Recycling poachers, meet DeathCan!

After a fairly long respite, you know who was back last night? The fucking recycling poachers, that's who. You know how I know? Because these assholes woke me up at 11:30 last night going through my recycling out front and dropping bottles and shit. These weren't the neighborhood-homeless-guy-with-shopping-cart poachers. These were the organized-group-with-truck poachers. That pisses me off even more, for some reason.

Now, I admit that our recycling can is pretty much a cornucopia of delights for your average recycling poacher, given the number of bottles of wine (and beers, too, I guess) that Super Hot Irish Girlfriend and our associates plow through in an average week. But fuck you for waking me up, and for stealing that shit. SF is looking at a $575 million deficit, and you're not helping.

So here's what I've come up with. I call it DeathCan!!!

What do you think? That should keep 'em out of there, right?

Spell "retard" backwards

Yesterday we had Stephen & Jessica over to help decorate our Christmas tree, if by "help decorate our Christmas tree" you mean "drink 5 bottles of wine and play Cranium."

Cranium's fun enough, I guess. My beef with it (and you knew I was going to bitch about something, right) is that a lot of the questions are too fucking easy. One of the categories is all spelling and wordplay, and I shit you not, the questions are sometimes shit like "Spell 'haiku'" or "Spell 'snorkel' backwards." Not exactly particle physics. I'm just being a jackass, though. It was fun.

Anyway, somehow the tree got decorated, and Leland got to hang out in his vaguely disinterested way with Todd, and I made falafel from scratch, just 'cause that's how I roll.

Now get out there and SPEND SOME MONEY, you fucking tightwad. The future of our country depends on it.

Makes sense

Happy Friday, everyone!

Pic submitted by The Sister. Thanks, The Sister!

Cat vs. Dog

In an ideal world, there would be no war or famine or pestilence, and all things would live in harmony. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world.

Our cat does not like our dog very much.

When Leland first arrived home, the cat took a stay-away approach. She secreted herself in the bedroom, mostly, and stayed there more or less all the time. Then, as time passed, she started to come out a bit more, but would quickly retreat whenever the dog appeared.

Now she's out and about with much greater frequency, and she doesn't care much for Leland. He, in turn, is perplexed because you can tell HE WANTS TO BE HER FRIEND SO BAD SO BAD. He always wags his tail when he sees her and shyly approaches her. She responds to these entreaties of friendship by loudly growling and hissing at him. Sometimes she'll lunge at him too, just for good measure. He's hurt and doesn't understand why she won't be friends.

Hello! Can we be friends now please?

Now that the cat has discovered her superior firepower, she's taken to fucking with the dog, apparently just for fun. She'll hide somewhere and wait til he strolls by and then DIVE OUT HISSING AND CLAWING. You never saw a dog move that fast.

There have been some encouraging signs that the animals will eventually reach a state of detente and live in a wary, if tolerable, peace. And eventually he'll stop running up to her and scaring the crap out of her.

At least, you'd think he would.

I ain't going to Rehab

Spinning absently through Digital Cable the other night, I came across yet more evidence of the decline and fall of whatever was left of American civilization.

It's a reality show called Rehab: Party at the Hard Rock Hotel and it's horrifying and oddly compelling and the douchebaggiest thing I've ever seen. In a word, it's awesome.

It seems that the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas has a daytime party in and around their pool area on Sundays called "Rehab" in which roided-out pinhead mooks with tribal armband tattoos and hoochie Girls Gone Wild congregate to engage in their bizarre mating rituals while drinking $1,000 bottles of champagne. Meanwhile, "TruTV" (which used to be CourTV but apparently decided that was too classy) documents the whole spectacle. It's like the Fall of Rome, as staged by guys who wear visors backwards and girls in dinner-plate-sized sunglasses and gold lame bikinis.

Been recently lobotomized? This might be fun then!

Masterpiece Theater, it's not. But like many other Entertainment Products I absorb, I can't explain its strange appeal. There's no real plot to speak of, just interconnected storylines like "The guys in Cabana 48 only tipped me $250 on their $1700 tab" and "Bring us some girls, but not Vegas girls" and "Somebody take this passed-out chick to the hospital, because her friend wants to stay and party."

I guess it's fascinating on some level to me because it concerns a world I've never been a part of. I guess it would be just as strange for the guy with the 36" pecs who shouted "NEW JERSEY!!!!!" at the camera to watch a reality show in which we went to Cafe du Nord to see a band no one's ever heard of and then went to Lucky 13 to talk about how shitty the crowd was.

