Friday, September 5, 2003
Learned how to implement Q307594: "OL2002: Users can read non-secure e-mail as text," or rather, how to make Outlook from Office XP prevent reading e-mails as HTML. Important to know now that I'm using Outlook at home on a daily basis and since we've learned recently that we'll be migrating to it from Eudora 5.1.1 at work as well. Worked on the student directory site. Got https working—hooray! Patrick saw Jeepers Creepers 2 with Sam at Century 20 Daly City only because Sam wanted to see it and didn't want to go alone. $6.25 per person (matinee). Patrick said the movie was awful. Late lunch with Patrick at New Tsing Tao (415-566-9559, 811 Ulloa), a Chinese restaurant in West Portal. The decor was very basic Chinese: decorative fish tank at the door, frosted glass with fish art, Chinese murals and posters on the wall, and over the kitchen doorway: a tacky square-shaped wall clock that costs under $10. The waitron was mediocre at timing, but had a pleasant demeanor. A typical no-frills Chinese restaurant where you can probably count on getting delicious but not outstanding food at very reasonable prices. Patrick had (something like General Tso's chicken), and I had #9—chicken with vegetables: $10.75 before a $1.25 tip. These lunch specials came with hot and sour soup, a small salad with Italian dressing (to which I furrowed my brow), steamed rice, and fortune cookie. My fortune: You and your wife will be happy in your life together. Patrick's fortune: Your mind is creative, original and alert. Patrick was able to read the Chinese translation of my fortune almost flawlessly. Patrick tells me today that he feels he cannot rely on his fiction writing alone to provide a steady income. I tell him I think it's largely the fault of the market and the people who control it—if his book had come out in the early 90s we both think it would probably have sold very quickly. He wants now to go to China next summer, then write a book about his travels, which he feels will have a strong appeal with editors and readers. I am uncertain that he's right about that, but I know very little about how the writing industry works—far less than Patrick knows, so I must trust him on what he believes. At New Tsing Tao, we ran in to my former co-worker Michael Smith and his friend Chris, who had happened to just sit down for lunch as well. He told me that tonight he was doing his first-ever show of his films—he collects 8 mm and Super 8 straight and gay porn films and projects them layered atop each other and accompanied by psychedelic visuals and old and modern music. He'd played/performed in SoMa bars in the past, but this was his first gig in a theatre space. Patrick and I had plans to do something else, but Michael's show sounded a lot more interesting, so after errands at Walgreens and hanging out at home for a few hours and calling around to see if anyone wanted to join us, we went. Kristina, another co-worker, was at the show when we arrived, and I got to meet her husband Brendan. I also finally met Michael's boyfriend Darrin (or Darren or Darin—I don't know how he spells it). The show was a lot of fun. About 30 people showed, making the small shoestring-budget Artists' Television Access (ATA) theatre feel half-packed. Dinner at Ponte Vecchio (415-206-9677, 1136 Valencia St) with Patrick: Caesar salad to share, rock shrimp pizza for me, glass of wine and chicken cacciatore for Patrick: $37.86 before a $6.25 tip. We arrived around 9:30 PM—the place was packed. We hadn't had anything to eat since our late lunch. We failed to have dinner before the show because of poor planning. We were hungry, and the one waiter did a pretty good job keeping on top of all the customers. (The small restaurant seats about 20.) The chef helped him out briefly at times, coming to our table to take our dessert order or check that we're doing well—I like to see that kind of caring of customers. The salad was, Patrick thought, very traditional: just the lettuce, a few croutons, the dressing (which seemed to have real anchovies ground up in it), and parmesan cheese—nothing else. My pizza was very thin and very crispy. Lots of mozzarella, a generous sprinkling of shrimp, and some herbs (I think sage but wasn't sure)—delicious!