goofballs

 my not-niece can unlock my phone.  pre-COVID i had an obnoxiously long passcode on my phone; it was based on a sentence that reminds me of a woman i went to high school with who died. my phone used to use my thumb to unlock, but i figured it was time for an upgrade so i got the one that unlocks with your face. then we were all masked up, so i couldn't be typing in the mini-soliloquy that is my password every 50 meters to play ingress. so i changed it to a passcode. anyway, stella, now six, can unlock it... she has seen me enter it enough times, and eventually i started giving it to her, and she finally has it memorized so that she can pick up my phone and put on "my little pony: friendship is magic." (side notes one and two: first, i recognized john de lancie of star trek and breaking bad fame as one of the voice actors, and second, i call it "my little brony" which makes stella's mom laugh but also say things like "why am i friends with you?"). a...

I wouldn’t say that I was actively pursuing Keite Davis, but I certainly had been interested in her since we had become friends on a proto-social media site called Friendster. I think the first thing really caught my attention was her butt. I doubt that it was a random profile view that prompted me to befriend her years before October 1st, 2009. We probably had friends in common. Her Friendster profile was a photo of her posterior in a well fitted pair of blue lace panties. Her face was also lovely. She was a pixie blonde. Blue eyes and an elven face. Sometime around 2000 or 2001 we got to chatting, and we continued chatting for years. I had lovers and girlfriends, she had boyfriends, we would bounce our fears and insecurities off one another. In late summer 2009 she broke up with a boyfriend she had been with for a couple of years and moved to San Francisco. We talked about getting together to meet in person. On Thursday, the first of October 2009, I was drunk, she was flirt...

Mise en scene. This is where the writer, or director, establishes the setting of a scene. Here is where the action will unfold, the story will be told. Myself, Rold Gold, Spig (real name Ken), and a blue haired girl named Sadie were huddled in a structure that was part of the playground of Coventry Elementary School smoking weed. I was maybe 17 or possibly 18 at the time. We were listening to Alice In Chains on a Sony Walkman with the headphones rigged to a styrofoam cup. The corner of Euclid Heights Boulevard and Coventry Road was christened "Harvey Pekar Park" in 2015 but I can't recall ever encountering the famous writer there. I recall brief sightings of Trent Reznor and his band mates. Nine Inch Nails guitarist Frank Cavanaugh's little sister Catherine, who had beautiful blue eyes, was a frequent presence. I met Jon Bon Jovi on the concrete steps, and I didn't even recognize him until our local den mother and schizophrenic caretaker, Nebraxis Rock Sta...

by most adult standards, little kids are complete shits. they want what they want, and they want it NOW. when told to wait, or that they can't have gummi worms for breakfast, they sulk or they throw a tantrum. the coolest thing i saw today when babysitting my god daughter was when i took her to the playground and she shared her toys with some other girl she had just met, and they played together. three and a half years old, and she's learning compassion. now if she can just learn to say please when she wants something or to look at me and tell me with words what she wants when she's upset, then we'll be cooking with gas. kids. *shrug*

thought i had something to say. turns out i'm nothing.

I love my grandmother, my father's mother, who died more than two decades ago. She had a file of cards on which she wrote so many terrifying recipes involving awful post-Depression and World War II era processed foods, which my step mother lovingly transcribed posthumously in a binder entitled "Meals With Mildred." Her first husband, a contrite former strike breaker cum labor activist, was murdered. Her second husband, my grandfather, a trucker cum shipping executive, was active in the labor movement as well. She loathed Ronald Reagan almost as much as she loathed Satan himself. She was a Southern gal, and she had many "black friends." And I do believe she did. Her home in Akron was one of the first test markets for a service we called "cable" (prior to what we now call it, "broadband"). My first exposure to MTV was on her green couch in her modest Akron living room with it's brown carpet. Brown and green and orange, the swatch ...

Anniversary. The first time I saw her, after nearly 16 or 17 years had elapsed, she was noticeably thinner than she was in high school. But she was also stylish, in a way I didn't recall her being as a teenager. There was an anxious confidence in her. She talked in stuccato, gesticulating sharply.  We dined on bacon and eggs and talked about LA and TV and the Scientologists across the street, in their color coded collared short sleeves filing out of their Scientology busses as the Scientology private police force circled the big blue building on bicycles. We walked to her house, passing a vitamin store (a Scientology front, but I was just as fascinated to hear the dirt as she was to dish it). She offered, smiling, "did you know my maid is a Scientologist?" We passed a Spanish-Mexican church. This was unglamorous West Hollywood, where staff writers and upstarts scrape by. Of course Emily was also on SSI, for her problems. I browsed her selection of books - novelized fictio...

