Right now I'm in Bal'more with dad. So far I've been in suburban Philly, New York, Philly, and D.C. That's four cities right there. If you add up states, I've been in about five (Pa, New Jersey, New Yawk, Maryland, and Delaware) plus the District of Columbia. As we got lost leaving DC last night, there's also a chance I've been in Virginia too. Yet in being all of those places, it doesn't really seem all that exciting. Maybe it's just because I've done it so many times or that on the East Coast, hopping from state to state isn't that big of a deal, but I think that just on this trip, I've seen more cities and been in more states than most Americans have. And I just don't mean dumb, poor white trash, either-- while Baltimore and Philly isn't that high on anybody's list of places to go (although Philly should be because there's a lot of history, it's kind of pretty, and mmmm....cheese steaks), DC and New York are pretty much Must Sees. And yet, none of this seems all that impressive.

The thing is, however, that if say I did all this travelling, yet in Europe, everyone would be "wow." So you know what I'm thinking? This trip would be a whole lot more impressive if you had to get something stamped everytime you crossed over into another state. Just think how cool it would be if when I go home, I could open up my passport and show everyone my Delaware stamp.

So that whole moth quote earlier might have been a little over the top as it's not like people in the East Coast don't dress well. I think it's just my view that the whole East Coast is kind of old and moldy and stuffy, the kind of environment moths thrive in. In fact, if I was writing a novel about life in the East Coast, I'd have moths be the central metaphor in it. You know, the kind of metaphor you study in english classes and write papers about. Something like "people in the East Coast are afraid to merge with their moths." Or something about moths beating ceaselessly to the shore.

Anyhoo, today I went to the scene of the crime as it were, the King of Prussia Shopping Mall. Luckily, none of it was how I remember it, so the deja vu wasn't quite so deja. But there's still something about walking around there. Like I want to tell everyone I meet "I used to live here but I'm back on vacation because I live in San Francisco and got the hell out of here and got to experience things more real than Ivy League educations and Abercrombie and Fitch." You know, like I should have worn a t-shirt that said "I Got The Hell Out of Here." Which is kind of silly if you think about it. But then again, in a way, we all live our lives in reaction to our lives when we were young. Just some people haven't quite realized it yet. And let's just say that with the iPod on, I got way more vicarious thrill out of hearing say a Dinosaur Jr. song and Iggy Pop's "I wanna Be Your Dog" than a Tom Petty or Floyd song. Because Petty or Floyd is pretty much what I heard back then anyways. But we'll get to that in a second.

One more thing about walking through the mall. Whenver I'm there I get this weird, paranoid feeling that I'll run into somebody I know. Which would never happen, especially at 2 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, but it's still there. It's just weird to realize that the one's who it'll probably be are not the High School and college chicks, but probably their mother's. T'is true about anything in life these days, but, once again, it goes against what we were trained to think oh so long ago.

About the radio. I love turning on the radio to hear if anything's changed from when I was younger and discovered that in some cases, it hasn't. I still heard those dread words that haunted me so much when I was younger..."after the break, a double shot of Yes!" It seems like WMMR could just put on tapes from 20 years ago and nobody would notice a difference in the station.

We're coming live from Philadelphia Pa, or more accurately Valley Forge, as we ponder this question: are we actually going to be on a billboard in Times Square?

Anyways, here's a few odds and sods from this trip

-Saw "Thank You For Not Smoking" Saturday night. Not bad, but the main thing is I got to see the infamous trailer for "Flight 93" or whatever it is, the 9/11 movie. Let's just say it's a little weird to see it. Or more like total buzz kill. There you are watching a trailer for frothy English comedy, then quirky indie movie, and then, blammo, you watch footage of a plane slam into the WTC. Not exactly happy fun time. And judging by all the people shaking their heads at the end of the trailer, I'm guessing this movie is gonna be one big huge, errr, bomb.

And I'm also probably not the only person to think this, but while I do think something happened on that flight, why do I have a sneaking suspicious it didn't go down as it was made out to go down? Not that I don't blame anyone for "the myth" becoming the reality-- God only knows we needed one uplifting story out the whole thing, but I just have a feeling something else happened.

