The Weekend - This Super Sizing thing has gone too far. Not a second after I touched the low-end squared wooden-handled spanker, one of the guys working that booth at the Folsom Street Fair walked across the table and over to Tanja and me. "You won't be happy with that one," he said, rubbing the gray stubble in his quasi-moustache with his left index finger. His right hand was covered by the table, as was, thankfully, most of his lower half. Gravity and time had certainly taken quite a bit of liberty with his upper half, which he was in no way concerned about displaying.

The leather straps that ran town the sides of his inflated torso to some point below made me thank God for the table. "No?" i asked. It was a genuinely interested question.

"The best shape is trianglular," he said, tapping the handle. His right hand still hiding below the table. I'd seen enough Miracle Blade III informercials in the last few months to know that the squared handles weren't going to fit my hand properly, but I had no idea such extensive ergonomic research and development went into the construction of the latest in bondage equipment. He pointed Tanja and me over to a model three up from the model we were testing.

This never version had a triangular handle made of better, more comfortable wood with a better finish, and the leather strap was a loop. It doubled over itself. I'm not sure what the advantage of that was but I'm sure it had something to do with an acoustical improvement over the beginner model. "I think you're ready for this one," he said, tapping it twice on the handle, turned and sped off to go deal with another, possibly more serious customer. As he disappeared into the booth, I saw the straps circle his upper theigh, right where the bottom of cuffs of his shorts would be, if he'd put any on before he left his apartment.

"This one's $80," Tanja said. The first was $30. "Hmm." I shrugged, "I think this probably qualifies as non-essential spending." We walked a little further, and left the fair. The crowd was getting too thick. There's this whole universe out there that I'm just not part of. Neither of us had any idea that this particular culture was so rich.

We walked home. It was only about a mile, and decided to go Herbivore, the local vegan place that follows us around San Francisco. Both of their locations are wildly popular, serving up noodles, sandwiches and a couple of entrees in a slick, earth-toned place with high barstooled tables. Unlike the dreadful Zen Palate in New York, which tries to fill up all of their dishes with layer after layer of meat-replacement protein, Herbivore, for the most part just serves dishes without animal ingredients in them, except for a couple of sandwhiches and the occassional helping of Tofu for an extra buck. We'd been meaning to go there for a while, so what the hell.

I danced around the menu for a bit, determined get something challenging. So, no garden burger. No mushroom ravioli. For anyone considering becoming vegan, for whatever reason. I have two words to try to convince you otherwise.

Lentil Loaf.

Don't panic. Watusi! will be on vacation until October 6 or 7, 2003. The last 25 days have been too much to handle.