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.

One more thing about all of today's news. When you get to a certain age and you have friends at certain stages in their life, when they call you up and leave a message with you saying that they "have news," it's kind of easy to figure it out. All of this depending on what stage of their life they're in. If they're dating and say they have news, it's probably that they're engaged. And if they're married and say they have news, that could only mean that baby is on the way.

Oh, I'm going to see the big Dinosaur Jr. show tomorrow night. Which means I'll get find out the answer to the big question I'm sure everyone's dying to know: do people in their mid to late thirties still slam dance? And if not, what do they do?

And we're back. Sorry for the no posting but have you ever gotten fish at a restaurant that every once in awhile, you take a bite and say to yourself "that doesn't taste right" but it's not enough to stop you and two days later you're well, I'll let ypu figure it out.

So....

Just today a coworker announced she's buying a TIC, a friend sent an e-mail saying he just bought a house, and a friend called to say he's going to be a dad. Going back a day, a friend's roomate who's been unemployed for a little over a year and a half announced she just got a job. And going back a week two friends got engaged and going back two weeks two friends moved in together.

That's a lot of big, life changing moves.

And I? Bought tickets to beer drink my way through Europe for a week.

You take what you can get, I guess.

PS- well, I do have my new bed.

PPS- and as a friend pointed out, I haven't lost my job yet. Which does put things back in perspective but I wonder how long the statue of limitations runs out in the job putting things in perspective?

Tonight I went over to a friend's house and watched a DVD of some movie that aired on Showtime about the Mitchell Brothers, the two guys behind many a porn-flick and the O'Farrell Theater strip joint. Long story short, the two became even more infamous when one shot the other.

First of all, can you do a movie about the porn industry that doesn't involve lots of coke and a rapid descent into murder and violence? Sheesh, talk about a depressing genre.

Anyways, all you need to know about the movie was that it starred, as the brothers, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen. Not only that, it was directed by Emilio and is billed as "A Film by Emilio Estevez." Need I say more.

For whatever reason, I have a particular fondness for movies such as this one. It was, for lack of a better word, awful. It was badly acted, badly written, super-cheap looking, and one cliche after another. Among other things, it was one of those movies/tv shows that try and do the 60's but looks even less authenticly 60's than if you went to a 60's theme party. The worst part of the movie, though, had to be the super-cheap wigs Charlie and Emilio wore to make them look balding. Several times I kept on thinking the wig was about to fall off.

But somehow, I liked the movie. Kind of. Not only that, I kind of admired it for it's crappiness. Because while it was badly done, you could get a sense that Emilio wanted this movie to be his "Citizen Kane." So as a director, he completely goes for broke. You name the artistic bell and/or whistle, and he did it. Jump cuts? Check? Sudden shift into black and white? Check. Weird random point-of-view camera angle? Jerky hand-held camera motion? Tweaked cinematography for dramatic effect? Check, check, and check. But the thing was is that none of it worked. It was all showy and pointless and just plain old badly done.

But for whatever reason, I love those kinds of movies. I respect those kind of movies. Because Emilio could have gone conventional, he could have chickened out, but no, he said I'm going to be an auteur. This despite any evidence to the contrary that he has any talent to even contemplate going the artiste.

It kind of reminded me of those BH 9'er episodes that were directed by Jason Priestley. Whenever his name came up as the director, friends and I would cheer in anticipation of what would come. Priestley also thought he was an auteur and Beverly Hills 90210 worth the cineaste approach so he'd throw in lots of trippy camera angles and weird surrealistic bits and none of it was ever appropiate and none of it had a point to it and it was all for freakin Beverly Hills 90210 yet Priestly thought it worthy of giving it the David Lynch treatment.

It was brilliant.

So yeah, the movie was crap, but I still kind of liked it.

At 9:45 this morning, while still laying in bed, the phone rang. Thinking it was a friend trying to coordinate plans for the day, I got out of bed to go pick it up. It wasn't my friend. Instead, it was somebody from "John Kerry." Yes, as in that John Kerry. And yes, the election is way over.

Now I was getting e-mails from him off and on since then, but have since put him into such a spam filter that I don't get his e-mails anymore. The phone call bit, though, was new. And all things considering, I was not amused. Did I mention that it was at 9:45 in the morning?

All I can say is this, Dear John: You lost. Big time. And your loss wasn't some "Rocky" type loss where you were the upstart inspiring underdog who gained respect enough in losing. Nor was a "Bad News Bears" type loss where you lost but won for not selling your soul and showing everyone how to do it right. And it definately wasn't a "Braveheart" type loss where you lost the battle only to inspire a bunch of people to win the war. Nope, it was a plain old loss. Because you sucked. Because you were a pompous windbag who couldn't beat an illiterate smirker whose main campaign slogan was "it's hard." In fact, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is slightly glad you didn't win only because you saved us from four years of your boring monotone robotic style. Yeah, this country would be better if you were President, but in some way's, it's easier to take Bush as President. Because hating on such a purer emotion than embarassed rationalizing.

Like most people, I'm loving the Cindy Sheehan story mainly because she's got the President by the short hairs and as we all know, I love nothing more than when something comes along that wipes the smirk off the President's face. As I was flipping through the channels, I stumbled upon Fox News in full "to the Bat Cave" mode and doing a hatchet job on the poor lady. It seems that the talking points for the attack are not about her anymore, but on the company she's keeping. Because she's doing something anti-war, she's got a lot of the anti-war people behind her, including Michael Moore and MoveOn.org. Knowing that nothing scares the beejesus out of Fox news watchers, they couldn't help but drop the names of all those anti-war folks as much as possible. One total humor-less editor for some right-wing newspaper, one of those bitter young folks who turn Republican due to an inability to have women talk to them up until their mid-twenties, was on reciting the litany of supposed offenses the anti-war movement commit on a regular basis ("they don't like war!" They have tattoos! They look funny!). During another interivew with an actual Democrat, one of the Fox News anchor people was almost beside himself that somebody would have the temerity to question the President and mentioned Michael Moore every fifth word.

The thing about it, though, is that they have a point. If I were advising Mrs. Sheehan, I'd tell her to stay as far away from possible as the anti-war people as possible. And don't even think about blogging on Michael Moore's web site. Why? Because when it comes down to it, the anti-war movement people are probably their own worst enemy. When people look at them, in all their dreadlocked glory, I'm pretty sure the average American immediately dismisses them as nothing but a bunch of loonies. In fact, somewhere I read an article recently (I tried looking for it but I couldn't find it) that pointed out that polling is showing that whenever there's a lot of protests going on, support for the war increases. When there's no protests, polls drop in support of the war. The reason? Because if your average normal person had a choice of who to support, they'll go to the dumb guy who talks funny as opposed to the dumb guy who looks funny.

