My very quiet and completely innocent weekend

Super Hot Irish Girlfriend was out of town this weekend. Naturally, that means I spent the weekend volunteering at the food bank, rescuing kittens from trees, and reading quietly at home.

In between my Bible-camp-pure activities, I found time to watch some of the Giants' last game of the year. It's always a little sad to see the Giants pack up for another year. Personally, I think there's a lot to look forward to next year. Seems like there are a lot of potentially good youngsters who'll get a shot to make the team. I'm more optimistic for next season than I was at this time last year, anyway.

Believe it or not, I'm leaving work early today to clean the house. I think it's safe to say that SHIG and I harbor very different conceptions of what constitutes acceptable levels of cleanliness.

Fig. 1. View of kitchen (pre-cleaned).

Seriously, I do a good job keeping the kitchen cleaned and everything, but I honestly can't see some of the stuff she sees. Anyway, I'll just do what I can and hope for the best. I have to find the vacuum, too.

You know what sucks?

Being in the supermarket checkout line right in front of Yoga Pants girl who's unloading a basket full of organic kale and Nature Valley Cruelty Free Oatmeal and shit like that and she's staring at my stuff right in front of hers. LOOK LADY I KNOW I'M BUYING VODKA AND A SIX-PACK AND SOME AMERICAN CHEESE BUT IT'S FRIDAY AND DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.

Twins win World Series!

Friends of 40 going on 28 helpfully pushed the following content to us earlier today:

(CNN) – The time between the final answer in any presidential debate and the campaign press release declaring victory can usually best be measured in milliseconds. But John McCain’s campaign – which has been downplaying his performance at Friday’s faceoff, offering praise for opponent Barack Obama’s “eloquence” and debating skill – seems to have decided it’s never too soon to start spinning the outcome.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the campaign was running an online ad featuring the headline: "McCain Wins Debate!" and a photo of a smiling McCain and an American flag background. Another featured a quote from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis: "McCain won the debate — hands down."

The Obama campaign quickly circulated the report – which came moments before McCain’s team confirmed he would take part in the evening debate after all.

In other news, THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!

Look, any way you cut it, McCain is getting some bad advice from someone. The whole debate-is-off, debate-is-on thing just makes him look silly and indecisive. Did anyone actually believe that his presence in DC was the magic elixir that would fix Depression II? Bitch please.

One thing's for sure. We won't learn anything about either candidate that we don't already know. McCain will reference his POW story at least once. And Obama will answer at least one question with a long rambling monologue that doesn't really say anything. Wait, that's three things.

Happy Friday, everyone! Bud Light Limes on me!

And now, a word from the indispensible LOLcat Bible. Genesis 1, verses 3-5:

At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

No debate? There goes my Friday!

- Yes, it seems that I have achieved a certain level of blogging fame. That level where you're asked to review a product or service. I guess it's a sign that I've finally made it. Why, just a few days ago I received an email asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing...what's that? A BOOK ABOUT URINARY TRACT INFECTIONS?!?? OH MY GOD. Um, no.

- So McCain's calling off the debate on Friday so he can zoom back to Washington and save us all? REALLY. Maybe the time to act was a few years ago when he failed to vote on deregulating the banking industry.

Any way you cut it, this is a smart play for McCain. Right now, Obama seems to be pulling ahead in the polls, and everyone knows McCain is more comfortable in the town hall setting than the structured debate setting. This way, he gets to look good by appearing to care more about Depression II than some stupid political race. Either way, too, Obama looks bad. If he says, "Oh yay, let's fix ur economeez," then he's just a big copycat, and if he says, "NO, let's debate, stupid!," he looks like he doesn't care. Smart move on McCain's part.

- Note from reader yesterday (and you know who you are): "no updates for two days, full of fail." OH GREAT. Just what I needed, ANOTHER JOB. Look, sometimes there won't be updates every other day. I've had a cold, nothing interesting happened, etc., etc.

- Yesterday on the train on the way home, I encountered Daisy and Nick from The Great Gatsby, I think. This couple gets on wearing tennis clothing - and I mean, like tennis clothing, like the ur-tennis gear, with the white skirt and the striped sweater and everything - and carrying rackets. Then the guy pulls out a little silver flask and they both hit off that. This is a little after 5 pm, so that's cool. Daisy pulls out a cigarette and is holding it as they get off the train, right by the Dolores Park tennis courts, and disappear back into whatever alternate reality they stepped out of.

- And finally, today's Sign of the Apocalypse: Vanderbilt is ranked for the first time in 24 years. This guy thinks they can finish 9-3 or 8-4. Yes, that could happen. Now, where my Rapture at?

Treasure Island Sunday. Full of win.

If there was a better place to be yesterday than the Treasure Island Festival, I'm not sure where it was.

The weather was just about perfect, it wasn't too crowded, there were short or no lines for almost everything, and the sound was fantastic. You couldn't ask for a better outdoor music festival.

That's Will Sheff from Okkervil River doing his thing. As you can see, we were pretty close to the stage. Super Hot Irish Girlfriend took this shot. I'm a big Okkervil River fan and one of the best live shows I saw last year was their set at the Independent. Their set yesterday didn't do as much for me, but SHIG disagreed and thought it was fantastic. Maybe the new songs just haven't grown on me yet.

I'm not sure who the brooding guy in the background is.

Personally, I thought that Spiritualized had the best set of the day, which may seem a bit odd, because when you think Spiritualized you think heroin and dark motel rooms, not bright sunshiney weather and plastic cups of Heineken. Still, for whatever reason, their set was killer.

I was excited to see Vampire Weekend, and they were pretty good.

I mean, they played all their songs well, but maybe didn't seem that excited or something. I don't know. They were good, but not great. Hey, who's complaining? Oh, right, me.

There was the usual outdoor festival kind of food and drink. Beers were $7, which is less than at a Giants game, so fine by me. There were also smallish cups of some indeterminate white wine for the same price. At one point, some guy walked by us and knocked over SHIG's wine and kept on walking, no apology or anything. "I wish you could buy douchebag insurance," Tom said. We all thought that would be a fine idea. Then, you'd be reimbursed any time a douchebag messed up your day.

That was a very minor glitch in an otherwise ideal day. I probably had one or two too many $7 Heinekens, and my face got totally sunburned and now I look like a bloated badger, but I can't wait to go again next year. As SHIG would say, "A++++++++ WILL DO BUSINESS AGAIN."

The funniest thing I've seen so far today

A total Girls Gone Wild-type blonde chick sitting in Civic Center plaza reading a book (!) with her face all scrunched up and HER LIPS ARE MOVING AS SHE READS.

I guess I do need Twitter for shit like this, huh?

Dad, where did you put the crank?

- You wanna see a cool blog? Of course you do. Only in San Francisco.

- As far as I can tell, no one was murdered in the Mission last night. AWESOME. Looks like the murderin' went down in the traditionally murder-happy Tenderloin instead.

- So what if I check out Cheerleader of the Week? Is that so wrong?

- From the Sports Desk, we've got Vanderbilt going for 4 wins on Saturday, Lincecum lost the Cy Young last night, Chelsea - Man U on Sunday, and an early-season already must-win game for the surprising 49ers. WHEW.

- Your father's Ryan O'Neal. Your mom is motherfucking FARRAH FAWCETT. You are destined to be one of the BEST-LOOKING PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, right?

Wrong.

Talk about losing the genetic lottery. Also, I thought doing meth with your Dad was pretty much restricted to the tralier-park-in-Bullhead-City-Arizona-type crowd. Guess not.

- Happy Friday, everyone! Have a good weekend. I'll report back from the Treasure Island Festival on Monday.