Here is one of my favorite Letters to the Editor today.

Editor -- Napoleon went to Moscow, Hitler went to Paris and LBJ went to Vietnam. Looks like President Bush is right on schedule.

RONALD O. RICHARDS
Los Angeles

Day after

I survived turkey day despite what one co-worker said would happen. hahaha

I had a nice dinner with a friend in Vallejo and then joined another friend for brunch Friday morning.

I finally got started with Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. It has only been sitting here on my desk for two weeks now. But like his other book Angels and Demons, it is difficult to put down once you get started.

Today? Don't know yet although I was thinking of going to the Metreon to see Mystic River. I also need to do a little Christmas shopping (yuck) but fortunately I do not have much to buy and I did get some ideas when I was in Vallejo on Thanksgiving.

Did you ever wonder where certain expressions come from and why? For some reason "cute as a bug in a rug" was on my mind this morning and on the surface that makes no sense at all. What bug is cute especially when in a rug? hahaha This almost defies logic or is it that I just need another cup of coffee.

I had to keep the TV turned off yesterday as there was too much news about Bush's trip to Iraq which was just another photo op and a way to buy votes in November. Such as idiot we don't we four more years of.

It is time for all of the turkeys of this world to head for the hills or else be eaten.

Tomorrow is a day to give thanks. What do I have to be thankful for? Well, good health, a job, a good place to live, good friends, and I can be thankful I am not like the politicians who are screwing up the world and this country, or at least I hope I'm not.

I am also thankful that I am now only 35 days away from New Years and other events.

Waisting time...spending money?!?

Dull day in the office and even during my lunch so I have been staring at the Brookstone store website for the past fifteen minutes thinking about their products and wondering what I could use and/or afford. Actually, nothing in either category.

This is day two of my co-worker's vacation and so far it has continued to be rather slow which is good in some ways but time does drag. There is something about this three day work week which seems more difficult than the usual five days. I talked with someone else who also has no inspiration to do anything this week.

Thursday I will be joining my friend Richard in Vallejo for dinner. It will also give me a chance to see his new computer and help with some things that he has not been able to solve so far. Then last night Bob from Oakland called to invite me to his place for Christmas dinner so that covers both major holidays. This has become a tradition to be at his place at Christmastime with a "cast of thousands", or, the "usual suspects".

One thing I will NOT do this weekend is go to Union Square on Friday. That place will be a madhouse as a cast of thousands descends upon the area to begin the Christmas shopping season. I might go through the area and head over to the Metreon to see Mystic River which has received some good reviews.

So that is the scoop from here for now.

-30-

Marriage vs. Civil Unions

Question: Do gay people really want to get married and have to endure all the legal hassles of a marriage gone sour? Also, whose to say that gay marriages will be any more successful than straight ones?

From my observations and experiences of many years, I find that gay unions of any sort are, for the most part, rather fleeting. Those that lasted (that I am familiar with) were open relationships, one of which ended in one of the partner's death shortly after he picked up two strangers and took them home with him.

I am against the religious bigots trying to block same sex marriages however I really question whether or not it would be a good thing for gay people to marry. For those truly loving and committed individuals who enter into such an arrangement it is great but since so many relationships start when the partners are very young and not ready mentally or emotionally for such a comitted union, the end results may be similar to what the heterosexual world suffers.

I personally prefer the word union but be it a union or marriage, let's keep the goverment and bigots out of our lives!

Morning indigestion

RANGAMATI, Bangladesh (Reuters) - A python killed and half-swallowed a woman in southeastern Bangladesh, police said Friday.

Basanti Tripura, 38, was collecting fruit with a friend in a forest when she was attacked Tuesday, a police official said. She was swallowed up to her waist.

The python, believed to have been more than 10 feet long, was killed and the body retrieved, the official said.

Brrr...cold morning with breeze = even colder

Rain had been predicted but it feels more like snow right now. Ha!

