A new month begins, and I still don't have the sites in the tip-top shape I'd hoped to have them in by now.

Last night was pleasantly uneventful. I spent it scanning old Fresno photos and gathering more info for the Fresno site. I'll be doing more of the same tonight, most likely, although I'd promised a friend I'd go out. I'm just not really up to it... Still got a nagging minor bug in my system which isn't making me feel completely ill, but also isn't making being awake all that fun either.

I'll probably be visiting San Francisco this weekend. More for the company than for the City, though. My feedback form is actually showing a bit of traffic to the site other than Andrea, Lauren & David lately. Cool.

I'm greatly disturbed today - I have a bit of a sick, malevolent feeling. I think its related to my latest reality check on current events. My feelings on the war and on the public response to it have not changed, and I managed to sum them up pretty well at the last open mic. However, I feel that I'm still surrounded in large part by individuals who are strangling me. Too many people are spouting off the "sacrifice" and "selfless" attitude which caused our problems. They're using the enemy's morality, not ours. What is their goal, if not to live? Do they think that they can obtain some malevolent equivalent of happiness if they bring others down to their level? Do they think they can obtain some semblence of a happy life if they merely destroy the lives of others? Do they think?

I think too few people really understand the issues in the war between altruism and egoism: it is a war between the morality of death and the morality of life. Egoism is the assertion that one has a right to ones life and the products of ones mind. Altruism is the assertion that one is only alive to serve the purposes of others. If this includes letting others survive by drinking your blood, altruism insists that it is one's duty to allow it, even if the result is a slow and painful death. Every dictator, every murderer, every destroyer and criminal and scoundrel who has ever lived on this planet, if they had any mental capacity at all, has based their behavior on the morality of altruism.

This reflects my most recent peeve about an ad I saw in a magazine exclaiming "Health care is a right, not a privelage!" Is it? Free health and education, huh? To be provided by whom? In providing a service to those who cannot (or will not) compensate those who render it, there are two choices: enslave the server (the doctors and teachers) in order to force them to provide their services without compensation; or enslave a third party (in our society, this means the most productive individuals and corporations, and also the nicotine and gasoline users) in order to compensate the individuals providing the "free" service.

In a just society, nothing is free. In a just society, every man uses his mind to further his life, and his life is bettered to the degree to which he can utilize his mind. If one does not operate on this premise, one accepts slavery as a means to an end. In this case, the enslavement of the greatest men to the smallest. Christians call this "charity". Dubya calls this "compassion". I call it DEPRAVITY.

I would rather die fighting for my right to be free and use my mind to its fullest and only for MY benefit, than live as a slave. Slavery is living death, which is far worse than instant death. I would love to live, but I will not live as a slave. My message to any altruist who crosses my path and attempts to sink his fangs into my arteries: you can only suck so much of my life before I will fight back, die of anemia, or die fighting. Either way, your milch cow will be dead. Yes, you will move on to cannibalize the next slave in the field... But what will you do when your fields are filled with nothing but corpses, or when your slaves go on strike?

I went to San Francisco over the weekend. Despite the fact that it was San Francisco, David showed me an increadible time. He took me shopping. Outside of the City.

On my way up on Saturday morning, I managed a stop in Merced at a mildly trashy diner on the south side of downtown. The waitress who served me was a used piece of middle-aged trailer trash, who was increadibly rude and kept glaring at me as if I was the source of all her problems. I only wish I would've had something smaller than a penny to tip her. Just goes to show that no matter how many fucking flags you wave in front of your business, it won't make you any better.

So I'm going to spend the rest of the week convincing myself that I must be more productive next weekend. I'm trying to work out a bit of a trip around the west half of Fresno County: eg. Coalinga, Mendota, Kerman, Firebaugh, etc. Should be some good material, and a lot of soggy cotton fields.

For some reason, I thought that last year Sippy celebrated their 8th year, and now they're about to have a 10-year party at Fred's the day after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if it's a typo, a lie, or if I just missed a year of my life and didn't notice it until now...

My email is down today, so if you have an "urgent" matter, it'll have to wait. The open mic night went as well as I expected. Personally, I was a bit more into it than previously, but I think the audience was still rather unimpressed/unconcerned. I'll probably return next week nonetheless, considering I already have another work underway for the occasion.

Not much to say today. My wardrobe is getting a little too tight lately. Sometimes I think I should care more about such things... Or not.

You know someone's getting to you when you start to have dreams about them... Possibly material for a new essay... But not in the mood to describe in detail right now...

The Fresno Site is at it's new home - fresno.thehyaena.net. Nothing really updated there since the weekend, though - except the search utility works. It's also the only place that I have the message board up.

