Journals : 2002 : April

7 April 2002 Later | Link this

• After this trip, I'm convinced that Seattle is not only a more liveable city than San Francisco, but also a more attractive one. It looks better from a distance, and now I also realize that it looks better close up.
• Portland is no slouch either.
• I really desperately need not to live in San Francisco anymore. And soon. I know I've been singing this song for a couple of years, but the music's getting much louder lately.
• I was a little apprehensive about traveling with a companion. I needn't have been. It rather makes me question that vow of solitude I took many years ago.
• This semi-annual migration to and from Daylight Savings Time is just plain stupid. Arizona and Indiana have the right idea; they never bought into it.
• I'm rather excited about this.

Enough. Gonna go read one of my new books for a while. Trip pictures and stories may start tomorrow if I don't have to write any rants about how things went to hell at work while I was gone...

8 April 2002 | Link this

Why yes, now that you mention it, things DID go to hell at work while I was gone. But not quite as badly as I expected. One of my co-workers at least has the exact same allergy-generated laryngitis and phlegmy throat thing I developed mid-trip. And here I thought I was special for having gone to Seattle and picked up some special malady uniquely related to the vegetation of the Pacific Northwest...

Speaking of which, Seattle seems to have its own Embarcadero Freeway to deal with...

And thanks to all of you who are allowing my vacation to last just a little bit longer. Only one piece of legitimate email so far today, and even it didn't require a response. Wow...

8 April 2002 Later | Link this

I was reminded again tonight that -- assuming you're not using a vegetable brush --there's almost no way to clean squash without looking vaguely obscene in the process...

9 April 2002 | Link this

After an annoying day at work following a somewhat sleepless night, it was great to see that the Book Fairy had dropped by my house while I was on vacation, showering me with literature, cartoons, and Hitchcock...

Thanks Adric. You are my hero today...

These spammers, on the other hand, are not. So much for that fantasy that all Candaians are polite and nice...

9 April 2002 | Link this

After an annoying day at work following a somewhat sleepless night, it was great to see that the Book Fairy had dropped by my house while I was on vacation, showering me with Herb, Zippy, and Hitchcock...

Thanks Adric. You are my hero today...

These spammers, on the other hand, are not. So much for that fantasy that all Candaians are polite and nice and literate. What's so difficult about understanding the statement "if you use this contact form to send ads, form letters, or threatening material, you WILL come to regret it"?

Garden variety spammers are bad enough, but the ones who come into my site, look for the contact form, presumably read the page which leads to it, and STILL paste their bullshit into the form and hit "submit" really annoy me. They get special treatment for being both idiots AND assholes...

10 April 2002 | Link this

Two insomniac nights in a row. Maybe it's because, after 37 years, I somehow finally got used to sleeping curled up next to someone after doing so all last week. Anyway, tonight I stop working by 8:00, plop down on the couch, watch Tippi Hedren bat away at those birds for a couple of hours, and go to bed shortly afterward...

Working on a new site. The great thing about freelance web design is that you get to learn a little bit about a lot of widely diverging topics, from the Gilmore Girls to Brazilian soccer to pan-channel wall signage...

10 April 2002 Later | Link this

Seems another city is engaging in a discussion about removing its ill-advised downtown pedestrian mall from the 1960s. They're dropping like flies all over the country, from Winston-Salem to Chicago, as municipalities realize this well-intentioned attempt to compete with the suburbs actually did little more than make Main Street more desolate than it already was. And Fresno's is even among the liveliest of the survivors...

But San Francisco drags out the notion of closing Market Street once a year or so. Since we're so "different" and "special" here, it's naturally assumed that any idea which has failed miserably everywhere else in the country will magically and mystically succeed here if it costs a lot of money and inconveniences a lot of people. And especially if it involves making the city look just a little bit more like Disneyland...

Yes, I know I've written about this before, but I never cease to be amazed by this san Francisco smugness which says that we can never learn from the mistakes of other cities. We're only allowed to MAKE the mistakes so other cities can learn from US. Some would call this visionary. Some would just call it wasteful arrogance...

