Is the US following Japan's lead, Lower prices a boon to consumers, but causing headaches for retailers .

"Deflation -- a sustained decline in prices in goods and services -- is a vicious cycle. A sluggish economy forces businesses to reduce prices, which prompts consumers to delay their spending because they believe even better bargains are ahead."

I also read somewhere earlier this week, that the dollar for the first time in years was worth less than a dollar. How that is possible, I don't know. I'll try to find the article and post it.

There are For Rent signs all over San Francisco. I heard some media financial gurus interviewed on the radio on Tueday, The Dolans, and they said that they expect the market to go even lower. The Dolans said there are two many people still in the market, with dwindling stock portfolios, and at some point they will panic and take their money out to prevent any more losses. The Dolans warned that if you're still in the market, you would need to stay in for at least 9 years to make your money back. The Dolans themselves got completely out of the stock market two months ago.

My IRA is safely in money markets, but my smaller 401(k) at work is in stocks. I'd like to pull the money out of my 401(k) as well, but I think I may have missed my window of opportunity. I should have pulled out when the market was at 9,000. I would have lost money anyway, since I started putting money in my 401(k) during the summer of 2000. So much for the theory of dollar cost averaging I spaced this one out. The amount always looked okay to me, because my company was matching my amounts. SPACE CADET!!!

I doubt I will be working at my current company in 9 years, and I need to research if I can leave my money in fund if I leave the company. My 401(k) is at Fidelity, and I would love to keep my money there. I think the market may tick up at the end of February, and if it does, I might get out and take the loss. When the market does go lower, I'll go back into stocks and get some major bargains.

This is the Superbowl theory of the stock market. If the AFC wins the superbowl, the market goes down. If the NFC wins, the markets go up. Since NFC team Tampa Bay won, let's hope the theory holds, at least until I can move my money to money markets.

A scary article, Drug-resistant staph infections breaks out among L.A. County gays. The radio news is reporting today that this staph infection can now also been in gay men in San Francisco. What is going on, and why does it seem to only be attacking gay men?

I love this song. It's so airy, fairy, so bubblegummy, but every time I hear the lyrics it makes me smile.

Breathe In by Frou Frou

I read you and God I'm good at it I'm so spot on
Chord shapes in air go press that dissonance if you dare
And you breathing in finesse an innocent
From her partying

And I'm high enough from all the waiting
To ride a wave on your inhaling
And I'm high enough from all the waiting
To ride a wave on your inhaling
'Cause I love you no?
Can't help but love, you know...

What part of no don't you understand I've told you before
To just get off my case this isn't happening stop this now
And I where was I? I have to be somewhere
Now where did I put it?

And I'm high enough from all the waiting
To ride a wave on your inhaling
And I'm high enough from all the waiting
To ride a wave on your inhaling
'Cause I love you no?
Can't help but love you, no...

Is this it is this it is this it?

Yes hello we're back and we're taking calls
Now what was the question?

And I'm high enough from all the waiting
To ride a wave on your inhaling
And I'm high enough from all the waiting
To ride a wave on your inhaling
'Cause I love you no?
Can't help but love you, no...

I saw another great movie last week called "Requiem for a Dream". Here's another "Pulp Fiction" reference. I thought that "Pulp Fiction" had some of the best scenes showing how drugs get into your system, but Requiem does them better. I'm not sure if Requiem stole it from Pulp, since it's been awhile since I've seen that movie, but the scenes seem similar.

"Requiem for a Dream" is the best movie I've seen on drug addiction, and how and why people get into it. Ellen Burstyn was amazing, and I can why she got nominated for Best Actress the year the movie came out. The movie also features a very young looking, thin and flat chested Jennifer Connelly. Maybe all those rumors about her fake rack are true, because she did not have one in this movie.

Requiem showed quite convincingly I think, that people always take drugs for emotional reasons. Either they're lonely, they're bored, they're looking for fun, they're looking for something that's missing in their environment or inside of themselves. Then like most things in life, if drug addiction could be plotted on a graph, it would resemble a bell curve.

Somewhere at the top of the bell curve is the point at which you pass from emotional need and into physical need. Alcohol addiction happens the same way, by the way, and yes, I did see it plotted on a graph too. For every person, the point at which you pass from emotional to physical addiction is different, but for all once you pass the "point of no return" there's no going back.

The movie showed cost of the physical addictions as well, and how it sneaks up on you. But the movie also showed how for awhile, the drugs do fill the void, maybe not for very long, but they do fill the void. And this is why drugs can be so very dangerous; they work. Drugs fill voids like nothing else, and they do it very well, and they fool you into thinking they will the void forever. But it's a lie, and they don't. The drugs end up filling up the emotional void, but then they create a physical void that only more drugs can fill. This is how drugs seduce you, trap you, enslave you, till I think you get to the point where you wonder if the emotional void you thought was hell wasn't as bad compared to the physical hell of the drug void. Do drug addicts wonder about this irony?

I rented the movie from Blockbuster, and it said it was the edited version. The movie was quite graphic, so I'm curious now about the unedited version. I may try to rent it from somewhere else just to compare.

The guy who cowrote the screenplay for Requiem, wrote the book as well, and I'm curious to see how the book compares to the movie. The movie spooked me about drug addiction, but I've been spooked in reality before, so I could definitely relate. Would the movie spook other people as well, who haven't tasted what drug addiction could be like? Somehow I doubt it.

There is no way to describe the depths of an emotional void and how you will do anything to fill it, if you haven't experienced it for yourself. For every person it's so different. Some people have very shallow emotional voids, others are quite deep. I'm not sure which ones are the lucky ones. Some people also have an amazing tolerance for drugs, and others can get hooked after a few times. The results however, no matter how fast or slow you get there, are the same.

I saw American Buffalo last Thursday at ACT. I read the play in college, and saw a production of it years ago, and seeing it again reminds me that a great play is timeless no matter when you see it.

First of all, there is the classic David Mamet full of foul language dialogue. The dialogue was radical when Mamet wrote it in the 1970's, and now it just makes the audience laugh. Think of Good Fellas or any mob Joe Pesci character, and you've got classic David Mamet dialogue. Think of the some of the great "Pulp Fiction" dialogue that Quentin Tarantino wrote, and how the gangsters were so angsty and into discovering themselves, and you realize that Tarantino ripped it from Mamet almost 25 years later.

Secondly, the acting was amazing. Marco Barricelli was perfect as Teach, and gave this almost lovable and sexy low life character a tangible desperate energy. He reminded me of Sean Penn's energy when I saw him on stage a couple of years ago. Matt DeCari as Donnie Dubrow was also terrific, and boy did he nail that chicago flat A accent. Damon Seawell as Bob was also very good, and I liked how he gave his character all the tell tale signs of an addict like rubbing your arms because you've got the skin crawlies.

Finally, I'm not sure if Mamet invented low life characters as worthy entertainment, but he sure perfected it in this play. Half way through the play, I realized that these guys were total losers, total low lifes, and I started asking myself why am I am watching these people. Then almost immediately, it hit me that Teach reminded me a guy I dated 8 years ago. There is nothing like recognizing that one of your ex boyfriends resembles a low life character you're watching in a play. I started to understand that these low life characters are quite universal, and that despite their income level, you end up relating to them or finding yourself in them.

I started to wonder if I was like Teach, a person who is always dreaming, always looking for the next big thing, pretty full of themselves, silly sometimes even, and most importantly pathetic. I don't know. I think there might be a little Teach in all of us. Who isn't out there dreaming of the next big thing, not ever satisfied with their life, thinking there might be something better out there for us, thinking (no matter how small the thought) that that world just doesn't treat us the right way? I know

I know I think like Teach sometimes. Sometimes I get in a bitter mood, and I rail against the world and my circumstances. I hate when I do that, but it happens. And yes, when I'm bitter, I feel really pathetic, suicidal sometimes. Thankfully, the bitterness moods are few and far between, but I know I've experienced them and American Buffalo reminded me of what they're like.

Maybe that's what the best plays do. They put you in touch with a part of yourself you don't like, would like to forget, wished you could forget, are in denial about, but which you ultimately know is part of your own personal experience, and part of the human condition as well.

I slept all morning, and then woke up bored and hungry. Since I've been sleeping non stop practically since 2 pm yesterday and not eating, I helped myself to a bowl of vanilla ice cream by Dreyer's Dreamery and low fat Smucker's chocolate sauce. Yummy!

The ice cream stayed down and didn't upset my stomach, so I guess this means whatever bug has been attacking my system is now gone. It's either that, or the flu bug loves ice cream.

