Wow. It sure is hilly and foggy around here. I don't mean that in a bad way, but hearing it's hilly and that it rains often is not quite the same as when you are actually attempting to get around and it keeps raining on you. Plus by hilly, I mean precipitous inclines and drops where there are stairs instead of sidewalks, and by foggy I mean the weather forcast is identical every day.

But I make my own indoor fun. I did get a care package from home, containing some good stuff, like a bar of soap, and some stuff I have yet to find a use for, like a hole punch. I did get a can opener, which seemed like a practical gift, but when I tried to celebrate by opening a can of tuna fish with it, it exploded in half, and by it, I don't mean the can. I mean the opener. And in case you were going to ask, you can't use a hole punch to open a can of tuna.

I have been thinking about getting some tear gas. I keep seeing people who look like they would benefit from a little taste of the CS. There is a stretch down town where there are a bunch of shifty characters lurking around. They are not the wimpy kind of homeless I'm used to, who approach with sad stories or just look hungry. They are more like the people who were unemployed during the Great Depression. Kind of strapping looking and just on the edge of forming a mob with torches.

My eyebrow hair seems to be falling out, but other than that, I'm holding steady.

Actually, there are two nice things I would like to point out about my surroundings. One is that there are Cherry blossoms out, which is nice, given that it is February. I also went into the private art collection at work, which is a gallery that you use your electronic passcard to get into off the lobby, and that was kind of amazing, to walk around by myself and look at art up close. So that is something.

There is a big rally happening this weekend, and the whole city is talking about it. It is a rally against the war, though somehow the rabidly anti-semitic group ANSWER are the organizers of it and have banned San Francisco's popular leftist Rabbi Michael Lerner from speaking there, even though he is sending bus loads of people. Everyone I talk to is going, though I'm not a big rally attendee, and I'm not sure that I should start being one now.

The other big news around is that the North Koreans, we are told, have a nuclear tipped missile that can reach San Francisco. So they have wheeled out tanks with Stinger anti missiles mounted on them, and parked them in local baseball fields. Plus they have Black Hawk helicoptors circling the Golden Gate Bridge, all of which makes me feel like it's World War II in a Steven Speilberg movie where I am supposed to scan the skys for Japanese sappers.