Which, actually, is what I'm thinking about the war. I don't support it and kind of anti-war about it, it's just that I don't really support the anti-war movement. In fact, I think if you were to create a line and put "sane response" in the center and anti-war people on one side and war supporters on the other side, I'm thinking that the war supporters would probably be closer to "sane response" than the anti-war supporters. Not that either would be close to the center, but still. I think I wrote elsewhere that I was behind the "Ambivelant About the War" movement and wished we could organize protests and rallies in support of not exactly knowing what to think. Or, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm sure as hell not going to support the President on Iraq, but I'm sure as hell not going to be marching in the streets.

Well, and for what it's worth, as bad as the war is, leaving Iraq right now would be even worse than staying. Bush just got us in a terrible, horrible jam and someday, one can only hope karma gets her bitch on.

I love the fact that sometimes when your a little down, a little overwhelmed with meh-ness, that with one quick little move, you can change everything. It's especially true because of the Web. All you have to do is do a quick little search, press a few buttons and the next thing you know, you've just booked tickets to go to Oktoberfest with friends and just like that, birds start chirping, rainbows start appearing and everything is groovy.

Yep, I'm off to Europe next month and everything is pretty much honky dory.

PS- Mazel tov Deemer and Hoppy...

In light of the Kansas Board of Eductation once again voting to deemphasize Evolution and emphasize "Intelligent Design" all I can say is that the answer to the eternal question fo "What's the Problem with Kansas" is this: they're fucking stupid. And yes, my policy lately has always been that if some Red State wants to do something stupid, we should just let them and make fools out of themselves, but dude. Seriously.

Wouldn't it be great if some Democrat actually got up there and asked about how to win states like Kansas and whether they should pander to the Wing-Nut bible thumpers said "it's not my problem if they're stupid."

Also I just finished this book that was the last book in a series of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic. I loved the books, so much so I'm thinking about rereading them again because there was so much going on. So after I finished the last book, I went to Amazon to see if others felt the love and noticed that the first person who had posted a review on the book, and somebody who loved it as much as I did, is the one, the only Newt Gingrich. Even scarier, he too saw the parallels between the rotting of the Roman Republic with modern day times, which makes me wonder what's going on because the things I'm seeing in the book that show the rot of the Republic couldn't possibly be the same things he's seeing. And considering he's one of the people who helped create the rot, well, either he didn't really read the book or he's totally changed or I completely misread the book.

Tonight I had dinner with a cousing, her husband, and their little kid. Since I don’t feel it’s right to say anything bad about family, especially one’s who don’t deserve anything mean said about them, I’ll refrain from saying anything. Not their fault. Let’s just say that the problem I’ve always had is that we have absolutely nothing in common. Nothing. Well, except for lots and lots of TV, but there’s only so much TV one can talk about.

As they came to visit, I thought of the problem of what to do. Living in the Mission like I do, I love showing it off. I do live in the hippest, most happening spot West of the Mississippi. But what makes it the hippest, most happening spot West of the Mississippi would probably be lost on them. Among other things, the things I love about—bars, bars and more bars, is nothing something that would interest a four year old. And I’m not sure how all of them would be into Pakistani food or Peruvian food or Middle Eastern fusion.

So we got Chinese.

Couple of things about the night. First of all, the first part of the occasion was taken up by the dilemna over whether or not the four year old went to the bathroom. At first, it was when she could go. But then when she refused to go, it became a question of when she last had to go. And once that established, it became a question of when she should next go to the bathroom to avoid having to go to the bathroom on the way back. When she finally did go, there was a bit of conversation about what exactly she did.

And so I’m thinking, the point of having kids is what again? God help me if it ever comes the point where half of my time is spent pondering somebody’s potty schedule. Of course, I’m saying this is a person whose week old plant is dying a fast and miserable death.

The other thing was that old problem of being so far into the world of hi-tech that hearing any note of ludditism. Like when I was trying to give them directions from where they were staying in Novato. When they asked me how to get to my place from Novato, I went to the automatic response- go to Yahoo Maps and see what it says. That got a quick reaction of "what’s that?" I was stunned.

Later on, during dinner and after the discussion of the toilet, I went to what we had in common and started talking about TV. So I brought up Tivo thinking that they must have it- they watch a lot of TV. And if not, everyone knows what Tivo is. They didn’t. Never heard of it. Didn’t even know what something like Tivo could do. And so I’m thinking where are these people from, Kansas? They’re not, they’re from Virginia, nice suburban Virginia.

Did I mention we didn’t have that much in common?

Yay, I finally got "Once More With Feeling," the Buffy musical on Tivo. I've said it before and I'll say it again-- always Buffy.

Anyways, today's random Marina bar that I went to after volleyball was the City Tavern. One of the infamous Triangle Bars. Of course, as we were there, everyone on my team (who I do like and are much cooler than I'm making it out to be) was doing the standard defensive "oh, even though I live here, I never hang out in this neighborhood because I hate the Marina types." One guy was saying how he never goes to Marina bars and how he doesn't hang out with people who do and right in the middle of it, one of his buddies comes up to him to say hi.

By the way, it's my third week in a row going out for drinks in the Marina on a Tuesday and it's the third Tuesday in a row we stumbled into $2 drink specials. It's looking like the entire Marina is $2 on Tuesdays. Hell, the City Tavern has bar food for $2 too which is how I got a turkey burger, some fries, some buffalo wings, chicken tenders, and a drink for $10. In other words, maybe I need to hang out in the Marina some more. And maybe it's because I've been living in the Mission for too long but Marina women? H-O-T-T. Especially the one's dressed in full Paris Hilton regalia and those Muggs boots.

Even though I was at a party Saturday night, for whatever reason, I didn't feel like drinking. So I didn't. Or, at least, had a few drinks but not enough to feel one way or the other. One thing that I realized about that night is part of the reason why it's important to actually drink is because drunk people aren't as much fun to hang out with when you're sober. Wanting to talk to random strangers? Don't care. The "I love you guys" schpiel? Not feeling it, or at least not on the "I love you guys" wave length. And the friend who has the drunken meltdown, breaks down uncontrollably and pretty much has to be carried out of the bar? No patience for it. Seriously.