-I hate to say it, but whenever I get off a flight from San Francisco, I always find myself going "oh, look, they have wi fi access here." Or "oh, look, they have coffee shops." Or "oh, wow, there's somebody speaking spanish." Which is silly because there's no reason why all of those things wouldn't be here. But living in San Fran makes you think that civilization does indeed end once you live the Bay Area. I even found myself thinking those things in New York, which is totally dumb because New York pretty much kicks everyone's ass in that regards

-Speaking of New York, as I was walking around I was trying to think just why it is that the people look so different than they do back home. First thing I noticed is that everyone is pale. Like not seen a tan in years pale. I think people in Cali have tans just because after awhile, it becomes part of your complexion, like a stain or something. Second thing is while I certainly can't say people in NY are less stylish (SF is particularly not a very stylish city), there is a certain feeling of moldiness in a lot of the clothes. Like moths are a couple of days away from setting home in them.

-I was driving back from New York and somewhere on the Pa Turnpike (yep, I was driving). Anyways, I was going somewhere between 75-80, pretty much what everyone else was. All the while being tailgated. Now there's one thing about being tailgated when you're already going fairly above the speed limit. But the thing that really bugged was the fact that there was nobody really going on either side of me (I was in the middle lane of a three lane highway) so that the car who was behind me could easily go either to my right or to my left and pass me, but they refused to. The fact that they didn't made me actually want to slow down more just to force the issue. And to piss him off. Finally, after about fifteen miles of this, the guy in the car made a move-- to my right, the slow lane. Where they promptly got stuck behind a slow moving pick up truck. And to where the driver once again refused to pass. So for all that tailgating, the dude or dudette got stuck behind some pick up truck and wound up getting passed by everyone. And all this because they couldn't figure out to pass anybody.

-We tried to take the Staten Island ferry coming back from New York today, but it turns out you can no longer put a car on the ferry. 9/11, terrorism and all that. Which strikes me as pretty frickin' stupid. Like by somehow getting rid of one way into the city, they have now made New York safer. Despite the fact anybody could take a car and pull up somewhere and blow the car up with a car bomb. And I hear they're thinking about building a new tunnel but one of the reasons why they won't is because the fear of terrorism. Now if there's any place that has legitimate concerns about terrorism, it would be New York. And not just because of 9/11. But do we still have to be complete chicken-shits about it still?

-And speaking of security, I travelled this time with full accomponient (yeah, I know I fucked up the spelling) of electronic equipment-- iPod, lap top, carry on suitcase. Could security not be a bigger pain in the ass? I have to take off my jacket, my shoes, unhinge the iPod from my ears, put my backpack in one tray, my suitcase in another, and my laptop in another. That's about five little trays right there. And because there were so many people going through security and they were trying to rush them through (actually, they did a really good job of rushing everyone through), it's that much more of a pain in the ass when you're trying to put everything together and you got security types telling you to move along and get out of the way.

It appears that the big public transportation trend in the Bay Area these days seems to be death. Mainly the death of people being hit by either bus or by train. This is all rather sad and tragic and of course it becomes painfully obvious that SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT THIS!

But really, should we? Isn't there a level of Darwin involved in all of this? I mean, shouldn't it be kind of obvious that trains move really, really fast and that one shouldn't lollygag crossing the tracks. Or crossing the tracks at all. Or doing anything that could possibly involve being hit by a speeding train? Same thing with being hit by a bus. MUNI busses are rather big and rather loud and kind of hard to not see. Unless you're not paying attention or have the iPod cranked so you can't even hear the bus. And yes, MUNI busses do have a tendency to lurch into intersections or around corners when you don't think they should, but shouldn't you always look both ways before crossing?

And another point is about the MUNI bus going after the light turns. You know why they do that? Because they sit and wait to pick up lots of passengers, or late passengers, and have to scramble through the intersection so they won't fall too far behind. Because if they do fall too far behind by waiting through another light, everyone yells at them for being late.