Superfluid show tonight. My 4th show to record. The Shroud's also playing tomorrow night. I just might go. I miss some of my old gothy friends, I wonder if I'll see 'em...

Email's back up... For now. If I have many more problems with it this month (it's happened a lot lately), I'll be switching. Not sure to whom, yet, though.

Happy birthday, yesterday, Andrea. You're one of the few people whose birthdays I actually seem to remember, even though we hardly ever talk... Must be the Amazon.com thing.

The Superfluid He3 show was spectacular. Kat Jones joined the fray as well, fresh back from her stints abroad. I recorded both sets. I'll post some new entries on the Local Bands page when I get all the stuff ready.

For the first time in weeks, I'm completely caught up with my email. I almost don't know how to behave without that press of urgency from the "you haven't replied for 5 days" person(s).

Nothing much else today. I've already nblown my whole paycheck, so I'll be on bread & water for two weeks now. Not that it won't be good for me.

Today I've becme suddenly struck by a desire to read up on Eeyore. Keep in mind, Eeyore, not any of the other 100-Acre Wood cast. "Thanks for noticing me". Such a sweet and benevolent yet somehow devious and dubious phrase...

I have decided not to attend the Shroud show tonight. Last night pretty much did me in. I'm gonna work on the recordings and veg most of the night I think. I'm also in the middle of stalking someone, so I might do a little of that...

Once again my neighborhood is being transformed into a plastic queer mecca for four days. Since Thursday, the "Reel Pride" movie festival has threatened to plug up all the streeets with middle-aged fag couples and bleach-blonde dykes walking arm-in-arm.

Each year for almost a decade now, the Tower Theatre has been home once each fall to this Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. I'm so increadibly sick of it I don't really think I can lucidly describe in what ways it is so offensive. The faire available is all of dubious merit, whether artistically or commercially - a conglomeration of otherwise unrelated 'gay coming of age' stories, featuring thirty-something boy actors who look twenty but play teenagers, or twenty-something dyke actors who look forty but also play teenagers.

Once again an event portrays an idealized and glossy version of queerdom which has no viable connection in reality, and all of the attendees of this particular event in no way resemble the characters, nor have they had even remotely similar experiences themselves in their past.

Nonetheless, the fags come out of the woodwork for this event... more fags than you would dare to assume could possoibly exist. The heteros and unlaminated homos have to go into hiding in order to avoid being trammeled on, and if you aren't dressed in refelctive lycra or pink polyester blends, and walking hand-in-hand with an equally offenisive freak, you will be completely invisible.

No wonder at all that I have no interest in venturing into my own neighborhood for an entire weekend. I, who LIVE here, versus all the clones who live their cozy domesticated lives 360 other days out of the year out in North Fresno. The fact that they chose to appropriate this part of town for their sickening festivals and disgusting parades I equate to the hideous gendrification of every other neighborhood of merit. Rather than confine their destruction to their own parts of town, they have to declare Tower District the "gay section" just because a few classy and vocal gay couples bought up a bunch of the comercial buildings a couple decades ago.

I can't wait until Monday night when I should finally have my neighborhood back...

Back from a trip to the West side. I toured Easton, Caruthers, Huron and Coalinga. Tomorrow I will take on Mendota, Firebaugh and Kerman. Full reports should be posted on my Road Trips section once I have it all collected and written up.

I awoke this morning to a wonderfully rainy day. The air did need a bit of a washing around here. It did put a damper on my travel plans, though... Not that I can't take the trip any other day. Considering my planned destinations were little more than a 6-hour trip or so in total, I doubt finding another opportunity will be difficult.

Digging around for some rainy day music today. I love the rain. Too bad Fresno doesn't get much of it. A genuine thunderstorm complete with torrential downpours today. Just Desserts, Mercury Rev and Radiohead on heavy rotation, spiced up with a little Cure here and a little SleepyD there...

And maybe finish it off with some Tom Waits. Perfect weather for cuddling up with a cup of tea... or cocoa... I think I'll do just that...

I'd planned to perform a special Veteran's Day tribute at Open Mic tonight, but equipment failure cancelled the event altogether... Nothing around here can handle relative humidity higher than 12%, I guess, even if it's indoors...

I should have come home and had some much-needed sleep, but it's a restless night, and I ended up wandering around Vons at 10 pm searching for generic Diet Lemon-Lime Soda, only to discover that the Diet 7-Up was on special and 10 cents cheaper. I loaded up the cart with additional fluids and ended up home, where I remain restless.