Symphony tonight and opera tonight will occupy much of my time this weekend. Then there is the 49er/Packer game Sunday morning from Green Bay. Both teams are equal in the standings (5 & 5) but Green Bay has won most if not all games at home against SF in recent years. It will be a cold day in Green Bay! Well, I guess that is the only way that they can keep all that cheese from melting. ha ha ha

In his first few days in office our new governor has succeeded in terminating the increase in car taxes but now the legislature is scrambling to find ways to replace those lost funds. Hey guys, how about the bloated prison budget? That would be a good place to start. The prison industry has a virtual stranglehold on this state and we are not any safer for it.

Well, that is my rant for Friday. Hope everyone has a warm and enjoyable weekend.

Bay State leads the way - for now

I do not understand nor will I ever understand the fear expressed by heterosexuals over gay marriage or even civil unions. They seem to think it is some sort of threat to heterosexual marriage that will somehow weaken it. HOW? The only threat to marriage is from the partners involved in said marriage, not from outside forces. Heterosexuals seem very insecure in this area and I guess this is evidenced best by the high divorce rate.

Then we have those who take some sort of high moral stand stating that it a sacred institution between a man and a woman (or in the case of early Mormons, women). If they want to believe that, fine, just don't tell gay men and women they can't marry.

As for the homophobes who say that people are not born gay, that they chose to be that way, I ask, can you change? If you are straight, can you change? No, of course not, that is the way you were born. You did not decide to become hetersexual.

As for the ultra-conservatives who claim they have changed homosexuals through prayer and therapy, I say they have scared very insecure homosexuals who caved in to pressure from parents, friends, and church members who are rabidly anti-gay. They did not change. They just supressed their desires and activities to win approval of those they fear. Unfortunately this may have grave consequences for them and others somewhere down the road.

When will the human race wake up? When will the human race stop hating? When will the human race stop wars? When will...

"Imagine" there's no heaven...no hell...no countries...nothing to kill or die for...living in peace...and the world will be as one...no posessions...no need for greed or hunger...sharing all the world...and the world will live as one."

"I don't want to live in Washington and sit in a room with a bunch of jerks I don't know."

-- Comedian-talk show host DENNIS MILLER telling The Philadelphia Inquirer why he passed when California Republicans tried to get him to run for the Senate.
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I think I would agree with that. The biggest jerk is that one now in London talking with another jerk. Ah, Tony something or other...

Can You Believe This?


BERLIN (Reuters) - Italian opera star Luciano Pavarotti, 68, said on Sunday he would marry the mother of his infant daughter in December and he wanted to have another child after the baby girl's twin brother died in the womb in January.

"We lost Alice's twin brother and if I knew another pregnancy would go smoothly I would say I want another baby immediately," he told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Pavarotti, one of the world's top tenors who is credited with bringing opera to the masses, said he and his ex-secretary Nicoletta Mantovani, 34, planned to wed on December 13 in Modena, northern Italy. Pavarotti also has three daughters from his ex-wife.

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Me thinks he should retire - from everything.

Sore muscles?

I will find out tomorrow...probably more muscles than I knew I had. Ha! Richard and I went to Circuit City today to pick-up my new TV plus a new stand (assemble yourself). The 27" Panasonic weighs about 95 lbs. and the stand about 50. I just finished putting the stand together and things went amazing well. Now I must clear out the area around the old TV (old video tapes, etc.) plus move speakers further apart, etc.

Amazing poll on our mayoral run-off scheduled in a few weeks. The front runner for a long time has been Gavin Newsom who has led by substantial margins in all polls and was substantially ahead of Matt Gonzales in the November election but he did not recieve 50% of the vote + 1 so there is a run-off...BUT...the latest polls have Gonzales leading Newsom by 2% points. That is not much but a complete surprise to everyone. What happened? Perhaps that was just a fluke. Where was this poll taken anyway?

Well, Mr. Schwarzenegger takes office Monday morning in Sacramento. It will be a low key inauguration and apparently he will call a special session of the legislature the following day to repeal the car tax and fix some other problems he raised in his campaign. The next three years could be very interesting.

I wanted to go out to eat dinner tonight but I am so tired from putting together the new TV stand that I decided to eat at home which was not easy considering how little there is in the fridge. I won't say what I ate but suffice it to say, the total package was not exactly the most healthful meal I have ever eaten. Oh well, c'est la vie!