I remember one of the worst nights I had in college was taking 'shrooms with some friends at the beach (one of the great pleasures of going to UCSB- we had a beach you could do drugs at) only to come back to the dorm to encounter one of those progessive parties going on. People on hallucigens and drunks should not mix. As I walked around, I saw way too much drunkeness, way too much people hooking up with people who they shouldn't be hooking up with, and way too much just general stupidity. Afterwards, I marched into my friend's dorm room and announced that I was going to move to Wyoming and hide from civilization because civilization just isn't worth hanging out in. Case in point being the party raging outside the dorm room. Or at least I remember I did that.

Yesterday I went to the yummy Chinese restaurant across the corner from me and got a fortune cookie only to discover that there was no fortune in the fortune cookie. In terms of fortunes, what does that mean? Does that mean I will have no fortune? Will nothing ever happen to me ever again?

Also yesterday I noticed why those electric trolley cars always look so dorky-- it's because it lets everyone who sees the trolley into a little private moment in which you're partying. Partying, of course, is kind of a private moment in that for the most part, it's with people you know and the tens or hundreds or people at the same place as you. But when you're in the trolley, everyone can see both how well the party is going and how well the partying is going. So, like yesterday, when I saw one of those trolley's go past, one I'm guessing for a wedding considering everyone was all dolled up in tuxes and bridesmaid dresses, I couldn't but help notice what a lame party it was because nobody was doing anything except stare glumly off the sides of the trolley. Well, except for the one girl in the middle of the trolley doing her best to party it up by dancing along to the music while holding a champagne party. She was the only one who wasn't basically sitting there and staring glumly out the side of the trolley. So, in other words, in just passing the trolley, everyone can pretty much see what a lame, dead party is going on. And everyone can see how dorky that girl is for being the only partying in a party full of non-partying. Or maybe she wasn't the dorky one. Or, whatever, nevermind.

So let me get this straight- baseball announces this drug testing program and everybody screams it won't work, it's not enough punishment, and that nobody will get busted, especially somebody big. And then somebody big gets busted, thus proving not only that the testing works but that despite the ten day suspension your name gets sullied if you get busted, and all you hear is "oh God, baseball is in trouble! It's a crisis!" And all this because Rafael Palmeiro is a bone-head.

Oh, and I love all the people squawking about how he lied before congress. Puh-lease. If they busted everyone who lied in front of congress there'd be nobody left in Washington.

It's been two days but my nice, lovely plant is dying. I don't know how it's dying but it is. I mean, I've watered it like I was supposed to and it's by the window so it gets plenty of sun, but it's dying. After only two days.

And people wonder why I say I don't think I can handle ever having kids.

Sometimes you find yourself in the strangest of places, places so far away from the norm that you can only only wonder what the hell you're doing there. Like tonight. After the volleyball game I found myself going with my team to the Bluelight. Now while Bluelight might not be part of the triangle, it's definately in the burbs of the Triangle. And it was a scene- jam packed and full and total meat market. All the women there looked like they had just stepped out of a magazine shoot and all the guys looked like every evil guy in those 80's teen sex flicks. It was like Cobra Kai went out for drinks after sweeping the leg.

When was the last time I was in that bar? I'm pretty sure the Bush in the White House was the father. In fact, I remember that there was a scene in the Real World: San Francisco filmed there (Judd went there wearing a wedding band to see if it helped him meet women) and I remember watching that scene and thinking "hey, that's the Blue Light."

And coming home on the 22, two guys behind me were talking about being in the scene back in the day. I heard comments like "oh yeah, that's how he got to work for Green Day" or "I shared a rehearsal space with (insert name of totally hip early 90's band from the area). When they got off I got a look at them. They were all chubby, balding, and greying.

Hate getting old.

Part of the reason why I hardly go out and make big decisions or make big purchases is because it's never as easy as just buying one thing or deciding one thing. One thing always leads to another thing which leads to another and so on and so forth. Case in point, my beautiful, lovely bed which came on Friday.

Of course, the bed came out a bit bigger than I had expected and a tad bigger than it's alloted slot (having a tiny studio, space is a premium). Which meant moving things around. Which meant my rickety old bookcase is no longer with us because it fell apart while being moved around. With a new bed, less room, and a broken down book case, I spent a large part of Friday night taking apart my old bookcase and then running out to buy a new one. I now have a new book case. The book case, however, is a tad smaller than my old one and can hold less books so now I'm either going to have to buy another book case or, more likely sell (give away) a lot of my books. And because it's smaller than the other one, I moved it into another spot which opens up a spot by my bed. So now I have room to buy something else. And because I had my stereo on top of my old bookshelf but couldn't because the new bookshelf is too small, I had to move the stereo. It is now right by my tv meaning I have the fullly loaded home entertainment system. Albeit non-operational as I still haven't figured out where I'm going to plug everything in.

But most importantly, with a new bed, one that's an actual real piece of furniture, I suddenly realized more than ever that my rinky-dink, sparsely decorated place I call a home is all off feng shui-wise. Having a nice piece of furniture in a room full of crap doesn't work. This meant that all of yesterday, I went home-furnishing shopping and spent a large part of yesterday (the non-drunken part I should say), buying pictures, moving pictures, and hammering pictures into walls. Left to go out and be dealt with are my old books that I'm getting rid of, the pieces of wood that made up my old bookshelf, and a sudden and strange desire to buy plants. Because I know actually have a decent looking apartment that should be made more decent.

And all because I got my luscious, super-comfy, super-huge bed. A bed, by the way, that is making it so that I'm finding even harder to get out of. I friggin slept about eleven hours Friday night and have been taking way more naps than usual.

On Friday I'm at the gym and as I come out of the shower, I see some Asian dude getting into his shower wearing only a shirt, a small-ish shirt, so that basically everyone can see everything that most people would want covered up. But, obviously, not him. Later on, I see him going to his locker. He's completely naked but has his shirt wrapped over his shoulder, completely wet. He's wearing no towel or even has a towel with him but instead, has his towels in his locker.

Dunno either.

I signed up to play in a volleyball league in the Marina. Yeah, I know. It doesn't get more yuppie than that. In fact, there's an actual sign by the fields that says "No Volleyball Before 6 PM," a sign I'm sure one doesn't see in the Bayview.

Anyways, now that I'm playing again I once again find myself having to deal with the fact I have some issues with some of the standard team rules of volleyball. The main one being the idea that the person in the center front is the setter. If you get the first hit on the ball, you're supposed to tap it to the setter so they can set it to someone else. And if you're the setter, you have to get the second tapped ball and set it up for somebody else. The problem that I have with the rule is that it seems like a totally stupid rule. Or, let's put it this way, if you're playing on a really good team and everyone can control the ball, it makes sense. Shouldn't it be if you have a reasonable chance of making a good hit across the net shouldn't you take it? Isn't that the whole point of volleyball?

