Anyone that thinks "fullalbumname.zip" is an acceptable title for something linked on a public blog or site needs a check up from the neck up.

Smoking anything is bad for you, and I'll be the first one to agree that weed is not a "one size fits all" solution. When I tell people I meet in social settings that I don't partake because I don't like how it makes me feel, it's annoying when they say something like "Oh, that's because you never had ________ before." No, it's because it doesn't work with my body chemistry....but you've known me for five minutes, please tell me what's good for me and what isn't.

I also think you can overindulge to where you're dumb and lazy, just like any number of things out there (alcohol, turkey, carbon monoxide, etc.). When I said that I didn't think it should be controlled, that didn't imply that I felt that people shouldn't be moderate in their use. It's powerful medicine and shouldn't be abused...but even if it is, the cumulative effects are nowhere near as bad as the legal alternatives.

I stopped enjoying being stoned in my early 20s. At some point it started to crank my anxiety up from its usual manageable level to "OMG SOMEONE PLEASE CUT MY HEAD OFF AND THROW IT OUT A WINDOW."

That being said, I think it's great stuff and should be completely unregulated...as in, no laws, no tax, no nothing. The US really stepped in shit when we bought the whole "Devil Weed" myth.

When cops act like assholes.

Whatever happened to the one overt act or probable cause? I would be more worried about a kid that didnt draw stuff in their school notebooks that could be taken out of context.

Taught myself BASIC to build simple roleplaying games (all written out by hand, some worked) then moved on to LOGO in 5th grade. Got yelled at for teaching everyone the DRIVE command (using arrow keys to move the turtle around). Got bored with LOGO and switched back to BASIC to write slightly more complicated roleplaying games in sixth grade. (Same as before, hand coded...more of those worked.)

Didn't mess with computers for couple of years till my dad got an Amiga. Learned enough on that to keep up with him. Switched to Macs when he married my stepmother (she worked for Adobe.) Learned enough on those to do what I needed to do (lots of writing and checking out the early Internet).

Other interests intervened till I was in my early 30s, Then I got a cheap PC and started hacking because it was fun. Still doing that to this day.

I'm not a super-tech savvy guy (i.e. never had a job in the field) but I know a lot more than a lot of my friends just through curiosity and boredom. I can fix most problems I encounter and get what I need done, and know how to research what I don't know.

I'm not going to supply links, but the following gives a pretty good idea of what shaped me-

The Strawberry Statement by James Kunen

Be Here Now by Ram Dass

The Secret Life of Plants by Tompkins and Bird

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

A People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn

How to Talk Dirty and Influence People by Lenny Bruce

Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman

Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver

Seize the Time by Bobby Seale

Plus various books by the following-

Anais Nin

Tom Robbins

Gurdijeff

Carlos Castaneda

I average around four books a month, 50-50 between ebooks.and print. Potboilers, textbooks, classics- doesn't matter. I get most of my ideas from reading...since I like to write and sound smart, it works out.

I'll respond in order, one through eight-

1. When traffic is non-existent and it's a four way stop, I will slow down in case I need to yield to someone who has the right of way. I always stop if cross traffic doesn't have a stop sign.

2. Uhhh....Lisa Frank? I got nothing.

3. I always yield to pedestrians. I'm a big guy (6' and 230 lb), and the one and only time I hit a ped was because they jaywalked straight off of a bus into a blind spot. I felt bad, they flew about seven feet and ended up wedged under the car in front of me with a black eye...but for the life of me I don't know why someone 2/3 my size would decide to play IRL Frogger at 2 PM in downtown SF. Takes all kinds.

4. Never seen it myself, so...

5. ...two extra meters? Did they veer over the double yellow into oncoming traffic? I hate it when drivers overreact...just stay in your lane and don't pull any funny stuff, and I'll try to do the same.

6. I don't cut off peds (see above) but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't see other cyclists do it. A lot. Not only is it rude, it's dangerous.

7. I stop for red lights out of common courtesy just as much as safety.

8. Guilty as charged, but there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. What I consider riding defensively would look like something else entirely to most people, but when I'm splitting lanes and weaving through gridlock I'm paying very close attention to everything that's going on around me.

And now, my two cents.

More often than not bike lanes in the US have achieved exactly the opposite of what they were meant to. Squeezing more cars into a smaller area to create an arbitrary 24" wide comfort zone doesn't fix anything...in fact, most bike routes I've seen are so poorly thought out that I usually avoid them altogether. Urban riding is no joke, and there's no room for complacency or entitlement. You're playing in fucking traffic, a couple lines painted on the street are not going to keep you safe if you ride like an asshole and piss off everyone around you. Leaving the car at home is a start, but that doesn't mean much if you aren't being mindful and setting a bad example.

Helmets are a good idea and should be promoted as such, especially to kids. Helmet laws for adults are just another source of municipal revenue....nothing more, nothing less. After all, if the cops were that concerned about my personal safety and welfare, then they ought to understand why I'm not okay with being confronted by anyone who's heavily armed. But that's just me.

Bike culture has come a long way in the US, but it's never going to be like Europe. And that's okay.

I've been helping a friend with canning some homemade hot sauce recently. Generally we use a combination of Serrano, Thai and Habanero chiles that have been chopped then boiled in white vinegar. Once that's done (15 min or so) we blend the chiles with about half of the vinegar, then run the mixture through a wire mesh strainer into a jar. After canning about a dozen jars, we had a bunch of the mash left over, so we broke out some tortilla chips and gave it a try.

The left over mash looks and tastes like spicy relish. It's not as hot as you would expect considering what goes into it, but it does have a way of catching up with you if you eat enough of it. Adding a little rice wine vinegar makes the relish sweeter. I imagine that it would probably be good as an base for salsa, but we haven't gotten around to trying that yet.

Yet they'll gladly buy iPhones.

But I'm not ruling it out because I've been having a hell of a time getting my Linux desktop (Ubuntu 11 something or other) to play nice with gtkpod.

I haven't tried Gnome 3 or Win8 yet. iOS is okay, and Unity seems like a OSX/NeXT ripoff. I keep things simple...as few icons as possible and a plain black desktop is what I like to look at.

To answer the question- I don't hate new GUIs, I just don't use them.

I normally use Ubuntu 11.04, but I have an old workstation with XP on it I boot up once or twice a month to play games. Except for the more exotic iterations I believe I've used almost every OS Microsoft has made since DOS, and overall I don't think any of them are terrible...I mostly got into Linux just to learn something new and because I liked the "free" aspect.

And since they were a jackass anyway I don't feel like it was a bad thing.

Beyond that, Facebook seems to be relying on the "more bells and whistles" approach...and if you're like me and crave simplicity, it's not helping.

I'm a "I know I don't do it right but I'm proficient enough for my needs" typist. With no training whatsoever I can hit 40 wpm on my Model M (with minimal peeking at the keyboard) once I get warmed up....if I actually bothered to learn how to type correctly who knows how fast I'd be.

Summer in the Bay Area ends after Halloween.