Today's Top 5

1. In case you missed it, I got engaged to the Super Hot Irish Girlfriend. Scroll down a bit for deets.

2. It's Opening Day! Baseball season is upon us! And the Giants are already down, 3-0 in the 2nd inning!

3. As we know, the start of baseball season coincides with the start of Outdoor Drinking Season.

Ahhh, Zeitgeist. We shall see each other soon.

4. Drop-off laundry service. I used to be at laundry's mercy. Now laundry serves me, ever since I started dropping it off. I figure it costs about $5 more per week. Is it worth $5 not to schlep my laundry down to the laundromat and sit there waiting for it? Oh yes. Yes, yes yes. If you're still doing your own laundry, you probably think Sylvia Browne is really psychic and eat at Red Lobster.

5. Having the day off work for Cesar Chavez Day. Thanks, California taxpayers!

I'm like totally engaged

Short version: Asked Super Hot Irish Girlfriend to marry me. She said yes. Don't worry, there's no Green Card motivation or anything; she already has dual citizenship.

Long version:

Me and the S.H.I.G. drove up to Napa Saturday morning. We were staying at Silverado Resort, which is like a collection of condos that appear to have been decorated by your grandmother. Check out this furniture that was in our condo:

Hideous, huh? Looks like something Vintage Microwave would be all over. But we're not here for the furniture, right?

So we hit a few wineries - Peju, which was OK, I guess, and then Cakebread, which was really good, I thought. They had a Reserve Chardonnay that was excellent, but I forgot by the time the tasting was over and bought the Sauvignon Blanc instead.

Got a bite to eat and then hit up Domaine Carneros. I had the sparkling wines flight and really liked the Vintage Brut, and I don't usually like sparkling wine at all. So S.H.I.G. bought a bottle of that. THIS IS FORESHADOWING.

Go back to the resort, open the bottle of champagne (or I guess you're not allowed to call it that - it's "sparkling wine," sorry). So we're sitting around Grandma's condo and I'm trying to get my nerve up. And I realize that we're almost out of champagne and it would suck to propose right when we ran out of champagne. (Or sparkling wine, sorry). So I turn the TV off (slick, huh?) and I kneeled down in front of her and she totally saw it coming. She goes "No! Awkward! Awkward!" and started laughing. But I busted out the ring and said, "Will you marry me?" and she burst into tears and said "Yes."

HERE'S THE VISUAL PROOF:

I know, right? Any bigger and she's need a sling to hold her arm up. That's how I roll.

Oh, and today on the drive from Napa to Petaluma (where we stopped for breakfast and overheard this horrifying story, but I'll get to that another time), we drove right into the Windows start-up screen.

And that's how I came to be engaged.

The homeless report

Today I was standing at the corner of Mission and Spear when a homeless guy pushing a cart full of bottles and cans came towards the trash can next to which I stood. (You can see the actual trash can in the pic - look lower left.) As he got closer, he said to me, "Are you still masturbating? You know that sin's gonna keep chasing you." So I guess I'm fucked!

There's another homeless guy I see every day in Civic Center Plaza. Or at least I assume he's homeless. He shows up every day and sits by the grass, lights incense, and sometimes bangs on a cowbell or something that sounds like a cowbell. I assume he's homeless because he asked me for 25 cents once. He's there like all day, every day. You know what he made me realize? Being homeless, apart from all the problems you'd expect, is probably fucking boring. I can't imagine sitting out there all day with no Internet or TV or even a book.

Today in the news

1. Hilary's whole "Oh, right, I wasn't actually under sniper fire" thing

a.k.a. The next total fucking non-issue that has been completely seized upon and turned into a huge story and meanwhile we don't even know how she's going to fund universal health care or what her position on gun control is, even though those are actual fucking issues.

Yes, she obviously wasn't coming under withering enemy fire when she got off the plane in Bosnia and played pattycake with an 8-year-old and then had a picnic on the tarmac. Oh whoops. But - and this is coming from an Obama man - who the fuck cares? I just generally assume that politicians are lying about 60% of the time, so I fail to see how this should come as a surprise to anyone. Anyway, she lived in DC for 8 years, so she was basically in gunfire range at all times.

2. The Matches' creepy old guy leader

Joel Selvin (who is a whole 'nother story I'll address at a later juncture) writes about this semi-creepy old guy who seems to be the creative and everything else force behind The Matches, a band from Oakland composed of fairly recent high-school grads. The article explains that he "co-writes all the songs with Matches front man Shawn Harris, produces the band's CDs, directs the videos and basically participates in every creative decision the band makes, down to what to wear or where to take a photograph for a newspaper article."

Now, I've heard some Matches songs and liked them, and I'm all for the kids making the rock music, but isn't it just sort of.... I don't know, un-rock to have a svengali? It's just the kind of thing I associate with boy bands, not bands that, at one point, called themselves "punk." I mean, he tells them what to wear?

3. God finally listened to my prayers

This is so fucking creepy

This is a new quadriped robot under development by some company obviously fueled by Defense Department money. It's explained better in this article at Gizmodo.



Isn't that just the fucking creepiest thing you've ever seen? I mean, it looks like a real live animal of some kind. The kind that Hieronymous Bosch was afraid of, that's what kind. It doesn't need to actually shoot bullets out of its eyes or explode on contact; just drop a bunch of them anywhere near your enemies and they will run in abject terror. Jesus.

Today's Top 5

1. The new Chester Cheetah

Remember how Chester Cheetah used to be kind of a spaz? He's changed.




Don't you love the accent?

2. "Date with Ikea" by Pavement

3. Valley Tavern

What's not to like about this solid neighborhood bar? Nothing, that's what.

4. Super Hot Irish Girlfriend

NOTE this list is not in any particular order.

5. My new car

New to me, anyway. It's a 1996 Jeep Cherokee. I kind of love it.

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet.

Eagle rays are the new spinach!

This is so fucked up:

MIAMI (Reuters) - An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys on Thursday and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her, a Florida wildlife investigator said.

"It's a bizarre accident," said Jorge Pino, an agent with the Flnoorida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The woman and her family were aboard a boat in the Atlantic
Ocean, off the city of Marathon in the Florida Keys, he said.
"A large ray jumped out of the water and collided with the victim and somehow the barb penetrated some part of her body, which caused her to fall back and hit her head on some portion of the vessel," Pino said. "We don't know exactly which one of those things caused her death."

Local media said the animal's barb had impaled the woman through the neck.

Eagle rays are fucking fed up and they're not taking any more crap. Got it?