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Stupid Spammer

I got this message too and fear others may have gotten it by having websites I link to. This is, by the way, not an ordinary spammer; he used my email form to send it to me individually. I read him the riot act, and after three rounds of email, he managed to sound out all the words and realize he’d done something sort of stupid…

Note to clueless idiot: the fact that you did a Yahoo search on the term “sex club” does not necessarily indicate that every page found will be owned by a sex club or will even be about sex clubs in any way. Nor will the links found on said page…

Wow. Context. What an interesting and elusive concept…

I would never email someone from a website without actually reading a significant portion of what he or she had to say first. But then again, I don’t have a large sex club building I need to unload quickly…

Must. Remain. Detached.

 

Y’know, it’s touchy meeting someone I really like and talking about it on the website, especially since I’m known for a sort of detached cynicism and the slightest trace of irony. I come off sounding either insincere or unnervingly gooey. Therefore I’m not going to try at all right now. So there…

I’m Home

I’m home. All in all, I think it was the best weekend I’ve ever spent in Fresno, but that’s all I’m saying tonight because the sleep deprivation side effects are kicking in. Pictures, commentary and all that sort of thing tomorrow. Perhaps…

You may resume your email now. And I’ll resume answering it at my own pace…

Sunday in Fresno

 

On Sunday morning, we spent a few hours trying to figure out what time it was, among other things. Then we had breakfast at a good Mexican place before driving around and taking even more pictures (many of which will be here at some unspecified point in the future).

 

Then it was time for me to make my obligatory stops by the cheap cigarette store, the cheap supermarket, and the cheap gas station, and to be on my way. I was home by 7:30 and only flipped off three people (all of them after I crossed I-680). I slept. It was good.

Funny, for my best Fresno visit ever, it doesn’t read very well. But I liked it anyway…

Chicken Pie Omelettes, Finally…

 

Despite lack of sleep, I wasn’t feeling too miserable for breakfast with Mark at the Chicken Pie Shop this morining, something I’d been trying to do since my first visit way back in 1993. And it was indeed everything I’d dreamed it would be. In shades of green.

 

We walked around the Tower District for a while and I dumped all my stuff and my car at Mark’s. Then we toured Fresno. I’ve toured Fresno many times before, but it was extra fun (a) being in the passenger seat and (b) actually being with someone who lived there and knew exactly where to take me. We covered most of the strips and walked around downtown for while. And we didn’t go to the ninth-floor bar at some hotel whose name I’ve forgotten, because it was closed.

I got a prescription filled, as I cursed both the fact that it was five bucks cheaper at the Walgreens in Fresno and the fact that it causes me certain annoying physiological issues. We were amused (horrified?) by the singing James Brown doll. Then we went back to apartment for a while, before heading back out to the pizza place.

 

Afterward, we watched the South Park movie (sort of), avoided the Hallowe’en block party down the street, and eventually went to sleep. I actually slept pretty well, if not for quite long enough.

The Day That Changed Everything

I kept the room today for a home base and potential nap spot (thanks to a coupon from my mom) as I wandered about visiting thrift stores, taking pictures, and looking for ghosts of supermarkets past. There was no nap and there weren’t many pictures, but I was pleased with my day (and the cooler than average temperature) all the same.

It’s a little odd realizing that I’m in a city where the mayor is Bubba, by the way…

Tonight I met Mark at Club Fred. Even that was easy, as I stepped upto the bar to get a drink and he happened to be the guy in line ahead of me. We went to a low-key but pleasant enough Hallowe’en party for a while and then had a nice, big artery-clogging dinner at Denny’s before going back to Mark’s apartment so he could show me his iBook.

 

Eventually, I went back to the Motel 6, fantasizing that my second night in the same strange bed might result in more sleep than the first had. It didn’t.

To Fresno

 

There is no good time to drive out of the Bay Area on a weekday. This afternoon, well before rush hour, it took me as long to drive the 60 miles from SF to Tracy as it did to drive the 120 miles from Tracy to Fresno. Fortunately, this was (once I left Tracy) to be one of those trips where everything worked out the way it was supposed to, from arriving on the one night the history room at the library was open late to actually enjoying the company of the rather compelling stranger I was coming to meet…

 

And gas was $1.17/gallon. Did I mention that?

I gambled and won. The history room in the Fresno library just happens to be open late on Thusdays. The only downside was that the pre-1960 city directories are on microfilm. I hate microfilm. Microfilm is evil.

It was actually warmer in SF than in Fresno today. That’s a good sign…

Friends Coming, Me Going

Duncan and Rick are coming to SF for Christmas. At least there’s some good news…

Which is nice, since I was called a “weather pussy” today. My self-esteem is suffering greatly. And we prefer the terms “weather wimp” or (even better) “differently climatized” around these parts, thanks…

For the weekend: adventures in Fresnoland. For tonight: moving the car, more work on a website in a language I don’t speak, writing several checks to several doctors, and scurrying off to Safeway with whatever money might be left…

What Attention Span?

What attention span?

  • The people I most worry about during these anthrax scares are the letter carriers. And not for the reasons you think. My fear is that some of them are going to snap and do unspeakable violence to the next idiot frat boy who cracks an anthrax joke, chuckling and thinking he’s probably the first one all day who was “original” enough to think of it.
  • Yes, these are the same frat idiots who run around yelling “hot enough for you?” when it’s 110 outside.
  • Yes, I work with one of these idiots.
  • Biggest score of the weekend: a cheap CD which sounds like it was mastered from a warped 8-track, but contains the song “Winchester Cathedral” by the New Vaudeville Band.
  • Children should not be heard and should only be seen from a great distance.
  • Sunday the 14th was one of the hottest days of the year. On Sunday the 21st, I almost turned on the heat for the first time. Ahhh, October.
  • Best find (as opposed to score) of the weekend: a semi-abandoned laundromat in Mountain View, where Jamie and I did our laundry (mine being a considerable amount) in realtive peace.
  • Second biggest: finding an Albertsons down the street from it, which was closing for good and selling out its entire stock (sale items included) for 25% off. I’ll have canned tomatoes, cooking spray, and Beef-a-Roni until the end of time.
  • Why have I suddenly developed this fascination with Oswald from “The Drew Carey Show”? It can’t be healthy…
  • Has anyone other than me noticed that all these super-patriotic commercials and public service announcements lately are disarmingly similar in production, tone, and music to those “free speech” announcements that ran at the beginning of almost every commercial porn video a few years back?
  • And has anyone considered what a good idea it might be to get some free speech announcements on the air right now, before people forget what it is?