Tomorrow there should be some additions and improvements to much of the site, but mostly revolving around the Fresno and Diners sites, and maybe a couple new essays at the Commentary section. I actually have two essays currently completed, but one is a bit reader-specific, and the other I'm debating on whether to post, as it is a little too "current" in its content for me to feel entirely comfortable posting at the moment. I may just do some edit and throw it out there.

Hiding things never really was my cup-o-tea.

Another reason that I have to obtain the digital camera ASAP: even the photo developers took yesterday off. I'm stuck with no updates tonight, and most likely none tomorrow. If plans don't intervene, I should have the updates promised for today by Thursday evening, otherwise we're looking at next week.

What has been updated is a new essay entitled "Applied Philosophy". It started as an email, and developed into the targeted criticism of many of my peers which I've been meaning to level for some time now. I had planned to post a second new essay today, but I've decided to delay it until next week for various personal reasons.

This week feels like it's never going to end. I really need a break from work. The monotony and "panic" motivational method of my Dad are getting to me. I think I need to take a vacation early next year, and this time I'm NOT using it to job-hunt (fruitlessly), as I wasted a week-and-a-half last summer...

Anyway, more updates Thursday hopefully.

His name is Greg Ramirez. He used me, he abuses himself. He's been in and out of jail, gives consistently dirty urine to the judges, and can't manage to hold a job. He's years in arrears on his child support. He continues to demand my pity. Tonight he threatened me with physical harm (his words: "I'm not your problem right now, Mark. You could MAKE me your problem...").

I'm not good at pity, and I don't take threats lightly. It's been a long road, Greg. But I grant you my indifference.

I slept less than 2 hours last night, due primarily to nervous anxiety in relation to my encounter with Prick Boy last night (see below). I recovered slightly after spending some time cruising David's journals. I realize that there are Pick Boys in everyone's lives to some extent. David is a feel-good kinda guy.

I have to be at work in one hour, and there's no way I can call in sick, considering a phone call yesterday turned this weeek fom one of the slowest in history to a rather busy one... It's gonna be a long day. Hopefully I'm not too exhausted tonight to proceed with my planned updates to the Diners and Fresno sites. If I can manage to stay awake until about 9pm, that should give me a couple hours to work on it after work....

I got the photos back, and managed to add to the Local Bands page, and to the Diners site. I had planned to detail my last two road trips on the Fresno Site, but it's already too late to do more work on this site tonight. It'll have to wait until Sunday or Monday... Maybe by then I'll have a better grip on the whole set-up for the Road Trips section, anyway.

I'm beginning to reconsider this whole subdomain thing among my sites. I'm thinking it maay have been a mistake... We'll give it a few more months, then I'll decide...

I was thinking I might have the energy to mozy over to the Lantern tonight, but it's already nearly 10, and I'm beat from last night's sleeplessness. A few emails and I'm passing out.

David's coming! Yay! It appears I may actually survive this week!

David's coming to visit me this weekend, so I probably won't be doing any updates or replying to any email if you sent it later than last night, because I'll be too busy snogging. So there.

Back to the grind. Luckily it's a short grind this week, and I should be having a ton of fun over the holiday. Should make a return to normality easy to tolerate starting next week... If you can call this time of year "normal" anyway.

Should be some promised updates over the next couple days... Or not...

So it was an increadibly enjoyable weekend... But then, David is an increadibly enjoyable person. The odious new essay has been posted, but it's sappy and embarrassing - to more people than just me, I'm sure. Hopefully I don't lose too many friends over it...

As far as updates go, I've decided I don't like the subdomains idea, so I'm not renewing them, and I'm just gonna embed the Fresno and Diners sites in the primary domain. The full move should be finished tomorrow. Not really sure whether the move will be accompanied by any sort of redesign. If you have any suggestions for me to improve the navigation around the site(s), Let me know.

After the update, I'm off to Vons and then to open-mic night. Hopefully I get to do my Veteran's Day performance one week late, as last week's eveent was canceled...

I should be leaving the 35mm world by the weekend. Goodbye rude photoprocessing punks...

I have most of the kinks out of the new set-up. Hopefully I get everything relatively smoothed over and functional as I browse it myself.

Fresno's nice and foggy today. Already past noon and no sign of it letting up. This is good. I like the fog. If only it weren't accompanied by such damn cold weather.

Dealt with some especially nasty broker-customers today. A note to anyone who uses subcontractors: if you tell us in advance that you're no longer going to use us, then proceed to tell us to hurry up on the job we're currently on, it ain't gonna work. Why should we go out of our way to save your ass when you've already deafened us with your whining and made it perfectly clear that you have no intention of giving us any more business?

