Girls Gone Wild on the Bay Bridge

We were driving over the Bay Bridge from Oakland into SF a couple of months ago when what do we see but the Girls Gone Wild bus!

It took all my strength not to run it off the road, plunging into the Bay and thus sacrificing myself for the good of all humankind.

BARTing up a Hairball

I was riding BART the other day and saw this little creature sneaking up on a sleeping rider. It made me think of a susuwatari (traveling soot)from Spirited Away. So instead of thinking that this was a really gross example of human detritus, I thought of it as riding home after a long day of hauling coal for Kamaji. BART on, little susuwatari!

Gummy Bacon!

This picture sucks, but it is boxes of Gummy Bacon, which is exactly what it is. Strawberry flavored, shockingly similar visually to bacon.

This box has farmer pig on it, one of the first times that a pig representing "bacon" doesn't make me feel slightly weird. I used to drive by the Farmer John slaughterhouse outside LA when I was younger, and besides the stench that made me roll up my windows, it was icky because there were murals of pigs looking in through the windows.

All I could think was, "What horrors are they seeing?" Their family members being slaughtered? Or was it simply cows or chickens getting the axe? Would the pigs care?

Stuck in the Middle, Screw You

As I am getting ready to move to Oakland with my loverly wife, I had a good reminder of what it is like to move anything in San Francisco. My friends, the M&Ms, bought what everyone considered to be a small couch. Getting that couch upstairs proved to be a bit more work that we anticipated.

First, it got stuck (as seen here). We left it there for a bit and sought out the correct screwdriver to remove one leg. Looking at it, it was a strange screw--inset square. So of course nothing fit. Upon calling the shop, the informed M that the couch was Canadian, as was that special screw. Blame Canada. We had to go to the shop and borrow their drill bit, bring it home, and perform surgery on one of the legs to get it upstairs.

It's a beautiful couch, but I dread moving our normal-sized furniture into our new apartment in four weeks. The only thing keeping me going is the thought that our back door looks out onto the parking lot, so we should have minimal problems getting things in. Should have. You can never count on any move going easy in this town.

Friday the 13th Post

Let me start this by saying I love Friday the 13th. I always wear black and make a lot of bad jokes that involve my patented malevolent laugh at the end. Today when I went to leave I found the vagabond cat that spends time at our place (she doesn't live here but has her own entrance and we feed her--she's the landlord's cat maybe?) as you see her above. Black cats rule.

Today my wonderful black celebration was ruined. Pardon my over-dramatic turn here. My cousin who had been struggling for a few months now was found dead by his own hand. He was a really cool, articulate guy who could keep up a conversation with anyone and was deadly funny. In the early '90s I went out for an extended visit to Colorado to get over a girl, and he (along with all of my family out there) was key in my getting over her (and myself) and getting back on track. I never would have made it out to NYC and infamy if I hadn't spent time shooting the shit with him, being an annoying vegetarian who rarely drank, and I will always remember him and love him for that. Even when he had a picture of Oliver North on his wall, all I could do was laugh because while I know he respected Crazy Ollie for his loose cannon ways, I always thought that it was kind of a joke that he was making--poking at anyone who would ruffle at the sight.

I knew he was in trouble when he emailed me a few months ago. I'd never gotten an email from him and his words were all hopeful, but wild in the way of someone who was clawing to find some way to keep on. We exchanged emails for a few weeks, and I purposefully kept it on specific topics that weren't what was going on with him. When he went away to the hospital after a bad bout, I emailed him and just let him know that I wanted him around the next time I went out to visit, to take care of himself. I didn't hear from him again. And when I got a call last night that he had been missing I knew inside that he wasn't going to be there anymore.

So I apologize again for this dour turn from the usual robot and grafitti antics. I have some great news that I will post later, but I wanted to memorialize him and get it out of my head for a while.

Spammd

Anyone else getting flooded with Asian spam for virus software?

Glasses War

Josef posted this. I hereby challenge him to a glasses war.



p.s. What the fuck is up with Blogger? Everyone's templates are all screwy.