Then I decided to load Turbo Tax on my computer and start on my taxes. I made a ton of charitable contributions this year and gave away a bunch of stuff, so I'm getting a huge tax refund. YEAH!!! Now I just have to figure out what to do with the extra money. I'm tempted to put the money towards paying off some debt, but another part of me is saying no, spend it on something you've always wanted like a laptop. I have money to buy a used laptop. I couldn't get a 3-4 pound laptop that I've been wanting with a new chip, but I could get a decent 5 pound laptop, with a decent chip brain. It's tempting, very tempting.

There are other things I could also buy like a new ring for my right hand. I had to give my pretty blue topaz ring away to a friend of mine, since I suddenly became allergic to it. Then there's those Dansko Mary Jane shoes I've been dying to have.

It's nice to have a huge tax refund, but I'm only getting it because I donated and gave away more than the standard deduction. If you don't own a property or a business like me, the only tax breaks most people have left, taxes totally kill you. I had charitable contributions of almost $700 last year, and still it wasn't enough to get me past the standard deduction. I hate that!

I'm taking a sick day today, and I'm at home. I should have taken a sick day yesterday, but I went in and ended up leaving at 1 pm. My body is fighting some kind of flu, I think. I'm getting the chills, I'm sweating, and my tummy is cramping. Since I've been trying to beef up my immune system, I don't get normal flus or viruses, I get them in halves. When I had the Norwalk virus, I went to the bathroom a lot, but I wasn't throwing up or feverish. The last time the flu went around the office, I got a stomach thing, but no runny nose or other cold symptoms.

I mean, I'm glad my body is working to fight off illnesses, but since I only get half the symptoms, it's hard to diagnose what is ailing me. Oh well. At least it's not a full blow nasty flu; those are the worst.

A weird thing happened to me on Friday night, January 24. I fell asleep listening to a radio program on KSFO, Coast to Coast, and woke up to hear this different talk show host talking about Covenant Network. The executive director of Covenant Network is a member of my church, and she's in my Kerygma bible class on Wednesdays. I was on a committee with her for a year, and have known her for several years. She's a Wellesley grad, was a college classmate of Hilary Rodham Clinton, and I think she used to be a book editor at Random House.

It's so weird to hear my friend's organization talked about on the radio. The conservative radio talk show host was talking about a couple of presbyterian churches in Hayward and Castro Valley inviting a transgender presbyterian minister from Georgia to talk to them, so they could have a greater understanding of transgender people and issues since the slaying of Eddie "Gwen" Araujo Jr. -- the 17-year-old transgender teen slain last October. I guess Covenant Network helped to sponsor the event or something.

From the Covenant Network website, here's what they're about.

"The Covenant Network of Presbyterians is a broad-based, national group of clergy and lay leaders working for a church that is simultaneously faithful, just, and whole. We seek to support the mission and unity of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in a time of potentially divisive controversy. We intend to articulate and act on the church's historic, progressive vision and to work for a fully inclusive church.

We seek to live out the Reformed faith found in Scripture and our confessions, and in our life together to follow the principles laid out in the Call to Covenant Community. We strive to proclaim and embody the gospel as we have learned it from the life and ministry of Jesus; we affirm the centrality of the Bible in our church; and we value the dynamic tension between unity and diversity. The Call to Covenant Community has been affirmed by more than 2,500 ministers, 2,000 other officers, 19 former Moderators, 300+ sessions, five presbyteries, and the Synod of Lakes and Prairies.

Covenant Network was founded in August, 1997 to support the passage of Amendment (97)-A, the "Fidelity and Integrity Amendment." Its founding Co-Moderators were Robert Bohl, Pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas and Moderator of the 206th General Assembly, and John Buchanan, Co-Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago and Moderator of the 208th General Assembly."

It's strange to have one's personal life and a hot news topic come together on a conservative talk show program in the wee hours of the morning.

On Thursday, January 23, I took advantage of Dine About Town and had dinner at the Pacific Restaurant at the Pan Pacific Hotel. The restaurant had decent reviews on CitySearch, and since I've been curious about what the inside of the Pan Pacific Hotel looked like, I booked a reservation.

First of all, the restaurant is way overpriced. Entrees were in the $20's, which is high considering the quality of the food is average. I thought the food was similar to the Daily Grill, which is much cheaper. I had the salmon, and it was drowning in oil. The Daily Grill serves their fish this way too. I know some people like their fish drizzled in olive oil, but I find this technique unimaginative and so five years ago.

Secondly, since the restaurant is overpriced, the place was empty yet the hotel was overflowing with guests. Usually hotel restaurants are full of hotel guests, because it's convenient and a guest can charge the food to their room. I don't know if the restaurant was empty because of the bad economy and the visitors are watching their pennies carefully, or that even the out of town visitors knew the restaurant was no bargain.

The only saving grace of the restaurant for me was listening to the few diners that were there. A beautiful, immmaculately coiffed white haired woman was sitting a few tables from me. She looked like one of those older society matron types, with her Bottega Vanetta bag, her silk shirtwaist dress that perfectly matched her green eyes, her rings, her double strand huge baroque pearls and the fine italian wool navy blue blazer with the gold buttons. The silk dress was definitely designer or off the rack designer, probably bought sometime in the 70's, but which still looked timeless and classic.

The society matron had beautiful unlined skin, and was still very thin, but she had all the tell tale signs of old age; arthritic looking age spotted hands, severe lines around the mouth, a crepey neck, clouded eyes, stained teeth, bad eyesight, and of course the lifeless white hair. However beneath the ravages of age, you could telll that this woman was quite the refined blonde bombshell in her youth.

The society matron was crying and telling the french waiter that his accent reminded her of her french husband. She had lived in France with her husband during world war 2, and had kept a journal of her experiences for her grandsons to read. The woman's husband's family had been in banking, and they were killed by the Nazis during the war because they had refused to give up the combinations to the vaults.

The french waiter told the society matron that while he was growing up was Lyon, he had met an old man who told him a story about the Nazi occupation of Lyon that he witnessed. Apparently, there was a Nazi in Lyon nicknamed "the butcher of Lyon". This Nazi, whom the waiter said was caught 10 years ago, had sent a whole school of 40 children to their death at Auschwitz.

Great story huh? The society matron knew all the waiters and they knew her, which must mean she's a regular eater there. I love hearing people's stories. Everyone has such an interesting story to tell, and if you just shut up and listen, you'll discover whole new worlds.

Tomorrow, my review of American Buffalo.

I wonder what would happen if the White House were to show the world evidence that Iraq has biological and chemical weapons. Personally, I think it would cause mass hysteria and panic around the country and people would be freaking out. I know I would. Is that why Bush isn't showing us the evidence?

Some people are saying that if Clinton was in Bush's position, there wouldn't be as much opposition from the left. I wonder about that too sometimes. When Clinton was in office, we sent troops into the Baltic regions and no one said anything. Hmmm.

It's been a whirlwind four days, with my birthday on Friday and then having an event planned every day since Thursday, that I haven't had the time or energy to blog.

But first with Sunday's news. Yes, I am bummed about the Oakland Raiders losing. I thought for sure they would win by a touchdown, but the Tampa Bay defense was strong and Rich Gannon and the Oakland offense never could find their rhythm. Weird thing too, with the center being sent home. No one on the team will admit that this incident made them lose the game, but it's got to have been a distraction. Not sure if I even heard what the real story was on the center, but I'm sure the news will come out soon enough.

So damn! This is the second San Francisco Bay Area team this year to make it a sport championship final, and then bomb out at the end. The SF Giants lost to the Anaheim Angels, when in game 6 it looked they had it all wrapped up, and now the Oakland Raiders, who were a 3.5 point favorite to win, get stuffed in the superbowl. Bummer, bummer, bummer!

I liked that Oakland Raider was full of veterans and older players, or as the media dubbed them "football senior citizens". I wanted Oakland to win, to make a statement that just because you're old doesn't mean you can't play. I didn't want Tampa Bay to win, beause it sends the message out to everyone, that if you've got enough money and are willing to give up draft picks, you can buy a coach and win a superbowl. It's the New York Yankees style of winning championships, and I didn't want the same thing to happen to football. But it did, and that's too bad.

Thank god, football has a salary cap, so the George Steinbrenner school of winning championships can't infect football entirely. But because of salary cap, most of the Raider players will be gone next season, since the Raider will be seriously over the salary cap next year. Oh well. Al Davis did get spectacular draft picks in giving up John Gruden, so they'll be able to rebuild the team that way.

I think the Raiders lost because Al Davis has so much bad karma with the NFL. He's still in lawsuit with the NFL and with the City of Oakland as well.

