After going to happy hour and then dinner, Brian, Michael and I hit the Metro to head to our respective homes. I was originally going to catch the bus, but when I found out not only that I’d have a long wait but that Hanna was fast approaching, I opted for the train as well. I met up with them only a little dampened.

While we were on the train, the three of us caught some strange activity behind us. A couple of people were standing between the windscreens by one of the doorways at the head of the car. We presumed they didn’t know each other. One of them leaned against one of the windscreens. The other had a large umbrella and he had visible trouble closing it.

In his attempt to close it, he bent down in front of the first guy in a rather suggestive manner, leading me into a massive fit of giggles. It didn’t help that only 20 minutes earlier, we were talking about my recent word find in PathWords.

At any rate, I was intent on catching a cab at Union Station, and as luck would have it, two Amtrak trains arrived the same time I did. The line for cabs was far too long to make the wait worth it, so I opted for the bus.

Since it was raining thanks to Hanna, I devised a plan. I’d stay under shelter at Union Station until my bus was slated to arrive. When I saw a bus from my vantage point, I got myself across the street to the stop as quickly as I could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one I needed. I got thoroughly soaked on the way. Five minutes later, my bus did arrive.

Oh, and by then the rain had stopped.

Once I got home, I stripped off my wet clothes and hung them to dry. This morning I found them tossed onto the floor, I presume by whomever took a shower between the time I got home and the time I woke up. They wouldn’t have fallen where I found them on their own.

And they were still wet.

I’m due to work at the Fruit Stand today, so hopefully I won’t get too wet along the way.

Normally, the music videos I post here on Friday nights are ones that I dig, either because of the artist, the song, or the video concept. This doesn’t fall into any of those categories. But with MTV’s 25th annual Video Music Awards show coming this Sunday night, I thought it might be appropriate to show the first Video of the Year winner. From 1984, this is the Cars with “You Might Think.”

Other contenders in this category in 1984: Herbie Hancock, “Rockit”; Michael Jackson, “Thriller”; Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”; and the Police, “Every Breath You Take.”

After Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech last night at the Republican National Convention, the Associated Press took her — and her party — to task for some of the things they said during this campaign. The first thing they mythbust was her alleged lack of support for the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere.”

PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”

Way to bend the truth.

Image Photoshopped by me.

A very cool animation of a Nikon D3’s shutter release in slow-motion. (via Daring Fireball)

My day’s off to a rousing start already. Let’s see… I woke up late… I missed the 9 a.m. bus and decided to make breakfast… an egg and an English muffin… egg was frozen… ate the muffin anyway… headed out for the next bus… bus came and I realized my wallet — with my farecard — was still at home… so now I have 15 minutes to kill.

Sigh.

I have an email address on file with nearly every service and vendor I use. (Thank goodness for the feature on Gmail that allows me to append +whatever to my user name!)

Every now and then, one of these yahoos sends me an email that makes me scratch my head, like the one from BMG Music dated August 11.

Now, first of all, I’m not exactly what you’d call a fan of country music. Sure, there are a few songs here and there that I like, but overall I find country music obnoxious and twangy, and it’s not something I go out of my way to enjoy. Further, in my umpteen years as a BMG member, I have not once ordered any CD even closely resembling country music. How they concluded that I not only like country music, but that I get a chubby for Toby Keith (*shudder*) is beyond me.

This was preceded only a couple of days earlier by an email I received from Dish Network reminding me about the then-forthcoming Olympics. In Korean.

Baffled, I shot off a quick note to Dish to ask them why I got an email composed in Korean. I even touched on the fact that the text wasn’t even set as text, but as a graphic which is generally a no-no. I received a response from a Michelle C.

Thank you for your e-mail. We apologize for the inconvenience. The problem has been identified and will be rectified.

Um. Okay.

And really, this is nothing. What offends me more are the assumptions companies make about me solely based on my last name, which is obviously Spanish in origin. This probably wouldn’t be such a big deal if I actually spoke Spanish. Since I don’t, their assumptions become increasingly annoying.

Sometimes, on calls to vendors I (or someone calling on my behalf when I’m not able to for whatever reason) will get transferred to a Spanish-speaking representative when I gave no indication otherwise that I need to speak to one.

Until a few months ago, I received offers written entirely in Spanish for credit cards and other services. Last month, I received a subscription to Hispanic Magazine, which greeted me with a “Thanks for requesting your subscription” message attached to the first issue.

I never requested it. I stopped subscribing to magazines about a year ago.

When I was in college and selected my courses, I was required to pick a foreign language course. I picked an intermediate Spanish course to pick up where I left off in high school. The school placed me in a native speaker’s course which I barely passed in the fall and dropped out of in the spring (and then mostly because the professor was a dick).

Despite reminders to them to the contrary, it happens all the time. Sometimes, that makes me feel out of touch, and I really don’t think I’m that off.

After reading something that left me somewhere between disappointed and upset, I was distracted to the point that I couldn’t even concentrate. The bulk of my workday had already been rather blah and that didn’t help any. I decided to forgo my lunch hour and take a walk to clear my head, or at least sort things out. (And let it be said that this exhibits an even further lack of judgment on my part, as it’s 93° outside and thanks to the requirements of my employer, I’m not in suitable/comfortable summertime walking attire.)

Anyway, I noticed some things along the way that I thought were interesting or odd, and as such I should document it. I hadn’t planned on snapping pictures, so I left my pocket camera in my messenger bag at the office. Fortunately, I had my phone with me and took photos with it, including the one above. Seeing the fence and the caution tape reminded me that no matter how disappointed I am or how bad I think I have it, there’s always someone else who is worse off.

It’s all about perspective… but I’m still disappointed.

