Super What?

I heard a rumor that today was Super Bowl Sunday. Never having been much of a baseball fan, I wouldn’t know for sure.

I just never “got” professional sports. I can tolerate a little college basketball (which is, of course, a bit of a religion in North Carolina). I can sit through a soccer match if forced. Pro skateboarding has an entertaining aesthetic side. But the excitement of spending three-plus hours watching a good 15-20 minutes of actual activity just eludes me.

I shan’t even start on the politics of team owners who blackmail cities in search of new stadiums while making it damned near impossibe for most citizens to actually attend games. And don’t get me started on the annual salaries which are larger than the economies of some third world countries.

But some people might find some of my obsessions a little odd too. Who knows…

Anyway, I’m off to cook another pot of collards now.

Site Updates

I got a full, eight-hour good night’s sleep last night. I was starting to forget how nice that is. It’s been a long week…

Somehow during everything else that was going on this week, I managed to finish a big chunk of pruning and retooling on Planet SOMA. About 35 pages are no longer here, and several have been moved or consolidated. Most people won’t notice the difference. Also, just about all pages now have the blue background and the convenient “you are here” navaigation links at the top.

Still in progress: all those pages from US Tour 1997, and Planet SOMA in the 70’s, which is way overdue for some work.

If you run into any broken links or missing graphics, please let me know. I’m planning to have everything in order by Planet SOMA’s “official” third anniversary in a month or so.

Quote from yer humble host, fifteen years ago today: “I guess one never knows how depressed one is until extremely drunk.”

28 January 1999

Score one for the SF Weekly. I usually have no patience with this paper as it’s little more than a Guardian wannabe with a badly-designed website. In the past two weeks, though, the Weekly has risked alienating its core yuppie audience with George Cothran’s columns on San Francisco’s loftominum invasion.

Last week’s column focused mostly on the insensitive architecture and scale of the new developments. This week’s report talks about the loss of jobs and institutions thanks to the complaints of yuppie crybabies who get pissed off because they were too fucking stupid to check out what their new neighborhoods were like before shelling out that half a million bucks.

Too bad the battle’s already pretty much been lost in my own neighborhood, although I realize the issues are are a little more complex here.

Intel:

As if I needed another reason not to buy a Wintel machine…

Hands down, the superlative award-winning idiots of the month have to be the fine folks at Intel. What the hell were they thinking? Did someone in the boardroom suddenly get the idea that people would be just silly happy to have a computer which identifies its user all over the web? Did this idiot have some sort of revelation which convinced him (it HAD to be a “him”) that people were just itching to give up their privacy and reveal their identities to anyone with a website?

Of course not. Someone with actual intelligence realized that corporations might pay big bucks for the ability to collect this sort of data on unsuspecting potential customers. The idiot in this scenario is the marketing fool who thought that a positive spin (security, my ass…) would keep anyone from noticing what was going on. They were wrong.

This is the same sort of marketing idiocy that makes banks babble on about how destroying competition through mergers will unltimately benefit customers and bring down fees.

I Just Don’t Understand:

I was talking with someone the other day about the irony of the fact that there’s a Taco Bell right in the middle of San Francisco’s Mission District and that it always looks crowded. Surrounded by some of the cheapest and best Mexican food in the country, I have to wonder just who the fuck eats there? And why?

More collards this weekend. Saw an ex at the supermarket tonight. Life is very busy this week. This and more will come later, if at all. Right now, another link I’ve been promising for two months.

And I’m going to bed.

27 January 1999

Busy weekend, busy week. About the only calm moment in the past few days was on Saturday, when I hit a collection of Sonoma County used bookstores with Larry-bob and betrothed. Somehow, all I ended up with was two sets of Underdog action figures.

So I bought my first pack of post-tax cigarettes today. My stockpile from Reno and North Carolina finally ran out and I was forced into a pack purchase fo the first time in two months. The going rate in SF is about $4.25 a pack now, so I was pretty pleased to find Camels for $2.60. And no, I’m not saying where. I don’t want to jinx it.

A few changes in the site today, as I’m doing a little moving and pruning and remodeling, so please bear with me if some links aren’t working quite right. If it gets you too bitter, Bringdown #3 hit the web late last night. Go visit.

Or check out today’s link du jour

22 January 1999

So my first-ever mention in the San Francisco Chronicle would have to be for a typographical error in an email message to Strange de Jim, wouldn’t it? I dunno…I kind of like the idea of “lonks”. I just wish it had generated a little more traffic…

Last night: visit from my friend Matthew (from DC). We hit the corner sexbar for a beer or two. Didn’t have any sex, but I watched some. Pity there was no “fast forward” button…

Plans for the weekend: a little work for the freelance clients and even more work on the revamping of Planet SOMA. There’s a party Saturday night for a departing co-worker. And, of course, the Sunday morning “In the Heat of the Night” marathon on TNT…

There are currently no collards scheduled to be cooked, but one never knows…

Of course I’m always open to other suggestions. Anyone need a cheap date with loose morals? I’m craving affection. Aah, the hell with that. I’m craving cheap sex…