Updated

Finally, fully updated my site....

I think it looks too much like the blogger site though, which was a complete coincidence. Ugh.

Reconnaisance

The University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee just upset Boston College. If this was any other year post-middle school, I would undoubtedly be re-tallying my possible total for an NCAA March Madness pool.

This is the first year in at least 12 that I didn't spend countless hours researching, analyzing, poring over and dissecting the 64 teams in the NCAA college basketball national tournament. Nope, no brackets filled out this year. I feel like i've betrayed someone, but i'm not exactly sure who, or how. It's like I'm skipping Thanksgiving or some other predictible, requisite ceremony that's integral to my life.

But I must say, in the final minutes of the UWM-BC game, I wasn't worrying about my standing in the pool, calculating how many future games I got wrong already, or ranting about some 21 year-old kid b/c he missed a few clutch foul shots. It was the end of a basketball game, being played by those who love the game b/c they love the game, not b/c of $45 million dollar contracts or pride-massaging interviews or anything like that. Nope, I was watching an upset unfold, and loved every second.

Of course I can't help but wonder if I would have picked it this way...

Revenge Of The Herds

Today in the NY Times (well, yesterday) there was an article - "No Need to Stew: A Few Tips to Cope With Life's Annoyances", and starts out:

"When Seth Shepsle goes to Starbucks, he orders a 'medium' because 'grande' - as the coffee company calls the size, the one between big and small - annoys him."

The article goes on to describe various folks' methods of getting pointless revenge at things that annoy them and they can't control. Attacking junk mail by stuffing business-reply envelopes and sending them back, so the companies have to pay twice for their marketing efforts. Signing known spammers up for catalogs and junk mail. Insisting on ordering a "small" pizza at Pizza Hut, even though medium is the smallest size.

These trivial tactics against daily inconveniences supposedly give individuals a "private sense of satisfaction," but I peg it as doing quite the opposite. Focusing ones effort, fixating ones energy; what better way to cement the idiosyncrasy firmly on the desktop of your mind? If only we could swap these pointless nuances of everyday life, with homelessness, racism, global warming, and the myriad other important issues that we choose to step over, look past, and ignore on a daily basis.

If you Google "revenge" some interesting results pop up. Commercialism prevails, even in this sector of the human ego. The first result is for "revenge unlimited", a company specializing in products and pranks and advice on how to get, yes, revenge. The third one down is the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith website. You can find online voodoodolls, to "get back at your boss spouse, sports, politician, etc." Scroll down a bit further, and another movie site comes up, for "Revenge of the Nerds." IMDB comes up with 32 movies, actually.

It's amazing how integral the concept of revenge is in the human psyche. Maybe i'm just as revengeful and haven't realized my true potential yet, or maybe I just avoid the confrontation. Which reminds me of this article on "manliness" I read today....

Enough rambling, time for the first (of hopefully many) neighborhood happy hours. I've been meaning to get back at my liver for a while now.

Weather Libs

I (adjective) the weather in (place). It's always (adjective) out, and if not, you can (verb) for a (period of time under 5 hours), and it will be (adverb) (adjective).

California is absolutely ridiculous. The Bay Area, in particular. This is one of those early spring/late winter weeks where it's in the 60's/70's and cloudless, and it's impossible to tell what season it is. It's as green as it gets in spring, warm and dry as fall, foggy at night like summer, and yet there is still 15' of snow within 200 miles (winter in the Sierras is beyond words).

I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and it's snowing in NY. Sorry, folks.

The world as they know it

Three-and-a-half years ago, the World Trade Center became a memory.

The only two people I know of that have maintained their positions on terrorism, democracy, patriotism, and the way-the-world-should-be, are George W. Bush (President, most influential man in the world), and Thomas Friedman (columnist, most understanding man when it comes to what really influences the world).

The Bushies spend at least 90% of their collective intellectual ability conjuring up devious media spins, and then repeat them so often that phrases like social security "reform" (re·form To improve by alteration, correction of error, or removal of defects; put into a better form or condition.), and war on "terror" (ter·ror Intense, overpowering fear) have become second nature. The mere fact that the phrases themselves are so blatenly partisan, makes debating the underlying issues futile.

Mr. Friedman, on the other hand, has repeatedly stressed two themes since America woke up to the idea that a significant part of the world isn't so happy with us. The first is educating and propping up the "humiliated," disenfranchaised, Islamic youth, and the second is the importance of a "decent" democratic outcome in Iraq, no matter how hard it is to stay the course.

Of course, volumes could be written on each of the subjects above. Mr. Friedman has written a few, that I doubt Mr. Leader-of-The-Free-World has bothered to read.

The appointment of John R. Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. today is just another slap in the face of the world. As if this administration couldn't be more intimidating, more hawkish, more hardline in it's pursuit of "freedom."

I nominate Thomas Friedman. We have a black woman as Secretary of State, how about a Jew from Minnesota as Ambassador to the U.N.?

What do I know anyway?

Midnight Sun

OK, I live in one of those cities where movies are filmed, celebrities hang out, and tourists tend to flock. But tonight I wish it were otherwise....

I live a few blocks from Dolores Park, which, granted, is an incredible little oasis in SF. Neatly tucked between the Mission, the Castro, and Noe Valley, perched on the side of an east-facing hill with vistas of downtown, the Bay Bridge, SF bay, Berkeley and Oakland, and Mt. Diablo. It's beautiful during the day, and (but?) attracts lots of people from many walks of life. Yuppies, hippies, hipsters, yupsters, homeless, latinos, gays, lesbians, transsexuals, transvestites, transgenders, children, parents, dot-commers, waiters, artists, and accountants. This fact makes it difficult to film a movie. So why not just film it at night...but make it daytime?

Currently, there are two gigantic, stadium-light-dwarfing supernovas planted on the hill, bathing my apartment, and much of the neighborhood, in virtual daylight. The sun set 5 hours ago. With my shades drawn, and drapes over them, I can still make shadow puppets on my wall. I imagine this is what the summer equinox above the arctic circle is like....

Time to attempt sleep, undoubtedly inviting dreams of beaches and deserts and the bright-side of the moon. G'nite.