Someone in the NFL office must really be a big Sting fan, since he appeared again. I loved Santana's appearance and No Doubt, and even Shania Twain. But Sting? Come on. I mean, I love Bon Jovi, but I can't believe they're playing at some other big event on TV. And why wasn't there any rap/hip hop acts like Nelly? Guess the NFL front office doesn't listen to the music that most of their players listen too or believes in variety in their acts.

I did love the way the Dixie chicks sang the national anthem, but I'm a Dixie Chicks fan. I kind of liked the spoof of the Bud Light two girls fighting commercial down the "The Practice". I think it only came on once, and it was funny. Then there's the visa check card commercial with Rondi and Tiki Barber, such cuties, where Rondi has a visa check card and the checkout girl makes the observation that Rondi is the one in the superbowl and Tiki isn't, because he's the one who uses check. Funny. The Ozzy Osbourne commercial was funny, but Pepsi Twist does not taste good. I wonder how much Pepsi paid all those people to be in that ad.

More later on Thursday's events - I went to see "American Buffalo" at ACT and ate at the Pacific Restaurant the Pan Pacific Hotel, Friday's events - I watched "Lilo and Stitch" and "Gangs of New York" and ate at One Market and at a Singapore/Malaysian/Thai restaurant, and Saturday's events - I went to a lecture on Tibetan art, wondered through a Chinatown street fair and saw "LOTR-The Two Towers." Like I said, it was a busy four days.

Here's an editorial on the US and Iraq from Arab News, Saudi Arabia's First English Daily, Editorial: Iraq and US. The media is Saudi controlled, but it's interesting that the writer says that perhaps the best way to keep Saddam Hussein under control is to have UN weapons inspectors permanently stationed in Iraq. My question is, who is going to fund this solution? Is it the USA, since we fund most of the United Nations expenses anyway? I mean it sounds like a half decent idea, and an alternative to war, but it's logistics of this solution that bothers me.

For the wine readers, I tried Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, on sale at Trader Joe's for $1.99, and it was very good for the price. An article in the SF Chron said people were calling Charles Shaw wine, "Chuck for a Buck". The wine is young and it wasn't as smooth as a more expensive wine, but for a $1.99 it's totally drinkable and a great picnic or every day dinner wine. If I didn't know it cost a $1.99, I'd have guess the cost of the wine to be between $5-15.

Check this link out, Future of Public Interest in the Digital Age at Stake as FCC Proceeds with Plans to End Longstanding Safeguards. The FCC, which is coincidentially chaired by Colin Powell's son, is reviewing the FCC rules which allow how many media stations a company may own in a given market. I think the current number limit is eight, but the buzz on the conspiracy theory radio programs is that the FCC will lift the limits thereby creating media monopolies.

Don't we already have media monopolies on the radio with a company like Clear Channel, which owns a ton of radio stations? If a company like Clear Channel is allowed to own all the sources of media in a market, doesn't that they mean they will control all forms of communication media like radio and TV. This is not good. Of course, the internet is there as a source of alternative information, but I don't like that one company may one day be able to own and control every radio and TV station in a market. Talk about being able to "control the message".

I'm watching American Idol for the first time, and it's a very funny show. I'm watching and listening to these people, and I'm thinking I'm not such a bad singer. I took a semester of singing lessons from a woman who graduated from Julliard, so at least I had some training. Some of those people, I mean, it's amazing, Simon is right; they're really bad.

Just watching the judges' faces during the bad singing is hilarious. It's like watching a torture show, and what's a trip is some of those people don't know they're out of tune, can't carry a tune, or just can't sing period. No wonder it's a hit. It's a riot. A sad riot, but a riot nonetheless.

I've been measuring myself again, and although I seem to be on weight plateau, I've lost an inch off my waist and an inch off my booty. I've had two weightlifting sessions this month, so maybe that's the difference because I've been the same weight for three weeks now.

I'm not freaking out just yet, because I can't complain about an inch loss off my hips and my tummy, but I just wish the scale would move. Maybe my body is shifting again, and my body needs to get caught up. Maybe the weightlifting I've done has added more muscles, and muscles weigh more and that explains the weight plateau. I don't know.

I wonder if I'll lose my hips or are they permanent now. I never used to have them. Hips do make certain types of clothing fit better, like jeans and skirts. With my hips, I can finally wear women's pants. At my thinnest in high school, I could only wear a men's size 29 jeans. They were the only jeans that fit my waist and my hips.

I once had a seamstress friend design a dress for me. When she was draping fabric around my body, she got frustrated and kept saying over and over again that I had no hips to hold the fabric up. But that was when I was younger. Now I have hips galore, and although I'm not very fond of these lumps on the sides of my body, I do like how they make clothes shopping easier.

Not much to say today. I feel all talked out somehow. I did love Bush's line in the news today. "This business about, you know, more time -- you know, how much time do we need to see clearly that he's not disarming? As I said, this looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I'm not interested in watching it. " He sounded irritated in the sound bite, didn't he? I don't blame him though; 11 years is a long time.

Check the out the full text of Bush's comments to reporters, Remarks by the President After Meeting with Economists.

So I'm deciding whether to drop out of my Saturday morning City College of San Francisco yoga class, because the yoga teacher spent about 15 minutes telling people to go to the anti-war rally. I'm like, HELLO! I'm paying you to teach me yoga, not to hear about your politics. I was irritated on Saturday, and my irritation has been building to just downright anger.

I just experienced what the conservatives are saying what's wrong with public education; public school teachers trying to politic in a non-political class. And obviously this woman knows nothing about yoga, because if she did, she would know that her integrity is so off and she's committing an act of bad karma. Her job is to teach yoga, not politics and she's not, and she knows it; that's classic bad karma. She doing something wrong and she knows it. And this woman is going to teach me yoga and its philosophy? PLEASE!!! She knows nothing of the subject if she's politicing in an exercise class.

This is the first time I've ever come across this in a class at CCSF. It's frightening to me. I want to send her an email, and harangue her about it, but what's the sense. She won't get it, and I know she doesn't get what yoga and its philosophy is truly about. I don't need someone teaching me yoga and its philosophy, who doesn't understand the basic laws of karma.

The woman then went on telling the people in class to write to Gray Davis, and tell him that we don't like the public education budget cuts. And I'm like why? So I can have a freak like you teach class an exercise class, and spend most of it telling us your political views. When we do go to war with Iraq, and I belive it's a fait accompli at this point, I just know this yoga exercise teacher is just going to spend more class time spouting off her political opinions. Do I really want to deal with this for a whole semester every Saturday morning?

I take classes at CCSF, because they're cheap, I get to meet a variety of people, and the teachers I've had have been very good. Now granted, the country is an extraordinary set of circumstances with the upcoming war with Iraq, but to have this yoga teacher, who's said she's studied yoga and its philosophy all her life, commit seriously bad karma on the first day of class just doesn't sit well with me. I feel bad too. I'm a great believer in public education, but if this is what public education is turning into, then I'm not going to waste my time. I can afford to take private yoga classes. I won't get the variety of people I'd meet in a public education class, but I think the teacher will teach yoga postures, and not spend the time informing me of their political opinion.

My only consolation in this whole thing is, very few people in the class took the anti-war flyers she was handing out, and everyone had that bored looked in their eyes which seemed to say "shut up already and teach us yogic breathing", which of course she didn't, because she ended class early so she could go the rally. Talk about instant karma, but I doubt she got that too.

So the Raiders won, and they're playing their old coach who bailed to go to Tampa Bay, after Steve Mariucci, the ex 49er coach, waffled on whether to take the job. It's the kind of drama even Hollywood could invent. Real life is sometimes way more interesting than fiction.

And Al Davis, who people call "the godfather", I just found out was the first NFL owner to break the colour barrier and hire african american players. Which reminds me that tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, and I don't have the holiday off. Bad huh?

My pastor read a sermon at church today that Dr. Martin Luther King delivered in 1956, and it was very good. Dr. King had pretended he found a long lost letter from Paul to American Christians. The man definitely had a way with words as was evidenced by this early sermon. The themes Dr. King brought up in 1956 are so timeless too, as the country faces whether affirmative action and other programs to promote racial diversity have any merit at the college level.

My Dr. Martin Luther King connection. During my college time, Dr. King's daughter enrolled at my school, but left after a semester to go to Howard University in Atlanta. I never saw her, but everyone said she was very nice.

Although I'm a 49er fan, I'm jumping on the bandwagon to cheer on the Raiders because they're a Bay Area team. It's one of the perks of living in an area with two football teams. There's a good chance if one of them loses, the other team may win. GO RAIDERS!

