict. See, as much as I have an incredible desire to stay above things, I also have a incredible desire not to be left out of anything. With the two sides now in conflict, the battle was waged, the war was fought, and the desire not to be left out of anything won. So I sent someone an e-mail, got the 411, and made plans to meet a couple of people at the Starbucks across the street from the Metreon. What the hell? Could be fun, could be interesting and it's not like I have anything else to do these days. Besides, the reality is my life couldn't get more pathetic at this particular moment anyways.

And so I went. And you know what? It was kind of fun. It helps that the two people I met were cool. One of them was a Swedish, 43 year old engineer who used to do Rubik's Cube competitions and was at one time the 4th fastest Rubik's Cuber in Sweden (did it in fifteen seconds, which makes me wonder what he was doing wrong to only keep him in 4th). The other was an adorable 19 year old Chinese lesbian who I felt really sorry for because by that time, I knew pretty well that her favorite character and tv girlfriend, Tara, was not much longer for the Buffy Universe (turns out she knew, but was in denial). And yeah, I waited in line for over an hour and a half and I went up there, with the other two Buffy geeks and met the mighty Faith, er Eliza. I introduced myself, shook her hand (OH MY GAWD!), and then got my mint condition issue of Entertainment Weekly's: Viewers Guide To Buffy signed. The other two took a bunch of photos and just like that we were done.

Afterwards, the three of us walked back to Starbucks and hung out for an hour or so. And yes, we talked some Buffy. And some other things too.

Straight over the line…..

I love ESPN.com. It's one of my favorite sites on the Web, maybe my favorite. The problem is that they got so many bells and whistles on their site that it just messes everything up. Sometime's it doesn't download completely, sometimes it crashes Explorer, and sometimes it just plain crashes my computer. When it does load, it usually takes frickin' forever to do so (frickin, by the way, is my word for the month.)

Poking around the site one day, I found on the FAQ some helpful advice on how to fix whatever problems I'm having with the site. Apparently, it's all my fault. See, in order to properly view the site, I need to have to download the latest version of Flash. I have an old version of it and haven't kept myself up to date. If I'd only get with it, I wouldn't have so many problems with the site.

Well, excuse me. I don't want to download Flash 5.0. I have dial-up and I don't have the time to wait for a huge program to be downloaded. Plus I've downloaded enough programs in my time to know that they usually cause unforseen problems. Like extension conflicts or something like that. Then I'd have to download another program to fix that conflict which causes another conflict and then next thing you know, nothing ever quite works the same way again.

You know what? I don't want to frickin' download the latest version of Flash. I like what I have. It works for me. Yes, I wish I had DSL or cable, but I don't right now. And you know something else? I bet most people out there, most people who surf the Web, don’t have all that stuff either. I bet you they don't have Flash 5.0 and DSL lines and those who do are at work and should probably get back to work. RIGHT NOW (that means you, buddy).

Not only that, my computer is only a year old. Which means that it was all up-to-date a year ago. Now it's not. Now I'm being penalized because my computer is SO 2001 and ESPN.com is SO 2002. Whatever. Bite me.

How 'bout this? How bout the genius Web programmers and engineers, the producers and designers stop throwing so much fucking stuff up on the site. Stop with all the flashing signs and the moving items. Stop using that stupid tab's thing which is the only way to get to Page 2. Stop with the moving bobble-head pictures. How 'bout that?

And I can't get a job in the internet biz…..

Why are stupid fucking hippies nothing but a bunch of stupid fucking hippies?

From Wednesday's Chron:

Environmentalist sings for judge: Activist suing cops over car bomb

Earth First activist Darryl Cherney literally performed for a federal jury Tuesday, playing guitar and singing a protest song -- after describing how his arrest for a car bombing disrupted the Redwood Summer campaign 12 years ago.

That's almost better than the Chewbecca defense.

And Spiderman was......

....a little better than your average dumb, summer movie. It make me wonder though.

Like most movies know, all the special effects are all done on computers now. Most of the action in this movie is all CGI stuff. Unlike a lot of these big movies, the effects sometimes weren't that good. In a bunch of scenes, Spiderman looked like a clumsily moving cartoon character.

What I wonder is if all this computer stuff is making film people lazy. Like years ago, they'd have to be really creative to show Spidey swinging around New York, now they just hire a couple hundred computer geeks, give them a bunch of Red Bull and some techno, and let them go at it. But remember Superman? That was all pre-computer stuff and some of the effects were kind of cheesy, but at least he looked real. In fact, in some ways, the effects in that movie were better than in Spiderman.

