I think Jim Tracy is angry. What a great picture.

More on how the Spankeez suck

Phew! I was wondering if I was going to have to post an eat-my-words e-mail after the Spankeez pounded the (lowly) Devil Rays yesterday 20-11, and Centimeter Jeter went 5-6 with a homer, and A-Rod, Twitch, Matsui, and Posada all homered, with a ridiculous 13-run eighth inning (including back-to back-to back home runs.)

Good news! The hated Yankeez (37-35) got spanked today by the even lowlier Devil Rays (26-47). Jeter was 0-5, Williams 1-3, Matsui 0-3, Giambi 0-1 (pinch hitting). Only Twitch Sheffield had a good day, 2-4 with a home run.

The 26 and 47 Devil Rays are now 6 and 3 in their meetings this season with the Yankees. Ha!

Confidential to The Good Senator:

Wanna go back to the south?

www.javavino.com:
ALL SUMMER: * THUR - $18 bottomless (wine) glass

Here is their wine list.

Oh, and they sell rainforest friendly coffee, and have free wireless.

nowhere, is where I've been

Blogging opportunities and/or energy have been limited of late, as I've been sifting through 142 file boxes from dad's storage, going through document by document, determining what needs to kept, what needs to be shredded, and what can simply be recycled (the overwhelming majority so far.) It's a god-awful fucking miserable task, and the house looks like shit with boxes stacked everywhere until I complete it, or at least make a dent.

That said, it has provided the opportunity to listen to plenty of baseball games on XM, and play lots of online poker, both of which I can do easily enough while going through files (often all three simultaneously.)

On the note of baseball, I was struck this morning by the San Francisco Chronicle's listing of the top 52 paid players in baseball. Don't ask me why it's 52, other than it might have been neat to them to list 52 since four players are tied for that mark, at $9,000,000 per year, and three of them play for west coast teams: Bret Boone (Seattle), Troy Glaus (Arizona), Ryan Klesko (San Diego), and Greg Maddux (duh: Chicago Cubs).

More interesting about the list though is how clearly it demonstrates the hated Skankeez (oops, Yankees) monetary advantage: they have ten players in the top 52 (the top 39, actually). There are 30 teams in baseball. Do the math.

What is pleasing, though, is that of the 34-32, 3rd place in the Al East, five games behind Baltimore, arrogant, nasty Skankeez overpaid player list, only one of them, Alex Rodriguez, is actually on the AL leader list in more than one category (A-Rod for runs, RBI, and home runs), and only a grand total of three Yankees are on the AL leaders list (as published in the Chron) at all: Hideki Matsui, not on the list with his $8 million salary, is fourth for doubles with 18; Randy Johnson, 15th on the salary list at $15,419,815, is second in strikeouts at 91 (30 behind the AL leading Johan Santana of the Twins, who will earn $4,750,000 this year.) (What a long, nasty run-on sentence that was. So sue me. Or get your own damn blog.)

Let's see what the other Yankees on the overpaid player list are doing, shall we?

4. Derek "Arrogance" Jeter, SS, $19,600,000: hitting .299, 6 HR, 26 RBI, 44 runs, 8 SB
5. Mike "The 19 Million Dollar Moose" Mussina, SP, 19,000,000: 7-4, 3.89 ERA, 61 K, 21 BB, 1.34 WHIP
11. Kevin "Angry" Brown, SP, $15,714,286: 4-6, 5.48 ERA, 45 K, 15 BB, 1.61 WHIP
16. Jason "Steroids" Giambi, 1B, $13,428,571: hitting .242, 5 HR, 20 RBI, 19 runs, 0 SB
25. Bernie "Backup" Williams, CF, $12,357,143: hitting .238, 3 HR, 20 RBI, 16 runs, 1 SB
27. Gary "Twitch" Sheffield, RF, $11,496,689: hitting .300, 10 HR, 41 RBI, 40 runs, 6 SB
30. Jorge "Bare Hands" Posada, C, $11,000,000: hitting .297, 9 HR, 34 RBI, 27 runs, 1 SB
39 (tie). Mariano "Pitched 25 Innings This Year" Rivera, RP, $10,500,000: 3-2, 1.05 ERA, 29 K, 9 BB, 15 saves

What a bunch of overrated, overpaid trash. Only Rodriguez, Sheffield, Posada, and Rivera are even coming close to having respectable seasons, and there is no way I will ever accept that A-Rod, currently placing in only four major AL leader categories (he's third in walks), is worth $25.7 million a year. Not when he also lists above the fold in strikeouts (46) and caught-stealing (3, when he only has 6 successful steals???).

Confidential to TGS :

> 1) Did too, between refills at the airport. It's not my fault you were too
> drunk off your ass to care.

Alright, wiseass, first off, there is a not insignificant difference between "to care" and "to comprehend".

> I was a little surprised you didn't make a bigger deal of it, though.

Well, next time, don't sneak it in around snipey comments about the crazy woman sitting next to me.

> Your response was, if I recall correctly, "WHAAAT?????!!! JEEEEEZUS
> CHRIST, give me that!"

No comment.

> (insert lunge for beer here.)

Talk to my lawyer. And get your own.

> 2. I did go to CVS yesterday and purchased a bright yellow, perfect
> storm-esque poncho for my backpack. You thought the plastic socks looked lame.

HA! HA! HA! What is the hip internet abbreviation for this? Oh, I know: LOFL!!!

> p.p.s. Are ya gonna let me know what it is first?

Hmmmmmmmmm... NO!

See, buddy, it's like this: you disappointed me while in search of (ahem), and so, unless and until I get a detailed report of (ahem), you don't get to know SHIT. ¿claro?

Gale Force IPA!!!

Today we bottled our brew-on-premises beer, named Gale Force IPA. See, the recipe we used was called Trade Winds IPA, but, well, we ignored the specified hop bill (Goldings & Galena for bittering, Goldings for "Flavoring", Fuggles and Cascade for aroma, and more Fuggles and Cascade for dry hopping.) Instead, we used Centennial and Galena for bittering, Columbus and Centennial for flavoring, Centennial and Chinook for aroma, and Columbus and Cascade for dry hopping.

Now THAT'S a hop bill. Heh.

Oh, and we put in an intentionally excessive amount of malt extract and specialty grains.

Short story: it kicks ass. Good, good, good stuff. Which the faithful readers of this blog will have first access to, whether I already know you personally OR YOU ARE A LURKER. Just e-mail me, and we'll talk about beer transferance.

Reader Poll

So, how do you all like (or not) my actually using capital letters to begin my sentences, and for most proper nouns? I decided it's somewhat more readable this way.

And for you lurkers, I know you're out there. This question is directed at you, as an easy way to tell me who you are. Find my email address at the bottom of this page in the links section, take out all extraneous characters, and respond immediately. Or I'll be upset.

Confidential To The Good Senator:

1) You didn't tell me you were going to fucking florida.

2) But congrats on being smart enough to bring a raincoat. Did you know that raincoats are made for people who live in ridiculous, barely inhabitable areas, e.g., Seattle and Florida, that are actually completely waterproof? You know, the yellow rubber ones that make you look like an extra in the movie version of The Perfect Storm?

3) Have you noticed that our blogs increasingly are almost like an email exchange to one another, with occasional entertainment value for others?

p.s. You are NOT permitted to travel to Cuba until this storm passes. ¿claro?

p.p.s. I still haven't drunk your first present. But I might soon. Like tonight. yum. I'll let you know how it is.

a funny thing happened on my way back home

Well, besides my getting violently airsick on the AcK flight into Seattle. What happened is this: I had a bomber of Elysian Immortal (confidential to TGS: no, this WASN'T your present), that I decided to transfer to a gatorade bottle solely because it was less prone to breakage in my carry-on. Ahem.

Anyway, it just so happens that it was an orange flavor gatorade bottle, which, while it was a lovely color match, imparted a rather bizarre orange flavor. I can't say, however, that it was altogether unpleasant, and now, two days later, I'm drinking it out of the fridge and rather enjoying it, even though it's as flat as a pancake. It's quite a bit like Buffalo Bill's Orange Blossom Cream Ale, actually. (Notably, the Immortal is a pretty lame IPA to begin with, so the orange flavor really didn't have a meaningful hop profile to compete with.)

