And they say hippies are dirty...

Bill Cosby wants his sweater back. And I want you to wash your hair before you use the headrest on any public transportation. Ack.

White (Tiger) Christmas

The city, which helps fund the zoo, is currently facing a lawsuit from Komejan and is assessing today whether it is at all liable for the Christmas Day mauling, officials said.

CHRISTMASDAYMAULING.COM is available!

Pokey

People who blog about dreams are stupid, but I had this awesome dream last night. I had killed all these people and hid the bodies inside my waterbed and filled it up with water. The plan worked perfectly, except when I would lay on the waterbed the noses of the dead people would poke me in the back.

Availability

State warns against tainted tofu

TAINTEDTOFU.COM is available!

Couple arrested after tot ingests Ecstasy

When I read the headline, my first thought was, "I hope it's not someone I know." Luckily, most of my friends with kids are better at hiding their drugs.

Also, since when is ecstasy capitalized? It's not a brand name.

iTard, Therefore iAm

I was lexicologically left out when the Chronicle claimed someone else invented the word iTard.

Luckily, one of my fans pointed it out:

Another reason I am writing is that I feel you have been slighted by the Chronicle in an article from earlier this week. Slighted in the sense that the author gives credit for the term "iTard" to this Daniel Lyons guy from Forbes that has the fake Steve Jobs blog. I was able to recall a hate blog post by you from waaaayyyyy back (and long before this guy's blog existed - 2006) that used the term. I am not sure if you were the 1st to coin the term "iTard" back when you made the post in October of 2005, but I thought that if you were, then compensation is in order! ;-)

Take a look below at my research (yes, work was a bit slow today). If nothing else, a tersely worded letter to Chron's editors may be in order.

Enjoy,
Keith

So, from the SF Chronicle business section, "Steve Jobs he's not, but funny he is on the Net," by Jessica Guynn, Tuesday, August 7, 2007:

"Daniel Lyons, a 46-year-old senior editor with Forbes magazine, came clean after the New York Times unmasked the anonymous blogger behind "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ on Sunday.

Everyone wanted to know who had dubbed Apple customers "iTards," rival Bill Gates "Beastmaster," ponytailed Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz "My Little Pony," influential Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg "Goatberg," and Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive and an Apple director "Squirrel Boy."

From Camper's Hate Log, October 16, 2005:

Various Types of iTards

iHole- the place an iPod owner lives.

BiPods- people who own two iPods are somehow four times as bad as those who own only one.

ReJay- someone who thinks he's a DJ because he made an iPod playlist and plugged it in somewhere.

PodSkateer- an iTard who wears big Mickey Mouse DJ headphones.

iClod- an iTard who keeps getting snagged in the cord.

iWad- the cluster of iPod accessories an iTard owns.

Act of Pod- the stunning coincidence an iTard will blather on to you about when what's on their random playlist correlates to something that just happened in the real world. IT'S LIKE IT KNOWS WHAT WE WERE THINKING.

iRod- the Mini Cooper.

Stand and Poddle- what an iTard at the gym is doing when they spend the whole time playing with their mp3 player instead of actually working out.

izodPod- an iPod filled with only ironic 80's music.

Thwarted by Ikea

My futon couch/bed frame broke for good just before I went away on all my travels. I've had it for about 8 years and it was really comfortable up until a couple of years ago. The extra-thick mattress finally lost its shape, so after that point it's been just a regular sucky futon instead of an ultra-deluxe futon. Still, it's a futon.

So as soon as I got back from Idaho I set about getting a new one. I still like having a dedicated office, which means that I'll still be sleeping in the living room. But I thought at least I'd get a nicer frame. I found one at Ikea that's more of a fold-out couch that looked good and had an optional cover to make it look even better.

The problem is that the frame, good mattress, and cover all come separately. I went to the store once to try it out- it looked great and they had them in stock, so I came back the next day with a rental car to buy it. By this time, naturally, they had sold out of the mattress but still had the frame and the cover, both of which I bought because they assured me the mattresses were coming later that day and would be available the next morning. I was looking forward to my third trip to Ikea in as many days.

Meanwhile, I still had to my old futon to contend with. I disassembled the frame and put it out by the trash cans. I kept the futon inside leaning up against the wall so I could still sleep on it. Coincidentally, my new neighbor Brian moved in and to make room, they were throwing out some old mattresses. We decided we'd go in together on 1-800-got-junk for a pickup.

Now we're caught up to this morning. The junk collectors collected the junk and left. Then I made sure ZipCar had the big car available for rent. Then I called up Ikea to double check the mattresses were there and in stock.

So, as one would expect, the story ends with me waiting "three to five days" for more mattresses to arrive at Ikea, while owning a useless new couch frame and cover and having no old futon mattress to use in the interim. So I'll be sleeping on the floor next to part of a couch for the next week or so.

When I try to fight squalor, squalor always wins.

The Drama Gene

I don't want to be happy about Paris Hilton going back to jail after being out for a day, but I am. I don't think it has anything to do with her personally, because I really don't care about whether she's in jail or not. It's just some horrible mutation on the same gene as homosexuality that makes me predisposed towards celebrity drama. I wonder if they have a Jesus Camp to fix it.

You know you live in San Francisco when...

I just heard a helicopter fly overhead and my first thought was, "I wonder what protest they're filming today..."

Deep thoughts

I was just laying down in the living room in a moment of quiet reflection. I took a deep breath and was enjoying the fresh, mountain-air scent of the carpet when I realized that the scent came from the odor crystals in the cat litter, and therefore the cat had probably dragged his butt post-poop along the carpet on this very spot.