-30-

More ramblings

Strange, this Diet Coke I am drinking tastes more like beer. Is that a craving or is it some sort of chemical reaction to the tuna sandwich I just ate or the chocolate brownie I am now eating.

Glad to see that the Bloomingdale's project construction will finally get underway. This will really make that section of Market Street into a very dynamic area. I can hardly wait for it to open, especially the food court. heh heh heh

I am now making more plans for January 2004. I used to have a post New Year's gathering of friends on the first or second Sunday following New Year's Day but suspended it after a few years due to logistical problems of too much food in my small studio apartment. I think this time I will limit things to snacks, appetizers, that sort of thing, plus booze of course. BYOB might be the order of the day but my plans are still evolving.

Tonight I will attend my firm's Alumni Reception. It will be a first for me. There have been no general announcements about my retirement but it could leak out tonight. Since the general announcement will be made next week when our operations manager returns, this should not present too much of a problem. I just don't like news spreading via the gossip circuit. It can get distorted.

Now that I have broadband high speed internet cable, I can get busy and complete the uploading of photos from my recent vacation in Italy. Only the pictures from Venice remain but I may revise some other pages as well. Websites are always on-going projects anyway so I need to review the other pages to see where new material might be needed and/or old material deleted.

Wow

I now have high speed internet cable and I am impressed by its speed. So now I will terminate my old dial-up account with Earthlink once everyone has been notified of this change. Well, I think I will go surf some more.

Government Holiday

I am at home today, not because we have the day off, but because I am waiting for the cable guy (or gal?) from Comcast to arrive to install high speed internet cable. In the meantime I thought I would call the DMV to find out about my renewed driver's license which STILL has not arrived. It has been eight weeks. The say allow six weeks. Well, I am still waiting. I tried to call them this morning without realizing that this is a government and bank holiday so their usual sorry lazy staff gets an extra day off to boot. Well, piss on them. All I want is my driver's license or my $15 back. Unfortunately they have cashed my check so that probably won't happen. I am just wondering how many people I might have to talk with at DMV to get an answer about the ETA or whereabouts of my license.

In reference to Sunday football, with the Raiders losing once again, there was even less of interest on the local scene. The 49ers had the weekend off. They undoubtedly needed the rest too.

Oh, here's a weird news item.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Waiter, there is something worse than a fly in my soup.
A California woman who found a condom in her bowl of clam chowder has sued the upscale restaurant that served it to her -- saying she has suffered depression and anxiety from the shocking discovery.

But an attorney for McCormick & Schmicks Seafood Restaurant in Irvine, California, says the eatery has no idea how the condom got into Laila Sultan's food.

Sultan, 48, and her three companions are suing the restaurant for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress in a case that is expected to go to trial early next year.

"I thought it was calamari or shrimp or something so I chewed one more," Sultan told local KCAL-TV on Monday. "It felt rubbery. I told my friends, 'My God, there's something in my mouth.'"

Sultan said she spit the offending object into a napkin and at first thought it was a latex glove. Then her friend realized what it was.

"I said, 'Oh, my God' and ran into the bathroom with another friend of mine and I started throwing up," she said. "I threw up everything I ate there, every single thing, I threw up in the bathroom."

But Patrick Stark, an attorney for McCormick & Schmicks, told the Los Angeles Times that its staff had no idea how the condom got into the chowder, adding: "It's as big a mystery to us as it is to anybody else."

"We are going to argue at trial there is absolutely no evidence to suggest the restaurant was the source of the condom," he told the paper. "Either it came from (the four women) or it was thrown in as a practical joke by another patron at the restaurant."
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I don't know what to say about that one.

Sunday blahs

No football, or at least none of any interest. No baseball. Can't stand basketball. Know little about hockey. Don't care about golf. So what is a guy to do on a Sunday afternoon in which it threatens to rain? (Don't answer that!)

Sunday night is always the most depressing night of the week since I have to go back to work on Monday morning but not for much longer. Yipee!