Ahhhhh. Guess I should put the Elysian Pumpkin ale in the fridge for tonight's drinking (and no, TGS, that wasn't it, either. So neehh.)

sitting at the desk

with the shiatsu chair massager on, a raspberry imperial stout in the glass, a poker freeroll starting in 35 minutes, and baseball on the XM radio. life is good.

back from ak

two more pleasant first class flights (no, we didn't pay for them, we used miles) on AcK Airlines. typically, the first flight (ANC-SEA) was late, for two entirely different sets of stated reasons. at check-in, and only after inquiring, i was told it was potentially delayed to accommodate late-arriving passengers on another flight(s). then at the gate, it was annouced to be late just so that mechanics could check one little thing. i was left to wonder if AcK Airlines employees are just told to make up whatever will sound best at the moment.

and actually, the end of the first flight wasn't so pleasant: i was hit with apparent airsickess for only the second time in my life. (the first being when A was taking, ahem, liberties with the two-seater Piper Cherokee he was flying me around in in Massachusetts.) that first time wasn't bad, however, since i followed the directions on the airsickness bag, which told me to focus on the farthest away stationaryt thing i could. within about ten seconds, i felt better. yesterday, however, i woke up from drowsing/napping, and felt the violent need to go to the bathroom. while sitting on the toilet in the ridiculously cramped forward lav ont he 737-400, i was suddently glad for how tiny it was, since i broke into a complete body sweat, and sort of collapsed against the wall. within a few minutes, they announced we were in our final descent into seattle, so i had to struggle out.

we arrived home via a ride from mom's brand spanking new hyundai elantra 5-door hatchback, and i read for a while, then promptly went to sleep, with directions to J to not wake me up in the morning. i slept soundly until 11 this morning, finished my book, and caught the last few innings of the excellent Cubs -- Blue Jays game.

the book, Fortunate's Rocks, by Anita Shreve, reminded me repeatedly of Dar Williams' lyrics from the unfortunately named song "Teenagers Kick Our Butts":
"We read junk novels on the plane..."
the book itself was fine, reasonably interesting, and an easy bit of intellectual junk food. i think Shreve was attempting to sympathetically discuss class consciousness at the turn of the 20th century, and in this she failed except for those who might be completely unable to do any bit of historical or class analysis. but it was an entertaining novel, albeit with an outrageously trite ending, which seems to be Shreve's forte. (i won't indulge myself in spoiling it, unless you want me to. e-mail me for details.)

beer and midnight sun

Saturday:
lunch at Bear Tooth: IPA
bus to airport, picked up rental car
drove to Valley
Regal Eagle in Eagle River looks nasty, changed, and so effectively closed (signs advertising Bud Select and Becks as beer specials)
lunch/early dinner at Great Brear in Wah-hah-sillo-ay: excellent Beary Strong (8% raspberry strong ale), decent Big Su Strong Ale (8%), excellent if slightly sweet Three Bruins Tripel, excellent Arskigger Scottish Ale (8%).
dinner & drinks at Moose's Tooth: '02 barleywine, then Cask IPA, then '03 barleywine

Sunday: samplers at Homer Brewing Co., bought half gallon soda bottle (best growler vessel EVER) of special Oatmeal Stout ($13 total)
lunch at Finn's pizza on Homer Spit, pint of Homber Brewing Company's Broken Birch Bitter (plus some Oatmeal Stout in the car)
dinner was picnic style in the car, cheese, onion, and mustard sandwiches from Safeway (plus a swig)

Monday: planned journey out to Midnight Sun BC to sample the wares, likely dinner at Moose's Tooth

Tuesday: likely lunch at Orzo, or, gosh, Glacier is right next door...
then flight home.

beer and airports

i would have blogged about it myself, but The Good Senator managed to describe our airport beer escapade with one of the best posts ever. so i don't have to.

wastin' away in Anchoraguaville

lookin' for, maaaahhyyy lost pint of beer.

it's been good to us. we've been to Glacier three times. the best thing is is a Cask IPA, and boy, is it a doosie. dry hopped with Crytsal and Amarillo, and it's a damn work of art. the standard IPA is also solidly drinkable, and the Jim Beam Bock is decent, but underwhelming.

Snow Goose has the same extraordinary views as always, though the beer hasn't been that amazing in two visits. the cask is Urban Wilderness (pale ale), and is pleasant, but just not in the same class as the Glacier cask.

Humpy Dumpy is pretty much nasty and smoky, as always, and the tap list just isn't that amazing for someone who lives in california; it's definitely not worth dealing with the repulsive smoke.

Humpy's sister bar, Sub Zero, is chic as all get out, and has a pretty extraordinary list of Belgians in bottles (i drank a lovely Roquefort 8, $12.50 for a well poured 333ml bottle in proper glassware). J had Chimay on tap, which was nice, and there were lovely free appetizers for First Friday, the downtown art opening. (their exhibit was the winners of the Anchorage Press' Post-It Note Art Contest.

we walked to Spenard and peered in on the Bear Tooth, but the movie availbility was weak, so we'll wait for beer until Moose's Tooth tomorrow, when we have a rental car.

speaking of tomorrow, we're thinking about waking up a little early for the farmer's market across the parking lot (i'll be on the lookout for nagoonberries), then picking up the car, after lunching at La Mex in Spenard (the downtown location is closed!). then we'll probably make a trip to the valley and Great Bear, and eyeball the ever-elusive Regal Eagle on the way back through Eagle River.

YUM!

anchoragua tomorrow!

game plan, in order of proximity to our hotel:
Glacier
Snow Goose
Sub Zero (a NON-SMOKING venture/affiliate of Da Hump)
Bear Tooth

then when we have a rental car, starting Saturday:

Moose's Tooth
Midnight Sun
Great Bear
Homer Brewing

oh, and maybe we'll do some hiking.

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more computer foolings

I successfully installed a DVD burning drive, in about fifteen minutes. The most difficult part was unplugging the power cord from the back of the drive in the cramped space of the mini-tower. Now I can easily backup the digital photography that has been occupying HUGE amounts of space on the 80gb hard drive.

XM satellite radio: how did I live without it?

I finally succumbed because of the baseball: every team, every game, all season. And I'm loving that. Increasingly, though, I'm enjoying the regular radio programming. Example: Ethel, channel 47, is one of the 100% commerical free music stations. Their last five songs: two Modest Mouse songs, then a Pogues song, then a random Sublime song, and now Primus. Fun stuff.

Jose Canseco's Big Shitty Book: Juiced

I just finished reading Canseco's 284 pages of whining, self ego-stroking, tell-all babble. What a piece of crap. I shouldn't even have bothered, and in fact, had no plans to bother, until I saw it sitting on the new arrival shelf at our local public library. I did have to snicker at his notes that he didn't care what people thought of his book, as long, of course, as they paid full price for it. Ha, ha.

He spends most of the book on a central theme: I'm a human, everyone is a human, but boy, am I just about the greatest human to ever grace baseball with my presence. He whines a lot about his performance not being what it could have been, had he not been injured, but he also whines about people saying he was always injured. He insists that steroids, properly administered (he refers to himself as The Godfather of Steroids, also The Chemist), don't increase risk of injury. So how does he explain his persistent injuries? Well, he doesn't: he mentions some of them, like the three back surgeries, but insists that steroids where why he recovered. He pooh-poohs, without any explanation or stated basis, the idea that Ken Caminiti and Lyle Alzado's deaths were steroid related. His only basis for this is a sort of contorted reverse logic: because there was no scientific proof that steroids caused either death, therefore, it is clear that they did not. Hmmmm...

Canseco repeatedly claims he was framed, then railroaded into taking a plea stemming from a barfight where he claims he didn't preally hurt anyone and acted only in self defense by putting his hand out to motion to someone to stop. (Context: he also mentions that he holds black belts in three martial arts: Japanese Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and Muay Thai.)

He insists that his probation violation for failing a drug test was clearly the result of someone swapping urine samples with him. This, at the end of a 284 page book extolling the magical virtues of steroids, and The Chemist's proud use of them?

He insists that he is not only the nicest guy ever, but that he is also not a domestic abuser. This despite admitting that during one argument where his then wife was sitting in the front seat, he reached in front to grab her by the hair to get her attention? That in another incident with another wife, he and she were driving down the road fighting and screaming in SEPARATE cars, and, oops, wouldn't you know it? Their darn cars collided.

He talks about being a fun-loving, easy-going, cuddly guy, then explains away his arrests for carrying loaded firearms on hospital campuses, beating his wives, and just happening to have a machine gun nicknamed "Street Sweeper" in his closet that he was going he kill himself with (he put the gun down on his bed, and decided to cuddle his infant daughter instead. It was left unclear whether he put away the machine gun before cuddling with his daughter.)

Canseco repeatedly refers to his own superhuman abilities, and how amazing he was, and at one point, says he was the greatest player in baseball. He's especially proud of being the AL Rookie of the Year in 1986, and of his 40/40 season: 42 home runs, 40 stolen bases, resulting in his being voted the unanimous American League MVP in 1988. Yes, this is something to be proud of.

But the greatest player in baseball? The most amazing physical speciem to grace the game? A poster boy for why steroid use is so great for professional athletes? HUH? Let's review his somewhat checkered and inconsistent career: he led the league in home runs only twice: 1988 (42) and 1991 (44). He hit over 40 home runs only one other time: 1998 (46), which placed him third on the league.

What else did he do in 1998, you might wonder? He led the league in strikeouts, with 159. (He struck out 1942 times in his career, in 7057 at-bats.) His career batting average is .266; in only three seasons out of seventeen did he hit over .300, and one of these, 1985, with a .302 batting average, he only had 96 at-bats in 29 games.

Canseco go on and on about his running abilities, especially for someone so large and muscular: for example, he brags repeatedly about running the 40 yard dash in 4.3 seconds, and at one point, makes the preposterous claim to have run it in 3.9 seconds (page 231). After those 40 steals in 1988, his next highest total was 29 in 1998, then 26 in 1991, and then only four other seasons did he have more then 10 steals. He was only in the top ten for steals one time, in 1988, when his 40 steals placed him fourth in the league.

How ridiculous are his claims about running? Well, for starters, he only lists his times in the 40 yard dash, a distance/event that the IAAF, track & field's international governing body, doesn't even recognize or record (The shortest distance the IAAF recognizes for world-record purposes is an indoor 50 meters, or about 54 yards, per this excellent article on the official site of the U.S. Olympic Team.) That article goes on to debunk the mythic 40 yard times that many NFL players put up.

In my research, I can't find ANY serious claims that ANYONE has EVER run the 40 yard dash faster than 4.15 seconds, even with extremely questionable timing methodology.