The geriactric Raiders team is definitely redefining for professional football the age limit and longevity of players who stay injury free and take care of themselves. I read Bill Callahan even had the players train differently, so they don't get too tired because of their age. His strategy has paid off, as the Raiders look strong and don't fade in the fourth quarter as many teams expect them to do.

I love the fact that Bill Callahan has never held a head coaching job before, and now finds himself as a rookie coach in his first superbowl. I wonder if he allowed himself to have this dream. And what a dream. There are head coaches who have never taken teams to the superbowl, and Callahan goes in his first year.

My prediction: the Oakland Raiders will win Superbowl 37 by a touchdown, and it will be a close, well fought game.

And now we can look forward to why we really watch the Superbowl; the commercials.

I caught part of the North/South Senior Football Bowl yesterday in between errands. During the half time, I watched the senior football players take their shirts off and get weighed and measured before a room full of pro football scouts and coaches. The announcers said that sometimes players don't give their correct weight and height, so this process checks them.

It was very weird watching the whole process. I was first reminded of an animal auction, and then a slave auction that I've seen depicted in movies. But if these guys make it to NFL, they will get paid bucket loads of money. Some guy from the Detroit Lions said, "Some of these players are taller than I thought they were, and thicker too." Wow. The coaches and scouts really pay attention to a player's physical attributes. I had no idea.

Uh oh. Poor Philadelpia Eagles. If the Raiders win, it will be the Chuckie Bowl.

Why I drink alkaline water. Aside from all the health benefits, it does make filtered water taste very good. Honestly.

Bad diet, either a present one or one in the past, can cause acid wastes to be stored in the body. A meat and potato diet, for example, can cause the body to become more acidic. When acid wastes enter our bloodstream, the blood, in order to maintain that narrow pH range, will store them somewhere else. Acid salts stored in the body, over the decades, will overburden the system. A way has to be found to rid the body of wastes. Some examples of solidified acidic wastes are cholesterol, fatty acid, uric acid kidney stone, urates, sulfates, and phosphates.

The body uses the blood system to dispose of wastes; these are removed in liquid form, and are often deposited in the lungs and kidneys. If there are too many wastes to handle, they are deposited at various organ systems, like the heart, the pancreas, the liver, the colon, and other locations. Sometimes these wastes are deposited on the walls of arteries, and over the years can spread throughout the body.

The breakdown of this disposal process, especially of acid wastes, is what we call the aging process. In order to slow down and reverse this process, one must begin removing acid waste from the body.

The best way we have found to do this is to drink alkaline water. This water, having a pH of between 9 and 11, will first neutralize harmful stored acid wastes, and if you consume it every day, will gently remove them from your body. Yet, since the water is ionized, it will not leach out valuable alkaline minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, or sodium.

Japanese doctors have treated their patients for over four decades with alkaline water. They believe that the immune system loses its power to throw off disease when the body becomes too acidic. They advocate drinking alkaline water, eating alkaline foods.

In case you were wondering ... (Note: this stuff tastes really quite yucky, but boy is it good for my energy level)

Dr. Richard Schulze’s Superfood
100% Organic Vitamin & Mineral Food Concentrate

Dr. Schulze formulated this perfectly balanced blend of SUPERFOODS to supply you with natural food source vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential trace nutrients. These are Nature's nutrients, not man-made synthetic vitamins. This is the finest whole food and herb vitamin and mineral product available anywhere. All the ingredients are the richest WHOLE FOOD & HERBS on the planet. ALL THE INGREDIENTS ARE ORGANICALLY GROWN.

Two rounded tablespoons of SuperFood will give you 2-5 times the vitamins you need for the entire day, or more! Many of these sources are single-celled plants, which means they almost digest by themselves and assimilate into your bloodstream in minutes!

Contains: Spirulina Blue-Green Algae, Chlorella Algae, Alfalfa grass, Barley grass, Wheat grass, Purple Dulse Seaweed, Beet root, Spinach leaf, Rose hips, Orange and Lemon peels and non-active Saccharomyces cerevisiae Nutritional Yeast.

Spirulina Blue Green Algae
Spirulina is the most concentrated, nutritious food on this planet. It is the highest natural source of complete protein (75%). We use the only organically grown spirulina in the world, from Hawaii. The high amount of sunshine there makes this spirulina higher in Beta Carotene than any other. It is also a rich source of B-vitamins, especially B-12. Grown using water pumped from 2000 feet deep in the ocean, this spirulina is also one of the richest sources of minerals. One of the oldest types of algae, it has a soft cell wall for easy digestion and assimilation.

Chlorella
Chlorella is second only to Spirulina in nutritional content. Another of the algaes, it is an excellent source of nutrition and complements Spirulina well. The cell wall had been cracked to make the nutrients more available and increase digestibility.

Alfalfa, Barley and Wheat Grasses
These are the Vitamin/Mineral herbs. They are mildly cleansing and the greatest sources of nutrition of any grasses. Grain grasses are more potent than the grains themselves, offering us a rich array of vitamins, minerals and chlorophyll.

Purple Dulse Seaweed
Seaweeds are the riches source of assimilable minerals on the planet. They contain all the minerals and trace minerals that are found in the oceans and the earth's crust. We chose Purple Scandinavian Dulse because it has the highest mineral concentration and also tastes bland. Many seaweeds taste fishy and are offensive to vegetarians.

Beet Root and Spinach Leaf
Beets and Spinach are some of the richest, most assimilable sources of organic iron. Beets, being a root vegetable and growing underground, change inorganic raw elements into plant minerals, that are usable by us. Spinach is a rich source of calcium, iron and vitamin K. Both of these plants are famous for their blood building ability.

Rose Hips, Orange and Lemon Peels
Revered as the best sources of vitamin C, these fruits are also a balanced C-complex source. They contain bioflavinoids, rutin, vespertine, calcium and all the trace elements that are known to be necessary to assimilate vitamin C. The citrus peels are also one of the highest sources of pectin which has been proven to remove heavy metals (mercury, lead, etc.) from the body, even remove radioactive contamination like strontium 90.

NON-Active Saccharomyces cerevisiae Nutritional Yeast
This yeast is grown on beets and pure molasses. It is the second highest source of complete protein in nature (50%), and the richest source of B Vitamins. It is also a rich source of iron and many other minerals. The yeast we chose is heated high enough to absolutely destroy any yeast activity, but not high enough to lessen the B Vitamin content. It is totally NON active and safe for patients with candida albicans or on yeast free diets.

Three examples of my daily food totals from my excel food journal worksheet. They are very typical of what I eat on a weekly basis. Be warned. I'm in the middle of a serious chocolate craving this month.

Food for 1/6/2003
Breakfast – the same every day
Schulze Superfood vitamin shake
1 cup apple juice - 120 calories
1 banana - 100 calories
2 tbs superfood mix – 0 calories
2 cups of coffee w/milk&sugar – 25 calories

Lunch
2 cups of veggie soup – 300 calories
1 apple – 90 calories
5 ak-mak crackers – 116 calories

Snacks
1 slice pugliese bread – 40 calories
1 cup trader joes cheese crunchies – 140 calories

Dinner
french fries – 120 calories
1 veggie corn dog – 150 calories
1 tbs ketchup – 40 calories
1 see’s candy chocolate balls – 40 calories
1 freshly baked choco chip cookie – 110 calories

Beverages
6-8 cups of alkaline water - 0 calories
1-3 cups of german/italian mineral water with a slice of lemon - 0 calories
Total – 1391 calories
****************************
Food for 1/9/2003
Breakfast – the same every day
Schulze Superfood vitamin shake
1 cup apple juice - 120 calories
1 banana - 100 calories
2 tbs superfood mix – 0 calories
2 cups of coffee w/milk&sugar – 25 calories

Lunch
2 cups of veggie soup – 280 calories
1 pear – 100 calories
3 wasa sesame crackers – 150 calories

Dinner
Salad: 1/3 lb of baby organic greens, 1/3 avocado, handful of sunflower seeds, 4 radishes, 2 small organic baby carrots, handful of homemade croutons, and homemade olive oil (1 tbs) & vinegar dressing – 325 calories
2 see’s candy chocolate balls – 80 calories
2 freshly baked choco chip cookies – 220 calories

Beverages
6-8 cups of alkaline water - 0 calories
1-3 cups of diet pepsi - 0 calories
Total - 1400 calories
******************************
Food for 1/15/2003
Breakfast – the same every day
Schulze Superfood vitamin shake
1 cup apple juice - 120 calories
1 banana - 100 calories
2 tbs superfood mix – 0 calories
2 cups of coffee w/milk&sugar – 25 calories

Lunch
2 cups of veggie soup – 180 calories
1 orange – 90 calories
4 wasa sesame crackers – 200 calories

Dinner
1 grilled soy cheese sandwich with 1 tbs butter – 220 calories
2 see’s candy chocolate balls – 80 calories
2 freshly baked choco chip cookes – 220 calories

snacks
1/2 cup trader joes cheese crunchies – 70 calories
1/8 c almonds – 85 calories

Beverages
6-8 cups of alkaline water - 0 calories
1-3 cups of diet pepsi - 0 calories
Total – 1390 calories

A friend is visiting my home island Kauai. I'm very jealous, but I'm also reminiscing about my beach bunny roots, when the five biggest concerns in my youth were:

1) how to not get tan lines - tan lines are evil, they still are!
2) how to get every single hair off my body - body hair is very bad for tanning - you get polkadotted skin.
3) the best time to tan for maximum sun exposure without burning.
4) boys, boys, boys.
5) what bikini to wear under my clothes to school, just in case I got invited to the beach.