P.S. I know the title of this post was totally obvious and lame, but I couldn't think of anything else.

Urban etiquette: an occasional series

Today's topic: The mysteries of tipping


Tipping used to be easy. Go to a restaurant, get service, leave tip. Now everywhere I go, some counter jockey with a sense of entitlement wants me to leave money for them doing their job. Confused? Here are the guidelines to follow. Clip 'n save.


Restaurants: This is the easy one. 20% minimum, more if you feel like it or the service was extra good. Going below 20% is only justified if the service was really, really bad or the waitron was totally rude. Luckily, this doesn't happen very often, even in SF.


Hotels: About $5 a day, depending on whether they have to change the sheets every day or it's one of those hotels where they don't change the sheets the whole time you're there. Leave the money on the table with a note that says "Thanks so much!" If you're questioning tipping the hotel maid, remember that she (because it's always a "she") makes about $1.50 an hour and changes 50 beds a day and cleaned up the snotty Kleenex you left on the floor, you fucking slob.


Taxis: Usually a couple of bucks, if it's under $20. I try to round to the nearest 5, if possible. So if it's $12, I give $15, for example. If not, just kick down an extra 3 or 4 bucks on top of the fare. If it's over 20, adjust accordingly. I rarely have fares that high, but I remember giving $30 on a $21 fare once.


Bartenders: Standard rule is a dollar a drink, every time. More if he or she is really good. Word to the wise - if you want to get good service all night, start out with about 2 bucks a drink on that first round. Works like a charm.



Counter jars: This is the toughest one. Seems like everywhere you go now, any place that has a cash register has a cup asking you for tips.


Well, you know what? Fuck that. Here's my basic rule - unless the person behind the counter performed some value-added service above and beyond simply doing their job, no fucking tip. EXAMPLES: (1) Cashier rings up product I selected. Are you fucking kidding? No tip. (2) Barista pours cup of coffee, hand it to me. No tip. BUT (3) Barista makes complicated double half-cap caramel mocchiato. If you're gay enough to drink something like that, yes, you have to tip. (4) Burrito Assembly Tech puts together your super w/ carne asada, hold the guac. Yes, an extra buck in the cup next to the cashier won't kill you.


I know, it's somewhat arbitrary, but you get a feel for it after a while. Anyway, if it's confusing, just listen to the little voice in your heart.



Massages: I have no fucking idea. Do I seem to you like the kind of person who gets massages?



I know this isn't totally comprehensive, but I'm sure once you absorb and internalize these general guidelines, you'll be able to figure out what to do with the valet and your gardener and the gift-wrap girl at Macy's.

The post-Thanksgiving roundup

We got back Friday night, went to Fresca for dinner, then watched the season finale of Sons of Anarchy. I know I've been pimping SOA like crazy, but seriously, it is so fucking awesome. I already miss it.

The flights back were fine, but I was stuck next to a Non-Communicator, like Super Hot Irish Girlfriend was on the flights out. You know this type? No matter what you say, nothing. No verbal response. So I go "Excuse me, could I get out?" and he looks at me and then gets up without saying a word. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be next to Mr. Talky for a whole flight, but just saying "Sure," or "No problem" is kind of basic human interaction, right?

On the flight there, SHIG was next to a total Southern prep type with a button-down shirt tucked into jeans, with loafers. And a Bible. Same deal. Not a word from him. Even worse, she's trying to get her tray table out of the armrest (we were in a exit row, which, for me, is vitally important to air travel, but more on that later) and Southern Prep is asleep, so she touches his arm to try and wake him and he moves his arm without a word and then rubs it like it burns or something. Seriously, what the fuck is up with people? She's Irish, not a demon.

So, Thanksgiving with the extended family. Per usual, the food was excellent, blah blah blah, and we opened the first bottle of wine around 12:30, so it was definitely fun. Oh, we have a gay in our family now. She was always in our family, I mean, but now she's a gay. This bit of info was imparted to me and my sister and SHIG in a hushed, I-have-some-very-serious-news kind of way, but our reaction was pretty much a collective shrug.

OK! Now it's officially Christmas season. The bad part of that is the shopping and crowds and Norelco electric razor ads and crass commercialism, but the good part is that it's now socially acceptable to drink almost every day and listen to "Fairytale of New York" as many times as you want without someone saying "Are you still listening to that? Christmas is over."