It made for a different Sunday waking up at 6am to run (well…walk) the legendary 7.46miles Bay to Breakers race in SF.

I already had a laughing fit as Natalie cruised down the street with her Super-Wasted costume and sat in the MUNI train between two normal racers.

At the starting point, I was hit in the face a few times with flying tortillas.

Along the way, our group stayed intact thanks to Amin and Rachel’s bright green top-hats bobbing amongst the crowd, Natalie’s horns, as well as Patrick’s ‘fro, which when picked and poofed in the morning, looked better than the ‘fro wigs anyone else had.

San Francisco has always found any excuse to party; this was all the street fairs and Halloween combined. I saw the usual quota of naked people (some of which Natalie almost butted…pardon the pun), frat boys pushing kegs along (boobs for beer!), ravers, Elvis, Britney Spears, Sponge Bobs, cheering people from the nearby convalence home, traveling wrestling matches, walking political statements, etc. Almost an anti-culture, we saw people from all ethnicities forming a new bizarre SF-culture that defies catagorization.

My feet are aching from the walk. My face is aching from the laughing fits. Gotta say it was a good day!

Can’t help but add my thoughts that Singapore would never have this kinda parade, not only because we do have a more conservative culture, but more because the government doesn’t trust its people enough to go crazy like that without being paranoid that this would lead to chaos! anarchy! civil unrest! Ah well.

Oh, and my last day of school forever was 3 days ago. And the golden years of college is whirring to an end.

4 years ago, I had expected this to be a period of dramatic upheaval, a boom, a bang, a turning point, crossroads of change, cheers or chagrin. Today, it feels, to my relief, pleasantly timely to end the college years now. More thoughts later. I have a final to go to now.

"Maybe it ain’t a sin. Maybe it’s just the way folks is. Maybe we been whippin’ the hell out of ourselves for nothin’…There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain’t nice, but that’s as far as any man got a right to say…I says ‘What’s this call, this sperit? An’ I says, ‘It’s love. I love people so much I’m fit to bust, sometimes.’…I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered ‘Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘maybe it’s all men an’ all women we love, maybe that’s the Holy Sperit–the human sperit–the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of’ Now I sat there thinkin’ it, an’ all of a sudden–I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it."
–ex-preacher Jim Casey [John Steinback's 'Grapes of Wrath']

I am currently enthralled by ‘Grapes of Wrath’. Of course it’s finals season, where I voraciously read everything but what I’m supposed to for my finals.

And I thought Singapore was bad.

Ah so…the economic root of Bush’s apparent what-the-hell? economic policies. ‘Twasn’t something we didn’t already hear about many many times over: reduce taxes for the rich, increase inequality. But the article spells it out in a nice succint un-esoteric manner.

Andy Rooney says it best:

Am I the only one who’s tired of this election campaign already?

End of speech. How tough would that be for John Kerry to deal with? The president could give what’s left of that $180 million to Ralph Nader and let him argue with Kerry.

…and so does The Economist:
The truly independent voter seems to be disappearing. That may seem curious, because those who call themselves independents easily outnumber self-identified Democrats or Republicans. Yet most so-called independents vote consistently one way or the other. The White House reckons that less than one-third of independent voters actually switched parties in the past three elections.

With the decline of swing voters, there seems less and less point in running presidential campaigns to appeal to the slim middle. Instead, elections have become contests to mobilise core supporters. The 2000 and 2002 elections were both turn-out races.

We post-poned my birthday weekend for Paul Van Dyk. Which was disappointing. He played a 2-hour set only. The club was wayyyyy fire-hazardy too packed. Lucky we got hooked up to get in for free; had we paid 40 quid for that show, it would have been disaaaaapointing.

But this weekend sure as hell made up for it. Patrick took me to Harbin Hot Springs as a birthday present. Their super hot and super cold springs that you gasp in alternately took your body to its limits and brought you to a high. I got a 1 hour massage thrown in, and of course hot-springing, swimming and sun-bathing in my birthday suit most of the time in this naturalist space was certainly memorable and pretty darn amazing. It definitely took some getting used to, but by the 2nd day, it was…look ma, no tan-lines! ;p