Finally, a good decision is made by a San Francisco appeals court, State appellate court overturns ruling in Haygood case.

Talk about a good case for the abuse of affirmative action policies. The woman made a mess out of San Francisco elections and ran up the election budget, and then said she was fired because of race. I don't think so. Can you spell "incompetence"?

Check this wild article from CNN.com about trading on Saddam's futures, A contract on Saddam.

Here's the trading screen on Saddam's future, Tradesports.com.

A great article from The Mercury News on the anti-war protests tomorrow, Anti-war movement taking shape.

On A.N.S.W.E.R., the sponsors of the protests, "Many of A.N.S.W.E.R.'s lead organizers have close ties to the International Action Center, formed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, and to the Workers World Party (WWP), a socialist sect whose politics often are criticized as too left, too doctrinaire, even for Bay Area liberals. Some of the WWP's more controversial positions are its support for the governments of Iraq and North Korea; its backing of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic; its claims that reports of Serbian atrocities against Muslims and Croats were overblown; and its defense as recently as 2000 of the Chinese government's deadly crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989."

On the A.N.S.W.E.R.'s anti-israeli stance, "One of the biggest divides is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While more moderate anti-war groups like the ``Win Without War'' coalition have pointedly skirted the contentious issue so as not to alienate mainstream Americans, the World Workers Party, the International Action Center and now A.N.S.W.E.R. are staunchly pro-Palestinian.

``"In the anti-war movement it's some kind of taboo thing to bring up Palestinians,'' said Richard Becker, a member of A.N.S.W.E.R.'s steering committee and a longtime member of the WWP. "But if the United States is arming Israel, that's a war. Some view Israel as a shining example of democracy in the Middle East, and they are worried that liberals will withdraw support from the anti-war movement if we criticize Israel. But we think it's possible to have big, mass actions and support the Palestinian cause at the same time."``

I listened to the Ronn Owens radio show this morning and he asked the following question, regading tomorrows anti-war protest in downtown San Francisco:

If war is not the asnwer in how to deal with Saddam Hussein and Iraq, then what is?

Owens said he hasn't seen the supporters of the anti-war protest realistically answer this question, and I haven't either. I do not want my country to engage in any war, and I certainly wasn't a supporter of the first gulf war, but until I see someone, anyone answer the question of how we're supposed to deal with Iraq with anything other than war, than I will not support the anti-war protests.

Protesting is good. Protesting is great for our country, but I wish the people who organize these protests would provide alternative answers and courses of action to whatever they're protesting. It is irresponsible and immature to protest without an alternative realistic course of action. The world of 2003, the new millenium is much too complicated to simply say no, to say I don't like what you're doing, and then not offer a better and realistic way to do things.

What's ironic to me, is the anti-war protestors aren't even talking about the situation with North Korea, which I think is much more explosive than the Iraq situation. Is it okay for the US to go to war with North Korea, but not okay to war with Iraq? North Korea has nuclear plants, they backed out of the nuclear proliferation treaty, and they've threatened the US with war? But are their anti-war protests going on about war with North Korea? NO! What gives with that?

It seems logical, doesn't it, that if you are anti-war, you should be against war with any country and not just some countries.

Christopher Hitchens has a new piece for the UK Mirror on Iraq and the UN weapons inspectors, Grim Truth About to Emerge in Iraq. Hitchens is my favorite grouchy Brittish intellectual. I love it when he and Chris Matthews go at it on Hard Ball.

All the astrologists are saying that we've been going through a Mercury retrograde since the beginning of the year. A Mercury retrograde brings back people and issues from your past into your present life. So of course this week, I get contacted by two of my ex's.

1. The ex-husband sends me a newspaper clipping of himself interviewed in his local paper. The ex-hubbie, who I know will one day end up in Fortune Magazine, Time or some other glossly weekly rag, as a successful internet entrepreneur. He's about to hire his first employee for his internet shop. The ex-hubbymeister was such a slacker boy, that it's surprising he's the head of his own successful business. He even told me his business plan, and I was shocked by how well thought out it was.

I loved what he told the reporter about himself: "graduated from an elite jesuit high school". He went to Bellarmine in San Jose. But, he forgot to mention that he went to UC Santa Barbara, or UC Isla Vista as he called it, for a year, then transferred up to Cal Berkeley. At Cal Berkeley, he was accepted into the School of Music, he's got an incredible voice and perfect pitch to boot, and was double majoring in music and philosophy, before dropping out a semester before he graduated.

2. The lying and cheating ex-boyfriend from 1995 called me to invite me out to some event he was emceeing, and wouldn't it great if we could see each other. Here's a guy who told me on the corner of Divisadero and Geary one night that "he thought I was the one, but he couldn't give up his bachelor ways", and I'm like, "whatever".

I am so mean to him, and he keeps calling. He called me two years after we broke up and said to me, "I've been thinking about you every day since we broke up", and I replied, "Really? I haven't thought about you at all". Isn't that so mean? But still, the freak of nature calls. Like I'm going to forget the reason we broke up in the first place was because he couldn't keep his johnson in line. He cheated on me, and we were just dating. Memo to ex-boyfriend; if you can't be faithful while dating, you're probably not going to be faithful in a longer term relationship and definitely not in marriage. I think he calls because he's a Taurus, he's stubborn and he won't let go, and I'm like "whatever".

From the 49er management press conference - head coach Steve Mariucci expressed a desire to become vice president of operations for the 49ers, and management said no and then they parted ways. 49er General manager Terry Donahue mentions that owner Dr. John York said there were philosophical differences in the way he and Mariucci wanted the operation run. Interesting. Hey they let George Sieffert go, and he had most winning percentage of any head football coach at the time.

Someone on ESPN once said of the SF Bay Area, "the pressure cooker that is San Francisco Bay Area sports". I guess ESPN was right.

Rumors, rumors, rumors ... ESPN is reporting that 49ers release Mariucci from final year of contract. On the radio, they're reporting that the 49ers management team is having a press conference at noon. God ... shocking ... was Skip Bayless right?

I made it to gym tonight. I'd forgotten how the gym is full of beefy, hunky, beautiful yummy boys. Men with lovely muscled backs, arms, torsos and legs who make me think about what it would be like to run my tongue all over them or at least their well muscled body part. Mouth watering bickie boys, bickielicious sweaty beings, who sometimes smile at me. Do they think I'm cute? Or are they marveling at my fat rolls? Does it matter? Aren't we all just eye candy for each other at the gym?

Yeah! Joe Millionaire rocks and won # 1 ratings for the second week in a row. I skipped my workout because I was afraid I would miss this fantastic show. What's actually more fun than watching the show, although that's a blast too, is listening to people criticize the show and bemoaning the demise of american culture. The reality shows like Joe Millionaire came from the BBC, or says the SF Chron's TV columnist, BBC honcho smirks at U.S. copycat shows.

It's the Brit's fault!!! They started it, and the american TV networks are just copying. Get it right people, and blame the Brits.

I suppose I should comment on President Bush's latest tax cut proposal. I'm against it for the following reasons:

1) a lowered tax revenue due to a faltering stock market and ecomony. Those so called budget surpluses were estimates based on a continuing strong economy.
2) it doesn't address the Alternative Minimum Tax, which affects more and more people every year.
3) if the US is fighting a war on terrorism, doesn't it take money to fight this war? What about increasing spending for the new Homeland Security Department?
4) I read somewhere that the proposed war on Iraq is estimated at costing $4 billion. I know the Iraq war plan includes seizing the Iraqi oil fields to help pay for the war, but the logistics of the seizure don't make sense. Even if we could seize the oil fields, how do we pay for the war till then?
5) don't we need money to pay for a possible war with North Korea?
6) The UK Telegraph is reporting that America is veering towards the biggest hole ever in its government finances as the cost of tax cuts and increased military spending threaten to unsettle the world's largest economy.

