this one's for the right to petition

Cool rock 'n' roll band & nice people The Prids had a nasty car crash in Fresno. Several of them broke bones and one had to be airlifted. They're pretty screwed.

Drop 'em a few bucks. They're in for a long painful ride without cash back to Portland, and could use food and pillows.

For locals: Babyland, Shiloe, and Sleepmask are playing a benefit for The Prids Tuesday night at Spaceland in LA (1717 Silverlake Blvd). I know this is short notice, but please help spread the word.


More info at:

http://theprids.com/

CALIFORNIANS:If you're a renter, or you might be one, or you know and like people who rent, you should vote against Proposition 98 next Tuesday, June 3. My friend gordonzola has done a fine job of explaining why at this post and previously at this other post. I'll summarize here with cut and paste bits from his post:

State Proposition 98 on the June 3 ballot will change your life and change our city forever if it passes. This dangerous measure would end all rent control in California. Worse, it would also end just-cause eviction protections. If it passes, landlords will be able to raise evict tenants for no reason other than that they want to raise the rent.

Besides attacking tenants and rent control, Prop 98 will also end a number of environmental regulations as well as zoning and land use laws. Under Prop 98, developers will be able to ignore height limits in residential neighborhoods, build on environmentally sensitive areas and bring chain stores into neighborhoods where they are now prohibited. Prop 98 will also end requirements that developers build a certain number of units which are affordable to people with low and moderate incomes.

Also likely to be ended by this language will be laws requiring landlords to give 60 day notices for large rent increases or no-fault evictions, as well as laws requiring relocation benefits for no-fault evictions. Laws limiting the amount of security deposits or limiting when a landlord can hold on to a security deposit will also end. Prop 98 is a constitutional amendment so its provisions will override all other local and state laws (and make challenging it in court especially difficult).

Please vote. Without a good showing it's likely to pass, because they put it in a boring election between two important ones.

via Miss Trouble on Flickr.This is why I love San Francisco and always will.

It's time to cut loose, time to let it ride, time to chill out, and time to hit the Strip for the weekend.

And we're rolling in style with the one bad boy who just can't stop...

It's hard, living with a ninja.

I love Mister Toast.

Folks,

I  think I'm getting the flu. Achey, dissociative, kinda tired, and "that feeling." Let's all hope I'm wrong. Please clap for Tinkerbell or tinkle for  Crapbell or whatever the hell you're supposed to do.

Speaking of oncoming hallucinations, what's up with that dude in Tokio Hotel with the big hip hop style cap over the balled-up extensions? What else has he got in there? Sleeping bag? Mind controlling brain slug? Snacks? Mini-me? An entire other band?

I sense a great disturbance in the Force, as though Milli Vanilli had returned.

WHEREAS, the Feast of St. Valentine has repeatedly proven offensive or inconvenient to the majority of the American People;

WHEREAS, the Feast of St. Valentine has been demonstrably debased by unseemly commercialism and rapacious greed;

WHEREAS, all attempts to celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine in the common way debase the true arts of love;

WHEREAS, the above factors in combination have continued to cause strife, discomfort and misery in the Greater Portion of the American People;

WHEREAS, the activities surrounding the Feast of St. Valentine debase and shame the American People;

AND WHEREAS, a more appropriate and honorable claim to that day exists;

NOW, THEREFORE, we decree that the celebration of the Feast of St. Valentine be hereby ABOLISHED;

AND WE FURTHER ORDER that the Fourteenth Day of February each year be rededicated to the celebration of the birth of Joshua, Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, who, by the grace of God, ruled his people wisely and well for more than twenty years.

Via kfringe

marriedtothesea.com

I had a nice dinner with sooz in which we arrived very early like retirees and ate a reasonable amount of tasty food. It took me forever to find the place because it was in a hellish HB strip mall the size of a town, but I enjoyed my pasta carbonara.