See, if you're playing on a team that either sucks (which I've played on) or was good but not great, it makes no sense. Like on this one team, we had a few people who were lousy setters. Since I was getting harshed on for not hitting it to the setter, I gave up on what would have been totally easy shots over the net and sent it to the setter, only to watch them totally biff the shot. After a few perfect chances were blown by the setter, I stopped hitting it to the setter, which brought shouts from my teammates. "You're supposed to hit it to the setter!" But aren't we supposed to win?

And if you're the setter, you're supposed to go after every second ball. Even if it's all the way to the back corner and way to the left and you're lying on the ground because you've tripped on your shoelaces. So everyone kind of stands around and wait for you to make the move or at least yell "need help!" So yeah, I could yell "need help!" everytime I need help but if I'm facing the wrong direction and the ball is about ten feet over my head and to the side, shouldn't it be obvious that I need help? Do I have to state the obvious?

But the thing I hate most about all this is I seem to be the only who thinks all of this is stupid. Which probably explains a lot of my life, actually.

Because at this point of my life I'm supposed to be living in the burbs with 2.5 kids, I tend to roll with the younger set. Which means I'm going to parties or attending events in which people at my age are not attending. Lately, I've been falling into the habit of looking around to see if I'm the oldest person involved at the certain event. Like parties or playing sports or seeing bands or basically anything that doesn't play dates and birthday parties for 2 year olds. Whenever I see someone either my age or a bit younger, I always breathe a sigh of relief knowing I'm not the only old guy there. Everytime I'm in that situation where I think I'm the oldest one there, I always wonder if everyone else there sees me as the creepy old guy hanging out with the young kids because either they can't grow up or they have no life. Of course, they could also me as the hip old guy still holding true and still out there trying to have fun, but I don't see that being the case.

And so it finally happened, I lopped off my hair. The long/styled hair phase of my life is over. And it feels good.

The way I see it, everyone goes through a funky hair phase. I never did. For whatever reason, I decided to do it this year. And yeah, it was kind of fun and yeah, I probably had way too many bad hair days (more than I'd ever want to think about), the whole thing felt like some fevered dream that involved me but wasn't me. And Auntie Em and Uncle Henry were there too. All of which pretty much explains how the last few months have felt.

Funny thing is I probably would have lopped it off long ago, but it's just such a dramatic change and I hate the whole "oh, you got a haircut" thing so much that I chickened out just so I would avoid having to do that. And yeah, pretty stupid. But I'm liking short hair again. Among other things, it takes about five seconds to deal with in the morning. And I pretty much know what it's going to look like during the day. And I don't have to go to the blow dryer at the gym to dry my hair before leaving, then go to the bathroom when I get back to the office a few minutes later because the wind totally destroyed anything I did to it. Right now, well, everything feels like it's in the right place.

And one more thing. I used to have this theory that one could tell what kind of stage of their life they were in depending on the kind of bed they got. In college, it's a hand me down that they pretty much shared with a roomate. Post-college, it's usually either the futon or the mattress on the floor. Then, when you get older and more mature, you finally move up to an actual, real life bed. Last stage, well other than the death bed, is the king sized bed for when you're coupled.

After way too many years sleepin on a raised futon, I finally threw down and got myself a real bed. A real expensive bed (seriously, how can beds be so expensive? It's just a mattress on a frame?). And man, I can't wait to sleep in it. Better yet, I can't wait to kick back and spend entire weekends doing nothing but watching Tivo in bed.

That's living.

Yeah, no new post today or for the weekend. Sorry.

I'm still recovering from a bad case of the blah's so it'll be a day or two. Actually, I was going to post today but got waylaid by beautiful weather, a Giants game, and $8 beer. Well, that and something called "The Sheboygan."

I think it goes without saying, but R.I.P. Scotty. We hope you're up there in Heaven, drinking Mint Juleps with DeForest and throwing angelic spitballs at Shatner.

"I'm giving it all I can, Captain...."

While getting driven home in a cab tonight, I heard a couple of interesting sound bits on the radio.

First of is our president, Smirkboy, introducing the new old white guy who will be nominated for the Supreme Court. Right after announcing his name, the first thing out of the President’s mouth was that the new guy "loves our country." And all I can think of is that, well, thank God. Because I’d hate to think that somebody who could be on the Supreme Court would hate our country. Do you think that’s the first think George asked when he interviewed him? Like it was question #1 on the multiple choice fill-out form I’m sure all the applicants had to fill out (right after his name, address and ss#, of course). And do they really think somebody out there is saying right after they hear that "well, golly gee, Edna, he loves our country. He’s going to be a good choice." And wouldn’t it be cool if the President instead said something like "he loves ‘Star Wars.’ Or He loves chocolate chip ice cream. Or even he loves natural boobies"?

Afterwards, there was a story about a new movement afoot, one called Localvores. Localvores are people who espouse the belief that we should only eat things that are withing 100 miles of where we live. Apparently, the people behind it are trying to make August "National Localvore Month." And the person they interviewed said that "people are really behind it" and "everyone’s really excited."

Which, of course, raises this question- like who?

I’m riding downtown on the bus, one of those double-stretch ones, and I’m sitting way in the back when I start hearing yelling. I look up and this big crazy black dude is screaming at the chinese bus driver and calling him all sorts of names. I can’t quite make out what the guy is yelling about as the only word I keep on hearing is the f word (f, as in fegelah, not as in f you).

Normally, these kind of situations are a little fun to observe as everyone kind of sits there pretending nothing is going on while all while getting more and more tense. This time wasn’t that fun. The dude was big and he was angry and he was going off and the bus driver was just sitting there with that stoic look on his face, the kind in which the person is trying to show they’re not upset but really are.

When the bus pulled up to it’s next stop, half the bus got off and I’m pretty sure half the bus didn’t need to get off as it wasn’t that major of a stop. In fact, people moved so quickly and with such an edge to it that it could only be that everyone wanted off. The worst part is that everyone leaving only incited the guy. As the bus pulled away, I saw the crazy guy stand up, arms waving, and start entering the driver’s personal space, thus probably making everyone who stayed wish they got off the bus.

Now while I often complain about MUNI or the MUNI union, I don’t with the drivers because whatever goes wrong isn’t usually their fault. If the bus breaks down or is late because of traffic, it’s not because of them. The main reason why I don’t is because every once in awhile some driver has to deal with something like that and I feel really bad for them. The driver was some small Asian dude. There’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to boss some big angry crazy guy. If I was that driver, I’d do the exact same thing he was doing – keep my hands on the wheel, look straight ahead, and pray to whomever that the guy gets off and pronto.

