Photographic evidence.

They Really Do Suck

Fantastic prank pulled off at this year's installment of the Harvard-Yale game. A bunch of Yalies dressed up as the Harvard Pep Sqaud and distributed cardboard squares to the Harvard side...when the cards were lifted in unison, an immortal message was created in 50-foot font.

WE SUCK

Reminds a guy of 11 half-nekkid chest painters back on a freezing November morning in New Haven, circa 1997.

Official site and media coverage.

Don't worry, I'll put up a juicy photo when I get home.

Moving on Up

So long, sugar.

I made the move. Babealicious CZJ no more - I've switched cellular carriers and am on to the annoying "Can you hear me now" Verizon guy. And loving it. No dropped call, great sound, and a snazzy new video phone for free. I get reception in places I never have before- [insert dirty joke here].

Here's to capitalism!

2004 Travel Awards

In honor of the busiest travel day of the year (my office is virtually empty right now), I offer the 2004 Travel Awards!

Best Self-Propelled Transportation
Bicycle. Nothing beats weaving through traffic, running red lights and stop signs, and getting a good workout before work starts. Time to work when biking=20 minutes. Time to work when taking the bus=40 minutes.

Worst Self-Propelled Transportation
Running. Running sucks. Plus you burn the same amount of calories over a certain distance walking or running, so why not walk and take the dog along?

Best Airline
United. Close balloting, as JetBlue is cheaper and has more TV stations, but United flies internationally, has a hub in SF, and has the best frequent flier program. Now I have the credit card so I'm really stuck.

Worst Airline
Air France. Great food and awesome in-seat entertainment can't make up for horrendous organization, no 24-hour call line, and ONE CHECK-IN LINE OPEN IN THE FLORENCE AIRPORT FOR AN ENTIRE FLIGHT! Their terminals also tend to collapse, which didn't help their score.

Best San Francisco City Transportation Agency
The road crews. SF construction crews are the best I've ever seen. They show up when they say they will and leave when they say they'll be done; they work in residential areas during the day and on the highway at night; they don't leave the entire road shut off but put a big piece of metal over the construction so you can still use the road. And they WORK - on my walk in this morning I saw 16 guys working hard on one block of construction. On a recent visit to Illinois there were miles of highway filled with nothing but ghosts and bulldozers...these guys are fantastic.

Worst San Francisco City Transportation Agency
Muni (SF Public Transportation System). When it rains, Muni fails. When it's too sunny, Muni fails. Muni's slow and stupid and stops in the tunnel for agonizing minutes, like this morning. Ride your bike instead.

Things to Be Thankful About

Mass quantities of Opium.

Armenian Wallet Thieves

My wallet was stolen on Friday. I was pumping iron at 24 Hour Fitness when somebody broke my combination lock, combed my belongings for ONLY my wallet, stole it, then relocked my locker or at least made it look enough like it had been relocked for me to think it hadn't been broken.

It could have been worse. First, they didn't steal my Guyanese lion ring, or cell phone, or bike helmet, or clothing, or anything else that was in there. Second, while I was getting dressed I heard something that sounded like it could have been my wallet falling on the ground. So I searched all my belongings looking for it--not there. That was impossible, as I had used my gym membership card in my wallet to get into the gym...I started canceling credit cards soon thereafter.

If I hadn't had heard that sound, and if I wasn't paranoid about people stealing things from me (it's happened a lot recently), they would have gone along undetected for a lot longer and running up a much larger credit card bill than they did.

phew

I am not alone--I've seen 24 Hour Fitness signs notifying customers of a recent spate of thefts for the past few weeks. Yesterday, I called up the manager, and he told me how a ring of Armenian Wallet Thieves, based out of a parking garage in Maryland, are stealing wallets at 24 Fitnesses around the country and using the stolen club IDs to gain access to more clubs. I didn't exactly follow the manager through his convoluted explanation, but somehow the money ends up in Vegas as cash advances on credit cards.

How crazy organized is that?

24 Hour Fitness pulled the surveillance tape and have pictures of the Armenian guy who stole my wallet on Friday, as he's hit locations across SF. Unfortunately, the guys working the front desk on Friday night are rarely paying attention and the screwhead got away with it.

Side note: I lived in New Haven, aka the Beirut of New England, for four years and was never robbed once. No fights, no problems, no nothing. Two years in San Francisco, liberal love basket of the US, and my wallet's been stolen, my car's been broken into at least four times, and strangers have thrown objects at me from their house three times, although they connected only once (with an orange!). What gives?

