A Further Botheration

Overheard: "Dude! Quit fucking calling me from stolen fucking cell phones."

On the street today there was a kid in a canvas folding chair with a big sketchpad and a sign that said:

FREE SKETCH PORTRAITS
I NEED PRACTICE
NO TIPS ACCEPTED

Standing next to him was a man and a boy. The boy was holding a quick sketch of himself. The sketch looked ok.

The man said "Let me give you some money." He had what looked like a 10 in his hand extended toward the drawing kid.

Kid said "Sorry, no tips accepted," and pointed to the sign.

"Really, please take it."

"Ok. If you insist." He took the bill, it was a 10, picked up a stapler, grabbed corner of the sketch the boy was holding and stapled the bill to the sketch.

Then I rode off on my way.

Oh that's a bad title.

Left-Handed Toons and Penny Arcade made basically the same joke today. You may have to click on 'comic' at the Penny Arcade link to see the one I'm talking about.

I am sorry for the bad title and also for linking to two mediocre comics. Both those comics can be funny sometimes, if not today.

They recently switched the smell they use in our bathroom to try to overpower the normal bathroom smell. It used to be orange. Now it is vanilla and it smells like someone is baking chocolate chip and shit cookies in the bathroom.

I learned a new word yesterday. Oh now I can't remember what it is. It means 'ski mask'. It isn't anorak. Balaclava!

Today, as every Wednesday, my office provides bagels. I prepared a chocolate bagel having mistaken it for a pumpernickel bagel. Sun dried tomato cream cheese on a chocolate bagel is not recommended.

Harley and I are watching the first season of "Heroes". 'Meh' sums up my opinion. Hiro is charming. Claire's dad has amazingly bad eyeglass frames. That's about all I got on top of meh.

Last night, though, Claire's friend described Claire's behavior at one point as "cracky". He meant that she was acting like she was on drugs. I'll be trying to work this into daily conversation.

As a person who has used my bicycle as my primary mode of transportation for almost two years in a city that uses both gas and electric powered buses, I prefer the electric.

On December 20th I sent a letter to my biological father and an email to my ex-wife.

I've never met him or had any communication, so I have no real idea what to expect.

I was asking her to let me have one of my things back that I left there. I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a horrible person, so while I had some hope, I was not optimistic.

So far, no replies.

San Francisco Santarchy was Saturday.

Harley and I went with Chris and Katie again.  At the kick off spot we ran into Brittney and Kathryn who we sort of know from fipilele. I was able foist off on Brittney the Santa beard and wig I had along to give to a random needy Santa.  That was the last we saw of them. Then we got into a super long like to buy ferry tickets and then another long line to get on a ferry then we took a ferry to the east bay for who knows what reason.

The fun more or less faded at that point. There was nothing there. We walked past a Bevmo and then we walked around a deserted block and then I guess I wasn't drunk enough to think wandering around Oakland was fun.

Call me old if you want, but I'm pretty sure I'm young enough to have had a good time if we'd stayed in the city. I don't think I was alone in that feeling. Only about 300 people fit on the ferry and there were probably only half that number who got stranded waiting for an hour and half for the next ferry. That's quite a few less than there seemed to be last year despite better weather. I think people bailed when they got wind of the ferry.

Yesterday I took the trash down to the basement. A couple of my neighbors were just hanging around the trash cans. They explained that it was cold in their apartment and they were down there to warm up. They were both wearing winter coats and had hands stuffed in pockets. I had on my t-shirt. Wasn't it cold in my apartment? The furnace was off.

The furnace stayed off all night. It was fine with me. It means Harley snuggles up to me in bed. I should also mention that yesterday will probably end up having been the coldest day of the year in San Francisco. The temp got down to 38 degrees.

This morning I wore shorts as I rode my bike to the gym so I could use the outdoor pool there.

I'm going to miss California.