An old bugaboo from my youth returned this week in the guise of being made a benchwarmer. For kickball.

This weekend was the big kickball playoffs/tournament and I guess I was the designated benchwarmer. Which is fine except for the fact that I was also the only male benchwarmer. We had just enough guys so that only one guy needed to sit out every inning. Normally, this would mean some sort of rotation so that everyone would play at least the entire game. That is, if the people running the team were cool. Instead they decided that it being the playoffs and all they needed to have their best people playing most of the game and the weaker players playing only a few innings at best. I was the weaker player. This despite the fact I’m not that bad of a player. In fact, I’m pretty good at kickball. I still have a bit of a pock mark on the back of my wrist left from a nasty cut I got from making a diving catch into foul territory, into another field, from a couple of weeks ago. I can catch big, red balls as well as anyone. All of which is why I think there was also an element of cool kids versus non-cool kids and did I mention this was all way too much like being a kid again?

At one point, I got a little uppity and went out onto the field when I wasn’t supposed to. When one of the captains saw me, he told me to sit down and let someone else play. When I told him I’d been sitting all day, he said something along the lines of "that’s because we want to win."

When I was younger, stuff like that happened a bit more than I’d like to admit it. In fact, due to a suck-ass High school soccer coach, I pretty much gave up on organized sports for awhile. But now that I’m much older, my first reaction was "I’m 37 years old. I’m too old for this shit."

Now when I saw that I’m too old for this shit, I don’t mean it in terms of respecting your elders, although that’s a bit of it. It’s more like when you get older, and actually it’s one of the few better parts, you have a better sense of what’s b.s. and what’s not. That attitude is total b.s. It’s lame. The fact that it came from some snot nosed kid in his early twenties makes it that much lamer ("why, when I was your age…."). And people who actually say things like that, well, the jerk store called and they want him back.

The other problem with something like this is that I’ve played enough sports and watched enough sports to realize that being stuck in that position is a no-win situation. Which is why I hate those situations. It’s sports. It’s about winning. It’s about giving one for the team. Don’t say anything and you come off as a team player. Complain and you’re not a team player. You’re a malcontent. You’re the guy who whined about not playing when the team is going to levels of playoff kickball that they have never achieved before. If it was professional sports, I’d be the guy all the sports columnists say should be traded or released or railed against on "Pardon the Interruption."

All of which is true, except for one thing- we’re talking about kickball here.

So what did I do? I went to the sidelines and brooded. Like usual. Except this time, I didn’t do the "woe is me" brood. I brooded angrily. And I didn’t really root for us to win. And then I bailed on the end-of-the-season party to read "Harry Potter." That’ll show them to mess with me.

Oh, and, of course, I did what bloggers do- I totally called them out online in front of the four people who read this, two of whom are travelling right now and not reading it. Fuckers.

When do you know you’re in a weird place? When you have a weird craving to listen to the soundtrack from "Hair."

So I’m turning into a person I never thought I’d turn into- a sandal wearer. Or more like a flip flop wearer. Except for a brief time in college when I was walking around barefoot (why? because I had just moved to California and realized I could) I’ve been pretty much anti-sandal. Not that I have problems with people who wear flip flops on a regular basis, I just didn’t think I was that type of person. Too crunchy granola and I don’t want to be crunchy or granola.

But lately, I’ve been wearing the flip flops around. To yoga, around the hood, to the movies, and even to Zietgiest, a non crunchy granola place if ever there was (it was a Sunday! It doesn’t count!).

Why am I suddenly sporting the sandals? Dunno. Could be more relaxed attitude on my part. Or it could be I’ve hit a new level of laziness.

PS- when do you know this whole "kids love the 80’s" thing is getting out of control? When a party several weeks ago had people rocking out to "Hall & Oates Greatest Hits." Or when the hipsters next door show their ironic hipness by busting out "Bryan Adams Greatest Hits."

Ever be going through one of those weird periods where on the one hand things are going really well and all this great stuff is happening with promise of lots of other exciting things happening but also things going really sucky all at once? And like you’re totally flummoxed and frazzled because you have no idea how to feel?. Like when something good happens, you’re not quite sure whether to be happy or sad. Or when something bad happens, you’re not quite sure whether you should be sad or happy. And you find yourself totally exhausted and tired because your mood changes every five minutes depending on nothing in particular and you start wishing you could just make up your damn mind.

Not that I’m going through that right now, I’m just saying. Because when it did happen, it was kind of grueling.

PS- guess which credit card company finally took money out of my account?

The long-running saga of my credit card bill is now ever. I paid it on Saturday. After they called me at 8:30 in the morning to let them know my bill is post-due. Or, at least I think it's paid as they've said that before. Lovely customer service there. At least they waived the late fee for me.

Hey, so it looks like MTV reads my blog as they're reairing Live 8 as we speak. And this time, with no commercials or VJ's. I quote: "in the wake of the live events last Saturday, our viewers have resoundingly told us online they want to see full-set performances from their favorite artists," MTV Networks Music Group President Van Toffler said.

Really? You think so Van? What what part of Music in Music Television do you don't understand? Imagine that, music fans turning onto a music channel to see actual music.

I also read that they did, indeed, cut away right in the middle of Floyd doing "Comfortably Numb" which is so unconscionable that I can only imagine that if there were any justice in this world, all the people behind said decision will lose their jobs only to find jobs hosting local access cable programs. And while working on them, will be attacked by wild ferrets let loose by one of the guests on the program and eaten alive while a "Real World/Road Rules Marathon" is played on the background screens

Thanks to the glory of TiVo all I can say is that there’s nothing like 2nd Season of "Buffy." Always "Buffy."

Anyways, here’s two work related stories for ya-

While walking to the coffee room, I passed the VP in charge of the department. Ever since I was forced into having to bust into his office and ask him to do something for me, we’ve been on "hey" terms whenever we pass in the hallway. As I passed him I was going to say "hey" but I noticed he was looking away, at the buttons on his jacket. Since he was preoccupied and I was (busy day) I didn’t say anything. Then, after he had already passed me, he said hi to me. So I’m wondering, did I screw up there? Did I make the social faux-pas? Was that bad of me? I wanted to say hi, but he was doing something else. It wasn’t me.

And finally, I think I’ve railed about this a few times, but I am not a big fan of current women’s fashions. Don’t look the "I Wanna Be a ‘ho", bare-midriffed, tight fighting clothes not one whit. Case in point what happened today. Thanks to a conference call, I found myself looking over at a coworker and couldn’t help but notice that she was wearing a lace thong. A very skimpy lace, partly frilly thong.

