Plat du jour

The NBA is in pre-season. Go Cavaliers!

On the other hand, perhaps this car belongs to a member of Straight Women in Support of Homos.

Headline of the day

Lindsay Lohan Says Rehab Was `Sobering'
I thought that was the whole idea of rehab.

ENDA resources

My friend Helen has compiled a list of various articles, essays, & blog posts concerning ENDA dating back to April. She posted it on her blog. It's also on the Trans Group Blog.

If you haven't contacted your CongressKritter (thanks to Betty for that moniker), please do so. Today their offices are probably closed for Columbus Day, but tomorrow would work very nicely.

Plat du jour

A fan of Seattle Slew, I guess.

Help pass the trans-inclusive, un-watered-down ENDA

See Lambda Legal's analysis of the substitute Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) bill. Not only would it leave out gender identity and expression, but it would also dump protections for gays and lesbians who don't look straight.

Plat du jour

Yum! (assuming they mean gnocchi)

Now this looks promising

Conservatives Consider 3rd-Party Run
Just what the Democrats need: a third-party run that will siphon off votes from the Republicans. It almost makes me want to send some money to Giuliani's campaign.

Nah, that's really going too far.

Plat du jour

Living with bears XXXV

Canada: Controversy in North Vancouver after police shoot aggressive black bear

Nevada: Record Numbers of Bear Spottings, Shooting death of bear at Lake Tahoe criticized, Authorities say Tahoe bear complaints, Angora fire, linked, Black bear seen near Keystone grocery

Colorado: Bear's Long Trek Back To Boulder Gets Him Killed, Reports of bear conflicts on the rise in Colorado, Bear ventures into tree at Avery House, Bear barrage may intensify in Aspen

Ohio: A black bear is out there in Gates Mills

Plat du jour

Clean dogs are good.

I know that football games can get boring, but really now

Football fans banned from stadium for bathroom sex

Two intoxicated fans who police say were having sex in a Camp Randall restroom at the Washington State home game had their lewd and lascivious charges reduced to disorderly conducts in a district court Monday.

Plat du jour

Sanction what? Or maybe sanction whom?

My excursion to the Governor's office

Yesterday morning (it already being Saturday) I participated in a meeting of the NY State GENDA Coalition Steering Committee and Governor Spitzer's First Deputy Secretary, Sean Patrick Maloney, at the Governor's offices in Manhattan. Maloney is gay, so he acts as Spitzer's liaison to the LGBT community.

We were there to present our requests for help by the Governor to enact GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, and for other actions he could take to eliminate discrimination against trans-people. During his campaign Spitzer expressed support for GENDA, and we would like him to take some action now that he's Governor.

We were accompanied by Dick Gottfried, the main sponsor of GENDA in the assembly, and the Senior Legislative Aide to Tom Duane, the main sponsor in the State Senate. Midway in the meeting Tom himself showed up--resplendent in his pink shirt. It was great having our two strongest backers in the legislature there to support us. Also with us were members of the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) staff, who came down from Albany. They're our logistical supporters and their expertise in lobbying is a great help to the Coalition.

The meeting was supposed to be with Maloney, but all he had time for was a brief apology for having to go to something else (I believe it was the press conference to announce that New York would be issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants--illegal immigrants being another part of his area of responsibility to the governor). He said he would be returning to our meeting, but when he did it was just to tell us that he wouldn't be able to stay, and that his "door was always open"--which is very nice, except it would help if he were actually in the office with the open door.

Anyhow, the meeting ended up being with an assistant counsel to the Governor, who attended via speakerphone from Albany. So much for our strategy of letting the Governor's staff see trans-peoples' faces. (Well, Maloney was with us for a few minutes.)

I won't go into the details of the meeting, other than it was somewhat of a disappointment to me. The assistant counsel couldn't commit to anything--even after some insistence from the Senator. Although he gave what information he could, I'm sure he had no authority to promise anything. He did give us one or two direct contacts, and said he'd e-mail more. If we do end up getting some positive results, I guess it was worth having Coalition members take off from work and traveling great distances to attend. We'll have to wait and see what support we get from the Governor.

