Chopstork

I have a very deep love for Alabaster Cleaners.*  I discovered them a few weeks ago, when I had mountains of laundry to do, but only one machine in the apartment, and little time or desire to accomplish such a major task.  I thought I’d try one of those “wash n fold” services where you can drop off your clothes dirty, and pick them up fresh as a daisy.  I started googling around, and came across the website for the ultimate service, provided by Alabaster.  They actually come to your house with laundry bags, pick up your shit, wash it, fold it, and deliver it, all for just $1 a pound.  (note:  an entire wardrobe weighs roughly 40 lbs).  I was hesitant to let a complete stranger take my clothes, but the yelp.com review was positive, so I tried it.  They came at night, and the next day, I had neatly folded and stacked bundles of clothes.  Somehow, I once again wound up with piles of dirty clothes, and made the decision to pay once more for my laziness.  The guy came this morning.  He says he will deliver my clean clothes this evening.  It’s like all of the benefits of living with your mother, with none of the drawbacks (i.e. actually living with your mother).  And ok, I still wash my own delicate unmentionables, because lets face it, nobody wants to have to reclaim her underwear on eBay.   I fear that is what would happen if I outsource that job.  Not to mention the hell I would unleash if somebody put my favorite bra in the dryer.  (nerd note:  underwire is actually made out of shape-memory alloy, thus making it “dryer safe,” but the rest of the material doesn’t fare too well).  Now all I need is somebody to cook me dinner and iron my dress shirts… anyone know where I can get a wife?

*continuation of very deep love dependent upon return of my favorite jeans unruined, and all tank tops accounted for.

If I may say so myself, I think our costume this year was my personal best. I say “our” because LauraDan, StephanieTim, Old ManDamian, and IAndy formed Ok Go. Yes, we learned the dance. No, not the treadmill one, the other one. I’ve never prepped for halloween two months in advance, but it was worth it. I think most people “got it,” and I hear a few were all about it (we all zone out during the dance so we can’t really see the crowd’s reaction). Here’s our tour schedule…aaaah, I love how stupid we are:

Friday (happy birthday, Keri)

• Sidewalk in front of Medjool’s
• Medjool’s rooftop (Derek asked the DJ to put the song on inside too but he wouldn’t)
• Sidewalk in front of 12 Galaxies, with an encore performance (they still wouldn’t let us and our friends into the private party)

Saturday

• In front of Bar None (after some flippy cup action inside)
• In front of Mauna Loa (Press photographer took some pictures)
• In bus stop in front of City Tavern (Reno 911 cop danced with us instead of keeping us from getting run over)
• In the back yard(!) at a house party in Cole Valley
• Encore performances with anywhere from one to three band members present, and with a flamingo on my head, in the back yard. I got to wear Matt’s (he lives there) N-Judah costume, which was awesome, but I didn’t think to dance in it—what a lost opportunity.
• Almost forgot—our encore on our way out with Eli filling in for Stephanie, the rest of us barking out the moves to him in real time. He did a swell job for his first performance ever.

Tuesday (actual Halloween), tentative

• Some block party for kids near Buena Vista
• Castro Street

I’m kind of sad it’s over now. No more Ok Go dancing. Thanks to our fans who cheered us on out there. Touring is tough, but we do it for the fans.

Us at Bar None in the Marina:

And as is usually the case, I collected bits of other people’s costumes throughout the night:

More pictures from Emily, Courtney, and Luke

Update: No, we didn’t go out Tuesday, and we didn’t get shot in the Castro.
Update: Here’s a video.

We were making ramen at 4 in the morning after we got back from the halloween house party last night. Old Man grabs a bowl, “Are these Corelle? You know corelle doesn’t break?” Pretends to throw one down, but it slips out of his hand. Thunk. It doesn’t break, whew. He picks it up, “that’s not what I meant to do,” and chucks it at the floor. The thing doesn’t just break—it explodes. Instantly there are pieces of bowl covering the entire kitchen. Old Man was honestly surprised at what had just happened. We were all dying laughing. Then he admits that the fine print does say you can’t really throw the dishes on the floor. And then we enjoyed our ramen. Good times.

