You know you live in San Francisco when

After four days of stifling heat, it finally occurs to you to put on shorts.

A free idea for enterprising persons

"Toilet scandal-ridden Craig outsted from senior posts" - China View news

"TOILETSCANDAL.COM is available!" - GoDaddy.com domain name registrar

Aww shucks

Diverse group allegedly in British plot

LONDON - They had diverse backgrounds, coming from countries around the globe, but all shared youth and worked in medicine. They also had a common goal, authorities suspect: to bring havoc and death to the heart of Britain.

Terrorism: bringing people together.

Oh the indignity

I was relieved that the stupid whales made it out to sea so that I'd no longer have to endure the hourly updates on the Chronicle's website, but they're finding extra stories to milk it.

I have to fully reverse the position I made on this blog earlier that the Chron should just stop worry about news and focus on features to save money, because as they continue to up the fluff I am getting increasingly nauseated with features on sick teenagers and animals. I'm starting to want some good old fashioned terrorism to ground me in reality.

My least favorite reporting that the Chron loves is reporting on their own reporting, and today there was a doozy! Back in March, they did a feature on cyber bullying. Then last week they ran another feature on how because of their feature, people were writing to the bullied girl to comfort her. Then today they ran a third feature on how since their last feature 1,000 more people wrote emails to the bullied girl in question.

My writing about cocktails for the paper is starting to look like actual news in comparison.

Oh so sad

Lest anyone accuse the Chronicle of yellow journalism, here was the important news banner stretched across the website this evening (one day post-highway collapse):

Evening Commute Goes Smoothly
Updated 10:05 p.m.: But experts say those conditions won't last
Detours | Video: CBS 5 / YouTube | Map | Traffic | Maze page

Remain alert! It's like the Bush terror color scale, except instead of a desperate attempt to justify stealing constitutional rights from the public, it's a desperate attempt to make San Francisco's only real newspaper seem relevant (and as an extension, the city itself).

There was a job posting for an editor at SFist.com, a website whose main purpose is to pick on the Chronicle. A couple of friends recommended I apply, but you know what? That's entry-level humor lobbed at an easy target. A challenge would be mocking the city full of amateurs, instead of the coverage of it.

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!

What I learned from the news today

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

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!

People are so stupid

I love love love this! About two blocks from my house is an abandoned armory building that has sat empty for at least the ten years that I've lived in San Francisco. The outside of it had broken windows, graffiti, skate punks using the steps as a ramp, passed out bums on the sidewalk, and lovely trash and feces adorning the abandoned area.

Then the company Kink.com bought it for 14.5 million to build a giant porn studio inside it.

Nobody in the neighborhood would have noticed what was going on had not the Chronicle run a big article about how great it was that finally someone bought it.

Now there are protests outside it- apparently 50 people in the rain today. From the looks of it most of the protesters are Mission District Latinos- a particularly insular and hilariously myopic community.

"This is oppressive and inappropriate for our community,'' said Sam Ruiz, executive director of Mission Neighborhood Centers. "It's not OK to promote acts of degradation and violence. We don't want this kind of stuff here.''

Another protester carried a sign that said "Why not a recreation center for youth?"

Apparently they are unaware that:

1. Pornography is perfectly legal, and here it would be filmed indoors where they'd never see it.
   
2. There are (I believe) at least three youth/community recreation centers in the Mission already, plus several art centers.
   
3. There are at least two other porn studios in the Mission.
4. Latino gang violence over drug dealing turf plagues the neighborhood, and that the real prostitution, crime, and homelessness in the neighborhood are caused by the drugs sold and not by $500-an-hour bondage actresses.
   
5. You can buy a hooker or crack outdoors, day or night, within two blocks of the Armory building.
   

News Day

What I like about the news is not so much the news itsself, but people's reactions to it.