There was one positive note: during the meeting Sen. Duane left the conference room, and returned with Eric Dinallo, the Superintendent of the State Insurance Department--someone who could be very helpful in getting better health insurance coverage for trans-people.

On the way out we ran into most of the lesbian, gay and bisexual members of the State Assembly, who were there for another meeting. Deborah Glick complimented my jacket. Micah Kellner, the recently elected bisexual assembly member, was there with his chief-of-staff, Eliyanna Kaiser, who worked closely with the GENDA Coalition as one of Gottfried's staffers. This was the first time I really saw Kellner up close. He is (allegedly) 28 years old, but he looks like he's 16!

Speaking about going out of the meeting, I had a couple minor kerfuffles (if that's not a word it should be) on my way in. No, not the misspelling of my name on the security guard's attendee list. It was the fact that the name on my driver's license wasn't on the list at all. But the guard didn't have a real problem with it. The other little problem was going through the metal detector they have at the entry to the Governor's office suite (two floors, actually). I kept setting it off, so I kept removing my jewelry, until the guard indicated it was something at my mid-section. Then I remembered I was wearing a steel-ribbed corset--which wasn't a problem for that guard either.

Of course, my major kerfuffle of the day was just getting to a 10:30am meeting (actually our pre-meeting) across town presenting as a woman. I got up at 5:00am to do that, and I was still a little late.

EDIT: Do read the comments for more info on getting my corset through metal detectors.

A sound investment

Canadian Dollar Reaches Parity With U.S.
I guess I've made a very good investment in Canadian currency. I have C$4.94 in Canadian change, some of which was left over from my last trip to Canada, in 1991. I also have C$2.34 in Canadian postage stamps (not to mention 4 Montreal Metro tickets from 1991, which are probably worthless).

As you may surmise, I do tend to favor the "buy and hold" investment strategy.

Today's best "Overheard in New York"

Lady #1: The doctor has me on all kinds of medication for my STD.
Lady #2: Oh?
Daughter of lady #1: Mom, for the last time, it's 'SVT,' not 'STD.' You have a heart condition, not a sexually transmitted disease.
Lady #1: Shit, I really have to stop getting those two things mixed up!

--E train

via Overheard in New York, Sep 15, 2007

Weird websearch of the day

Someone came to my glob looking for crossdresser nude pictures. If you're nude, you can't be crossdressed, can you?

It reminds me of the joke about the nudist camp for crossdressers. It went bankrupt.

Blogger bugs

There's a little bug with Blogger that's been bothering me for a while. I use comment moderation--comments do not appear on my blog until I approve them. Blogger is supposed to e-mail me a notification when someone leaves a comment that needs moderation.

The problem is, the e-mail isn't sent until after I go to the comment moderation screen. So it's pretty useless.

So I want to report this bug to Blogger. Except I can't. Their bug reporting screen seems to have a bug in it.

Plat du jour

Outre mer: French for "overseas."

Headline of the day

Bird Brain Dies After Years of Research
When I first saw this I thought, "Gee, what a horrible thing to call a researcher--especially one who just died." Well, no, that was really the second thing I thought. My first thought was that researchers had somehow kept a bird's brain alive in a jar or something.

Actually, it was just a poorly worded headline. "Brainy Bird Dies After Years of Research" would have been much better. (EDIT: the AP originally titled the article "Gifted Research Parrot Alex Found Dead." Two minutes later they came up with this one. Maybe they wanted a separate story for their weird news category.)

Anyhow, I hope people refrain from any Monty Python sketch comparisons now. But I kind of doubt they will.

Another boost for "There will always be an England"

The Pint Lives: Metric Britain Abandoned
Does this mean they can go back to calibrating their automobile speedometers in furlongs per fortnight?

20,000 visitors!