See what you get for thinking?

Hot or Not

The weather forecast cannot really be saying 93 degrees in San Francisco today. My apartment get unbearably hot when it hits 75. I've loaded up all the ice cube trays in the freezer so I can do that ice cubes in front of the fan ghetto-style air conditioning. And won't someone please think of the rent-a-cat?

What's wrong with California?

I think this Chronicle Two Cents (public opinion about an issue) Article pretty much articulates what I hate about Californians in general, and San Franciscans in particular.

It's an opinion piece- "Have you ever used the carpool lane illegally?" It appears that nearly everyone has, but everyone has the same excuse- "I HAD to- I was late for something important."
In California, personal development- whether that's intellectual, spiritual, career, or physical- trumps all sense of civility. I would have done something for the greater good/ for you/ kept a promise/commitment/ abided by the law, but something that I felt like doing more came up so you really can't blame me.

People are so used to this attitude that they don't even see it as wrong. Which is just another reason California is the most selfish place on earth.

Knutty

Berlin's polar bear cub Knut receives death threat

This is awesome! Faxing in a death threat to an animal at the zoo is not crazy. It is Art. A truly inspiring work. And there is much room to contribute in this medium it's dizzying. Here are some suggestions:

• Mail a death threat postcard to Santa Claus
• Yodel a death threat about insects
  
• Send a telegraph death threat to someone's bicycle
• Print a magazine article about the death of irony
• Email a death threat to your web server
• Have a carrier pigeon deliver a death threat to an octopus
  

What's wrong with this list?

It wasn't until I got to the grocery store that I realized my grocery shopping list didn't include any actual food.

Terrific Idea

School to offer car to lucky student with perfect attendance

(02-07) 17:07 PST Santa Ana, Calif. (AP) --

The school district is giving students with perfect attendance a chance to enter a lottery to win a new car.

School officials said this week they hope dangling the keys to a Chevy Aveo donated by a local dealership will save the district money by curbing absenteeism.

Santa Ana Unified is facing a $17 million budget deficit and loses up to $40 in funding each day a student misses school.

Some critics say the giveaway focuses attention on the car, valued at $12,575, rather than schoolwork.

Parent Anabeth Pineda, however, said she liked the idea.

"It can't hurt to give away a new car to help attendance," she said.

Um, yeah. It would be fucked up enough to bribe kids into not skipping school in the first place. What's worse is encouraging kids who come to school anyway to show up when they're sick so that they spread germs around in the hopes of winning a car.

I'm sure attendance will be a net gain this year!

Dear Rachael Ray

Who the hell are you? I'm guessing somebody Martha Stewart-ish, but I don't know. I hear about you all the time but I'm not sure what it is you do. Are you a celebrity chef? A thrifty saver-lady? America's Best Housewife?

But more to the point, what the fuck are you doing on my box of Triscuits? Did you invent the recipe? Did you bake them? I doubt it. Why do I have to look at you when I'm enjoying an otherwise delicious snack?

I don't know why you're here in the first place, but please, please go away.

Sincerely,

Camper

Even in dreams, it was clunky

I had a dream last night that I was using the new Microsoft Vista operating system. Why?

CRIME!

I love reading the crime reports in the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco's bat-shit crazy gay newspaper.

Aggravated assault: Badlands, 4121 18th Street, January 24, 11:50 p.m.: While talking with another man inside the bar, a man was suddenly surprised when a past acquaintance suddenly approached him. "What are you doing with him?" the man demanded. "Are you sleeping with him?" Before the man could defend himself, the suspect threw three to four punches, which landed on his face. The force of the blows caused the victim to fall to the floor, where the suspect continued to try and assault him. The man was able to free himself by kicking his assailant in the groin, but the suspect continued the assault by grabbing a bottle off the bar, shaking it, and spraying him with beer. The victim retaliated by throwing water on the suspect from a water bottle. Angry, the suspect threw the beer bottle he was holding, missing his target, and then ran out the door. Before the police could arrive, the victim left the bar and went home. The next morning, however, when he awoke he discovered he had a black eye and filed a police report at Mission Station.

That ain't aggravated assault, that's gay drama. And damn good reading.

My new friend

I have a new friend who is the younger sister of an old friend. The new friend's name is Rachel, and she just moved out here to SF after getting a PhD from Yale. Now, that might lead you to believe that Rachel is a fiercely competent and independent woman.

Oh, would that were true! In the short time I've known her she's misplaced phones, shopping lists, and cars, and left a shopping cart at the checkout counter. And that was in one four hour period. She buys furniture she can't move and other furniture she can't assemble. I told her I would be calling her Dr. Retard on the internet and she didn't seem to mind.

Most of the time I've known Dr. Retard I've been assisting her in one way or another: mixing her favorite cocktails, hauling furniture she needed moved in the middle of my workday, and then loading and carrying her 15 boxes of unassembled furniture into her apartment. She rented a van to go to Ikea and I joined her for shopping only to end up doing hard labor, and yet she insists that by letting me come along she was doing me a favor.

When I indicated that I was not going to assemble said furniture (bed frame and dresser and step stool and nightstand) for her despite her promised reward of "a cocktail," she quickly began plotting how she might get someone else to do it. Her plan seems to involve starting to date someone handy.

Her ability to get other people (especially me) to do things for her is impressive. If it weren't for the constant confusion, in ability to follow directions, and forgetfulness, I would think she was actually pretty clever.

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.

Revelation

I just counted and found I have 16 different kinds of mustard in my apartment. Sixteen kinds of mustard is just wrong. Other than that, I don't think I have 16 different kinds of food.