If I had 6 months to live

1. Nod meaningfully at the doctor. Say, "No, really, I'm OK. Let me just take some time to process this." Leave doctor's office.

2. Proceed directly to closest corner store. Purchase 3 packs of P-Funks. Light one immediately, savoring the rich tobacco flavor. Light another one, just to have as a spare. Laugh at clerk who is looking at me mean for smoking in the store. Purchase one PBR tall-boy and take with me in ghetto bag.

3. Go home, apply for 8-10 credit cards. Call family. "I'm OK. Yes. Yes, really. I know, it's devastating. What? Oh, yeah, I'll come by and see you in a couple of weeks."

4. Liquidate IRA. Request that money be wired immediately into my checking account.

5. Dinner that night for 10 at Boulevard, on me. "What's that 2003 Marcassin chardonnay? 285 a bottle? That's fine. We'll take 3."

6. Limo ride to airport.

7. First class to Lihue, then another limo to two-week stay at private villa, Maui beachfront.

8. "Hello? Make-a-Wish foundation? Got something to write with? OK, I want to party with the Lohan for a weekend in LA. No Ronson, that's firm."

9. 5 months, 29 days later: achieve state of Zen-like bliss and acceptance. Select music for funeral. Heavy on the Elliott Smith. If people aren't crying, it's not a funeral.

10. "What do you mean, misdiagnosis? What does that mean?"

Wait, what blog is this? WTF is this shit?

So here we have the Democratic National Convention, that quadrennial shitshow where the Dems get together and nominate someone who'll probably lose. (The Republican convention is pretty much the same, except their guy usually wins, and they seem much, much angrier. In fact, Republicans in general always seem pissed off. But that's another post.) I didn't watch Hillary's speech last night, but from what I gather, she pretty much said "Since you can't vote for me, might as well vote for this guy." Some Hillary supporters, apparently, are either going to not vote or vote for McCain, which is pretty much the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Meanwhile, the #1 bestselling book in the country is currently The Obama Nation, a vile compendium of half-truths and outright lies compiled by the same professional libelist who Swift-Boated John Kerry out of a 2004 win (along with the help of the Diebold Corporation). Given the fact that 45 percent of Americans apparently believe that God created humans 10,000 years ago, it's not an exceptionally tough sell to convince people that Obama's a Muslim or hates America or whatever.

Look, I don't think Obama's the ideal Democratic candidate. The way Bush totally fucked up this country in the past 8 years, any off-the-shelf Democrat should have a cakewalk to the presidency. The fact that O's basically tied with McCain right now points up the fact that he hasn't really connected with most Americans. Part of it is undoubtedly the fact that he's black. Part of it is the air of elitism that hangs over him, and part of it is certainly the campaign of misinformation that will only accelerate as the election gets closer. Personally, I think the Democrats could have found a better candidate. I like and respect Obama, but I'm still not completely convinced that he's going to make a great president. Of course, it wouldn't take much to beat the current one.

I'm a pessimist by nature, so I think, at this point, McCain will probably win, in a somewhat close election. Unless Obama can find some way to connect with people better than he has so far. This article in Newsweek dramatically illustrates how good he is at connecting with people one-on-one. Since he can't personally meet everyone face-to-face, I hope his campaign figures out some way to communicate that ability to connect on a large scale. Or we're even more fucked than we are now.

OK, that's enough of the heavy. We'll now return to our regularly-scheduled diet of drinking, baseball, and fucking not smoking.

Didn't do / Did do

Here’s a quick roundup of what I haven’t been doing:

- I didn’t go to any of the Outside Lands festival. After receiving multiple reports of Muni hell, insane crowds, half-hour waits in the beer line, and the presence of Jack Johnson, I just decided to say fuck it. As it turns out, I heard that Sunday, the day we were going to go, was maybe better, but still. Anyway, we’re going to the Treasure Island fest in a few weeks, so that’ll be my Summer Festival Experience.

- I didn’t really watch the Olympics. I guess some people really get into it, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t do anything for me.

- I didn’t go to any Giants games over the weekend, even though it sounds like the kids are alright.

Here’s what I have been doing:

- Ate at Fresca Saturday night with Super Hot Irish Girlfriend. Man, Fresca is really good.

- Saw Pineapple Express on Sunday. It was OK. There were definitely some laughs, but the pairing of stoner buddy comedy and pervasive extreme violence is a bit off-putting. It reminded me of Superbad in the sense that it uses romantic comedy framing and conventions, in a way, to tell the story of best friends. You know, they meet, they face adversity and separate, then they’re reunited. Apatow seems really into the idea of best friends as the most important bond in the universe.

Also, what's up with the guy at the movies who constantly repeats the last line of dialogue back at the screen? WTF? Luckily we were far enough away that I didn't have a complete meltdown/freakout, but still. ANNOYING.

Korean BBQ truck, why hast thou forsaken me?

Sufficiently intrigued by the concept of a Korean BBQ truck, and having read the semi-promising Yelp reviews of said operation, Olu and I headed down to Embarcadero and Bryant today to try it out.

One problem: it never showed.

This is what it would have looked like if it showed. Imagine the guy with the ponytail is Olu, saying "Damn! That's some good Korean barbeque!"

