The Long Week

I don't think this guy can pass as a "she", but all the other ladies at AsiaSF were beautiful.

I had the best mojito I've ever had there. I may have to add a page to keep track of these discoveries. Not fresh, but the perfect mix of sweet and sour and minty.


I decided maybe things don't always have to be so complicated, and not everything has to fit into it's safe little compartmentalized definition. Or at least I don't have to put things into those compartments. Especially when it comes to people. Maybe I should give them a chance to define their own place. Pistol Pete put this quite well:

Life is all about spectrums. Sexuality. Politics. Relationships. If you don't establish where you are in those spectrums, people will pin you somewhere in each. Categorizing if you will. Straight. Bleeding-heart. Lover. Tree-hugger. Acquaintance. Gay. Right-Winger. Friend. In life, if we are going to live in this world of strict definitions, you can let others define you, or you can establish it yourself. I think I tend to be too nice and end up letting others define me. I didn't always do this in the past.

In other events of the crazy antics variety, my visiting SF virgin danced the night away with me in the Castro. In the cab ride home she decided the hispanic cabbie must not speak English and she'd have to translate. Even after he informed us that he didn't speak much Spanish, she continued to repeat everything I said in her drunken version of the language. After I got her up the stairs and to the couch, she apparently walked to the bathroom where she fell into the tub and gave herself quite the head injury. Apparently while she was there she ditched her jeans, because she was found sprawled half-naked on the couch in the middle of the night. Absolutely fabulous.

Friday night I got to take the coolest 15-year-old I know to see Weezer! And others, of course. And with my favorite concert buddy by my side.

And all with a great weekend ahead of me. Life is good.

Outside of my own little world: Colombians are acting irrationally out of fear, South Africa is condoning the irresponsibility of men, and Ashlee Simpson is mastering the art of bad publicity as a good thing.

And next week we have Bush's anti-flu plan to look forward to. Yeehaw.

Marty Bahamonde is My Hero

After all that has come to light regarding FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina, I've got to admit that I've found a bit of a bright lining. In every non-profit and government organization, there are people who are good little underlings just trying to do their jobs and contribute something nice to the world. They are often obscured by frustrating superiors, but they're out there.

Marty Bahamonde recently released his blackberry transcripts of an email exchange concerning Mike Brown's response to the crisis in the Superdome. After sending an email to Brown describing the desperate situation in the storm's aftermath, Bahamonde received an email explaining Brown's need for more time to deal with busy restaurants.

Bahamonde's reply?

"OH MY GOD!!!!! Just tell [Brown's assistant] that I just ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends, so I understand her concern about busy restaurants."

Spanish has just been officially ousted as a contender for America's second language. Sarcasm is far more established.

I think I love this man.

BJ the Bear

Any of you St. Louis folk remember my pics of the perverted bear at the zoo? SOMEONE sent in a video of him!

This is OUR bear, kids.

The Cards may lose the playoffs, but we've always got BJ the Bear.

Minty Fresh Cocktails

At the wedding I attended this weekend, I was hesitant to ask for anything complicated at the open bar. After a few drinks, though, I decided to try my luck with a mojito.

The bartender assured me he knew how to make them and that he had the mint, and then he left the building. He came back a few moments later with a fresh sprig of mint from the courtyard where the ceremony took place. The drink was strong, but the mint was so fresh and tasty I couldn't tell. It was an incredibly good drink. My only complaint was that I couldn't taste the alcohol. :)

Mmmmm...tasty!

Networking Sites

Friendster is better than MySpace.

'Nuff said.

Baseball's Contribution to the Demise of Liz Phair

Okay, so any of you who saw the 7th inning stretch tonight know that Liz Phair does not do well performing simple anthem-like songs that require her to stay in a normal key for longer than a second or two. Here's the deal, though. If Liz Phair sang like Celine Dion, we wouldn't love her. Liz is not about the long drawn out notes, and those who think so have only listened to her self-titled album that definitely used production to enhance the pop sound in her songs. Liz is about great lyrics and quirky melodies. When she released the album that sent her into pop-stardom, she caught a lot of flack for stepping so far out of her realm. Now people are criticizing the performance tonight and she's getting even more negative media. If this was your first exposure to her, I beg you to look at some of her old stuff. You can start by checking out the difference between songs like "Polyester Bride" and "Supernova" and songs like "Everything to Me" and "Why Can't I". I'm a big promoter of her right to try something new (or as others might say "sell out") in order to put food on the table. I enjoy her new music just as much as I enjoy her old stuff. However, when she tries to take this new pop persona into things like her performance tonight, I have to admit that her voice actually belongs better with her old stuff. With that said, before you hate her, check out her old stuff and get a glimpse of how amazing she really is.

