myspace question

does anyone know what happens if you delete "Tom" as your friend? Does that mean I'll stop getting friend requests from hookers?

putting the wee back in

Halloween is here and, once again, the city is trying to scale back the revelry by issuing a press release. Strict crowd stemming measures are being imposed including reducing the number of entertainment stages to one! That is going to keep the bashers at bay. (To be fair, they're also adding a lot more cops on the street. Which is always confusing on Halloween. Are they real cops, or naughty cops? I guess the ones with horses are real.)

This is not the first time the city has attempted to keep people out of the Castro on Halloween night, even moving the "official" event to the Civic Center for several years. And, um, nobody went to that. They still came to the Castro, they still had to close the streets, and people just milled about for a few hours, drinking, occasionally getting stabbed.

The stabbings year, 2002, was indeed the scariest. Ali (or Alison as some of you who know her from the Price is Right) has the habit of designing costumes that require some large piece of plywood, cardboard or chicken wire to fan out from her head. At the intersection of Castro and Market that year, Ali's simply phenomenal costume as the opening credit sequence of The Brady Bunch (she was Alice in the middle) was being smashed into rather brusquely by the drunken mass of rude non-costume-dressed people who were apparently in a rush to stand on the street in a different location. There was an unpleasant mobbish feel, individual control being lost, and a feeling of imminent danger (not helped at all by barricades funneling people into small entrances). This prompted a quick escape to a bar for Ali and me, and for us to lose the rest of our group that evening including Mark who, dressed as Cindi Mancini from Can't Buy Me Love, had to be stuck keyless outside our apartment for two hours with kind people offering him directions to the police station. Oh, and I was Bjorn Borg that year.

I wonder if 250,000 people will listen when asked to leave an hour earlier. There has always been a somewhat exuberant anarchy to event, something uncontrollable, and generally in a positive way, you know, like a huge, fun party. But I suppose even at huge fun parties, assholes show up and break stuff. We'll see what happens this year. Or maybe I'll just hear what happened this year. I have no costume ideas yet. Neither does Mark. But my friend Gabe is making an awesome movie about it.

retreat

I'm writing this in my underwear. I'm not sure if that is the official blogger uniform, but I do have the feeling that many people are blogging in less clothing than they do many other things in their lives. I'm drinking some coffee in an oversized mug that lets me go through my pot of coffee in a convenient 3 pours. That's 7 "cups" in 3 pours. I put cup in quotes because the cups labeled on a coffeemaker are bogus cups. Well, they are probably the legitimate cup, but way to small for the cup you want when you want a cup of coffee.

I will also be showering momentarily (making me mostly naked, undercaffeinated and smelly) and getting on with my day and "weekend" which will be more like a "workend." Oh that's bad. I am hoping to intensively write over the next 4 days in my effort to get a first draft done of a new play. This is the same play I was trying to get a first draft done by August 31. oops. The creative process takes time so BACK OFF people! Just like Donny Rumsfeld said! Just stop complaining and let the incompetent people throw poop around for a while longer.

In all seriousness, I believe Donald Rumsfeld should officially be stripped of his right to be cranky. Sure, his "candor" was refreshing back in 2000, and then we all realized his candor was actually remarkably void of facts. You don't do the job he has done and then get ticked off when people think you suck at it. He should be grovelling, apologizing, resigning. Did I mention my new play is about impending doom?

Colorado closes tomorrow. Boo. I'm looking forward to watching the show tomorrow, and I just hope the World Series isn't happening at the same time. Anyone who is familiar with La Val's will understand why.

weekend pop culture roundup

• Behind the curve, yes, but finally watched a couple episodes of Weeds. Love it! Love her!
  
• Saw Little Children. I really liked it. Kept me tense and engaged and I thought it was a remarkable adaptation of a novel to film in that it managed to keep a grand scope and tell an elaborate story in 2.5 hours. Also, it contains one of the better uses of narrative voiceover. They used the guy who narrates Frontline. It was strangely funny, poignant and became a character of its own.
  
• Just bought an album by Stew on iTunes. I saw a dress rehearsal of Passing Strange at Berkeley Rep, featuring above musician, and was really taken by the music. It's got that simultaneous humor and heartbreak thing that makes me weak in the knees. The show is worth seeing, btw. Unlike anything I've seen, and it's a musical, and I found the ending pleasantly surprising and hilarious and awesome and strange. I think I will go see it again deeper in the run.
  
• I also saw Colorado, but since I wrote that I won't give any biased assessments.
  
