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I have no distaste of it. Opening doors for women and being courteous and doing all the things that men have traditionally done are fine by me. Of course, one thing I'm not in to is being the sugar daddy and paying for everything. I find that an unfortunate outgrowth of the old world traditions.       My big problem with all of this is that physically, I'm too large to do it. I've been noticing this lately, which is strange, since I've gotten much more coordinated than when I had my first growth spurt and was awkward as hell. Basically, a typical situation is this: I start to go for a door and see someone else coming and move aside to let them through first. The only problem in doing this is that there were several people behind me, whom I've just now very cordially ran over with my shoes. Another case was when I started to get out of an elevator and then stopped to let a woman in, only to realize I had suddely blocked the entry to the rather narrow elevator.       It seems to be happening more and more as the days go by and I'm starting to think that being rude, while insulting to a single individual here and there would be safer to the general public.

It's cool like Europe, but at San Francisco prices.       Located at the corner of Sutter and Jones, this is a neat little spot which I believe is owned by a Dutch couple. They've done a great job of remodelling it to seem as if you're somewhere in Western Europe. They're also done a great job of somehow getting a lot of Europeans to eat there, thus helping out the image of being in Europe quite a bit.       You've got all your normal breakfast and other food items there (minus good tea, which I'm mighty unhappy about) but the specialty I highly recommend anyone try are their smasher dishes. In particular, the Pancake Smasher is damn good. Something like cross between a pancake and crepe with an egg and good bacon on top of it. Delicate, yet filling and just yum, yum, yum.

While it's a tad dated and was written quite some time ago, the entry in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for San Francisco, Earth is pretty damned funny and nearly true:       "A good place to go. It's very easy to believe that everyone you meet there is also a space traveler. Starting a new religion for you is just their way of saying 'hi'. Until you've settled in and got the hang of the place it is best to say 'no' to three questions out of any given four that anyone may ask you, because there are some very strange things going on there, some of which an unsuspecting alien could die of."

So, not being up on everything these days and I guess being sorta "out of the loop" when it comes to fashion, it seems that Britney, Christina, and the whole lot of bouncy pop stars have got this whole hooker look going on and all the young girls are copying it. Not that I have a huge problem with it, except for the fact that it's kinda hard to tell who the hookers are and who the regular girls are these days.       Case in point, I was having a stroll from Market Street last night and was walking by the Hilton. Around the corner come two girls. Now, it was honestly hard to tell if they were patrons of the hotel or girls out looking for a John. Once I heard them talk, it was pretty obvious they were in the last category, but the fact I had to wonder this is just strange to me. I remember the good old days when hookers were hookers, girls looking for a sugar daddy were in leather skirts, and normal girls wore jeans. It was a great color coding scheme that I really miss now.       I'm sure all of this will pass at some point, but for the time being, I'm very confused. I just hope I don't end up dating a girl who seemed to like jeans, but then insists on wearing out a skirt that shows off half her ass.

Apple has hit new levels of low with their current operating system, OS X.3 (Panther). While this system is a vast improvement over any of the OS X systems that have come to date, it is also a rather blatant rip off of Windows. From a company that makes such a big deal about not being Windows, you'd think this would be rather odd.       For instance, they now have the feature to tab between programs refined, except that it isn't refined. Windows has had the Alt-Tab feature for a long time and it allows you to tab through each open window to find what you're looking for. Very handy and I use it quite a bit when I'm on a Windows box. Macs on the other hand have brought the system in, in a lame way. Yes, you can tab between programs, but you can't tab between actual windows within those programs. I guess that problem exists in the fact that on a Mac you need to have a bazillion windows open (sorry, an overstatement, I meant grillion) in order to get anything done.       One of the other things that Mac has found to do is to put links to thinks like your Documents, Desktop, etc in the left hand of every window you open in the Finder. It's a nice feature, but guess what, it copies Windows exactly. You combine this in with the switchable views for browsing files and it starts to get messy.       Overall, it seems that it's pretty easy for someone to bounce back and forth between a Windows and a Mac machine, since they are nearly exactly the same, except for the fact that Windows snaps around much faster and is more stable than the Mac.       I guess I just find it ironic that a company whose big campaign is "Think Different" has just stooped to copying Windows components at this point in the game and innovates very very little. Instead of trying to cram out release of their Operating System, they should work on stabilizing it and speeding it up. I wouldn't be suprised if the next iMac to come out in the Fall has a two button mouse!

It's really amazing how, when someone goes missing, or dies suddenly, is somehow or other extricated from the face of existence in this country that, upon showing their image on the news, it quite often sucks.       You think, "Oh hey, this guy, or this girl is gone. Let's get the most recent photo." Unfortunately though, that "most recent" photo is picture of them swilling beer at a party, or trying to mount a horse, or snorting milk out their nose. Naturally, the saddest thing about all this is that, in rememberance of the person, people will often try to crop or edit out some kind of offending subject matter, but it's hard to show some guy in a good light when he has a smirk the size of a comet on his face as he's grabbing some woman's breast and getting a laugh out of it. Ah, but the joke's on him, as the 6:00 news reports he's gone missing in the high Sierras and that this is what he looks like.