Watch videos here!

What is a Mandy?

Yeah, like I'm gonna give you the whole story.

So a friend went to Urban Dictionary for the answer.
UD has 23 definitions.

This is my favorite:
Kick ass amazing cool as fuck girl

And this is the closest to the truth (get your mind out of the gutter):
She came and she gave without taking.
But he sent her away.

I am disgusted

They look so innocent, don't they?

Too bad for shitty parenting.

Pick-Up Line #92

For the boys:

Start out by saying something offensive. This works especially well if you know the girl and know what she cares about. A good example would be to say something about women belonging in the kitchen or some other misogynistic idea.

When she gets offended, sincerely apologize and tell her you were just trying to get a rise out of her. Apologize again and offer a nice smile.

When she relaxes, say one of the following:

"Wanna see if you can get a rise out of me?"
"I thought it was fair paybacks for the rise you just got out of me."
or something similar of your own creation.

What's so bad about toe-sucking?

From S.I.C.K.
(All said in overly-dramatic tones)

That's when he said he wanted to suck my toes!

He wanted to suck your toes?

He wanted to suck my toes.

Men are pigs.

You MUST see this movie.

Email Scam Warnings

Those damn irritating things. I usually delete them right away because they are never true. I checked this one out personally, though. Read on:

Important Warning Regarding a Scam

Please send this warning to everyone on your email list.

If someone comes to your door saying they're conducting a survey on deer ticks and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DON'T DO IT. IT'S A SCAM. They only want to see you naked.

I wish I had gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid

Bono For President

Bono met with Bush to talk about his causes. Do you think Bono says nice things about Bush when he's not in the same room with him?

Self-Esteem

How is it possible that a 4 1/2 year-old can ruin my evening?

Sometimes Ani is a Necessity

especially when reading other peoples' posts

Sorry I Am

Why I'm a Cardinals Fan

In high school my basketball team was known as a second-half team. We might have let the other teams get ahead of us, but after half-time we'd come out and play our asses off that third quarter. We were unstoppable when we were down by a few points. In fact, the times we did lose tended to be the times we were up at half-time and got a little too sure of ourselves.

In college, I played for a national-championship team that frequently beat its competitors by 30-60 points. We always got a good lead in the beginning and never relented. Very seldom did we find ourselves trailing, and when we did, we weren't always ready for it.

I loved winning. I loved the leads. But you know, I kinda missed the exhilaration of being a comeback team.

The Cardinals are a comeback team. Granted, nothing is going to seem all that significant in light of last year's Boston Red Sox comeback win over the Yankees, but being down a couple of points after the seventh-inning stretch has never meant all that much to St. Louis.

I came into the game tonight rather late after work, and saw the score in the market on my way to my tv. With Houston leading the series 3-1, my boys were in the bottom of the 8th losing 2-4. My heart sank a bit (boys, forgive me my lack of faith--I've been away from St. Louis too long) because I was so hoping for another shot at the World Series.

This series has not been a great display of Cardinals hitting. Larry Walker was a bit banged-up going into the series. Scott Rolen was already on the injured list. Jim Edmonds was still playing, but with back pain that kept him from hitting as well as usual. Reggie Sanders, the only player who was hitting consistently, took a fall in game two that had him out of the line-up. And in game three Abraham Nunez took a knee to his thigh that kept him off the active roster.

This is not the first time injuries have plagued the Cardinals during playoffs. In fact, it's a bit of a (dare I say it?) curse for St. Louis.

This season's acquisition of David Eckstein might just have saved the day, though. Eckstein is known for being a workhorse and a strong team leader. He pulled the team together kept them going in spite of themselves. Not to say that the Cards wouldn't have pulled through anyway--that spirit is part of being a Cardinal--but it can't be easy to keep going when the people that were supposed to be your shot at the World Series can't even play.

