We watched Annie a few weeks ago, the one from the 80s with Carol Burnett (and Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters, how I wish they'd team up more often), and at the time I couldn't figure out why anyone liked it. That Annie girl was so squeaky and medicated; and every five minutes they were doing another "Tomorrow" reprise.
The thing that bugged me the most was that everyone adored Annie in the film, from the moment they met her. Like, psychotically. She had some kind of magnetism on the other characters in the film that was totally invisible to me.
Also -- listen to how pissed-off the little girls sound in this version of "Hard Knock Life." They're like gang bangers! My sympathy is with the hard-drinking matron.
I came home early from work today, and found James napping. His eyes opened as I came in the room: "you're a minstrel," he said, "not a minstrel. A wanderer. A wandering minstrel. Yes, a minstrel."
His eyes closed. "You came home early today," he said, still not yet awake. "You came home to get me an ice cream cone."
So, I went to the "Get Engaged" meeting at the LGBT Center on Tuesday night. It was part of a statewide series of town halls, designed to show off the data being gathered to fight Prop 8. A good time was had by all.
Here, I think, was one of the more interesting findings: the room was surveyed both before and after the meeting to see what year everyone preferred. In both surveys, the room heavily favored 2010. After the meeting, though, there were fewer undecideds -- so the meeting did help people make up their minds otherwise. But the newly-decided people were pretty evenly split between 2010 and 2012, so the data and arguments did not skew people towards one year or the other.
The other interesting point: EQCA and Courage Campaign collaborated with David Binder on collecting tons of useful data. It's very encouraging to know that this is happening -- it'll form the basis of the campaign in 2010 or 2012 or whenever. We can't move forward without it so I'm glad to see it.
None of the findings were surprising:
- CA is split 50-50 on equal marriage
- Crucial: win not just swing voters but also those currently opposed
- Effective messages: couples, personal stories. heart stuff.
- Ineffective messages: rights, fairness. mind stuff.
- Groups we must win over: religious, elderly, conservative. Race debunked as major factor -- religiouness much more significant.
- Adding provision to ballot that clarifies religious liberty significantly increases support.
- Estimate: to change enough minds, we'll have to knock on 90,000 doors. Molly says: "that's steep, but not impossible."
- Leadership summit on July 25 (Inland Empire) will answer question "what's the plan for 2010 or 2012?"
I spoke to a bunch of people after the meeting. Everyone was wavering on the arguments between 2010 and 2012 -- we all could see the arguments for and against both years, and even the people leaning toward one year or another seemed like they could be convinced. I didn't get the impression that anyone was really strongly committed to either year.
What people DESPERATELY wanted, however, was a plan. This is totally consistent with what I'm hearing elsewhere: most folks are saying, "I'll go with either 2010 or 2012, whichever year has a plan behind it." Hopefully that plan will start to come together at the July 25th summit.
Today I was trying to figure out how to swap the contents of rows in Excel. (In Numbers, it's super-easy -- you just drag the row -- but if you do that in Excel it erases a bunch of data.)
So I typed in "swap" in the help-search-box. The first result? Instructions for using Excel to manage a Secret Santa gift exchange.
Then it froze, and stayed frozen until I closed Outlook.
"All these years you've been writing about Muni," James said to me after we were done talking to the police, "and now finally you have something interesting to say."
We had been riding the bus home from seeing Bruno (which I liked, but it was stressful!) on the 31. Some kid was asking if anyone had the time, and nobody was responding, and I was being nice -- and careless -- and looked at my watch to say 1:10am. He grabbed for the watch, I curled into a foetal position in my seat, and there were an awkward 15 seconds during which he clutched fruitlessly at my groin before giving up to run away into the public housing.
He didn't get anything. Too bad for you, public-housing-mugger! It wasn't a very good scheme, since how would you even yank a watch off of a wrist unless it was the elastic kind, which this wasn't, because I am not a computer science major in the year 1988? Or maybe he was going for my phone, which was in my pocket and he could maybe feel it as he was groping around in my lap. Anyway the whole thing was like an encore performance of Bruno. What a tangle!
Of course it was all captured on tape -- or at least, it happened in front of cameras that may or may not have been functioning. I have made some inquiries and will hopefully be getting the footage, if it exists.
The driver -- Ruth -- was very nice, and called the cops. They took a statement. I was fine. We rode the bus the rest of the way home, and at one point Ruth speculated, "do you think he went for you because you're gay?" And I knew I was back amongst friends.
So, Wednesday. I left my credit card at home, because I ordered a Wii sensor bar at Best Buy, and James was going to pick it up at the store but needed my credit card to do so. (Our original sensor bar was eaten by rats, I'm not making that up.)
So, I didn't have my credit card at work, and I didn't realize until I got to the cashier to pay for my lunch that I didn't have any cash, either. So there I am holding a to-go box of tandoori chicken and no way to pay. They don't take Discover. Of course they don't. Nobody does. Why do I even have a Discover card? Worse yet, why do I have two? I might as well carry that ancient middle-eastern currency that was a 500-pound triangle.
So, I ask the checkout lady, "oh, can I just run to the ATM?" and I left my food there with her. And I scurry off but what am I going to do at the ATM? It won't let me withdraw money against my Discover card (or against a quarter-ton triangle). "Where am I going?" I wondered as I stalked away from the cafeteria.
So, I wind up down the way at a Starbucks, and they do take Discover but their lunchy things are all miserable. Instead of a lovely tandoori I had a tiny chicken salad sandwich that was made out of unhappy chickens. Ten dollars! That's the price of the mass hysteria that is the Discover card. Also, it is the price of not having money.
So, I didn't starve, but I can never go back to the cafeteria again. Or if I do, I'll have to explain why I abandoned food like a common criminal. Drat.
