January 2008 Archives
The other day some random guy on Manhunt asked me where in Wisconsin my hometown is. I do not mention the name of my hometown on my Manhunt account and hadn't mentioned it in the e-mail exchange. So I asked him how he knew the name of my home town, and he said it was on my Friendster or Facebook account. I didn't recognize him and he didn't divulge who he was (still hasn't), so I was kind of creeped out. I quickly went over to my Facebook account and locked down some of the privacy features there. People who don't know me don't need to know that kind of stuff unless I divulge such facts directly to them.
I know I've been putting myself out there on this here blog for many years and I guess this sort of thing is to be expected. People mention to me that they read this blog all the time. But some context and reference point is helpful if you approach me as a stranger to initiate a conversation. If you walk up to me without introducing yourself and drop some kind of reference or mention from my blog - that's weird and sometimes startling to me because at first I don't know what you're talking about. The basic rules of civil conversation still apply - even to bloggers - and it's amazing that there are so many people in our Nation's Capitol who can't start up a conversation, or conversely get frightened and run away when I try to initiate a conversation with them. As usual I blame the Internet, cell phone abuse, and people's unwillingness to socialize face-to-face these days. Soon we'll only be able to communicate with each other in cryptic, broken text messenger pidgeon-English.
Anyway, I think another problem here is that a blog is a two-way mirror - the reader picks up a lot about the author, but the author can only learn so much about the reader from the server log data. I know what browser you're using, what pages you visit, and how long you stay, but that's about it. On a side note, I think that's why some of my friends who read this blog fall out of touch - they think just because they're keeping up with what I write on the blog that they still maintain a rapport with me. NOT SO, so give me a call on the telephone, Little Missy AWOL. Yes I mean you.
I digress again...if you are a blog stalker, voyeurism isn't a crime but being socially retarded is. I think some blogstalker dos and don'ts are in order. First, if you happen to recognize me in public, start with direct eye contact, followed by a smile, handshake and introduction. Then mention that you have read my blog/profile/Flickr/whatever (this applies to online chat as well). Give me a point of reference, but don't start with some kind of random reference like "OMG Saliva Pit Gurl Wuuuf OMG Skwurl Charlene Hilton HA HA !!!" Saying something like that will make me confused and frightened. After that, prove you have social skills with a graceful conversational segue into some other non-blog related topic, like the weather or sports or hot guys or something. Weather chat is inherently boring, but always a safe way to start up or maintain a conversation.
The same goes for the characters mentioned on this blog, like Gurl, Darth Jersey, Skip, Martini Gurlatalova, Skwurl or SuperStar Brettie. Approach with civility and don't yell out "OMG ARE YOU 'GURL' FROM JIMBO'S BLOG!?!" if you see him in the bookstore. Don't frighten or stalk these people or I'll kick your ass.
Totally unrelated, but I thought this looked interesting:
JAPAN! Culture + Hyperculture at the Kennedy Center Feb. 5-17.
Random complaint of the day: Waaah, everyone is going skiing or snowboarding but me and the local snow conditions are really sweet. All my ski buddies have either moved away or are now shacked up with a boyfriend and are totally AWOL in typical neotenous gay fashion. OK, are there any straight readers out there who like to ski and snowboard on the weekends at Wisp or Whitetail?
Photogeek tip from FlickrFreak Gurl: The Prints & Photographs Division of the U.S. Library of Congress has begun to post photos to Flickr, starting with collections of News in the 1910s and 1930s-40s in Color.
"Offering historical photo collections through Flickr is a welcome opportunity to share some of our most popular images more widely. We've been acquiring photos since the mid-1800s when photography was the hot new technology. Because images represent life and the world so vividly, people have long enjoyed exploring our visual collections. Looking at pictures opens new windows to understanding both the past and the present."The Library of Congress also has a blog and a prints & photographs online catalog.
The quality of the images are amazing, the descriptions very detailed. Some of my favorites include this street scene from Houston, Texas in 1943, and North American's P-51 Mustang Fighter in service with Britain's Royal Air Force from 1942. Flickr members are already starting to add interesting photo comments to hundreds of the images.