Oh, apparently, Canseco is explaining his ridiculous 3.9 second claim as a typo.

Even more fun/ny: in this article he's quoted as saying he ran a 3.39 second 40-yard dash!

This isn't to say that Canseco's book is entirely without merit: it did bring the topic of cheating through steroids to the attention of the public and the snoozing congress, it also speaks to the undeniable truth of racism in baseball. Sadly, though, Canseco is such a fucking ridiculous clown that the couple of important messages he has are lost in the fog.

why computers really aren't such a great thing:

1) because they stress me out.
2) because I foolishly rely on CNET to be worth a damn.

I agreed, on the suggestion of Dr. Smartypants, to install an additional RAM module in our desktop machine (a somewhat clunky emachines T2484 that is a couple of years old.)

We were at Fry's at this ridiculous sale on May 20, which included such super buys as internal DVD burners for $39, with no fucking irritating rebates. We also got a 512mb DIMM RAM module for $49, with a $30 mail-in fucking irritating rebate.

So after looking at the RAM for a little over a week, I finally decided to try to install it, since I am butting up on Fry's fucking irritating 14 day return policy on computer equipment.

So I installed popped open the case (ignoring the emachines tamper sticker, since we're well past the warranty period anyway), installed the memory module in the empty slot in what seemed to be a process far too easy to be true, closed the case, and booted up. You can guess the pre-lunchline: it was, indeed, far too easy to be true.

The machine started up fine, but didn't recognize the new memory. (Still only showing 256mb.) So I cracked it open again, and tried re-seating the memory: still no recognition. Then I did the minimal troubleshooting that CNET's SHITTY guide to installing new memory recommends: I unseated and re-seated both the existing and the new memory modules. (Yes, all of you wiseasses out there: I did carefully ground myself EVERY time before I touched either of the memory modules.)

Crisis ensues: now the machine won't boot up at all, and instead emits a LOUD, prolonged (two to three seconds) beeping noise on startup. Sigh. I resign myself the the new memory being defective, crack open the case again, and pluck it out.

Crisis now at catastrophe level: same result, even with the existing, factory installed memory the only memory in the machine. I congratulate myself for backing up all of the most critical data before engaging in this fool's errand, and make a crisis phone call to my trusty computer expert, Mister .'.

I leave Mister .'. a whiny voicemail, and decide to go research my problem a little further. Well, it only takes me about twenty seconds of reading a competent guide on installing memory, on crucial.com, to come across this critical point, clearly expressed in two different places:

Push Hard
When the ejector pins snap up around the module your memory is installed.
...
Use your thumbs to press the module into the slot. Press hard! It takes about 20 lb of pressure to get the module properly inserted in the slot. When you hear a "click" and both side ejector clips snap up around the module, you know it is installed correctly.

Indeed, I've now seen elsewhere on the web that it can take up to 40 pounds of pressure to properly install RAM modules, and most sites recommend 20 to 30 pounds.

To finish this already boring story: I cracked open the case for baout the tenth time, and yeah, when you really apply pressure, they seat fine, and work great. The computer is now veritably clipping along with 768mb of RAM. Hoo-ha!

Dear Day's Inn:

Submitted via their online form, regarding their hotel on West Diversey in Chicago:

Hello, I just thought I'd let you know that because your 800 phone staff declined to match or even come close to a rate from your own website ($63/night), I cancelled my previously booked reservation ($79.95/night, reservation ########), and booked a better rate at another hotel. So much for "Unbeatable Rates"!

pi

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679

who doesn't love to calculate pi to 32 million digits? i only did two million, which took one minute, fifty-nine seconds.

i'm also happy to report that my 700m has no dead pixels!

beer and feet

today S and i bottled the Downspout Stout (unoriginal, i know, but i had to pick something to start calling it. suggestions are invited.) it's really more like a porter, FULL of coffee flavor, slightly sweet, and tiny hints of roastiness. yum. yield was almost four gallons, so volunteers are needed for drinking!

in other news, anyone know these feet? they should be returned to their owner ASAP, as they seem in serious need of help of some kind. please advise.

hotel reds

sent today:

[dangr-us letterhead here]

Red Lion Hotel
Salt Lake Downtown
161 West 600 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84101

Red Lion and WestCoast Hotels
Business Office
W. 201 North River Dr.
Spokane, WA 99201

6 May 2005

To whom it may concern:

I recently had the opportunity to stay at the Red Lion, Salt Lake Downtown, April 29 - May 2. The staff was excellent, the location ideal, the views of the Wasatch Range extraordinary, the free WiFi convenient, and the rooms comfortable: I will probably never return. Most things in the hotel were as good as they could be, and for this class of hotel, quite excellent. However, the pervasive cigarette smoke in my two different rooms was intolerable, and exacerbated my asthma for much of my three day stay in Salt Lake City.

Some background: in advance of my stay, I called and requested a non-smoking room. I was told this would not be a problem, since the hotel was at 40% capacity for that weekend, and I would not be assigned a smoking room unless I requested one. On arrival at the hotel, I requested a room with a view of the mountains to the east, if there was something available that was non-smoking. The desk employee, who was extremely friendly and efficient, gave me a room in the main tower, on the top floor (9th) in that building, with a breathtaking view of the mountains. I was delighted. I settled in to prepare for my business the next day, and then went for a walk around Salt Lake City.

On my return, I noticed the room seemed quite smoky. I was surprised by this, since the hallway itself wasn’t smoky. I discovered the primary source of the smoke was the vent above the mini-bar. I opened the sliding doors to the small balcony to air the room out, and hoped it was a fluke. On my return from dinner, it was again quite smoky, but leaving the balcony doors wide open seemed to let enough air in to mitigate it. This was a workable solution until it became clear that cigarette smoke was billowing in from other balconies: apparently, people were considerate enough to not smoke in non-smoking rooms, but not considerate enough to realize that the balconies were very much in a shared airspace.

It was late, and I was tired. I decided to just close the balcony door and deal with the stale, foul smelling smoke coming in through the ventilation system, rather than invite plumes of fresh, foul-smelling smoke from as many as a dozen other balconies. The next afternoon, my business partner arrived, and immediately on entering the room, asked me if I had a smoking room. I agreed it was disgusting, and went down to the front desk to see about changing it. The front desk was busy with arriving guests at the time, so we went to our business appointments and dinner, and I went back to the front desk that night. The woman at the desk was friendly and understanding about it, though she expressed surprise that smoke would be a problem, since the 9th floor was, according to her, an entirely non-smoking floor. Nevertheless, she happily agreed to move me to another room, and within minutes, I was moving my things to the sixth floor of the main (north) tower.

While this room initially seemed better, it quickly became clear that the entire hotel was going to be a problem for smoke, since people on nearly every floor were on their balconies, at one time or another, smoking. In other words, I could not leave my balcony doors open to get the delightful fresh air; instead, all I would get was the foul, noxious cigarette smoke of other guests. Indeed, my next-door neighbor was smoking on his balcony, as were at least ten other people on various floors around me.

I had another couple of very minor complaints: the pool and spa, advertised on the hotel’s web page, was (apparently perpetually) in a state of remodeling. The tub in the second room backed up to several inches of standing water during my shower on Sunday morning. But in truth, these were minor irritations, the likes of which can, and do, occur at any hotel. The smoke being everywhere, however, was the worst I’ve ever experienced at any hotel in the United States.

Some of it probably has to do with the hotel design: the nice curve which allows for beautiful views for so many rooms also means that the airspace is more shared than might be the case on a flat wall. I do understand that, as a business, you need to provide accommodations which are acceptable to all of your guests. I further understand that this means smokers and non-smokers. However, it seems that there are a couple of things you could do to lessen the problem: first, it’s crazy to have non-smoking floors above smoking floors, both for ventilation purposes, and the outside balconies. If smoking was explicitly prohibited (and accordingly signed) in the rooms and on the balconies of all lower floors, say, first through fifth, then it could be allowed on the upper floors, six through nine, with much less impact. Better still would be to prohibit smoking (and post corresponding signage) on all of the outside balconies on at least one of the (five? six?) sides of the hotel. Ideal, though admittedly a significant undertaking, would be to completely prohibit, and sign, smoking in all areas of one of the two buildings (either the north or the south building.)

I am not telling you how to run your business, any more than I would expect you to tell me how to run mine. Rather, I only offer these suggestions as workable ways to make your hotel vastly more pleasant to guests, who, like myself, are very sensitive to smoke, as well as those who simply don’t like it, and don’t want to expose themselves or their families to it.

In the next six to eight months, I expect to return to downtown Salt Lake City for business between ten and fifteen times. Were it not for the smoke problem, I expect that I would return regularly to the Red Lion, as I was genuinely delighted with most other aspects of the hotel, especially the staff, location, and scenic view. Unfortunately, if the smoke problem remains as it is, I will not return, nor will I recommend it to friends and colleagues.

