ECOGREENMIND

I'm in favor of everybody practicing a "yellow/mellow" approach to their toilets in the interest of saving water, but I'm also in favor of not having bathrooms be a place of total rank odor. How to fix this.

You know those chemical pucks you can throw into your toilet tank that turn the water blue and supposedly help keep the bowl clean? Why not have a similar one that contains chemicals that negate urine stank? The general ingredients of piss have probably been known for a while. Surely this olfactory negation must be possible using science.

Possible Frankenstein consequence: what if we end up with pucks that don't chemically cancel the smell, but instead scent the water itself in an effort to simply mask the odor. That would probably be terrible, and also that shit would likely never come out of the water. NOTE: DO NOT USE THIS METHOD.

THIS JUST HAPPENS

I am a man to whom fake band names just appear out of the blue. Nothing can stop this. I have two.

- They've come from beyond the moon to challenge your perceptions about what's acceptable! They play onstage in alien fursuits! They paint made-up swear words on their musical instruments in bad body fluids! This! Is! Freakstar! (Note that I have no idea what kind of music Freakstar actually plays, though)

- You will listen to this. It is music from Europe. It is a sound that is pleasing to a human, but the sound itself does not care. Cannot care. New album from SELEKTBOX out in June. Buy it or do not. It will exist.

I HAVE THEORIES

My allergies have been acting up more than normal since roughly 8pm yesterday. What is the deal.

- Do I have a low-level allergy to something I ate with dinner?
- Is there just way more pollen in the air lately?
- Are plants beginning to develop SUPERPOLLEN?
- Is it possible something in my dinner somehow negated the antihistamine I'm taking?
- Did my antihistamine stop working?

Who knows anything. Not me! Maybe it'll resolve itself as the day wears on.

YOU KNOW WHAT, THAT'S FINE

Spammers on Twitter haven't seemed to figure out yet that just because A follows B, that doesn't mean B gets A's updates. Both A and B have to follow each other to make that happen. Seeing as how I'm trying to decrease the amount of spam in my life, that is an unlikely occurrence in the extreme. But good try, I guess? Or not?

Idiotic conspiracy theory: What if they're following all the people they can in order to somehow build detailed demographic profiles? This is potentially awesome because we can all just start twittering false data on random days.

"Comparing luxury SUV specs online -- soooooo excited!"
"Why do baby carriages not come in triplet models?"
"My police scanner collection needs dusting."
"Pier One doesn't have those throw pillows in springdawn orchid anymore :("
"Parole officer thinks my Iron Cross + crown of thorns tribal is a bad idea"

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Whenever the Democratic primaries are finally, finally finished, I will personally kiss on the mouth any writer for a major news organization who writes an article titled "Democratic Primaries End: Our Long National Nightmare Is Over." I'm so unbelievably, thoroughly tired of hearing about them that it's amazing I ever paid attention in the first place. I would like to amend my previous proposal by saying we need to cut the election season to exactly six weeks before November. That's two more than the UK Parliament, but choosing a President is a little more important. A little.

Note: This rant doesn't mean I'm not voting Democrat. I will be happy to vote for Obama, but it's not like I'm going to go McCain if Hillary takes it. I'm not fucking suicidal here. If only Gravel were still in it.

I HAVE SOME TIME

I've just discovered a hole in the jeans I'm wearing. Without getting too specific, it's near my crotch, but not in a spot where there's any danger of anything Too Hot For Television peeking through, ever. It's also not a terrifically large hole.

The question now is given this information, how long can I get away with wearing these until I have to go shopping for new ones.

ONE MONTH AND COUNTING

If you're reading this, you have exactly one month to prepare for this:

The Rickshaw Stop
8pm
Wednesday, 5/21
The Definite Articles CD Release Show*

We're opening for Arcadio and Mist & Mast, so don't be fashionably late, or you'll miss us. You do not want to miss us.

