The alphabet meme: O

is for overnight hospital stays: Zero. I guess that's not quite true--I'm sure I was in the hospital a few days when I was born. Back then they didn't rush people out of the hospital as fast as possible, the way they do today. And I was quite small--a couple ounces lighter and they'd have put me in an incubator.

But I've been very lucky health-wise. Another zero: number of stitches I've had in my body.

The alphabet meme: N

is for number of piercings you have: Zero. I'd love to get my ears pierced, but it would totally freak-out my wife.

Plat du jour

I really don't think I want him operating on me.

The alphabet meme: M

is for your favorite muppet: I'm so old, I did not grow up with Sesame Street--I was already in college when it debuted. I remember, if only vaguely, seeing Rowlf the Dog on the Jimmy Dean show when I was in high school. I never watched The Muppet Show very much.

So the amount of my contact with the Muppets is way, way under average. But from the little I've seen, I think I like Kermit the best. I'll always remember his little shudder when someone mentioned eating frogs' legs.

Williams v Williams in the Wimbledon final--UGH!

I've said it before, when Venus and Serena Williams play each other it's a lousy match. As with sibling against sibling in general, they don't play their best--it's hard to go all out against someone you love.

The alphabet meme: L

is for last restaurant you dined at:
(Shouldn't this be "R"?)
Trattoria Spaghetto in Greenwich Village. This was the suggestion of my friend, Cleopatra Queen of Denile, when we went out last Thursday. The food is decent, and reasonably priced. The service is fair, at least if you sit inside.

TG for Obama

In just 2 days we have already surpassed our initial goal of 50 Obama contributors on the transpeople and allies page. Now we're aiming for 75. Even if you can only donate $5 or $10, please give. The number of supporters donating through this page is important to show the Obama campaign, and all politicians, that the transgender community is involved in politics and can't be ignored.

Click on: http://www.actblue.com/page/trans

Thanks.

The alphabet meme: K

is for what you'd like to kick: "Kick" has two very different meanings--the original, "to strike with one's foot," and the more modern, "to give up," especially a bad habit or addiction. Since I don't have any habits or addictions that I'd like to give up, I guess I'll have go with the first definition. Except I can't think of anything I'd like to strike with my foot. So I'm going cheat a little and use a verb phrase.

I'd like to kick the Republicans out of power.

Plat du jour

The alphabet meme: J

is for favorite juice: None. Not worth the calories.

Living with bears XL

New Jersey: Bear Tranquilized After Causing Disruption Near Paramus High School

Canada: Birdseed-loving black bear goes pine high for a feast, Fur flies over Whistler bear birth control

Pennsylvania: Home cooking lures bear to trap in Fayette, Woman recovering from bear attack

Michigan: Bear captured in Fruitport Twp.

New York: Bad news: bear had a record

Romania: Bear and her cub climb stairs of block of flats in search for food

Wyoming: Officials trap bear on Casper Mountain

India: Five schoolgirls mauled by bear

North Carolina: Official says shooting of bear was justifiable

Support Obama AND transgender rights

Dear Fellow Transgender Advocate,

This year we have an opportunity to elect a President who will be the most transgender-supportive in history.

But electing a candidate isn't enough just by itself. Unless we're visibly and vocally involved with campaigns and giving our time, energy, money, and ideas we will miss out on an opportunity to create a relationship with a President who has already said he's willing to stand with us. That is why we are asking you to join with us in supporting Barack Obama.

We've set up a specific page to track donations from the transgender community and our allies to Sen. Obama's campaign. You can donate by clicking here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/trans

In both the United States and Illinois Senate, Barack Obama has a long commitment to supporting the LGBT community—and specifically the transgender community. Most recently, here is what he said when issuing his statement on Pride month:

"It's time to live up to our founding promise of equality by treating all our citizens with dignity and respect. Let's enact federal civil rights legislation to outlaw hate crimes and protect workers against discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. . .

"We are ready to accomplish these goals because of the courage and persistence of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who have been working every day to achieve equal rights. The gay couple who demand equal treatment in our family laws as they raise their children; the lesbian soldier who wants nothing more than to serve her country openly and honestly; the transgender workers who ask for the simple dignity of being judged by the quality of their work. Generations of LGBT Americans, at once ordinary and extraordinary, have made possible this moment in our history. With leadership and hard work, we can fulfill the promise of equality for all."

--Sen. Barack Obama
June 6, 2008

Fully inclusive hate crime protections, fully inclusive employment non-discrimination, and a fully inclusive vision of the American family; these are the values we can have in our next President.

But he can't win—and our community won't advance—without your support.

We're encouraging you to give today to Barack Obama for President at a special fundraising page that will track the impact of the transgender community and our allies on the election.

http://www.actblue.com/page/trans

This page, launched in conjunction with Stonewall Democrats, will track donations to the Obama campaign from the transgender community and our allies. The money raised on the page will go directly to Sen. Obama's campaign.

We've set a very modest starting goal of 50 donors. Can you be one of those 50? [Update: we've gotten 50, and are going for 75.] Can you promote this page on your blog? Can you help spread the word and email your friends and family?

http://www.actblue.com/page/trans


This election is too important to sit on the sidelines. Let's elect a pro-equality Democrat and help build power for our community.