Need I say more? It's just like budgeting at home. More money going out than coming in makes for a bad financial situation at home and for our federal government.

I love making my own croutons for salads. They taste so much better than the stuff you can buy in the store. I feel so Martha Stewartie when I do this.

I take my favorite bread, Grace Baking Pugliese (italian country bread), and let it sit around till it's hard. Then I cut bread up into cubes, pour two tablespoons of light olive oil and lots of this seasoning called Garlic & Herbs. The seasoning is so tasty, you don't even need salt. Then I toss the bread cubes in the oil and seasoning, and then roast them till they're crunchy. YUMMY!

I got the gist of the recipe from this woman I used to work with, when I first moved here, who eventually started her own catering business. She gave me such a great recipe!

I'm taking advantage of San Francisco's Dining About Town 2003, and have reservations at Hawthorne Lane, Bacar and the Pacific Restaurant at the Pan Pacific Hotel. I've always wanted to check out the Pan Pacific Hotel, so this is my excuse.

On Saturday I had lunch at Postrio, which was great. The menu lunch prices weren't that bad, and I'll probably eat there again when I'm downtown shopping.

I'm trying to decide if I want to spend more money and try Boulevard, and go back to Farralon. Farralon is a great restaurant; beautifully decorated and heavenly food. I want to try restaurants I've never been to, and although I've been to Farralon before, I just love this restaurant.

The money that's spent goes to Meals on Wheels, a service that delivers meals to homebound elderly people. It's a fun way to donate money to charity as well as try new restaurants for budget prices.

On Saturday, there was an event at Union Square Park to kick off Dine About Town 2003. I heard something about it on the radio, but forgot and made reservations to eat at Postrio. For $10, you could go into a tent and sample food from all the participating restaurants as well as meet the chefs. I was bummed out, but the lines were really long to get in so that made me feel better about not going.

For entertainment, they had a band made up of restaurant people including Joey Altman from the Food Network. Altman isn't a bad guitar player! He's also much better looking in person, than he is on TV. Too bad that accent of his annoys me to no end.

A scary article from the New York Times via Yahoo on the catholic priest sex abuse problem, Trail of Pain in Church Crisis Leads to Nearly Every Diocese.

Points I found interesting and horrifying at the same time:

¶The data show that priests secretly violated vulnerable youth long before the first victims sued the church and went public in 1984 in Louisiana. Some incidents date from the 1930's and 1940's.

"This has been going on for decades, probably centuries," said Richard K. O'Connor, a former Dominican priest who says he was one of 10 boys sexually assaulted by three priests in a South Bronx parish in 1940, when he was 10. "It's just that all of a sudden, they got caught."

¶Half of the priests in the database were accused of molesting more than one minor, and 16 percent are suspected of having had five or more victims.

¶Eighty percent of the priests were accused of molesting boys. The percentage is nearly the opposite for laypeople accused of abuse; their victims are mostly girls.

¶While the majority of the priests were accused of molesting teenagers only, 43 percent were accused of molesting children 12 and younger. Experts in sexual disorders say the likeliest repeat offenders are those who abuse prepubescent children and boys.

¶The survey also shows how pervasive the abuse has been. Using information from court records, news reports, church documents and interviews, the survey found accusations of abuses in all but 16 of the 177 Latin Rite dioceses in the United States.

¶The church is still covering up cases. Despite the pressure on bishops over the last year to reveal the extent of the abuse, some refused to release the number of accusations or the names of the accused priests.

One question keeps echoing through my head - what if they didn't get caught ... how long would the catholic church have allowed this go on if no one had said anything?

Power is back on, and now I'm watching this interesting movie called "Enemy of the State". I'm going to have to rent it to see the beginning.

Power Outage

There's a power outage in my neighbourhood. It happened just as I watching the Eagles/Falcons game. I'm sure hardcore football enthusiasts not to mention bars are upset by the lack of power.

I'm listening to the news, and surfing the net on my baby laptop. The phone lines are still working, and I just put some batteries in my portable cd player in case I want to listen to music. The radio news is reporting that PG&E has no idea how long the outage will last or why it happened.

I'm very well prepared for emergencies, so I'm okay. This is a good test of my preps, but what an inconvenience. I've been thinking of buying a battery operated TV for emergencies, and now I think I will.

So on a wild whim, I went back to Sears to try on a Lands' End size pants. And they FIT!!! The waist is snug, but that's okay because on the Lands' End website you can buy pants with stretchy waist. I like buying pants from Lands' End because they have stretchy waist pants, and they'll hem your pants to any length. I can buy pants to fit my bum, but then the waist doesn't fit or it's too long and usually both. You can now even order jeans and chinos fit to measure your body exactly on the Lands' End website, if you have serious problems with finding pants that fit.

So I'm my fantasy size 8, which I've always wanted to be for such a long time and I'm not even at my goal weight yet. I think Lands' End sizes run big so I'm probably still a size 10 in other brands, but who cares. I'm my fantasy size 8. What a trip! There was a woman on Craig's List who wrote a post about how much easier it is to navigate the world of men and dating in a size 8 butt, as oppposed to a size 16 butt which is what I used to be. I think I copied it, so If I find I'll post it. It was a good writeup.

The whole thing new size thing is blowing my mind because at my thinnest in college, I was a size 4/6. My butt measurement is one inch away from my butt measurement in high school, which is really cool.

I was sitting at the mall eating my veggie delite subway sandwhich, my heavenly baked Frito Lay Dorito nacho cheese chips (one bag is 170 calories), and drinking diet pepsi and thinking to myself, is working out and eating low calorie for the rest of my life worth a fantasy size 8 butt and miraculous maybe size 4/6 butt. And my answer was "HELL YEAH!".

Now if I could only just get that washboard abs look I've always wanted, but have never had.

Movies watched since June 2002 when I started keeping track:
13 Conversations about one thing
61*
A walk to remember
Amelie
Blade
Blue Crush
Changing lanes
Clerks
Die Another Day - James Bond 007
Dogtown & Zboys
Donnie Darko
Dragonfly
For the love of the game
From Hell
Gone with the wind
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Hedwig & the angry inch
High Fidelity
Hollywood ending
Kpax
Lagaan
Lantana
Life is Beautiful
Merci pour le chocalat
Minority Report
Monsters inc
Mulholland Drive
Oceans 11
Panic Room
Pay it forward
Pollock
Reign of Fire
Rivers & Tides- andrew goldsworthy
Serendipity
Signs
Stars Wars: Attack of the clones
The Big Lebowski
The Cat's Meow
The fast & the furious
The legend of bagger vance
The Man who wasn't there
The mothman prophecy
The Red Violin
The Ring
The Rookie
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Spanish Prisoner
The Tailor of Panama
The time machine
The virgin suicides
Triple X
What women want
Wonderboys

Books Read in 2002:
A room with a view - EM Forester
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Confederates in the attic - Tony Horwitz
Disappearing Acts - Terry McMillan
Five quarters of the orange - Joanne Harris
God and the evolving universe - James Redfield et al
How to study the bible for yourself - Tim LaHaye
Harry Potter & the prisoner of azbakan - JK Rowling
John Henry Days - Colson Whitehead
Jurasic Park - Michael Crichton
Killing time - Caleb Carr
Making a literary life - Carolyn See
Movies in the mind, how to write a short story - Colleen Mariah Rae
Screenwriting - Richard Walter
Sin and Syntax - Constance Hale
The age of innocence - Edith Wharton
The dynamic laws of prosperity - Catherine Ponder
The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz
The house of the sleeping beauties & other stories - Yasunari Kawabata
The house on mango street - Sandra Cisneros
The jungle book - Rudyard Kiplinq
The right to write - Julia Cameron
Things fall apart - Chinua Achebe
Watermark - Joseph Brodsky
When god writes your love story - Eric & Leslie Ludy
Who moved my cheese - Spencer Johnson
Woe is I, a book on grammar - Patricia T O'Connor
Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
Your Infinite Power to be Rich - Joseph Murphy

Check this this link out, Top SF Restaurants offering $29.95 dinners & $19.95 lunch. Such a deal! Eleven of the restaurants are on The SF Chronicle's top 100 restaurants for 2002. It's a froggie price fixed 3-course menu, but $30 for a dinner at a fancy and usually very expensive restaurant in San Francisco is quite a bargain.