On the way to work I noted a possible model for our streetside treebox:
The relatively inexpensive treebox option as seen on 6th St., NW DC. I'd only make mine two tiers of 4" X 4" instead of three. Can't get to a decent source of soil in DC though - most of the garden centers in DC basically sell nothing more than ground up peat, which is only a portion of what good soil should be - you also need proportions of mineral clay, sand and silt in your soil for the record. I've planted daylillies in our box out front, but they've already been trampled by pedestrians and motorists getting out of their cars. No point in planting anything new until I get a box put up.
Also: rednecks with big guns "noodling" for river catfish, and hot bearded Vikings celebrating Norse heritage Up Helly Aa - Britain's biggest fire festival and torchlight procession - held in Lerwick, Shetland, on the last Tuesday in January.
This morning on my way to work I was stunned to see a cherry picker going down Q street with a tree-trimming and shoe-snipping dude in the gondola. They removed the shoes from the shoe trees! I wrote about it a few months back, with some very inspired reader-submitted ghetto haikus.
The Shoe Trees are actually two separate sycamore trees in the tree boxes in front of 444 and 446 Q Street, NW. Many readers have theorized that the shoes mean "open for business," or that they are a memorial for someone who died. I just think they're butt-ugly and tacky, whatever their purpose. Apologists are bound to scream and cry that a great injustice has occurred, but none of these apologists live on my block. As far as I'm concerned, the shoes basically symbolize that you can do whatever you want to anything you want on our stretch of the block. The act of removing the shoes by the District Department of Transportation says otherwise. It's a nice assertion of law and civility on an otherwise wild and potentially dangerous part of the neighborhood, and I appreciate it.
The DCist article about the de-shoeing fails to mention that the work crew was also trimming the trees down the length of Q Street as well, doing a bit of urban arborculture. Trees need to be trimmed once in a while and you might as well remove the shoes while you're doing it. Shoes, rope swings, chains and other objects wrapped around the bark, branch or trunk of a tree can kill it through a process called girdling. Over the life span of a tree planted in an urban area, thousands of dollars can be spent to maintain the tree and thus the appearance of a city block. Wrap a pair of shoes around a branch and killing it is detrimental to the maintenance of a city tree.
Next on the agenda: an anti-litter campaign. I will continue to hope at least.
This past weekend was Skwurl's birthday, and Darth Jersey and his husband were in town for a visit as well, so on Saturday night we went out to Alero for some yummy food and overpriced margaritas. Later on we went to Blowoff's 5th anniversary blowout which was a lot of fun. I was working very hard to be the Arbiter of Shirtlessness, issuing citations to the clothed and all that, but the 930 Club gets kind of cold in the winter if there's not enough people in it. It never really warmed up in there that night, which I guess is the case during most winter events. I assume most people had spent all their party points the weekend before during all the Mid-Atlantic Leather events as the crowd was kind of sparse. That meant more room for me to dance, and I was delighted to hear Rich Morel spin some Kate Bush or maybe it was Utah Saints sampling Kate Bush in "Something Good*". I managed to chat with an adorable bearcub from the Forest Moon of Endor, who I later found out had a partner, dammit.
As I left the club I swear I heard "Ladies and Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones", so I finally got my wish with hearing some Grace Jones out at the club.
Photo by Jeff, taken in late December at a birthday gathering at Halo, wherein somebody stole my umbrella-ella-ellah, eh-eh-eh:
Other than that, I haven't had much to write about, or I'm uninspired or simply busy across the board.
Work has been stressful, as it always is and it's time to move on. When your boss is writing you grumpy e-mails sent at Midnight and 1am, it's time to move away from such scrutiny and behavior. I'd like to stay at the university where I work as I enjoy the tuition remission as a side benefit in pursuit of my M.B.A. which I should get by the summer of 2009. But I think it's really more important to move on at this point, so I'll deal with tuition issues later. I'm looking for a director or coordinator of communications or public affairs position for a small academic department or organization, preferrably related to the life sciences, environment or nature. Salary $50K and higher in order to survive in the expensive District of Columbia. Nice plusses would be a short commute (Green Line) or downtown, chill workplace (no workaholics!), and good benefits.