Sincerely,

Marti Abernathy
Karen Bachman
Pam Barres
Caprice Bellefleur
Dana Beyer
Laura Calvo
Carrie Davis
D'Angelo Johnson
Julie Johnson
Eden Lane
Lisa Mottet
Rev. Elijah C. Nealy
Donna Rose
Diego Sanchez
Lisa Scheps
Amanda Simpson
Barbra "Babs" Casbar Siperstein
Melissa Sklarz
Lynn Walker
Jill Weiss
Jaan Williams

UPDATE: We've achieved our initial goal of 50 donors. Now we're aiming for 75. Please help. Even a $5 or $10 gift will add to the cause.

The alphabet meme: I

is for instruments played: None. I have no musical talent whatsoever. I tried the drum when I was in elementary school, and had a few piano lessons when I was in high school, but basically I'm hopeless.

Plat du jour--guest submission

A friend found this one.

The alphabet meme: H

is for hometown: Cleveland Heights, Ohio. I escaped over 40 years ago. It was a pretty good place to grow up in, at least back then. But I wanted to get away from being treated like a child, which my parents pretty much did, at least until my senior year of high school. And Cleveland was a rather dull city in the 60's.

My brother now owns the house we grew up in. He bought it from my mother's estate. My mother inherited it from her father, who bought it in 1945.

My week in review

Sunday: My wife and I watched the first episode of Inspector Lewis from Masterpiece Mystery! Detective Sergeant Lewis from Inspector Morse gets a promotion and his own series in this spin-off. Pretty good, though as a character Lewis is not nearly as deep as Morse was, at least so far.

Tuesday: I started at Mayor Bloomberg's Pride Celebration at Gracie Mansion, the NYC mayor's official residence. (Bloomberg doesn't actually live in the mansion though. He prefers his own townhouse--it's nice being a multi-billionaire.) I got there late, and by the time I got through security (when I set off the metal detector I just said I was wearing a corset, and they allowed me in), Bloomberg had already finished his speech. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was making her remarks. Then the mayor introduced a short talk by designer Isaac Mizrahi, who said a psychic had told him the love of his life was named Eric--so he would go into gay bars and call out "Eric!" to see who turned around. Finally they played a little "Match Game" take-off with three members of the audience. It was pretty stupid.

After the program I just mingled and had a couple small cups of wine and lots of the salads provided, avoiding the make-up destroying hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken. (A fork is a crossdresser's best friend at mealtime.) There were probably 15 or 20 people there I knew and said hello to.

After that I went downtown (via bus and subway) to another Yetta Kurland for City Council fundraiser. I got some good aerobic exercise climbing the stairs to Tom Shevlin's fifth floor apartment. But it was lots of fun--each one of these Kurland fundraisers is more fun than the previous. This campaign is attracting a lot of interesting people.

Thursday: My friend Cleopatra Queen of Denile and I started with an off-off-Broadway musical, written and performed by the daughter of Mariette Pathy Allen, who has photographed two books of transgender people. Julia Steele Allen's "A Boy Called Noise" is about the murder of a gay teenager. This was originally(?) produced in the 2006 San Fransisco Fringe Festival. Allen is a very good actress, but I found her writing to be a bit lacking.

We the went down to the Village for some dinner, and Sweetie's show at the Stonewall. However, the show was cancelled (the Stonewall manager told us Sweetie's father had died). So we went up to the Zipper Theater for "Don't Quit Your Night Job." It was the second anniversary of the Broadway-oriented comedy/improvisational show, though it was my first time. (It starts at 11:30, so the Broadway performers can be there.) It was a lot of fun. They get some big name Broadway performers as guests: I got to see Kelli O'Hara from South Pacific and Mary Poppins herself: Ashley Brown. They used O'Hara (whom I had heard in "Light in the Piazza") in the spot where a great voiced Broadway star sings some very mundane lyrics--O'Hara lent her beautiful soprano to subway announcements, prescription medicine instructions, and a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Later it was Brown's turn. However, prior to her entrance the show host fielded audience suggestions to questions like: "Give me a verb," "Give me a liquid," "Give me a familiar place." These were inserted into Brown's lyric. So we got to hear her sing "A spoonful of semen helps the medicine go down," etc. I'm looking forward to seeing this show again, when it resumes in the fall.

Saturday: My wife and I watched the Metropolitan Opera production of Donizetti's "La Fille du Régiment" which we had DVR'd. It was a wonderful performance. Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez were marveleous--Flórez makes such a handsome leading man, aside from being an extraordinary singer (what high C's!). Dessay can also sing beautifully--while simultaneously being a great comic actress. The only slightly detracting aspect was the slightly muddled production. It seemed to be set in the 1930's, judging by the costumes and (altered) dialogue. But I can't say I remember France invading Switzerland in that time period.

The alphabet meme: G

is for favorite game: On my computer I usually just play good, old Pinball for Windows, the one that came with XP. On my cellphone I play Chuzzle, despite the fact that the phone version has a couple of bugs in it. I also play Klondike solitaire, especially when I want to keep my phone silent.

Plat du jour

= 1.

