Totally Random

The mail brought some surprises, one expected and one totally not. I got sent a copy of Monster, a book by John Dunne recounting the period when he and Joan Didion were writing a screenplay based on the life of Jessica Savitch. It should dovetail nicely with my just digested helping of Magical Thinking. Which, by the way, now that I finished I recommend highly if you haven't read it. She's a no-nonsense writer, so I was surprised to find out she was born and lived for most of her life on the west coast. I would have guessed New England based on her economy of words. I have found that west coast writers are usually more decorative. The book was the expected surprise.

Last week I was having a conversation with my father in which he related he had a bit of a windfall courtesy of the Casino Niagara. It wasn't a life-changer, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 3K. Which is a neighborhood I rarely visit. Of course, I immediately asked where my cut was. I was joking, he laughed and we moved on. So imagine my surprise on Friday when I opened the mail and found a card from the parents for no apparent reason. Inside was a check and a note:

"This check is from Dad, as your cut of his winnings!! He wants to make sure you buy your TV with it."

I had related to my father on several phone calls that I have begun saving money for a new TV. My old TV works perfectly well, but it's one of the bulky older ones and only 20". I've been feeling TV deprived, and now that a decent sized LCD flat screen can be found for well under $500 I thought it was finally in my price range. My dad decided to speed up the process, claiming that he would have ended up giving it back at the casino if he didn't give some to me. Not a gesture I'm accustomed to from my parents, which of course made it even more amazing. I did briefly consider getting completely caught up on all my bills with the money, but if dad is going to make a grand gesture and tell me to buy a TV, then by god a TV is what I'll buy!

And in keeping with the theme of today's post, yesterday I left my house to get some brunch and a newspaper. As soon as I walked out my front door, who did I spot strolling by but Academy Award winning actress Susan Sarandon. We had a moment. Our eyes locked. Our non-verbal conversation went something like this:

"Hey, it's Academy Award winning actress Susan Sarandon!"

"Yes, it's me, and I see that you know it's me but it's Sunday afternoon and I'm just walking by like normal."

"I understand, Susan Sarandon, I won't bother you or stop you for an autograph. Mostly because I don't ask for autographs. I think they're stupid."

"OK then."

"OK bye, Susan Sarandon."

And with that we both went on our way.

Graphically Enhanced

My desktop upgrade is officially complete. It took me over a week, but I finally installed and enabled the graphics card, which was the last component in the upgrade. This should hold me from needing a new desktop for well over a year, and I've made my computer compatible with the new Microsoft operating system, which I've been running anyway for over a month. Now I'll be spending the next few weeks figuring out what the OS can do, as well as tweaking the settings on my graphics card. It does things. Things that I don't understand yet.

I initially ordered the wrong card for my system, my confusion as always has to do with the fact that I'm using an "off brand" computer, so you can't simply look up your manufacturer and motherboard and know what you need to order. It can be a little more trial and error. Once I doped out the card I thought I needed I had to re-order and return the old card. Once the card came I installed it, and my computer told me it found and installed new hardware. Maybe, but my system didn't improve, my graphics didn't get appreciably better, and if anything my Slingbox was acting worse than before. So no TV in the bedroom and even worse, no porn. This was intolerable.

Today I started investigating and finally got the bright idea to install the drivers that came with the hardware, rather than the drivers the web-site told me would work. As a matter of fact I downloaded and installed every driver I could find that even seemed remotely like I needed it. I'm not even sure which one finally took but suddenly an installation prompt showed up and I hit "yes, please" and in about 30 seconds my graphics card was enabled. I spent the rest of the day testing out games and checking my Slingbox settings, before popping out for a meeting with my HIV+ support group and then to Gay-A.

Among the many topics me and the POZZIES covered was the news out of Thailand that a "HIV vaccine" (if you want to call it that) has shown limited promise in preventing people from getting the virus. I couldn't help wondering if this wouldn't make the Us VS. Them (positive VS. negative) chasm even wider. Will a vaccine for HIV make the stigma that positive people experience even worse?

These Bananas Are Buh-Nanas

Rachel Zoe reminds me of my former boss, Jen Worthington. I spent about a year and a half of my life pretending like I liked her. In reality, I thought she was a pretty awful human being. And I was completely baffled as to how she had managed to have an amazingly successful career at such a young age. The only thing I could figure was that she must have learned how to give an awesome blowjob. Anyway, because I don't particularly like one, I find I can't watch the other for more than a couple of minutes without getting aggravated. Still, this video impersonation is riotously funny.