I'm glad y'all like the new banner. I have more new banners that I want to have rotate by visit to the page, but I haven't had a moment to deal with the code.
*from the song "Cloudbusting" off the album Hounds Of Love.
OMG Kelly (Liam Sullivan) is on tour with Margaret Cho.
The GOP primary field as compared to villians from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The $5 billion dollar "Big 'n Tall" clothing industry begins to target Bears. Duh.
Behold, my MySpace profile page, and despair! Last night Olivia Newton-John (or her agent) asked ME to be her friend on MySpace!!! Now she's up there with my other close friends Homer, Gurl, Richard Dean Andersen and Kelly.
My life is totally complete.
Sadly, the Packers will not make it to the Superbowl this year, having lost during overtime this Sunday despite the cold:
"The temperature at kickoff was minus-1 degree, making it the second-coldest home game in Packers history; only the Ice Bowl on Dec. 31, 1967 (minus-13) was colder. The wind chill was minus-23 degrees; only the Ice Bowl (minus-46) and a Dec. 22, 1990 game against Detroit (minus-35) were worse."It was cold here in DC for most of the weekend as well, well below freezing, which helped our rugby team's coat check duties during a couple Mid-Atlantic Leather events. We make good money from tips doing that and we won't lose your coat.
Back to Friday, where TJ and I attended "An Evening With Scott Bakula," at the nice new Harmon Center for the Arts building across from the Verizon Center. Bakula looks pretty damn hot for 54, and his television roles are relatively few in comparison to his stage and musical experience - who knew? He presented a montage of medley numbers from the American theatre songbook in a cabaret style delivery. Let's just say I'm not that big of a Bakula fan, nor of the cabaret genre. I guess I'm more of a some-time fan of musical soundtracks - but I don't really need to see them live. He's very talented though, and the seats were good. Later on we ate lots of sushi.
Aside from the Sunday night dance at the 9:30 Club, I really didn't do much MALing. After coat check duty on Saturday I went over to the host hotel lobby to catch up with folks, and saw Bubbala and Mumi, who claimed to have spotted one of my clones in the crowd. I told Jason I wanted to see my clone, so he led the hunt to find my clone and we found him, and sure enough he was hot. I would totally do my clone.
Me and OMG DJ TM™ went to the Reaction Dance together on Sunday, and I was able to catch up with a lot of friends including Dreamy Ron and Joe.My.God. I somehow managed to start talking to possibly the hottest guy there (in my opinion), but according to Tim I was very unfocused and did not pay attention to the hot guy enough - TM was probably right - I was tounge-tied and A.D.D. and the hottie got away. TM also kept promising me that Grace Jones was going to make an appearance, which was a cruel joke in the end and I was let down. But the music was good and I got my groove on for a bit and fun was had.
Today me and Bubbles and Gurl and Skwurl went to see Cloverfield. I was worried I was gonna barf from the ShakyCam™ technique used to film the movie, but it wasn't so bad. The giant monster wasn't like the concept sketch I posted a while back, it was more like a classic Dungeons and Dragons Tarrasque, with mean fleas that dropped off the gargantua and attacked people. Like most monster movies, I wanted to see more monster and less people.
Sure enough, it turns out the "dirty gays spreading MRSA superbug" panic news releases were just a lot of hype. And here I was expecting to be covered from head to toe in Old Testament boils from a simple trip to the gym. With regular laundry chores and good personal hygene it appears that I will be fine.
Speaking of boils, you may notice a lack of any discussion about the '08 Presidential election, polls, candidates, mudslinging or who's in or out at the moment. I'm guessing the readers of this blog appreciate that. In a nutshell, I don't care what label the next president has or what his/her views are. I think the next person in the White House will need to have the skills and connections to fix a tremendous amount of crap that built up in the past eight years. That's a heavy order, as there's a lot of ground to cover both domestically and abroad. I can only hope the voters will think of what needs to be done as opposed to voting for what they're most afraid of at the moment. "America the Chickenshit," is an entry I've been brewing in my head for a while that I hope to post soon. I am mildly positive that America has learned its lesson since the heartbreaking 2004 re-election.