Interesting time-waster for today. Cool photos. Many of which are disintegrating...

12 April 2002 | Link this

Productive day. I got a lot done on the new client site which is this week's project, and a lot of updating done for another client. And I now have my video masters back, so you will see pictures of Seattle, Portland, and points in between soon. But probably not until after the weekend, because I'm off to Fresno in the morning...

One sentence fragment. Two sentences starting with conjunctions. Bad first paragraph. Bad second one too...

On a semi-unrelated note, I've decided that I photograph (perhaps "videograph" would be a better word) really badly in anything other than incandescent light...

• An actual barbecue in an actual yard with an actual kiddie pool.
• Sitting in the living room with Mark naked, eating ice cream, and listening to Laurie Anderson.
• Other things it wouldn't be gentlemanly to talk about.

Jarring experience of the weekend just past:

• Getting in the car in at 4:00 in Fresno, with a temperature of 90F and getting out of the car three hours later in SF to a temperature of 50F with severe winds. While wearing shorts...

15 April 2002 | Link this

Falling asleep at the keyboard this afternoon from being up half the night convincing myself I don't have a hernia. I don't, and I didn't really think I did anyway, as it still seems more like a pulled muscle which seems to be acting up off and on, especially after long periods in the car. But the way the past year has gone, I figured that if there was a hernia anywhere within a hundred miles of me, I'd probably have it...

It's been a really sucky year for my assorted maladies, both chronic and acute. And it's looking like a particularly bad allergy season too. Great. I'm used to being relatively healthy, thanks, and this shit's starting to get on my nerves...

But since I'm at least not screaming out in pain anymore, pictures from the road trip should start later tonight...

• 17 April 2001: Solidly in the midst of the vacation from hell. This reminds me that it's been a year since I saw my dad and since I met Becky.
• 17 April 2000: Banking drama, a laundry excursion to Fresno, and semi-public sex with a cute long-haired boy in a porkpie hat. Hmmm. I'll probably be doing laundry in Fresno this coming weekend too, and spending quality time with an even cuter boy, albeit sans porkpie hat. Or audience.
• 17 April 1999: Air conditioner envy.
• 18 April 1998: On being a hermit.
• 12 April 1997: Returning from my first trip to Vegas.
• 15 April 1992: My first journal entry written on a computer.

17 April 2002 Later | Link this

First chunk of the road trip story is now posted over at Planet SOMA. Those of you who are coming in from this entrance are getting the "sneak preview" as it's posted; it won't be linked on the other site until it's complete. Which may be a while at the rate I'm going...

18 April 2002 | Link this

Three more pages posted from the road trip story. You can start with page four or from the beginning. This will probably be all until early next week...

18 April 2002 Later | Link this

Forgot to mention this earlier, but today's "what the fuck were they thinking?" award goes to Abercrombie & Fitch. And you thought they only knew how to sell to suburban teenage mallrats and to vapid gay clones who try desperately to resemble suburban teenage mallrats...

Funny, but this may be the only item they've ever marketed where the actual clothing was more attention-grabbing than the A&F logo they slapped on it...

18 April 2002 Even Later | Link this

$1,739,130.00

21 April 2002 | Link this

Sittting in a diner this morning with Mark, reading the Fresno Bee, I noticed a wire service blurb which mentioned that 14,000 San Franciscans demonstrated on Saturday against "war, racism, and poverty". I guess it's always good to have a clear focus...

Seriously, though, how exactly does one demostrate against poverty? Isn't that sort of like demonstrating against, say, death by natural causes? No one's really in favor of it, but it's something of an inevitability...

Anyway, it was a good weekend. Saw The Shroud, took several bucks off my net worth through sheer gluttony, and watched Mark get his satellite connected. Now I can't wait for mine...

Otherwise: another of my babies went live tonight, only four days until Siouxsie, and a happy birthday to Jeff, who doesn't seem to be getting my email...

More pictures from the Northwest tomorrow, along with (just maybe) a new rant...