Since I spent a considerable amount of time blogging election-related stuff during the Dem’s convention last week, it only seems fair that I pay some attention to election-related stuff on the GOP side, right? Um. Yeah. Okay.

Anyway, as if it was going to be a big surprise or something, the Log Cabin Republicans officially endorsed the McCain/Palin ticket. I think a bigger surprise came four years ago when they actually didn’t endorse anyone for president. They actually recognized in 2004 that their party’s candidate was not good for the LGBT community at large.

Um, neither is the candidate in ‘08. Just sayin’.

My T-shirt addiction continues.

While I’m still awaiting the arrival of several shirts from Woot (at least two should have been here by now), Threadless came through with a couple of new shirts I picked up on sale last week. Of the two, I’m most excited about the brown one that says, “Miss Scarlet. In the Hall. With a revolver.”

This is especially true after recent news about the forthcoming changes to the classic Clue board game.

In a world where a movie trailer voiceover artist became a pop culture icon, Don LaFontaine passed away yesterday, just days after his 68th birthday.

Below is his appearance in a recent GEICO commercial.

My cat Petunia has a thing for sunning herself.

From the moment the sun rises, she gets herself over to a sunbeam filtering it’s way through a window. She starts in the dining room, in the back of the house, where the uncurtained windows allow light to splash down onto the floor. She’ll stay there for extended periods of time. That is, unless someone comes down to that level and then she gets up and makes a beeline for her food bowl. At that point, she circles around until she’s either fed or petted.

Eventually, the sun makes its way to the front of the house, its beams of light poking through blinds and curtains and window clings that offer privacy. With a window fan exhausting warm, stagnant air out of the bathroom, more light comes in and lands on the bathmat, where I found Petunia yesterday, sunning herself.

Two slices of New Haven style apizza and a pint of hard cider at Pete’s in Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C. (Photo: FredoAlvarez [flickr])

Despite my (thus far) 16-year stint in the D.C. metro area, I still consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker. Before my boss — also a native of the Big Apple — took off for maternity leave, we talked about the deli down the street from our office, and how they have some of the best bagels either of us have ever found in D.C.

I later found out from the owner of the deli that the bagels are delivered every morning from New York.

And as a native New Yorker, I’m also kinda particular about another food item: pizza. New York style pizza has always been a favorite of mine. A crust that’s thin, but not too thin. Crispy but still flexible. A lip that makes holding the pizza easy.

It wasn’t until after I met my ex that I was introduced to New Haven style pizza. Correction, apizza (pronounced ah-beets). The crust is thinner. There’s more olive oil involved. It’s good, but in my mind it never stacked up to my beloved New York style pies.

After a few hours of shopping in Columbia Heights yesterday afternoon, I decided to stop somewhere for a snack before I headed downtown. I’d heard about Pete’s New Haven Style Apizza from a couple of people — the ex included — and figured I’d stop in for a slice.

I wound up ordering two and a pint of hard cider. Much to my chagrin, I enjoyed it. Like, really enjoyed it. I’ve had pizza from several different joints in D.C. — chain and independent alike — and the slices I had at Pete’s were the best I’d had anywhere in D.C.

The ex is gonna give me a lot of shit for this entry. He’s from New Haven — the “center of the universe” as I sarcastically referred to it for years.

Of course, someone else gave me shit for this already, but for a totally different reason. He lives nearby and I didn’t contact him directly to find out if he was doing anything and wanted to grab a bite. I hadn’t originally planned to go to Columbia Heights, but I still could’ve made the effort.

At any rate, Pete’s is up for a second visit from me. Maybe next Sunday.

A chart on Things to Say During Sex; also includes things to not say. For example, “You like that?” would be a good thing to ask. “You wanna suck that shit?” wouldn’t. (via Fleshbot, …was i there?, et al.)

I never thought it possible, but there really is an actual human being that resembles Butt-Head from “Beavis & Butt-Head.”

Update: And it was totally Photoshopped.

Obama Boxer Briefs, designed by Andrew Christian. A portion of the profits goes to Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Um, yeah.

As I watched yesterday’s events at the Democratic National Convention on TV, various songs played during the long stretches between speakers or other performers who took the stage. One of the songs played was “Move Along” by the All-American Rejects, a song I’ve been rather getting into lately.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that a lot of people were surprised by Sen. John McCain’s pick for vice-president, Gov. Sarah Palin, myself included. Frankly, I’d never heard of the woman until this morning when I saw friends on both facebook and twitter call her as his veep pick.

The Log Cabin Republicans, the LGBT Republican organization, had this to say about Palin:

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin can help Sen. McCain win this election by appealing to independent and young voters. She’s a mainstream Republican who will unite the Party and serve John McCain well as Vice President.

Wait, hang on. The GOP was divided on something? Zuh?!

Further:

Gov. Palin is an inclusive Republican who will help Sen. McCain appeal to gay and lesbian voters.

I’m guessing that’s not because of her stance on marriage equality. (She’s against it.) Maybe it’s because she bears a resemblance to our favorite hard-drinking, pill-popping gal pal TV character: Karen Walker from “Will & Grace.”

She also seems to resemble Tina Fey, whom I don’t really have much of an opinion on.

Either way, I smell a candidate for Totally Looks Like….

In a move that looks like it’s meant to draw the Hillary Clinton supporters who don’t want to vote for Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She is the second female ever selected to run for vice-president; the first was Geraldine Ferraro who ran with Walter Mondale on the Democratic ticket in 1984.

A few friends of mine called it earlier. Holy Hell!

Here’s something that’s not really election news, but it amused me enough to want to share it with you.

(via telemann)

From the same shelter that brought us Prince (neé Princess) Chunk comes Shamu, a portly black and white cat weighing in at 35 pounds.