Here are some of my favorite reader comments from the New York Times news story on Anna Nicole Smith's death:

I believe all this yo-yo dieting is responsible and I am worried about other celebrity diet product endorsers (including one actress who I won’t name) who has similiar up and down weight swings.

It’s sad, she was a mess and seemed self destructive and clueless but it’s still sad in a bizarre way. I don’t know why I care but I kind of do.

i hope that there is a heaven and that she is there now with her son.

Someone let Sir Elton know he has to warm up the old vocal pipes.

SHE WAS NO PRINCESS DIANA!!!

im sorry this had to happen at a time like this

What a great loss. I refer, or course, to the New York Times’ decision, presumably made in the face of financial difficulties, to pander to the People-reading crowd by eliciting comments on this matter.

Ms. Smith died of a broken heart. The series of heartaches she experienced over the past years was just too much for her to bear. She is now with her son…………..perhaps she has found her peace……at last.

I can’t believe that she died. She was super & fabulous. I am shocked by this tragedy. After her 20 yr. old son Daniel passed away, I was also shocked with that. I also feel bad for that baby that Anna gave birth to.

I’m so very sorry.

Someone should be looking at that Snake of a husband of hers.

I wonder if her infant daughter will become the Paris Hilton of 2020’s?

MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE FAMILIY OF MS. SMITH . iT MUST OF BEEN HARD TO LOSE HER SON AND NOW HER BY THE SAME DEATH.

I have a son that was
born about 2 weeks after Nicole Smith was born.
And I know how heartbreaking it would be to lose
him at such a young age.

IT IS VERY SAD ON WHAT HAPPENED TO MRS SMITH. I JUST HOPE HER CHILD IS BEING TAKEN CARE OF. IF DRUGS ARE THE CASE, I HOPE THIS IS A WAKE UP CALL FOR EVERYONE. IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW PRETTY YOU ARE OR HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE, DRUGS ARE EVIL. IT TAKES YOU AWAY FROM YOUR FAMILY. I REALLY HOPE DRUGS WERE NOT THE CASE, BUT IF IT WAS, JUST THINK ABOUT IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOU WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOUR FAMILY…

Good riddance! Now, if we could only focus our attention on the war in Iraq, contemporary chattel slavery, AIDS, and other things of actual importance, we might be getting somewhere.

Well, the stress and hounding have finally killed her, perhaps now people will leave the poor woman alone!

For some reason I am expecting a news conference with Anna Nicole still alive and repeating the old Samuel Clemens quote “the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. But, a) she was not smart enough to know that quote and b) this is 2007 not 1897.

In my own opinion, I feel she was the perfect spokeswoman to the young crowd. She did what she wanted to do and accomplished her dreams and nobody elses.

Now, looks like it’d be a good time for the Bush Administration to bomb Iran..while CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC..ad nauseum run hour after hour of the Anna Nicole Smith funeral/retrospective.

Really sad to know this. Its like some movie.

Uhmm, Prayers for the family.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH’S LIFE IS A TRUE TESTAMENT TO HOW MUCH LOVE HAS ESCAPED OUR WORLD TODAY.
SHE LIVED AND STARVED FOR THE LOVE WE ALL WISH FOR…SEARCHING FOR IT THROUGH MONEY, MARRIAGES, ATTENTION AND EVEN FAME.
I THINK ITS SAFE TO SAY THAT ANNA NEVER FOUND THAT LOVE…NOT EVEN DURING THE TIMES WHEN SHE NEEDED IT THE MOST.
A PRECIOUS FLOWER HAS DIED WITHOUT THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE ITS TRUE FRAGRANCE RELEASED.
R.I.P. ANNA NICOLE, I HOPE YOU CAN FIND THE LOVE IN HEAVEN THAT YOU DIDN’T FIND HERE ON EARTH.
AND I PRAY THAT THE LEGACY THAT WAS INTENDED FOR YOU IS FULLFILLED THROUGH YOUR DAUGHTER.

Tragic? No. ANS’s death was perfectly predictable; drugs are bad for you.

