I have to wonder if there’s another Dumpling War brewing.

There’s a coffee truck that stations itself, each and every day, a few hundred meters away from my office on Wall Street. It’s bright orange, it blasts music from within the truck, their logo looks like a splash of coffee, and they make an OK iced mocha. It’s called “Love Coffee.”

For anyone who has spent any time around Astor place, all but the last characteristic should sound strangely familiar. Mud also has all of those things, except they make a *mean* iced mocha.

I am a huge Mud fan, and really disapointed that an unoriginal entrepreneur decided to earn some quick cash by encroaching on Mud’s popularity. They probably figure, between the tourists and the suits, who will know the difference?

I guess they forgot that suits are all too familiar with intellectual property.

I wrote a guest blog over at autostraddle.com on A Woman’s-Eye View of WWDC. Check it out!

The first stop in my whirlwind tour of SF’s scene was to visit my good friend iceman. We were partners in the Operating Systems class back in the day.  We worked like dogs in the appropriately named “Mudd” computer lab, hacking the Linux kernel well into the night. And when you’re sleep deprived and writing C, there’s something super ridic hilarious about “your mom” jokes.

So went our refrain: “dude, you caused a kernel panic!” “your MOM caused a kernel panic.” “yo, we gotta reboot the VM!” “your mom’s gotta reboot the VM.” Trust me, hilarious. HILAR.

So while I expected Google to be wonderful and somewhat magical, I didn’t really expect it to be a slicker, paycheck-generating version of my college experience with iceman.  Except it was.  It was that, and so, so much more.

First, free food at the cafeteria.  Let’s talk fruit (peaches, berries), fruit shots (watermelon anyone?), kale, green beans, salads, sushi.  And then the unhealthy stuff like mac and cheese, cookies galore, boylan’s natural sodas . . . . all in a cafeteria overlooking the bay bridge and complete with binoculars to try and spot sea lions with.

Next is the office itself.  Yes to pool tables, ping pong, yes to big open spaces, yes to disco balls hanging from the ceiling.  Yes to massage chairs, a massage  room, lots of female employees, rock band stashed in someone’s office.  Yes, yes, yes to a SLIDE that was installed over top the left side of one staircase.  EFF YES to using a cafeteria tray to go down that slide.  Which makes you go ten times faster and, if you’re me, it beats the crap out of your knee and skins your arm — BUT WORTH IT!

So have I sold you yet?  I certainlly have sold myself.  Young, smart engineers, an incredible space, and an undeniable vibe.  Google San Francisco, you may tempt me away from NY.  Or at least over to Google NYC.

Oh, and a giangantic printer that they actually allow employees to use at their discretion.  There is a big “THIS IS EXPENSIVE” warning sign, but no access code, nada.  NICE.

And one last thing. Apple, I may be at your WWDC and loving it, but someone needs to invite me to 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino and court the hell outta me. Till then, it’s GOOGLE: 1, APPLE: 0.

In case you haven’t seen the gloriously inept advertisement an organization called “NOM” or “National Organization for Marriage” has put out, go immediately and watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI261VU0AZAI wanted to do a parody that did several things:

1. Played on the words and concepts of the ad
2. Made the world’s unsexiest commercial kinda sexy
3. Included a healthy serving of gay icons

You be the judge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaT5qyVQnBY

Clips, in order of appearance.  No Copyright infringement is intended!
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I continue to be perplexed by the extreme popularity of Rachel Maddow.  Yes, she is intelligent.  Yes, she is snarky and sarcastic.  Yes, she is funny.  Yes, she is bringing new visibility to the lesbian community, which is always wonderful for me in a deeply personal way.  But people seem to think that she is this unique voice that the world has never seen.  And even those in my beloved, dramatic community are fawning all over her.

But come on.  Really?  Rachel Maddow has all the ingredients of your typical, over-education, east coast lesbian.  The only novel thing about her is she’s on TV.   I think the problem is, while people know gay men, most people in this country just don’t know enough lesbians to see how completely typical Maddow is.  Let’s break it down

1.  Maddow is really, really into politics

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So one of my guilty pleasures is watching The L Word (on youtube, because I’m cheap and don’t have cable).

I’ve been struck by how predictable I find it.  So I figured I’d better make a public statement jst to see if I really could call it.  Here’s my thought:

Alice’s screenplay that Jenny stole involves

“A talk show host who’s really fantastic and is dating a cop who’s dark and broody, and they get caught up in a murder mystery.”

Now, what couple in the lesbian character universe do you naturally think of when you hear “dark and broody” plus an Alice-like persona (bubbly, somewhat annoying)?  To me, that sounds just like Xena and Gabrielle

We’ve already got the first half in the first episode, and OH! How convenient, she’s a cop.

Jenny isn’t dead. How could she be? Jenny IS Ilene Chaiken, who is no Faulkner and would never kill her little babies. We’re watching the opening scene of Alice’s screenplay, as Jenny imagines it. Of course, she’s made herself the center of attention. As usual.

But if Ilene gives me a Lucy Lawless/Renee O’Connor moment, all will be forgiven, now and forever, the end.

Everywhere you look, there are signs of the flagging economy: the newspaper headlines, the panicked TV anchors, the layoffs, CASH FOR GOLD on the superbowl ads.

But at least on the NYC subway, we seem to be seeing upgrades.  Or hearing them.

I was passing the time reading, when I heard a BLARE of music.  I look up, expecting the old standby.  And instead, I see this charming man with his half open HP laptop

The laptop is the boombox of the eighties.

Before I spent a substantial amount of time in London, I always found British accents charming.   It sounded proper and formal, and when I heard someone with a British accent cursing, I found it obscenely comical, like overhearing your grandmother swear.

In 2006, I spent two weeks in London for work. Wandering around, revisiting places I’d only glanced during a short trip two years prior, taking in all the historical architecture that is so lost on New York City, the city that burned, and the city without a history, only new layers built atop demolished older ones.

Midway through the second week, the charm wore off.  I was tired of the accent.  But it didn’t stop an occasional stranger I spoke with from telling me home “cute” or “charming” they found my American accent.

Lady Gaga’s The Fame:

I recently read an interview conducted with Lady Gaga, a young artist whose visual sampling reminds me of the best of early Madonna.  In her videos, she samples everyone from David Bowie and Grace Jones, to Madonna to Paris Hilton, to a scene from Bertolucci’s The Conformist.  She tours and works with a group of collaborators, that she calls the Haus of Gaga.  Some are engineers, some are sculptors, all are young, and together they create the look that is Lady Gaga:

Perhaps it is because she is still on the cusp of stardom, but I can’t recall an artist who talked so humbly about herself, her fans, her collaborators, and her . . . meditation practice.  That’s right, while she’s on tour, and she’s not clipping magazines, watching films and using those as inspiration to design her next tour, she spends her time meditating.

It seems to have paid off. There was a controversy earlier this month where Christina Aguilera, who’s been accused of stealing Lady Gaga’s look, said:

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