And so once again I find myself getting into my seat on the bus, positioned near nobody, only to have somebody sit in the seat in front of me and lean back in their chair and into my space. And not only anybody, but the Ignatius O'Reilly guy who then promptly plopped his jacket up against the window and proceeded to snore away until our stop.

Ignatius also always falls asleep on the ride over. Everytime I get up to leave, I always contemplate whether or not I should wake him. On the one hand, waking him would be the polite thing to do. On the other hand, if he can't wake his fat-ass up, it's not my damn problem.

It's almost worth getting a car just to not have to deal with that.

Oh, I'm also discovering I have a new pet peeve. See, Super Mondo has cafeteria's in all of their buildings and all the cafeteria's take credit/ATM cards. Which is great. Except for the fact they'll let anyone use it. So many is the time I get in line in the morning, coffee and oatmeal in hand, only to have to wait in a long line because everybody is buying their coffee and egg breakfast with an ATM card. It's under $5. Do you really not have the cash? And if you have the cash, why not use it? Are you waiting to use it for something else? How hard is it to reach into your pocket and pull out a five?

Same thing happens at lunch too.

Man, how good was tonight's South Park? It was simultaneously a commentary on the recent cartoon fracas in which both the moslem's who rioted and the overly sensitive Western folks who were afraid to show the cartoons and support the cartoonists were busted on. All the while also being a huge diss on "Family Guy" (oh, it's on). Not to mention being a meta-commentary on the recent pulling of South Park episodes that angered Tom Cruise and Catholics while also being a meta commentary on the show itself.

In other words, it was the triple salchow of satire.

And now...for more trenchant tales of the city....

Doing some errands/shopping today after work. First stop: The Apple Store to buy stuff for my computer and iPod. You know, walking into a Mac store while wearing an iPod is kind of fun. You feel at home, like everyone there gives you that little look like you're part of the club. In a way, wearing the iPod as well as being a certified Mac-head, walking into the Apple Store is kind of like being Jewish and going to Israel.

Next stop was the San Francisco shopping center. Got the iPod in, of course, listening to a little U2 "War" and I notice as I'm walking around the mall-like place, surounded by teens, teens and more teens, that no matter how long it's been and how old I am, I still deep down, get the icky feeling of dread in my stomach. I mean, if I squinted it could be 1985 again and I'm back in the King of Prussia shopping mall, especially with "Sunday Bloody Sunday" blasting through my head. I even had that knee-jerk reflex voice come in and tell me not to look to dorky. Which, luckily, was quickly dispatched by another voice telling me that I'm 37 and shouldn't listen to that voice anymore. But just don't act too dorky.

Finally, I went off to check out a car, another Honda. Once again, it was a bit of a tricked out car, which seems to be the only Hondas I'm stumbling into. This time, however, I didn't take it for a test drive (man, that other time was fun). But I did notice that when buying a car, there's a certain code that dealers say to let you know it's tricked out. They'll say something like "it's lowered" or "it's got some extra power" and then they'll say "it was owned by Asians."

And finally, at the Mac store I bought one of those fancy, plastic cases for the iPod so I don't ding it more than it already is dinged up. The packaging for it was one of those clear, plastic contraptions that seal the thing good and shut, you know, the one's that are virtually impossible to open.

It took about fifteen minutes to open it. I had to basically take the cork screw I use for opening wine to scratch open the lid enough so that I could pry my fingers into it to open up the rest of it.

If there was such a thing as karma, I think the guy who developed that sealing packaging definately deserves some of it headed his way. Like I'm imagining he has to take a certain kind of heart medicine and just as his ticker goes clomp clomp and is about to burst, he reaches for his new heart medicine only to discover that it's that type of packaging....

I had dinner last week in Fisherman's Wharf. As I was kind of early, I walked around, up and down the pier. On my way back to the restaurant, I was mulling over about twenty or thirty things going on in my head when I heard a loud roar. I jumped back about ten feet, totally bugged eye. It was probably around eight feet or so when I realized that the roar was that of the Bush Man, the guy in Fisherman's Wharf who hangs out and jumps out in an attempt to scare tourists and get some money for his effort. It was also about eight feet back when I realized that all of this was being seen by about twenty tourists who were all scattered around the Wharf and having watched the whole ruckus, were now laughing and clapping at the show. That show, of course, being me scared half to death.