Someone (I think the governor) already has the "1" plate, so this kind of thing has to suffice, if you want the number 1 plate. I guess 2MINUS1 would be too straightforward.

(No, I don't really remember my trigonometry after all these decades. But Google is not just a search engine, it's also a calculator. Just type the formula to be solved in the search box.)

The alphabet meme: F

is for your favorite television show:
(Why is this "F" and not "T"?)
Masterpiece, which is what PBS recently renamed Masterpiece Theatre, after merging its "Mystery!" series into it. I've been watching it since the start, 37 years ago--The First Churchills got me hooked (No, it wasn't Upstairs, Downstairs, which was originally a stand-alone series. Its success was a big reason Masterpiece Theatre was created, though. It was repeated later as a part of Masterpiece Theatre.)

The alphabet meme: E

is for an essential item you use each day: Oxygen. I'd just die without it.

(What? You thought all my answers would be serious?)

Plat du jour

I don't.

The alphabet meme: D

is for dog's name: I've never had a dog. When I was a toddler we had a boxer named Lady. I'm told she would carry me around by the seat of my pants, while I was complaining, "Stop that, Yady!" I think my parents later told me she had been stolen, but I suspect the truth was she had been run over by a car.

The alphabet meme: C

is for the car that you drive: Whatever they give me at the rental place.

I haven't owned a car since 1987. It's an unnecessary pain in the neck living and working in Manhattan. My wife had one for a few years, when she was teaching in New Jersey. (It was a Chevy Cavalier. She bought it from a neighbor who was moving out of town. I hated it. Its brakes were horrible and it had more rattles than Toys R Us.) During the school year her schedule made it possible to find parking on the street with only a small amount of difficulty. In the summer she parked it in a garage up in Harlem, right around the corner from the subway--it would cost $500+ a month around where we live.

What I do have, though, is a non-owner's automobile liability insurance policy. It's only $194 a year to cover both of us up to $500,000. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a car but rents or borrows.

More trouble for the Republicans

Frank Powers, designated by the Republicans to run for disgraced Congressman Vito Fossella's seat, died yesterday. Now they'll have scrape down even deeper to find someone to run.

The alphabet meme: B

is for your burger of choice: I don't eat many burgers any more. Occasionally we go up the street to Jackson Hole, where I have a turkey cheeseburger, with grilled mushrooms and onions. Once in a while I'll eat some place where I can get a bisonburger. I'm not sure when the last time I had a burger made of beef was. Perhaps it was when we were up in the Berkshires on vacation last July.

My week in review

Sunday: was a rare weekend day out as Caprice, as my wife wanted to do something I was totally uninterested in. First, Clover Honey (recovering in male mode from emceeing the Brooklyn Pride Festival the previous day) and I saw a pair of transgender documentaries at Newfest, the NYC LGBT film festival. One was Envisioning Justice: The Journey of a Transgendered Woman. This was about Pauline Park, a New York trans activist with whom I've worked on the GENDA Coalition steering committee. It was quite good, and I learned a lot about her life. I knew she was a Korean adoptee, but I hadn't known she has a twin brother. The second film was Simply Love (Gewoon Liefde). This was a sequel to the 1993 documentary A Change of View, which told the story a Dutch transwoman's transition. The sequel tells of her reuniting with a girfiend of her youth, after 40 years. It was a boring soap opera--the only interesting parts were the excerpts from the original film that were inserted.

After the films there was a Q&A with Pauline and her film-biographer, Larry Tung. Then some of us went over to the HK Lounge for a bit of a reception. My friend Cleopatra Queen of Denile joined us, dressed for a party as always. Then she and I adjourned next door to HK's restaurant for some dinner (my entree was about half the size it should have been, but CQoD was quite satisfied with hers).

Following that we went to XES, where we watched the Tony Awards. I filled up on a hot dog and popcorn they provided, while getting semi-inebriated (I sure wish bars wouldn't get Absolut Apeach confused with Absolut Pear, though). It's fun watching the Tony's in a gay bar, with people cheering on their favorites. The guy sitting next to me knew every song that was performed.

Tuesday: I went to the ACLU's LGBT & AIDS Project's 10th Annual Pride Reception for attorneys and summer associates. I was on the host committee. It was held at the fabulous offices of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, located on the 50th floor of the Citigroup Center. The views were fantastic. I was looking down on the famous "lipstick building." I met a few people I knew, and had a nice time talking to them and filling up on wonderful hors d'oeuvres and gin and tonics. Things were winding down about 9:30, and I called it an early night.

The rest of the week: I stayed home, helping my wife with some things she wanted done around the apartment. Friday and Saturday evenings we watched the last two episodes of John Adams.

The alphabet meme: A

Since I seem to need some motivation to blog these days, I'll use something I found on Sandy's Noted and blogged. I'll do one a day. So this should get me going for 26 days.

is for your age: I'm 59. Honest. People tend not to believe you when you say you're something-9, but I'm really 59, and I'll be there for a few months more. Then I'll be 60! It's kind of scary. But at least there's one chain of movie theaters around here that considers you a senior at that age.

