five questions from boutell

1. Who are you voting for in November?

the Democratic candidate, whomever he may be. today i voted for John Edwards, because it's still conceivably possible he could beat Kerry, and i like him better.

2. What's the dumbest thing a former coworker of yours has ever done?

my friend Kevin, who was a cop in Los Angeles for a while, allegedly held a gun to a suspect's head and threatened to shoot him, resulting in his arrest for violating the suspect's civil rights. i don't know how it turned out, because he dropped off the face of the earth around the time i moved out here. i worked with Kevin when i was 17, at Tai Yim Kung Fu, selling martial arts supplies.

3. Who made that fabulous userpic of yours with the ZOT?

i assume you mean the toes... i made it myself, from a photo taken by Kludge at FBII.

4. We've heard much about lunch and dinner, lo these many entries. But what do you eat for breakfast?

usually, i don't eat breakfast at all. recently i've started eating instant oatmeal, both for the potential health benefits and as a way of making myself less likely to spend money on lunch out instead of eating whatever i brought with me.

5. If you were paralyzed, but awake, how long would each of your cats wait before commencing to nibble on your extremities?

Daddy-O: six hours. Iceberg: a couple of days. he's not really into organic materials.

i think someone else sent me some questions, but i can't find the email now or remember who it was -- if you asked me questions and i haven't answered them, please resend!

anyone else may feel free to ask me five questions, or ask me to ask them five.

an eventful day, more or less

on my way to my doctor appointment this morning, there was a Snapple truck weaving crazily all over the place, driving between lanes, almost running off the road twice, and almost running me off the road once. i called the highway patrol to report it. i hope they nabbed the driver, because he was either drunk or doing something he shouldn't have been doing behind the wheel. either way, it sure got the adrenaline pumping.

i ended up being early for the appointment anyway, so i stopped into a fancy olive oil boutique on Fillmore, where i was treated to an olive oil tasting. i tried three kinds from Provence and one from a different region of France, all of which were delicious. i wasn't going to spend any money, but after a nice little chat, the saleswoman offered me 20% off a dented can of a particularly tasty one, Moulin d'Olivette. it comes from the Manosque Cooperative, and includes oils from Aglandau, Colombale, Rosée du Mont d'Or, Filaire, and Picholine olives. it has a light, sharpish flavor with a peppery aftertaste, and i think it's going to go very nicely with meyer lemon on some fresh linguine i picked up.

having just tasted it side by side with the Santini olive oil i usually buy from Trader Joe's, there's definitely a major difference between the two. the Santini (which cost $4.99 for a quart, compared to the $33/16.9 oz. the fancy stuff was marked at) compares surprisingly favorably, but has a completely different flavor, stronger, fresher and more, for lack of a better word, olivey. it will be interesting in the coming months to see which works best for different types of food. i don't imagine i'll be shelling out this much for olive oil on a regular basis, but i couldn't resist the offer of a discount.

on the way home, i picked up some fresh daffodils at 99 cents/bunch and some gorgeous asparagus from the farmer's market, voted, and saw a flatbed truck being hauled on another flatbed truck.

in medication news, we're adding wellbutrin back into the mix to see if it helps kick me out of the current slump. what the doctor really wants is for me to see my therapist twice a week and move into someplace with a roommate, because she thinks i need to be forcibly dragged out of my isolative routines. while i suspect she could be right, i really don't want to have a roommate, and i can't wedge a second therapy visit into my schedule while i'm commuting on BART, so at least for now she's not getting her way.

best spam name of the day

Sameness M. Proclivities

almost eerie, isn't it?