Sentences

It's the evening of our days.
San Francisco, California - March 2005


Going to go back to New York.
One two three hundred Santas.
Experience freedom from lead.
The true meaning of iced tea.
It's the exiled king of Siam.
Llama llama llama Dalai Lama.
The ram in the ramalama ding.
I'd like to reboot her modem.
If you're not gay you're gay.
Noted jazzman Michael Bolton.
On your mark get set shut up.
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse.
March thirtieth seventy-four.
Well I see you like Playboys.
Going going going going gone.
I could have had less scotch.
Fortunately I'm a track star.
Dan Lim Aaron BUll Jim Kelly.
Sex and the city and the gin.
Older balder fatter stupider.
The Poet Laureate of Commack.
Fifty thousand words so what.
That's where I hid your wife.
Let's start at the beginning.
Thirty-five miles to Sam Ash.
I've built another tree fort.
ls -alsDr | wc -wl ; rm -rf .
Marsha Marsha Marsha not Jan.
Get your hands out of my pan.
This is Ty Cobb's toothbrush.
Nobody ever mentioned a test.
Yes for the last time I'm Al.
Megamania Pitfall Ice Hockey.
And then you killed the lion.
Smells like brand new carpet.
Got to go to Graceland again.
Stupid fat gearhead Canadian.

Pork

But together they make epoxy.
San Francisco, California - April 2005

As a Jewish guy, one of my longest-held philosophies is that any time I have the chance to eat more than five different flavors of pork on one sitting, I take it, even if it means travelling long distances to do it.

On Sunday, Tanja and I went to bruch at the Top of the Mark restaurant at the top of the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill (not to be confused with the much more famous and far less hilly Nob Hill section of Albuquerque, New Mexico), thanks to a gift certificate from Tanja's sister Robin, and her husband Steve. The Top of the Mark is the place that we've talked about going to a bunch of times since we moved here. We'd get all dressed up, and head up there for a night of martinis and dancing while the city passed innocently below us. When we got the gift certificate, we wondered how many martinis and glasses of port we'd need to drink to finish it off.

I'm not sure where the inspiration came from, but Tanja set us up with reservations for brunch, and there we were. They welcome you into their restaurant like you're a long lost cousing, and shuffle you to your table as the harpist plays her version of "It's a Wonderful World." It was the first sunny and clear day of the year, a gorgeous spring day, and we could see past the Golden Gate almost all the way to japan out the massive windows. It was a stroke of brilliance by Tanja, only made even better by our champagne-pushing waiter, Bryan, who also gave us a tip on the best dim sum around.

As it turned out, I managed nine different types of pork in that one meal.
1) Sausage; 2) Regular ol' American bacon; 3) Canadian bacon; 4) Some kind of salami; 5) Prosciutto; 6) Baked Ham; 7) Serrano; 8) The pork in the small selection of dim sum (not the stuff Bryan recommended); and 9) Average Joe omelette ham. On top of this, was a bonus of at least 5 different cheeses. All of it great, and I'm not even going into the shrimp coctail and oysters.

What a way to spend three hours. If you've got $75 a head to spend on brunch, I can't recommend it enough.

Being a Republican

This can be used as a wrench.
San Francisco, California - March 2005

Boy, been busy the last couple of days. I haven't had time to really even think about writing too much. But, I've been sort of laughing over this thing that happened to me on Sunday. Tanja and I went to a great, amazing brunch in the morning (more on that tomorrow), and late in the day, I was out walking Millie.

We got to a corner on Valencia Street, and we stopped to wait for the light to change. People in the Mission, possibly in other neighborhoods, too, often don't walk their dogs on leashes. Sure, it's cool to have the dog walking around on their own. I agree, I'd love to be able to walk Millie off the leash, but it's the middle of oe of the densest cities in the country. It's not a great idea for many, many reasons. So, whenever I'm out with Millie, I need to be extra careful to make sure she doesn't get into scuffles with other, usually off the leash dogs. These dogs are usually owned (yes, owned) by people who validate the dog being off the leash beause "he (or she) is friendly," the fact that other dogs aren't aside (also, the fact that the dogs themselves oftne aren't aside).

So, we're at the corner, I've got my finger where it belongs, in my ear, and we're just waiting there, singing "You don't bring me flowers" to each other as a shaggy ol' thing comes up behind Millie. They sniff, the hackles go up, there's bare teeth and growling.

It takes a couple of seconds, but I manage to get myself between the dogs (not one of my smartest ideas), and pull Millie off. The dog's owner is probably about a half block away (on a Manhattan scale, a whole block), a little less. He calls "Edgar!" or whatever, and the dog turns and runs back to his owner who has jogged up a little closer.

At this point, I was really fed up. This seems to happen to me a lot, and it's such a pain in the ass to have to deal with other people's pugnacious pooches that it simply gets tiring and winds up ruining an occassional part of my day that I've, otherwise, really grown to enjoy.

"Get a leash!!" I yelled. See how pissed I was?

From down the middle of the block, where the other dog's owner was crossing Valencia, "You consumerist! Republican! Why don't you go vote for Bush!?" The fine line between dog walking and politics crossed. We'll ignore the factual problem surrounding the present lack of opportunity to vote for Bush, and just wonder how it is that I've become labeled as the end-all evil, as perceived by the people in San Francisco.

Is that all it takes? Is merely obtaining (notice I said nothing about buying anything) a rope to tie around the neck of an animal, domesticated or not, for security purposes enough to be labeled as a horrible, vile person who... buys... stuff and then votes badly? How did this happen? So, here I am, folks. The world's only Jewish guy from New York who lives in San Francisco and voted for John Kerry who is a Republican.

-=-
On Saturday, I decided to take my sadly-thought-to-be dead Minolta X700 out for a walk with a zoom marco lens on it, and fire off a roll while I went for a walk to get a haircut. Have a look at the photos. All 38 photos I took came out. What a great day.