Bookmarklet for one-click tagging in del.icio.us

One click "read later" del.icio.us bookmarklet.

I often come across webpages that i want to read later, but I don't really have time to tag and describe each of them properly. So have a del.icio.us tag called xyzpdq (some people use 'toread' or 'to_read' or 'unread' etc.) that i use to tag pages to be read when i have more time. But even that takes longer than I want it to. I have to click on the "post to del.icio.us" bookmarklet, then click in the "tags" box, then type "xyzpdq," and then click save. Too much work. It should be easier. I mean, all I want to do is mark it to be read later, right?

I looked all over the web but couldn't find a bookmarklet that did this in a single click. Some came close, but usually required an additional click or two at least, and that's exactly what i was trying to avoid. Others automatically tagged the page with del.icio.us's suggested tags, and I don't like the idea of using tags that aren't my own or that I might disagree with.

So I've put together a bookmarklet that accomplishes my goal with ONE CLICK. I just click on it and continue working while del.icio.us does it's thing in the background. Basically, when I click on the bookmarklet, a window pops up behind the current browser window (so it doesn't get in your way), posts the page to my del.icio.us account with the 'xyzpdq' tag, and then closes the popup window a few seconds later, all without any additional input from me. I freaking love this bookmarklet!!

You can customize it by replacing xyzpdq in the code with a tag (or tags, separated by spaces) of your choice.

And you could have several of these bookmarklets if you wanted to. I often want to mark pages that I think my boyfriend, Fishy, would find interesting. So I could have a 2nd bookmarklet where I've replaced 'xyzpdq' with 'for:Fishy'sUserName'. Or with any other specific tag or tags you use frequently.

Here's a bookmarklet you can add to your toolbar (don't forget to change USERNAME to your own username):

bookmarklet

Here's the actual code snippet, broken into multiple lines for easier reading:

javascript:void(child_win=open('http://del.icio.us/api/posts/add?
tags=xyzpdq&user=USERNAME&description='+encodeURIComponent
(document.title)+'&url='+window.location.href,'delicious','toolbar=no,
width=500,height=150'));setTimeout(%22child_win.close()%22,5000);
window.replace(-1);

Understanding:

It assumes you're already logged into del.icio.us. Otherwise you should be prompted to do so.

If you have previously tagged the page, this bookmarklet will replace all of the tags for that page with the xyzpdq tag. If this is a concern to you, you can add (without the quotes) "&replace=no" right after the xyzpdq and before the word 'description', which will cause del.icio.us not to change your existing tags for that page and not to add the xyzpdq tag. I would much prefer to simply append xyzpdq onto any existing list of tags, but i can't figure out how to do that, so if anyone else does, please lemme know.

The popup window closes 5 seconds after it opens. That's just a safeguard built in to allow enough time to contact the del.icio.us server, but i've never had problems even when I didn't have the delay built-in. You can adjust the delay time by changing the number 5000 at the end of the code. (5000=5 seconds, 10000=10 seconds, 500 = a half second, etc.) Since the popup window is behind your active browser window, it really doesn't matter that it's hanging there a few seconds before disappearing.

This bookmarklet was inspired in part by the lazy sheep bookmarklet, which is worth checking out, although it really doesn't do what i wanted it to, and it has the additional disadvantage of relying on a third-party server. But I did examine the javascript when I was creating the oneclick bookmarklet

disclaimer: i do not know javascript. I pieced this together (with some additional help from Fishy) from other bookmarklets out there. I've only tested it on Firefox 1.5.0.4, but I don't see why it shouldn't work with other browsers.

I hope you find it as useful as I do!