As her friend and neighbor I know she hasn’t been quite right since the democrats won control of both houses.

Fleeing into the avenues

Today I was feeling hungover and braindead for the fifth day in a row, despite not having had anything (much) to drink the past couple of days.

Then I thought about an issue I've been too lazy to follow up on for a couple of months: the carbon monoxide seeping into my apartment. A while back a plumber told me that the water heater located right about underneath my bed in the basement (that is covered only by wooden floor with giant spaces between the slats and a matted shag carpet over that) has had the ventilation pipe removed and thus is venting carbon monoxide into my apartment.

The plumber promised to follow up and I believe that he did. I mentioned it a while later to the gardener, who said he thought there might be a new water heater on order, as mine was too tall for the short-ceilinged basement and needed to be replaced by one that's legal. It was sure to come any day now.

It occurred to me today through my perhaps-not-hungover-afterall haze that I never heard them install one, which seems odd because I never leave the house. And it also occurred to me that as it has been especially cold and I've had the heat and furnace on and been staying inside with all the windows closed tightly for a while, that perhaps the carbon monoxide was building up.

So I decided to check in the basement. No new water heater. So then I went to the internet to see if beyond cloudiness and confusion there were any other symptoms I should look for. They are:

• 1. Headache (yes)
  
• 2. Dizziness (nope)
  
• 3. Irritability (no, and fuck you for asking)
  
• 4. Confusion/Memory loss (yes)
  
• 5. Disorientation (yes)
  
• 6. Nausea and vomiting (yes and no)
  
• 7. Abnormal reflexes (yes, but that could be caused by prescription drug abuse)
  
• 8. Difficulty in coordinating (color-coordinating? most definitely. but otherwise no.)
• 9. Difficulty in breathing (a little)
  
• 10. Chest Pain (a little)
  
• 11. Cerebral Edema (ce-wha-wha?)
  
• 12. Convulsions/Seizures (not)
  
• 13. Coma (yet)
  
• 14. Death (duh)
  

So I just had most of the signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, including three others from another list of warning signs.

I thought this would be a good time to take a walk in the fresh air. I opened all the windows and headed off to the avenues for a few hours. Now that I'm back and the windows are closed again I'm not sure if the symptoms are returning or if I'm just sleepy. Very, very, sleeeee

The Passion of Aladdin

Tonight I watched Aladdin, which was rather whatever. Then I followed it with The Passion of the Christ, which is torture to watch, and I'm not just talking about the plot.

I was thinking that the movie doesn't add anything to the understanding of the bible (actually it wouldn't make a lot of sense if you hadn't already read the bible), and it's not like a character study either. Pointless.

But then I did have a a previously unthought thought about the Jesus story: What's up with virgin mother Mary? Okay, if you had a virgin birth (which is totally not right IMO- if you're going to give birth to the son of God, how fair is it that you don't get to have sex with God? Cause like, that would have to be great sex. And also, at what point did she get married? She was married when she had him, which means that either she couldn't even have sex on her honeymoon or else Jesus was getting an inter-womb facial when she did. But then I guess that wouldn't be a 'virgin birth' but just a virgin conception, and the bible is pretty clear on that.) and you knew your son was the son of God, then why the hell would you let him become a carpenter? Like, you know he has better career options that that.

I'd have opened a tavern and been like, "Hey Jesus, how about you zap us up some more of that wine? The customers are thirsty." And speaking of wine, how smart is it that the Jews were all dying of thirst in the desert and Jesus takes the water and turns it into wine? For the son of an omnipotent being, he didn't know jack squat about hydration.

A safe place

I rented a ZipCar to do my biannual shopping trip at Safeway. Knowing what I now know about the Potrero one, I went to Church and Market to find that it luckily has not been yuppified. Phew.

