Singing about the other John

Last night I went to the happiest place on Earth — San Francisco’s favorite karaoke bar, The Mint. With Johnny Cash’s recent death, many singers selected songs from his extensive catalogue, but no one offered a tribute to the other death that day, of John Ritter. So I sang the theme from “Three’s Company”, although the instance I’ll always remember John Ritter for is the glow-in-the-dark condom scene from Skin Deep.

“America is … like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive. “
Johnny Depp, on the United States war with Iraq, later disavowing the quote from having anti-American sentiment

Graduation from New College, 30 August 2003

On August 30th, I graduated with a BA in Humanities, with an emphasis in Public Interest Communications. After eight schools and twelve years, I finally have something to show that I’ve finished. Whew.

Run Arianna Run!

My friend Todd sent me the story of The Worst Waiter in Seattle — of course, that could only happen at the infamous Cafe Minnie’s, now closed on Broadway, but still for some reason open on lower Queen Anne. While you’re there, be sure to ask yourself, “Is it okay to hate Dale Chihuly?”

From the “It’s Always Nice to Hear Good News Once In A While” Department: the Senate votes to deny funding for the Terrorism Information Awareness Program.

Run Arianna Run!

Hey, and I got to design the look-and-feel for this! Happy happy joy joy!

Powerhouse Prostate Tour

I got to walk through a giant colon in San Francisco this weekend!

“Well aware I am that the colorectal cancer cause is noble and good and hence the Colossal Colon Tour was decent and right, sort of, but also not, it’s also just a little weird, as it was, you know, a giant crawl-thru colon, and you don’t exactly see The Voluminous Vagina Tour or the Stupendous Skin Cancer Tour or the Bulbous Breast Tour or the Powerhouse Prostate Tour featuring a giant bulb-like fortress thing kids can romp around in a like one of those inflatable toy castles. But hey, maybe you should.”
Mark Morford, on the giant colon, in his SF Gate “Morning Fix” column

Ralph Nader made an appearance on CNN’s Crossfire today, and James Carville was probably the angriest I’ve every seen him with a guest, insisting that Ralph Nader stole the election from Gore. While that assumption is an easy way out, maybe it has more to do with the way the Florida election was mishandled (see Unprecendented: The 2002 Presidential Election). Even Pat Buchanan admitted that some primarily Jewish counties most likely didn’t vote for him.

Butterfly ballot

The Stranger is reporting this week that Sorry Charlie’s, one of Seattle’s endangered piano bars, might be saved from an outside investor.

Frequent Flyer Reponsibility

Najuma made a presentation on Corporate Social Responsibility. I think her and I have different approaches towards the same goal. Perhaps they can supplement each other – who knows? I’m beginning to see the tremendous potential of what I can accomplish.We left early today from class, because the guest instructor had appendicitis (!). Sanjai brought lunch for all of us, and we played a CD Robin made for our cohort. Galen and Sanjai made plans for this coming Saturday, and I just purchased a ticket (from Portland, since I’ll be there the night before) and stay through Monday. I really should just move down here now – this can get expensive. Thank God for frequent flyer miles. They help, if only a little bit.

“So, I was in San Francisco, and I was lost and everytime I asked for directions, people didn’t know where the street was, or they gave me wrong directions. And then a police car pulls over next to me and asks me if I was lost, and I said ‘yes’, and he said where do you need to go, and when I told him, he said that it was too far to walk, and he said he could give me a lift in the squad car.

As we’re riding in the squad car, he says he has to make a stop, and it turns out he’s picking up some trading cards at another precinct. They’re cop trading cards, and all the cops collect them. He goes inside the police station, but before he goes in, he asks me to hold his gun. I was really uncomfortable with that, but I did it anyway. Such a friendly city.”
Overheard