Unbelievable

I was quite surprised when the (non-cash) contents of the wallet I lost to a Barcelona pickpocket showed up in the mail a few months later, forwarded from the U.S. consulate there. But I'm flabbergasted that my wife's wallet (minus its cash), which she lost to a pickpocket in Granada a few days after I lost mine, has now also been returned, courtesy of the embassy in Madrid. Our visit to Spain was in May of 2006!

Channel Thirteen blames the computer

I recently got a membership expiration notice from Channel Thirteen, the main NYC public television station. I thought I had renewed recently, so I checked my records. I had renewed in February. I sent them a message and they replied that my February payment had been applied as an an "additional contribution" because their computer didn't recognize it as a renewal--it was too soon. My membership didn't expire until May.

This ticked me off for 2 reasons.

• First, I can't imagine that I would have sent them anything in February if I hadn't gotten a membership renewal notice then. Are they deliberately sending these things out too soon, in the hope that some people will pay quickly, and then not remember that they had already paid when their membership really expires? I think this might be the case, because I checked my records for several years, and found that I have renewed my membership eight times since October 2002.


• Second, I thought we had gotten past blaming things on computers a long time ago. People used to act as if computers were some independent, uncontrollable entity that they could not be responsible for. But I don't remember hearing that excuse for at least a decade. People now know that a computer only does what its owner programs it to do (or what the software its owner installs is programmed to do). It may be programmed incorrectly, but that is fault of the programmer or the people writing the specifications for the programmer--not the computer itself.

Semi-random thoughts

I really haven't felt like blogging much lately. I don't know why. And I haven't seen any good license plates in a while either.

● When my zillion year old electric drill started showing serious signs of wear (the teeth on the chuck were getting flat and it was slipping when I tried to tighten it) I bought a nice new Black and Decker cordless one. But it's really become semi-useless because of the battery. There's no way to tell how charged it is, and if you overcharge it, as I did with the original, it dies. But the charge doesn't last forever. Since I only use it occasionally, it's sometimes dead when I need it.

● WQXR gets its newscasts from the New York Times, which owns the station. During the daytime they used to have someone in the Times newsroom do a brief report at the top of the hour, just reading a few sentences on a handful of the top stories. Recently, though, they have added audio clips from Times reporters, and once I heard them include a sentence or two of a speech by the President. It's a nice addition (well, maybe not having to hear Bush).

● I really wish the Clinton for President die-hards would get over their loss. I don't expect them to love Obama, but at least they could stop saying bad things about him.

Why am I not surprised?

John McCain graduated 894th in his class at the Naval Academy--out of 899.

Thanks to Paul Soglin's blog for this tidbit.

Living with coyotes XI

Rabies Warning Issued in Westchester after Coyote Attacks 2 Dogs

My week in review

Tuesday: attended a fundraiser for the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund at the Ritz Bar.

Thursday: went to the New York Philharmonic's performance of Tosca in concert--excellent. This was preceded by a very nice (though noisy) dinner at Bar Boulud.

Friday: saw Sex and the City (great clothes, tolerable plot), followed by a nice Mexican dinner at Maz Mezcal.

Saturday: saw Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--fun.

Plat du jour

Not in this weather.

Me for President!

There will always be an England

Britain's Prince Charles pays 17th-century debt

Facebookism of the day

Dean Spade and Dean Jackson are now friends. Dean found Dean using the Email Friend Finder.

Facebook has its own way with language, such as its ubiquitous use of the singular "they"--"Caprice updated their home page," for example. But sometimes its computers do something really silly like this. Or like when it refers to State Senator Liz Krueger by her first name, which to Facebook is "State."

Plat du jour

Blog modification

I haven't been posting every time I modify my glob's layout, because most of the recent changes have been pretty minor. But today I did add a significant feature. Blogger now can give the time of the most recent update for each of the blogs I link to. It also sorts them, so the most recently updated ones appear first on the list.

Blogger uses RSS feeds to do this, so there is a little bit of a delay. Nevertheless, it seems fairly current. It couldn't find a feed for a couple of the blogs I list, and they get put at the bottom.

Plat du jour

Yes, it does.

Spam of the day

Become a psychologist online

I don't get much spam any more, but this one just rang a bell with me--it reminded me of that old joke about the book: "Brain Surgery Self-Taught."

My record is smashed

The record of 61 visitors to my glob in a single day lasted all of 8 days. Yesterday there were 70.

Again, the main reason was all the people searching for information on Mary Carillo's sexuality. Yesterday was the final match in men's singles at Roland Garros, so lots of people saw her commentating.

My week in review

Sunday: watched the final episode of this year's series of the Tudors (spoiler: Anne Boleyn loses her head).

Monday: went to the Maestrocities show at the Zipper Theater with my friends Rita and Cleopatra Queen of Denile. It was lots of fun, and afterwards I got to talk with two or three of the band members at the bar.

Tuesday: watched the GENDA debate and vote. I didn't even have to view it via the internet--the NY State Legislature has its own cable TV channel on my system.

Thursday: saw LOVE! That 4-Letter Word with Rita and CQoD. The show was pretty good, though the crossdressing character bore little resemblance to reality. The performances were much better than I expected for an off-off Broadway musical. My friend Johanna Weller-Fahy managed to get through her part despite being rather sick. She was singing at clearly reduced power. Afterwards Cleopatra and I went up to the O.W. Bar to hear Bianca Leigh sing.

