Forwarded email from a Mira Loma Park friend: Peets Coffee in West Portal is sponsoring a Peets for PAWS Day on Monday, December 24.  In addition to giving out free house drip coffee (can't beat that!) on Monday from 6:00 AM to 4:00 PM, they will be asking customer to make donations to support Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS) and will match up to the first $1,000 raised.   For those of you that are not aware, PAWS provides a whole variety of services to people with HIV/AIDS to enable them to have pets -- those loving dogs and cats [...]

Email from our friend Kim who is an ex-pat living in southeast Thailand: You might have read, Thailand has an election coming up this month, first one since the coup in September 2006. There are two large parties, and a dozen more little ones. As usual, there have been a ton of reports in the Bangkok Post regarding vote buying.   But there was a new story last Friday: one of the smaller parties was caught offering to supply Viagra to older voters (evidently both men and women) in NE Thailand. On Saturday, playing golf, I asked a friend if [...]

Before I moved to San Francisco my friends and relatives were concerned that I was relocating to a land of drugged-out crazies.  Even my dope-smoking college friends weren’t completely sure that San Franciscans were to be trusted. There was some cause for their wariness. Something must be in the water to cause the cluster of craziness. In a relatively short period, a relative lot of off-beat violence happened either here in the city or in a city colony:Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered… in City Hall… by another supervisor.President Ford was shot at on a city street.  The would-be [...]

I am fairly sure I don’t want Vladimir Putin as my journal censor, but I know I don’t want him to have access to any thoughts or writings of mine that are not already absolutely public. What ‘sup? LiveJournal announced Sunday that it is being acquired by SUP, SUP is an international online media company with established partnerships with businesses across the globe. It was founded in the summer of 2006 by an international management team with Russian seed capital.SUP is owned by a Russian investor, and has had a license to run the Russian-language section of LJ since October, [...]

About eight years ago our next-door neighbor died of breast cancer.  She had felt a lump and was too afraid to have it checked out.  The first symptom that she couldn't ignore was the broken foot she suffered when she stepped out of the car.  By that time the cancer had spread to her bones, and her foot couldn't support her weight. Last week her 60-something widower had a lump on his breast removed and examined.  Cancer. According to the American Cancer Society breast cancer is 100 times less common in men than in woman. But, 1 in 1000 men are [...]

You know how Jessica  always discovered who done it by catching the bad guy knowing something only the killer knew? So this vendor responds to my email flame which complained about a series of his failures to return calls to me. I'd listed a number of calls which failed to generate a response.  I asked him to call me or to give me the name of a contact in his company who's available to help me. He's very apologetic in his call to me. He said that my early calls were assigned to someone who was supposed to take care of me. And, [...]

Richard was born in Montana and served in the US Army before moving to Perth, marrying, becoming an Australian citizen, and living there 30 years.  The US didn't recognize dual citizenships then, and he had to relinquish his US Passport and, supposedly, his citizenship. His wife died a few years ago. Last winter he fell in love with a US man and has decided to move to San Francisco. The US now allows dual citizenship, and Richard was told he could reinstate his US citizenship simply by applying.  He did, and months passed without his citizenship status getting updated. Months. Last week his partner [...]

You'd think that Barry Bonds' ingestion of steroids matters in our daily lives. The media Bonds vortex is sucking oxygen and intelligence out of the airwaves up and down the dial. KGO's anchors last night found an expert to interview who was hyped and ready to compare the damage to Bond's reputation to the damage caused to OJ Simpson by OJ's trials.Let's see.OJ was found responsible for 2 murders.Barry is charged with lying under oath and obstructing justice.President Clinton was impeached for the same issues.  The Senate decided that Clinton's behavior did not disqualify him to be President.Lying under oath [...]

97%ALCOHOLICexcessor, a fellow 97%'er, and I can tear up bars together... so long as we have the appropriate designated driver.