This is a ridiculous waste of US law enforcement resources, but you already knew I’d say that.

Even more entertaining is this part of a Reuters story on the matter:

“Marijuana is a touchy issue in U.S.-Canada relations, with White House officials warning recently that a plan by Ottawa to decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot could lead to tighter security on the border.”

So let me get this straight. The threat of foreign terrorists that US authorities are so fond of overblowing – that has the border at one level of security. But, if Ottawa allows folks to carry a little pot without fear of going to jail, then we’ll have to step it up a notch?

Please, please tell me – to whom does this make sense?

I was driving quickly but safely up Memorial Drive last night and overtook a woman in a gold-colored Mercury because she was driving quite slowly. I then came to a stop at the Brattle Street light, and she stopped next to me, on my side, slightly ahead. She was middle-aged, maybe on the older side of it. She lowered both of her passenger side windows and it went like this:

MIDDLE AGED WOMAN (GRUMPY, SHOUTING SLIGHTLY): “You were driving very fast.”

ME: “I didn’t buy this car to drive like you.”

MIDDLE AGED WOMAN (EXASPERATED): “Excuse me?”

ME (EXAGGERATED, SLOWER): “I didn’t buy this car to drive like you.”

MIDDLE AGED WOMAN: “Well, it’s verry dangerous.”

ME: “Driving’s very dangerous.”

Then she rolled her windows up. And the light turned green so I didn’t get a chance to pull her out of the car.

a couple shots never before seen:

shot one

shot two

What I’ve been dreaming about the last week or so:

• Saltaire
  
• Natalia Vodianova
  
• The collapse of the great American experiment
  
• Attacking a mouse with a knife
  
• The usual assortment of strange unfoldings, new cities, and friends yet unmet.

My dreams tend to be very colorful and vivid. I don’t know why, particularly, but it’s always been part of my experience.

Now, some crazy talk. In my dreams, color often seems more like “hypercolor” because colors are much more vibratory in that realm than they are to me in non-dreaming space. It’s a matter of degree, not kind – I definitely think I “feel” colors in everyday life, it just is more noticable in my dreamscapes.

This all may stem from the fact that I have always been synesthetic in the sense that I experience visual things extravisually as well as visually. I “feel” color. I see it, yes – but the reason colors and sights can be so intense for me is because I really feel them. When I’m shopping, I look at everything, and I touch it. I suppose that may be true of everyone, but to me, inside my head, I am having a primarily visual experience through both channels; i.e. the “touch channel” and the “sight channel” are merging somewhere inside and delivering a single hypersensory experience.

Sounds, especially music, also have a spatial/visual component for me, but probably less intense than the visual/tactile stuff. It may be cross-wiring due to the fact that I’ve never heard particularly well.

I also have weird conceptual/pereptual overlaps that are a bit harder to explain but they almost feel like “idea synesthesia”. Like, if a certain idea or concept comes into my head, it can have an associated “color” or even a particular location in 3-D space. As a kid I remember memorizing my state capitals by color. Not sure how, but it worked.

First of all, the odds of you getting injured by a terrorist are basically zero. Relative to that risk, it’s a near-certainty that you’ll die in your car tomorrow on the way to work. What are all of you so afraid of?

What happened in London is a tragedy and a horror I’d wish on no one. It’s very likely a result of islamic militants spreading an ideology to which I am vehemently opposed.

After the London incident, the “alert level” in Boston’s subway system was raised to orange (or maybe tangerine – I always get those shades mixed up) with great fanfare and a hurried press conference from the Governor. I checked my color chart magnet on the fridge and orange means “dress for sun”, so I put on cargo shorts and a silky soft Boss t-shirt and headed downtown. Wandering in and out of the Copley station, from what I could tell this basically means more cops standing around. How, exactly, is this making any difference whatsoever, except in my tax bill?

Then, on the way back, I heard Hillary Clinton carrying on about how the President had “cut $50 million from the budget destined to protect our railways”. Senator, could you at least wait for Londoners to finish dredging the corpses out of Piccadilly before you start on the pork and the politics? Get off my fucking radio.

I disagree with how Bush has handled basically all of this, but I certainly don’t accept the Washington assumption that your dedication to solving a problem is measured by how much of my money you throw at it.

And not to pick on the Londoners, but why all the bomb-sniffing dogs now? The bombs already went off, guys. Where were these dogs a few days ago? Something tells me they weren’t checking tube trains.

This is not a conflict of money nor of armament. It is a conflict of social and political ideology. Bombs and bored cops and an infinity of taxpayer dollars will not solve it.

I love sushi and one of my cultural objectives was to find Boston’s Best Sushi. The current #1 is OSUSHI which is located between the Westin Copley’s lobby and the bridge to the mall. Great service and the best sushi I’ve had yet.

Second place is FuGakyu on Beacon Street. Fantastic sushi but spotty service.

A teen girl was just asked by WBZ-TV what she thought about Boston’s Independence Day celebration. She said, “it just represents how great everything is … and how, like, united we are.”

Yeah. When are the fireworks?

paparazzi. but sheesh, she didn’t make me sound anywhere near as cool as Jimmy Guterman. I’m working on a book, too, sorta… why no love? but back off, fellow alphas – I was with two blonde babes. I do this.