* The first two songs on the MySpace are a good preview of said CD

SO I'M WALKING THROUGH BORDERS TODAY

Any readers of this blog who are in or near the book-publishing industry are encouraged to explain to me what these books are before I set in motion the machinery that will make an end of our species, our planet, and possibly the entire Orion Arm of the Milky Way. I might do it anyway. It might be the humane thing to do.

I THINK I'LL PASS

I use a Yahoo mail account for all of the business-type mail I need to check up on, and when you first log in, it shows you some news articles that are popular today; against my better judgment, I clicked on this one and only made it a couple of paragraphs in. What I noticed, though, is a feature in the left-hand column that allows you to select checkboxes next to phrases you would like to receive "News Alerts" on. Among other things, I apparently have the option to make Yahoo News tell me anytime there are news stories about ... log cabin-style houses. I managed to resist temptation. This time.

WHAT ELSE CAN HAPPEN

I lamented somewhere on the internet the lack of a Connect Four app for Facebook, the way there's a Scrabble one.

Now there is.

Since I can apparently wish for things that the universe magically fulfills on occasion, I would also like

- A working Batmobile
- A girlfriend with a jetpack who keeps a blog
- A Stradivarius in playable condition
- For Rock of Love and all shows similar to vanish from history as though they had never been made
- Five hundred million dollars in untraceable cash

I'll see you all next week on my private island.

SUNSHINE, MORE OFTEN

The weather was unbelievably, freakishly beautiful this weekend, which has caused me to revise an oft-cited truism I used to relate about San Francisco not having a proper sundress season. It turns out we do, except it comes to us one day at a time, and on nonconsecutive days, and also completely at random, without warning. Which is just about the same as not really having one at all. Still, I ehn't complainin'.

I spent enough time outside that I don't feel guilty about the time I spent indoors. That's something I'm trying to do less of, because it's motherfucking absurd -- if you do all the outdoor activity you think you "should" be doing, you wind up wanting a whole 'nother weekend come Sunday evening. Yeah, I did stuff outside, but I was also the hell indoors, too.

Dogblog update, btw. So you've got that going for you, too.

INEVITABLE LEXICAL EVOLUTION #244

In the future, we will cease to refer to the internet as "the internet" or "the www." It will instead be known as the worldwide amusement generator, or "wag" for short.

Usage: "Hey, I saw this on the wag the other day" (included with a splash-forward of a You//Tube3.0 hyper-video)

It's coming, I can smell it

SAN FRANCISCO GOOGLE CALENDAR

Dear Internet Santa,

What I would like is a Google Calendar I can subscribe to that will tell me all the public crap going on in San Francisco. There are too many specialized calendars in you right now to bother with, and this is broken and slow. The calendar I would like should tell me about things like

- Public protests
- Marathons and other sporting events that take place in the actual city
- Gay Pride weekend and other festivals

so that I can either plan around them or go to them. I just want one calendar that does this, I do not have the patience or desire to subscribe to fifty different ones to get an aggregate interference pattern that produces the desired results. Internet Santa, hear this wish and grant it with all available speed.

NIGHT TRAIN "PLUS"

I feel like I may have asked this question in blog form long, long ago, but it still stands: if you can make a gummi bear or a bottle of juice with vitamins in it, why not do the same with booze? Has anybody ever tried to fortify a liquor with life-enhancing substances like Yummi Bears or Vitamin Water? Is there something about the nature of booze that prevents this? Somehow I doubt it, science.

TRUTH THROUGH SCIENCE

I always knew I lived in a city of microclimates, but things like this map help me to truly know it in my heart. There's a ten-degree difference between certain (expected) neighborhoods. I call that significant!

NEW MORATORIUM

I understand if it's the name of your store and it's a hassle to change because it's your business and all, but for all other uses, always and everywhere, can we please stop referring to the medium as "comix." Please. Before someone gets hurt. Probably you.

"Comics."

It is not that difficult.