Rent-a-cat is bored with you

Really, could you be any less fun? Watching you is like watching paint dry, except paint sparkles and you don't except for in the greasy spots.

When you brought home groceries yesterday, at least there was something to observe for a minute, but usually it's just the same old clack-clack-clack for 12 hours on the computer that you don't let me sit on top of.

You bore me. You are tedious. Get a fucking life.

Thanks,
Rent-a-cat

Feng You

Backers of a proposed community college building in San Francisco's Chinatown say the flowing glass tower will be imbued with feng shui -- the ancient Chinese concept that the placement of things brings balance to their surroundings and promotes prosperity, health and happiness.

But some residents and merchants say City College of San Francisco's new building is a 17-story, 253-foot "monstrosity" that would loom over Portsmouth Square -- and has already created negative feng shui.

"The objective of feng shui is to achieve harmony with the environment," said Albert Cheng, a community leader and strong opponent of the proposal. "The whole fact that this proposal has created such a disturbance is a sign that it is not good feng shui. It is really historically, architecturally, esthetically incompatible with the neighborhood."

Seriously. You're arguing that because a building is tall it violates your Ancient Chinese Secret? Feng shui has become a legitimate architecture critical analysis tool? Oh okay, I guess I missed when that happened, because it sure seems like a bunch of stupid hocus pocus to me!

Cat Blogging

I've already had requests for more cat posts. You people are *sooo* predictable.

Rent-a-cat has been steadily becoming more at home here, and that naturally means more presumptuous, more demanding, and more in the way. He likes to sit wherever it was I was last sitting, so when working I can't get up to pee without him sitting on my desk chair and trying to act like I'm the one inconveniencing him.

At night, rent-a-cat likes to check in on me every hour or two to make sure that I'm okay. He sneaks right up to my face then makes a single loud meow so that I jump. Then he goes back to sleep on the chair.

During the day, he often helps me work. He does this by jumping on the desk and walking over the keyboard. He also helps gather office supplies- he pulls thumbtacks out of the wall that hold up my calendar and other items, leaving them drop onto the floor, then chews on the tacks in the living room.

The rest of the time he rotates between napping on his chair, chasing a tennis ball back and forth across the room, and trying to climb up things while knocking off the things that may be setting on top of those things.

One more month, rent-a-cat. One more month.

Wicked Retahded

Last night I was drinking at Thee Parkside, and wound up in a conversation with the bartender about Boston. During the conversation I had 3 vodka sodas and 2 shots of Jager on top of the two drinks I'd already consumed. At some point, I realized I was dangerously intoxicated and needed to leave immediately.

When I tried to leave, my feet didn't work and I zig-zagged across the room, holding onto a column just to make it the 15 feet out the door. Messy.

I remember that I ran home, which is something I used to do when I drank heavily in the dot-com days. It helps sober one up and process the alcohol. (Also, it gets you home quicker.) It's a wonder that I didn't get hit by a car since I could run but couldn't walk in a straight line.

Then I got slightly lost but found my way to Cable Car Pizza and had a couple of slices that I think I later threw up. My apartment this morning looks like hell- all things that used to sit on desks and counters are now strewn about on the floor.

Oddly, now that I write about booze for a living, I never get that drunk. I hope to keep it that way going forward, because too much booze last night is preventing me from writing about booze today, until this hangover goes away.

What I learned from the news today

That presidential candidate John Edwards' wife has cancer. Also, that John Edwards is running for president.

I pushed her over the edge

I was doing my laundry last week on Tuesday. The reason I do it on Tuesdays is because Bothersome Crazy does hers on Mondays, and I hate listening to her insane ranting. I had several months without running into her and it was super. But this recent Tuesday she showed up when I had just put my clothes in the dryer, meaning I would have to spend an hour in the same room as her. Damn!

Within two minutes of entering, she went up to some guy and started her old routine. "It's so expensive, and I'm not rich, huh? But you have to do your laundry. You HAVE TO! I do! You HAVE TO!"

I had used a broken washer that day. I had sticky notes with me, so I labelled it as broken. But it turns out that was Bothersome Crazy's choice of washer too. "It's broke! It's not broke! It says broke and but it's not even broke!" She walked back and forth between those washers and other (perfectly good, available) ones, contemplating out loud the huge monkey wrench thrown into her plan. Back and forth, back and forth.

"The other laundry is cheaper! This is expensive! They say the machines are broke and they're not even broke! Huh?" On and on she went, getting herself more riled up. I was regretting labelling the broken washers because it was making her even more bothersome than usual.

Then something wonderful happened. She had a meltdown, pulled all of her clothes out of the washers, and ran out of the laundromatt screaming about going to the other one instead.

