Category: Site-related

19 February 1999

Search Me

I often get a lot done when I’m feeling vaguely uncertain about life. For example, last night I pulled together my few Unix skills and finally got a search engine up and running on the site. It seemed slightly more rewarding than going out to the neighborhood bars and getting annoyed by everyone I’d see.

Now you can do a quick search of Planet SOMA’s 400-plus pages and find just what you’re looking for. Or at least as much so as this is possible given the way search engines work.

Enjoy it. I stayed up until 4AM working on it, after which I couldn’t get to sleep until almost 7AM. I’m still half asleep in service to my art.

Home Fires

Looks like the roomie will have the new title of “ex-roomie” soon, as he moves to Lower Haight and becomes a homeowner. The bonus will be an extra room in the microscopic Planet SOMA Factory. If I put my computer in it, it will even become a fully deductible home office.

Of course, the down side is the fact that I may have to give up my nagging habit of eating dinner every day.

Hatred

The one thing I hate most this week is the fact that Melty pointed me toward this site and that I’ve wasted so much time there.

18 February 1999

What is SOMA?

Since I’ve had several email messages about this recently, it’s time for the annual reminder, mostly directed toward non-San Franciscans and those who came in via search engines.

SOMA is the official acronym for South Of Market Area, which is my neighborhood in San Francisco. It has nothing to do with any prescription painkiller nor is any reference to Aldous Huxley implied. SOMA is nothing but a mildly annoying real estate term.

This is an amazing neighborhood and Planet SOMA was originally all about South of Market. A large part of the site still is, in one way or another.

Love and hate:

Things I hate today: HTML-formatted email; beets, green peas, and pickles; TCI Cable; sunny days in February…

Things I love today: Nikko’s Diner in Oakland; NewsRadio (still…); the rain’s coming back…

Site Updates

I got a full, eight-hour good night’s sleep last night. I was starting to forget how nice that is. It’s been a long week…

Somehow during everything else that was going on this week, I managed to finish a big chunk of pruning and retooling on Planet SOMA. About 35 pages are no longer here, and several have been moved or consolidated. Most people won’t notice the difference. Also, just about all pages now have the blue background and the convenient “you are here” navaigation links at the top.

Still in progress: all those pages from US Tour 1997, and Planet SOMA in the 70’s, which is way overdue for some work.

If you run into any broken links or missing graphics, please let me know. I’m planning to have everything in order by Planet SOMA’s “official” third anniversary in a month or so.

Quote from yer humble host, fifteen years ago today: “I guess one never knows how depressed one is until extremely drunk.”

22 January 1999

So my first-ever mention in the San Francisco Chronicle would have to be for a typographical error in an email message to Strange de Jim, wouldn’t it? I dunno…I kind of like the idea of “lonks”. I just wish it had generated a little more traffic…

Last night: visit from my friend Matthew (from DC). We hit the corner sexbar for a beer or two. Didn’t have any sex, but I watched some. Pity there was no “fast forward” button…

Plans for the weekend: a little work for the freelance clients and even more work on the revamping of Planet SOMA. There’s a party Saturday night for a departing co-worker. And, of course, the Sunday morning “In the Heat of the Night” marathon on TNT…

There are currently no collards scheduled to be cooked, but one never knows…

Of course I’m always open to other suggestions. Anyone need a cheap date with loose morals? I’m craving affection. Aah, the hell with that. I’m craving cheap sex…

Random Stuff

Between all the leftover work I avoided over Christmas and all and the fact that I’ve been sleeping off a really nasty bug all day, I am neither caught up on the website nor the email. I have, at least, managed to upload the first part of the North Carolina trip.

Other things I could be writing about but I’m not (just yet) might include whining about whatever this bug is that I’ve managed to pick up. I could discuss how pissed I am that I can’t get ADSL, even here in San Francisco’s most “wired” neighborhood.

I could include the fact that I got email from Strange de Jim (of Herb Caen fame). I could write about how I’m really starting to get serious about leaving San Francisco. I could tell the story of the disturbing graffiti which appeared on my front door this weekend.

I could even talk about that Leif Garrett documentary from Sunday night.

But I’m not going to get into any of this right now. I’m going back to bed.

About That Last Post

Watching the post-impeachment nightmare this morning in my hungover state (never EVER drink beer on top of any kind of cough syrup), I prepared this journal entry about the complete moral bankruptcy of both political parties in the U.S.

Then I re-read it and it sounded incredibly pretentious. I decided I make a lousy political commentator. However, I went ahead and archived it, in case you’re inordinantly interested and still want to read it.

What I’m now concerned with is the fact that I’ve had my crotch and/or ass grabbed in bars more times this weekend than any time in recent memory. By complete strangers. By people I had not so much as looked at. By really drunk nasty trolls.

Is it the Christmas intoxication factor? Or did I just look that available? It can’t be that I looked so enticing, ‘cuz I didn’t. What’s the deal here?

Anyhow, I made it home safely. Now I’m gonna watch “Cannon” and go to bed.

No Sex, One Poll

The roomie left for New Orleans this morning. Of course, since I could now have a week of really noisy sex without bothering him, there are two factors working against me. The first is that I have this lingering nasty chest cold, which makes me sound like I’m dying (I’m not…)

The second, of course, is that I won’t be able to get anyone interested. Seems lately that I can only find willing partners when I’m not at all in the mood. Or else they’re two or three time zones away. Doesn’t really matter, I guess, as I have an awful lot of work to finish up this weekend in preparation for my annual holiday trek to North Carolina.

So far the most conclusive results of the survey are that you want more of me and more nastiness and negativity along the lines of The Idiot Factor. No promises on the former, but you’re assured of the latter…

Site-related

Gosh darn. That link from the Advocate I mentioned a few days ago went away pretty damned fast. Why am neither particularly surprised nor particularly upset? Now visitors to their page of links can find reassuringly happy and safe sites which don’t say anything bad or question those “happy upscale gay” aesthetics and demographics.

A little more of Road Trip 98 is here for your perusal, including Minneapolis Finale and Minneapolis to Kansas City. More later tonight or tomorrow.

Alas, most of the email I hadn’t answered yesterday still hasn’t been answered today…

Gay Resource?

Wow…I’ve discovered that Planet SOMA is now linked by the Advocate as a gay resource. I’m not sure whether to be flattered or horrified. I think I’ll choose “amused”, particularly given all the less than complimetary things I’ve had to say about the Advocate over the years.

Guess their marketing department wasn’t consulted…

Another great discovery today came as I looked for something in “the drawer”. Every house has one; it’s that place where stuff lands when you don’t know what else to do with it. Didn’t find what I was looking for, but we have masking tape. And chopsticks. Who knew…

Road Trip 98 now includes the first parts of the Minnesota story. Seems it’s going to take me as long to get the trip online as it did to actually take the trip.

Dragging

I am dragging. I hate this; I’m not really sick, just worn out and feeling pretty unwilling and unable to do much of anything. I’m not sure if it makes me feel better or worse that my roomie says he just got over the same thing and that it’s “going around”.

I’m always amused by the way California food editors think Southern people eat. In this week’s paper, I read something about how to prepare a “traditional Southern Thanksgiving meal”. One of the most important dishes was something called a “beet and kumquat salad”. Yeah, right…

A congealed salad with canned pears, Cool-whip, and marshmallows maybe, but a “beet and kumquat salad”??? Give me a fucking break.

Road Trip 98 now includes the stretches from Detroit to Milwaukee and Milwaukee through my arrival in Minneapolis.