WTF? According to the somewhat primitive website, Seoul on Wheels is supposed to *POOF* magically appear at Embarcadero and Bryant on Fridays betwixt 12:30 and 1:45. We were there at 12:30, Seoul on Wheels. Where the hell were you? Where's my goddam spicy pork and kimchee?

So we said fuck it and went to Red's Java House instead.

It was fine, I guess. Beautiful day, so natch, all the outdoor tables were taken.

On another note, do you ever remember any selection of a VP being laden with this much drama and anticipation? It's like everything in this election so far has to be so fucking drawn out and tense. Just pick someone and get it over with. Jesus.

On still another note, I never bought tickets to the Outside Lands Festival which, if you haven't heard, starts today. Now I'm kinda wishing I was going if, for nothing else, just to see the spectacle. Super Hot Irish Girlfriend and I are in negotiations to maybe go Sunday now. I wouldn't mind seeing Broken Social Scene and Andrew Bird and Wilco and Rogue Wave, I guess. Jack Johnson can suck it, though.

Iggy Pop hates me

This is going to be one of those multi-topic catch-all posts without any specific focus or theme. So that should be perfect for you MTV generation kidz who have the attention span of a 3-year-old and click away from something if it doesn't get your attention in the first 14 seconds.

Google Image Search result for "Bright Shiny Things." LOOK AT IT!!!!

- OK, so now I'm on what, Day 5 of not smoking? OK so far, I guess. The Sister, who's a nutritionist, has me on these crazy supplements with 1600% of my RDA of Vitamin C for the day and L-tyrosine and 5-HTP and she PROMISES that they're going to reduce anxiety and make me serene and calm. So far, all they're doing is making me ANGRY and SAD and giving me weird dreams. Like last night, when I was shopping and found a really cool blazer and then went out to the parking lot and noticed that Iggy Pop and Lou Barlow were in a van and they were apparently headed my way. So I got in and then we left and I asked them very nicely just to drop me off and Iggy Pop FREAKED OUT and started SCREAMING in my face about how I had never asked them for permission to get in the van in the first place. I woke up with a start right then.

- Obama picking Biden as his running mate would be just as stupid as McCain picking Lieberman. Who's Biden supposed to appeal to? Wonky 50-something college professors? Believe me, Big O, you've already got that vote tied up.

- Finally, sigh:

(Click on link for larger version. If you identify with this as much as I do, let's trade Guadalcanal Diary singles!!!1!1111!!!)

A somewhat belated weekend report

- This is Day 3 of not smoking. It's actually not as bad as I expected. I guess the patch really helps. It makes my arm sore, for some reason, though.

- Oh, OK, so on Sunday Super Hot Irish Girlfriend and I went to brunch at South, which is apparently an Australian restaurant. Who knew there were Australian restaurants? Now, before I get into this, let me preface this by saying that on Saturday, we were at an afternoon-into-night outdoor block party at The Sister's, which featured quite a few PBRs and Sangria her neighbor made and some wine and I think they went through a case of champagne. There were about 30 people there, give or take, and roughly the same number of dogs.

This party ended around 11 pm with us playing jukebox on Stoney's iPod, which was hooked up to the stereo. Oh, and then we went to Uva Enoteca for a glass of wine on the way home, but the less said about that the better.

OK, back to brunch. Now, as you might have surmised, neither SHIG nor I are in top form. I got the bangers and mash, which was pretty good but had asparagus in it, for some unknown reason.

SHIG got the eggs & soldiers, which consists of two softboiled eggs (the "eggs") accompanied by a bunch of thin slices of toast (the "soldiers") and I guess the idea is you dip the toast strips in the soft-boiled egg. The eggs come in little cups, like this:

So they come and SHIG looks pained and says, "I can't open them." So I sawed at them with a knife and finally got them open. Nicely done.

I guess we weren't hurting as bad as we could have been, because we then proceeded to Rug Doctor our carpets. Score one for the productivity team!

In sum: I'd like to try the dinner at South. The brunch was OK. The asparagus was gross. Also, I guess I could live down there near Mission Bay.

3,750 packs later

About 20 years ago, I smoked a cigarette for the first time. It made me dizzy and I felt like my heart was going to come out of my chest. So I had another one. That one was much better.


Then I had about 75,000 more, give or take. Some of them were great (like the first one after every Thanksgiving dinner - sublime) and some of them were just there. Along the way, sometimes I smoked a pack or more a day; sometimes I didn't smoke at all (like most Sundays, for the past few years, anyway). I quit yesterday. It had been coming for a while. It bothers Super Hot Irish Girlfriend (who, incidentally, I was surprised to learn didn't smoke when we met, since it seems like an Irish thing), plus I understand it's bad for you. I always knew I had to quit sometime, and it just seems like there's no point in putting it off any more.


I'm on the patch. So far, it's not bad, but I didn't expect it to be bad yet. I usually smoke less than 10 a day - that's considered a "light" smoker - so I haven't really had any bad cravings yet. I'm sure they'll be along directly. It'll be really tough the first time I have a beer, I'm sure.


So, thanks, Camel Filters, Marlboro Reds, Marlboro Lights (yes, I really did smoke sorority sticks for a while), Bel Airs (very, very briefly), and Parliaments. You were great.