HAPY HALOWEEENZ!

Something truly horrifying

Today mine eyes did behold a most terrifying and horrible sight: Discipulus Legis running Windows Vista on her brand new MacBook. I now know the true meaning of the word "abomination."

I scare children

Last night, Discipulus Legis and I went to a Halloween party. She was a bloodsucking, back-stabbing, ambulance-chasing lawyer from the personal injury firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, and I was an accident victim. It was my first-ever costume where I used fake blood, and my amateur makeup artist skills may have been a little too good. I put blood streaks on my face and gave myself a black eye, and at the party, an eight- or nine-year-old girl dressed as a fairy princess, took a look at me, walked away, then came back and very seriously asked me: "Did something really happen to you?"

I scare children.

Los Angeles is burning

This makes me glad that we don't live in Los Angeles anymore.

Hearing that Orlando Bloom crashed his car on the corner of where we used to live in LA made me kinda sad that we moved (Discipulus Legis provides the details).



But not that sad.

More lolz

I have a fancy Master's degree in writing yet I take the most pleasure writing lolcat. Why?

LOL Opera

What happens when my love of opera collides with my love of lolcats?





lol opera!

Shiny happy kittehs

I was just reading news.yahoo.com and saw a headline that said that 5,000 birds have been seized in the nation's largest cockfighting bust. The headline's rollover picture was horrible (a chicken, with almost all of its feathers gone, looking bloodied). I couldn't even read the story. Cockfighting is absolutely awful and anyone who likes it is an f-ing idiot. To distract ourselves from thoughts of horrific animal abuse, let's look at this:



Ah, that's better.

Where's Richard Dawkins when you need him?

Discipulus Legis took me on an impromptu date tonight to see For the Bible Tells Me So, a new documentary about fundamentalist Christians and the gays. It was good, but it was missing depth and the sense of angst that the interviewees were supposedly feeling about homosexuality and religion. There were abundant tears, but no sense of why people were crying (In contrast, Trembling Before G-d makes you understand why the film subjects were so upset.) The only truly effective and moving parts of the movie involve the story of Mary Lou Wallner and her daughter. She alone makes it worth seeing.

Of course, given my feelings about religion, I had strong feelings about the movie for other reasons. The opening credits of the movie show the usual "GOD HATES FAGS" imagery but it's intercut with commentary from learned religious academics. In response to these "simplistic" readings of the Bible, one academic says something like "you can have a 5th grade understanding of the Bible... when you're in 5th grade." A clever comment, but the Bible itself advocates a 5th grade understanding of life as a whole. You get a gold star for doing good, you get a time out for doing bad (albeit it a long and hot time out), when times get tough there's a fairy tale to make you feel better. My problem with what the Bible says about homosexuality has nothing to do with Leviticus 18:22; the problem starts at Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Um, what? The Bible contradicts or ignores what science has proven to be true (or has pretty good evidence to prove what is true). Who cares what it says about being gay? If it can't get the origin of the universe at least on the right track, it has bigger problems.

And yes, it was interesting to learn that in the original text of the Bible "abomination" meant "not customary," but would most people who believe in the Bible and seriously look to it for guidance understand this semantic hairsplitting? No! Dumb people read the Bible! Gays should embrace the fact that they've been excluded from religion. Embrace atheism and forge a new path not obstructed by all of this nonsense.

I thought only dogs looked cute in funny costumes

Seeing these pictures makes me want to have a kid for the sole purpose of dressing them up in these costumes for Halloween. The stork can take the children back after that.

Best newspaper article of 2007

Today's San Francisco Chronicle features an article--titled 'Enough is enough,' S.F. says of homeless--that basically says that San Franciscans are FINALLY sick of vagrants peeing, pooping, doing drugs, exposing their genitals, aggressively panhandling, and other no-nos on the streets of our fine city. It's one of the best things I've read all year, and includes a gem of a sound bite:

"Maybe there has been an epiphany," says David Latterman, president of Fall Line Analytics, a local market research firm. "People have realized they can hate George Bush but still not want people crapping in their doorway."

I am not in the least bit religious but A-M-E-N. If my tax dollars go to programs that feed and clothe the teeming masses of bums that crowd SF's streets, then I'd much rather that food be nutritious jail/prison rations and the clothes be of the jumpsuit variety popular in correctional institutions. It seems like a win-win for everyone.

