Archive for January, 2007

There’s a disease going around.

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

God dammit, I totally lost a blog post. The gist of it was that I had the most action-packed weekend in recent memory.

Critical Mass wasn’t quite rained out on Friday, but I would say that the mass wasn’t quite critical enough. I got there (The Ferry Building at 18:30 on the final Friday of each month) late and joined a group of maybe twenty other stragglers for a subcritical mass. Subcritical Mass was in some ways more fun but noteably more dangerous than real Critical Mass–there aren’t enough bodies to stop traffic and at one point a Honda Prelude came within a foot of hitting me head on at forty-five miles per hour as we biked the wrong way down Folsom Street. We finally found the main group, but it didn’t really have enough people to form a collective conscious. Instead we were a bunch of indecisive assholes, tentative at every intersection, and I biked home to work on feather2pixels.com.

So: feather2pixels.com: check it out. I guess this is my best stab at a first draft. Everything you need, nothing you don’t. Not that anyone needs any of this crap. I feel good about the modest format, though even this laughably little took me months to program. I can’t escape computers.

So after blowing $10 on a misloaded film cartridge, the old Polish dude at Action Camera in West Portal showed me how to properly load my new Polaroid on Saturday morning. After producing a few successful shots, I say “I can’t believe I waited till I was twenty-seven to pick one of these up.” Every frame looks like it was taken in in 1976!

bartlett street

west portal

That night, after finding my favorite Dylan album on vinyl, I made it back to the Exploratorium for a sound festival, which was a little disappointing by Exploratorium standards, but I saw some old friends and I felt very cool to be known at the greatest science museum in the world. A pepperoni and mushroom pizza with a pitcher of Bud was enjoyed afterwards at Vincent’s.

Sunday started with a surprisingly solid breakfast in North Beach followed by a hike in the Marin Headlands. I’ve never actually hiked there, but the hills smelled strongly of Calfornia and the Pacific was sparkly from the summit. There are endless clusters of abandoned forts up there, decaying in the caustic fog sixty years after the Japanese didn’t invade. A murder of crows kept their eyes on us as we climbed through the ruins and wished that I had bothered to bring along my new camera.

This is Sarah:

sarah

After three unsuccessful attempts to find Rocky II at area video stores, I met Krisitin at the Sunset Baskin Robbins. We settled for the original, which wasn’t really a bad thing. And there you go: an exhausting, exhilarating, perfect week. A model for what I want out of life.

Wolf, I simply don’t accept the premise of your question.

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

Thursday. Trying to remember what I do on Thursday. Get up early, for one thing. Like, last semester early. And after an initial week of superhuman energy I have been sleepwalking through the rest of the month. It didn’t help that I started drinking on Monday this week.

Here are some uninteresting things about my life:

-Lost at trivia last night. Not just lost: last place! What the hell? Things better get back to normal quick.

-Burned up about a gallon of gasoline in 1988 Volvo, riding three miles across town to watch “An Inconvenient Truth” at the Independent movie night with Corinne and Rinne. Awesome awesome awesome.

-Won the lottery.

-And for now I am living up to my 2007 resolution of averaging one movie a week. I caught “Romantico” with the Valeri family on Tuesday after an all out suhsi orgy in the old neighborhood. Remember that I am tired? I embarrassingly nodded off and for a moment got to be the guy who was snoring at the movies.

-Speaking of the old neighborhood: SF changes so fast. I realized that on one block of Polk Street, 75% of the stores had been replaced from the time I moved there in 2003. Businesses that stay are the exception, not the norm.

-I finally have an idea for the fourth postcard. I am realize my dream of a three-stage print.

-My healthy relationship is going great and I think I may have won the upper hand in my unhealthy relationship. But did I fuck up my last emai?

A change, a final change includes potatoes.

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

The Rascal is gone forever. We had our final goodbye on Sunday night and it was short and sad. Three years we spent in our little home together on top of the hill with the cable cars, asian seniors, and that bachelor with his dalmation pup. I don’t know how *in* love we were, but I have never loved a girl like I loved her.

I woke up in a strange neighborhood today. The morning sun was high and to the south. I was enjoying it on the walk to the 24 bus line, happy to be alive and thinking that maybe I will never not feel alone, but the city will always be here for me. And that’s almost enough–she always gives me back everything I give to her and more. I got to the corner of Baker and Divisadero and a woman on the corner was wearing an SF SPCA shirt. It pleased me. I asked her if she worked there. She did. “Cool,” I said.

Protected: Inside China’s denim factory sweatshops.

Thursday, January 18th, 2007

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: Actually assign reading sections.

Thursday, January 11th, 2007

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: No need to get into the minutiae of your LabVIEW programming.

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: The “higher ed” governor for whom we hoped was not elected.

Sunday, January 7th, 2007

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Protected: I look 47 but I’m 24.

Thursday, January 4th, 2007

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Close your eyes and sleep.

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007

New York City:

chess
 

dudes
 
 
kristin's_stairs

kristin's_stars

aimee