Thanks to all the vanity plate fans, the bear (and/or moose, wild turkey, coyote, etc.) fans, the Bucky Badger seekers, those wondering about Mary Carillo or Clayelle Dalferes (not to mention the kicking testicles enthusiasts), this blog has logged its 20,000th visit.

I hope I've amused or enlightened at least some of you. As I continue to get a better handle on managing my time (it's a lot of fun being retired, but it's not as easy as one might think), I hope to get back to more serious blogging fairly soon.

Thanks again.

Mary Carillo lesbian?

I've been getting a huge number of hits on my blog from people trying to find out if Mary Carillo, the CBS tennis commentator, is lesbian, married or divorced, or transgender. I see nothing to indicate she is lesbian (and I spend a fair amount of time with lesbians. My sister (and sister-in-law) is lesbian.). Carillo is certainly not transgender.

As far as I can tell, she is just a divorced mother of two, who is an assertive, excellent television commentator. She won't play the meek, deferential to men, role with her colleagues. That does not make her, or any woman, a lesbian.

The Badgers pull one out

Late Touchdown by Donovan Gives Wisconsin 20-13 Victory Over UNLV
They didn't play well, but they played well enough. The Wisconsin Badgers football team managed not to get upset by a much less-talented UNLV. Quarterback Tyler Donovan did enough. Running back P.J. Hill did enough. I never was too worried they'd lose--the size of the Badgers tends to wear down smaller opponents late the game. But it really wasn't much fun to watch. Especially with the lousy Versus commentators--half the time it sounded like they weren't even looking at the game.

Next week we play the Citadel--who we've never played before. I don't think it's being televised here.

Plat du jour

Fine play, I guess. A sports fan? A theatre-goer?

Tennis announcers' nightmare

Kittipong Wachiramanowong v. Peerakiat Siriluethaiwarrana in the Junior Boys' event. Actually, they didn't play each other at the U.S. Open. But they could have.

Living with moose IV

Idaho: Mama Moose Bashes Through Woman's Door

Come help honor Kate Bornstein

I'm on the Host Committee.

STONEWALL DEMOCRATIC CLUB OF NEW YORK CITY
Proudly presents its 2nd Annual Women’s Awards

2007 HONOREES: Liz Abzug, Kate Bornstein, Las Buenas Amigas

When: Tuesday, September 25, 6-10pm
Where: Henrietta Hudson, 438 Hudson St, New York, NY 10014

Hors d’oeuvres and a complimentary glass of champagne is included in ticket as well as one year membership to the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City

$35 advance purchase or $40 at the door
RSVP to: kurland@kurlandassociates.com or buy your ticket in advance via Paypal at: www.SDNYC.org
P.O. Box 514, Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113

Plat du jour

ideonaut.net was conceived of as an online space for the organization and management of potentially complicated, non-linear networks of thought, a forum for the visual manifestation and discovery of the shared experience of inter-related ideas, memories, thoughts, and conclusions.

Right. I'm glad I'm done with college, so I don't have to think about stuff like this.

I think that's about right

I'm an Uber Cool Light-Weight Nerd


Thanks to Alexandra for this.

Plat du jour

This could be any number of things. I love McDonald's. I love my crossdresser...

Weird websearch of the day

how a male crossdresser get pregnant another man
Uh, yeah, I'd like to find out about that, too. I have no idea how my blog got in there. In fact, I don't even see it in there.

Living with bears XXXIV

Almost all of these are about the authorities killing the bears--all over the place.

Pennsylvania: Roaming bear eludes Lower Paxton police

Nevada: Official: Neighborhood at fault in preventable bear death

Colorado: DOW kills bear that broke into house

Wyoming: Wyo. Game and Fish kills black bear

Canada: Controversy in North Vancouver after police shoot aggressive black bear

Plat du jour

A fan of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea?"--either the film or the television show.

How about bisexual, Senator?

Craig Says 'I Am Not Gay,' Did No Wrong

There's a river in Egypt...

