2/25/2009

Sometimes I hate the city I love

This morning, my walk to work was miserable. Buckets of rain were coming down. I had rolled my pants up before I left the house (I'm bringing pegged pants back, people) but had underestimated how bad it was and by the time I was rounding the corner in front of my workplace the front of my pants were soaked. On the sidewalk in front was a large pile of syringes along with a few crack pipes and used plastic lighters. Drug addicts suck.

My building has a security guard so I let him know on my way in. I told him that if he called the police they could give him the number for the Needlestick Hotline. Yes, such a thing exists. A hotline solely dedicated to syringes. Drug addicts suck. They suck so much.

The reason that I know about the hotline is because months earlier, over the summer, there had been a similar situation outside my apartment building. Except instead of just syringes dumped on the sidewalk, they were in an open shoebox. It wasn't really a shoe box, it was a box for a cell phone but it looked to be about the same size as a shoe box. Just overflowing with syringes.

I saw it on my way out of the apartment with my wife. I called the police as we walked to the store. They were the ones who told me about the Needlestick Hotline. The Needlestick Hotline was not in service over the weekend but their message gave me a city department to call. I called the city department. I was promptly put on hold and forgotten about. I called back and had a tense moment with the woman on the other line who instantly softened once the situation with the box had been made clear. She let me know that someone would be by in the next couple of hours to pick it up.

It was just sitting there and dogs could have run up and sniffed it or a kid could have run up and tried to touch the orange plastic caps. I resolved to get it off the street as soon as we got back from the store. As we came down from the top of the street on the return trip, there were two people hunched over the box. They were taking pictures with a very nice camera as their nice, new station wagon sat running at the curb. I had a strong urge to walk up and punch them in the mouth. They could hear the party that my upstairs neighbor was having for their six year old son. They could see that this horrible, filthy box was sitting on the sidewalk for anyone to stick themselves with and they decided that the best thing to do about it, the most sensible plan of action, was to fucking taking pictures! You assholes. People suck. They suck and they suck and sometimes I hate living in San Francisco.

I have seem homeless people stop beggging to answer their cell phones. I once saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of God-knows-what (boxes full of syringes, apparently) with a Bluetooth headset on. I have seen people smoke crack, swing at each other with baseball bats, fight on the train. Of course, urine pools abound and the other day someone shit in one of those tunnels construction crews build when the sidewalk is closed. It hadn't been there in the morning but then, on my way home, human feces in the tunnel, which is even worse because it means someone felt free enough to do that IN BROAD DAYLIGHT! There is nothing worse than coming across someone using the street as a toilet. And to the homeless man who sleeps in front of Flax, I SHOULD NOT KNOW WHAT YOUR PENIS LOOKS LIKE!

2/18/2009

We have a winner

The results from the contest are in! Some of you tried to tempt me by mentioning your adorable children or by stroking my ego by telling me how lovely the towels are. Believe me, that sort of stuff usually works like a charm. But this was based purely on the luck of the draw, not on how awesome you make me feel.

Here we go:
  • Third place winner of a lovely (but not quite the finished design) tea towel is Radford. You may not know what a tea towel is but once you get your hands on one... you'll probably leave it folded in a drawer forever. Best of luck with that.
  • In second place we have Lindsay. Bonus points for using the work "bitchen" in your comment. Way to keep it classy.
  • And the first place winner of a Clementine Tea Towel is Angie... but there were two Angies so I'll have to differentiate here and say Angie #1. The one who left this comment, "I came across your etsy shop. Your Heated Cup tea towel drew my interest. Angie". My apologies to Angie #2 for I certainly got your hopes up only to dash them... it was kind of fun for me but maybe sucked a little for you.
So, how do you collect? Send an email to info@theheated.com with your mailing address and the towels shall be sent forth. I will write back to confirm all is happening as it should. Thank you all for participating. It was quite a ride, wasn't it?


2/14/2009

Look what the Storque brought!

