these days of leiderhosen

Phillip Valdez of Portland Oregon . Check out the blog. Have you noticed that things get tossed here that I might need to remember. Awkward for you maybe, but handy for me. It's chilly here tonight, but no rain. How am I gonna get to sleep now?

The long awaited Flickr Photo Set: the First Annual Pretentiousville Christmas Pie Fight Off topic: c raving wild strawberries .

I was here during the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake . Although, it was a 6.9 serious rumble, caused some damage and collapsed the Oakland end of the Bay Bridge , it was a goddamn picnic compared to the last nine days of Haiti (7.0). I mean this literally; I walked across town a few dusty hours later and rode out the aftershocks with some very nice friends over salmon and candle light. How bourgeois . 63 people died. A couple thousand had to find new digs and a few -boo fucking hoo - quabillion dollar beach chalets took a dive off Opal Cliffs. Over all, we were really fucking lucky. In the theme of disaster, I moved out of state two months later and for years afterwards the sound of a garbage truck would make me leap under chaises and grab complete strangers. We were lucky, mostly because of the devastation of 1906 across the Bay shook us up (killing 3,000 plus) to now be preparing in earnest for "The Big One", which California drags into the headlines whenever news is s...

Plotting: Beef and Carrots ! Waiting to Read: The Happiness Project . Please don't revoke my cranky old coot card . (Apologies to Cat Mum: coot cards .) Weather on the Seventh Floor: Stormy to shiny clear. Amazing theater! Source for bad ass pound cake, especially the lemon variation: Dorrie Greenspan

Up here in the Eagle Nest Office It's quite drizzly outside and down below all the people from BART look like a tribe of migrating mushrooms trying to get out of the rain. A cone of 36 seagulls just soared by the office in a cone formation, riding some kind of circular wind current until it died out over University. It looked like great fun. I saw Young Victoria with Ma which we liked a great deal. The set dressing and costuming were very good, but the plethora of period plaid pants that bag around the hips and waists and stovepipe at the bottom were distracting. For John Conroy someone found it necessary to point out what a vile charater he was by adding a distracting CGI housefly to all his scenes. Unnecessary. Honestly, Conroy bullied, badgered, smashed things, kicked the dog so does the audience require an fake insect to drive the point home?

And this week's favorite quote (brought you by Sur La Lune, a website in support of Fairy Tales and their art,): "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." - Albert Einstein Thanks, Albert. Well said. Good Night, All.

- Happy MLK Day. Be grateful for your civil rights; not everybody has them. - I absolutely hate Wuthering Heights. Rotten people doing lousy things to one another. - In the Fridge: applesauce. - Weather. Wet. Really, really, deliciously wet.