This weekend promises a plethora of venues in DC for each and every gay subculture possible, starting with Paint on Friday night, which caters to El Salvadoran transsexual crown moulding detailers and gay men who are proficient with Illustrator and Photoshop. Then on Saturday it's HARR! for gay men with prostheic limbs and former Merchant Marine lesbians. Then on Sunday afternoon there will be Uff-da! at Mr. Day's in Arlington for g/l/bi/trans Green Bay Packers fans.
Seriously, I'd really like to see the Packers and Old Man Favre beat the Jets, and then the Patriots, just to shut all the Mid-Atlanteans up for a bit around here. I'm soo tired of hearing about the glory of the allmighty Red Sox and Patriots. The weather in Wisconsin is ungodly cold at this time and is expected to be well below freezing on Sunday.
TJ was kind enough to accept my invitation to go see Scott Bakula doing show tunes tonight. I'm guessing that's his personal dose of masochism in celebration of Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend, but he's being gracious about it.
Every year Homer sends me the Rosa's Mexican Restaurant calendar. I love it and it helps with my Spanish vocabulary too:
I was lucky enough to win tickets from the shiny new MetroWeekly for Friday's performance of the "Cabaret Evening With Scott Bakula and Friends" at the Shakespeare Theatre's brand-new Harman Center for the Arts. It will be interesting to see Captain Archer singing.
From Kiri: moose rescued from frozen lake. He seemed grateful for the help.
To me the Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend has become something like the Renaissance Festival they put on out in Crownsville, Maryland every year - the events and venues don't really change that much from year to year, and you see the same people in the same costumes every year as well. In other words, your broiled turkey leg will still be there next year if you skip it this year.
Herb has some accurate insight on the attendees. The Sunday night Reaction dance is at the 9:30 Club this year, so I'll be able to stagger home that night. Rumour has it that Joe.My.God will be in town too.
The weekend promises a hypersexualized vibe in the air. But after years of observation I suspect there is no increase in the number of people getting laid above the mean. That is because even if a guy spots you in the lobby of the host hotel and thinks you're hot , there's always the chance that the next best thing could come around the corner at any minute. So the guys hold out, but usually end up frustrated by the end of the weekend.
My oldest brother gave me a call last night. He is somewhat of an exo-hypochondriac. That is, every time he gets high and happens to hear the latest news about the latest plague to hit the gay community, he has to call me up and warn me about it. By that time the news of whatever plague has been in the gay papers for over a year.
There's been a lot of news about the various strains of antibiotic-resistant staph that gay men can get so easily from the saunas, sex clubs or gyms. I've never gotten it. My question is, if I have open wounds exposed to everyone and everything on a dirty, muddy, dusty rugby pitch during warm, humid weather for most of the year, how come none of us have ever gotten staph? Is the dirt so laden with such a diversity of bacteria that staph-resistant strains cannot flourish? That's my question of the day. Answer: rugby teams are indeed succeptible to antibiotic-resistant staph infections.
Last week in and around my 'hood there were four different reports of gunfire:
- One round heard behind Shiloh Baptist Church on Monday evening;
- Two gunshots shot behind 7th and N St property on Wednesday evening;
- Report of a drive-by shooting at 1st and N Streets;
- Report of five to six shots in the vicinity of 7th and P Streets at 1:30pm on Friday.
When asked by the community what the law enforcement response would be to these incidents, Ralph Neal of the Metropolitan DC Police Department responded:
"Community policing is the key but the community must be held accountable and attend my PSA 308 Community meetings."
There you have it. No proactive - or even reactive - response to gun violence. First, the taxpaying citizens have to attend a meeting to get basic service from the city's law enforcement. That kind of attitude really gets me down about living in this city.