Remember a while back when I published the best shots from my photo shoot? Well, they were for an article that came out today on Etsy under their Storque section. After all that worrying about making my face look so so pretty, they chose a picture that features my mid-section... which is still pretty hot so I'm trying not to take it personally. Heh. Thanks to both Etsy and Esty seller flyingrhymes who put this whole shebang together. I feel all official and stuff. Validated. Love me.

2/10/2009

Contest. Contestants needed.

I finally came up with a brilliant idea on how to enter the contest to win this brilliant new clementine tea towel. Are you ready? Leave a comment and I'll draw the name from a hat. Brilliant! Ok, I didn't even come up with that on my own. Now is when I hang my head in shame.

The Rules:
  1. Leave a comment on this blog. Leave a name. A pseudonym is fine but if it's anonymous... well that just doesn't work for me.
  2. Only do that once, please.
  3. I can't stop you from doing it more than once... that's less a rule and more a reminder that cheating is wrong, even if no one catches you.
  4. You will be able to enter this contest until one week from today, so all comments received by next Tuesday before midnight, February 17th are eligible.
I will post the winner's name next Wednesday night. You'll have to come back (see how I get you?) and check to see if you've won. I'll leave my email in the post so that you can contact me and swear it was you. Lots of trust in this contest, huh?

The Prizes: Your odds of winning are probably already pretty good as my web traffic level is less bustling and more humming. It ain't silent. Just humming. Anyway, your odds are about to get even better because I'm giving away three tea towels. The first prize winner will receive a clementine tea towel printed on organic hemp. This tea towel was hand sewn, bitches. Fancy, schmancy.



Second and third prize are the larger, reversed clementine printed on my standard flour-sack towel. They aren't even messed up. It's just that the print was a little too big and so I went back and re-burned the screen with a smaller sized tangerine... and accidentally turned the image around when I did. You know what that means? Limited edition. Ooooh.

Giving: This picture doesn't have much to do with anything except to show you that I baked a delicious cake for my friends a few weeks back and it tasted good even though it's lopsided. Apparently, I live to give.

2/08/2009

C'mon. You knew I would do this.

Yeah, I held a video back from the El Rio show in case I had nothing else to blog about. I got nothing, people. It's been all work and some fun but not the kind of fun that's bloggable. Predictable, three-Tecates-and-dinner, kind of fun. But mostly, work. As in, work-all-day-then-screenprint-then-class-then-screenprint-then-dinner, kind of work.

What's awesome about this video is that it looks and sounds like there are no people there until the camera turns around at the end. Also, the sound person is setting up the room as I am playing, which looks a little funny, like I just showed up and started playing before they were ready. The chairs were a good idea though.

Thank you, sisters-in-law for the foresight of taking video.

2/06/2009

Is that hot?

Last week, I dreamt that I was making out with Paris Hilton. I'm not sure why Paris Hilton but I will tell you that in my dream she was taller that I thought she would be and that in real life, I would have been way more scared of syphillis than I was in my dream. I am not a fan of hers. Or at least, that's what I thought.

Anyway, so we were making out in my room from when I was a kid in Los Angeles. Paris kept hearing car doors slamming from the street outside and she was complete paranoid that people were spying on us. I was like, "Baby, nobody can see us. Calm down and take your shirt off." Ok, I didn't literally say that but you know, when you're making out... 

Then, I heard something clatter on the floor of the room. It was a Sharpie pen. I looked out the window and there was a group of like twelve kids, ages nine to fourteen and they were hucking pens through the open windows. They were giggling and having a great time. "Well, ok. They may have seen us," I admitted. Make-out session over. 

A boy with the group outside started yelling at his friends. "You idiots. If you hadn't been so stupid with your throwing things, we could have kept watching them." I mean, this kid was ever soooooo pissed at his friends for ruining this opportunity. He was red-faced pissed and just unable to control the rage. It was hilarious. Usually, my dreams are so ridiculously symbolic that they're barely in need of analysis but this one... what the hell is this dream about?