Another Republican departs under a cloud

Arizona Congressman to Retire Amid Probe
Now Rick Renzi is leaving. This guy was being investigated for a variety of things--election rules violations, the prosecutor firing scandal. I guess the third time is the charm.

Another good chance for the Democrats to pick up a seat.

More wordplay from the Associated Press

After this, we have:
Court Upholds Wild Bird Conviction

An appeals court has upheld the prison term handed to a bird expert who ran afoul of U.S. wildlife laws

To be fair, here's a Democrat in trouble

Filner Summoned Over Airport Altercation
What is it about politicians and airports?

Another Republican in trouble

Senator Pleads to Disorderly Conduct
Sometimes I wonder what the percentage of Republicans who are gays in the closet really is.

Gonzo is gone! Yay!

US Attorney General Gonzales Resigns

Yawn headline of the day

Argentines Win World Tango Championships

Plat du jour

She loves New York and Visual Flight Rules. How do I know it's a woman? She also had this sticker on her car.

My flickr GLOB is back!

Somewhere along the line, probably when I switched to the New Blogger last February, I lost my "GLOB" in flickr spell letters at the top of my blog (It's amazing that I never noticed in all this time.) Now it's back. So if you don't like the letters that come up, just reload the page and get different ones.

Living with bears XXXIII

Montana: Bear knew its way around the kitchen

West Virginia: Bear visits downtown art show

California: Alpine Meadows bear trap enrages neighbors

Romania: Bear mauls man to death

Washington: Trap Set For Bear Seen In Marysville

New Hampshire: Brazen Bear Enters Several Homes

Vermont: Bear killed in Brattleboro

Nevada: Bear activity: normal for this summer

Plat du jour

A pediatrician?

Weird headline of the day

Arson Suspected in Crematorium Fire

Plat du jour

Only if the space is big enough.

The Associated Press has a sense of humor?

Pigeon Dung's Toll on Bridge Examined

the pigeon problem is one of many factors that dogged the structure.

Keeping pigeons off bridges usually requires a multi-pronged strategy that can include...spikes to keep them from landing...

Plat du jour

Sorry, but a Volkswagen is not a jet fighter.

Now maybe if this were a Saab...

This may not work so well

Beijing Bans Cars to Clear Air for Games
They tried something like this in Mexico City once, banning cars on certain days based on their license plate numbers. (I think they only banned one tenth of the cars each day.) It actually increased pollution a little. Many people just went out and bought another car to drive on their off days. The real problem was, what they usually bought was a cheap, old car that polluted much more than their regular one.

Maybe conditions are different in Beijing. Maybe most drivers there can't afford a second car, or maybe there just aren't that many old clunkers for them to buy. But I would not be the least bit surprised if this scheme fails to reduce air pollution the way the officials think it will.

My body is worth $24.58/lb.!

$4240.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth.
You can do the math.

Headline of the day

Scientists Give Wild Elephants Photo IDs

This reminds me of an elephant joke from my long-ago youth:

Why do elephants have slits between their toes?

So they can carry their library cards.

Plat du jour--Music Department, part 3

This was an old New York plate I found on the front of a car in the Tanglewood parking lot (which is where I found DAFLUTE also). The rear plate was an ordinary current Florida one.

A great idea

One of the ways the government has come up with to collect unpaid child support is the denial of a passport until the arrears are covered. And now that passports are being required for travel even to Canada, Mexico and the Carribean, a lot more of these deadbeat dads are being forced to fulfill their responsibilites. (It's usually the fathers that owe the money, since mothers are usually awarded custody, which is a whole other issue.)

Millions of dollars have been collected, all of which goes to the custodial parents. I think this is great.

Question of the day

How could they name a hurricane "Flossie?"

Another interesting websearch

On the heels of the websearch from Expedia, somebody at Dell just found my blog--specifically the My hard drive is dead post. They probably also saw Dell comes through. As far as Dell goes, I'm a pretty satisfied customer--though I'll never buy a printer from them again. I don't like having only one source (Dell, of course), for the ink cartridges.