I look forward to your response(s), by return letter or e-mail, and thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,
[dangr]

beer! (what else?)

was at brew it up! both last night and today. the Csar's Tar (imperial stout) and Skydiver Barleywine were both outstanding, and there is an excellent Belgian red style called Arik the Red on, also wonderful.

today i went down at happy hour with J, with the explicit mission of scheduling some brew-on-premises lovin', and we are set. on 5/20, we'll be brewing a modified version version of their Trade Winds IPA, with a fully customized hop bill, full of such lovelies as Galena, Columbus, Centennial, and Chinook. yum! (screw the Goldings, Fuggles, and Cascade.)

salt lake goodness!

i'm pleasantly delighted with SLC. the views are shockingly anchoragua-like (especially vivid since The Good Senator joined me this weekend, and we couldn't stop commenting how much it was like the Alpenglow of Moose's Tooth fame.)

we drank a whole lot of beer at several brewpubs (links to reviews likely to follow), i went to a very pleasant AAA baseball game friday night, and we basically had a good time.

we had to move hotel rooms, since all the fucking rude assholes blew their smoke into our room, via vents and balconies. fortunately, both rooms shared a SPECTACULAR view of the mountains to the east. the views in SLC, generally, are breathtaking. i'm falling in love with this city, quickly, and surprisingly. it's similar to colorado springs, in that when you drive around a corner, you're just blasted with amazing mountain views. in the springs, though, you only get them to the west. in SLC, you get them to the north, and east, and south, and southwest, and northwest. and due west, you ask? the great salt lake. (stinky, but pretty.)

confidential to all the disgusting women at trolley square: big stupid tall ugly heels with jeans? you're not hot. you're just foul. go crawl back under your rock.

the house hunt continues in earnest: looking like we really want to stick to the central city/downtown/Liberty Park area.

confidential to all the monied yuppies who are driving the housing prices up in Sugarhouse: you're lame. the neighborhood is sterile and boring (compared to many other areas of SLC), it borders on the freeway and a disgusting strip mall, and it's about as far away from SLC as you can get and still be in SLC. hot tip: just go to Sandy, buy a seven bedroom house, a Volvo turbowagon, a purebred golden retriever, and overpriced, anorexia-inducing gymnastics lessons, and get it over with.

overall: very entertaining, fun, laugh-filled, successful trip. (the empties are clanking against one another on the desk as i type this.)

ultra marathons

reading the newspaper this morning, i ran across yet another article on Dean Karnazes, the ultra runner whose recent book, Ultramarathon Man , is just hanging on to the NY Times Best-seller list for Hardcover Non-Fiction, at #34.

i've read lots of coverage of Karnazes recently, who without question is super badass. his goal has long been to run a 300 mile ultra marathon without sleeping. this seemed a pretty good goal, and he's attempted it a couple of times at least, once running 262 miles.

well, this seemed pretty damn impressive to me, until this morning when i read, for this first time, about Pam Reed, an ultra runner from Tucson who not only has already run 300 miles , but also has won and set a women's course record in what is widely considered one of, if not the, most difficult running race in existence, the Badwater Ultramarathon , a 135-mile run from Badwater, Death Valley, the lowest point in the country, to the slopes of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48.

without taking anything away from Karnazes, who is certainly amazing (and a freak, like Reed, and like all ultra runners) it's hard for me to understand why i have heard minimally about Reed. is it that Reed hasn't written a book and gone on a 40 city promotional tour for it (i don't think so: i'd read all about him before the book and the tour). or is it gender?

bank troubles

bad day in bankland: today I was notified that my online account access has been suspended for Wells Fargo. and Regions Bank. (but they kindly offered to let me unlock my online access by inputting my ATM card number and PIN.) and UnionPlanters Bank. and M&I Marshall & Ilsley Bank. (where the hell is that? looks like the UK.) and "Bank of the West" wrote on behalf of WaMu (how nice of them!).

and to top it all off, I can't use ebay anymore because i've used false or misleading contact information. (ebay was so worked up about it that they notified me twice.) dang.

who falls for this shit? apparently enough people to make it worth the time of the scammers, since these seem to be increasing every day.

thoughts on the new papa: Pope Benedict XVI, a.k.a. God's Rottweiler; Nazi Youth and multi-talented Nazi soldier

So, let's review:

• He was a Nazi.
  
• BUT BUT BUT! he deserted.
  
• Well, yeah: in late April or early May 1945. For the historically deficient among us, the Germans surrendered on May 8, 1945. Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945.
  
• Ratzinger was in Hitler's Youth, but got the benefits thereof (not being jailed, persecuted, or killed for refusal to pariticpate) without most of the obligations (attending regular meetings) when the first of many patrons, a Nazi mathematics professor, arranged for him to receive tutition scholarship payments without having to attend meetings and gatherings.
  
• Then Ratzinger served in the flak, or German anti-aircraft corps, guarding a BMW engine aircraft plant.
  
• Then they went a couple of other places: Unterföhring, northwest of Munich, and briefly to Innsbruck.
  
• From Innsbruck, his unit went to Gilching to protect a jet fighter base and to attack allied bombers as they massed to begin their runs towards Munich. At Gilching, Ratzinger served in telephone communications.
  
• After his unit was released from the flak, he was drafted and entered the Reichsarbeitdienst (RAD). Apparently Ratzinger's main duties were setting up setting up anti-tank defenses (read: landmines and minefields) to prepare for the expected Russian/Allied invasion; however, the RAD has such varied duties as supplying frontline troops with food and ammunition, repairing damaged roads, constructing and repairing airstrips, constructing coastal fortifications (including the Atlantic Wall), manned fortifications, and helping to guard vital locations and prisoners.
  
• Non-combat roles included training as anti-aircraft units and deploy,emt as RAD Flak batteries. (Sound familiar?)
  
• Several RAD units also saw ground combat on the eastern front as infantry. As the German defenses crumbled toward the end fo the war, more and more RAD were committed to direct combat. In the final months of the war the RAD formed 6 major frontline units, which saw heavy fighting.
  
• Ratzinger was released from the RAD, and promptly was drafted into, and entered, an infantry unit. He was in the infantry until his desertion.
  

BUT BUT BUT no sweat: even potential critics are falling over themselves to apologize for his Nazi past: "Membership in the Hitler Youth doesn't disqualify someone from being Pope," Efraim Zuroff (a 'Nazi hunter' and director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.)

Well, okay: but how about Hitler's Youth, then a Nazi anti-aircraft unit, then a Nazi laying minefields against an Allied invasion, then being in the Nazi infantry?

Planned next installment: from Nazi youth, to hypocritical elitist intelligentsia. (Fun fact: Ratzinger speaks ten languages, including German, Italian, fluent French, English, and ecclesiastical Latin. Fun sidenote: Ratzinger, in the heady days of Vatican II, when he was considered a liberal, once denounced the use of Latin at Mass as archaic, but now he digs it, and reportedly plans to give his first homily in Latin.)

baseball!

i love it. it's the only sport i bother to follow, and it defines early summer days like this: bright, sunny, 80 degrees, mid-april, with the A's vs. Angels game on the radio, 0-0 in the bottom of the 8th inning, runners first and third.

i went with E & K to the A's home opener last monday night, to see them get their ass handed to them by the Blue Jays (10-3.) the game was a lot of fun to go to, despite the abysmal fans we were sitting around in the cheap ($10) seats. the most represented population seemed to be stupid little hoodlums, who clearly didn't know anything about baseball other than it provides tough gangsta caps for them to color in all black with sharpies and wear backwards. several stupid, rude assholes in our section smoked constantly despite people asking them nicely not to (which would have merely complied with the rules at Oakland Coliseum, oops I mean Network Associates Coliseum, oops I mean McAfee Coliseum.) and for that matter, the Coliseum's smoking policy results in the entire View Level (read: cheap seats) concourse being like a pub. oh, actually, you can go to any pub in Oakland and revel in the smoke-free atmosphere since 1995. i think i'll send the Coliseum a nastygram.

homebrew: Decomposed Saint IPA! (and Terri Schiavo)

S and i bottled the homebrew yesterday. (well, actually, i did most of the bottling, as he had to drive his kid back to the kid's mom's house.) it turned out sweet and strong, with an unnaturally high final gravity (1.026). notably, though, we didn't put in nearly enough plain water to the primary fermentation, so this probably contributed to bizarrely high gravity readings.

about a week ago, the time had come to name the beer. i wanted to name it something pretty messed up (those who know me can email me for the story). S balked a little, and we discussed a story he says he saw in the news about the pope, that if his body lies in the grave for three years, and they dig it up, and it isn't decomposed, then it's evidence of his being a saint. so we named the beer Decomposed Saint IPA. (if you can believe it, this was a little less spooky than what i wanted to name it.)

here's some information on this idea of el papa and other would-be saints defying the laws of science and nature:

slate.msn.com/id/2116395/:
"If John Paul II is eventually canonized, he might not have to worry. Some Catholics believe that the bodies of saints are "incorruptible." That is, they never decompose."

that Slate page links to a seriously bizarre page about "Incorrupt Bodies of the Saints", which links to another bizarre, as well as silly and longwinded, rant, found by clicking on the "Terri Schiavo, Saint?" link. i don't even want to provide hyperlinks here, since i don't want to make it easy for them to track back to my blog. i also don't want to be directly responsible for your having wasted four to six minutes of your life reading that crap that you'll never get back.

all digital wedding photography!

a couple of weeks ago, i photographed a wedding. (entirely in digital, which i think is the way the entire industry is doing to go in the next few years. i'm a little shocked it isn't already going that way.) i can do it MUCH cheaper than traditional photography with the lack of overhead from film, processing, and a darkroom, and so i can pass that on to the client. for example, this last weding ended up costing the clients $568, for almost six hours of photography, and around 2,000 images. (no, that's not a typo: 2,000.)

i just finished the basic post-processing (separating wheat from chaff, red-eye reduction, selecting certain photos i think are particularly interesting, etc.) whew.

a little more for tonight, and then some sleep!

p.s. if you or someone you know is getting married, i'll travel to interesting places for no or little additional cost! (no additional cost if i can justify the travel as a fun vacation for me, and a little additional cost if it's an exceptionally expensive place to find accommodations.)

recent beer reviews!

under my (other) nom de plume, Warmstorage, i review lots of beers and brewpubs on a couple of different sites. of late, i've mostly been reviewing on beeradvocate.com. a few recent reviews:

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company (aka The Mothership), Chico, CA (reviewed : http://www.beeradvocate.com/beerfly/user_reviews/140/
Beermann's Beerwerks, Lincoln, CA: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beerfly/user_reviews/8817

(both Sierra Nevada and Beermann's Beerwerks were visited, imbibed with, and reviewed cojointly with The Good Senator .)