Those Ariana Huffington SUV and terrorism ads are very funny. I almost bought a hybrid car in 2000 when I needed to buy a new car, but I was wary. The Honda Insight I was told, needs to be plugged into a socket to get power and I don't have a garage so the car didn't make any sense for me. The Toyota Prius looked okay, but you can't get it with a sunroof, and I have to have a sunroof on my car. A sunroof is so essential to my driving life, since I don't like wind blowing on my face.

My Golf is an automatic and it has 2.0 litre engine (a big engine), so the gas mileage is so-so. I get 22-24 mpg for city driving, which is what I mostly drive, and about 30+ for freeway driving. I went down to San Luis Obispo from San Francisco one weekend, and made it there driving on 101 on half a tank of gas one way. The mileage when I drive long distances in my car is amazing! It's city driving that sucks. If a drove a stick, I'd probably have better gas mileage.

Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing; / Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; / So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, / Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)

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The ratings for "Joe Millionaire" are out, and it was an incredible success. The beginning was boring, but I loved it. I totally loved it! I love the catiness of the women; I love the insecurity of the I think incredibly unattractive cro-magnon bachelor man, and I love the corny as all heck butler. This is so much interesting than that frothy and idiotic Sex and the City. Real life is so much more interesting than fiction.

I heard an interview with Katy, one of the women who was rejected on the first night, and she said that all the women received an all expenses paid vacation in Paris for a month, and it was totally worth it for the free trip. I mean, I think I'd get on the show for a free one month trip to Paris, but I've also been fantasizing on going on "Love Connection" for years. Remember that old TV dating show?

I'm writing a novel on women's power games, and this show is like a bonanza of research material for me for how competitive women really are and how they behave. I got a big taste of bitchy, nasty competitiveness women at my last job, but that was on the career business level. I think how women play high stakes power games in corporations is similar to how they play power games with men, and it will be interesting to see if I'm right. People say men are nasty power game players, and they're right, but women aren't that far behind. Men at least don't seem to take the business stuff personally, whereas the women I've had to deal with were totally scary vicioius people. I never felt fear going up against a man in a business meeting, but I've learned to become very wary of women, especially women VPs or women who would kill to be VPs. And believe me, they would literally kill to be VPs.

Stats for 2002 from my Palm, which I bought in June 2002.

I read 29 books in 2002. I decided not to count all the movie scripts I read in 2002, even though they're like books and I had to analyze them for people. I definitely need to read more books in 2003. I'm such a bad bunny girl!

I saw 52 movies, rented or in the theatre and not counting TV, since June 2002. That seems like a lot of movies to me, but I know there are people out there who see way more movies than me.

I didn't keep track of theatre plays, but I probably saw at least a 12-15 productions in 2002. This is normal for me.

I saw one ballet, two operas, one dance festival, and one symphony performance in 2002. I definitely need to see more opera and ballet productions, more dance festivals and go to symphony more. I saw a music concert while in West Virginia, but I didn't count it.

I took five seminars and one class in 2002. It was a good year for personal education.

I flew to LA to see the Andy Warhol exhibit, which was tres cool!

You know you're a big city dweller when part of your New Year's chores includes printing out and posting where you can see it 1) the Parking Meter Holiday Enforcement Schedule and 2) the Street Cleaning Holiday Enforcement Schedule.

A great new song heard on the radio today - "Scorpio Rising" by Death in Vegas featuring Liam Gallagher on vocals from Oasis.

I received an email invite to "To Discuss The Newsom for Mayor Campaign" meeting tomorrow at the Irish Cultural Center on 45th Ave in the Sunset. I'm on the Newsom for Mayor campaign mailing list, since I volunteered for the Care not Cash initiative. I even received a Christmas card from Gavin and his lovely wife Kimberly, a gesture which I thought was smart and classy.

It's almost worth going just to see who shows up. This meeting is very early in the campaign, but it's a smart way to judge public support. Plus, it's got that folksy Jimmy Carter grass roots style campaign style feeling to the event, and it did work for Jerry Brown in Oakland.

On the Pete Wilson's KGO radio program, Susan Leal, the city's current treasurer, announced her candidacy for mayor. Leal calls herself a "social progressive", which is such a bogus label. I listened to her answers about what she would do about San Francisco's budget deficit, social problems like Homelessness, and dot-bomb woes, and I got more of the same ultra left wing progressive BS that is so not grounded in reality, it makes the the mentally ill homeless people who live on upper Market Street sound sane. It was like Leal took a page right of out the Bay Guardian and was reading it verbatim. And I'm like, NO THANKS! San Francisco has the major problems it has because of this impractical, financially dysfunctional and bankrupt, social welfare and engineering left wing drivel that vomits and froths out of the progressives' mouths.

I think the voters in San Francisco are tired of the "progressives". The great social welfare experiment in San Francisco has failed. The Statue of Liberty in San Francisco sob song, "give us your homeless and your poor so they can crap all over the city, bleed the city government's coffers dry, and scare the businesses and tourists dollars away which we're so dependent on". People came here, not to have a better life, but live off our generous city welfare system, where we ask no questions but just hand out cash. I've seen these people interviewed on TV, and I've read pages and pages of how the city's quasi social welfare program works.

Hello! The 60's are over. The flower children have all left, gotten married, had their kids and moved out of the City, and then enacted laws in their safe little burbs to keep the people who they used to be out, because god forbid they don't want their little darling children to be just like formerly hippie mom and dad living a life of free love, sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.

And no, I don't think it's someone's inalienable right to come and crap on on my street or sleep on the steps of my bank. Take it somewhere else.

We need the money for other things here like the burgeoning elderly population, Laguna Honda Hospital where really sick poor elderly people end up, MUNI, fixing the public parks, fixing a crumbling city infrastructure which includes water and the streets, the deterioration of beach at the Great Highway, etc. And guess what? The glory financial days of the 90's are over, and it will probably be another 10 years before they come back. The City is strapped for cash, and will be that way for probably the next 10 years as well.

I'm all for a social safety net for people who really can't take of themselves, but not at the expense of services for city dwellers and the city budget. People came to America to work for a better future, not for a free no questions asked handout.

I'm a tired voter and I live here, and I walk around the City freaking out over how bad it's all gotten. I say, let the Centrists come in and see what they can do, because whatever the Progressives have been doing in San Francisco is so not working; so not working at all. And if the Centrists can't do it, then and it breaks my heart to say this, let the conservatives and republicans have a crack at it. People keep saying we're all in this together, then fine. Let them all try. It can't hurt an already very bad situation.

Musical selection tonight - Isaac Stern, In Tribute and Celebration.

Check out my new car links on the left side. My current car - a 2000 VW Golf in evergreen; and my dream cars, the BMW Mini (I want a Mini Love car), and a Volvo C70. I fell in love with the Volvo C70 from watching the movie "The Saint" with Val Kilmer.

I love my VW Golf. It's fast, I beat a Toyota 4Runner up the Pacifica hill on the test drive; it's small at 172 inches in length, 6 inches smaller than your average car, although still too big for many SF parking spots; 8 speakers and 6-cd changer; sunroof and automatic windows; and a great car for a small price.

I so love hatchbacks, and totally adore the windshield wiper on the back window. How can you drive at 70 mph and hydroplane on 280, 101 or the Bay Bridge in the pouring rain without it? I don't think I could ever drive a car without that back windshield wiper. The 93 Saab is another choice hatchback car, although I've never driven one. My friends say the Saab handles well, but is it fast? I think BMW used to make a hatchback, but I so love the Mini car.

Another earthquake in California, but I didn't feel it. The radio news is reporting a 4.7 earthquake in Hollister. I hate earthquakes!

Am I a football fan or what? "Any Given Sunday" is one of my favourite movies. Oliver Stone's intensity on the game of football. It's the details in the movie that are so fun. The announcers checking out the girls with the binocs, how jocks even third string f-ugly mothers can get girls, the jawing of the defensive and offensive lines, the drugs, the money, owners, plus an understated but funny performance by James Woods. It's brilliant. Simply brilliant!

A fun link, The Top Twenty Cryptozoology Stories of 2002. Cryptozoology is "literally translated as 'the study of hidden life'" or the study of the evidence for hidden animals with input of local, native, explorer, and traveler traditions, sightings, tales, legends and folklore of the as-yet unverified animals. It's got stories like the Mothman in West Virginia, the Loch Ness Monster and of course Big Foot.