Friday: got my hair cut, then I went down to the Film Forum to see The President's Analyst--a really fun movie from my college days.

Saturday: caught the end of the women's final of the French Open at Roland Garros, then I watched Hillary Clinton's concession speech--excellent. In the evening, I had a mediocre dinner at Amber on Columbus Ave (memo to all restaurants: I don't care if your menu is "Pan-Asian," if you're serving a western style dish that is not cut into bite-sized pieces, it should be accompanied by western style eating implements--chopsticks don't make it, and the customers shouldn't have to ask). Then we went to hear the New York Philharmonic play Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The orchestra played extremely well, though I thought Music Director Loren Maazel could have speeded things up a bit here and there.

Plat du jour

Another golfer's plate.

Question(s) of the day

The NHL finally finished its season yesterday. Why were they still playing ice hockey in June? And come to think of it, if the league has teams in both the U.S. and Canada, what nation does the National Hockey League really belong to?

GENDA passes the Assembly

I was pessimistic about the chances of the New York State Assembly passing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act this year. I thought Speaker Silver's previous objection, that it would be a one-house bill that could be used against Democrats in marginal districts, would continue. But I guess he changed his mind. It passed by a vote of 102-33 late this afternoon.

Perhaps it was the fact that the Pride Agenda's Equality and Justice Day attracted 25% more people this year than it did in 2007. That was before the Assembly had passed the Marriage Equality bill. But the even higher turnout (1300 people) demonstrated that the LGBT community was just as serious about GENDA, the only one of the three bills the Pride Agenda was pushing that hadn't passed.

Now GENDA will go before the State Senate, where, like Marriage Equality, it will go absolutely nowhere, since it doesn't have a Republican sponsor. Hopefully the Democrats will take control of the Senate in November (they only need to pick up two seats). Then, GENDA has a chance of becoming law next year, and my work on the GENDA Coalition will truly be rewarded.

The biggest day ever for my glob

Yesterday was the biggest day ever from my glob. 61 visitors. I've gone over 50 two or three times before--I think the previous record was 53. This was a major leap.

It came after seven consecutive days over 35 visitors (one over 40). To what do I owe this sudden interest? The French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros. How could that be--since I didn't post a single word about it? The reason: the broadcasts feature commentator Mary Carillo--I've gotten dozens of people searching to find out something about her. Most want to know if she's lesbian.

So they do their websearches and reach my post from last fall.

I'm still don't think there's enough evidence to judge her sexuality. Besides, it's none of my business--or any business of any other television viewer. I like her as a sports commentator, and I really don't care who she sleeps with--I don't think it has affected her commentary in any way.

My week in review

An out-of-town friend of mine complained about my change in blogging habits. It wasn't the decrease in my posting frequency, or the lack of my reviews of the various entertainment events I see. Rather, she just missed reading about my life--what I was doing with my time. So I am now going to start a weekly post just to cover the highlights. Maybe I'll throw in a comment or two.

Sunday: Watched the Indy 500, rooting for Danica Patrick. Later my wife and I watched the Tudors.

Tuesday: Went to the Empire State Pride Agenda offices, to call people to ask them to call their State Assembly members to get them to vote for the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). I made 34 calls, talked to 16 answering machines and about a dozen actual, live people. (Later in the week we found out GENDA is on the Assembly calendar and will probably be voted on next Tuesday.)

After that, I went to dinner at Lips Restaurant with someone I had met there a couple of times over the years, who was up from Alabama for a visit.

Wednesday: Went with my wife to a concert of a choral group one of her friends is in.

Saturday: Went with my wife to hear the New York Philharmonic--an excellent concert with Emanuel Ax performing Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, the "Emperor." He favored us with an encore. Prior to that we attended a "Friends' Night," an opportunity for donors to the orchestra to meet some of the orchestra members for a half-hour or so. I think this was the third year we have gone to one of these. This year we spoke with the English horn player Thomas Stacey, who told us about the orchestra's recent trip to North Korea, and violinist Fiona Simon, who talked a bit about some of the various personal relationships between orchestra members--she joined the orchestra after marrying a Philharmonic member. We also spoke briefly with orchestra pianist Harriet Wingreen.

Semi-random thoughts

● They certainly are targeting ads on the internet. For a while now I've noticed that a lot of the ads I see seem to be aimed directly at me. I get a lot for a couple of companies I do buy from: Newport News and Staples. But what really brought this home was when I was looking at an article on The Times of London site, and there was an ad for American car insurance that even knew I live in New York.

● My wife and I were e-mailing were each other last night, forwarding e-mails back and forth about things we might want to do this weekend. This was despite the fact that we were sitting twelve feet apart--she in her office, I in mine. It's rather silly. After all, we do have an intercom.

● Gee, I sure wonder who at the New York State Assembly Googled me a little while ago.

Living with bears XXXIX

I haven't done one of these in a while.

