One bad thing about living in California is the threat of wildfires in the fall, especially when the northwesterly winds suck all the humidity out of the air after five months of virtually no rain.

We woke up Wednesday to the smell of smoke from the wildfires in Napa and Yolo counties.


Yellow haze at Stinson Wednesday AM. You can still make out Sutro tower in the distance, but the air quality was lousy most of the morning.

Satellite image

Surreal sunrise

Hey (e:Maidencateyes) ! Small world! [inlink]maidencateyes,193[/inlink] :)

Yeah, there's something about this time of year there especially. Here's a link to pix of last year's Rhinebeck Halloween festivities:

It's funny - my friends Chris & Monique bought the place in Rhinebeck shortly before I moved out here, and that's become the weekend/holiday getaway gathering spot ever since.

Hmmm...I may have to rethink my "holiday" plans after all. I'd love to see my old gang again.

Time to get motivated for Halloween again. That week at the beach threw off my seasonal time clock. I really do miss having a full-fledged Fall season. At some point, in the spirit of balanced reporting, I'll write up a list of all the things that suck about being in the Bay area, and that'll be on it. For now I'll have to be satisfied with (e:Matthew)'s [inlink]matthew,412[/inlink]glorious pix.

My local Halloween party hosts for the past 2 years aren't going to have a party this year, and the host from the year before that moved out of state. So we're having a Halloween party crisis here. I should just have one myself, but now I'm sorely tempted to go back to Boston/Rhinebeck NY where I know my friend Steve will be pulling out all the stops for his party, which defies description. Here are some stills from the video Steve made one of the years his party was at my house.


That's my ex-boyfriend, Mark (before he was my boyfriend) attaching the dinosaur head to my front porch. (Once a guy has screwed a dinosaur head into your front porch you might as well give it all up to him, right?)


Steve checking the angle.


View from the neighbors.


Steve & me. You can't tell from this still, but here's another of my infamous conceptual costumes. Silver base with a bunch of junk computer parts/media (resisters, hunks of motherboard, optical tape, etc. scavenged during my system manager days) attached to a clear vinyl overlay. People kept asking me if I was supposed to be Barbarella. You'd think I would have learned my lesson then, but no.

I was pondering the Boston vs. self-hosted party options with my music buddy last night (R.E.M. concert was great, BTW) and he asked me if I've been to Halloween in the Castro. I've wanted to do that since moving here. This might be the year.

Halloween in the Castro

Hey, will the Bot be able to give Site Status Updates during the [inlink]news,510[/inlink]outage? I'm going into withdrawal already.

That's a big pumpkin.

I'm going to see R.E.M. at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley tonight. I can't wait. It's a great place to see a show - I saw the Pixies there last month. Possibly the most magical convergence of a peak (in my opinion) performance, incredible setting, and crowd being totally into it I've ever experienced anytime anywhere. I was at the Saturday 9/25 show. Here's the set list if you're interested. Apparently they change it around for every show.

1. Debaser
2. Velouria
3. Wave Of Mutilation
4. U MASS
5. Ed Is Dead
6. Planet Of Sound
7. Caribou
8. Gouge Away
9. Vamos
10. Mr.Grieves
11. Cactus
12. Nimrod's Son
13. Blown Away
14. Holiday Song
15. Here Comes Your Man
16. Bone Machine
17. Bam Thwok
18. Subbacultcha
19. No. 13
20. Dead
21. Monkey Gone To Heaven
22. I Bleed
23. Tame
24. Hey
25. Gigantic
26. In Heaven
27. Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf)
28. Where Is My Mind