[Update 11/13/07: this blog http://zunasurf.wordpress.com/ has more updates and info on cleanup efforts than the one I linked]

Lest you think that my life is all Disco Balls, FlashDances, local politics, and working at Apple, you miss the MOST fun thing I do. Clean up Oil Spills! Fun Fun!

[Ed Note: As amusing as this take on things is to me, decency demands I interrupt myself - I did 1.5 hours of volunteering today. That’s it. I’ve never cleaned an oil spill before - so to insinuate I do it frequently is lame. To insinuate that I did a lot today is even lamer. MANY MANY people have spent many hours this week volunteering for clean up. I showed up today on a whim & helped out a tiny amount. So anything I say I did is overstating my value to the project about 10000 fold.]

So… after I single handedly saved a few hundred sea birds, a dozen sea lions, and a grey whale….

(OK - Seriously - read on for details on the clean up & my TINY TINY contribution)

Click HERE for more…

[Ed Note: This post is about Halloween in the Castro, what went wrong, & how to fix it. If you are more interested in my Halloween pictures, or my costume or how I made it, scroll or click to the previous post. Also, if you are interested in the future of the event send email to info AT halloweeninthecastro DOT com & ask to get on the list.]

Halloween is my favorite holiday. This year was no exception. It was getting stale doing the big costume thing and the mega-fun thing. So this year San Francisco decided that Martial Law was the new way to party!

The massive police presence in the Castro on Halloween night was like a snuggly jackbooted baton-wielding blanket on a hot summer night. The biggest highlight? Maybe the formation of cops in full riot gear aggressively marching past me at Café Du Nord. Or maybe it was the cop who screamed at me to not step off the curb, or the cops who screamed at me turn down my small Disco Ball speakers. It’s a toss up really. Hmmmm actually more choices come to mind: Maybe it was when city officials bullied various merchants into joining other merchants who decided to close, or forced BART to shut down - bypassing the wishes of BART’s democratically elected leadership…. such a hard call….

Ugh. It sucked.

I’m left angry at the City, disappointed the idea that “nothing else could be done”, and hoping that everyone helps turn this thing around next year…

(Read on for my thoughts on what went wrong & how to fix it)

Click HERE for more…

[Ed. Note: what follows is me geeking out on making a Halloween costume if that is boring, just check out the pics or read the post about how Halloween went down in the Castro)]

  

So earlier this year, I decided to pop on my Disco Ball 3.0 costume and roam the streets for a friend’s Birthday bash - very quickly I learned two things:

• Just popping on Disco Ball 3.0 and randomly roaming the street playing music is a BLAST!!! (here is a movie of 3.0 in action so you get the idea - sorry no movie of 4.0 :-()
• Disco Ball 3.0 was a bit of a pain to deal with!

Clearly, at some point I needed to revisit the costume & do it better! Basically, the problems were that it needed to be more durable (it got scuffed up easily), it could look better, & it was hard to get into and out of. There had to be a better way I thought & it was too much fun to leave behind.

Click HERE for more…

This is a placeholder post - more on all this coming soon I promise.

So I was just thinking: in the past few weeks I have:

• Looked up info on “The Shining” after we watched it.
• Looked up the history of the term “salad days“
• Looked up the history of the term “red tape” because it came up
• Looked up “Neil LaBute” because Jon Stewart mentioned him - referring to other candidates ganging up on Hilary at a debate
• Looked up the song “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” because Celeste was singing it
• Looked up “Pyrolysis” because PG&E was talking about converting cow manure into bio-fuel
• Was wondering who came up withe the original Apple logo & thus learned about Rob Janoff
• Was curious about the old BeOS
• Read about Jeff Lynne because I was in a major Electric Light Orchestra mood.
• Was curious about when “aesthete” came to mean “gay” - or was that just in my head since a Tom Stoppard play I saw a few years back (”The Invention of Love“) - turns out it may have just been in my head (& in that play)
• Heard somebody say that Phil Donahue was taken off the air for being critical of the government, so I checked it out
• Read about the assasination of Ngo Dinh Diem because I was bored & saw it on the front page of Wikipedia
• Looked up “Dirty Sanchez” because Jon Stewart mentioned it
• Wondered about Michael Jackson’s upcoming album & general info about the Jackson 5
• Fed my appetite for “Harry Potter” “writing of” info
• Looked up “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” because I was wondering who sang it

Look through your browser history. Maybe you’ll find something similar…. So the Wikipedia folks are having a fundraiser right now. Seems like a good thing to donate to.