So my car’s charmed life is finally over. As longtime readers may remember, my old car was a crime magnet which had been broken into many times, one of which ended in the fire which sent it to car heaven. But the most recent one had been immune for 3 1/2 years.

Until Friday night, that is, when it lost its front driver’s side window. Nothing else was gone, of course, because there was nothing else to take, so it was essentially just an $89 annoyance. And I was probably due, since I’d gone so long without problems.

Strangely enough, I’d just mentioned the miraculous record to Jamie earlier on Friday night. Right after, we discovered that someone had tried to get into my trunk this week too, but all they managed was to break the lock so I can only open it with the inside latch now. If I were a paranoid sort, I’d think someone was out to get me. But I’m probably just getting three-plus years of hassles in one week by coincidence.

It still doesn’t faze me, though. I’m no longer horrified at the site of shattered glass, like I was ten years ago in New York. Now it’s just a pain in the ass, part of the price of having a car in the city without also having a garage to put it in.

Thing I love today:

• Filemaker Pro. Again. Always. This program will eventually save the world, even though I’m not yet sure how.

Things I hate today:

• Safeway Select Fat-free Peach Yogurt. Bleccch…
• It’s hot and sunny. Which makes me sullen and irritable.
• Having to drive around with my window closed (until the glue sets) while it’s hot and sunny and I’m sullen and irritable.
• No good movies this afternoon while it’s hot and sunny and I’m sullen and irritable.

You’ve just got to love waking up on Friday morning to find All About Eve and Sunset Boulevard running back to back on AMC. Without this 8AM boost, I probably wouldn’t have gotten nearly so much done today.

The schizophrenic nature of freelance work: I spent my Friday alternating between work on a quite respectable (family-oriented, even) website and creating a series of porn stories for hire. I wish I could say that the switching back and forth made the website sexier and the stories more aesthetically-pleasing, but all it really did was give me a headache.

By 4:00, I found myself typing <A href=”shoot that load” TARGET=”_mouth”> over and over again. It was just plain scary.

But tonight, I think Jamie and I may have found my new favorite San Francisco restaurant: Cajun Pacific, in the depths of the fog belt at 47th and Irving. It’s tiny, the food’s good, the music’s good and the staff makes the place feel like a joint that three or four cool friends decided one night (while drunk) to open and operate together.

I had fried green tomatoes for the very first time tonight, and I now realize this is a dish which deserved to have a movie named after it. Sorry, recent sextoys, but this was the best thing I’ve put in my mouth in a long time. The jambalaya was too dry, like it is in about half of all Cajun restaurants. I can forgive that. The cook was drinking a beer while he worked. I liked that. And there wasn’t a slumming yuppie to be seen. I loved that.

I sure did like this place. I will be eating there many times in the future. I should probably be shot for mentioning the place publicly, but it’s pretty safe from the yuppie invasion because (a) it’s too far out in the avenues, (b) the food is appropriately priced, (c) it’s BYOB, and (d) there’s just not enough room to see or be seen, much less to “network”.

I’m gonna sleep now, strangely satisfied with the fact that I’ve eaten crawdads twice in six days, and not aplogizing that a majority of tonight’s links were from the Internet Movie Database.

Thanks to Chuck in Columbia (who has some bitchin’ pictures on his site), I’ve now realized that I wasn’t smoking crack as a child and dreaming that Hardee’s restaurants used to look like this:

I’ve searched years for someone who remembered this particular design. There couldn’t have been many built because no one seems to remember them. Imagine my surprise when Chuck casually mentioned a “a pagoda-shaped Hardee’s” in Columbia. Of course, he had other things to say too, but this was a 20-year obsession.

My friends know my much-indulged hobby is commercial archaeology, or the unearthing of former chain-store prototypes, motels, fast food joints, etc. My supermarket fixation is only the tip of the iceberg. I’ve also been known to engage in such fascinating games as “find the former Sears” and “White Castle or White Tower”. Despite this fact, a few stout-hearted individuals are still willing to ride in a car with me.

The Hardee’s pagoda was one of the first warnings about my future hobby, way back when I was still in high school. Even then I’d ask people if they remembered that weird-looking Hardee’s on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro. I now know I wasn’t making it up. I am much relieved.

Mmmmm. Crawdad sandwich…

Long trip into the delta this weekend with Dan and Jamie for crawdad melts in Isleton, general prowling in Rio Vista and the other towns, and a stop in Vallejo to see just how cheap and pleasant it really is given all the current hype. Of course, I’ve been there before, many times, but this time we spent about an hour seeing just how far your housing dollar goes there. Verdict: pretty damned far.

How I won’t be spending Labor Day weekend…

Jonno’s pondering a trip to Burning Man. I’m not. It’s a great thing for the people who love it, what with no corporate sponsorships and all, and I’d never think of criticizing anyone for going. But for me, it sounds like just about as close as I’d ever get to hell on earth. The only camping I’ve ever done was the night I slept out on the deck because it was too hot inside. And that’s about as much camping as I’d ever WANT to do.

I have a hard enough time dealing with annoying people in comfortable surroundings. If you put me in the desert with a collection of ravers, granolas, nature-lovers, and the inevitable yuppie gawkers, someone would get killed. Probably me, as I’d be too weak to defend myself on a steady diet of trail mix and water.

Better words than I’m writing this week…

• Dan the Queer Ska Librarian on bars with dress codes.
• Dan Savage on gay pride (yeah, I know it’s old…)
• Becky on sharing thoughts.