Alaska: Polar bear killed near village in Interior

Tennessee: Bear-ly loving it: Bear takes officers on two-city chase

Washington: Puyallup WA park to remain closed in search for bear, Black bear remains on the loose, Unable to find young bear, officials give the all clear to reopen park, Black bear caught in Puyallup

Massachusetts: Police charge man in Granby bear shooting, Man Claims Self-Defense In Bear Shooting

Canada: Polar Bear in Trinity Bay

Switzerland: Problem bear killed by authorities, Shooting of wayward bear sparks criticism

New Jersey: Bear that broke into Vernon home target of search

Plat du jour

NYP plates are reserved for members of the media (the P comes from the days when the press was the predominant medium). I guess this car is owned by a former media person.

Headline of the day

J.R. Simplot, potato and computer chip king, dies
He was really into chips. And really in the chips.

Plat du jour

One what?

Weird websearch of the day

how do you compare the word caprice in a women situation?
Huh?

The most girlish font ever

http://www.urbanfonts.com/fonts/Fiolex_Girls.htm

I'm on Facebook

I got a Facebook account now, so you can be my friend there as well as on Myspace.

Plat du jour

So where are the A Mini and the B Mini?
(Could this have been a car from The Italian Job remake?)

Fossella reads the handwriting on the wall

Fossella Will Not Seek Re-election
Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY) has finally awakened to reality and decided not to run for re-election. His being arrested for drunk driving may be forgiven by his relatively conservative constituents, but not his having a child with a longtime DC-area girlfriend--while his wife and other children were living back here in NY.

Bush is an idiot (which is nothing new, of course)

Bush says he won't back bill that bails out lenders
Bush only wants to help "creditworthy people stay in their homes," not speculators or lenders. He seems to have overlooked the fact that the subprime borrowers who are now unable to pay their mortgages weren't really creditworthy in the first place. That's why they needed subprime loans.

The underlying cause of this whole mess was the ridiculous notion that it didn't matter how many subprime borrowers actually paid back their loans because ever-rising home prices would protect the lenders. The only people who didn't believe this idiocy were the people who were the real lenders, the buyers of the mortgage-backed securities that were created by bundling up the subprime loans. So the various banks and brokerages guaranteed the securities, in exchange for some (all?) of the extra interest the subprime borrowers were charged for not being creditworthy.

(Then most of these banks and brokerages made this risk magically disappear off their books. Through some accounting legerdemain it was not carried as a liability, presumably because they thought there was no risk, as the ever-rising home prices would cover everything. When many of the subprime mortgages did go into default, and it turned out the homes were no longer worth what was borrowed on them (if they ever were), the banks and brokerages had to write off billions to cover the payments owed to the mortgage-backed security owners. But that's a whole different problem.)

What we now have is a bunch of people in homes they couldn't really afford when they they bought them, and mostly still can't afford now, even at their current, reduced value. The creditworthy people in trouble now are primarily people who had regular mortgages, but have lost their jobs in Bush's recession. It's fine to help these people, I suppose, but no one should be under the illusion that this is going to help very many of the lower-income people who took out the subprime mortgages. And paying for it with money from a fund designed to help poor people get homes just transfers the taxpayers' money to the middle class.

There's an awful lot of blame to go around here. Practically everyone involved in the subprime mortgage fiasco (except the securities buyers) was stupid and/or ignorant, if not an outright crook. If the government wants to reverse some of the damage that was done, it's going to end up helping some blame-worthy people, and Bush should wake up to this fact.

Plat du jour

Semi-random thoughts

● One of the nice things about listening to WQXR over the internet is that I don't have to listen to most of the commercials. Even the ones that aren't obnoxious in the first place get pretty boring by the 50th hearing. There is a downside--they play these little snippets of music or WQXR.com promotions that are also repetitive, and the engineers occasionally forget to flip the switch at the end, leaving the internet listeners with dead air (is that a proper term for an internet transmission?).

● Sometime last week my glob had its 30,000th visitor. Thanks.

● GENDA (the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act for NY State) is on the agenda of the State Assembly Codes Committee's Tuesday meeting. This is further than it got last year, so I'm a bit hopeful.

● I'm wondering if the Connecticut Supreme Court will shortly make that state the third to have marriage equality for same-sex couples. The speculation has been that they have delayed announcing their decision until California's court ruled because they didn't want to be the second.

● Vista is still rather slow, but at least it's working now. Since the last update or two that Microsoft has sent down Explorer has rarely crashed, and the keyboard and mouse haven't locked up once.

● That jerk Vito Fossella has resisted all calls (even from his own party leaders) to resign. He apparently wants to run for re-election. More good news for the Democrats.

Plat du jour

Even his computer disrespects him

From Overheard in New York

Guy: So I tried to set my password to "Penis".
Girl: [...]
Guy: It said my password wasn't long enough.

Plat du jour

I was surprised to see this one, as I know New York has a rule against any plates that promote drinking. Perhaps it got by because it has a 1 instead of an I.

Living with coyotes X

Scientists probe recent coyote attacks in California

Websearch of the day

the best lesbian lover i've ever had caprice lists my glob first.

This wasn't my wife. It was someone at the University of Cambridge in the UK. So I guess they weren't really looking for me.