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/rate_results/140/2671/latest/0/warmstorage/
Sierra Nevada Best Bitter Ale: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/rate_results/140/8169/latest/0/warmstorage/
Anchor Brewing, 1997 Our Special Ale (Christmas Ale): http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/rate_results/28/2880/latest/0/warmstorage/

homebrew!

i'm fretting quite extensively about the IPA that S and i homebrewed on Friday (he took the day off of work to brew: there's a man who has his priorities straight!)

it was the first batch i've brewed in a long time, and the first time he's ever brewed. more worrisome to me, i've always brewed with other, more experienced brewers, who were in charge of when the inevitable existential and logistical crises developed. being the lead brewer was pretty nerveracking.

good things:

• we got it all brewed, without totally destroying the kitchen in the rented home he just moved in to about two weeks ago.
  
• it's the correct general color
  
• it started with a VERY vigorous fermenting action
  
• i have yet to be made sick by it

bad things:

• i dropped the carboy (thankfully, we spent the extra $20 for a high tech, plastic carboy!) while aerating it, spilling probably a half gallon.
  
• the disinterested guy that sold us the homebrew equipment didn't bother to point out that the high tech plastic carboy needed a smaller rubber cork for the airlock, so the homebrew spent its first 24 hours of existence with ziploc bag taped over it for an airlock.
  
• we only had a 15.1 liter pot to brew in, so we were volume limited, and i didn't add enough plain water to the fermenter, so we only have about 3.5 gallons fermenting in the 5 gallon carboy.
  
• the fermenting action has dropped dramatically, leading me to worry incessantly.
  
• S's house is FUCKING COLD, so we've had to turn on the heat to keep the fermenting temperature warm enough, which makes the front living room area of his house unbearably hot. so i closed all the vents in the house outside of the room where it's fermenting.

i'm toying with re-pitching yeast tomorrow if we don't get some fermentation action.

in other notes, The Good Senator is in town, and we spent most of yesterday brewpub touring. links to reviews to be posted soon.

back to worrying about the homebrew, and reading Papazian's The Complete Joy of Homebrewing.

annualcreditreport.com

for fun, i used the new FACT Act free credit report service last night, to see what random things have popped up on my credit reporting since i last checked it, about a year and a half ago. it's a decent service, although, bizarrely, i failed the security check questions asked by Trans-Union and Equifax, and so was only able to view my Experian report.

imagine my surprise to see a collection account for an old T-Mobile bill ($46) that i already paid off once for nuisance value. i'm on hold now with the fucking new collection company, and since i can't figure out what bank i wrote the check on (it was about two years, five addresses, and several banks ago) i guess i'm going to pay it off AGAIN for nuisance value. sure makes me mad, but it makes me even angrier to have it marring my otherwise good credit.

this time i'm going to CC the letter to the president of T-Mobile and see if I can get them to confirm that it was, in fact, paid off this time.

i know these rude, curt, terse bottom feeders are really just regular people doing their shitty, barely above minimum wage jobs (and in fucking florida, at that.) i know this. . .
but fuck, can't you just give me an address to send a check to for $46.39, so i can pay this fucking thing off? why do you need to transfer me to two different people, and then call me back? why?

back in saccaminnow
back now in the house that i grew up in. it's a little odd, and a little comforting. i've been running, and riding, and walking a lot (the upside of not having our car here: J is driving it up later this week from san diego.)

while there are certainly parts of san diego that i'll miss (yes, it's pleasant to go look out over the ocean), there are so many that i won't: traffic; image-obsessed, plastic people; absurd cost of living; the right wing reactionism. it was awfully nice to walk around in december and january in shorts and short sleeves, though much of san diego's supposedly "perfect" weather is, as noted by me before, just smart (and untrue) marketing.

a series of physical and gastrointestinal ailments, and two bad colds in two weeks, have left me way off of marathon training pace, and doubting whether i'll be in good shape for a may marathon. since the travel schedule only calms somewhat in the next few months, i'm likely to reschedule training and a marathon for Utah, when i can do it right. in the meantime, the likely plan is to keep exercising and stay in good shape, so that i'm not starting over when i do begin active marathon training again.

plans on the middle burners include a bike tour (with J) down the Oregon and northern California coast, seeing how many brewpubs and wineries (if not vineyards) we can hit without going very far out of our way. i just bought the brand new edition of Bicycling the Pacific Coast by Vicky Spring and Tom Kirkendall, the acknowledged bible of this bike route, which i also used when i rode from Saccaminnow to San Diego in spring 1995.

that ride was on the cheap, and totally self-supported: i was loaded down with a sleeping bag, several changes of clothes, etc. this time around, our older and creakier bodies are requesting that we do it much less on the cheap. while we're certainly not planning a true "credit card tour", we are going to stay mostly/entirely in places with roofs, and not carry pounds and pounds of food, and find a laundromat a couple of times along the way, so that we can mostly carry extra socks and underwear, and not multiple changes of clothing. i expect it to be a hell of a lot more pleasant ride, and probably every bit as scenic.

now i'm going to go strip, sand, and stain five pieces of furniture. it's nice to have a garage and driveway to work with again!

back in saccaminnow

back now in the house that i grew up in. it's a little odd, and a little comforting. i've been running, and riding, and walking a lot (the upside of not having our car here: J is driving it up later this week from san diego.)

while there are certainly parts of san diego that i'll miss (yes, it's pleasant to go look out over the ocean), there are so many that i won't: traffic; image-obsessed, plastic people; absurd cost of living; the right wing reactionism. it was awfully nice to walk around in december and january in shorts and short sleeves, though much of san diego's supposedly "perfect" weather is, as noted by me before, just smart (and untrue) marketing.

a series of physical and gastrointestinal ailments, and two bad colds in two weeks, have left me way off of marathon training pace, and doubting whether i'll be in good shape for a may marathon. since the travel schedule only calms somewhat in the next few months, i'm likely to reschedule training and a marathon for Utah, when i can do it right. in the meantime, the likely plan is to keep exercising and stay in good shape, so that i'm not starting over when i do begin active marathon training again.

plans on the middle burners include a bike tour (with J) down the Oregon and northern California coast, seeing how many brewpubs and wineries (if not vineyards) we can hit without going very far out of our way. i just bought the brand new edition of Bicycling the Pacific Coast by Vicky Spring and Tom Kirkendall, the acknowledged bible of this bike route, which i also used when i rode from Saccaminnow to San Diego in spring 1995.

that ride was on the cheap, and totally self-supported: i was loaded down with a sleeping bag, several changes of clothes, etc. this time around, our older and creakier bodies are requesting that we do it much less on the cheap. while we're certainly not planning a true "credit card tour", we are going to stay mostly/entirely in places with roofs, and not carry pounds and pounds of food, and find a laundromat a couple of times along the way, so that we can mostly carry extra socks and underwear, and not multiple changes of clothing. i expect it to be a hell of a lot more pleasant ride, and probably every bit as scenic.

now i'm going to go strip, sand, and stain five pieces of furniture. it's nice to have a garage and driveway to work with again!

woo-hoo

big times in surf town. the rain is pounding down so hard the building might fall down, according to our very sociable downstairs neighbor.

here's what i just wrote to a friend regarding the death my my father:

thanks for the kind notes about my dad. it's tough, though sometimes not in the ways i'd expect it to be. most of the difficulty is in the middle of dealing with the small details (closing down his business) and then being randomly hit by a chunk of grief.

ran a 5k of fartleks tonight; felt good, and feel great, despite a nagging cold. started with a new pair of running shoes to alternate with, the better for avoiding injuries.

j and i just got back from presenting at a conference in DC: lots of big times, lots of big drinking, until, after three days in a row of brewpub hopping, i had to slow down. the cold initially manifested as just beign sick and hoarse as hell after a night in brewpubs (reviews possibly to come). the conference was fine: j's poster was unquestionably the most visually attractive, and one of the most substantively interesting, around. of course, it didn't win the judging contest, since it was way out of the realm of what the boring pencildicks wanted. ditto our joint presentation.

trying to catch up on some email now. "unread" emails (i.e., re-marked as unread by me so that i'll follow up on them): 90. too many.

next week, begin move to saccaminnow. and leave things in boxes and crates, to stay prepared for the june move to SLC. i just love to move.

consumer protection...

today i got a $20 gift card and apology from the supermarket where i bought the expired medication so many months ago. (this is now on top of the return of the purchase price i received from the drug manufacturer.) yay for writing letters and following them up!

combat style photography

helped a friend tonight by driving all over the san diego coastal areas, and taking pictures of all of the various signs that welcome you into different communities. maybe i'll post some soon. maybe not.

had somewhat major dental work this morning: a tooth ground down, and a temporary crown created, with the permanent to follow in two weeks.

half marathon

i ran one today, the San Dieguito Half Marathon, in 2:07:00. while not a particularly impressive time, it was better than i expected, and the course was more difficult than i expected, too: it was FULL of hills.

more importantly, i felt good running it: with the exception of some calf pain (made much easier tonight by a lovely massage from E), i left with no physical ailments besides chafed, bleeding nipples (from the constant rubbing of my wet shirt on the skin.) you needed to know that, right?

next time i'll put band-aids on them.

feeling pretty good, otherwise. we leave for DC on wednesday at the unspeakable flight hour of 0640, which is a little bit of a joke at SAN, since flights are prevented from powering up until 0630, meaning all the first flights of the day stack up and leave late.

we're co-presenting at a conference, and J, brilliant mind that she is, is also giving a poster. hoping to see gary for bourbon, and hang out with J's family. should be fun, and it'll be nice to be done with travel for a little while.

marathon training (semi-)progress

friday 2/4: ran a 5k, fast walked another 5k
saturday 2/5: rested me weary bones
sunday 2/6: ran five miles, fast walked another mile

random notes:
friday: despite not having run in quite a while, breathing was fantastic: i think listening to music helps, so i can't hear my own breathing, and as a result don't think about it.
saturday: felt fine about not running.
sunday: got to the gym just in time to avoid the post-superbowl rush (which was wicked: within 15 minutes, nearly every treadmill filled up).
sunday: felt GREAT running despite starting out with tight quads.