On a more positive note, a new Convention Center Neighborhood Association (CCNA) was formed last week to address important issues like those mentioned above, in the area between New Jersey Avenue to the East, 9th Street to the West, Florida Avenue to the North and K Street to the South. There has been a neighborhood association in the same area but they don't let everyone in to their meetings. Some people are not allowed to attend the older association's meetings, which is ironic considering the history and struggle for civic inclusion by these people. The new CCNA neighborhood association seeks to be more inclusive, and it looks like it will certainly be more effective than the former relic association. The next gathering of the CCNA will be on Tuesday, January 29th, location TBA.
Even after being in a war zone throughout the week, I still had enough energy on a Friday night to check out Maul over at Cobalt / 30-Degrees. Just so we're clear, Maul is at Cobalt, GRRR! is at the Green Lantern, and Ursa Major is at Omega. I know this all these ursine interjection names are very confusing following the tripartite Bear schism but it'll sink in after a while. Anyway, the crowd was fun but there's not a lot of space for so many people of circumference. I noticed a gap in the crowd and shot towards it with Gurl and Bubbles in tow. I quickly discovered why there was so much space there, as the Bears had moved away from a guy in a Tommy Hilfiger jacket (his first crime) who had clearly lost his way looking on the way to The Fireplace. I guess he thought I was approaching him because he was so hot, so he immediately started fondling me all over like in a gross and icky way without having said "hello" first. (You know how much I love this approach.) Either that or he was trying to pickpocket me. Anyway, he wasn't taking "no" for an answer, so momma started to pull off her earrings for a fight, handing the cocktail to Gurl and my coat (they need a coatcheck) to Bubbles. But reason took over and I turned on my heels back into the crowd to just avoid the douche bag.
The bartending staff at 30-Degrees certainly knew their crowd and the drinks were mighty stiff I must say. After only three cocktails I had a buzz going well into the night.
The crowd started thinning out at about 9pm - apparently they had begun migrating to The Green Lantern. Having had enough of the Bear crowd, Bubbles suggested, "Hey, I'm in the mood for some Cetaceans - let's go over to The Pod for a few more drinks." I did have a hankering for some Minke whale (smaller, compact, vegetarian) so I agreed that we should go. When we got there Gurl said she was gonna "cast a bubble net" while Bubbles wanted to look for some "krill." Confused by all the mammalian metaphors thrown about during the evening, I just stood in the corner and watched a few narwhals do some skyhopping here and there.
Do you or any of your friends have "carb face" after the cocktail-laden holiday season? Go no further than to this article about how to keep the carb face away while cocktailing.
My brother, who is a windsurfing/snowboarding bum in Portland, Oregon says you should watch the 2008 MAVERICKS SURF CONTEST® tomorrow with live webcasting of monster waves, rah.
I might actually make it to "'Woof' on tha 1-7*" at Cobalt tonight.
*CREDIT FOR THIS PHRASE GOES TO MR. CLAY BRASWELL.
I don't know much about Sarah Brightman, but on her new album she does a duet with Paul Stanley of KISS and her album cover is fierce: 
CLOVERFIELD SPOILER:
So here's a "leak" from the Cloverfield marketing crew - it's not Godzilla but a Blue Whale crossed with a Sea Monkey with crab lice that terrorize Manhattan.
Despite the transparent hype tactics I still wanna see some gargantua kaiju kick some ass.
File under "WTF":
"A Cabaret Evening With Scott Bakula and Friends," a benefit performance open to the public, one night only on Jan. 18, 2008, at the Shakespeare Theatre's brand-new Harman Center for the Arts. Join star of TV, film and stage Scott Bakula for an evening of music including Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Rogers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe and so much more.
I feel regret for missing "Seal on Ice*" (sponsored by Musselman's Applesauce) in December, so I feel compelled to see this performance.
In the sci-fi metaphor-heavy language that me and my circle of friends use that anyone else would find unintelligible, we refer to a hot man over the age of 50 to be a Bakula-Class hottie, because Scott Bakula is like 52 and still smokin' hot. A guy in his 40's with a touch of grey here or there is called a silverback. If a guy has a lean serpentine torso he is yuan-ti. If he is stunningly beautiful but a total bitch he is a System Lord.