And it was Eckstein who put it all into motion tonight. Throughout the rest of the Astros/Cardinals series, it somehow happened that the big hitters were ending the inning, and Pujols--who should always be hitting when there are a couple of people on base already--was first at bat. This time, though, the 9th inning began with Eckstein hitting. I hoped hard but didn't expect much (again, forgive me), until Eckstein got a base hit. Edmonds came up with 29 comeback runs behind him. As Edmonds was nearly hit by the pitch, Eckstein stole second. Jimmy-boy was then walked to first. Pujols, the too-good-to-be-true boy-next-door-type hero that he is, came up and swung wildly at the first pitch. You could sense faces falling as he tried to hit a ball that he should have let pass by him. As the strike went up on the board and he readied for another pitch, it seemed that everyone watching this game must surely be holding their breath. When his bat made contact, the ball went so high up I was certain it was a fly and that was the end for St. Louis. Pujols stood casually at the plate and watched as the announcers said that ball was OVER THE FENCE!!! Pujols' homerun gave the Cards three runs and the lead over the Astros! Yes, they still have to win two more games, but they can do it. My boys are gonna go to the World Series!

This team in itself might just be enough to keep me happy if I ever find myself having to move away from San Francisco, as long as I can live in St. Louis.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! :):)

Spilled Milk

photo by Craig Cowling

Wonder if she laughed so hard the milk squirted out her nose.

Camp Barnabas

There's this great camp back home called Camp Barnabas. It's this great place that caters to kids with special needs in southwest Missouri.

Camp Barnabas exists to offer childhood experiences to kids who have been robbed of them by disease or disability. These kids need to shift their focus away from sterile medical environments and the language of their illness to focus anew on activities that build their courage and expand their belief in themselves. Many of the children with special needs endure unthinkable pain and isolating treatment for illnesses such as cancer, hemophilia, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, cerebal palsy and AIDS. Their need for acceptance is overwhelming!

Each summer, Camp Barnabas provides encouragement for literally hundreds of campers, empowering them to live more fully through faith. This spiritual gift of encouragement, the hallmark of Barnabas, one of the least known of Christ’s latter disciples, helps campers face and challenge their disability or illness with courage.

Basically, it's summer camp, but each term is a week filled with activities directed at a specific population. For example, if you are a cancer patient, when you go to camp, all the other kids will also be cancer patients. They also separate them by ages so the attendees are among peers. I know about it because MG, my former autistic client, went to autism week. Each attendee has their own staff person that keeps in touch with them afterward to help with the transition back into a world where not everyone is afflicted with the same condition. All the activities take into account any special needs without making the children feel like they need something "extra". For example, instead of a kid being "special" because they are in a wheelchair, everyone around them is in wheelchairs or has artificial limbs or something similar. Instead of being in a situation where a child can't do something because they have cystic fibrosis, they are offered only activities of which they are capable. It's an incredibly cool place.

So here's the extra cool thing: Tonight there is a 2-hour special on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The show is giving the founders a new house AND redoing the camp. How friggin cool!!! Everyone should be watching!

His Truck Had a Nutsack

An excerpt from Laurie Notaro's I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies), after a decision to be nicer in order to achieve good karma:

I Love Everybody.

Two miles from Costco, all is going well until a Chevy two-ton crosses two empty lanes of traffic to squeal in front of me and then reduces its speed to that of a Fred Flintstone car. It was at a barely crawling 25 miles per hour in a 45 zone that I was able to fully, and comprehensively, take in and understand the character of the motorist before me. On his bumper, for everyone to see, including his mother, his boss, his neighbors, and any womenfolk he might have swindled into dating, was a bumper sticker that read: TODAY'S WORD IS LEGS...LET'S SPREAD THE WORD!!

I choked on my own saliva. I don't even know what you say after seeing something like that. I really don't. Nothing except that I would be entirely remiss by not mentioning that as an additional adornment to his fine, gray-primered-on-one-side vehicle and swining to and fro from his trailer hitch was a flesh-colored sock, into which he had apparently stuffed two racquetballs, sitting side by side, and had fashioned himself something of a scrotum. That's right, his truck had a nutsack.

His truck had a nutsack.

As I passed the Testicle Truck, I made a five-dollar bet with myself and won when I saw that its master had opted not to don a shirt that morning.

I smiled and I nodded.

"Aren't you delightful?" I said, to which he stuck his big, filthy tongue into his cheek and vigorously moved it around as he reaised his eyebrows repeatedly.