Plat du jour--Music Department, part 2

Plat du jour--Music Department, part 1

Computer cursor mystery solved

How does the little arrow on your monitor work when you move the mouse? Haven't you ever wondered how it works?

Now, through the miracle of high technology, we can see how it is done. With the aid of a screen magnifying lens the mechanism becomes apparent.

EDIT: The link (below) now points to something new. What you used to get was


The men would move the arrow around in response to your cursor movement, with a bunch of shouting and grunting signifying their effort. If you clicked on it they bent at the knees and then lifted the arrow up.

What they have now at the link I think is more inventive, but not as cute. Maybe the Japanese appreciate this kind of humor more.

Go to: http://www.1-click.jp/ and click on the man's bottom. There are at least three or four variations of what happens, so try it a few times.

I wonder what he's saying, especially when he gets back to the starting point.

Disgusting headline of the day

Toothpaste and Tuna Sandwiches Recalled

Satisfying websearch of the day

Somebody at Expedia just found this blog by googling i hate expedia. Maybe their customer relations department is doing a little research. Well, now they know what I think about them.

Of course, it is possible the search wasn't done by someone in customer relations. Maybe it was done just by someone who hates working at Expedia.

(not so) Weird websearch of the day

Somebody visited my blog via a search for american donut shoppe india mumbai, which has me in seventh place. This sounded extremely weird, but it turns out that there really is a place called the American Donut Shoppe in Mumbai, India. I never wrote about it, of course, but that's Google for you.

So I guess it's not that weird. Except that the searcher was in Pittsburgh.

Plat du jour

Living with bears XXXII

All of these are from just the second week of July!

Maryland: Bear Probably Lumbered Over From Va.

Virginia: Bear Visits Family's Back Porch

Nevada: Bear calls increase with visitors this time of year

Alaska: Man fined for shooting brown bear

Georgia: Bear spotted in DeKalb, too

New York: Upstate school locked down after bear shows up

Washington: Police Searching For Bear Near Marysville

California: Killing of bear stirs public safety debate

Plat du jour

Fore!

Dell comes through

This morning they called and said my new hard drive had arrived, could they install it between 12 and 3. A guy came at 2:45, switched the drives in about 3 minutes. No tools necessary. No screws, rails, power connectors, data connectors, like in the old days. The drive just goes into a bracket which goes into the computer. He said it would take an hour or so for the operating system install itself. Which it did.

So now I just have to restore all the stuff from Carbonite. It'll probably take 13 days, like the last time.

My hard drive is dead

Dell has pronounced my hard drive dead. They're going to send someone to replace it. Soon, I hope. I'm tired of having to use my wife's computer.

I also hope that was the cause of the slow internet speeds I've had with the new computer ever since I got it last spring. But I suspect it wasn't. More likely that was a Vista problem, perhaps combined with a cable problem, because my wife's computer, is also pretty slow with the internet (it was faster when we were on the motel wi-fi when we were on vacation).

Plat du jour

Living with bears XXXI

All of these are from just the first week of July!

New Jersey: Humane Society offers reward in killing of black bear

Ohio: State rethinks plan to trap black bear

Maryland: 2nd Bear Sighting in Weeks Reported

Florida: Teen arrested after skinning road-kill bear, Black bear seen running through neighborhoods

Wisconsin: Bear in tree in Ashland causes stir

Alaska: Brown bear wanders Anchorage streets, Traditional July 4 fare may entice downtown grizzly, Grizzly bear shot in Mountain View

Colorado: Bear captured at Glenwood trailer park

New York: Man faces charges for shooting bear, Bear spotted on Rush golf course

New Hampshire: Bear sightings increase

Plat du jour

How pleasant!

Living with foxes

Fox Attacks Restaurant Worker in Md.

Another species we are sharing habitats with.

Plat du jour

I'll be seeing you later, too.

