40goingon28 recommends

Last night we finally watched last week's episode of Lost, so we're all caught up now. Super Hot Irish Girlfriend says she has an abusive-boyfriend relationship with Lost. It keeps beating her up and then it apologizes and does something nice and begs her to come back and she does and then it smacks her across the face again. Or something like that.

So just so I have this straight, Sawyer and the Asian guy and Juliet all just spent three years in the 70's and got assimilated into the Dharma Initiative? And next week Jack et al. are all going to join up with them in the 70's? Is this even close?

Anyway, along with "Lost," I have the following current recommendations for you:

1. The Moth podcast

2. Hangar One kaffir lime vodka

3. Sexpigeon

4. Fleet Foxes

5. Optimism

Maybe this is too much info

Last night Intervention re-ran the Cristy episode, which, as all good Intervention fans know, is one of the best, since Cristy is completely fucking insane and taken to sitting in her rubble-filled apartment naked, drawing on a sketchpad and ranting while chugging vodka and smoking crystal meth. She's awesome.


Add to this the fact that Cristy works as a stripper and makes fun of her sister for being fat and, well, you've got all the ingredients for a classic. ANYWAY, the appearance of this episode prompted the following text message exchange between me and The Sister last night:

The Sister: OMG that awesome intervention meth chick is on!

Me: I know. I'm recording it. She's the best.

Me: Intervention always makes me want to drink.

The Sister: Me too. Is that bad?

Me: Not sure.

The Sister: O god this chick is AWESOME

Top 5: Things I did this weekend

1. Ate at Basil Canteen

Super Hot Irish Girlfriend treated me at this newish Thai place on Folsom and 11th Friday and it was DFL! I had the pad kee mao, which too often comes out as a clump of chewy noodles with some veggies and meat thrown on top. The noodles at BC were cooked perfectly, light and delicious, with thinly-sliced, perfectly seasoned steak. SHIG's noodle soup was also good.

But you know I couldn't get out without a complaint, right? Here goes. It was FUCKING FREEZING in there. Turn on some heat, people!

2. Drinks at Bloodhound Friday night after dinner

When we first got here on Friday, it was pretty packed, which was worrisome, but it seemed like it was the tail end of some kind of company happy hour and emptied out a little as our group coalesced around one of the tables in front.

3. Took the dog for a walk at Crissy Field

Leland's still got this thing where he'll charge up to other dogs to be all "Hey, I'm a fucking tough guy, you know that? So I'm just letting you know ahead of time not to fuck with me, k?" And it usually works, but on Saturday this HUGE white dog started giving it right back to him and chasing him around and basically not leaving him alone. SERVES YOU RIGHT, RIGHT? He stopped running up to other dogs after that. Such is the way you learn.

4. Saw the Watchmen movie at the Sundance Kabuki

Damn, I'm going to see movies here from now on. Reserving your seats ahead of time! Extra big chairs and lots of legroom! And you can drink during the movie up in the balcony! Fuck yeah!

The movie was OK, I guess. I'm not really a comic book guy or anything but I liked it better than I thought I would. It's fucking long, though.

5. Takeout from Hahn's Hibachi

Beef/chicken BBQ combo. DON'T MIND IF I DO.

Did you know that Spencer Gifts still exists?

WTF?

With a media gaggle looking on, Clinton handed Lavrov a green box tied with a green bow. He opened it to reveal a "reset button," a reminder of Vice President Joe Biden's recent remark that the Obama administration hopes to reset U.S. relations with Moscow.

Maybe I missed the part of international diplomacy that included giving gag gifts to foreign leaders. A "reset button"? Really? Perhaps we'll give the Japanese prime minister a Humphrey the Humping Dog from Spencer Gifts. I mean, really, grow up.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Last night I was sympathy-drinking with The Sister at Uva in the Lower Haight after she lost one of her jobs. I like Uva. There's a good selection of wines to try and I think every song that came on is on my iPod. Plus the bartender was really cute, so there's always that.

Anyway, after tasting roughly one of every wine on the list, we made our way across the street to Noc Noc and had a couple of beers in everyone's favorite Burning-Man-meets-the-Flintstones bar. The Sister wanted to know how bad the Global Economic Disaster was going to get. I told her that everyone basically will have half as much as they used to. This news did not seem to cheer her up.

FINALLY, in other bar news, I sort of love The Page's FAQ. For example:

Q
What are your specialties?

A

We like all honest drinks, and we take a particular pride in our 22+ draught beers (generally featuring one or more seasonal beers, and always featuring several local beers) and our fine selection of whiskies: Kentucky, Tennesse, small batch and blends, Canadian, Irish -- and not least, Scotch whisky, of which we have several fine blends and an extensive list of single malts from Orkney to Campbeltown and places in between. We're no slouches with gin, vodka, tequila, and rum too (let us know if we don't have a brand you like), and we make damn good bloody mary's (bloodies mary?) and margaritas from scratch.

Q
Can I get a Mohito?

A

No.

Q
Is it cool to play Rush 2112 on the jukebox?

A

No.

Q
How about Journey?

A

No. Many think playing Journey is clever, but it is not.

Q
How about the Allman's Whipping Post live, or consecutive Phish tunes?

A

No. Historically, bartenders become churlish and unresponsive 8-12 minutes into any given song.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Obligatory gay marriage post, w/ pics

We are currently facing the greatest threat to our happiness and way of life in generations. Global economic disaster? What? No, I'm talking about gay marriage, of course.

