Blog Master G

Jen’s grandmother Helen Smith passed away yesterday. I was never fortunate enough to have known her during her earlier years, but I know how important she was in Jen’s life. If she had anything to do with making Jen who she is today, then that’s good enough for me. For that, I am grateful to Helen Smith. May she rest in peace.

I’m ashamed to admit that I missed the Giants win the National League pennant last night for the first time in 13 years. I also learned this morning that the Giants have never won a World Series as the San Francisco Giants. The last time the team won a World Series was 1954 — as the New York Giants. Let’s hope SF makes history this year!

I missed the game because I was at a focus group sponsored by Guinness. And my hopes of getting paid to drink beer were shot. Not a glass of beer, Guinness or otherwise, was anywhere in sight. No, the beer company was interested in how 21- to 26-year-old men feel about social groups — and individuals within those groups. It was an interesting experience, but I do wish I had stayed home and watched the Giants game. Sure, there are always the replays and the photos, but I know that feeling of watching your team win big. And I chose $65 over that priceless feeling. (Although I was chosen at the focus group to do a take-home picture assignment that could get me another $65.) I don’t plan on missing the Giants win the World Series. Even if someone were to pay me.

After leaving work early yesterday, I began several loops around the Bay — first to pick up Jen for our afternoon dentist appointments with Dr. Yee, who offered to provide us both with complimentary teeth polishing before our wedding next year. Rock on, Dr. Yee. Then it was up over the Golden Gate Bridge to drop off Jen at home. Begin Lap 2 across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge toward Berkeley for the focus group. And the rest of the night is history.

Doing my part, I just posted this message to my company’s internal classifieds, urging as best I could that people see Bowling for Columbine.

—–Original Message—–
From: Gabe
Posted At: Monday, October 14, 2002 9:33 AM
Posted To: Classifieds US West Coast
Subject: perhaps the most important documentary of our time

Friday night I saw a preview benefit screening of Bowling for Columbine (www.bowlingforcolumbine.com), the new film by Michael Moore (www.michaelmoore.com), who also wrote Stupid White Men. The film will be released this Friday, 10/18. PLEASE SEE IT.

The film started out about gun control in response to the Columbine shootings in 1999. It turned into so much more. From exploring the American culture of fear created and fueled by the media and politicians to examining the interconnected chain of responsibility, this film will anger you. It will make you cry. It will make you laugh. It will inspire you to take action. But most of all, it will make you think.

This is a film that everyone should see. Please see it and spread the word. The better it does at the box office, the wider distribution it will get. The more people who see this film, the more hope we will have for our collective future.

-Gabe

There are now three people who read my blog regularly: my fiancee, my dad, and my friend Jess. Woohoo! Thanks for your interest, Jess. If anyone else reads this regularly, please let me know. It’s fun to know who my audience is.

Jen and I had another really busy, super-fun weekend.

Friday night we met up with Ben and Jess at the Royal Exchange for drinks and dinner. Then we walked to the Embarcadero and saw what is probably the most important documentary of our lifetime, Bowling for Columbine. It was a special preview screening that Michael Moore himself attended. It was an amazing and rare opportunity to hear from the director/interviewer, who also wrote Stupid White Men.

The film was inspired by the Columbine shootings in April 1999 and began as a documentary about gun control. But it turned into so much more. The audience journeys with Moore as he explores why America is such a gun-obsessed nation and why our gun-related homicide rate is more than 11,000 people per year — compared with only hundreds, or, in some cases, fewer than 100, in other countries. Other countries like Canada, he realizes, simply have a different ethic than does America, where we proudly hold a “Fuck Everybody” attitude. We also live in a society of fear that is created and fueled by the media and by Washington. Moore’s documentary is incredibly powerful and will hopefully make people question the way this country is run. Jen got to ask Moore a question about why he’s a member of the NRA. He explained that his original plan was to take over the organization from the inside, but decided that was too much work and opted instead to make this film. Here’s a review of the film in the UK Guardian.