• I like this quote from Richard Feynman:

  "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

  
  
• For the record, I will not be seeing Saw III. Blech.
• For the record, I kind of enjoy the new Westfield mall.
• Ooo. I just discovered spell check on blogger. I hope that helps my errors in the posts somewhat.
  

mouse update

After a week of quiet, the mouse appeared again earlier this week, this time making a cameo in the guest bedroom where my brother George is sleeping while he seeks housing in San Francisco (which is turning out to be as hard as it was in the late 90's). After showering, George saw the terrifying yet cute creature run across the door and into my closet. I keep expecting it to dart out of one of my shoes as I pull it out (I've taken to shaking each shoe before I put it one. You know, like you do when camping.) Or perhaps the mouse is burrowing a nest into the box of memories from grade school that sits on the floor in the back of my closet.

6 days have passed since this sighting, and we now have 4 traditional snap traps set up in the apartment, 2 with peanut butter and 2 formerly had bits of string cheese on them. The cheese has hardened like rocks and I threw out one after the trap snapped (rather unimpressively I must say) on the broom during a recent kitchen sweeping. The kitchen trap remains empty of food, as I hope that somehow just the cheese shape of the bait area will lure the mouse into touching it with its nose and ushering its quick death. I'm reading a detailed book about evolution right now, and for some reason I still believe that a mouse will be drawn to a yellow swiss cheese mirage.

More updates on the vermin as they come.

A big shout out to the folks in the row in front of me at Colorado tonight! Nice to meet you, and thanks for coming to the show! And yeah to John Kovacevich for being a great Pizza date for George and me before the performance. I feel like I saw everything I would have seen at the bachelor party tonight.

It's Saturday NIGHT! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

woo

i am enjoying the slow motion videos very much

more sublime brilliance

I left it mentally long ago but...

today I deleted my friendster account. I think that's ok.

a monday morning moment for you

from michelle dean...i think this could start anyone's week well

america discovered

I must rescue this blog from infrequent, short posts. It's been a busy month, especially with all the new shows on Television. Thankfully, most of the new shows are beginning to disappoint and I will only have to watch Lost and HBO On Demand. And, now that Columbus Day has past, I can finally focus on other things besides Columbus Day.

a few thoughts and updates from the last few weeks.

• So, I've been watching that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. I enjoyed the first episode very much. But I think there is one fatal flaw to this show that's going to kill it, in my opinion: The sketches aren't funny.
  
  
• I was in New York City last week. I enjoyed the Air Train to the Long Island Railroad very much. The majority of my time was spent between 7th and 9th between 42nd and 44th street. I enjoyed the Ham and Cheese Omelet at the Westside Diner.
  
  
• I was at a wedding this past weekend which confirmed my suspicion that Kelly Clarkson's SinceYou've Been Gone may be one of the best pop songsever. 50 people were jumping up and down and shouting at the top of their lungs. I don't think that's happened since Journey.
  
  
• I am really enjoying the taco as alternative to burrito
  
  
• We have a mouse in our apartment. It made itself known last night darting in and out from behind the bookshelf. This has led me to an agonizing moral dilemma as to how to deal with said rodent. Catch and release? But to where? Sticky trap? Weird plug in
  device from Black and Decker that emits ultrasonic waves to annoy mice and spiders? I'd buy this except that the label says it's "barely" audible to humans. So...it's audible. Or the old school mousetrap with cheese patterned platform of death?
  
  
• My brother is moving back from LA to San Francisco. Yahoo!! Is anyone looking for a roommate?
  
  
• I have decided I enjoy the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio, though the way he is edited in previews makes me apprehensive. Scorcese's The Departed is pretty good, though the accents are a little other worldly
  
  
• I have a new cellphone which is working out to be supremely awesome. Except for when it drops a call it emits a subtle, sad tone that seems more innocent than the act the phone has just committed

good morning

my cold is gone! I am back in SF for a good chunk of time now after a month of buzzing in and out. Just got back from New York City (where the best salsa is made), just enjoyed a fabulous local wedding, and just had a number of interesting, intriguing, bloggable experiences.

Which I can't write about now because I need to go to a meeting to learn about nanotechnology.

But I will begin sharing soon. Get ready for sharing.

Bleak fog and a nice day of rest

That's what today is all about.

It's been a crazy week, well, month. September was a heavy income generation month for me, after a several month dearth of incoming funds. Is that even grammatically correct? Dearth of funds? Anyhoo, this past week included 3 days at my contract job, 2 murder mysteries, a commercial shoot, and a visit to the play. Oh and a cold. And planning for a trip to New York that i'm heading off to tomorrow. The cold sucked, I haven't had a cold in a long time, but I think it's ending quickly, thanks to heavy Airborne and Vitamin C usage. Why did I just italicize Airborne? Aahh! I did it again.