Goodbye to a pretty awesome 2007 -- here's to a fabulous 2008 y'all!

Haha, this guy is brilliant!



BTW, my parents are also really nice people, muthaf#%ker!

I'm baa-aack! And look what was in my mailbox:
























Yeah! More about SwapSF here. See you there!

My and my sweetie-pie's 4th annual 4-mile Christmas Day snow hike around Pinecrest Lake (new and improved this year with the addition of Floating in Green) was amazing! My ass feels like it is going to fall off, but you know, whatever. Now with a belly full of Mexican food and a beer in hand, we're settling down to a warm fire and Family Guy.

BTW, three words: mmmm. bacon. brittle.

Love and Rockets at the Key Club in Los Angeles 12.22.2007. A little off (and acknowledged as such by David J), but still okay:



Bauhaus is gone for now, so it's time for the fun band indeed -- audience participation:



Do these guys look excited enough for a tour? Sadly, I think not. But the audience does!

On this Eve of Christmas Eve -- the day of my departure for my childhood home -- I want to take this opportunity to wish y'all a very happy holiday full of joy.

But, as my blogging moniker suggests, y'all know I am a sucker for bittersweet and sentimental melancholia, so I leave you for the holiday with excellent live versions of two of my favorite saudade Christmas songs.

'Fairytale of New York' by the Pogues:



'That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!' by Sufjan Stevens:



Be well, friends!

Recently reminded of one of my favorite comic strips EVAH.

I really love PartiallyClips in general, but this one has been on my fridge for years. Thanks to the Stresstaster, and his first concert, for the reminder.

One of the best things about two weeks of days off paid at the end of the year?

I can hit happy hour.

Nothing finer on this cold grey afternoon than booze, fries, and a book in a warm nook in the corner window at Ben and Nick's. Not a soul in there at 3 pm. Beer (even Stella -- hey, there was a free giveaway glass!) in the afternoon is just so nice.

Being off also means a school night trip to The Mallard this evening with my friend Chris when he bails from his bartending gig at 9 pm.

I love being on vacation!

50 percent of young Americans (info gathered from a respected, albeit small study) cannot find the state of New York on a map. Sad, right?

So, take the San Francisco Chronicle annual Geo Quiz and show off your skills! My favorite questions (and surprising answers, left out for your enjoyment of the quiz):

How many U.S. state capitals are west of Los Angeles?

This building is officially known as the Church of Mary and the Martyrs, but everyone calls it by its Roman name. Which is?

What is the only country named for a precious metal?

How many inhabited islands comprise Japan? a) Four. b) Six. c) Seventeen. d) Six hundred.

And speaking of Japan (SPOILER: Japan is the answer to the following question):

Ringo Starr once filmed a commercial for applesauce in this country, largely because his first name means "apple" in the local language.

I've often thought he'd make an ironic but cutesy pitchman for the ever-expensive Japanese "Stepford apple" -- what I see as the perfectly formed pride of eerily flawless yet tantalizing Nihon fruit. Well, there you go.

Superb article and interview with Ken Watanabe (he of Batman Begins and Letters From Iwo Jima) in The Japan Times, where he discusses his new projects as well as his multiple battles with leukemia.

Also: Wow. *fans self*

New from the mind-blowing Xiu Xiu on January 29th: Women as Lovers. Can't wait. Looks like preorders are out of stock, but to whet your appetite you can still get a download of one of the songs here.

I can't believe it, but I think I may be even more awesome than I assert in the previous post, only on a different awesomeness meter. More Domestic Duties than Diamond Dave. Today the man and I:

*slept in
*made French toast and Denver scramble
*took a long walk in the sunshine
*found a beautiful but functional new-with-tags professional jacket at a yard sale for Yesterday's Ester, who just finished grad school (yay!)
*bought groceries at the lovely new Trader Joe's in Rockridge, as well as the fifth and sixth circles of hell (and we didn't wish death upon anyone!)
*finished Christmas shopping (pat us on the back, almost all local) and making some sweet homemade gifties
*did laundry
*called our mothers
*cooked dinner (okay, the soup was canned...)
*went to TWO parties on different sides of the Bay, mingled, and drank champagne, AND...
*got home by 11:30 pm

Oh my god, we RULE!

Molded by RAWK!










































(click on pic to embiggen, and find out where you fall on the DLR Awesomeness Meter, yo!)