Jamón serrano

Last night I had to go to the post office to send off some stuff I'd sold on ebay. And once i'd walked that far, I figured I might as well head down to DiBrunos and get some dinner. When i got there, my the Jamón serrano in the deli case caught my eye. (By all accounts the Jamón Iberico is infinitely better--and more expensive--but to my knowledge it's still unavailable in this country. If someone knows otherwise, LET ME KNOW!) I slyly looked in both directions, and then asked the nice man behind the counter for 5 oz., which he expertly sliced and wrapped in a nice little package for me. I took that and about 6 oz. of Garrotxa cheese home, thinking I'd have a nice little snack before dinner. By the time i got home, both the cheese and the ham were room temperature, which was perfect. I wasted no time unwrapping them. I sliced the cheese and slowly began nibbling away as I listened to Terry Gross on NPR (honestly, tho, I don't even remember who she was interviewing becuase I was so focused on the food). Every few minutes, I'd say to myself, "well, I'll just have a little more," thinking I'd save the rest for the next night when Fishy came home. (He's a picky eater, but how could you not love this stuff??) By the time I was half-way through the food, I remember thinking to myself, "Who am I kidding? I'm going to eat this whole thing." And I did. As i crumpled up the packaging the meat and cheese had come in, I was stuffed. It was definitely more than I should have eaten. But I'd do it again.

New Trance Podcast

I just started listening to a new Trance music podcast called “Trance Rotation,” and so far it’s awesome. You can google it on iTunes. (whoa. did I really just type that? more on that later.) Anyway, it’s great for blocking out the two annoying Penn co-eds sitting next to me here in the café, who are talking so loudly and quickly and non-stop that they could easily replace the actress in T-Mobile’s chatty cheerleader commercial. (well, my ER-4’s obviously don’t hurt, either.) Great music, too, if you like trance, and (thankfully) with a minumum of vocals. Hats off and much thanks to DJ Addison.

I'm listening to episode #10 now. (2 hours of music!) Here's the playlist if you're interested:

01) John O'Callaghan vs. Mike Foyle - Shipwrecked (Club Mix AvB Intro Edit)
02) Viet - Sky (Magik Muzik Remix)
03) Tim Hornsby - Protect You (Dub Mix)
04) Kyau Vs. Albert - Kiksu
05) Sunlounger - White Sand (DJ Shah's Original Mix)
06) Andain - Beautiful Things (Gabriel and Dresden Mix)
07) Jose Zamora and Damian DP ft. Paleday - Transatlantic (Andy Moor Remix)
08) Allende - Retrograde
09) David Forbes - Answers
10) Nitrous Oxide - Frozen Dreams
11) Above & Beyond vs. Andy Moor - Air For Life (Mirco de Govia Mix)
12) Sean Tyas - Pacifier
13) Emphased Reality and Spherical - Realsphere (Static Blue Remix)
14) John Askew - All or Nothing
15) Marc Dawn - Random Walk (Nu Nrg Remix)
16) Avanto - The Flute (Orkidea Remix)
17) Underworld - Born Slippy (Paul Van Dyk Mix)
18) Matt Darey - Eternity (Second Sun Mix)

Loud Bastards

In the immortal words of a good friend and colleague of mine: “You know what my problem is? I hate people.” It’s a feeling I can occasionally relate to. And by “occasionally,” I mean *right now*. I’m at La Colombe, as I am every morning, and there is a group of men next to me who are talking so loudly and so non-stop that I want to slap the living crap out of them. And to make matters worse, the group keeps growing. It started with two guys. Then someone else came in and (loudly) joined them. Then *another* guy came in and (loudly) joined them. Then one left, but not unlike cutting off the head of the hydra, he was replaced by two more. And now they are just continuing to loudly talk in a very loud--

HOLY SHIT! ANOTHER ONE!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS, SOME KIND OF CONSPIRACY!!! EVEN AS I SIT HERE TYPING THIS, THEIR LARGE LOUD ANNOYING GROUP HAS JUST GROWN LARGER, LOUDER, AND MORE ANNOYING! The new guy just asked me if he could take the empty chair from my table. I politely smiled and said, “no problem,” but what I really wanted to say was, “Depends. Are you going to SHUT THE HELL UP?!” Damn my pleasant demeanor and good upbringing!

