it takes all of my resolve and concentration to avoid responding to inane questions my coworkers ask with: “YOU DUMB, BITCH.”

I don’t know why, but I had some strange compulsion to go on MySpace tonight. I am not really friends with many of the people that I am supposedly MySpace friends with.

I feel like I should put new pictures up… redesign my page to look all cool. But fuck that.

I’m sick of putting on a show to attract people. My interests are there, and they should speak for themselves. Besides, Facebook is the new black anyway. In that vein, I’m also kind of sick of it. I mean I like the whole status updates thing but it that is basically a ripoff of Twitter. And now MySpace has applications too… all this inevitable feature creep and feature bloat just makes me sick of the whole concept.

So then came my urge to see who I really was friends with, and I stumbled upon Joe’s profile again. I often think about him and wonder like what happened to him, and was all in this whole “I should send him an e-mail” mood, so I did.

I can’t even remember the last time we talked…it must have been back when I was dating Adrian.

So I got my algebra test back today, and kept staring at it for about five minutes.

All of my answers were right, the only points I got marked down were for imprecise answers where I forgot to write a plus minus symbol or I forgot to include the “i” that was written on my scratch paper.

Crazy shit.

After I got home, I worked with my mom on her website for a long time. We made a lot of progress, it’s nearing completion. I watched Tin Man for the rest of the night… the sorceress lady looks exactly like Jeffree Starr, which was mildly creepy but I loved all the steampunk stuff, especially the vinyl outfits that the people down the factory were wearing.

At about 9 PM, Sam called me and apparently he was downtown. So I went down there and we ended up only hanging out for like 20 minutes before they all went home, but I got my jacket back. I hit Safeway on the way back and finally did what I’d been meaning to do for a million years, make a vanity Safeway card that prints my name out as “Hiro Protagonist.”

After that, I went home, watched part three of the movie, and started on High-Rise again. I <3 that book. Speaking of it, I should bang out another chapter before I have to go to sleep.

Sunday was my first day back from SF.

Zero and I hopped on the 23 and headed downtown, talking about capital punishment, the death of American car culture, the global food shortage, ethanol, string theory, the creative nature of collaborations, and the higgs boson.

Long, exhausting walk to my building, pick up my scooter at the office, drive down to the new Juice it Up, got a smoothie, read a bit of High-Rise (which is amazing btw), and met Taggart there.

We went down to John C. Fremont Park and languished in the grass for a while. Talked about Kurt Vonnegut, the end of suburbia, various scooter related anecdotes, the economy, etc.

The really funny part happened when this large black woman sat down and asked to use one of our phones… she ended up making like three different calls, but the funny part was when she was about to leave:

“You guys dating?” she asked. We both indicated “no.” She paused for a minute, then came back with “You want to date?”we did the uncomfortable question sidelong mumble thing. After that, she said a few more things and left but it cracked me up that she could pick up on the fact that we’d dated.

I have to say, he looked damn hot today. I’m not opposed to beard as in rather short hair all over the face, I’m opposed to Bill Moseley beard.

It was a balmy summer day today, and that just made the whole lounging around in the shade thing so much more awesome. The thought seeping out of the back of my mind the whole time was that it just seemed like the greatest idea to snuggle with him, but cuddling is so inexorably intimate.

We hugged and parted ways, and zero was just getting off work. He was promised this free barbecue at this barbecue, but it actually wasn’t happening at all, so we went and got overpriced Mexican food.

I still had my San Francisco clothes on because I hadn’t been home since I got back from the city, so I wanted to go home but zero and I got coffee at the new Peet’s at that new MAARS building near 21st.

It was my first time going to a Peet’s, and I never thought there could be anything more gentrified than Starbucks, but I was blown away.

Zero’s friend showed up, so I got back on my scooter and booked it back to the house.

I took a much-needed shower, donned my PJs, and I’m about to write about this awesome, amazing, phantasmagoric weekend.

I just finished uploading all the pictures and editing all my posts. And it’s only one o’clock in the morning!

Days like this I feel like I was born to be a journalist, with my endless stream of articles on my life.

Sam and I drive back to the city, where I was supposed to pick up the Dresden Dolls tickets for Susan, Zero, and I by four.

We were hungry, so we found parking at Japantown, which is right next to the Fillmore, got some noodles and sushi for breakfast, then headed to the box office.

The Fillmore’s website was hacked somehow and their box office hours weren’t online (I got them through the Google cache of the page) and they were wrong, so no tickets. I spent the cash Zero gave me to purchase them, so I guess I’m putting them on my credit card.

Sam took his leave to drive over to meet a friend of his, so I walked down towards Market Street, bumbling into Union Square, which I had never been to before.

My mom e-mailed me some photos that she wanted to use for her website and I was able to pull them up on my phone and talk to her about the project. I went to the Apple store out of habit, but was bored with all the expensive technology that I didn’t have a particular use for. I’m really sick of my phone. Like… really sick of my phone, so I was thinking of getting an iPhone and then unlocking it so I could use it on T-Mobile. But the thing is… I have a specific set of requirements for my next phone that needs to be satisfied.

1. 3G (this will take FOREVER on T-Mobile, they bought the spectrum like two years ago and haven’t added the necessary hardware to make it work, so that’s why I’m thinking of jumping ship)
2. 30GB (at least) of storage
3. A responsive user interface capable of multimedia playback (MP3s, videos, etc.), email, IM, threaded SMS
4. A great camera (iPhone camera is shit)
5. A great keyboard (I text ALL the time, which makes me want a BlackBerry with full keyboard)

So really, there isn’t a phone out there that satisfies all my requirements, but a 3G 30 GB iPhone would satisfy most of them.