Semi-random thoughts

● A couple of years ago I posted about how Tab Energy had become my favored morning drink. Sadly, some months ago CocaCola discontinued it, at least here in the U.S. I hoarded my last few cans, saving them for days when I really need to get myself going when I wake up. But now I'm down to my last one.

● I got some new hand towels and washcloths to replace my worn out ones. I washed them before I used them, but the towels are still leaving a lot of little fibers--with the red ones I can't tell if I nicked myself shaving or it's just the towel. Grrrr.

● The only kind of "boutique"-boxed tissues the supermarket had was Kleenex's Anti-Viral type, so my wife bought that. The anti-viral claim puts the product under the Food and Drug Administration rules, I guess, so they are required to print various bits of information on the box. My favorite part:

It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling. Use only as a facial tissue.

So if I use a tissue on any other part of my body do I risk a visit from the FBI?

Fossella in more trouble

Earlier this week I posted about New York Republican Congressman Vito Fossella being arrested for drunken driving. Now he has admitted that he was on his way to see his child that he had with a woman he's being having an affair with for years. His wife and three other children were back in New York.

It looks more and more like New York City will be rid of its only Republican congressman by next year.

Plat du jour

A former highway patrol officer?

Sen. Grassley, back to Economics 101 for you

From the Associated Press:

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the Senate's two working farmers and a longtime ethanol booster, said he finds it hard to believe that ethanol could be "clobbered the way it's being clobbered right now" over the issue of food costs. What does the cost of corn have to do with the price of wheat or rice, he is telling people.

It's called the Law of Supply and Demand, Senator. Ethanol production has increased the demand for corn, causing its price to rise. This will have two effects:

• Corn consumers will switch to wheat or rice, causing price rises for those grains.
• Farmers will, if they can, switch from producing other crops to producing corn. This decreases the supplies of these other crops, also causing price rises.

It's really sad when a United States senator displays such ignorance of basic economics.

Another Republican in trouble

NYC congressman charged with DWI outside DC

It's not for corruption, or even attempted sex in a public restroom, but I doubt this is going to win Vito J. Fossella any votes. The Democrats have already painted a big target on his back for the upcoming election. This might help.

Posted without comment

Plat du jour

I'm off to Albany

Later today I'll be getting on a train and going up to Albany for the Empire State Pride Agenda's Equality and Justice Day. They are expecting 1,000 to 1,200 LGBT people and allies to gather to press for three pieces of legislation for New York State: Marriage Equality, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) and the Dignity for All Students Act. We are hoping that 10% are transgender (last year we had about 80).

E&J Day is actually tomorrow, but I like to go up the day before. It takes me so long to get ready, I'd have to start at about midnight to make a 6:00am bus.

This year I've been appointed a Meeting Facilitator. That means I get to coordinate a group of people meeting with their legislators. I've been assigned to meetings with Brooklyn representatives. It should be interesting.

Spring has sprung

...at least in my neighborhood.

Plat du jour

Yummy! But, sadly, it's not on my diet.

Semi-random thoughts

● I was a little surprised to read that there have only been 110 U.S. Supreme Court justices since we adopted the Constitution--over 220 years now. I realize that the court didn't always have nine members (I think it started with five--I've always found it curious that the Constitution does not specify the size), but it has been at its present size for quite a while. I would have guessed there have been more.

● It somehow escaped my notice that among the stockholdings I inherited from my mother were three shares of Collective Brands. So now when I buy shoes at Payless I'm actually buying them from myself.

● It's great to see the judge threw the book at film star Wesley Snipes, at least as far as the law would let him. These "tax protesters," who believe that there is no requirement in the law that most U.S. citizens have to pay income taxes, are just a bunch of selfish fools. It's too bad that Snipes was acquitted on the most serious charges, but at least he's getting three years in jail for his misdemeanors. So, Judge William Terrell Hodges, I salute you.

I'm back blogging. Sort of. Kinda. Somewhat.

For the last year plus I've been having computer problems. My old machine, running Windows XP, was crashing more and more frequently. It never worked right after Service Pack Two. Also, my Internet response time was slower than it should have been. The result was that it took several hours just to read my e-mail every day.

I hoped the answer to my problems was to get a new, more powerful computer running Microsoft's brand new operating system, Vista. I should have known better.

The new computer still crashed sometimes, though not as frequently as the old one. In addition, the keyboard and mouse stopped working at random intervals. And Internet response was still slow--it took 13 days to download all of my files from Carbonite, the web-based back-up service I use, when it should have taken only a few hours.

To make a long story short, I had problems with the computer hardware (specifically the hard drive), the Vista operating system, and my cable service. But it took a long time to figure it all out. Dell replaced my hard drive in early August. That solved the crashing problem. But as time went on, the keyboard/mouse problem got more and more frequent.

Dell tried a couple of times to fix it. I was on the phone with their support people (one guy mostly) for hours. They tried all sorts of things--mostly removing stuff they thought might be incompatible with Vista. Maybe it helped a little, or maybe we just hit a random good period (it could be 30 seconds, or 3 days, between these failures). But the problem kept coming back.