I made a mental reminder to always bring sticky notes with me to do laundry from now on.

Oh, Canada!

So the same day I drove back from Tahoe, I had to do a little work then head back to the airport. I went on a press trip to visit the Canadian Mist distillery near Toronto. I spent one day in Toronto, one day at a ski resort near the distillery, then at 5AM I was back on the way to the airport again.


I got an Executive Class seat on the way back, which was unbelievably sweet. Not only is there lots of room between seats, the seats recline in three different directions and have a back massage function! Then they kept bringing us meals- I had an omelet for breakfast and cheese and fruits for lunch- when the rest of the plane didn't get food or had to pay for it. Champagne anyone? Well, certainly! Oh it was glorious, and I didn't even mind that we had to sit an hour on the runway before our plane took off.

Join me on GLEE, see?

*update* I fixed the broken links. Stupid Camper.

Hey y'alls- I am now acting as sort of an ambassador to a new social networking website GLEE.com. It stands for Gay, Lesbian, and Everyone Else. So as long as you're part human, you're qualified to use it.

Why does the world need another social networking site, you ask? (I mean, besides the fact that Friendster is kind of over and MySpace is unusable crap that could be coded better by a 12-year old?) GLEE has two main sections, one for social stuff and the other for work stuff. Each of them has member profiles and groups and bulletin boards that run separately from each other. On the social side, there are also news stories, music and video, chat, photos, and all that jazz. So you can use it to find a date or find a job- or better yet find a date who actually has a job unlike those losers you usually go out with.

Also, if you've got something to promote- a band, a club night, a book, etc. it's a great place to do it.

Please do me a favor and check it out, sign up, and add me to your friends list (my user name: camper). It's one of those sites where the more people who use it the better it becomes, and I want to impress people with my huge number of friends. You know how I like being popular.

SF and Tahoe

Last weekend, my brother and sister-in-law (SIL) stopped through California on their way to a glamorous vacation in Hawaii. We spent one day in San Francisco and two in Tahoe.

On Saturday they arrived around 2PM. We picked up a car from the airport and headed back to the city. After an always-awesome burrito at Papalote, they napped while I worked. Later that day, we did some shopping down Valencia Street, then headed over to the Chinese New Year Parade.

I had no idea how big this event was. The parade is two hours long, and that makes for a lot of floats. It seems that every junior high school in the Bay Area has its own dragon dance squad, and all of them were out. I'm not a big fan of parades usually, but this one had lots of little kids dressed up like little pigs, so it was cute as heck.

After that we went to AsiaSF, the restaurant filled with "gender illusionist" servers. Now, I see drag all the time but the relatives don't. My SIL was fascinated. "I want to talk to them and get to know their stories!" she says.

AsiaSF is filled with mostly birthday and bachelorette parties, so a good 80% of the patrons are female. This is odd for a drag show crowd. The food was pretty good. The cocktails were overly sweet, but that's what you expect at a bar that caters to women drinkers. The songs and lip-synch acts that the waitresses did on the bar (three songs, once an hour) were not good quality drag, but my relatives seemed to enjoy it all the same. Overall I'd say it's a fine experience, but best left to tourists and others for drag is unusual.

The next morning we got up early and headed to South Lake Tahoe for some snowboarding. We stayed at the Harrah's casino, which was not bad at all. My brother and I went snowboarding for the second half of the day.

I'd only been snowboarding twice before, and it turns out Heavenly is not the best place for the sport. The views from the top of the mountain and on the actual slopes are incredible- you can see across Lake Tahoe and far into Nevada- but many of the intermediate-level slopes are too flat so I spent a heck of a lot of time stopping and carrying my board as opposed to riding it. No wonder there were so many more skiers than snowboarders on the mountain.

That night we just went out for dinner and gambled away a few dollars at the casino. The next day while my brother went for snowboarding, SIL and I rented cross-country skis on which we barely crossed 200 yards before we headed back to the bar for bloody marys. Then after lunch we did the inner tube slide. Because it was almost 50 degrees out, the snow melted and turned into a big ice slick, so you could get whizzing around the bends of the track.

Later than night we went to a restaurant with all the class of Dennys in a restaurant with a stream running through it, played Dance Dance Revolution (I was much better at it than the first time I played, as I didn't know you're supposed to step on the steps when they hit the top of the screen), and then hit the hay.


They got up at 3:30AM to take a shuttle to the Reno airport, and I slept in until 8 or so before driving back to SF then hitting the airport later the same day.

Ouch!

"I was going to talk about John Edwards but these days, you have to go into rehab if you say the word 'faggot,'" - Ann Coulter

The woman is a comic genius!