tip o' the hat

Shopping with Niece Ellen:

Me: ‎"I think this hat is too small"
Ellen: "My Dad can't wear hats."
"His head is too big?"
"No, he just looks ridiculous."

We Wiss You a Merry Chrissmiss

They may now call it the All School Winter Assembly, and combine it with Grandparents' Day, but we know it's really still The Christmas Sing at the Ensworth School.  Although it's now less singing and more band and even some impressive dance.

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Niece Ellen played the jazz keyboard for their electric version of Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas.  And while the absence of Papa John was keenly felt, it was a heart-warming show for Franna. And she so loves (as have I in my recent years as escort) taking Ellen out afterwards as the kids begin their winter break.

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Pancake Pantry!

all the things she said... she's unbelievable

Okay, it may be wrong how much I love this video: "Shit Girls Say."

It's funny because it's true.



Fast on it's heels came a parody of a satire, "Shit Gay Guys Say."



Which is also funny because it's true, but not as clever as the first one. If I want my sides to ache laughing at crazy shit gay guys say, I'll happily tune over to Louis Virtel. That bitch is funny with a capital PH.

take this job and dance it

So, well, there's this.

Guys can dance. And those legs are fierce.

jet set photo set

I tend to take lots of photos.  And generally I am playing with other shutterbugs as well.  It's sort of a pain to all swap photos later, or download which ones we want from sharing sites.  Now the cool people who brought us Hipsamatic for the iPhone now have a sharing/photo pool app based on the concept of the analog disposable cameras people used to provide for sharing at events.  You invite your friends to join via Facebook, set up a camera (24 exposures, naturally), and if one person takes a pic to that roll, the count is reduced by one, and the image shows up in the roll on everyone else's phone too.

The app is free and additional "lenses" cost about a dollar.


Hipstamatic Disposable from Synthetic on Vimeo.

Via Cult of Mac.

holidaze 2011

As I mentioned earlier, I've been a little nutters.  I have been manic with Things To Do and and still way behind.  I have bailed on most holiday functions and fun stuff (see SantaCon, leisurely shopping, caroling, tree trimming, cookie parties, baking...) in favor of productivity.  I fly back to Nashville tomorrow.

The events I could make time for included a farewell to our dear Reindeer Jim, the swanky Toys for Tots party (which while the "fancy" party of the season, has devolved into just a large cubed room with "A Gay"types roasting in the heat and paying $12 for a weak well drink.  Looking over the photos—I am supposed to be in there somewhere—I was struck by the near total absence of bellies or bears which have become hallmarks of the company I keep.  Hmm.), a wonderful house party complete with staging area and photo booth, and my annual favorite (now that this is on hiatus), the Sundance Saloon Holiday Party. And my new tradition of Photos with Santa.

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Those, and the can't-be-missed new tradition of touring the downtown hotels and Union Square store displays and holding our own photo shoots.

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As you may recall, museums are not off limits.



Right the Ho on.

Happy everything everybody.

boys for tots

Okay, so let's recap my past couple of months.  New job.  My father died.  Two long, emotional trips to Tennessee.  My sister-in-law's father died.  I took two weeks to clean out 40 years of hoarder crap/absolute treasures from my parents' attic, which is about a kajillion times the size of my apartment.  Thanksgiving. Office move.  More new job stuff.  Christmas shopping.  Parental tech support.  Parental emotional support.  Cleaning out three months of "i'll deal with this later shit" form my apartment so I could see the floor, clean the place, take the harvest decorations down, go to storage unit, go to storage unit, put holiday decorations up, amass family Christmas presents in organized piles in now tidy home.  Shop for relatives.  Ship for relatives (seriously, they want to close more post offices?).  Clean out closet of skinny clothes to make room for fat clothes inherited from fashion brother.  Make reservations to use all Groupons which will expire in about drive minutes.

So really, it is no surprise that (1) I am exhausted and (2) haven't been blogging much.

And that James and I could not schedule our mutual birthday dinner (birthdays are the last week in August) until the first week of December.  I had gotten a Groupon for Burgers for two with unlimited bourbon and tots at Bullit (named for the McQueen flick filmed in SF) on Polk Street.  The Marina end.

Here's my one minute review of Bullet:  Very marina, cruisy, meat market, understaffed, understaffed, understaffed, very capable and kind single waitress for a hoard, and the gayest —dancing with elbows above the shoulders gayest—soundtrack ever.  And awesome, awesome tots.  Hammina.  Salty freaking goodness.  Sure, Fatty McPhaterson over here is postponing diet and exercise until January and so could have gone through four of five baskets on our unlimited tots deal if it weren't for the entirely reasonable that is James.  Our deal was good for 90 minutes, the first 45 were spent waiting for service.  For 20-something straight people, go get a drink, pose, and pick up.  Everyone else, go for the tots, sip your drink, and play anthropologist watching the Marina Mating Rituals.  Eunce, eunce, eunce.  (That's the gay dance backbeat.)

