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That Annoying Weekend

It’s just a little creepy when people recognize yer humble host in bars just because of this website. It’s happened quite a number of times over the past four years (and again tonight), but I still haven’t quite gotten used to it.

How is it that I always forget that Bear Rendezvous Weekend is in town and always make the mistake of going out? Nothing against bears, but they’re not really the “type” I’m looking for while on a sex quest. And everyplace was annoyingly crowded all weekend, which might explain last night’s parking drama.

Anyway, I met this nice boy at the Eagle last night. As a matter of fact, he was the only one in the whole place I was interested in, so I was pretty pleased when our smiles turned into conversation. He was cute as a bug’s ear, and he started playing with my ear (which was more fun than it sounds). I was getting all hot and bothered, and then, out of nowhere, he left to go back to Sacramento with his friends. I always have drama with boys named Christian.

At least I found some really good asparagus this weekend. That may have been the high point…

Surreal Things, Love, and Hate

I didn’t think it could get much more surreal than hearing “Stairway to Heaven” on a pipe organ in a pizza parlor on Friday night. I was wrong.

I was changing channels tonight and something caught my eye on one of the local PBS stations: a rerun of “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show” from about 1961. The strange special effects in the first musical number were bizarre enough, with singers “floating” against a blue sky background (body parts kept disappearing). The “Peanuts” opening sequence as a little odd as well.

Midway through the show, though, came the piece de resistance: Ernie Ford and Tony Bennett and a full orchestra singing Hank Williams songs. This was about a strange as it gets. “Your Cheatin’ Heart” with a horn section was followed by “Jambalaya” with both the horn section and a collection of about 15 perky white singers in evening wear. All in brilliant, headache-inducing color on semi-demagnetized 2-inch videotape.

I sort of hoped it would all end in a commercial for Martha White Flour, but it didn’t…

Things I love today:

Things I hate today:

  • This chest cold, which is showing signs of getting nastier and nastier (no doubt spurred on by cheap cigarettes in San Bruno).
  • Hot, sticky weather in February.
  • Waiting until the last minute to pay my car insurance and finding AAA closed for the holiday.

Interviewed

Interviewed. Me. Imagine that. And with only one inconsequential misinterpretation regariding hits…


Still life with Kleenex, Alka Seltzer, and orange juice (Me, 1996)

So the time has finally come. I’ve managed to develop that annual nastiest cold in the world. Maybe even the worst cold in a couple of years. Oddly enough, this one seems to have moved from my chest to my head, instead of vice versa which is my usual pattern. It kept me away from my part-time job today (like that’s particularly difficult…) but it didn’t stop me from looking like a heroin addict at a meeting about some freelance work.

What really sucks about being sick in San Francisco in February, though, is having to drag your ass out in the freezing cold and pouring rain to move your car on street cleaning night. Of course, just about anyplace else, the cold would be colder and the rain would be harder, so I guess I shouldn’t bitch.

But I’m sick and I’m cranky. I’ll bitch if I goddamn well please. Why should this be different from ny other day?

Things I love today:

Things I hate today:

    • Kleenex rash.
  • That useless, tough, taste-free corned beef brisket I bought at Safeway this weekend.
  • The aroma of that homeless guy who sat down next to me at lunch today.

28 February 2000

Why no, this picture has nothing much to do with anything. But wait. Come to think of it, I did have lunch at Burger King today. Maybe it’s a subliminal thing. Or it could just be that I liked the picture…

Either way, lunch at Burger King was about as strenuous as it got today. I’m getting a little better, I guess. I can breathe again, but my ears are still stopped up and I’m still a little achy. All in all, though, things are improving. And my gardenia bloomed.

So in case no one noticed, I uploaded a remodeled Planet SOMA yesterday. There are some subtle page layout changes, and I’ve added a search form on every page. A lot of older pages are now gone, bringing the grand total down to a still unwieldy 420. I’m still playing around, so there may still be a few minor changes. Let me know if you run into problems.

Funny thing, the hit on my front page are way up over the past few weeks. I’d been averaging about 350 a day, while it seems to have blown up to about 425-450 lately. One day last week, almost 500 people came in through the front door. Maybe this “hands off” policy, where I’ve only been updating the journals, is a good thing. Odder still, though, is that overall site traffic has stayed pretty stable, despite all the additional hits on the front page.

Now that you’re thoroughly bored, I’ll sign off, so I can attempt the sleep I didn’t get last night. Whatever I have, it’s starting to grate on every remaining nerve in my body.