But I still must wait until the first Android phones come out. I <3 open source.

On our way to the Haight

Anyway, so I met Susan and Zero in front of the Apple store, and we proceeded to hit up Muni towards the Haight. We got kind of lost… I mean, not really lost but just kind of not being the exact area we wanted to be (I looked at the map and we were like one street off), but while we were standing around looking at the map (and waiting for the stupid thing to load… I hate you 2G!) we stumble upon this amazing juice bar called The Orbit Room. We got a freshly squeezed orange juice and Zero and I had these amazing freshly made Mojitos.

We walked back to Muni and then ended up back near the Warfield. We were all rather hungry, so we asked Alyx (this awesome girl that zero and Susan know) where a good place to eat would be (that was cheap). We end up at this amazing curry place where we dashed down our food and then hurried back to the Warfield. We find our seats, and half the theater is empty. The show is supposed to start in 10 minutes.

An hour passes.

Finally, the show actually starts and Goldfrapp struts out onto stage in her trademark pillowcase/tablecloth dress, and begins the concert with “Paper Bag.” I was speechless as she hit all the high notes… she even had a cold, and she was still able to belt that shit out.

The Frappster.
Srsly, bitch has some pipes.

A song from Seventh Tree, and then she did “Utopia,” which was grand. The live instrumentation gave the songs a richness and depth to the sound that they lacked on the album.

Other than those two songs, the rest of the concert was pretty much shit. I mean, I enjoyed a few songs from Seventh Tree, she did a mean rendition of “Cologne Cerrone Houdini” and “Caravan Girl” was rockin’, but she did all of these slow, pointless songs from Seventh Tree that just dragged the energy of the concert down so much. I mean, if you watch her concert from the Felt Mountain days, the songs are mostly slow, but they are dripping with angst and emotion and build to these incredible crescendos.

On Seventh Tree, the slow songs don’t have any meat to them. The whole album was supposed to be happy and upbeat and the slow songs to seem really out of place.

Pirate + Clown = Goldfrapp?

Also, the sense of flow was just… off. They would stop playing a song, wait for like two minutes, and then start another one… there didn’t seem to be much sense of continuity at all. And for an artist who obviously speaks English (bitch is from the UK), she built up absolutely no repertoire with the audience. Even CSS, who are fucking Brazilian, managed to spit out in broken english that they love San Francisco and it’s hard for them to leave. I mean, even if it’s total bullshit, crowds eat that shit up. Somebody needs to give her like stage presence lessons… she didn’t even “dance” (her little marching-in-place thing she does during “Strict Machine”) at all until like halfway through the concert, and she spent a lot of the time with her back to the audience.

Through it all, we were right beside Goldfrapp’s number one fan, Goth Kenny G, who had this long black curly hair and was literally convulsing in time with the music for the entire duration of the show.

Tablecloth + Pillowcase = Goldfrapp’s dress.
Also, across the aisle, was Goldfrapp’s #2 fan, Go-Go Lederhosen Faggot, who was dressed entirely in white. White lederhosen with matching white go-go boots. I thought I had seen the depths of faggotry before that moment. I was wrong. His unique function was to smoke a joint the entire duration of the concert.

And then after all the slow songs she did a song from the upbeat, dripping-in-synth “Supernature”… which was even more confusing. With every concert I’ve gone to, they build from not necessarily slow songs to fast songs, but the energy seems to increase and then they play like the best, most intense songs towards the end. This concert just felt all over the map, and after waiting for the God damn thing for an hour, zero and I were at this point were we were actually kind of waiting for the concert to be over with so we could go out clubbing.

And club we did.

Alyx took us to this really great private club where we were on the guest list…it was awesome. Zero and I got Absinthe, and ten minutes later I was feeling no pain and rambling on about…well…something, and having a great time.

We had to leave at about two because of the drive home (I think we got back around 5 AM). Alyx was awesome, she looked flawless in a floor-length duster, a garter skirt, and immaculate calf-high boots. She also had this rockin’ Corvette (it’s not my style, but it just screamed “I HAVE MORE MONEY THAN YOU COULD DREAM OF”). I was just kind of like… “are you a unicorn?”

Coming from a small town, it doesn’t compute to me how people can afford to live in the city. She’s a design student, so I guess that translates to student loans.

But yeah, she and I went in search of an ATM blasting Elastica, and had a good bit of fun.

I slept over at Zero’s house because he is right on the line of the 23, which I had to take the next day to recover my scooter.

Friday was bright sun, dashing out of work, gas at the Arco, Sam and I, flying towards the sea on I-80.

Bay bridge, park on Folsom street, and we’re in the city. It’s bathed in twilight as we walk down 7th seeking some coffee. *cue Requiem for a Dream hyper-fast sipping jump cut* and we’re at the Powerhouse.

1. Apple Pucker
2. Amaretto Sour
3. Tokyo Tea
4. “Blowjob”
5. One entire pack of Camel Wides

Sam and I bit each other’s necks for a while, and then returned to the car around 1 a.m. to read Reddit on my phone and sober up before driving to Josh’s place in Hayward.

I really liked Josh’s apartment… it was just like his apartment in Crescent City, but it didn’t smell like a former meth lab which was awesome. We met his friend Amber who he had talked about for years but I had never met, and she was awesome. Even Sam loved her, which is a shining endorsement.

She was basically a guy in a woman’s body…which was incredibly cool.

So we ended up hanging out for a few hours, then we all piled into Josh’s way-too-small-for-three-people bed.

*zzzz*