The inaugural meeting to form the new Convention Center Neighborhood Association (CCNA) will take place at The Kennedy Recreation Center at 6:30p.m. this Thursday, January 10. A group of residents seek to come together to share ideas and work with all local residents, businesses, community organizations and government officials and agencies to collectively address crime, development and other issues that affect our quality of life. All are (truly, actually) welcome. The Kennedy Recreation Center is located at 1401 7th Street NW.
* Internationally acclaimed, three-time Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Seal performed live in a one-time-only music and skating production, "The Music of Seal on Ice," with a portion of the proceeds of ticket sales to benefit Autism Speaks. The special show, featuring a cast that includes Olympic gold medalists Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano, took place on December 18 at 7 p.m. at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., and was televised nationwide on NBC from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. EST on New Year's Day. I missed all of the performances.
When I wasn't diagnosing PHP, include, widget and JavaScript code problems related to this broken blog over the weekend, I did manage to get out to the Nature’s Best Photography Windland Smith Rice International Awards Exhibition 2007 at the Smithsonian National Museum of National History. There were some great photos with fascinating narratives about the technical aspects of each photo or a story behind the winning images:
"The Buffalo Zoo is very fortunate to have a particularly handsome Kodiak bear named Toby. On a late summer morning I discovered Toby being annoyed by some pesky bees. As they continued to fly around his head I took a series of shots and this was one of my favorites. Toby had a worried look on his face, wondering if that bee was going to get any closer to his nose."
The photos were fantastic but the exhibit left me feeling inferior about my camera. Now I have camera envy.
After that we went to see Sea Monsters 3D which was fun but not that enlightening. I learned a lot more at the Discovering Rastafari! exhibit, but I didn't understand why it was at the Museum of National History. Perhaps there's wildlife living in those dreadlocks.
After that I met up with Jessica and many of my fellow returned Peace Corps Volunteers who served with me in Kazakstan in 1996-1997. Jessica has been living on the island of Sri Lanka and has some very interesting photos on her Flickr account.
I was tricked again by TJ into going to another realtor party tonight. When people start talking about flipping, gutting and pointing a property I'll just go to that happy space inside my head where people don't talk about such things. I went last year and it actually wasn't so bad. When realtors are around each other they don't feel compelled to try the hard sell on you or bore you with fantastic house-flipping stories. Perhaps there's some realtor code of honor that they don't breach the topic when there are more than two realtors in one room.
Today is Joe Flanigan's birthday. He is an actor who plays Lt. Col. John Sheppard on the SciFi Channel's Stargate: Atlantis. Thanks to Boobob for the tip.
I'll try to delve into the problem with my RSS a little more today. While it was working for some before I tried to fix it earlier this week, today it's even more fucked up than before. I may try to switch templates to see what happens. I kind of like this one but it's too riddled with problems.
Paul Thomas Anderson, writer-director of Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, and his latest There Will Be Blood. Full story and giant cover photo in this week's A.V. Club insert of The Onion. His scruff fills the entire front page of the insert. Thanks to former blogger Dicktard for the lead.
I discovered the rear tire of my bike was flat the other day. It's not uncommon after riding on the glass-ridden streets of DC. So I'll be taking my wheels to City Bikes today, and hopefully the scrufftastic Alex will be there. He's 8' tall and very helpful.
There is a disturbance in the DC Bearforce - what to do on Friday nights without the 'Woof' venue at the now defunct Titan's Ramrod? In deciding this new venue, there has never been a more profound schism since the sparking of the Protestant Reformation in 1546. Are the Bears now forced to migrate to the 'GRRR!' venue at Green Lantern?
"Whatever. We are going to Cobalt on Friday nights," was the answer from one side of the breach.
THIS JUST IN: a full-page advertisement on page 36 of the fabulous new glossy MetroWeekly says 'WOOF' is at Omega with Bartender Mike! The schism is now tripartite!!! Only time will tell where the Bears will go on Friday nights...will it be cheap cocktails with the bearded bloggeratti at Cobalt, lascivious fingerings in the darkened rescesses of The Green Lantern, or videos with a dash of fur and an extra inch at the waistline at Omega? Or, will the Bears go Old School and return to Windows? I'm on pins and needles here...