The biggest example was a fight scene in the movie. Yeah, Spidey did a couple of cool, killer Spider moves, but it looked kind of cheesy when he did it. There was nothing he didn't do, however, that I haven't seen in almost every Jackie Chan movie I've seen. And there's no effects when Jackie does it, it's just him, the stunt guys, and the director. And almost every Jackie Chan fight was way better than the fight in this movie.

Damn bastards.

There was only a few minutes left on Buffy and everything was all sunny and light; everything looked like everything was right in Sunnydale. And for a few seconds, I was thinking that the producers had just pulled one of the greatest tv psyche-outs in the history of tv, what with leaking rumours and accidently sending out early feeds of the show and setting up the blatant foreshadows, but no.......

Warren comes in with a gun, fires off a couple of shots, and Buffy goes down. And Willow is splattered in blood. And then you see that it comes from Tara. Poor Tara. Bye bye Tara. Whose gonna take care of Miss Kitty Fantastico now?

Guess they didn't pull a psych-job on us at all.

Unemployed life.....

Four guys come out of a bargain matinee of Spiderman, out into the bright sunshine of Yerba Buena park. Everyone sits around, nobody really talking, nobody knowing what to do. As they sit there, trying to figure it all out, someone finally says the obvious:

"I know what you're thinking, but we should try to fight the urge to go running back to our computers to check our e-mail.''

And with that, the four guys decided to go and get a drink. An hour later, they all ran back home to their computer's to check their e-mail.

Spent Saturday night at a going away party. Goodbye Stoltzy and Aunt Sophie. I'll miss you.

They were friends two and three to have moved away just this month. The first one to go was Beth D., aka Beth #2- off to Washington D.C. and Grad School. And now it looks like Mel might be heading off to LA due to her being laid off. That would be number four for the month. I would say would the last person who leaves SF please turn off the lights, but it's looking like that person is gonna be me.

I've lived in San Francisco for a long time. A very long time. See, one of the dirty little secrets of San Francisco, this wonderful, beautiful city by the bay, is that for all of it’s charms and all of it’s appeal, people often just pass through each others lives. People come and go in your life on an almost regular basis. Hell, I’ve lived in this city for so long that I’ve had friends move away and then move back. As a result, there are an awful lot of people who leave your life. Some move away, some weren’t really that good of friends to begin with, some disappear into coupledom and never come out, and then there’s whole groups of people who you just lost touch with. One day you’re best of friends, one of your favorite people to hang out with, and then, somehow, the next day, or the next month, or the next year, you find yourself becoming one of those people with whom you tell each other that "you’ll do lunch." And just like that, this person with whom you at one point consider one of favorite people is gone, out of your life, taking the whole world that you shared together with it.

Live here long enough and you have to say goodbye to a lot of people. A lot of people who you really liked and spent a considerable part of your time hanging out with, laughing with, living with. One by one, they go, heading off to somewhere else. Mikey got married and moved to LA. Darling KT went home to Atlanta and is now somewhere in Africa doing volunteer work. Pal 1's in San Diego and Pal 2 is back home in London. And Gigi Shag is in the South of France, somehow. Now Mike & Jen. All gone. All no longer around for me to play with.

Sometimes, in times like this, I feel like the ole lifer in an army unit (except, of course for the whole fighting war and possibly dying thing), the soul survivor after a long campaign, surrounded by new guys and constantly thinking of Rocko, Whitey, and Little Joe. Or I'm like the old crusty, slightly crazy old guy who becomes the town historian. I'm the old coot, sitting out on my front doorstep, pipe in hand, telling them that they shouldn't go to House of Naking but should go to Chef Gia instead because it's much better and you don't have to wait in line. Or telling them which bar is a real dive bar and which one is a poseur bar.

On my way home from the Going Away Party, I started talking to the cab driver. Turns out he's a writer and handed me his book about his experiences driving a cab in SF. As I flipped through the book and looked at the photos, I realized I recognized one of the crazy guy's he wrote a chapter about, the Streamer Guy. He's the one who always walks around with an Uncle Sam hat and streamers hanging off of his glasses. The thought hit me that I've lived here long enough that I knew all of the famous cooks in the city.

The cab driver had lived in this city since '89, a few years more than me. We talked about living here, in the city by the bay, and about how tough living here can be. People come here for three to five years, the cab driver told me, go through loves and jobs, then move away. It takes a tough person to stick around. Tough and a little sick and twisted too, he said.

That's me. And no matter what I may think, this crazy little place is my home.