Long time no post

It's been over a week since I posted anything--maybe the longest I've ever gone without posting since I started this blog. Well, I've been away, on a little vacation in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. I could have posted (we took my wife's computer, and there's a very nice free(!) wi-fi connection at the motel where we've been staying), but I really haven't had much time--I've barely been able to keep up with my e-mail.

Tomorrow we return to New York, and I'll try to post something about the trip then.

Union Square, 7/4/07

They were good!

Plat du jour

Happy Fourth of July!

Living with moose III

Wyoming: Water Hazards, Sand Traps and 3 Moose?

A new way to waste time

I now also have Chuzzle on my cellphone. I don't need to be at my computer to play it any more.

Plat du jour

Living with bobcats

Suburban Fla. Man Strangles Rabid Bobcat
Another species we now have to share our habitat with.

Plat du jour

Plat du jour

The real? There Al? I dunno.

Another milestone

17,000 visitors to my blog! I passed that sometime in the last day or two. I guess 16,000 was passed when I was on vacation. I get a lot of people searching for info on the Transamerica movie (I can tell what part of the world it's playing in at any point in time). I've also had a few lately for Pride & Prejudice. Quite a few are searching for the various pieces of artwork I've shown. And the last couple weeks, since the French Open tennis tournament has been going on, there were a good number searching for Mary Carillo.

All this occurred despite the fact that I haven't posted very much of substance for quite a while. I will get back to it. I'd really like to post my observations on the Presidential race. (I'm backing Bill Richardson, BTW.) But I do have a couple medium-sized projects I need to get done first: the new version of the CDI website, and the final accounting for the trust my father set up in his will. In the meantime, unfortunately, you'll have to make do with the occasional vanity plate and other little snippets that I can put up quickly.

Plat du jour

Websearch of the day

moma membership desk cute guy
Sorry, I can't help you with this one. Besides, I suspect there are a number of such guys someone might consider cute.

Plat du jour

I sure hope s/he is a better lawyer than a speller.

Living with wild turkeys

I've posted about humans sharing their habitats with bears, moose, raccoons, coyotes and mountain lions. Now it's wild turkeys: Wild Turkeys Show Up in Detroit Suburb.

I had one once fly across the road in front of me as I drove through some woods in western Massachusetts. They are big.

Come to think of it, there's at least one that's been seen at various spots on the west side of Manhattan for years--mostly Battery Park. One was seen in the West Village a few days ago.

Brief update

I'm taking a moment out of self-imposed blogging cessation (outside of the occasional coyote, vanity plate, etc. post that really doesn't take any significant amount of time to do) for a quick update. I've added another friend's blog to my bloglist: Erica's Cross Currents. Since I also have a self-imposed cessation of reading blogs, I haven't actually read very much of it. But from a quick scan it definitely seems worthwhile. Erica is a friend from the myHusbandBetty boards and even IRL occasionally--like last night, when I ran into her at a bar.

I was there after the NYC Stonewall Democrats Cocktail Party-Reception-21st Anniversary Party-Fundraiser-Annual Awards event. It was very nice. I managed not to be too late despite having to make an emergency run (almost literally) to a shoestore because I had forgotten to make sure my shoes were in my suitcase when I went to CDI to change. (Fortunately there's a Payless just a block from the CDI apartment, and I was actually able to find a nice pair of white platform wedges (the platform-wedge being fake cork) that are quite comfortable.) The speeches were relatively short (I think they got a lot of criticism about last year's event), the food and drinks were quite satisfactory in quality and quantity, and I got to talk to some people that I hadn't seen in a while.

What else is new? I have now surpassed 200 friends on MySpace--I've added a bunch of rock groups, to go along with my assortment of dead composer "friends." I found a cousin of mine whom I haven't seen in 40+ years and called him up (thank you Google).

Now I've got to get back to work on the CDI website.

Living with coyotes IX

New Jersey: Authorities Confused if Coyote Killed Small Dog

Plat du jour