Prop 22

If there’s anyone out there who can give me an acceptable answer to either of the following two questions, I’ll be very surprised:

  1. Just how, exactly, would extending the right of marriage to same-sex couples have ANY effect (positive or negative) on any existing heterosexual marriage?
  2. When discussing Constitutional law and human rights, what does it really matter what God or the Bible have to say about anything (or even what Confucius or The Great Pumpkin say, for that matter)?

Granted, they’re both more or less rhetorical questions and it would be hard to find an answer to satisfy me. But they’re the primary idiocies being used to defend the passage of California Proposition 22 next week.

Note that I’m not putting down God, the Bible, Confucius, or (heaven forbid) The Great Pumpkin here. I’m just stating that religious teachings are no more a basis for extending (or denying) human rights in this country than are the oft-cited “court of public opinion” or the idea that allowing more motivated couples to marry will somehow “weaken” the institution.

Ultimately, Proposition 22 will pass, it will be challenged in court, and (eventually) it will be overturned. You can’t vote on human rights in a public referendum and expect it to stick or to have a valid outcome. I doubt that plantation owners in South Carolina would have been chomping at the bit to outlaw slavery in 1860, had such a referendum occurred, for example.

Anyway, please don’t hesitate to vote simply because this referendum shouln’t be on the ballot and will be eventually declared unconstitutional. Vote no on 22. While you’re at it, consider voting no on 21 (for being just plain wrong) and on 23 and 27 (for being just plain silly). If you want to vote yes on something, go for 30 and 31.

I’ll skip the presidential candidates for now. Would that I could continue doing so in the future as well…

Randomly Sunday

Only 16 days until Krispy Kreme arrives in the Bay Area. I went by the new store in Union City yeaterday and supervised the construction for a few minutes. The “hot doughnuts now” sign is expected to be lit on 21 March, signalling a new world of North Carolina sanity only 30 miles or so from San Francisco. Let’s hope this grand innovatrion eventully makes its way into the city as well.

If we could just come up ith a couple of K&W Cafeterias now, I think California might be infinitely more bearable.

Random thoughts:

  • One more “William Shattner Sings the Classic Rock Hits Badly” commercial for Priceline.com might drive me over the edge and cause me to throw my TV through the window of the yuppie slum across the street. There’s “camp” and there’s “just plain stupid”. These spots are dangerously close to the latter.
  • I’m actually voluntarily going to the Castro this afternoon. Seems there’s a bit of a demonstration against Prop 22, featuring actual bands and everything. Aside from supporting the cause, it should be fun to see how the fluffy Castro boys react to actual electric guitars in their rainbow-encrusted midst. It should also be nice to think back about a time when the Castro was a social and political center rather than just a shopping center.
  • I’m excited that I’ve finally eaten at the Granada Cafe on Mission , satisfying a five-year craving. Dan, Jamie, and I ventured in Friday night. Odd little place: the food was passble, the salad dressing was frightening, and the bar was inspiring. It helped, of course, that there was also a banquet for a large amply-proportioned family in varying degrees of booze-induced disarray. They were definitely a colorful bunch, noisy, but generally good-natured. My only complaint would be that, from the aroma in the bathroom, they had a little problem with aim.
  • Happy news of the weekend: I think jeans which actually FIT may be slowly coming back into style, at least among those of legal age. This is quite refreshing after a decade of wondering if guys had suddenly started being born without asses.

8 March 2000

Another rhetorical question: is it just my imagination or is Regis Philbin quite possibly the most annoying human being ever to walk the face of the earth?

I caught one of my rare glimpses of the little nimrod while changing channels waiting for the triumphant return of “Family Guy”, which my have been the one highlight of this particular cold and rainy Tuesday night. The election returns sure weren’t a lot of fun.

So speaking of the elections, I don’t really have much to say today, and this whole journal entry is more about putting something up to fill space and replace my endorsements list than anything else. Sorry. I’ll try to be more exciting in a couple of days.

Sites worthy of your attention on a Wednesday morning:

So please feel free to look around since I’m a little sparse today…

I’m going to have a bowl of cereal with milk and work on those strong bones and teeth, because, after all, I’ve got milk. And it does a body good. It also costs more in California than almost anyplace else in the country even though we produce more of it than Wisconsin.

Space filled. No more babbling…

Like Sheep

Like sheep. The wise people of California have determined that jails are a more effective means of dealing with youth than schools. I expected Prop 22 to pass, but I thought my fellow Californians might have the intelligence to defeat Prop 21. But once again, like sheep, they fell hook, line, and sinker for the ludicrous “anti-crime” idea.

