So we’re off to LA to spend our second anniversary in Disneyland and eat at Clifton’s Cafeteria and buy things at Amoeba and stuff…
More upon the return…
What could make for a better second anniversary trip than a Friday at Disneyland, followed by a couple of days exploring California’s REAL urban frontier?
Left San Francisco this morning. Drove a lot. Landed in the middle of a nasty traffic jam on the Santa Ana Freeway. Fled to a Best Buy in Cerritos to buy a huge memory stick for the new digital camera. Finally made our way to the lovely Howard Johnsons in Anaheim and secured a room on the top floor with a view of the Matterhorn…
Up early. Must spend entire day at Disneyland. Went on the Hanuted Mansion (twice) and also did Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Pirates of the Carribean, Autopia, the Tiki Room, the Matterhorn, the log ride, the teacups, the train, and more. Visited all three of the smoking areas…
I was a little pissed to see that the Swiss family Robinson Treehouse is now Tarzan’s Treehouse, and has been stripped of anything particularly interesting. It was also a bit disappointing that Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, and the Monorail, and Small World were all closed, but we coped…
Disneyland is so much smaller and more compact than Disney World. I liked it. I also liked the unnatural fog generated by all the water in the light show. It helped keep down the ash which was falling from all the fires surrounding us…
Dinner at the Blue Bayou, which is right in the middle of Pirates of the Carribean. the atmosphere was nice. The food didn’t do much for me, but Mark liked his…
I now own a miniature Haunted Mansion…
More pictures:
Brushed the ash off the car and toured Orange County and parts of LA. I was, of course, looking for miscellaneous old supermarkets and shopping centers to photograph for the other site. We also made a pilgrimage to the site of the very first Taco Bell in Downey (and then drove down the street to eat at arch competitor Del Taco). Stopped by another Best Buy in Lakewood for more necessities and then made our way to our Saturday night accomodations at 3rd and Vermont in LA…
The motel was old and dumpy, with some very strange plumbing quirks, but it was clean and not terribly scary, so we survived it (after some initial apprehension)…
We took the 110 to Pasadena. Mark had never travelled California’s oldest freeway, and I thought it was time. Popped in a record store, realized it was too late for dinner at Clifton’s, and made our way into the Valley in search of interesting sights. And food. The sights lasted a little too long before producing food, but finally we were fed and happy…
More pictures:
Anniversary day. Had breakfast at the Best Western Coffee Shop in Hollywood. We went there looking for the exact site of a Sandra Bernhard joke, but were pleased to find that it was also dirt cheap and uncrowded. We liked…
Afterward, off to Amoeba and a stop by the Formosa Cafe (from LA Confidential), and then back to the valley for some daytime pictures. Soon, we were on our way home, with a lovely cloud of smoke to our left as we approached the Grapevine…
I’ve been planning for a week. Tomorrow is the day. After several half-assed attempts in the past couple of years (I no longer smoke inside the apartment, for example) and after cutting my consumption by more than half already, my resolve is strong. I’m giving up smoking, once and for all…
You can tell I mean it this time, because I’m mentioning it here and opening myself up to all manner of nagging…
My sympathies and apologies to anyone who has to be around me for the next few weeks, especially to you, baby. It most likely won’t be pretty…
Two promises, though:
- I will not become a self-righteous ex-smoker who believes that an exhorbitant “sin tax” on cigarettes is the best way to solve all government revenue problems and social issues.
- I will not suddenly start believing that banning smoking in bars was EVER a good idea.
Last cigarette: Sunday 2 November 2003, 7:35 PM…
I chose this weekend for a reason. It was approximately twenty-five years ago — Halloween, 1978 — that I really started smoking, at age fourteen. That night, I bought my first pack of Marlboros from the slimy guy at the corner store for fifty-five cents, and I’ve been engaging in this lethal pastime ever since. That’s almost as long as Mark has been ALIVE, which is truly frightening. It was time to stop…
To Duncan: my thoughts are with you today…
Am I doing something wrong? I haven’t had a cigarette in four days, and it’s really not that big a deal. I’m nowhere near as miserable as I’d expected, and nowhere near as miserable as I was on other attempts. There have been brief instances of slight discomfort, and I’ve been a little moodier than usual, but that’s about it. Plus, I’m only using three or four pieces of nicotine gum a day. And it’s even been a relativewly stressful week for me at work…
Isn’t it supposed to be harder than this? Maybe I should just shut the hell up and be happy with my good fortune…
I promise to write about something else soon…
Eight days without a cigarette now, and no one’s been killed yet. I’m rather proud of that fact..
Wanna get annoyed? Read this article on the difference between “good spammers” and “bad spammers”. OK, maybe it’s not that simple, but the tone of the article raelly bothers me. Apparently, it’s OK to send unsolicited email spam if you (a) consider yourself a “legitimate business” and (b) were cash-starved and out of work when you started spamming…
Despite their best efforts to craft polite messages and to respect opt-out requests, these small-time online marketers say they are branded with the same scarlet letter as their mass-mailing counterparts.
No doubt that’s because they’re doing the SAME FUCKING THING as their “mass-mailing counterparts”. If someone pisses on you and afterward asks politely if you minded being pissed on, you’re just as wet and smelly whether you answer in the affirmative or the negative…
The e-mail blast sent by the 34-year-old Santa Cruz Web designer was about a holistic Web site and a database of medicinal plants. Out of work and down on his luck, Johnson had hopes of combining his interest in alternative medicine with his computer skills to create a viable small business… Johnson knew that spam was considered unsavory, but given his finances, there didn’t seem to be an alternative for promoting his site. “The only way anyone will find out about it is if I send them an e-mail,” he said.
Hmmm. I’m starting a business. I can’t afford to advertise it in a legitimate and ethical fashion. Should I (a) reconsider my business plan and whether I have the necessary capital to go into business, or (b) throw ethics out the window and become a slimy spamming huckster? Tim Johnson, certain that his poor finances and message of <tone=”hushed and reverent”> holistic health </tone> were more important than ethical behavior and common courtesy, chose the latter option…
Despite his self-righteousness and his moral indignation at being lumped with the “bad guy spammers”, he’s essentially the moral equivalent of a Viagra peddler. The scary thing is that, here in the Bay Area where poor people always have the moral high ground and can do no wrong, ever, he’ll probably get lots of sympathy for having to deal with the “stigma” of being exactly what he is…
Just to clarify, I have nothing particular against poor people, having been one myself and all. My problem is with the mentality which says that as long as one is sufficiently “downtrodden” or “oppressed”, one can do damned near anything one wants with impunity; law, ethics, and respect for other people’s rights be damned…
It sort of stretches that “stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family” cliché a bit thin, doesn’t it? Simply being poor (or homosexual, or African American, or Muslim, or an animal rights activist, or whatever) does not give one carte blanche to behave like an asshole. Or like a criminal…