So the electricity goes out last night arond 6 pm just as I was trying to decide what to watch on TV.

I have a coleman camping lantern in the living room but the switch is kind of spotty, so of course it doesn't go on when I tried to use it. I head to the bedroom and turn on the camping lantern sitting on my bedside table.

I lit the candles on my bedside table, the one in the living room and the one in the bathroom, changed the batteries in my emergency radio, and turned on the news.

There's a fire in some substation in the Mission, and I figure it's going to be awhile before I get any electricity. My sony stereo boombox has batteries in it, so I put on Christmas cds so I can listen at least listen to music in the dark and I light more candles, and think about how I wish I had bought that handheld portable TV that I keep thinking I should own for emergencies like this.

I look for the spare non-electric telephone so I can plug it in, in case I need or get emergency phone calls. I get my cellphone and the battery is low, and I make a mental note to remember to always keep the battery charged.

I decide my emergency flashlights are in the wrong places, so I hunt them down in the dark and put them where they're more accessible.

I spend the rest of the evening putting things away in my bedroom and cleaning up by candlelight, so I can conserve the batteries in my lantern in case the blackout goes on all night.

At 8:50 pm, the electricity come back on. I blow out all the candles, forget to juice up the cell phone and go back to watching TV like nothing happened.

Around 9:50 pm, the electricity goes out again. I relight the candles on my nightstand, light one extra candle at my desk, turn on the radio, and get in bed wondering if I should read by candlelight.

The thought of sleep becomes too overpowering, so I blow out the candle at my desk and lie and drift in and out of sleep listening to the news on the radio.

At around 2 am I hear my computer turn on and when I open my eyes, the christmas lights are back on. I get up, unplug the lights, turn off my computer, turn off the radio and go back to sleep.

This is a quote from an interview with Shawn Lawrence Otto, who cowrote the screenplay for Andre Dubus III novel HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG.

WS: Your first screenplay, SHINING WHITE, won numerous awards. What was the appeal of the competitions? Would you encourage emerging screenwriters to enter competitions, apply for fellowships or other awards? Did the publicity that came with the awards throw open doors for you? Was the public relations self-perpetuating or did you have to work on it?

SLO: I think the competitions are a little like the farm system in baseball. They are the minor leagues. You can play there and get feedback and hone your craft, and then if you get lucky you get called up. That's usually by an independent producer looking for fresh material or new voices, but sometimes it's an agent or manager. You just need to be careful that it's really someone who has good relationships in Hollywood. These days it's how a lot of new writers have gotten their starts. It's how I got mine.

I read "House of Sand and Fog", and although I liked the novel, I thought it was deeply flawed. I dislike passive characters, and thought the female character was too much of a "I can't help it, I'm a victim" type. Like girl, get a clue and into therapy and get over yourself.

But the novel was hugely popular, being an Oprah book and all, so I think many readers related to passive victim character.

I wish I could read a book where the main character walks into their messes with eyes wide open, knowing it's bad, but goes anyway just because they want to, because it's seductive, and because it's fun. I want to see a main character in a book cop to their BS and then get on with life.

I guess if I want to read a book with this kind of character, I'm going to have to write it myself.

Strange things I've noticed this week:

At Costco, there was a woman buying 8 20-pc dish sets of Royal Albert Old Country Rose. It's a good dish set being bone china, but kind of tacky because the roses are shocking pink and they're decorated with gold as well. Why was the woman buying 8 sets of this stuff?

Walking past a car brake and muffler shop, I happened to glance in the window and there was a television in the office with a naked girl talking. Porno at the car fix-it place? So not original, but now it's a naked girl talking on TV and not just a calendar of naked girls.

The SF police are doing a stakeout in Golden Gate Park. As you drive southbound from Park Presidio to 19th Avenue, there's a bunch of cop cars and cops on motorcycles. Not sure what they're looking for, but they're all there blocking traffic in the rain.

Walking down Geary street this afternoon, I could smell hippie lettuce ganga burning. Having grown up in Hawaii where the stuff is grown, I can recognize that smell a mile away. I turned around thinking there was someone smoking a doobie behind me, and there was no one there. I looked up ahead and noticed there was a Hemp Center store. Guess they were sampling the merchandise.

Well the blog is fixed now, but I had to republish my entire site. I kind of liked that it was in different colours in different months.

Oh well! At least it's working now.