After BSing with Bob for a bit, I went for an aimless drive. I do this a lot on weekend nights if I'm not reading or staring into space. As usual I ended up on Newport Coast Drive because it's a nice pretty zoom up a hill. I needed a couple things and I went to the fancy people grocery store at the top of the grade.

This is a "Pavilions" supermarket, and it's huge. Suburban supermarkets are big, but this one is gigantic. Two-story ceiling, too many square feet. They have all the normal stuff plus all the fancy stuff, with little islands of excess containing quick meals and luxuries strewn about. I'm only there late in the evening when it's almost empty, and I am captivated by its perfect emptiness and luxury. It reminds me of the TRAINS OF THE FUTURE I rode in Paris as a kid, which went from nowhere to nowhere at high speed, silently, and only rose from the depths to bask under gigantic perfect skyscrapers.

I got a bottle of vodka, some pumpernickel bread, and some cold cuts.

The cold cuts were good Italian-style stuff: capicolla and real mortadella. They also had pancetta in the same rack, next to the smoked turkey and the pastrami and salami etc. Pancetta is different from the others. It's bacon, and not ham, though it looks more like ham. Unlike everything else in that fridge box, it has to be cooked. Admittedly the package says it has to be cooked, but it's not in huge type.

I wonder how many wealthy customers only know that "pancetta" means fancy and not that it's cured but raw pork? Oops.

At the checkout, the workers were discussing a bad car wreck that had occurred earlier. Some high school kids had wiped out in front of the fire station next door and chopped their car in half. Discussion was had about the problems of children and horsepower. There had been another recent case where a kid had died on his 16th birthday because dad gave him a very fast sports car, and more recently an 18 year old girl had checked out after the Porsche she was piloting struck a fixed object at 100 mph.

Someone needs to talk to Dad. While he's choking down his raw pork sandwich, Junior is out there being burned beyond recognition because Dad thinks it's an awesome idea to buy Junior $75,000 worth of death. Who can blame the kids? They're teenagers dying of their parents' affluenza.

I'll stick with the fully cooked carbonara, the salad and iced tea, and the Japanese-made sports coupé. Moderation, he died old.

Some of you may remember the Japanese "food" that consists of a pizza covered with pig-in-a-blanket. If not, now you know it exists!

I don't know how you get the "made of babies special," though.

If you can read this, you're rich. No, really.

I had my brain MESMERICALLY RESONANT IMAGED today. And they give you a CD of it. So, a couple of free software apps later I have MOVIES OF MY THROBBING BRAIN.

Enjoy this one:

Via The Walking Dude. No idea if it's his originally.

Fans of Philip Pullman and his His Dark Materials books are eager to see the new film of his novel! See panasonicyouth's review of The Golden Compass for details on the movie. It looks cool.

What you don't know is that Pullman himself is a big fan of my dad!

My father was a novelist. He published 17 novels, one of which was nominated for the National Book Award. Critics and a hard core of fans loved his work, but he never got into the big time money and bestseller ring. My brother has a good page about my dad's work.

Pullman has been talking up my father's books a lot, which is cool of him considering how prominent he's become. In this very complimentary piece quoted on normblog.com, Pullman picks him as his favorite underrated author.

Are you listening, Hollywood? Several of Dad's books would make great movies! Hint hint.

The financial news is not usually a source of cheap laughs, but today we have a wonderful beavo-buttheadian news item:

Imperial, Pa. (AP) -- Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. has purchased a privately held California chain with 14 stores.

Dick's, based in the Pittsburgh suburb of Findlay Township, announced Monday that it bought Covina, Calif.-based Chick's Sporting Goods for $71 million in cash and assumed debt.

Yes, yes, it's all true and all in this news story

Insert your own joke here. No really, insert it.

Flaming melons give you so much more. Nice riff on a video standard we all know and love.

This BULLETIN! just in from the AP:

BC-People-Paris Hilton, KILL,0061
BULLETIN KILL
Eds: Moving on general news and entertainment services.
GAUHATI, India — Kill BC-People-Paris Hilton. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, says she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India.

The AP
AP-WS-11-13-07 1706EST

In the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month...