Just discovered recently that I have 12 more channels of TV programs than I had previously and Comcast did not tell me about it in my monthly statement. I was channel surfing one night and could not find CNN and discovered it had been bumped from 50 up to 56. So I continued to explore and found that I now have the Animal Planet channel, History Channel, Halmark, ESPN II (have always had ESPN), Cartoon Network, Fox News (barf - I prefer CNN), Court Television (whoopee), and the Travel Channel. There are a few others plus others have been moved to accomodate the additions to the SF lineup. I wonder why I wasn't sent a notice with my monthly bill. Oh, and thinking of Comcast, they are scheduled to be out here on Tuesday to install high speep internet cable. I hope this works. A previous attempt at DSL through my ISP Earthlink failed because the wiring in this building (built in the early 60s) could not handle it.

And I still do not have my renewed driver's license. It has been eight weeks since mailing in the renewal. They say you need to allow six weeks so if the license is not in tomorrows mail I will be calling them once again. Unfortunately their flunky clerks sound so disinterested in their job that it makes it very difficult to get anywhere with them. If all else fails, I will contact "7 on your side" in an effort to find out what is going on.

So brothers and sisters, that is it from this corner of San Francisco for now.

Not ill that I know of.

Since at least one person thinks I am sick because of what I posted on the 4th of November, I need to update this. A CT scan was taken of my chest on the 4th in an effort to rule out anything significant. It was taken because of a spot in a regular x-ray a few weeks earlier which the radiologist and my doctor felt needed closer examination. I am now waiting for the results.

I feel fine actually. I got over the cold I picked up because of the sudden change in weather from Florence (mid sixites) to Venice (mid fifties with a strong cold wind off the Adriatic). The hot weather in San Francisco when I returned also helped to dry out my sinuses so now I am feeling in tip top condition once again. And...it is Saturday night...so...

Well, it has been raining off and on this afternoon but as I write this the rain has stopped. I think it is going to be a grand night for something. Let's party...

What is going on?

Having been feeling some indigestion lately without the usual heartburn. It is just an uncomfortable feeling in the chest area plus a lot of noise emanating from the lower part of the rib cage. A cat scan is due on Thursday due to recent abnormal x-ray but that "spot" did not necessarily represent anything serious. "Artifact" was the word used in the radiologist's report so it is a mystery at the moment. Since then I have probably begun to worry and now I am feeling dizzy or lightheaded. The lack of a meeting with my supervisor and my co-worker regarding an end of the year event has also been troublesome as I wanted to get this out of the way ASAP. Now I do not know when that will take place. It was supposed to have been last Friday but was postponed to yesterday but still I have heard nothing. So I guess concern over what could be minor health problems combined with lack of progress in discussions at work are starting to take their toll. I need a vacation! Ha!

And now I learn that a friend in Bangkok is going to Iraq of all places. Is he nuts or something? I thought he was studying at a university in BKK but now he apparently has a job with a television network or some such thing in BKK. What in the world is going on here?

Fish Breath

Well, here is a new one.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A former Belgian ambulance driver put his first aid skills to good use by reviving one of his pond fish with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a newspaper said Tuesday.
Leo Van Aert was so happy about having saved the life of his cherished koi he wants to name it after one of his grandchildren, the Gazet Van Antwerpen said.

Van Aert, 57, was hosting a party at his home near the Belgian port of Antwerp when his wife noticed the koi -- a spotted Japanese carp -- floating on the surface of the garden pond.

Van Aert said the 60-cm (24-inch) long fish was "acting funny," swimming and jumping frantically before stopping dead in the water.

He figured the koi had had a heart attack and took it out of the water to try to resuscitate it, giving it heart massages before joining lips with the fish.

"After 15 minutes, the fish started to move again so I put him in the pond...but when he fell over again I again applied mouth-to-mouth and heart massages," he said. "That's when the fish recovered."
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Now that takes real dedication to one's job and to one's pet fish.

Election Day

Actually, that is tomorrow and I have not even studied the voter handbook yet. Somehow I cannot get enthused over politicians who are less than honest or over ballot propositions that either aren't what they seem or will be declared unconstitutional by this or that court. So why bother to vote? I might but it won't be easy.