That's what they're going to call my love life now

Expiration dating.

And on an unrelated note, I'm going to start referring to going out with much older guys as "carbon dating."

Watch out for that banana peel

Best overheard slip of the tongue today: "I was a pallbearer at his wedding."

"A hug is just a strangle you haven't finished yet."

For those of you who loved the Big Metal Chicken:

Beyoncé, meet Copernicus.

I'm in wet-my-pants love with the Bloggess.

best of autocorrect

I am getting really annoyed at the new iPhone-like autocorrect system in MacOS Lion. It seems to be correcting differently than before, and I am getting simple typos corrected to nonsensical messages.

Always here to show me how bad it could be, is DamnYouAutoCorrect.com. And here is their list of the 25 best of the worst of the year.

thanks, neighbor, but I just came over for a cup of sugar

Via the SFist: FDA Decides Fremont Man Is A Sperm Factory

Putting your junk in a Kleenex? Fine. Putting your junk in a cup for a couple to get pregnant? fine. Putting your junk in a hundred cups, the feds would like a word with you.

I'm all for government regulation when is comes to the financial system, but now the FDA is saying at some point X many cups of junk is too many to go without regulation. Dude has been privately donating to couples with seed need for eight years (reporting over 20k e-mails inquiring about his product). Now the FDA considers his body a lab and himself "a manufacturer of human cells," and in need of bureaucratic oversight.

Seriously? FDA? You have so much other work you need to be doing. Focus.

with your nose so bright

I think Rudolph was just drunk.

kind words

I kind of needed this today as I am getting more assignments for which I have not yet received either training or even the electronic privileges to complete, and was feeling that I am not performing to the level to which I'd like. I received an e-mail from someone I use to work for/with in another capacity. She was just thinking of me and in closing she wrote "I miss your silly way of getting everything done expertly."

That pretty much sums me up. Yes I am silly. And people worry about my honesty in the blog vis-a-vis employment. But I get to be silly, because I get my shit done, and done well.

Back to that pesky grindstone now.

this is why you are fat

and by you, I mean me.

Today's temptation, to which I succumbed: bourbon molasses chocolate pecan pie. Hand made by me with leftovers from thanksgiving baking.

At least I took the rest of the office down with me.

dance party/party of one

I just can't not love this. Super silly fun, AND holiday cheer? Sign me up.



This was shared by someone on Facebook, or maybe I saw it on another blog—funny thing is, either all malls now look just alike, or that is Green Hills back in Nashville.

Update: I read the notes below the fold. That is Nashville. How random!

Here's his first one of these "I had this idea to go to a public place (in this case...the local shopping mall) and dance like no one's business....the only catch is, there is an iPod in my ear, so no one else around me can hear the music.

Heads turned. Jaws Dropped. Hilarity Ensued.

Shot at Memorial City Mall in Houston, TX 7/18/11."

This guy defines balls out. He's fearless. I can think of so many people who would be too terrified or mortified to so such a thing. I try to live my life this way.

What's that old line? Dance like no one is watching.

be a coffee achiever

Via BinkieMcFartnuggets:

"How they kept on making these ads and still selling instant coffee is a mystery yet to be solved by mankind."



It reminds me of the time, as a practical joke, Geordi replaced all of the dilithium crystals with new Folger's crystals. And then everyone died.

Finally

It's nice to have the other kind of "one of those days."

Sunny, warm, and social on a December 3.

For collaborations, the pod beats the squid

As so many of our electronic and digital devices have big ol' power bricks/transformers at the plug/socket end, I heralded the advent of the power squid design over the multi-outlet strip. with it's too-close-together outlet configuration.

But for multiple devices such as lighting, laptops or other items which need to share power but not space, here coms the new Power Pods.  Such genius!

Via RedFerret:

Power strips are great for when you have several different items that need plugged in around the same area. But what happens when you have a few things that are several feet apart, and nowhere near an outlet? Suddenly you’re dealing with a tangle of extension cords and power strips, which looks messy and dangerous. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get a power cord that had multiple outlets spaced along its length? Soon you will be able to.

Over at Quirky, a project has recently gained enough funding to be turned into a full-fledged product. The idea is simple. The Pod Power is a 15-foot cord with a three-prong outlet at every three feet. Each length of cord will wrap around the previous pod, so that you only have as much cord exposed as you really need.

beer buzz gets crafty near Dolores Park

We've long been a fan of the tasty MateVeza brew, hand crafted with yerba mate which makes it also naturally caffeinated.  I got an e-mail this week from the kind folks at MateVeza (not spam, I subscribe) announcing that they plan to open a brew pub near Dolores Park.

All I can say is "cheers!" The SFist has more to say.