If you think MySpace is a cluttered hacked up ugly annoying takes-too-long-to-load disaster, but you kind of want to blog and do the social network thing and you’re too good for the ’stork, you might try Vox. I should go ahead and say I looked at it but haven’t actually used it yet.

It sounds like Vox is meant to be a MySpace/Friendster kind of thing that’s more blog oriented and as the laughing squid put it, “is more on a personal level, one to few vs. one to many.” And they supposedly integrate cleanly with other cool web stuff like flickr and youtube.

Blogging is fun again. With privacy features that let you control who views each piece of your blog, you’ll never have to worry about who’s reading. With hundreds of beautiful designs, you can spend less time designing your site and more time with the people you care about. Better still, Vox gives you seamless access to the web services you already use — Amazon, YouTube, Flickr, Photobucket, and more. The bottom line: Vox makes sharing your life with friends and family easy, entertaining, and safe.

Also, if you’ve ever wondered what our friend Nick does at work…well whaddaya know, here he is to tell us.

Update: I guess you could also consider Vox a Blogger (but better) + Friendster social networking + the cool plugins already included and integrated.

When I moved to California I had AT&T wireless, AT&T cable, and a PacBell landline. At some point PacBell became SBC and AT&T broadband became Comcast. AT&T wireless became Cingular, which is owned (60%) by SBC. Then the landline went from SBC…to AT&T. Except that switch was just a name change, so my wireless is AT&T too…again.

W. T. F. ?

I stopped at the grocery store this morning to get some tampons, some Advil, and a sandwich. The sandwich lady took FOREVER! I swear I was in that line for 25 mins. Anyway, I get to the register, and I ask her to ring up my other items as well. She starts ringing it up, then she points to the tampons and says, “I don’t know how to use these.” She is an older asian woman with an accent, so I think…I must have heard wrong. But I say excuse me, and she pretty clearly repeats herself. What are you supposed to say to that!?

Congratulations to Mark and Jess, who got married this past weekend.

And to Ernie for being a good meeter and greeter.

I want a desk at which I can stand at work. I don’t know why. I feel like sometimes I’d work better standing. My cube right now is an old one—just walls with free standing desks in it. If I ever live in a cube with the modular work surfaces and cabinets and stuff that attach to the walls, I’m putting one of my desks up high. It’s gonna rule.

A few minutes later: The intorweb is cool. I just discovered that there is a name for them—the standing desk. Makes sense. And there are even whole websites where you can buy them, like standupdesks.com.

My first time in an American school was 2nd grade at Tuckahoe Elementary. My parents told me before I left: “They are going to ask in the morning if you want to buy lunch today. Raise your hand so you get a lunch.” I was alert when class started, waiting for Mrs. Perzkowski (I think that was her name) to ask the question. She ran through her morning ritual, and then, “Who’s getting hot lunch today?” People raised their hands. I hesitated…and didn’t. What’s hot lunch? I need to buy my lunch. My question never came, and I remained silent.

Later in the lunch line she counted heads. One lunch short. Uh oh. If I eat, is someone else going to starve? People started asking questions. Some kid even asked me directly, “Did you raise your hand?” I might have said yes, but my guilt must have shown. How was I supposed to know “hot lunch” was the same thing? Now I’m not getting lunch. I was sad.

Good thing teachers are smart though. Mrs. Perzkowski got me a lunch out of nowhere (I guess when you’re a kid you don’t realize they make extras just in case). I got to eat without taking anyone else’s lunch. After that, lunch was great. I knew to raise my hand for the hot lunch. And I had a friend that would always share her desserts with me. I think I wasn’t allowed to get ice cream for lunch.

Top Story: North Korea performs underground nuclear test…maybe. We’re all screwed…maybe.

In Other News: Noe Valley party house gets new hot tub. Let’s enjoy our last days.