DMV

I’m never making an appointment with the DMV again. I called for one this morning. The earliest one available was next Thusday at 2PM. Since this matter really couldn’t wait that long, I decided to risk the Friday afternoon lines. I was in and out within 20 minutes. Time saved by NOT making an appointment: 5 days and 23 hours.

California’s a strange place with respect to driver’s license renewals. To start with, you don’t leave with an actual new license. You leave with a piece of paper clipped to your old one. The new one comes in the mail few weeks later. So much for instant gratification.

Of course, you can always renew by mail, which is what I tried to do in the first place. Thanks to the US Postal Service, however, my check and form are probably now in Oregon somewhere. The thing about renewing by mail is that you end up with the same picture for a decade or so. This is known as the “Dorian Gray Reversal Syndrome”. You age, but the picture stays young.

They must use the same system for newspaper obituary photos, which would explain why that 80-year-old woman who just died in Antioch or Fairfax doesn’t look a day over 40 and still has a big beehive hairdo.

Coming soon: my horror at the fact that my Lucky supermarket on Allemany has suddenly become an Albertson’s.

In Olde Sanne Franciscoe

Y’know, I really didn’t intend for the gastrointestinal journal entry to be on the front page for quite so long, but it’s been a hectic couple of days. That would explain all the email I haven’t answered too. Partially.

Anyway, it looks like a pretty good election this year. Most of the ballot initiatives are going my way, including all the ones I felt strongly about. For the third time, we’ve voted on the fate of what’s left of the Central Freeway. It’s now two votes to one in favor of demolition. Can we tear the damned thing down now or do we have to go for best three out of five?

But the big story, of course, is the success of Tom Amminano’s campaign. For a write-in candidate to recieve 25% of the vote after a two-week campaign speaks volumes about San Francisco’s disgust for the arrogance and sell-out politics of Willie Brown, who managed to pull in only 38% himself. Should be an interesting run-off.

A few random links du jour which I’ve been meaning to add for a while:

Looking forward to getting a lot of sleep this weekend…

2 November 1999

I may have finally found the best bar jukebox in all of San Francisco. The bar surrounding said jukebox is Lucky 13 on Market Street. I was there tonight at a going away party for a friend who’s escaping Kinko’s (at least for a while). There are few things more wonderful than forcing an entire bar to listen to “Let’s Have a War” by Fear. I love livin’ in the city.

There was a joke embedded in that last sentence. Most people won’t get it. I’m comfortable with that.

David’s funk seems to have lifted, you may be thinking. Alas, it’s not true. I’m just masking it better. There could be denial involved. Who knows?

All I know is that now, in addition to being depressed and insomniac, I’m having to face the fact that I may be (shudder) lactose intolerant. I’ll spare you the scatalogical details and just say that consuming Count Chocula now seems to come with a price. I haven’t yet tried any of that stuff from those commercials I used to laugh at. Suggestions welcome, as long as they don’t involve soy milk.

Gee heck. I’m just falling apart, huh? Yeah, I know. Most of the world’s population would kill to have problems as insignificant as mine. That’s small comfort when I have a case of the trots and I’m out of Charmin, dammit…

Things I Never Did

I never saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. It’s been almost twenty years since I first even considered it. I lied to my parents on New Year’s Eve 1979-1980, saying that’s where I was headed. I ended up getting drunk for the first time instead.

All my friends in high school and even into college had seen it, many of them numerous times. None of them could believe that I never had. After a while, I started seeing it as a sort of badge of honor. I decided I’d never see it. I consciously avoided it on video and anyplace else. It became sort of an understated running gag.

Tonight, I decided “enough is enough”. I sat down to watch it for the very first time on VH-1. I was even a little excited.

After about 45 minutes, I realized I’d completely lost interest and changed the channel. I didn’t get it, it wasn’t funny, and I just didn’t care. This isn’t my “cerebral inner critc” speaking. God knows, I watch some flat-out crap and absolutely love it. Maybe you just need to see “Rocky Horror” in a theatre full of intoxicated 18-year-olds in order to fully appreciate it. Or to appreciate it all.

Color me severely disappointed after a 20-year wait. But at least I can still say I never really saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

While I’m at it, here are some other defining cultural moments of my generation which I’ve missed:

I never played Pac-Man (or any of its derivatives).
I never read “The Outsiders” (but I think that was more of a “girl thing” anyway).
I never talked on a CB.
I watched “Guiding Light” instead of “General Hospital”.
I never lived in a dorm.
I never made the switch from briefs to boxers and probably never will.
The first “Star Wars” movie is still the only one I’ve ever seen.

I’m so ashamed…

Carnies and Vomit (Not Really)

Just try to think of a better October Friday night than eating pizza and then puking it all up at a carnival in a mall parking lot in Hayward. We didn’t really puke, but we did see a cute carny boy, and I do still have leftover pizza for breakfast…