Here's Something Odd

I seem to be in a sudden period of middle aged attractiveness. First, it was last week and I was at the Barnes & Noble buying a really bad "book" (that would be Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking -don't buy it, it's crap, and I could just tell you a better story in the short time it takes to read it cover to cover- which for me was two subway rides). Carrie Fisher owes me $14. I also bought The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and I am completely absorbed in it. I have actually folded the book away a couple of times to savor it a bit longer. Anyway I got seriously cruised by a really attractive man, who I caught looking at me like I was a pork chop and he hadn't eaten in days. And this was by the autobiography table and not the usually cruisy Gay section. I was surprised and then flattered and I briefly considered heading for the Men's room, where I've read (I said read) that some assignation's of the carnal variety have been known to break out. But I had somewhere I needed to be (I KNOW!) and decided against it. Instead I smiled and tightened up my butt cheeks as I headed out the door.

A couple of days later I was heading up the escalator of the PATH train in New Jersey, on my way to my unexpectedly better paying (lately) job when I looked over at the man heading the opposite way. I caught him mid-stare as he gave me a serious "how yu doin'?", and I'm ashamed to admit I went all bitchy homo on him and looked away as if I get eye-fucked all the time and I was rather bored with the attention. Inside I was staring to wonder if the 13 or so pounds I lost was starting to show.

So then mid-week last week I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised when a very nice looking man at my gym stuck his finger up my butt and gave me a hand-job. And nothing says I think you're attractive like a reach-around from a stranger.

Save Your E-Mails, It's Funny

All Hail King Douche!

And with that Kanye West bumps Jon Gosselin off the podium as the current biggest douchebag in America. I would say I would never buy his music again but I never so much as downloaded for free any of his "auto-tune" garbage. Time's up you egocentric hack.

8 Years Later

World Trade Center (One World Trade Center site)

As Promised

Friday afternoon I spent an enjoyable hour and a half doing a photo shoot. I haven't had as much time lately to schedule these things, and finding willing models is never easy, especially considering I don't have a studio and I'm not technically a "professional" photographer. Although as a hobbyist, I think I take some pretty pictures on occasion. Especially when the subject is an absolutely stunning specimen like the man I was lucky enough to find on this day. Really nice, easy to work with, gorgeous skin color and to top it all off, a beautiful apartment with lots of great natural light to shoot in. Oh, and if you really want to hate him, he had a really big fat hard cock that sprang up as soon as he got naked. Very distracting but I managed to soldier on. I promised him I wouldn't show his face, so I ended up shooting a lot of him from the neck down. A full body shot will grace one of the walls in my bedroom as soon as I find the the time to edit everything down and have it printed and framed. He was that gorgeous.

Upgrade In Progress

Almost done with upgrading my entire desktop system. The most expensive item was the new wide-screen monitor. It doubles as a TV and DVD screen, which I can now see very clearly while laying in bed, so when the mood strikes me I can pop in a movie before nodding off to sleep.

I also finally figured out which RAM I needed to purchase that would fit my motherboard, and last week after it arrived I installed it in under five minutes. My desktop has 2GB of RAM now, which is more than enough to run the new OS ...

Windows 7. A copy of which I obtained all free and legal like from Microsoft. It's the almost ready pre-release, but damned if I know what's missing from the final product, or what the bugs are because I haven't found any. I downloaded all my photos (over 2000 images - not all of them mine) to a thumb drive and re-installed them on my clean install. The process wiped away all my folders and categories from the old drive, so I've begun re-sorting every image I have, deleting pictures I've never been happy with and creating files that are more logical, with a separate file of images I absolutely will work on and publish.

Also, the new OS has made my current graphics and video card show it's age, with lots of buffering and dropped frames appearing when I download video or watch TV. So my final upgrade is the purchase of a new graphics card to replace the factory installed version I've been using. It should be here by Thursday, at which point I will have upgraded all the systems on my desktop (including the hard drive and DVD drive) except the processor and motherboard.

Wow. That was geek-a-riffic. I will make it up to you with a little sexy-time tomorrow.

Friday Was A Really Great Day

I'll tell you about it in the morning. I need to get some sleep and be up early. Long day tomorrow, but should be time to blog

UPDATE: Well that turned out to be not true. I was busy with work all day Saturday and only came home around 2AM in time to walk Riley and get back in bed.

Up this morning and unfortunately Riley helped himself to a mouthful of French Bulldog this morning in the dog run. It looks like the Frenchie was unhurt, Riley had him by the face skin, but the little guy screamed like he was being killed. I pulled Riley off the other dog but not before I got bit somehow on the finger. Actually, the bloodiest one in the whole conflict seemed to be me.

Riley never instigates a fight but he will inexplicably join in after it breaks out, and the problem with that is he always always goes right for the neck of the other dog and if he gets a good mouthful he will not let go for anything. I assume that's the pit bull side of him. It was mostly noisy and extremely scary. Of course, five minutes later Riley acted like nothing happened.