She said she was the penultimate, and then explained that she meant she would be the last before I settled down. I told her that I was not sure I'd ever settle down and that I was glad to have her as a member of my "elite tribe", and that I hope they would be kind to me in their remembrances should they out last me. She called me goth-y. I quoted Elliott Smith. My mind wandered, thinking about other women. A world without jealousy expanded in my mind, but it always turned sour. Conflicts arose and slowly poisoned Utopia. In my dreams, as in my real life, I found myself managing others' emotions and juggling their expectations. This is why we can't have nice things,... I wonder if my Dad steered me toward "A Stranger in a Strange Land" in my precocious, fumbling youth to convey something about my congenital wandering eye and love of lust. He was transitioning to the arms of another. Perhaps he wanted me to grok this. I have yet to grok it ful...

cow-orker I'm going to fix everything! me oh, louis… we all said that at first cow-orker :) me "i'm gonna fix these damn alerts!" cow-orker Naw I know I'm not going to fix everything but at first I want to jump on everything to get a feel for what I can ignore. me ok ;) you'll get a feel alright write up what you've observed in notes for eugene in 10 minutes and we'll handoff to him a little after 10 when he gets settled, k? cow-orker You goti t *got it me I'm going to get started with my laundry, be back in a couple cow-orker haha ok :) me now i'm going to start my Psych marathon cow-orker haha me I'm keep you updated on the developments with Julie and Shawn's relationship, and whatever silly stuff Gus says. cow-orker Great man I sincerely appreciate that. ;) me last week (a couple months ago, I'm really behind), Julie kicked Shawn out when she discovered that his psych...

January 22, 2013, 09:37 PST the premise of the story is vignettes of what people are doing the exact moment your heart stopped. starting with your neighbors, then random people in oakland. maybe a few of the many people around the world you knew, that very moment. some stories are longer, some short - then we go to a montage. then finally to your poor bewildered dog, licking your hand.

Story: I am riding the 33 Stanyan - I get shot - I become a ghost - I am a bad ghost, an ineffectual ghost - I retreat to the ocean - I am reborn as a seal - a rapping seal - the most famous seal rapper.

My garment bag - Seigel's Fine Clothing - looks like a body bag. My minds eye can see your grinning face asking "can I fit in it?" and trying to zip yourself up. You probably could, you were 90 pounds soaking wet carrying 5lbs of bricks. Now I lay it with care across my chair, over top my guitar cases, so that if I manage to bring myself to leave the house any time soon I can get my dress jacket and shirts dry cleaned for your memorial. That will be two weddings, two funerals. I wish I could erase the death by dousing it in gasoline and setting it on fire. Your size was the only small thing about you. I'll never forget sneaking out of the dorms for study hours and you being a fixture misfit in the computer lab most nights - all of us forming a ragtag tribe of proto-geeks. What was it you were always typing? I never knew until later the depths and breadth of your wondrous creativity - only that your joy was infectious and your curiosity boundless and that you h...

(fictional) Letter to a friend: You're not in the doghouse, per se. Well, certainly not with me. But you have made your bed, and there you shall sleep. It's a thing with you, it's a pattern. I mean, you tell me - you say, "oh I can't date an alcoholic," so it never quite worked out with Mischa. But then you turn around and poach Jake from Lauren. Drunk Jake, that's his nickname for fucks sake. Don't tell me they were broken up - it's more complicated than that. That's cover, you're justifying it to yourself. Its a lie you tell yourself and you believe it so well you actually had the gumption to get indignant TO ME when I suggested that maybe he didn't tell you exactly the truth about that. You talk about love, true love, sweep you off your feet romance, as if you have any idea what it means, or would recognize it if it lived with you for three years in Chelsea. Yeah, I went there. Remember when you left Ron for Patterson, an...

You see some hardass motherfucker coming down the street, that guy will give it up in less than an hour. I've stared down the hardest, bad-est killers and thugs on the planet. Tough mothers, hard headed and scarred. Tattooed up, cut up, calloused thugs that would cut your throat open if they could. But not a single one of those shit heads ever gets out of the box without giving up their best friend, their mom and Jesus Christ Himself, if He worked the job with them, did the dirty. Those cocksuckers don't scare me. Kids. They scare the shit out of me. Kids ain't got no sense, no idea about consequences, no reasons not to spit in your fucken eye and tell you to go fuck yourself. You can't get in their heads, cuz there ain't nothing there. I don't mean all kids.. of course you can scare the shit out of some punk from the suburbs, some mommy or daddy's kid that fucked up, got caught up in some shit they didn't plan on. That's like stealin...

