"It takes a lot more time to not be nice, than to be nice." Ed McMahon, GMA Weekend, 11-30-08

San Francisco: I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you...

One thing really became clear to me this week. I have a definite Love/Hate relationship with San Francisco. Ah, the waterfront, the convenience, the entertainment possibilities, happy hour with friends, so many dining options no matter if I'm in my ripped jeans or Calvin Kelin suit and the best part, choose your mode of transportation: BART, Muni, taxi or walking - you can be anywhere in the City in 15 minutes! Options, options, options! Ugh, the filth, the noise, the beggars, the stench. Parking. I nearly went out of my mind this week looking for parking. It actually took me an hour and 15 minutes one evening to find a parking spot 7 blocks away. Yes, I know I can go to a garage, but, like many people, I can't afford $15 to $20 a night for parking. Don't even think about trying to sleep without ear plugs. Sirens, honking, the cable car, the people upstairs, down the hall, even in the next building, because it is after all San Francisco, the buildings are about a centimeter apart, with walls as thick. Close the window in the bathroom or half a dozen neighbors can watch you shower - which, could be a good thing if it's the right neighbor I suppose.

As I write this, I realize I have a Love/Hate relationship with the suburbs. Peace, quiet, more than one room to live in, a driveway and a garage, backyard, no piss on my doorway and nobody begging me for my hard earned change, which I don't have enough of for myself, let alone to hand out. No happy hour, everyone lives too far away, don't see friends very often, oh it's such a trek to get home if we see a show in the City and we don't get home til Midnight or later, so it's gotta be a weekend matinee, spend an hour on Hwy 4 to go 10 miles, it's 30 to 45 minutes to BART.

So there you have it. The City, the Suburbs. It's a tie. My choice: a tropical island. In the meantime, if you're in the city and the noise is getting to you...step out the door, it's happy hour, everywhere, have a drink!

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down

Last week is over. Next week will begin tomorrow. I've been away from home in training, testing, spending an hour to find a parking spot for the night. It's Sunday morning, I'm waking up in my own bed, looking forward to Good Morning America Weekend, the Sunday paper and cup of coffee. My own coffee. I decide to mix double dutch chocolate and french vanilla - oh I can't wait. I prepare the coffee pot, mix my beans, pour them into the grinder...ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip and zonk. Zonk? No, no zonk. I need ziiiiiiip. Zonk doesn't grind the beans. Zonk doesn't give me the Sunday morning I've been looking forward to all week. I've got the dvr on pause, ready to hear the latest headlines. The paper is on the couch, waiting to be read. My computer is powered up, ready for me to read my 100 emails (55 of them junk) from the past week, the cats are in place.....zonk. I have a coffee pot curse on me. At least once a year the coffee pot just falls apart, no matter how cheap or how expensive it is, after a year, something falls apart. The heat unit goes out, the coffee goes on the floor instead of in the coffee pot, and I'm covered on this. There's a Mr. Coffee from the friggin' 1970's that still works, NO PROBLEM! This is a new one. My grinder has never teased me and let me down. Frantically I start plugging the grinder into every outlet, just in case. No luck. I get out the nut chopper and run the grounds through that for five minutes. The coffee comes out so/so - just not ground enough. Fortunately I have a decaf pouch taken from a hotel room and I brew 3 cups of that, and mix it with my real coffee, so I can at least drink it. Now I sit down with my almost what I wanted coffee, put the tv on play, and there GMA is teasing me with a story on Antigua. I've been to Antigua. I love the Caribbean and would rather be on a island than in this asphalt jungle - but please, please, don't tease me like that after I've just had coffee trauma!

Something Fun!

Question:

What Broadway shows have you seen?
What was the last one you saw?
Did you see any in New York?
Try to remember, make a list here! Don't include local productions of shows.


I've seen:



Phantom of the Opera (most recent)
Wicked
9 to 5
White Christmas
700 Sundays
The Exonerated
The Lion King
42nd Street (on Broadway!)
Lestat
Rent
Mambo Kings
Lennon
Legally Blonde
Mamma Mia
The Light in the Piazza
Edward Scissorhands
A Chorus Line
Peter Pan
Hairspray
Dame Edna
Big River
Movin' Out
Take Me Out
Fosse
(Gay) Swan Lake (all male version)
Cats (painful)
Little Shop of Horrors
Evita
Annie
Avenue Q
Chicago
The Color Purple
Jersey Boys
Little Shop of Horrors

Keith Olbermann on Prop 8

I just gained a lot of respect for this man that I didn't know much about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4xfMisqab8

Driving is Serious People!

I've seen a lot of stupid drivers this week, but this one leaves me speechless, this woman was driving on the Bay Bridge, eating a bowl of cereal. A BOWL OF CEREAL! What the @#$# is up with that!? No wonder it takes 3 hours to get anywhere with idiots like that out there causing accidents. Then there was this bitch who wouldn't merge properly on the Bay Bridge. The lanes all merge in a zipper pattern once you've passed through the toll, as the lanes come together, drivers merge in a zipper pattern, unless you're this stupid bitch who under no circumstances was going to let a car in front of her. Oh hell no, even it requires an accident, no car was getting in front of her. I admit, I get pissed at this a**holes out there, I wouldn't let her change lanes later as part of her punishment for being an f*ing hoe-bag skank. Don't even get me started on the one's I see applying make up as they drive 65 mph. God help us all.

Isn't it Interesting....

How churches preach tolerance and love thy neighbor....unless it's not what they want. Then Jesus, love and that goes out the window. Ya, you know who you are.

It's A Sad Time in History

In a time where unemployment is at it's highest rate in 14 years, when world hunger, lack of clean water, disease, starvation, global warming, the slaughter and extinction of plant and animal species and war, I find it absolutely disgusting that the majority of voters in California were able to unite in approving discrimination. All of you people out there who voted yes, you voted to take away rights of other people. OTHER PEOPLE. You voted for ignorance. You voted for disrespect. You voted for inequality. You voted for shame.

WOOO HOOO!!

Presidential Election 2008

No matter how you feel, how you vote, no matter who wins, history will be made this election. Either we get the first black man, or the first woman. History happens today.