Observations from New Talent Night at Herman’s Hideaway
Denver, CO

~ You know you’re in trouble when it’s $3 cover
~ The mullet is gonna make it to 2002
~ Shiny pants always get the job done
~ If you write in a notepad, in a bar on New Talent Night, people will think you’re "some kind of reporter." Especially when you then tell them, yes - you are
~ 'The white shoes after Labor Day' rule should hold true for men, too
~ Elaborately woven Spiderman silk shirts are huge here
~ Little guys with really big bass guitars are funny.

Notes from the Road, Pt. II

Least Favorite Moments

Lovelock, NV, 9:34PM
The 75 mile stretch of I-80 just before Lovelock has no services - particularly gas.
Once I got to Lovelock, I put 10.16 gallons of gas in my 10 gallon tank.

Elko, NV, 8:17AM (the next morning)
Looking for a water bottle, I discover 2 condoms in the storage compartment below the armrest.
And below them... a huge wad of used napkins.
Go Enterprise Car Rental!

Utah/Nevada Border from about 10am to 11am
One AM radio station: 820 - Disney Radio!

Notes From The Road
As I drive across Nevada, here are some of my favorites:

Favorite Sign
PRISON AREA
DO NOT PICK-UP HITCHHIKERS

Favorite Quote
From the cop who pulled me over just outside Tahoe:
COP – How long has it been since you got a ticket?
ME – 1992, sir.
[pause –he stares at me]
COP – Wow. You almost made it 10 years…
[then walks back to his car to write me up]


Favorite AM Radio Wacko
Woman who is starting a support group for wives of men obsessed with Britney Spears. She knew, when she “brought out the LiquidButter” and couldn’t turn his attention from “that little, dirty slut”, that her husband was “obsessed with a 20-year-old virgin – a child – and was therefore a pervert and getting dangerously close to pedophilia”. This support group will help women deal with the fact that their men are sexual deviants, but fortunately not good looking enough to “bag a ‘Britney’”

Hard to believe her husband lost that lovin’ feeling.

Girl on a Mission
If you've ever imagined quitting your job (or getting layed off) and teaching overseas for a year, you should keep up with my friend Lori.

We worked together until November, then she got booted.
She got to Daegu, South Korea on Tuesday.

Walk It Off

When I was 12, I was climbing on the field-box roof at one of my Dad’s softball games when I slipped and fell backward. I broke my fall by putting my right arm behind me. This broke my fall and my arm.

I screamed bloody murder, and my Dad got in from right field just as somebody’s Mom pulled my arm from behind me. You should know that my Dad believes you can walk off any injury. He was already forming the “Wal….” with his lips when he looked at my arm. His face drained and I knew it wasn’t one of my normal falls.

So I looked down at my arm, my Z-shaped arm, and started screaming, “Oh, crap! OH, CRAP! I broke my fucking arm!”

Dad swallowed, “ You’re fine. You’re fine… don’t say ‘fucking’”.

Bub-bye
Though it was a two hour meeting, all I remember hearing was:

“Now more than ever, and make no mistake about it, in light of current economic conditions and after having been opportunistic at every opportunity, leveraging every synergy and looking at the really big picture – the one that’s so far outside the box it’s like the 30,000 ft. view of the total market landscape– we’ve juggled spreadsheets and begged the big-boys for a little more time – but at the end of the day, in the final analysis and after the crows have roosted in the beds they’ve made - we’ve ‘eliminated your position.’

Bye.”

Patriotic in the Fashion District

Family Commitment
My sister, after dancing Thursday night away...

"I had a really good time last night. OK, I feel dizzy, but somehow I will find the courage to go on. People at L'cole need me to check their coats and I must fulfill that duty, because no being in the universe can check a coat like I; the Greatest coat checker of all mankind.

So email or call at L'Cole tonight.

Duty Calls!
B"

And check coats she did ... then we went dancing.

W.T.C.
I paid my respects at the World Trade Center yesterday. It was the three-month anniversary of the attack, and there were lots of people just walking around in silence. It was strange to visit the busiest financial district in the world with everyone, from visitors to the stock-traders back at their posts, so quiet.

In three months they have cleared away much of the rubble and have blocked off most of ground zero with fences. But what's left is a huge void in the middle of Wall Street. Everywhere you turn there are buildings reaching up to the sky, except there. Where the towers used to be there's nothing but sky. Where so many people used to be.

Amazing images are being collected here: Here is New York... a democracy of photographs. It's professional and amateur photographers sharing their work.

WHY?
If you've had a hard time finding pricey, crappy bar food, check out the
marque in front of the 56th Street Hooters:

CHECK OUT OUR TAKE OUT MENU.

Fine Dining
My brother took me to his office holiday party. He works at the Frech Culinary Institute and Le Coles, the restaurant where you can sample the students work. The main auditorium was the "kids room." FCI spared no expense on gifts for the staffs' kids, 8-ft balloon Christmas trees, and a Disney karaoke machine. While the main 8 kitchens were stocked with Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Terrine - Potato Galette with House-Smoked Salmon and Dilled Cucumbers - Sautéed Pork Chop with Mushroom Duxelles and Onion Sauce. My brother was eating the cheese pizza set out for the toddlers.

You can take the kid out of the suburbs...

And while I'm thinking of It
While looking at the below post, I thought:
"Aside from the obvious idiocy, who would plan a protest on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor?"

The Protest That Wasn't
I'm in New York, staying at the tragically hip Hudson Hotel (so cool that there's no signage out front (sorry about the again, Josh) and the lobby blares house music 24/7)

But this afternoon there was to be an anti-war protest out front. It was to begin at 11am and NYPD sent about 100 officers to control the crowd.
Nobody showed.
At all.
At noon the NYPD called the person who applied for the 'rally permit'. S/he said that they couldn't drum up any support and they decided to just stay home.

Manhattan is not a good place to have an anti-war anything right now.
They're pretty pissed.

While flying...
Here are a few things I learned from the Chicago Sun Times:

-- Jugerdemidiin Gurragcha was the first Mongolian in space.
-- 85 hunters fell out of trees in West Virginia last year alone
-- Kathy Pinckert, anchor of the NakedNews.com, "The nudity is a metaphor for getting down to the bare facts, the naked truth, if you will..."

ok, I guess we will.

#1 in the USA
If you've ever wondered what the first web site looked like (in the USA, anyhow)
here it is:

That's it!
Ten years ago this week, Stanford physicist Paul Kunz made this interface to a scientific database that anyone could use. Pretty cool.
background

IT! - pt. 2!
Lance makes a very good argument for IT.

IT!
It! It! It! It! It! It! It! It!

Your Tax Dollars at Work
I'm very often the only person I know who finds this interesting, but it never stops me from talking about it.

The GAO (General Accounting Office) puts out an annual report on the costs of providing office, protection, some travel, etc. to former Presidents and First Ladies. From Mrs. Johnson's pension to Reagan's new office space (one without an office for Mr. Reagan), it's kinda interesting.

The San Francisco Examiner
For 7 years in New York, I read the New York Daily News as often as I could, without actually buying it. The overly sensational, right wing, gossip rag published anything unflattering it could and still defend itself against liable.

San Francisco has arrived!
Since Hearst sold the Examiner to Ted Fang and his family, each morning holds a new gem. Their headlines never disappoint and are never smaller then 80pt type. Samples include:
Sept.12, 2001: just BASTARDS! Next to a photo of the WTC
Oct. 20, 2001: Death by Chocolate? Is Ghirardelli killing us?
Nov. 20, 2001: SF's Teen Hooker Shame Speaks for itself