Saturday morning after a quick brunch with Karen and Bill at Easy Street Cafe, Jen and I headed home for a bit and actually managed to squeeze in some house cleaning and laundry. I even was able to begin installation of a new OS on my home computer, too. (It now flies like the wind with a brand-spankin’ clean install of Windows 2000.) Then it was off to the city.

We met up with Ben and Jess for the Sixth-Annual (but our first) Consorzio Cal-Italia Wine Tasting, with proceeds benefitting Hands On San Francisco. For a mere 30 bucks a head, it was more than worth it for unlimited food and wine for a full 3 hours. We even walked out with an entire loaf of bread each. The gals were the designated drivers, so Ben and I were having a grand ol’ time by the end of the day. Jen did a great job driving the Scoobie up hills back to Ben and Jess’ place. We spent the rest of the night kickin’ it at their pad, where Ben and I exchanged disbelief that the other also owned a rubber plant.

Sunday we met up with Tiff, Miguel, Aniko, Jeanine, and others at Crissy Field to watch the full Blue Angels show, only part of which we had seen on Saturday. The rest of the evening was pretty chill, mostly watching the Giants advance to within one game of clinching the NLCS. Go Benito!

Tonight is the beer focus group. Before that, it’s time for a cleaning at the dentist.

If the volume of messages in my email inboxes (personal and work) is any indication of my stress and “stuff going on” level, then the meter is rather high today. It’s not terrible, but I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. If 12 is the average number of messages present at any given time, I’m more than doubly overwhelmed in my personal business (29) and more than triply overloaded for work (46 messages). That sounds about right.

Happy is here at work with me today, so that helps give me a bit of a distraction to everything that’s going on. Here’s a sampling:

– emails and calls from Jolene about the focus group
– meeting this morning and lots of follow-up from that
– plans tonight for a movie and possibly dinner with Jen, Ben, and Jess
– an email from Mikey about attending his cabaret benefit in a couple weeks
– a half-hour call this morning with a slow-talking realtor about buying a home
– another annoying realtor who keeps emailing me even though I’ve not yet had the chance to respond
– a third realtor to whom I need to respond
– thoughts in the back of my head to contact a mortgage broker and make a vet appointment for Happy Dingo
– straightening out this bowl saga with Shannon (an apparent can of worms that I opened)

Not that any of this stuff is bad. It just becomes a lot when it all hits at once. And, of course, there’s the whole impending prospect of war to deal with emotionally.

I’ve also been thinking lately about what makes a good blog. Or good writing for that matter. What draws repeat visitors somewhere? Surely it’s the content of interest and relevance that draws crowds, but also content that’s to the point, perhaps quirky or edgy. And then there’s the content that makes people think, challenges their views, or simply pisses them off. I updated my signature file yesterday to include a link to this page. Then I posted to my WRX Mods email group and noticed today that yesterday there was a spike in site traffic — with a total of 17 visitors, the most to date.

I thought: “Cool. People actually click on links in emails (I know I do). Imagine if I actually wrote about good, interesting shit here that people would actually come back to read.” Perhaps I’ll get to that point. Or perhaps I’ll continue to have the casual visitors.

My quest to bring you at least one funky link per day to keep my fiancee interested in this content brings us to The Candy Page, featuring an ominous yet catchy jingle: “Doughnuts…we love doooooughnuts.”

I stumbled across that page in an attempt to remember the name of an old candy Katie was talking last night, Abba Zabba.We went out for drinks at Olive and Tommy’s Joynt.

Today is a fittingly foggy and cold day as the House passes a resolution authorizing Bush to use force against Iraq if it does not comply with weapons inspections. This despite the fact that Americans are more concerned about our own country — the economy, corporate accountability, education. But leave it to Bush and high-powered politicians to be so disconnected from the people that they’re more interested in the monetary and political ramifications of their actions.

I neglected to mention in my earlier post that Jen and I had a rip-roaring good time last night watching The Bachelor, the latest in the reality TV phenomenon. And we’re actually a mere 3 degrees of separation from Aaron, the star of the show. Jen’s coworker Joe is friends with Frances, who walked off the show last night. (I like how the ABC site includes her in a poll of those women who were “sent home” — as if she wasn’t the one to walk off the show herself!) Jen got the real story today from Joe about what happened. Apparently the producers begged her to let them refilm the scene where she left and to stay throughout the rose ceremony, but she and the other woman refused. Go Frances!