I do not want to see her lace thong. I do not want to know she’s wearing a lace thong. And while she’s one of my fave coworkers, it’s yet another point where the one who’s thongs you see are never the one’s that you want to see. But now, unfortunately, because of this little incident, all I can think about is her lace thong. Ugh

The latest with my favorite new credit card company is that I actually got through to somebody on the phone who could take my credit card payment. So still glowing over paying off my other card, I gave them a huge, heaping amount check over the phone. Which they never got around to processing. On the other hand, they call me every other day to let me know that I can find a great offer on their Web site.

You know, I'm trying to pay this thing off, but they just don't seem to want to let me.

As for my other card, the one I just paid off, I actually did such a good job of paying them off that they know owe me money. I love online banking, but everyonce in awhile, something goes wrong and something went wrong. I somehow, unwittingly, wound up giving them two payments last month. So, to sum up, with one credit card I can't pay them no matter how hard I try. The other one, I keep on paying them even if I don't have anything left to pay.

Onto other things, I just finished a book last week and am now sans books. So I picked up a book that I got for my birthday, a 1,000 page book on Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic. It's actually part of a seven book volume all about the fall of the Republic and I totally love the books. I love historical fiction and since we all have a secret love of empire buried deep within us, my favorite empire is the Romans. Because "apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" They were total bad asses and as long as you left them alone, they wouldn't fuck with you. And yeah, the fall of the Republic stuff does seem a tad prescient these days.

Anyhoo, the problem with the book is that it's 1,000 pages at least and pretty dense stuff. Not something one can read over a few days. While that itself isn't a problem, I did just read "War and Peace" after all, it is in that in about, oh, twelve days, my copy of the new Harry Potter book is showing up in which case I'm pretty much dropping what I'm doing and reading it. Which is why I'm not into starting a huge, epic, tome. Of course, it'll take about two to three days to read the new Harry Potter book, if that, but still.

If I remember correctly, the best part about watching Live Aid oh those years ago was that MTV actually showed the performances. Like Tom Petty came out in all of his then mutton-chopped glory and they’d actually show all of Tom’s performance. Twenty years later, MTV realized what a stupid way that is to show a concert and decided that what people really want to see are their Veejay’s telling you about what a great concert they’re not showing is.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I actually witnessed this while watching part of Live 8

Sway: We’re back at the Live 8 performance and we’re just having a great time. Wow! What a show. We’ve seen some great performances here, haven’t we La La?

La La: Yeah. It’s been a great day so far with some great stuff. Let’s show you what you’ve missed. About ten minutes ago, P Diddy actually came out and rapped with the corpse of Biggie Smalls. Let’s show you a bit, A’ight!

They show about fifteen seconds of Diddy rapping with the corpse of Biggie Smalls

Sway: Wow. That was an awesome performance, wasn’t it? Especially when they brought out the corpse of Tupac and Diddy, the corpse of Biggie, and the corpse of Tupac all sang "Give Peace a Chance." What a show. And now, we have Foray out in the crowd.

Foray: Yo, what up, Sway! What a great show, what a great concert. We got close to a million people here in Philly watching this live. And here’s one of them. We Katherine Marie from Haddonfield New Jersey whose standing here watching David Lee Roth perform with Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. Great show, isn’t it Christina!

Katherine: Whooo!!!!!!!!!!

Foray: What was your favorite part so far?

Katherine: When Destiny’s Children came out and dedicated "Bootlyicious" to the starving people in Ethiopia. That was awesome!

Foray: What brought you to the show today, Katherine?

Katherine: Well, I came because of the music, of course. I love Beyonce! Whooo!!!!!!!!!! Can I just say hi to my friends Theresa Marie and Marie Theresa? Hi girls!

Foray: And what about the message?

Katherine: Oh, like, I came for the message definitely too. It’s like sooo important to like help all those people who are like dying of that thing in that place. Free Africa!!!!!!!

Foray: Thanks Katherine. Now back to Sway.

Sway: Thanks Foray. We’re now going live to London to talk to Toure. Toure, what up dog?

Toure: Yo, thanks Sway. What can I say, it’s been a great show. Hasn’t it Play?

Play: Yes. It’s been the greatest show I’ve ever seen. And let’s check out a performance. We just saw Pink Floyd reuinte not only with Roger Waters but founding member Syd Barret too. The performance was so good the first hundred people in the audience all achieved nirvana and disappeared. Let’s check it out.

They show about fifteen seconds of Pink Floyd.

Toure: Wow, what a show. I’ve never seen a better performance ever. For all of you watching on TV, you’re missing quite a show. That was easily the best performance of the day right after U2’s performance. Holla at ya Sway!

Sway: Thanks Toure and Play. No doubt on the U2 show. We saw the rainbows breaking out all over London while Dick Cheney personally called Bono in the middle of "One" to renounce everything he’s ever done in his life in the background while you were interviewing Sum-41. And now we’re going to go to a live discussion with Chris Martin of Coldplay and Melinda from Real World Austin on free trade policy. Coming up after that, we’ll have ten minutes of commercials for zit cream and the new Dukes of Hazard movie and then we’ll show you the Who, as they jam with the ghosts of John Entwhistle and Keith Moon. They not only smashed all of their instruments, but all of Hyde Park too! Wow, what a show!

About the weekend.

First of all, nothing says fun like half-drunken bumper cars. And nothing says good ole America like a White Trash 4th of July, complete with a family of probable meth-heads with a potato gun shooting potatoes into the atmosphere and smashing truck windows. Not to mention their neighbors of probable meth dealers with a direct line of illegal Mexican fireworks shooting them off into the street. All to the strains of the wanna-be metal band jamming out in the meth-head families 2nd floor.

It was awesome.

Anyhoo, at the house friends rented, they had an actual real, live American flag. Naturally, this meant bringing it out onto the stoop and hanging. With said flag came the instruction manual for the flag rules and regulations on it’s care. Things like if you wear it as a lapel, it has to be on the left-side as close to the heart as possible. Or like it has to be above all other subordinate flags (subordinate, of course, being any flag that’s not America, Fuck Yeah!) or cannot be flown upside down or it can only be folded in a certain way. Even more hilariously, the flag, according to the flag rules manual, cannot be used for advertising purposes or to be worn as part of an outfit. Good to see all the adherence to all those rules as we debate once again a Constitutional Amendmant against flag desecration.