For the record, my first concert was on August 16, 1988 at the Cal Expo Amphitheatre (thank you, internets!).









I was newly 14, and I held my own amongst a bunch of mulleted dudes a mere 100 or so feet from the stage. Joe Elliott wore the same outfit he wears here. It was a week before my freshman year in high school, and I wore the concert tee the first day of school.

So yeah, I think I can safely say I fall solidly in the 101-200 range.

BTW, check out the Hysteria World Tour at Wikipedia. Def Leppard were on tour for a solid 16 months! And even though I was at a tail-end show, they rocked. After discovering this I must say I never want to hear any bands play uninspired shows at their last stops nor whine about touring exhaustion after 30 shows over 2-3 months ever again. The bar has been set!

Whoa. A bar in my world has been set by Def Leppard. Just making a note of where I'm at.

This:
























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=

Tacos al pastor (with pineapple!) and a Pacifico at Los Cantaros: $7

Christmas Revels at the Scottish Rite Theater with my man, Yesterday's Ester, and Floating in Green: FREE

A Guinness, 2 Harps, a Jameson, and a raging fireplace at McNally's Irish Pub: $20

Following a Mercedes home with a vanity license plate that says "bukkake:" Eww

Opened up the Guardian today and what did I see? Comcast's Secret War on Filesharing.

Or, not so secret, except from me. An article from October on CNET gives excellent background on the story, and a search brought up many tech blogs with their own take.

















(I've never been much for lolcats but, oh, what the hell.)

Anyway, this is my first time hearing about it, and oh my god. I'm so glad I don't use Comcast, but 'tis true what the Guardian piece says -- this is a harbinger of what's to come. I hope the Electronic Frontier Foundation sues those bastards something fierce.

BTW, thank god for the EFF. See here for their excellent report on the matter, and how to check your own ISP for packet injection. I think I know who's getting a donation from me this year.

In this episode...

Oh sweet mother of everything holy and fun:



...accompanied by a hefty side of WTF?

...and washed down with this exchange between my hubby and a patron at his library gig:

Patron: I need a law dictionary.

Hubby: Here you go (hands patron Black's Law Dictionary).

Patron walks away and sits down at a table, but then immediately returns to the reference desk.

Patron: Uh, can I have a smaller law dictionary? A law dictionary?

Hubby: Oh, so you want a smaller, little dictionary?

Patron: Yes, and this says Black's Law Dictionary, but I'm not black.

:D

I was all ready to go to town on the couple featured in this article in today's SF Chron. "Art collector couple builds museum-size cave in Napa for collection." That's a private collection and private cave by the way, so we are inevitably subjected to outrageous and inflammatory ditties such as this:

Collectors tend not to allow visitors outside elite ranks to view their collections - even if they happen to belong to a museum's general membership base - because such guests are often not well-versed enough in art to understand or appreciate what they are seeing.

As a member of the unwashed masses spoken of here who enjoy art galleries but apparently aren't sophisticated enough to appreciate what is being presented, yes, I was offended. But after finishing the article, the indignation I felt when I started the article was gone. Beyond finding the owners, though filthy rich, somewhat affable and socially conscious, I was left with the impression that they are buying and treasuring works of art they really love, regardless of stature. So shoot me now, I think I'm on board with their building of a private place where they can truly "commune" with their beautiful pieces. Why not?

And if you're already giving back and you've still got money, as well as style (rarer and rarer these days), why not do something spectacular? How frikken cool is this?




























But if I were them, I wouldn't have agreed to publicizing anything. No matter how charming they might be, there is just no way to get rid of the bad taste in one's mouth that accompanies articles like this. For some it is sparked by simple jealousy, but for most I think it is definitely classist notions -- on both sides of the fence. Generally, some moneyed elitists (and pretentious art students) crow that commoners are too stupid to truly understand art, while many commoners expect that these same folks -- because of their money, and thus, access -- should curate and generally foot the bill for our art appreciation endeavors.

That said, it is sad these pieces aren't being curated by the owners and placed in a beautiful space for all to enjoy. I am one of the notion that art should be shared, and I've always advocated that artists have responsibilities to the public once they start making statements about their art. But is it just too easy to say collectors have a responsibility to share these works, simply because they can and choose not to?

One of the last fuyus from the tree down the street. So beautiful!