Why the hell ain't you blogging, anyhoo?

well, uhhhh... 'cause i'm lazy, and busy; and tired, and my heart is sick and sad. (bonus points, payable in the form of a microbrew, for the first person to email me who can place that reference.)

so, see, it's like this: my dad died on December 19, 2004. it's been a busy, and hard, and sad time since then. and my sister in law had serious health issues, and so did one of my brothers. and i found out that i'm moving to Utah (Salt Lake City, to be more precise) in late june or early july. and i did one federal criminal trial, and acted as stand-by counsel for two more people going pro se, and helped about ten other amazingly courageous, passionate, strong, principled, beautiful people as they wound their way through the federal criminal "justice" system, and while most got three month sentences in federal prison for non violent acts of civil disobedience.

and then i flew back to san dee-egg-e, and immediately drove to sacca-minnow, and drove around looking to buy a car, and then (sadly) ended out happy but highly inconvenient carless time by purchasing a lovely little 2000 hyundai elantra station wagon with 42k miles.

and then i drove back to san dee-egg-e, and started running again, and made a wicked three-bean vegan chili, and drank a bunch of delicious beer, and prepared a presentation on public health law, which immediately after i finish, i need to start a conference presentation on implementing experiential education methodologies in teaching preventive medicine.

busy bee!

marathon training (non) progress
i haven't been able to run or jog or even turn my head fast for about a week, since i pulled or strained a muscle in my neck pretty painfully, and i haven't been willing to risk aggravating it.

sitting on planes and in airports waiting for the idiots at SFO air traffic control to let my people go didn't help, either: after several days of basically feeling better, it felt as bad as ever when i arrived in Saccaminnow friday evening, six hours behind schedule.

moan, piss, moan.

i was writing this to the good senator:

ha! ha!
i LOVE it when you start out an email with:

> JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!

the reason itself was fairly uninteresting, but the lead in was a beauty.

tonight i meant to come over a couple of hours ago to the internet cafe where the free wifi regularly drops at the most critical moments and gobbles up my emails. but then the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions was on television, and so, of course, i HAD to watch it until the end.

a further complication arose when, playing a silly little free word scramble game on my laptop, i was running down the battery, and this cafe only has ONE working outlet for laptops, and only within reach of ONE table at that, so i was potentially SCREWED given that my mom's house DOESN'T HAVE POLARIZED (3 prong) outlets in most of the house. jesus christ, welcome to the late 1970's!

all is well, though, since i got the one good table, and not only that, got a free shot of decaf espresso in my decaf coffee, 'cause the really nice barista felt bad when the airpot of decaf killed at the "room for cream" stage.

oh shit. i think i need to post this whole piece of nonsense to my blog. hang on a second.

(by way of which attempt, i just noticed that blogger.com can be easily typo'd as booger.com. wonder where that resolves?) oh well: nowhere good.

marathon!

i've long been a recreational runner, but i've wanted to run a marathon for a long time. now, people's reasons for running marathons are varied: some want to do it to prove they can, some want to lose weight, some want to punish their bodies for the real or perceived sins of their brains. i guess i fall into the "just want to do it" category. here is a good article on "The Marathon Mystique": http://www.runningtimes.com/issues/01julaug/mystique.htm

we started training today, as J has decided to train for a half marathon. (which is the longest distance i've done myself up to this point.) the target is for a may marathon, perhaps San Diego's Rock 'n Roll Marathon on June 5, 2005; or Anchorage's Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon on June 18, 2005.

if you want a good page with helpful comments about different marathons, here it is:
http://www.marathonguide.com/

and if you want a fantastic, free page with training programs for all lengths of races and all levels of runners, check out the amazingly helpful Hal Higdon .

gone, and forgotten

sadly, i had several posts in december that seem to have been eaten by the BloggerMonster. maybe i'll try to make up with sveeral posts in one day. yeah, that'll make up for my ongoing flakiness, won't it? here's a neat page linked to on that last blog i posted (Abandoned Bicycles of New York), which is at http://jschumacher.typepad.com/:

http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/.

this guy walked every single street in manhattan. it's not (yet?) a very deeply developed web page, but it's pretty, and his effort deserves some advertising!

favorite new blog: Abandoned Bicycles of New York

what a GREAT page. great photography, pithy comments that avoid being obnoxious. check it out: http://jschumacher.typepad.com/photos/abandoned_bikes/index.html .

"we will shut them down"
at the SOAW legal collective office: very interesting operation, doing great work. their office is literally outside the front gate of Fort Benning, where the action will take place.

after so many years of knowing and hearing and reading about this event, it's super exciting to finally be here.

the flights to get to atlanta cheap were ridiculous: San Diego to LA to Las Vegas to Charlotte to Atlanta. but many frequent flyer miles were accrued, and all the flights were made. note to plane watchers: the exit rows on USAir 737-400s are great: regular tray tables on the seat in front of you, so normal seat widths, and armrests that pop up!

more soon. "staffing" the empty legal collective office now.

it's 5:12am, and i'm off to the SOA protests: see you next week!

rural border counties voting "blue"
while i still maintain that giving the republicans the color red is ironic at best, i'll use the pundit colors so as not to confuse this point: using the "purple america" maps,

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ ,

it looks like some counties in Arizona went heavily dem (Pima, Santa Cruz, and Coconino counties), while only one went heavily rep (Graham.) Pima and Santa Cruz together comprise, physically, a majority of the total border. now, Pima's population base is heavily centered in the relatively progressive university city of Tucson, and Santa Cruz County is tiny, but don't stop here: the other Arizona Counties, again excepting Graham (rural SE Arizona) are all varying shades of purple, meaning relatively close elections returns. so how then do we get AZ going red? how skewed do the population bases have to be for Maricopa County (Phoenix) to fuck it all up like that? well, they did. which is problematic when the "blues" can't win major urban regions. (you know, as goes Manhattan, so goes New York state; as goes LA, so goes California...) i mean, what is Washington just gave up on King County?

my main interest in this is actually that rural border counties seem to have gone "blue" in otherwise red states: Imperial County, CA (even though CA is blue, it's worth noting, especially since San Diego County went red, like it usually does. i can tell you, Imperial County is no bastion of progressive activism.) then Pima and Santa Cruz counties in AZ, then Doña Ana Co. in New Mexico. now get this: in President Dumbfuck's "home" state of Texas ("home" is in quotes since hereally grew up more at Kennebunk, but who's counting/), Presidio County went blue, and then practically all of southern Texas went blue! (Webb, Zapata, Jim Hogg, Starr, Hidalgo, Brooks, Kenedy, and Wilacy counties, it appears.) if you're wondering why Texas still did the stupid, ignorant thing overall, it's because, of these counties, only Hidalgo has a meaningful population base.

but my main question remains: what is happening in these border regions, traditionally thought of as bastions of conservativism and pro-shrub, bible belt crackers, that is casuing them to vote dem? what can be cultivated out there besides crops and cows?

Yet another interesting image of the voting results. This is not what democracy looks like...

ahhhhhhh, the taste of pickled jalapeños
this will be a super quick entry, since i literally have dinner cooking on the stove. but i had to engage in a bit of nostalgia: i just forked about half a jar of jalapeños into the pan (with already fried tofu, and red onions, to be put on Trader Ho's fresh handmade tortillas).

after the forking, i licked the fork, and was transported to Dooley Field, the little league field in Sacramento, where i first recall tasting the loveliness of pickled jalapeños. enter warm, fuzzy feelings here.

more election maps!
The Good Senator just pointed me to a fantastic set of election maps, including population cartograms, here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/ . Good stuff.

paint the country red
The voting patterns maps going around are amusing (you know, with the "blue" states listed as Canada or the United States, and the "red" states listed as "Dumbfuckistan" or the like.)

I personally find the "Dumbfuckistan" designation offensive, especially from lefties who like to think themselves allied with people from oppressed and American-colonially occupied nations. (Which Afghanistan is, and that is apparently the reference.)

This image with two maps, however, I think illustrates the divisions well, and without resorting to the offensive invective which people can then use to ignore an otherwise valid point. Check them out:

and here is the other image i mentioned:

lazy day
Due to all of the kind shout-outs from all my loyal, devoted readers (all one of them!), I'm trying to keep this a little more consistent. We'll see how long that lasts.

