Blog Master G

Cool search phrase of the day (from my Web logs that people are actually searching for) that yields an entry from my blog as the number 1 result:

Google Search: mom and daughter strippers

This morning on my way to work I got my first speeding ticket in more than 5 years. I was alone on the road — approaching the Golden Gate Bridge — on that final stretch of 19th Ave. in the Presidio that’s after the General Douglas MacArthur Tunnel and before the underpass. The road has no business being a mere 45. I knew the CHP car was going to be there. I had that thought as I sped away from the last traffic light before the GGB as I cruised through the tunnel. But it was one of those fleeting thoughts that’s gone before you can act on it. So sure enough, as I zipped by the parked officer, he pulled out and began to follow me. I slowed down, but it was too late. Nabbed.

So now I have two options:

1. Take online traffic school for just $16.95 and have it wiped off my record. Cool stuff.
2. Contest the ticket since it says I live in apartment G, which does not exist. I’ve heard of people getting out of tickets when details are wrong.

With 227 horses under the hood, I suppose a ticket was in my cards sooner or later. At least I was only driving at a double-digit speed.

My Sunday paper wasn’t here this morning, so while I eagerly and repeatedly check the lobby and outside the front door to see if my requested delivery has arrived, I occupy myself by sipping coffee and straightening stacks of paper — shifting one pile of “file me” documents from one place to another. At least the stacks are now consolidated and on top of the filing cabinet.

While down at the far end of the apartment, my attention is drawn to the old boxes from Nana‘s house that have ended up in my care. I have a vague idea what’s in the boxes — old files, Nana’s writing, Alan’s Sacramento Bee archive of columns from the 1970s — but I haven’t yet taken the time to study it all carefully. Nana’s been gone for just over a year now, and Alan for seven, yet somehow the time never seems right to go through their keepsake documents. So I read a portion of a script written by Nana for WQED in the 1960s about Negro segregation in schools and one of Alan’s columns from 1979 about their Abyssinian cats, Addis and Ababa. I smile to myself. Those cats were older than me. Addis and Ababa died when I was still rather young, but I remember them well. Ababa didn’t like kids. Addis adored Nana. It was a pleasant and comforting image, picturing Nana and Alan in their younger years with their cats and their new home. And I see myself now, perhaps a reflection of their younger years: two dogs, my soon-to-be-wife, a home of my own some day soon. I can only hope to live as fully and be as happy as Nana and Alan were.

I move the boxes back into the closet and look forward to my next forray into the past. Some day I will read through all these treasures of the past. But not just yet.

This just launched:

gabeanderson.com: dogs

“Fuck Saddam. We’re taking him out.”
– President George W. Bush, March 2002

Ahh, isn’t it comforting to know that the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world thinks in such complex shades of grey?

According to Ari Fleischer, “I think the question that people will want answered is: Do we have a plan in place to put out the oil fires, and is it a good plan to put out the oil fires?”

I think a better question is: “Why was the company formerly run by the Vice President of the United States handed a multi-million-dollar no-bid contract? And why are the administration and its friends profiting from a $75 billion war that we tax payers will end up paying for?”

Chew on that, Fleischer.

[via bit.ch]

Someone named Robert Grimes has replied to my recent post about Herman Goering’s quote. I’m not sure what his point is, but here’s my rebuttal. What do you think?

While we’re on the topic of scary rhetoric that’s force-fed to the American public by the Bush administration, take a look at the Project for the New American Century whose members include Cheney, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, and Paul Wolfowitz. Their Statement of Principles includes this text:

“Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.”

Yeah, world domination by America! Here we come! Let’s mow down anyone who gets in our way. Watch out, Iran and North Korea, you’re next.

I’ve been forwarded various links to the great parody of ready.gov‘s Emergency Preparedness so many times that I decided to post it on my own site for keepsake (so thanks to everyone who forwarded it to me).

Continuing with this theme is today‘s Worst-Case Scenario 2003 Daily Survival Calendar lesson:

HOW TO SURVIVE A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION

1. Get to a safe shelter as quickly as possible and remain inside for four to six days after the last explosion.
   An underground shelter covered by one meter or more of earth will provide the best protection. If you must emerge, limit your surface exposure to no more than 30 minutes a day for 13 days following the explosion.
2. If you have been exposed to radiation, immediately wash your body thoroughly with soap and water.
   This will remove most of the radiation particles, but not all.
3. Water can be safely obtained from underground sources (springs and wells, for example) that undergo natural filtration, or from pipes in abandoned houses or stores.
4. Healthy-looking wild animals are a safe food source if other foods are not available.
   Avoid any meat close to the bones and joints (an animal’s skeleton contains over 90 percent of the radioactivity).

And remember: Watch out for any toxic or generally fucked-up creatures like the nutria; eating them in a nuclear wasteland could be hazardous to your health.

Last night following my tux tailoring and dinner at Gaylord India Restaurant in the Embarcadero Center, Jen, Enoch, and I headed to the cinema to see the Spanish film that won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, Pedro Almodóvar‘s Talk to Her. I think it certainly deserved the Oscar.

Far From Heaven is the only one of the five nominated films that I’ve not yet seen. My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Y Tu Mamá También were both excellent films, but Gangs of New York wasn’t all that (unbelievable plot and character development, along with too much gratuitous violence).

According to the official synopsis, “Talk to Her is a film about the joy of narration and about words as a weapon against solitude, disease, death and madness. It is also a film about madness, about a type of madness so close to tenderness and common sense that it does not diverge from normality.”

The film is a colorful, funny, and disturbing story of two men, Benigno and Marco, who from the opening scene are connected by an unspoken passion about life and all its beauty. Though they do not initially meet, their lives later become intertwined, as each oversees a woman living in a coma (Benigno as Alicia’s nurse and Marco as Lydia’s lover) in the same hospital.

With many layers of characters, stories, and even the vivid examination of the life of a bullfighting woman, Talk to Her is about relationships, communication, and the bizarre journey into the heart of a man so sick with passion that it drives him to extremes. There is one black-and-white scene in the appropriately silent film within the film that you won’t soon forget. It’s simultaneously hilarious and sad as it personifies the emotions and grasps at the core of the being of the character watching it. (If you’ve seen the movie, I’m sure you know the one.)

It’s almost poetic that Saddam has the key to Detroit:

Saddam got key to Detroit two decades ago after donating thousands to church

It’s sort of like a little puzzle:

Saddam -> religion -> church -> money -> 9/11 attack in the name of Allah -> terrorism -> fuel -> cars -> oil -> attack Iraq in the name of God & country

(Not that I think Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the September 11th attacks. I’m simply trying to piece together how the Bush administration came to that conclusion. I also think it ironic that both the 9/11 attack and our attack on Iraq are in the name of God (“… we thank God that liberty found such brave defenders.”).)