President of the United States of America/Vice President: Obama/Biden United States Senate: Boxer United States Senate: Feinstein United States House of Representatives: Pelosi State Assembly: Ammiano [ * ] Bay Area Rapid Transit Director: 1) Klivans , 2) Lucas , 3) Radulovich (incumbent) San Francisco Board of Education: See: http://und1sk0.blogspot.com/2012/11/official-voting-instructions-from-lefty.html San Francisco Community College Board: See: http://und1sk0.blogspot.com/2012/11/official-voting-instructions-from-lefty.html California Ballot Measures: Prop 30 - Yes. Prop 31 - No [ * ]. Prop 32 - No. Prop 33 - No. Prop 34 - Yes. Prop 35 - No. Prop 36 - Yes. Prop 37 - Yes.  Prop 38 - Yes. Prop 39 - Yes. Prop 40 - Yes. San Francisco Ballot Measures: A - Yes. B - Yes.  C - Yes. D - Yes. E - Yes. F - Yes [ * ]. G - Yes.

Read through all this shit so you don't have to. US Representative District 12: I'll be voting for Nancy Pelosi . John Dennis seems like an earnest enough guy, but the first thing I see on his webpage is a plea to "End the Fed." The Federal Reserve is vilified and misunderstood. Whenever I see a plea to end it, I know that there are other dog whistles a-blowing in the wind: Dramatically cut federal spending immediately. Savings could be realized by abolishing the Departments of Education, Commerce and Agriculture and reorganizing the Department of Homeland Security. Budget savings for these changes would be approximately $300 billion. Abolish capital gains taxes for at least 10 years, if not permanently. This will attract the necessary offshore capital to start businesses and create productive jobs. Drastically cut, with an eye toward ending, the income tax. This puts real buying power back into the hands of the consumer. Nice try, Libertarian! ...

Marsha was out cold when John heard Tony pull into the driveway. She was chewing on her hair, snoring softly. John looked into the bathroom mirror. "What a mess." He frothed his face up with her shower gel and considered wiping down his pits. Nah, not today, not for Tony. The fall air was clean, smelled of pine and burning leaves. Eugene, Oregon. "Hey Tony, that's a lot of truck you got here," as John hoisted himself up into the passenger seat. "You know what they say, right?" Tony said nothing, his hands gripped the wheel with his eyes fixed forward. "They say, 'nice truck, sorry about your dick.'" John laughed nervously. Engine still running, Tony shifted the truck into gear, and the pickup shuddered before backing out onto Willamette Avenue. cop[10]

The party line ticket. The good (Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi), the not-as-good (Barack Husein Obama) and the ugly (Diane Feinstein). Diane Feinstein, for all her faults (and there are many) is the devil we know, same as the incumbent POTUS. -- So let's deal with the 800-lbs gorilla in the room: Democrats acting like Republicans. DiFi and Obama are both (the former enthusiastically and the latter more moderately) in the "blue dog" camp, which is a Democrat who is willing to court votes on the right, wants to appear business friendly and will often vote in spite of the will of the party constituency (or at least stated orthodoxy). They are hawkish on defense and willing to play games with civil liberties (especially those pertaining to due process - looking at you, Mr. President); they can be coy or waffle regarding civil rights, especially marriage equality (though Senator Feinstein has always been pro- and POTUS has come around due perhaps in no small part to h...

Re: This bike isn't your stolen one :( Inbox x Terry 11:19 AM (26 minutes ago) to me I'm sure the police have contacted you and given you the bad news ,it's not your bike. Sent from my iPhone Thanks a lot, jerk. I am sorry the PD wasted their time checking the bike you were selling out. I am more sorry that you have wasted my time so thoroughly. Next time, when someone asks for proof of sale, you should consider offering it up on request. Thank you SO MUCH for taunting me about it in email. I hope you never sell you bike, asshole.

Prop 30 - Yes. The proposition asks the wealthiest Californians to invest in the state whose treasure they enjoy and whose economy enriches them. Prop 31 - Needs more study. SFBG says no, "gives governor too much power". Likes the idea of a 24 month budget, and some of the other proposals (more municipal control over funds), but does not like the bills complexity, suggests it is a grab-bag approach to fixing several critical problems at once and is leery of using propositions as legislative fixes for issues this critical. I may be leaning toward "yes", throwing caution to the wind regarding executive power in lieu of budgetary fixes. Will need to look at polling data - would rather it lose by a slim margin that pass. Prop 32 - No. SFBG is emphatic that this is a no vote, citing SuperPAC's bearing down on Unions. That's good enough for this liberal. The measure presents itself as an even-handed effort to reduce political spending by both unions and c...