I'm not sure which is more embarassing-- that after living in the city for over fifteen years I still got punked by somebody I should have known was there or that I got punked by something most tourists had seen coming for miles.

Sorry for the no posting-- last week was a whirr of work craziness, social outness, and trying to both look for an apartment and a car. The fact that we did pretty much nothing this weekend but sleep makes us feel kind of lame but kind of rested and satisified.

So I'm kind of liking "Big Love" but mainly because it's an interesting and halfway entertaining show to come on right after "the Sopranos." The main thing about it, though, is I'm having real trouble buying the polygamy thing. Everyone on the show is way too attractive, way too modern, and way too smart to be doing something like that. I mean, it seems to be typical Hollywood doing, take something done mainly by redneck inbreds and pretty it up with attractive people. Especially since Barb comes off way too much like modern soccer mom and Nikki comes off as way too much of a bitch. And while Margene's character makes kind of sense, she's way too attractive to be caught in something like that.

Kind of like the show, though, even if I'm one of those people a little miffed that the only nudity so far is Bill Paxton's bum and not Margene's.

You know why I friggin hate this weather? Because I just had to go out and buy my fourth umbrella of the season. And yes, one could argue that it's my damn fault for constantly losing my umbrella, but it's the weather's fault I have to use it so much.

Anyways, reason # infity why I love the internet? And no, not because of the whole "Snakes on a Plane" thing (which I do love), but because somebody went through all the trouble of editing together every Jennifer Connelly nude scene from all of her movies and posting it online. Even better? The one scene that's not in there, the infamous one from "Requiem for a Dream?" You can find it on YouTube.

God love the internet

I watch Bill Maher a lot and I hate to say it that when I watch the show, I usually come away with a weird feeling of admiration for the token conservative they have on their. Part of it is kind of a weird underdog thing in that I realize in most cases it's an unfriendly audience, unfriendly host, and unfriendly panelists. But mainly it's because for the most part, they stick to their guns, say what they always say, but do so completely sure of themselves and their beliefs. I'm not saying I believe what they're saying or that occasionaly they devolve into BushBot-ness, but it's still kind of impressive to see somebody going up there and saying what they believe with confidence in what they believe.

This, of course, is in contrast to my side.

Loved, loved, loved "V For Vendetta." It was Fawlking awesome (get it? get it?). What I loved about it, besides the fact that anything that includes the explosion of buildings set to the 1812 Overture is pretty cool, is that it was a movie that took for granted that most people could believe that the government is fascist, the news is propaganda, and the Chuch corrupt without ever once having to deny that they hate America.

In other words, the movie was a breath of fresh, Blue State, air.

This was my morning. How was yours?

So imagine you get to the point where you think it's time to shake things off. And imagine that you sign up for something that could be cool, but kind of not something you want that out in the public. And imagine you have a cell phone that for whatever reason, occasionally clicks on "driving mode" and becomes a speaker phone. Then imagine that you get a call concerning somewhat embarassing thing while phone is in speaker phone mode, thus letting all your cubicle neighbors know what the kind of embarassing thing is.

Uh yeah, I disappeared again.

Long story short... work went totally nutso which caused me to get sick which caused me to bet that much more tired when I came back from Reno over the weekend (had to go, after all, especially as I bought the tickets) and then followed all that up by accidently taking the non-non-drowsy cold tablets today at work.

That was fun.

Except for when you compare my Zombie Tuesday with last Friday's Zombie Friday, it's been probably way too many dies slowly lolling around looking for brains to eat.

