After months of imposing on my infinitely patient hosts, I've found an apartment in San Francisco! It's a nice, roomy two-bedroom in the center of the Mission, a block from 16th Street BART. It's perfect, dead center of the good places to be in the city. Walking and Muni distance from Market St, the Castro, SOMA clubs, Greenpeace, and not too far from the Haight. I can stumble home from almost anywhere without the needless concern for sobriety!

And so, the moving. This will be the third time I've moved my whole household. The last two times involved renting a U-Haul truck of the small variety, only to discover on the day of moving that the rental place only has the "Dear God, it's coming right for me!" size. These are the trucks that have big, bright orange signs on the dash that say "Caution! 12' clearance!" Which did nothing to stop me from gouging a corner off the 2nd-floor overhang in my Arroyo Grande apartment building.

This same vehicle provided me with my first opportunity for a real hit-and-run felony about 5 miles later. Momentum equals mass times velocity, fucker!

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be driving the truck this time.

I finally got around to putting up my previous "journeys" posts on my website. If you care to read them, Click on "Journeys" at:

http://www.tolaris.com

I routinely search for "Tolaris" on Google to make sure I'm the first hit. It's my own little concession to vanity. OK, one of many.

But this morning, I discovered that those bastards at Paramount wrote in a character on "Enterprise" called Tolaris! Thank god he's a bit part, just one episode, but he's got a penchant for psi-rape, "mind meld" style. Just great. I can picture it now:

Setting: a sci-fi convention, Anytown, USA

Our hero enters from stage left, leading a group of friends to the local fangmaker. A group of 17-year-olds walks past, wearing Star Trek: TOS uniforms with dicebags on their belts. As they do, one of them peers at Tyler's badge, reading the name.

Geek #1: "Huh-huh-huh. Look, it's a vampire vulcan!"

Geek #2: "Yeah, I bet he couldn't even have sex with T'Pol, so he had to bite her!"

Our hero raises face and fist to the sky and wails: "Curse you, Brandon Bragga!"

{scene fades}

It's only a matter of time before some trekkie takes notice of my nickname and claims the show predates me. This is the universe taking some sort of twisted revenge for years of fantasies involving Jeri Ryan, I just know it.

I went to the Acid Cabaret last weekend. It was just what you might have expected from a cabaret: a party combined with acts of varying ability and quality.

There was a bizarre Shirley Temple / schoolgirl strip act. I'm still a little disturbed; I can't get the image out of my head. Oh, the lollipops!

Two guys wearing viking helmets, one of them wearing mouth-opening hardware like something out of "A Clockwork Orange", ripped apart a giant stuffed Tweety Bird with a chainsaw. I'm still picking the stuffing out of my pants.

Very attractive women danced around wearing snakes and eating flaming sticks. There is nothing as sexy as phallic animals, hot chicks, and fire.

And of course the drunken cowboy Emcee, Party Ball, screaming at the acts, the audience, and his shoes to "Shut the fuck up!" He adds a very discordant feel to the whole thing, but for some reason, I think he's an integral part of the event.

This experience would have been much better if I had actually been on acid. For that, I give kudos to the promoters. I recommend it highly, next time you're in SF.