If you really want to get a job done, but aren't satisfied with the work you're seeing, the best thing to do is to show your opinion with your actions. Bitching isn't going to help matters, and in a case like todays, will definately make things worse for you. Just let the job be done with and move on to someone you like better. Screaming at the top of your lungs will only piss people off and make your job harder.

[End Rant]

If anyone's actually still reading this after my nearly week-long break from updates, thank you and welcome back...

I did Thanksgiving at ma & pa's in Cambria, CA: land of boutiques, overpriced useless antiques and fine dining (read: "small portions and high prices").

But the fact that we spent more time at home than on the 'town' meant I was almost able to forget where I was. My lovely Aunt Kathy provided the color commentary. No significant family fueds erupted, and pa managed to keep the shop-talk to a bare minimum.

Friday I managed to capture the Sippy & Old Guzzler show at Fred's on beautiful digital audio, along with a cache of video clips which I eventually plan on compiling into a music video... Eventually. Thanks to Jimmy & Julie for letting me record, and for putting on a great show.

And mega-thanks to David for hosting me in San Francisco Saturday and Sunday. I've lost almost all of my Anti-SanFran bitterness over the past month, thanks to him. Granted, there are still some definate reasons for me to avoid the City, but for now, it has a certain claim on my affections which have tamed my dislike for the place. I plan to return often now, at least so long as he'll tolerate my company...

Unfortunately, the weather was not kind to me, and I've managed to score yet another bug. As far as site updates go, I'm on hiatus with most of the non-personal sections, at least until I acquire my video-capture/edit hardware. And I'm probably waiting until after New Years for that.

Another night of precious little sleep. The sinus pain is nearly unbearable and nothing seems to be relieving it. Nyquil isn't even offering me a comfortable coma this morning.

But at least I managed to catch up on the email and post a new essay in the down time. No work today. I'm sure I'd pass out at the desk. As it looks now, I may be visiting Herr Doktor this afternoon. I'll post my last will & testament if the diagnosis is too dire.

Luckily, it looks like we may get a bit of rain to temper the cold in the next few days. Call the coroner if I don't update again by Sunday.

I finally got some sleep, and awoke feeling much better. Still a little sinus leakage, but overall, I actually should make it to work tomorrow.

I also managed to finally clean up all the bad links and pictures on the Fresno section and added a new entry to the Dives section.

On the up side, I may have missed open mic night this week, but damned if I'm going to miss coffee night with Amy tonight. And this time it will go better than last time.

I wish I had more to say lately, other than the run-of-the-mill "this is what's up" updates. I guess, aside from the horrible illness the past couple days, I've had very little to rant about... I'm actually enjoying that fact.

Also, congrats to David on his latest publishing effort. Send him a note and tell him not to be so modest!

Slept all day now I can't sleep tonight. At least I'm feeling pretty normal now. And the rain has come, giving me a pleasant respite from the drab weather of the week thus far.

I've decided that I like Star Trek Voyager more than The Next Generation. I'm bored and I have to work in the morning. Ugh.

I've pretty much recovered from my illness - which lasted longer than most that I've had in the past year or so. I'm still a little nasal, and didn't sleep at all (again) due to the evil antihistamines.

But at least I made it into work. If all goes well, I should be spending a short stint helping out Amy with her new computer (unfortunately, the poor soul was given a Hewlett Packard), and then going home to pass out. Hopefully that puts me in OK shape for my trip back to the City to see David (again) on Friday evening.

I find that I am better able to communicate in writen form since I started this site. I think it gives me the capacity to write and edit and critique and thus improve my writing that even the keeping of journals has not helped as well with over the years. Now if I could only make it interesting enough to get more than 5 people to read it...

Not a hint of trouble in the Garden of Shagg, thus I'm returning to San Francisco to visit David yet again, and that's a very very very very good thing. And I agree with him: porn is fantasy, and fantasy discriminates freely and without remorse. If you want safe little politically correct stories, read the Times. I must say that I feel a better intellectual/personal connection with him than just about anyone else I've met, even though I've not known him very long. The fact that he's increadibly sexy is also a good thing.

Anyway, enough of my mushy stuff, lest I reveal too much about my personal life (o wait, that's what this site is all about...). I'll have a full report on my first multi-night stay in the City (ever) when I return on Sunday (me? an exhibitionist? nah...)

I'd also like to welcome Nina back to cyberspace after a nearly 3-month hiatus. An unpleasant evening at Amy & Steph's trying to get an evil Hewlett Packard PC to work added to may already significant loathing for Windoze and every computer manufacturer that alows it on their machines. But I managed to get a VERY good night's sleep, and the work day was productive but non-threatening and stress-free. Just the mood I need to be in...