Sallie Mae still sucks

I don't even fully understand the implications of this article, but I'm sure it means that Sallie Mae is still evil and still sucks very, very hard.

Job hunt statistics

It's taken me a little bit over two months, but I've finally found a job in SF. I just looked through my files and it turns out that I sent out 17 cover letters and resumes (and writing samples and whatever else was requested), was invited to interview at 7 of those companies, and have been offered one position so far (which I accepted. I start tomorrow. Woohoo!). That means I have about a 41% response rate, which isn't all that bad considering all of the job hunt books I read said that no one gets jobs by responding to ads (which is all I did. Thanks Craigslist!). Goodbye Maury, Montel, and Judge Milian! I'll miss you!

So much opera, so little time and money

Another opera season, another year of regrets at all of the productions I can't see because I'm not independently wealthy and don't have a private jet (Disicipulus Legis is working on the wealth and private jet part of that as I type as she studies her Tort Law and Practice book). Don't get me wrong; SF has plenty of good opera that I'm excited about (ARIODANTE!), but there's a lot of operas playing in other cities that I'd like to see, too. Atop that list is Carmen at New York City Opera. The production stars mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton. I last saw Ms. Clayton as Amastre in a NYCO production of Xerxes a few years back, and a finer "Se cangio spoglia" I have not heard, nor a more convincing en travesi performance I have since seen.



That's Clayton, at left, as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. Note to San Francisco Opera: Please produce Der Rosenkavalier during the 2008-2009 season and be sure to cast Clayton as Octavian. Thanks.

"You're gonna die soon, you're gonna die soon..."

A concerned reader asked Queerty: "If you are a hipster like Sarah Silverman, are you granted special permission to be a bigot?"

Yes. Yes you are. A hilarious, attractive, hipster bigot.

Baseball should be called "The Game of ZZZzzzZZzzz..."

I hate baseball because it's long, boring, and the "athletes" who play the game are fat, disgusting slobs (see example at right). I pretty much hate all of baseball equally, but when it comes to the famous Cubs/Sox rivalry I hate the Cubs a little bit more. Jay Mariotti writes in the Sun Times that he'd like Sox fans (who are currently delighting in the fact that the Cubs are on the brink of elimination from the playoffs) to "grow up." I strongly disagree. Not only would this destroy a key part of Chicago's civic life that has animated the city for decades, but Cubs fans have to learn to take what they've dished out for so long. In my experience, the vast majority of Cubs fans couldn't tell you the difference between an RBI and an ERA. They just like to sit in the bleachers drinking beer and looking at Wrigley Field's ivy. That's perfectly fine, but it you're one of those "fans" just pledge your allegiance to Beer, Bleachers & Foliage and don't turn into a raving moron every time the Cubs come relatively close to winning a World Series.

Another day, another shooting in SF

There was another murder in San Francisco last night, this one just five blocks from Discipulus Legis's school (and about a mile from our apartment). This news on the heels of another story about how SF murder totals for 2007 have already surpassed the number of murders in 2006.

This is the first city I've ever lived in where I've felt afraid to be outside after dark.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!

Look what I found outside of our apartment last night!



It's a 10 lb. (?) bowling ball featuring the image of women's wrestling legend Chyna. I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but I feel it has come into my life for some reason. I must find that purpose. Oh yes.

Worst MUNI line ever

It seems that everyone in SF claims that their MUNI line is the worst, but MUNI line #5 MUST be the worst in the whole city. I see evidence of this every single day. Like today, when I ended up walking with Discipulus Legis to school because there were already 20 people waiting at the #5 stop right outside our building and there was no way she was ever going to get a seat on the next bus, or probably the one after that (and as it turns out, she wouldn't have been able to sit on the next THREE buses that passed by because they were all so full).

Or like last week, when I waited near City Hall for forty minutes for a #5, but then got so fed up that I walked the MILE back to our place and wasn't passed by a SINGLE bus. But what did I see on the opposite side of the street? THREE MUNI #5 BUSES stacked on top of each other. Yes, that's a very efficient way to service the SF citizens who must rely on the MUNI #5.

This city needs a Republican mayor. Stat.