And so I went to Reno this weekend to continue on my new found discovery that gambling can be fun. Good thing I'm doing it now when most of my gambling addicted friends have pretty much given it up now. Anyways, why Reno? Because as much as Vegas can be fun and as much as Vegas is, well, Vegas, baby, sometimes you just don't want to put up with all of that. Sometimes Vegas is just too much-- too much noise, too crowded, too neon, too "do this!" Reno was a way of doing all the stuff you could do in Vegas, like gambling and eating at ridiculously crazy restaurants and delving into full-on cheese without feeling like you're constantly being hammered by it 24/7.

Yes, nobody has ever said "...only in Reno" or "what happens in Reno stays in Reno" but sometimes you don't want the thought that something crazy could happen to be bugging you the whole time because usually, nothing crazy happens.
Then you just get upset because nothing crazy happened.

Someday, when all the ants meet back in Antland in Ant HQ, they will all talk about the Massacre of Wounded Closet and they will tear up and be solemn. For lo, their asses were kicked.

Wow, I pretty much have nothing to say about the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I mean, I appreciate the fact that the show takes chances but that's one hell of a chance they took, completely rejiggering the show so that it's almost completely recognizable like that. It's not exactly the show I fell in love with anymore- three characters are now married, everyone's out of a job, Adama has a porn-stache, and everything really did go to hell in a handbasket. The episode, however, was amazingly well done, almost surreal and way sad and I almost couldn't watch certain points because very smart people were doing very dumb things. Although they were actually kind of smart, just wrong.

Anyways, now it's over and it won't be until October when I'll be able to see new eppies again. But luckily, the Sopranos started up again. So now I have that. And when that's over, it looks like Entourage is back on. Then, when Entourage is over, it'll be new episodes of Battlestar. And when that's over, new Sopranos and so on and so forth.

It's the circle of life.

I get a haircut from some Chinese barber on 16th street, around the corner from me. It's the kind of haircut I like- cheap, quick, and reasonably good.

The only problem with the place is that they have some sort of weird mirror which makes me look like I have a bald spot on the top of my head. As much as I like going to the place and as cheap as it is, I wish they could somehow fix their mirror.

Sometimes it's the simple things in life, things we all forget about but are always there. Like drinks at the Toronado and sausage from Rosamnunde...

I went to this fairly swank cocktail party on Thursday and half-way through had to make a bathroom run. The office where the party was held had two bathrooms, one for men and one for women. The one for men was being used, but the women's room appeared to be empty as it was not locked. I thought about just hopping into the women's bathroom to use that one as it was one of those bathrooms in which the only difference between the men's and women's is a urinal, but decided against it because the party held a lot of progessive types and I was afraid that if I got caught coming out of the women's room, I'd get a lecture about social inequality, gender roles, and civil rights. After waiting a few minutes with nobody coming out of the men's room, I said screw it and went to jump in the women's room.

There was a woman in it and using it. She just forgot to lock the door.

I said my "excuse me's" and quickly closed the door to wait for the person to come out of the men's room. Finally, the door opened up and out of the men's room came a woman.

I think I'm figuring out what's wrong with Lost this season. Last season, the show was mainly about a bunch of people stranded on an island after a place crash trying to survive. The whole mystery part of it was only peripheral. Or not really peripheral, but the fact that the people were trying to survive on an island after being in a horrible plane crash was always there and being dealt with. This season, the mystery has become the foccal point and the fact that they're a bunch of people stranded on an island after a plane crash isn't really dealt with anymore.

Are they trying to get off the island? How are they coping? Where are they living? Do they even seem to care that they're stuck on an island? They all seem to be pretty okay with the fact nobody knows where they are and they have no idea how to get off.

Also, what's up with all the other people stranded with the Lostaways? No, not "the Others" but all the people in the background who were part of the flight but don't say anything. If, as is suggested, all the "Lostaways" are people trying to find themselves or trying to atone for something, do all the other people have something they need to find or atone for? Are they all murders and convicts and Iraqi soldiers? Maybe evil accountants with Enron or boob job surgeons? Or are they just people sitting next to all the other people who just managed to be kind of collateral damage to the other character's redemption? And are they seeing dead relatives or horses too? And what do they think about the whole punching in the code thing?

I got about fifty e-mails to my e-mail account today.

All but three of them were spam.