'Bred Crumbs

08:10 PM Although I left work at 6:45 tonight, the 20-mile transbay trip still took an hour.

It's as if everyone who's been afraid to leave their house for six weeks all decided to come to The City tonight.

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10:18 PM Ah, so this is why I got DSL: on Oct. 25, the Sci-Fi Channel website begins a new online animated series -- the Tolkieny The Adventures of Edward the Less, from many of those responsible for Mystery Science Theater 3000. If only it were being streamed any other way but via RealMarketing.

This news broke at the beginning of the month, but I just found out. Funny how one can fall out of the loop on news about his favorite TV series just because it's been canceled for two years.

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12:26 AM I suppose I should be disappointed that a gay and lesbian online bank went out of business, but I really can't see what the point of it was. How is a bank gay? Yes, I like to patronize businesses that are gay-owned or gay-friendly, but I really don't see the sense of a whole infrastructure of gay versions of things that don't really have anything to do with sexuality. For example, I was asked to list Dojo on a "gay search engine" (gee, how does a search engine determine the orientation of a Web page? I don't think even Google is that powerful). I guess the gay search engine would find the online gay bank and the online gay casino -- because you know how gays are harassed in those straight online banks and casinos. What next? Gay ATMs? Gay parking meters?

It's not an impertinent question; sometimes Dojo presents itself as a gay improv troupe, and increasingly I'm wondering what that really means. Is it enough that Dojo is five-sixths gay and does the occasional gay-themed gig, when in fact our audiences have probably been at least half straight and our work more often than not has nothing to do with sexuality? If we call ourselves a gay troupe, shouldn't people except all of our games/scenes to be about gayness? And wouldn't that get horribly tiresome?

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06:10 PM Got the 'thrax jitters? The prescription is perspective and humor. Two doses of both:

-- The New York Observer reports on the emergency plans of locals, including well-heeled socialites prepping to flee the city for safety in ... the Hamptons. (Not kidding.) At the end of the article are Fran Lebowitz and Janeane Garofolo, taking it all very sensibly, wryfully, and planlessly. "I do have a bunch of gold bricks and a rifle," says Garofolo. "And I sit in my apartment, and whenever I hear any noise in the hallway, I shout: 'Get off of my land!' ... And also, it might be kind of interesting if someone says in passing, 'Hey, whatever happened to Janeane Garofalo?' And the other person will say, 'Jihad.'"

-- And of course, there's The Onion. "I'd react calmly to this news, but I'm a journalist."

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Using Bees has found a fine article that addresses why a lot of us are having trouble taking anti-war protesters seriously, even when we're liberally inclined and have our own doubts about the U.S. government's approach to The Problem. The piece echoes something I've been thinking a lot lately: if you denounce the military response, you'd better have a better answer. "The Left gathers the usual suspects together, sets them up with some protest signs (many of which are actually left over from the Gulf War and, presumably, were dusted off for 2001), and sends them downtown, where they will chant away an afternoon, making themselves feel good and having absolutely no impact on anyone who isn't already in complete agreement." To which I would add: obnoxious, simplistic posters slapped on overpass abutments don't help either.

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The most interesting thing about Smallville was the window it supplied into Hollywood's unfamiliarity with genuine small towns in the Heartland. The show painted a small, tight-knit farm community with one high school, but it pegged the population at 45,000 (in the present day, 25,000 when the story begins 12 years earlier). That's 1½ times the size of the town I grew up in, which had two public high schools -- and, for that matter, suburbs.

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10:32 AM More Enterprise ragging, then I'll try to be quiet: not only is the tradition-breaking non-orchestral theme song awful (not because it's different, but because it's awful), it's a Patch Adams hand-me-down, Entertainment Weekly reveals. "It was Rod Stewart, in fact, who first recorded the song three years ago, when it appeared in the closing credits of the critically mauled Robin Williams tearjerker." (The current version goes with a Stewart derivative.)

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01:26 AM By adjusting my focus, I could see the world in different ways:

1. As a parade of horrors stretching to shadowy horizons, where those who dwell on darkness are allowed to spread it to me, and grim possibilities are accorded the weight of eventuality, and paralysis leads to blindness.

2. As a place where goodness, friends, love, and laughter are still plentiful; where daily challenges, the gaining of knowledge, and trivial diversions are still fulfilling; where summer nights and bustling sidewalks and cluttered houses are still joyful and wondrous.

I have been inclined throughout my life to see the former. I'm learning the wisdom of seeing the latter. And yourself?

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Apparently, it works like this: if you want, for some reason, to like the endless spawn of Star Trek, regardless, you do. Having seen all episodes of Enterprise so far -- ah, the things you do to keep your consort happy -- I continue to see mediocrity punctuated by awfulness, but many of my friends see enjoyment. I see threadbare, grating caricatures; they see appealing characters.

This week's episode, the preview showed us, is wacky and alludes to male pregnancy. You all enjoy. My boyfriend has seen the light, and we're outta there. Warp Factor Off.

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