My quest to find a good search solution for my Web site continues. I’m deciding whether I should invest the 35 bucks per year in Blogger Pro to get a bunch of really cool features, the most exciting of which are the email functionality (I will be able to post here via email) and the search capability. I have some concerns about the latter, so I just contacted the folks at Blogger with this question:

——————————-
Hi There-

I’m considering upgrading my account to Blogger Pro. I’m particularly interested in the email and search features.

I know the search feature isn’t yet available, but I’m wondering if it can be leveraged to index other areas of my Web site that are not generated by Blogger. That is, I have a number of other HTML and PHP pages on my site that I’d like to make searchable. Would I be able to use the Blogger Pro search to do this, or would the content have to actually be in my blog for this to work?

On that note, does the search extend across multiple blogs, or is there only one search per blog?

Thanks,
Gabe
——————————-

The Giants kicked ass last night in the first game of the NLCS. Woohoo! And next season, we can apparently look forward to seeing something besides that giant Enron “E” in centerfield.

This Game Trading Zone seems pretty cool. Not that I ever really play video games these days, but there also seems to be a community of DVD trading there, too. This may be the place to which Sandy was referring awhile back.

In the continuing search for a new house, I came across a posting yesterday for this great place in Bernal Heights. It’s a 2-bedroom, 2-bath place with a private yard, hardwood floors throughout, separate dining room, bay windows, fireplace, granite countertops in the kitchen, and more. At $499k, it’s probably too good to be true (that’s one of the rules of real estate: if it’s too good to be true, it probably is). The place is right on Mission, so even though it’s a top-floor condo in a new building, I would guess it’s noisy (or sketchy).

In my attempt to encourage my fiancee to read my blog instead of Wil Wheaton’s, I’ve decided to make an effort to link to at least one thing she’ll find interesting. Today, I bring you an online reference to ass trumpet, as well as the Google search results for the exact phrase, of which there are a mere 63. Once Google archives this entry, I will be joining an elite crowd of Web publishers who say “ass trumpet.” Here’s to number 64, baby. (Hey, guess what? Whil Wheaton’s site isn’t responding right now, so you’ll be stuck reading my blog anyway! >:>)

I raced a Ferrari 360 Spider yesterday. I didn’t exactly have the chance to square up on the line or even get next to it, but I stayed right on its ass. Not bad, considering the Spider retails for $170,779, a full $144,779 more than I paid for my WRX. Sure, the Spider can do 0-60 in 4.5 seconds compared with my 5.4 seconds, but dollar for dollar, I’d say I got the better deal. Of course, if I could have afforded a Spider, I would’ve bought one. Some day.

Last night Jen and I watched this great movie on Cinemax called Donnie Darko, which just may be added to my list of favorite movies (the Web site is really cool, too). It had everything that my kind of movie should have: humor, trippy music, interesting characters, discussions of the philosophy of time and time travel, randomness, a demon bunny, and Web sites that extend the story. It was also a movie that makes you think. And that continues after it’s over. According to the “Which Donnie Darko Character Are You?” site, I am Gretchen Ross. I knew I liked that character. The description of me is rather accurate, too:

“Congratulations, you are Gretchen Ross. You are very perceptive of the world around you. You are a good person with strong morals. Although your life hasn’t been exactly the way you would like it, you still think the world is beautiful. Good for you.”

This rocks. I got an email about attending a beer focus group on Monday. Something tells me it’s sponsored by Guinness. How cool is that? Getting paid 65 bucks to drink Guiness for a couple hours! And free dinner.

This Not In Our Name campaign is very cool. I will be adding my name to this list. I’m also pleased to see Frances D. Fergusson‘s name on the list. The president of Vassar makes me proud to have earned my degree there. The president of our country disgusts me in his single-minded black-and-white way of thinking.