My Quiet Life

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a restaurant generate so much ill will so quickly. I can’t wait until they go out of business.

John Kenneth Galbraith has passed away.

In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

A big step towards decriminalization of drug addiction in Mexico this week:

“No charges will be brought against … addicts or consumers who are found in possession of any narcotic for personal use,” according to the Senate bill, which also lays out allowable quantities for an array of other drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and amphetamines.

Some of the amounts are eye-popping: Mexicans would be allowed to possess more than two pounds of peyote, the button-sized hallucinogenic cactus used in some native Indian religious ceremonies.

Mexican law now leaves open the possibility of dropping charges against people caught with drugs if they are considered addicts and if “the amount is the quantity necessary for personal use.” The new bill drops the “addict” requirement automatically allowing any “consumers” to have drugs and sets out specific allowable quantities.

…

“We can’t close our eyes to this reality,” said Sen. Jorge Zermeno, of Fox’s conservative National Action Party. “We cannot continue to fill our jails with people who have addictions.”

The response from the U.S. is that this legislation could “strain” cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico in the (idiotic) war on (some) drugs. I’ll say.

We are having a Cinco de Mayo party, but it’s actually on Seis de Mayo. (That’s May 6th, for you gringoes).

I sent out an invite to people for whom I could find e-mail addresses for, since the personal touch is always nice, but it’s not an invite-only event, so feel free to stop by if you feel so inclined, and you think I might have some idea who you are. Here’s the invite I sent out:

Hi,

In doing our part to further co-opt every holiday possible as an excuse to get
smashed, we are holding a Cinco de Mayo party. Except Cinco de Mayo is a Friday,
and Friday parties are lame, so we’re having ours on Saturday. Seis de Mayo.

We are making food — a taco bar and other stuff. We’ll also have pitchers of
margaritas, but otherwise it’s BYOB/W/PGA (beer/wine/pure grain alcohol).

Significant others, wives, husbands and mistresses are welcome as well, as long
as they are clean and well-behaved.

See you there.

There will be bloggers and non-bloggers alike, probably. We’re at Market Street Apartments: 150 2nd Ave S., #305. Call my apartment from the buzz-box and I’ll let you in. Party hours are 7-30PM to ?:??.

I just spent $140 or so on shoes. This is a great experiment for me. I suffer from a contradiction: I am extraordinarily cheap and yet I am extraordinarily picky when it comes to shoes. I pretty much only wear penny-loafers/dock shoes or wingtips. I’ll settle for a cap-toe if I have to. I hate just about every shoe I see (from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z).

I had a pair of wingtips that were just about the best shoes ever made. They’re around 10 years old now, and I’ve had them re-soled around 4-5 times. But I once again had a ginormous hole materialize in the sole. But by now, the leather is too scuffed to justify re-soling. It was time to upgrade.

So, I knew that Johnston&Murphy made decent shoes, some that are re-soleable, no less. I decided on a cap-toe with a preforated/stitched cap. They’re pretty stylin’. They aren’t broken in yet, so I see many blisters in my future.

So apparently Brad PItt and Angelina Jolie are in talks to star in an Atlas Shrugged movie. Personally, I think this is great news, since it means a whole new generation of people will be not taking Ayn Rand seriously.

Also, Ayn Rand has REAL ULTIMATE POWER.

Ordered new tires for the bikes last week, which should be in on Tuesday or Wednesday. Amanda’s takes 26″ x 1 3/8″, and mine are 27″ x 1 1/4″. The shop I stopped at (Bike Peddler) had those sizes but not with the right bead, so I just ordered some. $13 a pop. Not bad.

In the meantime, this gives me some time to get everything else scoped out and fixed if necessary. I believe I’ve got the brakes on mine all fixed up — I bought a new brake cable and lubed up the cable jacket and retightened everything and it seems to work fine.

The wheels on my bike both have a slight wobble — nothing I’m seriously worried about, but I thought I’d try to remove it nonetheless. I tried tightening the spokes strategically to true the wheel, but it didn’t do much good, even though some of the spokes were quite loose. I hear it’s near impossible to true an older wheel anyway, so I am not too worried.

Next up: Sunday the frames get a much-needed bath. De-greasing with Simple Green, touch-up paint if needed and then lube all-around. I bought some silicon-based wet lubricant that should work on pretty much everything.

New tires go on probably next weekend. After that? Who knows, maybe we can actually, you know .. ride them.

Which reminds me, we need to get helmets (Safety first!). Anyone have a recommendation for a good cruising helmet (that is: convenient, comfortable, not too dorky-looking, not super-awesome-lightweight-aerodynamic-bike-dork-helmet)?

Amanda and I bought a hunk of this cheese a few months ago for a picnic and found it to be orgasmic. We had other stuff on that picnic, I think, but after long we had shoved it all aside and were fighting over who would get to lick the rind. We couldn’t remember what it was called, but Amanda remembered and found it. Cypress Grove’s Humboldt Fog Goat Cheese. I want some.

When I was little, on Easter — well, anytime, really, but on Easter for obvious reasons — I loved eating hard-boiled eggs, because I would eat a bunch of them, but save the yolks, so that I could pretend I was Pac-Man. Am I the only one that did this?

When I was around 7, I was friends with this kid who was around 5 or so down the street — he was the son of a local preacher. I got in trouble because I told him the people parked by the lake across the street from our house were having sex in their cars. What? He asked.

They’re talking (fantasizing) about the score of the new Bond movie here. It does my heart good to see both Morricone and Schifrin mentioned. Can you even imagine?

My friend Bamf sent these pictures. One is a full shot and one is a close-up of the tail. They’re taken from Mars at around 82.3N latitude. He has no idea what they are, and neither do I. I thought low-angle metor crater, but apparently it’s not a depression. The only logical conclusion is that it’s proof of ALIENS:

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the scale: 36m/pixel (For the full-size version), so around 18km wide.