Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/11/10/inbound-commute/
There’s standing in a subway car at the end, or near a door, with something to lean on.
There’s standing in the middle of a subway car, holding a rail.
There’s standing in a subway car that is so packed you don’t really need to worry about holding on. My ride home on Halloween was like this, until the costumed throngs got off at Castro.
Then there’s standing in a subway car that is so packed that you really don’t need to worry about holding on, and the air conditioning is broken.
I got off at Church Street when the subway car started to pack this way.
. . .
I left reluctantly. I left behind the guitar player who was taking up two seats, one for his case, as he quietly practiced a mellow tune, and the woman, sitting across the aisle from him, studying his fingers on the strings, and the lady with the four kids, who were told to hold on because sometimes the subway jerks, and the story was told of one kid who had been playing around and earned a cracked lip for his trouble. A middle-aged lady invited one of the children to sit on her lap.
I waited a few minutes for the next train: air conditioned, not packed, and lacking in human interest.
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/11/09/impeachin-ur-d00dz/
I try not to post entries that are total crap, but every time I see this /topic on one of the IRC channels I frequent, my soul giggles:
Pelosi: I’M IN UR HOUSE / IMPEACHIN UR D00DZ
Thanks, saul! (Well, saul says he got it from boingboing.)
And, thanks, America, for providing us with this entertaining possibility.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/11/08/yay-democracy/
As I wrote to my folks Tuesday morning:
[Here in San Francisco] they have these GIANT ballots in English, Chinese, and Spanish. Really neat! Its like a giant scantron, and it is somewhat gratifying to hold this huge five-pages of ballot in the blue secrecy folder between your hands and feel like maybe the participatory democracy thing is of some importance.
Proposition J: Shall it be city policy to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney?
They also do ranked-choice voting for some municipal offices, though it was a bit silly because in both cases there was only one candidate running. I suppose a really enterprising citizen could have ranked in three write-in candidates and that crazy person would already be living here anyway.
This town certainly has its moments.
This morning I check in to see that Democrats have taken the House, and quite possibly the Senate as well.
And, it is not like I’m really impressed with the Democrats, and their fear of articulating some vision of a better America, but it is nice to see the system correcting itself a bit. The best wisdom I have heard is that at least now President Bush will have a check on his power, and he’ll have to behave a bit more like a President. It seems the process has already started, as the GOP has announced that Donald Rumsfeld is going to resign.
The system works.
As far as impeaching Bush goes, I admit that is a silly ballot proposition for a municipal poll, but it is totally San Francisco, and it is a pleasing break from reading up on school bond proposals and sick leave. Unfortunately, they only had “yes” and “no” as options, I would have preferred “oh, hell yes!” (Though, I’m not sure how well that translates into Chinese.)
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/11/03/halloween-party/
Well, I haven’t gotten around to throwing a housewarming party yet. The only other time I threw a party by myself was when I had some folks over for sushi back in Mountain View, 2000. It’s always been roommates or the wife to help me out. Anyway, when a lady on the Yelp talk boards expressed an interest in throwing a Halloween party, but her apartment was too small, I offered to co-host at my place. Well, she got the ball rolling, but had to bail. We had a great time anyway.
My costume was “thrift store drag queen” . . . kinda improvised but I did a pretty good job of putting together my feminine side. I felt a brief “oh my god what if the party is a dud” panic the week before, but as the day approached, well, things started to come together and the party itself was a great success! Probably around 40 people showed up. Nadia came out-of-costume and was coaxed into a “sexy nurse” ensemble that Lorah didn’t wear. Smashing! Ed took the cake, in my opinion, by dressing as boba tea.
Don brought grog, Karen brought pumpkin pie, Jenny brought a crew of Castro revellers from her own party. Everyone brought a bunch of fun, and then everyone cleared out at 1AM, many headed off to the Supper Club, and others carpooling home to get to work on Wednesday.
Cleanup was a breeze. I caught two beer spills, and all vomiting was confined to the toilet. I found a woman passed out on my bed and tucked her in comfortably on the couch.
I couldn’t have asked for a better experience!
Thanks, everyone!
5 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/31/untitled/
Life is better in pairs.
I ache . . . but I also contain myself.
The thought of touching you
Is a joyous moment that lasts forever.
After forever I am back in myself again;
An atom alive and vibrant and a part of
This world.
4 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/25/yelp-2/
My take on Yelp:
When it comes to social networking, I prefer to interact with articulate people. Grammar is one benchmark. Style and panache go a long way too. Passion is another element of good writing. So, yeah, Yelpers will tend to embody some combination of erudition, style, panache, and passion, and that stuff makes me hot!
I like that Yelp is not MySpace. There’s a “cover charge” here and that is comfort with written self-expression.
-danny
Of course, this is my personal view. I am not speaking for my employer.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/25/underpants-gnome/
When I worked at the Pizza Place there was an endless supply of thin white cotton towels. After use they would be tossed in a hamper and swapped out with a weekly laundry service. One day I asked Jefe for a dish towel. “Deesh towels!” he mocked my queer midwestern vocabulary in his Mexican accent. To Jefe, these “dish towels” were rags.