Anyway, I wanted to tell all you Star Trek fans to check out the Star Trek Online game that will soon go into Beta release testing. If you want to sign up now, they will be selecting people at random to test early before the open Beta. Here's the notes on the game and what you can look forward to:

"Star Trek Online will be the first AAA MMO to feature space and ground combat at launch. Missions will take you and your friends into the depths of space, across exotic planets, and even inside starships! As the Captain of your very own ship, it's up to you to lead your crew on missions that span a number of locations. You call the shots, no matter where you are. When you're in space, you direct the action - be it in the middle of a high-tension battle, where you can maneuver in 3-D space and fire a vast array of weaponry at your enemies, or as you enter warp to explore parts of the galaxy never before documented. On the ground, you lead your away team across exciting terrain, interacting with allies and battling enemies. Every Captain commands five subordinates on the ground, all of which can be directed to act in any manner you choose".

To which I say: "Pew Pew Pew!"

Hitler=AIDS

World AIDS Day Ad: Hitler from ANIMALnewyork.com on Vimeo.

A Mother's Anguish

But the phone call that Thursday morning wasn't from Matt. It was about him. When the man on the other end of the line announced who he was, an emergency-room doctor from Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, I went numb. I don't remember what he said, or what I did next. I'm not sure whether it was the ringing phone or my subsequent gasp that startled the still-sleeping Dennis. Whatever it was that woke him, Dennis took the phone from me and then, after a seemingly endless silence, made a noise—a sort of helpless and mournful groan—that I'd never heard before and haven't heard since. Coming as it did from my husband, a man whose reserved manner is as typically masculine and Western as his Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, the moan confirmed my worst fears.

Matt had been attacked. He had sustained injuries to his head that were so critical, his chances for survival were nearly impossible.- excerpted from The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed (Hudson River Press) Judy Shepard

America's Best Dance Crew - Week 4

Thing's are not looking too good for our hometown girls, as Ms. Leiomy has a little bit of a Diva fit and sends the rest of the queens into a tizzy. MTV tries to create something out of nothing and runs a package hinting that Leiomy might leave the show. Honey, this is a gay/transgender dance crew from New York City. There would be something seriously wrong if these queens didn't get on each others gay nerves, and it wouldn't be the first time a queen took herself too seriously and threatened to walk off the stage. Not. Gonna. Happen. You turn that camera on and scream "you're on!" and watch a bitch FLY on to that stage. You know how we do ...

If there was any moment of controversy, it was during the judges' comments, when Lil Mama made remarks about Leiomy and how she "is becoming a woman", and should "act like a lady" but then curiously admonishes her not to "be a bird" which I guess is stupid to English for acting all flighty. A lot of people, including some trans bloggers took offense at Lil Mama, saying that Leiomy's gender change shouldn't enter into the comments at all. There was also quite a bit of grumbling that regardless of gender, Lil Mama was reinforcing outdated gender stereotypes.

I just think she's not at all too bright and should avoid making any comments that deviate far from "y'all wuz tight!"

Lil Mama has since hired someone to write an apology using American English words, and she signed her name to it:

"I would like to clarify anything that was misunderstood from Sunday's show. My remarks were never meant to be disrespectful regarding Leiomy's gender nor offensive to the LGBT community, which has been a community that has supported me in all my endeavors. However, in hindsight, I recognize that my words may have come across as hurtful. I spoke with her privately after the taping to express that it was not my intent to offend her or any member of the transgender community and that I still live for Vogue Evolution."

OK, whatev. Still, I think VE needs to tighten up their routines and come up with some much more difficult choreography or they'll be going home whether they are weave-snatchin' backstage or not.

And Updates

I didn't get to a Gay-A meeting and I didn't get to a gym because I picked up more work yesterday today and tomorrow. Which was totally unexpected because usually there is very little event or banquet work the week before a big holiday weekend. And lest I be accused of not liking to work, I happily accepted all of these jobs and wisely opted to jump on some shifts and try and put together a couple of weeks of decent paychecks. It's possible that the agency I work for is being a little nice to me because I let them know I got screwed six ways to Sunday last week, or maybe the Universe is just giving me a little yang to go with my yin.

I had no idea how much I had grown to depend on the now defunct Blooming House Farms until they unexpectedly closed. Yesterday's routine was a series of fits and starts as I wasn't able to run next door for a coffee and newspaper, or chips to go with my sandwich, or V8 and a bagel, or an end of night ice cream bar. Even Riley seemed confused when I didn't stop and tie him to the parking sign out front. I mean, it's certainly not the only place in Manhattan I can buy those things, but it was literally just right there. I had practically worn a path from my front door by now.

I'll adapt.