So I wondered who the hell came up with those rules? Somewhere along the lines, the Government set a bunch of people together, probably a bunch of reactionry John Birchers, who came up with them. Probably while listening to "Ballad of the Green Berets" and whacking off to John Wayne movies. Cause not to get all Grad School on you, but one could say that there is a bit fetishization going there with a piece of red, white and blue cloth that never, ever runs.

Later that night, as the fireworks were flying and the metal band was jamming, somebody joked about burning it, what with flag burning in the news so much these days. So somebody who was there decided what the hey and brought the flag with us to the beach to burn along with all our fireworks that were purchased.

I have to say that even for me, burning the flag is a bit too much. Yeah, it’s kind of fun in a rebellious, bite me super-patriots kind of way, but considering how people get all crazy over it, it’s just too stupid. I mean, if we burned the flag, the terrorists would win. Luckily, thanks to the cops chasing off the beach, we never get a chance to burn, baby, burn the flag. Probably for the best too. As we speculated later, if we got caught, it would be on Fox News within minutes. Something along the lines of "San Francisco Liberals Burn American Flag in Santa Cruz. Why do they Hate America?." Or considering both the religion and orientation of the two people looking to burn the flag the most, "Gay, Liberal Jews Burn American Flag on Nation’s Birthday. Stay tuned as Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity will publicly flog them!"

By the way, bumper cars is totally wasted on the young. When your a kid, you have no agression or angst to need to get rid of. Your all happy all the time so the ability to run into things isn't something you savor as much. And as an adult, you get to drive and just the mere thought of being able to slam into somebody who cuts you off is enough to make it worthwhile.

Long story short, go out with a friend and wind up hanging out with her friend and walking her home. From Lower Haight to the Tenderloin I might add. So I step it up and ask her out (quoth me "so, do you want to go out sometime?’). She says yes and actually seems like she meant it. I’m a tad excited- she’s cute, spunky, can drink like a fish, and is way funny. We e-mail. She says she’s busy and that I should try again later in the month. When it’s around the time she says she’ll be free, I e-mail her again to try and set a date. I don’t hear back from her.

A week goes by and still no word. Feeling slightly sympathetic to her earlier pleas of busy-ness, I still think it a tad rude, so I decide to get a bit ballic and send kind of a bitchy, you blew it babe e-mail (in a nice but kind of nice way, of course). A couple of hours later, I hear back from her.

In a voluminous e-mail she apologizes and details all the things that made her unable to respond. She’s been doing this, doing that, working here, working there. That was the short version. Then she tells me the long version. Seems she just broke up with someone who she lived with and is still dealing with it. And that they might get back together and she’s dealing with it all right now. And it was their anniversary a few days ago and she’s dealing with that too. Oh, the ex? Another girl.

Needless to say, I’m a little gobsmacked. Reading the entire e-mail left me pretty much speechless. Not exactly what I was expecting to happen.

Now, there’s pretty much two ways of looking at the whole situation. The first one, of course, is that I’m an idiot. The second one is the "Chasing Amy" Scenario. But either way you look at it, it’s all just one of those things that makes dating in this city so gosh darn interesting.

Now let’s start with the I’m an idiot option. She did mention that night that she writes lesbian porn. She also did say that part of the reason she was so busy is because she was seeing all these movies at the Gay/Lesbian Film Festival. It was also mentioned at some point that night that she used to live with another woman and not just as a roommate.

Okay, yes, those are all pretty good signs. But on the other hand, who doesn’t write lesbian porn? And in this city, everyone goes to one or two screenings of the Gay/Lesbian film festival. For some, it’s like wearing a Che Guerera t-shirt or saying you’re a member of the Green Party.

And as for the living with another woman? Lesbian phase. Hell, half the women in this city went through that phase at some point of their San Francisco experience. It’s totally so five minutes ago. In fact, it’s such a cliché now that in the very first episode of the "Real World Austin" the ho’ish castmember with daddy issues and the ho’ish castmember with self-esteem issues made out in the hot tub and the only reaction it elicited was nothing but a roll of the eye and a yawn. I know plenty of people whose plus one went through the phase and now they’re one big happy Breeder couple. I thought she was probably bi. Again, not that out of the ordinary. And if she was bi, that could only mean three things- that she really swings both ways, that she’s a total mess and has had a couple of bad relationships with guys so swings the other way, or she’s just acting out daddy issues and wants to show how wild and crazy she can be. Either way, two out of three are fine by me and the third (crazy) is workable.

Plus, it’s not like she said something like "I dig chicks and chicks only." You’d figure that after a night of conversation, there’d be some mention of it, or at least more than a passing reference in between stories of hooking up with guys. And just as women who are in a relationship should, as a courtesy at least, somehow slip a mention of their attachedness into a conversation, shouldn’t the same be true of lesbians around single guys? I’m not saying they should say it loud and proud (although if they want to, go nuts), but maybe just be all subtle like. Or more subtle than my idiot-self picked up on. When I even told my friend I asked her out on a date, my friend didn’t say anything to the affect that I was barking up the wrong tree. Turns out she thought she was bi too. And while my gaydar has been a bit off lately and it’s harder at times with gay women than gay men, I just didn’t pick anything up. She didn’t look lesbian or act lesbian but just kind of looked and acted, well, like any number of women in this city.

Oh, and one more thing. I found her Friendster profile online, or at least I think it’s her. In it she says she’s looking for a relationship-- with men. Ironically I didn’t ask out someone I met at a party last weekend because her Friendster profile mentioned she was living with her domestic partner (speaking of women who didn’t mention SO’s or orientation in the midst of a long conversation). And if you can’t believe what you read on the internet, what can you believe?

But what if I’m not an idiot? What if we’re in the Chasing Amy scenario? She did say yes when I asked her if she wanted to go out, although I’ll leave the Talmudic discussion of whether "go out" means "date" or "go out" means "hang out and talk about writing lesbian porn." And not only did she apologize for lack of e-mail, but she kind of asked for another chance and invited me out with her tomorrow night.

And will I? Let’s see, she just got out of a heavy relationship, a relationship with somebody who she met four years ago the Pride March. Someone who put her on the back of their motorcycle to ride with Dykes on Bikes. I’m a nice Jewish boy from the Main Line. Most of my friends are married with houses and with 2.5 kids. This is all way over my head. In terms of dating, it’s expert level. It’s like being an intermediate skier at best trying to ski a double black-diamond. With a cold. And a bad ankle. In a snow storm. And I’m not even going to get into the fact that in her like two-page response I found out way too much about her relationship, post-relationship sex life, her attempts at trying to get back together with the ex and well, way, WAY too much information. On the other hand, she was kind of cute.