Okay, I'm dying to watch Joe Millionaire tonight, but the guy is totally f-ugly. YIKES! SCARY! He looks like the kind of guy that you see on the cover of romance books, and lots of women love that look. I'm like, I don't know if $50 million would be enough for me to even want to date him; he is so not attractive to me. I just want to see the ending when the lucky woman finds out that it was all one big dang sham.

Check out this interesting website, Noindoctrination.org - A Non Profit Organization Promoting Open Inquiry in Academia. I heard the woman who started this website interviewed on Pete Wilson's radio show on KGO.

I'm glad I went to a small private college, because most of the university controversies seems to go on at public schools. My college didn't even have a "D" grade for most of the time while I was there, which meant if you received a grade below a C in a class, the class was dropped off your transcript. How cool was that. There was also, as I remember, a balance of liberal and conservative professors and we were taught to think for ourselves. If there was indoctrination, I wasn't aware of it. In my high school though, there was major indoctrination in the political liberal viewpoint. But I grew up to be somewhat a political conservative. so maybe indoctrination doesn't really work in the long run but is just the issue du jour.

Talk about a weird ending to one damned good football game yesterday, the 49ers unbelievable and miraculous comeback in the 49er/NY Giants playoff game. The NFL is saying that the 49ers should have been called for pass interference; NFL: Officials missed pass interference call in Giants-49ers. I'm with Mariucci when he said "Bummer".

But you know what' s going to happen. The NY Giants and their fans will jaw this issue for years on end. Well, the Oakland Raiders got robbed last year. Maybe it's an NFL playoff tradition; questionable officiating.

I decided I need to start going to the gym again, because that monthly membership gets taken out of my checking account every month whether I go or not and I hate to waste money. I haven't been to the gym in months! I'm bad.

I got on the exercise bike, and did the five minute fit test and my result was "excellent". Then I did the bike cardio program for 30 minutes, and lifted weights for an hour, and now I'm sore as heck. I like lifting weights. I'm a product of Title IX in public schools and I played sports in my youth, so I've been weightlifting since I was 13 years old. That's a long time. And when you build muscles you've got to keep doing it for the rest of your life, otherwise you get all saggy. It's kind of a nasty cycle I think, so it's good thing I enjoy it.

I like how when you want to build up your arms, it's so easy to get definition. Legs are the hardest to train, because you're on on your feet all day so you've really got to do a lot of repetition just to work them. But I must have worked them this afternoon, because my legs are really sore. I did all the machines, and there's two for every leg part, and did 3 sets of 10-12 reps.

Then I came home in time to watch the ending of the Colts/Jets game, and highlights of the Jets whacking the Colts. What a blowout! The NY Jets are hot! Watch out! The NY Jets might be superbowl bound. Then I watched Atlanta beat the Packers, and got chilled from looking at the snow flurries.

I'm not getting a good feeling about the 49er/NY Giants game tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the home team wins, but NY Giants look hot as well. I'm hoping that Cleveland beats the Steelers, so the NY Jets will have come to Oakland to play the Raiders. That will be a fun game, and it would worth it to get tix to see that matchup.

Skip Bayless from the Mercury News said on the Jim Rome radio show "The Jungle", he was the guest host on Thursday and Friday, that if 49ers win then Mariucci is out. SFGate had a similar article. To tell you the truth, I've never been a big Mariucci fan. I don't know, but he's like too touchy feely for my taste. During a 49er/Raider game a few years ago, Mariucci was on the sidelines holding hands with the players and watching a field goal attempt. What's up with the hand holding? I don't know. I watched the scene thinking "that is so not football".

Bayless also said Mariucci has no killer instinct, and that if Mariucci is out Mike Holmgren is in, because he'll be able to get out of his Seattle contract. Holmgren still owns that bar in the Marina, which I've been to a few times. It's a nice place, but the crowd when I was there was older with everyone in their 50's and 60's and country club types. I was told the guy who owns Morton & Basset Spices hangs out in the bar, and was even there during one of my visits.

Mike Holmgren and the 49ers. Interesting combo. What about Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells? Bayless predicts that with Parcells, the Cowboys will be superbowl contenders in 3-4 years. I remember being at a 49er game and the crowd cheering when it was announced Dallas had lost a game. Someone on the show even predicted Troy Aikman coming back out of retirement to play with Parcells for one year. Gotta love your NFL football, so much drama!

I came across this factoid in the comment section of a financial website that I have bookmarked; one to two hundred thousand dollars lost by fifty million households since January 14, 2000.

Is this true? If it is, it's unbelievable because that's a ton of people. The commentator also mentioned that many retired people who were heavily invested in the stock market suffered serious losses, as well as those retirees from companies whose stocks have gone to nothing like Lucent, ATT, and Bethlehem Steel.

I was lucky. I got out of market before 2000, while the market was still high, and transferred everything to money market accounts. I knew the markets were going to correct, and it was just a matter of time. Some of my best friends thought I was totally crazy to get out of the market, and blamed my fascination with conspiracy theories on looniness. My critics have lost a ton of money, some are bitter, some are worried, and some are scared. This was their retirement money, after all.

And looney me? I didn't lose money, I made money actually. Not a lot, but at least I have no losses. I take no pleasure in being right. I don't want to tell people I told you so, and why the heck didn't you listen to me, although I'm tempted. It's cruel to be sanctimonious with people who have suffered financial losses. I feel for my friends.

What scares me is the effect these financial losses will mean for the country. If people have lost money, this means corporations which are also heavily invested in the stock market, have lost money too. This means pension funds and mutual funds have taken deep losses as well.

And it all trickles down, trickles up, trickles everywhere. All the states are experiencing budgetary woes, which means a cutback in social services at the state level. The government cut taxes, but now they could sure use that tax money for the war on terrorism and upcoming war with Iraq. If they have to make cuts, the government will cut social services.

Where is the safety net that many people might be needing soon? I had images of blood on the streets in January 2000 right before the markets started diving. Those images have come back, but this time I don't think it's financial bleeding I'm seeing.

A fun link, The Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of 2002. God, I love this stuff. People have such great imaginations! I'm an analyst, so I'm sort of trained to look for trends and connections in massive amounts of data. But these conspiracy people put my skills to shame.

Some New Years's Resolutions.

1. Finish my two novels. Following in the Dark - a story about religion and s&m sex and finding yourself, and The Crow Priestess - a scifi fantasy story of power games by women.

2. Finish my screenplay - Going Home Again, and send to Richard Walter at the UCLA Screenwriting program for review.

3. Start and finish - Missy Dreams of Ducks - the story of a 12-year old who dreams she's become a duck.

4. Finish my very long short story Crazy Eddie - the story of a woman who goes to the desert after she discovers her boyfriend lying in a pool of blood in her hallway.

5. Get my weight down to 130 pounds and maintain.

6. Read my bible every day, and study Luke/Acts and the Pauline letters.

7. Write a gratitude list every day, only because I know I'm not very grateful for how great my life really is.

So it's New Year's Day and I'm playing with my dowsers, which I got in the Sean David Morton seminar I went to in November. I'm asking my pendulum and copper rods all these questions about 2003, and it's fun and mindless and who knows if what they're saying is true, but it's like an entertainment thing, so who cares right?

This morning I dreamt of my first love from college, MN (a nickname only he and I know the origins of). I haven't dreamt of him in years, but I did this morning. I dreamt we were getting together, like dating and getting married, which is so weird since I haven't heard from since I left college.

I mean, it would be my ultimate romantic fantasy to end up being married to first love, but the chances of that happening is like so zero. I think he probably lives somewhere in DC or Maryland, because he always said he was going to live on the banks of the Potomac, and he's the kind of guy who always does what he says. And I'm here in the city and county of San Francisco.

So I'm asking the pendulum and the dowsers about my first love MN, and they're like confirming my dream and I'm like, yeah right, in a million years, I'll believe when I see it. I mean, it would have to take a phone call from my first love telling me he's living here in the Gemini city of San Francisco, and like wouldn't it be nice if we got together. Still, it's kind of fun in a sad way to think of us getting together again. Sad only because I know it's just a fantasy. But I'm an Aquarian, and every Aquarian girl has a thing for their first love guys, so maybe it's not that surprising that I still cling to the fantasy of marrying my first love.

It's so weird to think of my first love on this first day of the New Year. I mean what was my subconscious mind up to when it made me have that dream? I suppose I should sit around and try to analyze my dream, but I'm not going to. What's the point? I think I should just look at my first love dream as a reminder that I'll find someone to fall in love with this year, and it will be as cool, as hot, and as special as that first time. Now that's my ultimate love fantasy!