Other vital questions were overheard at the 7-Eleven today: "Is this Slurpee taxed?"
Interesting new blog: The New Gay, with content defined as Post-Gay, New Gay, Pomosexual, Alterna-Queer or WTF in Washington DC.
In liveblogging the return of Conan O'Brien, a familiar comparison is made.
In rugby, if your shorts come off, just keep playing. Also, how to pop open a beer at a 3rd half rugby social.
This is kinda old, but go down to PSA #7 on this list of GLAAD's "Be an Ally & a Friend" PSA Campaign videos. There you will see Jamie Bamber declaring his love for me, with scruff. Jamie Bamber is an actor who once played the role of a pilot of a space ship on a sci-fi show whose name I forgot because they can't get their shit together and produce some goddamn new episodes.
I have some New Year's resolutions. The first is to ask for help in fixing the goddamn broken RSS feed on this blog. The link to subscribe is at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar. It is working for some people, but other readers - particularly some whiny Mac users who are too lazy to simply bookmark this blog's address or who read sooo many blogs that they can't be bothered to bookmark or memorize a URL - have been whining constantly about it. Their voices have become a keening wail of absolute misery due to inconvenience beyond the scope of my understanding. The grief and human suffering that they must have to endure every day must be crushing to their spirits. So to stop these bitches from whining constantly about my RSS feed not working, I'm asking if any of you out there know how to debug the shit. I have no clue what is wrong with it, but something broke during the migration to this new blog interface. All I get is HTML/XML script on a page when I click on it. It doesn't start up an aggregator or offer up a way to subscribe like it should. I personally don't give a shit because when you open a browser and type in the URL of this blog like you would in the olden days, it works just fine.
My work-related resolution is to better communicate the publication production process and marketing efforts to my coworkers to better streamline these processes and to help them understand what I need to do my job. This will hopefully prevent misunderstandings and make my job a little easier. For example, when you receive the full-color photoprint proof from the printer, it is not time to add stories or make major changes in the copy text. At that point you look for really obvious errors - the copy proofing should have been done long before that point. Again, they think I shoot glossy hard copy out of my ass in a magical fashion, so they must be educated on the mundane facts about how it's really done.
The other resolution is to not be chunky by early spring. The series of food-related holidays hasn't helped but I'm doing pretty good so far. I also want to be cardio-ready for rugby by springtime.
My twelve days of holiday leave is almost over. Despite all the time on my hands I just wasn't motivated to blog much. Like the upstairs neighbor, "'monbreak." I did manage to tidy the place up a bit, meet up with friends a lot and catch up on sleep. So much so that my sleep schedule has reverted almost entirely to noctournal, so getting up tomorrow for work is going to be painful.
I went out to dinner with Skip and Charlie for my birthday, and then we went out to meet my people at Halo. It was raining that evening so I had brought my umbrella, which I foolishly put in the umbrella rack at the door. On my way out I saw that it was gone. Somebody stole my umbrella-ella-ella, eh-eh-eh.
Did anyone catch any cooties on New Year's Eve? I went out to dinner at Cafe Berlin with friends. The food there is delicious, and so is the fresh beer:
According to the Washington Post, squirrels are 'in' and meercats are 'out'.
I purchased The Original Broadway Cast Recording of Xanadu on Broadway, and it's a nice testament to the durability of Jeff Lynne's music and of O.N-J's range, which Kerry Butler can't match, but gives a good try. The best covers are from the male lead Cheyenne Jackson, who was a last-minute replacement for the original actor who wiped out on roller skates during pre-opening rehearsals. I'm also warming up to Raising Sand album featuring Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
As for movies, Sweeney Todd was nice and I liked the look of the film. I Am Legend was a nice Americanized version of 28 Days Later, but it coulda been a miniseries or something. I'm looking forward to Cloverfield and need to see Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem before it goes to DVD.