Okay, now here comes the standard "not that there’s anything wrong with it" disclaimer. The crazy thing about all of this isn’t the lesbianism, or the bisexuality or dykes on bikes. It’s about asking some girl out, thinking you’ll maybe get a nice date out of it, only to be caught in the middle of some huge lesbian drama. It’s about thinking dinner and drinks and getting in response a story about being distraught because it was the four year anniversary of their meeting and not being able to ride with Dykes on Bikes made her cry all weekend. Between this and a few other similarly related events that have happened lately, it’s just basically been the cap of a crap month. To paraphrase Larry David, sometimes it’s better not to leave the house. Which is pretty much what I’m going to do for the next few months or so. It’s dangerous out there.

All I can say is thank God for TiVo.

You know what job I want? I want to be a reporter on the Natalee Holloway case (or whatever the hell her last name is). You can't tell me those guys are working more than a couple of hours a day. And if they are, I'm guessing it usually consists of taking cell phone calls by the resort pool. I wonder how hard it was to find people to take the case. Like some news editor went out into the offices and told a bunch of reporters that they had a choice between going to Iraq or Aruba, which one would they choose. It's not like there's any news happening in the rest of the world too.

I actually wondered that if they would have found Natalee's body last night, would MSFOXNN have gone with that story of Smirkboy's speech.

Speaking of Smirkboy, part of me is actually happy he won re-election. Why? Because payback's a bitch. All of a sudden, it seems like people are finally catching on to him.

Heard Bette Midler's "The Rose" on the shuttle ride home tonight. You know that song: "Some say Love, it is a River...." You know what? It's a pretty cool song if I don't say so myself-- much underrated and forgotten about. Or maybe it's just because it was the big makeout song at the Camp Tov Day camp Overnight.

I think in honor of the recent Supreme Court anti-downloading decision, I'll download it off Limewire later tonight.

Oh, I finally heard back from my new favorite credit card company. First of all, five days to replay to an e-mail? Great customer service there, especially when all I got was a form letter saying they'll look into it. Second of all, I finally got the bill. It came in pretty much a plaine white envelope with new title, header, or what they say in the biz as "call to action." Not even the damn name of the company.

In other words, I am not impressed. And not thrilled either.

You know what I've always wondered? Did Bryan Adams pick the year 1969 in "Summer of 69" just because he thought it would be funny to sing "me and my baby in 69!" or did the year '69 have special significance to him? Like he got his first guitar then or had his first girlfriend? Because it kind of cheapens the song to think that there's no nostalgia or meaning behind and that it's just one big huge Beavis joke.

Last night I went to a "dress as your favorite celebrity" party. Since I have a collection of about three costume’s that I rotate around depending on the need, I decided to go with my Star Trek red shirt and go as a Star Trek dude. Yeah, technically a Star Trek dude in a red shirt isn’t a celebrity (I don’t think James "Scotty" Doohan is a big enough celebrity to muster a costume) but the concept of a Star Trek red shirt is a celebrity in and of itself. It’s almost iconic and isn’t the whole point of dressing as a celebrity to dress as something iconic? Besides, it’s not like I wanted to put any effort into getting an outfit together.

The party goes on and I suddenly realize that there’s a problem with dressing up as a Star Trek person at a party. That is, of course, it’s way too easy to be seen as some uber-geek by everyone at the party. After all, when you’re at a party in which most of the people you either don’t know or don’t really know that well, you don’t want to be seen as the kind of guy who guys to conventions. And let’s face it, in Geek culture, Trekkies are the bottom of the barrel, the guys even Star War nerds beat up. Hell, Lord of the Rings nerds beat them up too.

I was doing fine for much of the evening but then while talking to a bunch of people somebody tried to figure out who I was. For whatever reason, they all somehow came to the conclusion that I was Sulu. Now, I could have just played along with the joke and said, "yep, I’m Sulu" and not come off as geeky, but, of course, I couldn’t. Because, as anyone knows, Sulu was a yellow shirt (Federation Officer) and not a Red Shirt. Hello?

Blew that cover.

Then, later on in the night, people started coming up to my shirt, pressing the Star Trek insignia, and saying things like "beam me up, Captain" thinking that the insignia was also the communicator. Once again, I could have played along with it, but, of course, I had to open my mouth. I mean, who isn’t aware of the fact that in the original Star Trek, they used communicators to communicate and it wasn’t until the "Next Generation" that the insignia’s also worked as communicators. Sheesh.

Guess who’s now known as the biggest geek on the kickball team?

Speaking of geeks, in a moment of impulse shopping, I ordered a kick-ass Buffy poster online. The site offered to send it framed, but it would have been another $80 to frame it. Considering I can get a cheap frame thing at Wahlgreen’s and considering it’s a poster for a defunct TV show, I said no to the frame. The thing shows up and I find out Wahlgreen’s doesn’t sell poster frames big enough for the poster I bought. So I checked out a frame store this afternoon and discovered that the cheapest frame I can get for it is over $100. Now what am I going to do? On the other hand, no kick-ass poster is worth $120. Especially when you’re a 37 year old single guy.

After months of putzing around, I finally got around to getting myself a massage. Let’s just say there’s nothing more disappointing than a bad massage. For whatever reason, I’ve been all stressed out lately, thus no sleeping. So what I needed more than anything was for the masseuse to go in there, get with the "power of Shiva compels you," and kick the crap out whatever stress is running around my body. Didn’t happen. For whatever reason, the masseuse took it away on me. It was more like she just invited my stress out for lunch and politely asked it to leave. I was able to get a nap out of it, but right now I just feel all oily and kind of wishing I had that $80 back.

It's one thing to have saggy breasts- at some point everyone does. It's quite another thing to wear a low cut outfit that let's everyone see how saggy they are. And it's a whole other thing when you also have tattoos on each saggy breast that does nothing more than draw everyone's attention to the saggy breasts. In other words, iyick. At least she didn't have those icky pockmarks you get from shooting to much smack like half the women on 16th & Mission.

Yep, I'm back. Sorry I was away.

By the way, my new credit card company? Hasn't e-mailed me back yet about my inability to pay my credit card. I'm sure the first time I'll hear from them is when they call to complain about the fact I haven't paid.

PS- I think my new Best Disc Ever is my brand new live Fu Manchu live double CD. Why Stoner rock didn't take over the world I'll never know. Sure as hell kicks the living crap out of all those ripoff 80's bands with "the" in the title that the kids are so into these days. The reason is fairly obvious. One, whenever somebody hits a chord, you can hear the amp go about as loud as possible without actually frying. And two, cowbell. Because what the world needs now is more cowbell.