Today my single largest accomplishment was cutting new(er) carpet for Petunia: she looks much brighter and happier in the back area with the grey-ish/whitish carpet from our old studio that she did with the brown crap that she came with.

And now I'm thinking about doing wedding thank you notes, but it's just not that attractive a prospect. More fun to play poker!

football, baseball, and the geography of hope
Monday Night Football is on. (those of you who know me well know that i don't much care for any major sports except baseball and soccer. for those of you who don't know me very well, i've now engaged in the necessary disclosure before you continue reading this entry.) speaking of which, who is lurking out there? i'd love to hear from you, since i know there are a few of you who i don't know, but who have noticed my blog, and have been reading it. email me: djg92167 at com dot yahoo.

i was struck yesterday, while watching the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game, how different the geography of the NFL is, compared to MLB. here's the basic analysis:

look at how many dead-end, post-industrial, Rust-Belt (northeast) cities have football teams, particularly that locals of the city/state/region are feverently devoted to. and look how few football teams with dedicated, passionate fan bases exist in places with vibrant social cultures, vibrant economies, big futures ahead of them (i.e., things to be hopeful about other than sports.)

this idea comes in part out of trying to explain why san diego just doesn't seem to much care about its major sports teams: the long suffering Padres, and the Chargers, who everyone is just shocked by how well they are doing this season.

of course, my analysis is highly subjective, based on which cities i think are least, and most, troubled/sad/run-down. if you don't agree, you can email me at the above address, and/or you can also post it in your own blog, and direct me to it. but this is my blog, so:

loogit: the "North" divisions of the AFC and NFC practically read like a list of redevelopment enterprise zones:

AFC North
Pittsburgh
Baltimore
Cleveland
Cincinnati

NFC North
Minnesota
Green Bay
Detroit
Chicago

of the lot, only Chicago and Minneapolis have hopes outside of football. (okay, this is arguable and debatable, but i'm trying to make a point here, okay?) now compare this to baseball: the only similar division in baseball is the AL Central:

Minnesota
Chicago (White Sox)
Cleveland
Detroit
Kansas City

again, there are Minnesota and Chicago (who finished one and two, respectively, in the division), and then Cleveland, a mediocre baseball team to compliment the mediocre football team; Detroit: where people were ecstatic that the team didn't lose 100 games again; and Kansas City: where the baseball team finished 34 games out of first place, to go with a football team that, at present, is tied with a couple of others for the third worst record in the AFC.

now look at other sad, run-down football cities: Buffalo. Jacksonville. Indianapolis. Houston. Nashville. Philadelphia. Charlotte. Tampa. of these, only three also have baseball teams: Houston, Philadelphia, and Tampa.

now i'll list all the baseball cities which i consider similarly sad and/or run-down, but which do not also have a football team: Milwaukee.
(Arlington, Texas, home of baseball's Rangers, gets an honorable mention, but if i listed it, then i would also have to list Dallas for football.)

now look at the exciting, good, and/or up and coming cities that have football teams:
Denver? San Diego? i've lived i both in the last four years, and they have plenty to sell them besides football. Seattle? Phoenix? San Francisco? all decent places, but they also all have baseball teams, and plenty else to make them nice places to live in.

alright, it's not a perfect scientific analysis, but i think ti underscores my basic point: football teams largely sprang up, and stayed, in northeastern, rustbelt cities that have little else to offer today.

much like the west Texas cities profiled in the outstanding book Friday Night Lights, recently made into a movie of the same name with Billy Bob Thornton that i haven't yet seen, these cities seem to rally around football in an unusually passionate way, i would argue because they have little else to be excited about. on the other hand, western cities have lots else to rally around, and arguably much less passionate, devoted fan bases: Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, etc. i've lived in or near three of these places, and the freakish love for the football teams, as evidenced by people painting their near naked bodies to stand out in sub-freezing weather, just isn't the same. (okay, so it rarely gets to sub-freezing in Phoenix, but you don't see people standing out in the sun for hours on end, mostly naked, without sunblock, to cheer on the Arizona Cardinals or Diamondbacks.)

'nuff for now. gotta cut new carpet for Petunia, our beloved and soon to be given up for adoption, 1985 VW camper van. (she is going to a better home, where they will take her fr more field trips, which she desperately wants, and can't have from parents like us, who don't like the environmental consequences of driving, and so are going to go car-less.)

book review: Back Roads: A Novel
author: Tawni O'Dell
SPOILERS follow!

overall: a decent, easy enough read, well developed characters, twisted plot line and concept.

end opinion: pretty fucked up, and sad, and troubling, and not necessarily in a good, challenging way.

fitness for a book club book*: 5/10... it would stimulate a lot of discussion, and has lots of hard, interesting things to talk about, but it's really not a very good book, and i'm glad i didn't pay for it (it was a library book).
(*why i have this rating: these book reviews are for a good friend who runs the best little bookshop in the country, probably the world, and to whom i am endeavoring to send reviews of books i read.)

how much i liked the book, i.e., am i glad i read it: 3/10. (and most of the 3 out of 10 is because it's good to read recent novels that get a lot of good press, so i know what people are talking about.)

i checked it out because O'Dell has a new book that was on the new releases shelf at my local library. the new, second book is riding on the coattails of the huge commercial success of this book, so i decided to read the one that launched her into the book world limelight before reading the sophomore offering. i'm glad i did: i won't bother with the second book now.

i think the reviewers, including Oprah's book club people, who feted this book, did so because (1) it's a rookie offering that is better than some (though arguably not a majority of) rookie offerings, (2) it has numerous challenging themes (see below), and (3) it's pretty easy to read. sort of. but actually not: it's really quite disturbing, and not in a good, powerful, disturbing-but-powerful way. just disturbing, and often quite gross.

the challenging themes include, but are not limited to: patricide, sibling murder, homicide, child incest, prison life, child abuse, commitment to forensic mental health facilities, adolescent alcoholism, some sort of compulsive sexuality DO, and profound, disabling mental health disorders of all flavors, just to name a few. basically, it's just chock full of fucked up people living in a fucked up place and doing fucked up things to one another, and a few high minded liberals trying to do the "right" thing.

the narrator/main character/antagonist is called on the back cover "a wonderfully touching narrator", and while some reviewers make references to his Holden Caufield-esque qualities, i think he shows a young novelist trying hard to distinguish herself, yet unable to not act out some of her own apparent anger at her upbringing. not only is the 'antagonist' not likeable (even though we're supposed to feel for him, at least, and admire him, at best), he's actually totally despicable. he spends the entire book physically assaulting girls and women, and fantasizing about murdering and battering others, having fairly disgusting sexual fantasies which usually include battering the woman in addition to or instead of "fucking" her, feeling sorry for himself, drinking heavily, and wandering around.

it was an ugly read, actually, given all of the above. and there are numerous plot twists, each of them more audacious than the one before it, and after about the fourth or fifth plot twist, i'm left thinking that it's not surprising that it's a first novel: i feel like a more experienced novelist, and a novelist with an editor who is trying to not stomp on a promising new talent, would have cut out two, or maybe even three, of the zinging plot twists.

a pretty bad book, really. my advice: don't bother.

poker? i hardly even know 'er!
J asked me last night (while watching the World Series of Poker) why anyone would ever go all in. i tried to explain it, but could only find a few isolated scenarios where she agreed she would go all in (like a nut hand.) i finally said "it's hard to explain, but when you start playing, there are just some times when it makes sense to go all in..."

so today while playing at pokerroom, i went all in with a full boat, aces full of tens. i'm feeling pretty good about it, until i get my ass handed to me by the slowbie with four tens. guess J knows something i don't...

ConProt
damn! this ConProt (Consumer Protection) post would be so much cooler if i were smarter, and had taken a picture before doing the return:

last night, we were preparing a lovely dinner of deep fried tofu chunks, wrapped in organic basil leaves, and dipped in a delicious sauce made by J from soy sauce, hot sauce, onions, and spices...

while wrapping the abovementioned tofu chunks in the similarly abovementioned basil leaves, J noticed that one of the leaves had a tight pattern of small insect eggs laid on the front 1/3 of it. it was, in a word, repulsive. (see what i mean? wouldn't it be better if i had taken a picture to post here?)

so today i took the basil leaves (a little over half were left) back to Trader Bob's (name partially anonymized to protect the insect-egg dealers), and they took it back without question. in fact, the guy running the customer service desk didn't even care to see the problem: he just said: "return? no problem, i'm just gonna throw it away..."

i nevertheless showed him the eggs, and he was also somewhat grossed out by it, but then said "is it organic?" while gesturing at the basil. i said it was, and he said "yeah, that's just the risk you take when you buy organic." WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? you mean when i buy organic it's no longer quality checked to see if leaves are covered in alien-looking insect eggs?

nasty. just nasty.

go Mixed Up!
My team won our first intramural soccer game last night, 2-1. I was goalkeeper, and limped through the entire game, due to an open blister on my heel and a strained thigh muscle, but it was a delightful, drizzling night nonetheless.