That's what some people seem to think, anyway. Once again, the California Supreme Court is considering the issue, and as per usual, out came the sign-toters and yellers on both sides.

Here's the problem, the way I see it, and I'm certain I'm not the first person to make this observation: the problem here is that "marriage," in this country, is both a religious institution and a civil one, and the two institutions are hopelessly entangled. There's no separate civil marriage that you can get; civil unions just aren't the same thing, no matter what anyone says. So these people who believe that God hates gays or whatever hear "marriage," and they think marriage in their church, not the kind of marriage that involves intestate succession and taxes and so forth.

I don't think anything should be forced on any religion that its adherents don't want. If you want to speak in tongues or worship Baal or whatever it is you do, have at it. But by the same token, don't use your religion as a cudgel to tell everyone else what they can and can't do. And if two people who love each other want to make a lifelong commitment to one another, it's none of your fucking business, as long as no one's forcing you to perform the ceremony in your church. Until we disentangle religious "marriage" and civil "marriage," we're going to have to keep dealing with this shit.

Last night, I was listening to right-wing lunatic Brian Sussman on KSFO, and he took a momentary break from ranting about how Obama isn't a US citizen to start ranting about how gay marriage was going to destroy society. Then something interesting happened. A guy called in who described himself as a "conservative Republican," and said:

"I'm a fiscal conservative. This social stuff takes second place to me because right now, I mean, my company is struggling, and that's the number one - I could care less if two gay people want to get married. I want to feed my family."

Sussman got all huffy and told him that he should stand up for his family and society was going to be destroyed and blah, blah, blah, but I think the guy has a point.

Anyway, Frank Chu was in front of the court this morning, so that's some reassuring stability in an otherwise crazy world.

Holy crap!

- We almost got hit by a killer asteroid Monday morning. How come no one's talking about this?

The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 48,800 miles from Earth. That is just twice the height of some telecommunications satellites and about a fifth of the distance to the Moon.

The space ball measured between 69 feet and 154 feet in diameter. The Planetary Society said that made it the same size as an asteroid that exploded over Siberia in 1908 and leveled more than 800 square miles of forest.

That Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908 always sort of fascinated me, I guess because when I was a kid there was a crackpot theory floating around that it was caused by a UFO crashing into the Earth and I always thought that was creepy/interesting. I think the general scientific consensus now is that it was an asteroid or comet. Anyway, it's kind of sobering to think that 2009 DD45 could have easily wiped out a major American city and it wasn't even spotted until like 2 days before the near-miss. Freaky.

The aliens also dress really well

Let me preface this by saying that my Dad is totally cool, as Dads go, and especially as 82-year-old Dads go. He's not just from another generation, he's from a whole different era, but he's always been fine with letting me live my life however I want and do pretty much whatever I want to do. I mean, he's always been supportive of me, even though he's ex-military and a hardcore Republican and I'm ex-stoner and live in San Francisco.

Now, with that being said, we have to remember that Dad is from a different time and he's maybe even gotten a little more conservative as he's gotten older. I remember asking him about the gays in the military thing when it first appeared on the radar about 20 years ago and he goes, "Sure, I know guys in the military who were like that, but they were just fine. Never caused any problem." At the time, I thought that was pretty damned impressive.

ANYWAY, all this is leading up to a semi-funny story. As you may know, The Sister and Super Hot Irish Girlfriend and I were all at my Dad's place this past weekend doing some wedding prep and just hanging out and so forth. So two friends of The Sister's who happen to be a gay couple came to town to hang out with us and they stayed at Dad's house, and he seemed fine with that, even though, of course, no one talked about the pretty obvious elephant in the room. He was perfectly nice to them, because he's just generally a nice guy, but he might have felt a little awkward, I don't know.

SO, Friday night The Sister and the gays are getting ready to go into town, specifically to go to a country music bar and the fact that one of the gays is a HUGE country music fan is its own separate topic but whatever. So when they're getting ready, Dad pulls me aside and darkly tells me, "You tell your sister that it's not safe for them to go to gay bars." Now, I immediately almost burst out laughing but didn't, and so off I went to tell my sister this very dire warning.

She did not resist in bursting out laughing. "Are you kidding me?" she said. "That's about the safest place I could go." We're not sure what Dad thinks goes on at gay bars, but I'm pretty sure that it rarely involves sacrificing straight females to their god or stuff like that. In fact, I'd be way more worried about my sister at a straight club than at pretty much any gay bar. As it turns out, they went to a country music bar and everyone got home safely, although I'm pretty sure you're about 50 times more likely to get knifed in a country music bar than a gay bar.

The next night, though, Dad hung out with all of us at home and when I was in the kitchen helping make dinner I could hear him chatting it up with the gays in the next room and having a big old time. The next day, he told them, "Anytime you're in town, you're more than welcome to stay here, whether or not [The Sister] is here. You make sure and call us, OK?"

SHIG put it best. She said that when we're all 80 years old, our kids will be friends with the aliens and at first we'll be scared and say, "I don't want any aliens in my house," but then after we talk to the aliens for a while, we'll be all "Well, I wasn't sure about their tentacles and stuff, and I don't want to say that I support the alien lifestyle, but once I got to know Gor, I gotta say, he's alright."