      In a bit of preparation for the that we're all going to be recarbonized, or dissolved back into this earth at some point, I think it's extremely critical to get a good, Crap Happens Picture of yourself each year in order to thwart off ridiculed rememberance. Lord knows, I hope I've got enough shots of me lying around to stem off the one of myself lying on the sidewalk, passed by a 7-11 in Chico with my friends throwing quarters at me.

      I know this may be grim, but it is most afflicting our youth, who, as I know well, have many a photo as I do at some party and they really need to have a quality, non-smarmy, photo done of themselves, perhaps on a six month basis. I mean, do you really want to be remembered as The Dude with all the Beads from Mardi Gras, or the Chick the was Flashing the Dude with all the Beads at Mardi Gras? No, I didna think so!

In the bottom floor of the York Hotel on Sutter Street in between Leavenworth and Hyde, sits the Plush Room (now called the Empire Plush Room for some reason after a remodel this year.)       I have to admit, it's a pretty damn cool place. Of course, it's a bit on the pricey side of things, since most of the shows that are there are $20 and up with a two drink minimum. That two drink minimum is rather steep as well, since there is nothing less than $8.50 on the drink menu. But, I have to admit that they mix a good drink and they are good-sized drinks. Still though, it's hard to cough up $17 for the first round of drinks for two people.       The name is really quite accurate, as the interior of the place is very plush. From what I've heard, it used to be a speakeasy back in the days of prohibition and has managed to stay around and even create an ambience that is all its own. Worth a stop if you're in the hood and want a good, albeit expensive drink.       Oh yeah, they have burlesque shows there on occassion as well - www.yorkhotel.com/plushroom.htm

When you go out to look for this cheap cooking store on Polk and you end up walking from Sutter at Polk down to Filbert at Polk and you can't find it and then as you walk back, you find out that it was really at Sacramento and Polk across the street from Brownies Hardware? Man, I hate that. Everytime it happens, it's just oh so frustrating.       But actually, it was kinda freaking me out, since I was just at the place about a month ago and in searching for it, it seemed that the world had opened up and swallowed it whole. I think there may be two reason for this A) I'm out of it (completely reasonable explanation to many things) or B) it used to be about eight blocks away from where it is now.       While the store looks exactly the same, I swear it wasn't in the 1600 block before and looking up old addresses for City Discount, it looks like it may have been in the 2400 block previously and may have moved recently. It seemed that it was by this cool French knick knack place called La Tulip Noire, but someone I feel that both the geography and spelling on that are completely wrong.       Anyways, a big mystery of life that doesn't matter a hill of beans, since the place still appears to be there and is a great place to get quickie cooking utensils in San Francisco at really good prices. The staff are nice to you, even if you're just buying a $2.50 tea strainer.

...that you're going to be wrong about a lot of things quite often, the faster you'll be able to figure out how to deal with it.       Yeah, it's a pithy saying, but I think there's some truth in it, since it seems that about 50% of all the time in the wordl is spent either trying to figure out how something went wrong, or who the blame for the wrongness can be passed on to. I've been subjected to this a bit lately, as people try to blame the fact that the have a complete inability to listen to what I say or read what I write on the fact that they think that something to the contrary and are quite disheartened when they find out that that is not the case. I take great care in attempting to make sure people understand what I say and when they nod their head and say yes, and then come back 15 minutes later with the same bovine question that broadcasts their inability to listen, it is definitely rather frustrating.       How do I deal with being wrong though? Simple, I don't care most of the time. I try to laugh it off by realizing how badly I was wrong and wallowing in the glory of my wrongness. In doing so, it's amazing how fast you actual look forward to being wrong, as opposed to fearing it as the great unknown. Because man, I gotta tell you, we all screw up big and it's a shame that more people can't enjoy it when they're the guilty party.

Okay, so first of all, I don't know who uses the services of these individuals, since I can understand if you're into women, then you use female hookers and if you're into men, then you use male hookers. Why someone would want an individual tha tlooks like a woman, but is really a man is beyond my comprehension, but hey, I don't swing that way, so it's all okay.       At any rate, I had another bump in with one of them the other night as I was sitting down in my apartment lobby, swiping internet from an open wireless connection at the cafe across the street. There I was, minding my own business, when this large, ornately dressed "woman" comes up to the keypad at the entry and starts punching in random numbers. He/she was obviouslyu very spun out on some kind of drug. He/she also noticed me, sitting there after about five minutes of punching buttons and said in a dark brown voice, "Hello there." I didn't answer. The dark brown voice thing always gets me and scares the hell out of me. The eyes are saying, "Well, that looks like a woman" while the ears are saying, "You know, that really sounds like a man." and then the brain eventually gets freaked out and does any normal brain would do and tells the feet to get the hell out of there.       He/she went away after a bit more banging on the keypad. The numbers on the pad happen to be listed right above it with names, so it was kinda weird that he/she was doing that, but so goes life in San Francisco when you live two blocks away from what must be the Transvestite Hooker Mecca of the known world.