Pleiades

I love the myth of the Plieades and this is the best picture I've ever seen of them, plus Mars (I'm an Aries) is in there along with a brilliant Persiad meteor. Click on it to see it better.

Keep Your Damn Hands Inside the Bus

I just had some representative from the French Senate (did you know France had a senate?) who came to visit our office and “find out more about your agency, blahblahblah.” I hate these things and I’m usually much better about ducking out of them, but this time I was distracted and suddenly I’m Little Miss Foreign Exchange Guide. We tend to get lots of the foreign nationals, aliens really, breezing through here, using us as an excuse to visit San Francisco. Do you think the Little Rock office has to put up with this? Hell, no. Some of them practically show up with a surfboard under their arm and actually they’re the best. A few insincere pleasantries, a couple of jokes, point them towards the good dim sum restaurant downstairs and you’re good to go in ten minutes. Everybody’s happy. It’s these ones trying to ask intelligent questions that chap my last nerve. Most of the discussion dissolves into a civics lesson - “What is a federal agency?’ “Where do you get your money?” “Who decides what your priorities are?” I just make shit up.

We used to have this pompous, fatuous ass who was worthless for any other function except to turf these visitors off onto. He was so very self-important, he seemed to be exactly what they expected a government official to look and sound like, but he died, the bastard. I show up and they obviously think the janitor’s here to empty the trash, and then I have to start talking about the federal budget. And are they ever cute? Do we ever get a delegation from Brazil of bodybuilder go-go boys? Again, hell no. I’m not bitter, just resigned. Plus all this has seriously cut into my time for reading other blogs.

I gotta go.

What Do You Get When You Google "Hot Mormon Guys"?

this

How the Mighty Have Fallen. And the Schmucks, too.

Loverboy

I’m willing to admit I know almost nothing about Sen. Larry Craig, the congressman who’s considering resigning because he got busted in an airport men’s room (or tearoom, as we used to say back in the day.) Merely his title, Republican senator from Idaho, makes me automatically assume he is not one with me in my opinions and values and that is so wrong on my part. Also, enjoying the vision of him squirming through this is wrong, wrong, wrong. Is he my gay brother? Well, let’s see, it would appear we have both looked for love amongst the plumbing facilities, so, you know, maybe.

What is troubling is not some apparently closeted power monkey getting thrown under the bus by his fellow senators. It’s the fact that in 2007, cops are still setting up stings to bust pervs looking for some action in the stalls. Don't they have anything better to worry about? Plus, doesn’t the evidence they arrested him on seem pretty feeble? He tapped his foot and waved under the partition. Sweetie, I’ve been around the block and I am fairly certain the good senator was probably looking to have his tonsils massaged with some stranger’s pecker. OK, given. Still, it just seems harsh that tapping and waving are illegal in the Minnesota airport. That that is all it takes to get you hauled off to the Twin Cities’ jailhouse. You might want to bear that in mind if you’re ever traveling through the Gopher State (I looked it up on Wikepedia. That’s really its nickname. Telling, huh?)

I would also argue that Craig’s real problem is not being dick crazed, but being stupid. Considering what security in airports has become over the last few years, could you think of a worse place to go manhunting? Was he so sex starved he couldn’t keep it in his pants until he got to the hotel and the services of an agreeable rentboy? Again, I’ve been there and am sympathetic, but even I know when to tap and wave and when not to.

Igudesman and Joo. Rock On

He's sweaty and got an accent Zsa Zsa would have a tough time topping and I think he plays the piano with an electric toothbrush at one point. Plus, "Autumn Wind."

What a Sweet Face

Life in Alta California

At Heath Ceramics in Sausalito. We love Heath.

On the way home from eating shrimp on Tomales Bay. We love shrimps.