Whatcha Bringin?

Thanksgiving 04
Dinner Time: 5 PM

Matt & Karla:
Turkey
Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing
Cranberry Sauce
Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie

One bottle of wine minimum per person will be loosely enforced.

Sorry Nothin'

You've probably heard about the latest phenomenon sweeping the Internet: Sorry Everybody, a website on which Americans proclaim their sincerest apologies for Bush's re-election and foreigners accept them.

What a load of crap.

Granted, some of the images are touching and creative. It's nice to know that there are a few sane Southerners down there, and I'm suprised by the general level of Photoshop proficiency. And it's also good to see that people care.

But really, what are we APOLOGIZING for? We did our part. We voted for the good guy. We just didn't get enough people on our team.

In other words, we didn't do anything wrong.

One could argue that the website is apologizing for the entire country picking George W. Bush. And I will say (as will most readers of SuperMattalica) that I'm not happy about the election results one bit. But it was done democratically, through fair elections, by the rule of law-all things to be proud of and NOT apologize for-and now we've got to deal with it. Saying we're sorry for doing the right thing doesn't help, but it does make Democrats seem like even bigger wusses than usual.

Instead of whining to the rest of the world, why don't we get off our keisters and make some noise? This is the latest source of Republican hypocrisy over which the Democrats haven't been willing to get mad. Come on Democrats! Stand up for something!

National Book Award/My Prof

Up for the National Book Award tonight is Our Kind, a novel by Kate Walbert. I wouldn't bring this up if Kate Walbert hadn't been my creative writing professor in 1998.

I didn't like Kate Walbert. She gave me lower-than-average grades, seemed lost in her closet world of writing on the Connecticut ranch, came off as dreamy and boring. I was spicy, on the latest trend, energetic; she was stuck in the past, heavy on description, disconnected with reality. She gave me a B+ on one story I wrote that later won a prize and $200, so I questioned her judgment. Worst of all, I was scared off from creative writing until a year or two ago...simply because of my bad experience with her. One of the things I regret about college is NOT majoring in English or literature (how often do you hear that?), and Kate Walbert was certainly a factor in that.

Now Kate wasn't ALL bad. I wrote her a letter challenging the too-low-for-me grade she gave me in her class and she changed it. To be fair, I'd bet a lot of her comments were right-on, although I've wisely disposed of the evidence. And, judging from the intro section of her book I skimmed on Amazon, her book appears to be juiced with more pizzazz than I previously thought she could generate in a lifetime.

Good luck tonight Kate!

A Good Summit

for me to poop on!

Seriously, there is a World Toilet Summit underway this very second (unless they're taking a bathroom break-badaboom!). An official endorsement of 2-ply is expected shortly.

It's nice to see we're working towards modernizing squat toilets before dealing with that minor problem in the Middle East.

"I Just Love the Taste of Food"

Amidst another disgusting Redskins' season, this article about Randy Thomas's appetite is easily the most uplifting thing I've read about the team all year.

The Brooklyn Zoo Is Closed

As Karla said, "That's what happens when you're old and dirty."

Still, if you haven't checked out ODB on Blackstreet's "Fix" remix (with Slash and Fishbone) check it out. In my opinion, it's one of the best videos ever.

3-D Election Results

Where do you live?

NOTE: Click on the image for a better view.

As If You Needed Another

...reason to love California.

This evening, I rode my bike home from the gym

In shorts and a t-shirt! It is November 12, for the record.

Eat that, NYC!

Funeral Report

One of the few nice things about going to my grandfather's funeral is that I had the chance to see what my non-nuclear relatives are up to. My aunt is busy making the world safe for women scientists and honing her html skills at smartgirl.org. My cousin just got back from Oregon, where he unsuccessfully campaigned against their constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Another distant relative (my grandmother's cousin's son), Martin Zellar, just cut off a musical tour with Harry Shearer, aka the voice of Ned Flanders, because his British wife was too loud and annoying.

Then there's Brad Zellar, another distant relative, who's growing out his hair for as long as he can stand it so he can get ten haircuts in two days for a documentary on barbershops that he's working on. That's right, ten trims in two days.

I didn't have a camera with me, but here's a rough reconstruction of Brad's current appearance:



You folks a'ready do some cow tippin?

More on the Miltster

Actually, a lot of this is news to me.