I managed to spend $165.00 on groceries, which is pretty impressive since other than one bottle of booze I had hardly any items that cost over four bucks. My original savings plan was to use the CoinStar machine towards my groceries, but naturally I waited in line 20 minutes behind three other people to have the one machine that was working break right in front of me. So then I got to carry my weighty bag of change back home.

I now have enough canned food to last me quite a while. I bought a lot of frozen fake meat products but I have no willpower when it comes to that so it always goes first. And once again, I stood in the vegetable aisle confused and sad. I think the problem is that vegetables are ingredients in other food, but as 90% of what I eat requires nothing but boiling water or condiments, cooking a vegetable-something just seems too hard.

Fans, this is the point at which you're supposed to volunteer to come cook vegetables for me. This hinting around is getting me nowhere.

I swear if it weren't for drink garnish I'd have scurvy.

The Tell Tale Telephone

I have this janky cordless phone that always falls off the wall stand but since it weighs about 80 pounds it has never broken, though it's nearly fractured a couple of my toes. Well, finally the last bit of plastic that kept it on the wall stand broke off, and it was time for it to go away.

As I'm ever-so-slightly anal retentive, I wanted to keep the phone in case the replacement phone I put up breaks, despite the fact that I have another phone in the office and a corded phone to use in case of earthquake power outages. (I didn't think this decision out well.)

The broken phone has a "feature" that it beeps at you every 20 seconds to tell you that the battery is low or if the base is not properly connected. Thus in actual power outages, the phone beeps at you to tell you there's a power outage. THANKS PHONE, I KNOW.

So I put the broken phone in a plastic Ziploc bag and stored it in the furthest back part of my closet and shut the closet doors. From the living room, I couldn't hear it beeping at me to let me know that it's in the closet and NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT. But then after I fell asleep and it was the quiet hours of the night, I could hear it beeping, beeping, beeping.

It was like Vietnamese water torture. WHEN WILL THE NEXT BEEP COME? Beep! THERE IT IS. NOW JUST ANOTHER TWENTY SECONDS. IT SHOULD BE ANYTIME NOW.... I GUESS MAYBE IT STOPP-Beep! DAMNIT!

I let this go on for several hours in the morning while placing pillows over my head in an attempt to block it out. This didn't work, because I'd find myself listening for it.

Eventually I got up and started working. I relocated the phone from the back of the closet to beneath the kitchen sink, further away from my desk. But oh, I could still hear it. Beep! I was working away at my computer, thinking that I was used to it now, but Beep! really getting stressed out about the story I was writing. I found it Beep! hard to concentrate and I kept getting angrier Beep! and soon I was stamping around and swearing and Beep! I couldn 't take it anymore!

Then I realized I could just take out the fucking battery and it would stop beeping.

Christmas Jingle

I was just in Safeway shopping for booze. They were playing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer over the loudspeakers and I started getting angry.

Basically, the other reindeer are a bunch of fucking jerks who shun Rudolph until his freakish mutation comes in handy. Then all the reindeer loved him? What kind of moral is that? Handicapped people should be locked away until they can prove themselves useful?

In the claymation version of the Rudolph story, even Santa chides Rudolph's father Dasher when Rudolph's mud-covered red nose is exposed.

If I were Rudolph on that foggy Christmas Eve when Santa came begging I'd be all, "Fuck you, Santa. And fuck your fucking elves, and the rest of you reindeer can eat shit. I hope your whole fucking North Pole melts from global warming and some PETA militant cracks your fucking skull for wearing fur. I'm out of this ass-factory, and I'm taking the dentist with me."

Hunk a junk

So I'm using the new Blogger Beta, not because I wanted to switch but because I was sick of having to click on the "not right now" button every time I went to the page.

Dear Blogger: Here's a fucking clue: If you're calling your product a Beta version, don't force people to switch to it.

The thing is full of obvious bugs and help files that don't help at all. I've been a software engineer and done QA on my products so I can say with a fair amount of confidence that this shit ain't all that hard to get right. Especially when you've got Google's money to get it right with.