The other team looked vastly more organized, with matching jerseys and attitude, but they couldn't deliver. Most of the game we directed play. My constant screaming fromt he goal got the amused attention of the sidelines refs, including when I asked for a penalty call against the other team for violating the clear intramural rule against using obscenities on the field.

my first [election] memory:
since i'm on something of a blogging roll today, and now that blogger.com has woken up from its long, dark winter, i thought i'd share a couple of stories:

first, the title track: my first election memory is actually a post election memory. i remember Reagan, the Great Dumbass who did more to ruin the Western Hemisphere than any President since Monroe, getting elected for the first time, and then bizarrely getting credit for "freeing" the hostages in Iran. i remember being confused by this, even as young as i was then.

and now, my second election memory: walking the streets with signs for Clinton-Gore '92 California, when i hadn't yet figured out that Clinton was a fucking conservative. (see, e.g., workfare; IIRAIRA; AEDPA; DOMA; NAFTA; GATT; telecommunications and financial services deregulation, etc.)
even the libertarian whackjobs at the Cato Institute say that Clinton was arguably more conservative than GWM: http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-31-03.html

and another not-so-fond election memory: in 1994, when i was in college, some people asked me, being from California, what the fuck was up with Prop 187. (footnote about San Diego's mayors: the alum ranks of the mayoralty include Pete Wilson, who was touted as a moderate when he was elected Mayor.) well, i laughed, and basically said to not worry about it, it would never pass, it was the nature of the citizen initiative process that sometimes fucked up nonsense got on the ballot. and then the good bigots of California passed the stupid thing with 59% in favor.

okay, memory lane is getting depressing.

Tha Supreme Schmort: Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.
i have to keep reminding myself, and others, of the tendency of the Supreme Schmort to engage in internal self-regulation to maintain a certain ideological equilibrium. basis: the court is the only branch of government without material power: the executive has the folks with the guns, the legislature has the money, the court only has its own legitimacy.

this is why i'm reasonably confident that, no matter what scumbags and ideological freaks GWM (George W. Motherfucker) can appoint to the Schmort, they won't, e.g., "overturn" Roe v. Wade. (notwithstanding that Roe has essentially been superseded by Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and arguably updated by Carhart.) but whatever: my point is that the Schmort is, by institutional psychology and design, fairly cautious, and we shouldn't be too freaked out: yet.

and here's my hot prediction for the day, as explained to Tha Good Senatuh: look for GWM's first nominee (probably to replace Rehnquist, who appears to be tottering medically to join his longtime mental and ideological tottering) to be a sacrifical Bork: a nominee who is obviously unacceptable, so the dems have to use a lot of political capital to defeat the nomination, and are weakened for a stealth freako as the next nominee. but we can be optimistic: of 132 names put forward as potential justices since the Supreme Court was established, 27 people have been rejected!

now, what will really be the test of whether the democraps are worth two shits in a bathtub is this: whether they filibuster the really horrendous pieces of garbage GWM nominates. i suspect they'll moan, and do a lot of hand wringing, and vaguely try. but all we can really hope for is that GWM fucks up like GHWM, his daddy did, and appoints another accidental moderate, ala Souter. cf. O'Connor's appointment by the Great Alzheimer.

see also, for ideologically accidental (mis)appointments, Ford's choice of Stevens, probably the most passionate liberal on the Schmort today, and for that matter consistently the msot liberal since William Brennan [an Eisenhower appointee, as was Earl Warren!] and Thurgood Marshall left

p.s. confidential to Tha Good Senatuh: who's the lazy bloggah now?

Check out this masterful example of pointing out silver-lined clouds, in my personal favorite of all of the corporate newspapers, the LA Times:

Democrats Trim GOP's National Lead
By Emma Schwartz, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON
Democrats wrestled half a dozen state legislative chambers away from Republicans in Tuesday's elections, including capturing both houses in Colorado.
The Colorado Legislature has generally been under GOP control for the last 30 years, and President Bush carried the state Tuesday with 53% of the vote.
The Democratic gains in the state and in a few others were one of the party's few bright spots in the election, showing they could still make some headway with voters on a grass-roots level.
...
Republicans now control 20 state Legislatures. Democrats have 19, and 10 are split, with Democrats holding one chamber and Republicans the other.
Before Tuesday's vote, the GOP held 21 and the Democrats 17, with 11 split. The Nebraska Legislature, which has only one chamber, is nonpartisan.

Alabama Slamma: there's no Comfort in the Southern today...
to balance things a bit, after my previously (somewhat) optimistic post about good things that happened on election day... in Alabama, voters appear to have defeated Amendment 2, the deceptively named "Schools and Poll Tax" amendment to the Alabama state constitution.

in short, Amendment 2 would have removed language from the Alabama constitution which demands that children of different races attend different schools. Amendment 2 would also have removed language from the Alabama constitution stating that Alabama's children have no right to a public education in the state. disgustingly, Amendment 2 appears to have FAILED:

http://www.al.com/election/coverage/?amendments
Amendment 2: Schools and Poll Tax
2,573 of 2,577 Precincts Reporting
Yes 687,747 49.91%
No 690,241 50.09%

the bigots who opposed the changes insisted that it was unnecessary: i.e., that it's okay to have such language in the state constitution, since it's moot, and not enforced, as a result of federal law, including Brown v. Board of Education. they primarily campaigned against it with the red herring argument that removing language stating that Alabama children have no right to a public education could be used by courts to order massive tax increases for education.

ummmm, yeah: the idea that the Alabama court system would order such a thing, when just in this election the Alabama Supreme Court was made a 9-0, exclusively republican body, is just silly. and get this: one new member of the state's high court is a bigot named Tom Parker, who won by about 55% to 44%. According to an article by an Alabama television station, on msnbc.com, the Southern Poverty Law Center, splc.org, has detailed Parker's sympathies for, and ties to, racist, modern-day confederates:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=491

from the MSNBC article:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6332857/

"The [Southern Poverty Law C]enter is an organization that promotes racial equality, tolerance and is known for its legal victories against white supremacists and tracking of hate groups. They accuse Parker of praising slave traders and associating with hate group leaders; specifically the Council of Conservative Citizens and League of the South.

The G-O-P candidate was asked for his reaction to the website article. "Oh, it's not surprising. The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the worst hate groups in the entire country. They hate any people of faith. They hate people who oppose abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage or pornography. They hate people who support the original intent and interpretation of the constitution. They hate anybody to the right of Ted Kennedy."

that quote from Parker is so unbelievably asinine that i won't even bother responding to it.

however, i will provide one more tidbit about Parker, from the same MSNBC article: "Tom Parker worked very closely with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore as Moore's spokesman during the battle to keep Moore's Ten Commandments Monument in the State Judicial Building in Montgomery."

as i explained to a group of activist students at UCSD a few nights before the election, voting in San Diego County just isn't the same as voting in places like Alabama...

dangr-us thoughts election wrapup:
Okay, but it could be worse: a small handful of excellent things happened in my home state of California, and in San Diego specifically. My favorites, and the really big (and/or surprising) wins, are bolded below.

California:
Prop 59, Open Records in state government: passed by a landslide, 83% to 17%.
Prop 63, a 1% tax on incomes over $1,000,000, passed: 53% to 47%.
Prop 71, providing state funding for stem cell research, passed easily, 59% to 41%. (Take that, evangelicals!) Of course, the corporate monsters are going to profiteer from the patents on this, but better that it happen that way, than not at all.
State Assembly District 76: Lori Saldaña won by a virtual landslide, 55% to 41%! This after months of outrageously false mailers sent out by the republican corporate lobbying machine backing their patsy candidate, Corporate Lobbyist Tricia Hunter. They sent seemingly dozens of direct mailings, including such offensive nonsense as claiming that Saldaña, a longtime clean water activist and environmentalist, wanted people to drink toilet water. Confidential to Tricia Hunter: Crawl on back under your rock, oops, I mean to your corporate lobbying firm: maybe they need people on the Wal-Mart account.

San Diego, city and county:
Proposition D: Right of the people to have access to government information: passed by a landslide, 82% to 18%. While it might not mean much on paper, that it passed in conjuction with perhaps the single best thing to happen in this entire 2004 election in San Diego is notable:

Donna Frye, the only dem to run in the San Diego mayor's race, and who started her come-from-nowhere, write-in candidacy only about five weeks before the election, IS WINNING! She would essentially be the first progressive mayor in this notoriously corrupt and morally (and almost financially!) bankrupt city's history. (All y'all who want to talk about Golding being progressive can do in on your own blogs: we'd just disagree.)
Particularly ironic, even in Presumptive-Mayor-Elect Frye's own words, is that she is apparently going to win the race at at the same time as a "strong mayor" form of government change (from a City Manager form) passed:

Proposition F, the so-called "strong mayor" initiative, passed by about 51% to 49%. Ha, ha! Frye opposed the poorly and hastily drafted power grab, written by the business establishment that has long run San Diego's local politics, in order to regain some of their slipping power in local politics. Of course, they mostly backed incumbent mayor Dick Murphy (no play on words: he's really Dick!), and didn't in their worst Nightmares on C Street imagine that they would be empowering Donna Frye, long the only true voice on the side of the people on the City Council.

So, some really good things happened on what was otherwise a really dismal, disgusting, frightening day, November 2, 2004.

Well, hooo, ha. Welcome to another new morning in america. Or probably just another four years of waking up from Nightmare on Elm Street reruns.

Actually, it seems appropriate that Halloween, with its cable television reruns of mediocre horror movies, comes so close to Election Day: I think that it's designed to break down our resistance to horrible, awful, unspeakable things happening.

I mean, look: what's worse?
1) Another four years of president George W. Motherfucker.
2) Innocent, naïve teens being massacred at an otherwise picturesque camp.

Duh.