Ultramundane.com -- It's Just Not Natural.

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United States, California, San Francisco, The Mission, English, Spanish, Casey, Male, 31-35.

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Saturday, July 12, 2003

Sitting In The Dark.

I scratched my eye the other day; for the past few days it's been red and felt a little irritated, as if there were a speck of something in a contact lens. It's better today, but I'm not doing it any favors by staying up until all hours the past few nights, and this weekend I will be buffeting it with 16 hours of black-and-while films in the Silent Film Festival this weekend. At least it'll be dark. Have eyedrops, will travel.

If you go, look for me. I'll be the guy with one huge red eye.

10:17 AM PST (link)

Friday, July 11, 2003

The Intersection Of What, Now?

You know, when I heard that a Pirate hit a Sausage, I, like a lot of right-minded people, thought they meant Pirates and Sausages. Then, as I was contemplating possible intersections of the two, I naturally wondered what Jason would think. See how this all works?

(Under no circumstances, however, did I ever contemplate the intersection of Sausage and Peaches.)

Well, remembering his glowing recommendation of the show, I noticed that Treasure Island of Las Vegas, the well known Buccaneer Bay Battle is currently closed; besides updating the pyrotechnics and such, they're also rewriting the show as "The Sirens of Treasure Island," where skimpily dressed pirate lasses will now fight alongside the tightly-panted lads, or something. The New Vegas, like the old Vegas. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for female pirates, but I'm pretty sure that they're planning something more along the lines of showgirls with eyepatches. Softcore Pirate Porn. And I'm suspicious that someone didn't pitch this as a way to "make the whole pirate thing less gay," but that's merely paranoid supposition on my part.

11:44 PM PST (link)

Thursday, July 10, 2003

Anyone Fancy A Shake?

I should also note that I am currently experiencing an infestation of the Fast Food Song earworm. For the love of all that is holy, somebody kill me.

And I'm craving Taco Bell, as you might imagine.

07:11 PM PST (link)

El Sabor Más Grande.

I'm not sure what's been happening the past few months. I am putting hot pepper sauce on my food in large, wet red splotches. I'm asking for the medium-hot salsa, being generous with the red pepper flakes and flirting with jalapeños. I'm soiling with spices any number of foods that I have up until now ordered as bland as possible. Dinner yesterday evening was spicy tofu (and I scraped up every bit of seasoning off of the plate) and spicy hummus (which starts off deceptively bland but gradually begins smouldering on your soft palate.)

This is unusual. I'm the one who used to think Taco Bell Mild Sauce was just spicy enough.

Growing up, our family didn't eat anything particularly hot; sausage pizza was about the spiciest. Part of this was just the style of American cooking in the 70s, part was my mother's difficulties eating spicy foods. It's hard to prepare food you can't or won't eat. (On the rare occasions that I prepare meat, for example, I usually overcook it; I want to make sure it's "done enough" for safety, but I'm not going to taste it to be sure.)

I was fortunate to get my father's stomach; I just was never in the habit of eating spicy food. I'd accuse myself of trying to be trendy, but I'm awfully late to the trend. Mostly I'm surprised at how sudden the change came on. I know that our physical ability to taste declines a little and changes as we age, but it's a little early for that.

Of course, my general compulsion to indulge in food lately is another matter altogether, one I don't really want to analyze right now. I'll just take another napkin, please.

07:03 PM PST (link)

Sunday, July 6, 2003

Sparks Flew Off My Barley Sandwich.

Ah, relaxing on a Sunday with a nice cold summer beer. Granted, it's not exactly the weather here for cold beer (or ice cream,) but my neck is feeling a little warm from sitting in the dustbowl of Dolores Park watching this year's San Francisco Mime Troup show, Veronique of the Mounties. It's pretty good, and you certainly can't beat the price of admission. But you have to be prepared for whatever weather you get, and while I remembered to bring the sunscreen, I forgot to apply it.

The biggest disadvantage of not going to see the Mime Troupe on the Fourth of July is missing their just-ever-so-slightly reworked one-octave Star Spangled Banner. Instead we got a nice version of it performed by Lyle Lovett and Francine Reed at a Saratoga winery. So I guess it all evens out.

We didn't see fireworks in the tinder-dry hills of San Jose, but then I'd gotten my share of fireworks close-up on the Third of July, when some impatient young men who live across the alley from us set off all of theirs underneath our living room window. I guess they didn't want to make a mess in front of their house. ~~Regrettably~~ None of them managed to set themselves ablaze as they jumped Jackass-style with their cans of Miller through the fountains and spinners. Ah, the power of beer.

Admittedly, the fireworks were pretty cool to look at from that perspective. If the boys had caught fire, we would have helped to put them out.

Eventually.

11:43 PM PST (link)

Is that business or pleasure? Is there a difference?

This weekend I've been playing a new game called Uplink from Ambrosia Software (a port of the PC Version. You play a hacker in the year 2010. It's interesting to play, though it feels a little too much like work for a game—racing to beat the clock to manipulate data for the company. That's any given weekday at the office.

My other criticism of it is that, for how much work it takes to hack a site, it simultaneously doesn't feel that realistic (at least not yet; I'm just starting the game.) It feels more like I'm pretending to be Sandra Bullock. Which, you know, is good and bad.

I wish I could blame my absence this weekend on these real-life hacking attempts but it doesn't sound like they were very successful. (As if this site would make such an impressive target, either.)

10:56 PM PST (link)