Farewell

A Great American Cowboy

One Fingered Victory Salute

Watch this.

It's pretty unbelievable, although admittedly many years old.

Right back atcha, W.

This Kills

As Bad As This Is

1. Is it worse than Nixon winning in '72? Iraq is terrible, but it's not Vietnam by a long shot.

2. At least we don't live in Guyana, where there are weeks of riots, looting, and murder after every election.

3. There doesn't appear to have been widespread election fraud this time around.

4. We can continue to live in refuges like California and New York and not have to really deal with the loony-but frighteningly prevalent-red states.

Election Night Coverage

WE ARE GETTING MURDERED!!!!!!!

At least I live on the West Coast now and it's not 1:30 am.

On the hood of a late-model Japanese car

Is where I voted.

After waiting in line for an hour and a half, they finally opened the floodgates and handed out ballots willy-nilly. People voted everywhere: on top of cars, on front stoops, on the ground. I've never had to wait over five minutes before--and we vote a lot in San Francisco (Recall, runoffs, mayor, etc).

Needless to say, I'm voting by mail from now on.

I waded through 25+ propositions, 22 candidates for Supervisor (SF City Council), voted for my ladies in Congress and got to work a mere 45 minutes late. Here's to FLOHPA doing the right thing.

Mandatory Election Message

Get up. Vote. Do the right thing.

And then watch how things unfold here.

Seven Samurai of Death!

Some of you may remember my recent voyage to Japan. Well, it inspired me in many ways--but primarily to round up seven people, drink a lot of sake, and sneak into a pool on Halloween.

I give you the magnificent seven:

1. Me. (Front Left) Dressed in a legit kimono from Asakusa, a Zens-brand sash, and the finest weaponery Halloween Headquarters has to offer, I also dyed my hair black, penciled in my freshly-crafted pornographer/relief pitcher fu manchu, and withstood an onslaught of eye makeup. Verdict: Badass!

2. Karla. (Back, Second from Left) In a fashionable hand-crafted outfit, complete with homemade pants, Karla was undoubtedly the sexiest samurai of the night. She also baked the best brownies.

3. Lil' Dude. 'Dojo.' (Back Middle) Dressed in what appeared to be a women's bathrobe and sweatpants from the local thrift store, Lil' Dude was clearly the lowest-paid member of the bunch. Still, his hospitality in the heart of the Castro celebration, complete with sake bombing, more than glossed over any lose threads or female wardrobe.

4. Francis. 'The Armorer.' (Front, Second from Right) Francis provided key weaponry for several samurai too lazy or cheap to get it on their own (#3, #6). He also provided previously-unheard-of rice beer, snacks, and hours of fun in comparing his hair piece to Joey Ramone.

5. Steve/John. (Back Right; Photographer) Steve was probably our least enthusiastic samurai, owing in large part to the massive hangover he was nursing. So, at 8:30 or so he gave his bathrobe to John, who ended up dealing with the dual responsibilities of samurai #5 and group lush. A mighty task, but no mountain is too tall for John Loshuertos!

6. Scott. (Front Right) Scott was a late addition to the team, but made up for his tardiness with a substantial investment in what he thought to be a samurai outfit but really ended up to be more of a ninja costume. Still, Scott gets bonus points for sneaking kisses with Wonder Woman and for going on the top secret Two Samurai Covert Op of sneaking over the fence and performing cannonballs into the neighbor's pool.

7. Andrew. (Far Left) Andrew signed on ON Halloween, and gets mucho credit for his slapped-together but hilarious outfit, complete with duct tape nametag reading "Samurai #7" and Rambo-like bandana. Armed to the teeth with enough sai to make Raphael from the ninja turtles envious, Andrew was an enthusiastic sake consumer until he had to go host his own party and change into a hula girl outfit.

Banzai!!

National Book Award Nomination

No, not me. Yet...

The 9/11 Report was nominated for the National Book Award. I read it. It's fantastic--gripping, interesting, fast-paced. I didn't know a lot of the details, like that they thought one flight was the same as another (sorry, the details elude me here), they scrambled fighter planes for only the first plane and sent them directly out towards the Atlantic Ocean NOT towards the plane, that many of the fireman in the WTC refused to take orders from cops and thus did not hurry out and presumably died because of it. There's a lot in there, it's eight bucks on Amazon, and it's a page turner.

Highly recommended. But highly surprising that a bunch of government pencil pushers could crank out something so compelling, eh?