Call something “anti-crime” and I guess it doesn’t matter how misguided it my be, nor whose rights it violates. It doesn’t even matter that the “anti-crime” measure will almost certainly result in the production of MORE hardened criminals. Sending 14-year-olds to jail with murderers generally has that effect.

All in all, it’s got me thinking about getting on the road again. Of course, my new road atlas probably had more to do with it than the election.

I didn’t get to do my annual road trip last year for a number of reasons (money being the biggest of these). I really need to make up for lost time, and I’m already pondering this year’s route, even though I have no idea when Ill be leaving. I’m also pondering how to pay for it, but that’s a whole different story.

So far I’m thinking of crossing Canada in one direction, heading south into Detroit for the return trip, which might include the original route of an old US highway. The following examples come to mind:

Of course, everything’s subject to change. But now’s the chance to say that your hometown (or heck, even your living room couch) should be part of Planet SOMA US Tour 2000. Find out more: read about 1997 and 1998.

Happy 100K

10,000 Miles Ago…

My car finally hit 100,000 miles on Sunday, right in the middle of beautiful downtown Pescadero CA. Of course, since I have a Toyota, I don’t get to see “all zeroes”. This milestone won’t occur for another 900,000 miles. I feel a little cheated.

Longtime readers might remember when I bought it, why, and where it’s taken me. Or they may just not care. Which is quite understandble, but I thought my trustworthy little Toyota desrved a little recognition for all its accomplishment. It’s avoided major breakdowns (and break-ins) for three years now.

OK, I also didn’t have anything else better to write about tonight, my life having taken one of those “uneventful” turns lately. Thus, I offer random thoughts for a Monday night:

  • One thing you can always count on: if you walk by Julie’s Supper Club on a Saturday night, there will always be a drunk yuppie idiot saying something really stupid at the top of his lungs.
  • Most unexpected song heard in a queer bar this weekend; “Cool Places” by Sparks with Jane Weidlin. Runner-up: “Jesus Walking on the Water” by the Violent Femmes.
  • One more thing you can always count on: in any given week, “Back to the Future” will be airing at least once on TNT or TBS. Guranteed.
  • When I was 13 and really obsessive, I would have killed for a website like this. Even at 35, and no longer obsessive, it’s still pretty cool.
  • No, the aforementioned link has nothing to so with sex, thank you.
  • Showing my age: it strikes me that the first actual date I went on with a guy (as opposed to the first sex, which happened much, much earlier) was to see “Terms of Endearment”, which is right now showing on TBS.
  • Yes, “Back to the Future” was on right before it.

Happy Tuesday…

No Webby Award

Another year without a nomination for a Webby Award. I’ll try to live with my disappointment. At least I’ve been interviewed by the same website as one of the nominees. And he doesn’t even have pictures of cool old supermarkets on his site…

All the same, it’s time for my occasional rant about web design developments I hate. This is mainly because, once again, I don’t really have anything much to say tonight…

Guaranteed to make me run away from your site in a hurry:

  • Any sound file which doesn’t give me the option of whether or not to hear it, especially stupid MIDI files which sound like a little old lady sitting at the organ store in some 1975 shopping mall.
  • Numerous multiple Javascript windows which launch all over the place for no other apparent reason than to prove “it’s possible”. There are good reasons for multiple windows only about 15% of the time they’re used, I’ll estimate.
  • Use of full-size graphics, re-sized in HTML as “click here” thumbnails. What is the point of thumbnails if you have to download the full-size image anyway? You might as well just skip the thumbnail page and o for a slide show instead.
  • Sites designed on Winblows machines using microscopic text which is only legible on other Winblows machines with their big, clunky screen fonts. Particular annoyance: badly-written stylesheets which don’t respond when you try to make the type bigger.
  • Sites which tell me which screen resolution (browser, etc.) to use.
  • Specific frame or ASP sites which make it all but impossible to bookmark any individual page or piece of information.
  • Sites which you can’t navigate without the use of marginally-functional plug-ins, Javascript, or Java applets. Flash too. These technologies are great, but anyone who would make a site totally dependent upon them is way too willing to write off a lot of potential visitors.

Maybe in the next day or two, I’ll do my own awards for good design. And maybe a few for bad design as well. It won’t happen tomorrow, though, because I’ll be earning the rent doing some good design of my own…