I was just thinking about it, and back home we had a “rag bag” in the laundry closet, which was populated by torn or stained old sheets, pillowcases, shirts, and the occasional underwear.  I guess if you’re running a restaurant, you want to set a certain standard for rags. Though, I have heard that in developing countries, underwear is considered an acceptible rag for restaurant use.
Nowadays, I buy cheap little dishtowels by the dozen from the big box or hardware store. I’m too snooty for a rag bag: defunct textiles are retired to the trash. Somewhere in the midwest, the ancestors are weeping over my flamboyant lifestyle.
Feedback Welcome
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/24/howto-swapon-file/
Scenario: a Linux system with two drives. The system was built with resiliency as a priority, but availability is not critical. So, the filesystems were mounted atop md raid1 for resiliency, and the swap was striped across an md raid0 for performance.
One disk failed and was removed from the system. System returns to service on remaining drive until RMA is completed. Users are informed that the system is available but does not have swap space. Consensus is reached to add some temporary swap space via a swapfile. (more…)
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/21/love-my-sausage/
The night before, I had poured myself a beer, but was then distracted by more important affairs. The next day I had a neglected glass of Sierra Nevada Brown Ale resting on my counter. I boiled my last garlic-basil pork sausage in the beer, while I sauteed onion and red bell pepper. The beer boiled over a bit, so I let the heat down. I chopped up a roma tomato and a handful of spinach, tossed the sausage in the frying pan with the onions, and split a wheat pita, coating the inside with spicy mustard. I realized that everything was not going to fit in a single pita, so I had to cut the hot sausage in two, making me a pair of pita pockets. I knew this was good stuff so I took pictures, and now that I see the pictures, I am filled with a craving nostalgia. Gosh, that was a delicious meal!
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/12/apple-shipping/
So, I’m in San Francisco, and Apple HQ is just a ways down the peninsula. So, what happens when you order a laptop through their store? It ships from the factory in China to the Philipines, and then to Alaska. Well, Philipines seems a bit of a detour, and Alaska seems a bit more indirect, but then it is flown to Indiana where it is inspected by customs. From Indianapolis it is a straight shot to San Francisco.
On the one hand I am enchanted by the globe-trotting nature of the Macintosh computer. On the other hand, I wonder how much jet fuel is being wasted by flying products from hub to hub to hub to hub in this manner. Maybe fossil fuel is still too cheap.
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/11/marriage-i-we/
There’s a talk thread on Yelp about Cohabitation. Marla S made a good point, which I think is good to bear in mind if one aspires to cohabitate and marry.
The gist of it is: when you are living together, you’re thinking about I: “Can I live with this person?” But for a healthy marriage, you need to be intent on adapting your life to your relationship with your partner: you need to be thinking about we: “Can we realize our common dreams?” There’s a difference that should be considered when moving from cohabitation to marriage.
It is the difference in mind-set, I think, moving from being a self-centered adult to a founding member of a new family, that gets you in practice for being a parent.
I think a lot of people must get tripped up, since becoming an adult is about moving from dependency to being independent, and being married and starting a family is about moving from independence to interdependence. (And then having kids adds never getting enough sleep, changing diapers and the occasional trip to the emergency room.)Â It takes a lot of character building and revision, just when you thought you had it all figured out . . . a lot of folks I know seem content to stay at “adult” and are reluctant to venture much further.
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/10/mac-a-la-mode/
I drove down to Mountain View yesterday and met Brian and Jessica for dinner. I also picked up the remote control for the TV Brian gifted us last year. He gave me another remote for the DVD player he also gave me last year, and then there was another TV remote that was nearly identical.
We puzzled a bit, and then I realized that this other TV remote was for a TV I bought years earlier, and had traded to Joe for the TiVo he had won. Joe had lived with Brian prior to my living with Brian, and when he moved he must have forgotten his remote.
Later that night, I was talking to Mike, who has the TiVo that I traded to Joe, which I gave to Mike when I went to travel, since Brian didn’t want it. Mike upgraded the TiVo, and has another connected to the satellite, would I like my old TiVo back, in all its upgraded glory? Not really, though I asked if he might want my car, since I never drive it any more, and could perhaps do without, but due to sentimentality, I would rather “keep it in the family.” (more…)
1 Comment
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/10/09/muni-stuck/
The subway broke again, so our streetcar is waiting patiently at West Portal. I wish Muni were more robust. They have always done well at providing shuttle buses when things are broken, but I’d rather depend on a system that didn’t need to be so adept with shuttle buses.
“Okay, we moving now,” says the operator . . .
2 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/29/tgif/
Another every-other Friday, another lunch buffet at the titty bar with colleagues and friends. It’s not such a bad life.
3 Comments
Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2006/09/27/stupid-flyer/
As I rushed away from the office this evening, I accepted, for amusement purposes, a flyer some lady was handing out at the subway entrance:
A marketing survey, huh? Sounds pretty straightforward. Am I in the right zipcode? *Flip* (more…)
3 Comments
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