I was afraid I would have to do what Dell was recommending: reformat the hard drive and start from scratch, with a clean copy of the operating system. I went out and got an external hard drive, so I could back up everything locally and avoid another 13 day download. But the back-up software that came with it didn't work right. It refused to back up to the external drive. It would only do its back-up to the same internal drive it was copying the the data from. I could then manually copy that onto the external drive. But I really wasn't happy with the situation.

And then the keyboard/mouse failures stopped. A couple of months ago, I think, I noticed it wasn't happening any more. I think it must have been one of the periodic Windows Updates Microsoft sends.

But my Internet was still slow. I kept putting off calling Time Warner, because I didn't want to have to clean out my office even enough to give them access to the outlet under the table next to my desk, which was blocked by a file cabinet, which I couldn't move without cleaning up two piles of junk and at least one stack of boxes. (I also really didn't want to even think about having to run a new cable on the exterior of my walls from the cable distribution box down a long hallway to my office--though I realize now that it probably would have been easier to have an electrician run a power line into the closet where the box is, and put my modem and router/wi-fi transmitter there).

But last week the Internet speed was so slow I had to bite the bullet--it was taking 5, 10 even 15 minutes to see one e-mail, and I had a couple hundred piled up. So I called the cable company. In fact, I killed two birds with one stone, because the hard drive in one of our DVRs had just died. I told them about that one first, as I figured it was the easy one. We scheduled an appointment to fix that (the CSR said it was possible that the hard drive could be fixed, but I had my doubts--I was 99% sure they would want to replace to whole DVR). Then I said I also was having slow Internet problems. I expected to be transferred to someone else, as that is a separate choice on their voice-prompt menu.

But the same CSR said she could handle it. After the usual rebooting which they always try, she sent some sort of signal, and it looked to her that everything was fine. But my response time was still horrible. So she put me on hold and had someone in their tech department run a more sophisticated test. She got back on to me and said that the modem needed to be replaced. She said I'd have to schedule a separate appointment--or I could just take the modem down to their office at 23rd St and get a new one. And I could also swap the DVR also, if I didn't care about them trying to fix the old one. That sounded great to me.

So Friday afternoon I went down to 23rd St, making sure I made it there before the after-work rush. I only had to wait about 10 minutes, and I walked out with a new modem, and a different DVR. It obviously wasn't new, but presumably it worked. It did come with a brand new remote control, with more buttons, which were all back-lit. Very nice.

After a some more shopping, lugging the DVR and modem (most of the weight was the former), I eventually got home. I connected up the easy one first--the DVR. The first two attempts to boot it failed, but I gave it one more shot and that worked.

Then I connected up the modem. It was a completely different manufacturer than the old one. It took a couple minutes or so for it to identify itself to the server and do all its handshaking or whatever it needed to do, but eventually the lights on it lit up, and I tried reading an e-mail. Boom. It appeared in a couple seconds. I tried another. It came up quickly. I found a You-Tube video, clicked and it started in seconds--AND PLAYED WITHOUT STOPPING! I haven't been able to this in over a year! I was in heaven.

It's taken me a while to get all caught up on my e-mail--not to mention a whole bunch of videos from You-Tube and elsewhere that I really wanted to see. But now I'm basically current. I had a nice 80-minute workout on my exercise machine this afternoon--the longest I can remember having had in months. This was after single-handedly putting away our weekly grocery order from FreshDirect, as my wife was out.

So now I have more time to blog than I have had in over a year--though I really don't know if I'm going to go back to the level I did when I first started, at least for a while. I still want the get my office cleaned up, and I want to get my audio-video system working the way it's supposed to. We don't use the VCRs much any more, but the last time I tried them there was no sound from the VHS one, and the Betamax (yeah, I still have one in my system) wasn't working at all. And the unified remote control has never worked right. But I do think I'll be posting more than I have been, more long posts, especially.

Headline of the day

Police on Pope Patrol Rescue Beaver from East River
I know it's very early, but I have a hard time imagining anything can top this one.

Neologism of the day

Quippie: a queer hippie.

I guess this one has been around for a while, but I hadn't heard it until today (Jennifer Finney Boylan describing herself--though she said she was more the hippie part).

A strange websearch

Someone in Japan found my glob Googling my name. Why would anyone in Japan be interested in me? I know no one there, and I don't remember having any contact with anyone there.

The only thing that makes this slightly understandable is that the ISP belongs to Temple University's branch there. So it was probably an American in Japan who did this search.

Wearable art museum

I have blogged how a museum (NYC's Metropolitan) can be art as well as contain art. And it's nothing new that clothes can also be art (at least women's clothes--men's stuff tends to stay away from this category). Now you can combine the two ideas. You can now wear a small piece of an art museum.












Just a few blocks up Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim Museum is restoring its signature, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed, exterior. They have figured out a way to make some money out of this expense. They're selling the old, curved, walls.

But they're not just selling chunks of concrete, or whatever it was made of. They are embedding little bits of it in pieces of jewelry. Called "Restoration Rocks," they are priced from $175 for sterling silver hoop earrings to $4,350 for a 14k gold large cuff bracelet.

Even men can get in on the act. They have a set of gold cufflinks for $1,500.

If you really want to wear a bit of an art museum (I don't--I think you'd need rocks in your head to wear these rocks on your head), here's a tip: join the Guggenheim first. Members get 10% off.