I laughed and said through my smiling, clenched teeth, "Your trailer hitch has a better shot at that than you do. At least his boys have dropped."

Nice.

I love Quite Close to Everybody.

Bibliophilia

In light of my obsession with books of all kinds, I've updated my website to add a page about (what else?) books. It's a small start right now, but I'll be adding more to it as I go along. I hope to consistently reflect my most recently enjoyed reads while including a rotating array of favorites. Please feel free to offer book recommendations and reviews.

Coulrophobia

I've been meeting more and more people recently who are afraid of clowns. It's nice to know I'm not the only one. One of my favorite comedic writers does a great job spreading the fear:

I'm afraid of clowns, I'm not ashamed of it.

Mrs. Lee, my third-grade teacher, once invited one particularly angry clown, Frosty, to perform at a classroom holiday party. This was the same teacher who had developed her own brand of discipline by placing a dog kennel, previously used by her then deceased Great Dane, next to her desk and locking children in it when they misbehaved.

Upon Frosty's arrival, he bore a distinctive scent, one that as an adult I can now identify as gin, and when Sherry Pierce, the perfect third-grade girl who had hair she could sit on, mentioned this, he just looked at her and chuckled. The clown began his Clown Fun, which entailed knocking the kids on the head with a plastic squeaky hammer, pulling a mottled piece of red foam out from behind their ears, and creating balloon animals in obscene shapes. The clown got even testier when Michael Moorehouse, the obligatory chunky child, told the clown he wasn't funny. Frosty immediately lunged into action, swiping Michael's snack plate and saying, "I'll show you funny, fatty," and took a bite out of the green-frosted cupcake and reindeer cookie.

The clown trauma didn't end there.

Read the rest of Laurie Notaro's article.

Coulrophobia is so normal, in fact, that a movie has been made about it (other than Stephen King's It, that is), a support group, and a "rate the pic" type site called scary or not.

Great New Band

Or, the "Essence" of one, anyway.

Meet GER-ger

Their first single is "Jizmack the K-rated Troll"

Just Another Anti-Hero

Remember that chick who nabbed the courthouse killer by talking to him about Jesus? Yeah, so here's the real story rom This is True:

THE DRUG-DRIVEN LIFE: After Brian Nichols grabbed a deputy's gun and shot his way out of the courthouse in Fulton County, Ga., killing four people, Ashley Smith was hailed as a hero. Smith, who Nichols took hostage in her own apartment after his rampage, told police how she convinced him to surrender by talking about God and reading aloud from the book, "The Purpose-Driven Life". Now, Smith is putting out her own book which details how she really got Nichols to cooperate: she gave him her supply of crystal methamphetamine. Smith admits she was a meth addict and had used the drug hours before she was taken hostage. "Do you smoke it? How do you do it?" Nichols asked her when she handed her stash over. She prepared the drug for him so he could snort it. "You gave him drugs, Ashley," she said to herself at the time, but, she says now, "God led me to do that." Smith received $70,000 in rewards for capturing Nichols, and says she no longer takes drugs. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) ...Someday, maybe we'll revere people who succeeded without ever getting addicted to drugs, rather than people who overcame them after being showered with money and fame.

Here, Kitty Kitty

What would you do if you ran over a cat? I'm a cat-lover, people, so answer carefully.

Read the full situation from TF6S' blog.

Internet Connections

Back home in the world of lesser technology, we had this thing called internet that was actually a reliable service. Somehow, coming to SF changed that for me. My internet connections, both at home and at the office (different providers) are consistently slower than my internet back home. On top of that, I never know when I might not be able to connect at all. I'm not quite sure how it happens that I move 2000 miles closer to Silcon Valley and get more limited access to the world wide web. Well, maybe Google can help.

Citywide WIFI?

Thanks TF6S.

"Pressure can be your friend....If you handle the adversity better than
anybody else, you pick up an edge."
Tony LaRussa, manager of the St. Louis Cardinals

Schedules

I've been trying desperately to counter the night owl in me by going to bed earlier. Last night I actually made it to bed at 10:30...only to wake up for good around 2 because I couldn't breathe. Damn cold has me totally out of commission. Hopefully this is the last day. Anyone wanna bring me soup?

views

I want to stand on a roof in San Francisco and look over the city. Anyone got a roof?