It’s not really their fault. They’re not really doing anything wrong. I mean, that doesn’t make me hate them any less, but they’re just hanging out (loudly) in a café where everyone hangs out. And the whole café is loud, but what’s annoying is the fact that they’re sitting so close to me that I can hear their individual words and sentences instead of just the generic loud hum that people generate when they’re not sitting so damned close. Also, I just can’t relate to wanting to sit in a large, loud, annoying group and talk in a loud, annoying way. I like to sit alone, or maybe with a friend, and hang out in a quiet way. I don’t understand this philosophy of, “Hey! Look! Another person who can join us and talk loudly! Hooray! The more the merrier!” As far as I’m concerned, it’s “the more, the annoyinger.” How come nobody ever sits next to me who just wants to read a book or work on their laptop? How come it’s always loud bastards?

The Day of Insects, or How I Leared to Love the Bugs

It's days like today that make me wish I had a 105mm macro lens. Sigh... one day...

I was outside a lot today, mostly because of the recent rain. I discovered that the drain spout in the front of my house was clogged, and the rain water just poured off the edge of the roof onto the porch below, no doubt damaging the wood. And my back yard flooded yesterday, which I discovered was due to the fact that the drain in my yard was clogged with all sorts of nasty gunk.

So I went out on the roof this afternoon and cleared out the spout. As I climbed back in the window, I decided to put the screens down instead of the storm windows, and let some air into the house. Well, as I lowered the screen, a whole bunch of small green spiders fell down too, maybe 10-20 of them. They were all dead. I've never seen them before, and I don't know what kind of spider they are. Here's a photo of them (click to enlarge):


I wiped them all up with some Windex and a paper towel, in case they planned on coming back to life later on and infesting my living room.

Then I went to the back yard. I never have a need to go into the back yard, especially all winter long, so it's always a mess out there, covered with leaves twigs and over grown ivy and stuff like that. And that's what usually clogs up the drain. While I was out there, I found all these red bugs on the lid to the garbage can that's been sitting out there since last July. Here are a couple photos:



Yes, they really are that red. And they were all huddled together one that one spot, leaving the rest of the lid bare. I suppose they were probably doing it for warmth. (today was the coolest it's been in a couple weeks) I don't know for sure what they are, but a few minutes on google trying variations of "red bugs" eventually brought me to Oncopeltus fasciatus, or the Large Milkweed Bug, which, if not identical, still looks remarkably similar.

While I was out in the back yard, I saw a very interesting mosquito. It had stripes. I didn't think too much of it except to note that I'd never seen a striped mosquito before. I usually think of mosquitos generically. That is to say, I don't think about there being different KINDS of mosquitos. A mosquito is a mosquito is a mosquito, right? Wrong. I googled "striped mosquito" which brought me to Aedes albopictus, aka the Asian Tiger Mosquito. Apparently it can transmit both Dengue Fever AND some forms of encephalitis. Oooh. fun. So I'm off now to catch an example of this striped mosquito. I didn't think much of it before, but now that I've read about the ATM, I'm a little concerned, so I think I should verify what kind of mosquito it is that I just saw biting me.

I'm back! (that was fast) I put on some jeans and a long-sleeve tee and I took a tupperware container outside to start looking for mosquitos. It's amazing how there's never a mosquito around when you need one. I was out there 15 or 20 minutes and still couldn't find a thing. And then I was like, "if you let me catch you and take your photo, I promise I'll let you go when I'm done." And I swear, not 5 seconds later I caught a mosquito. But I wasn't sure it was the right kind. I took it inside and looked at it in the light through the tupperware and decided that it didn't look very striped after all. But all of a sudden, there in my kitchen, was ANOTHER mosquito! I quickly got another container and a couple minutes later I had 2 mosquitos in my posession. And the second one was striped!

How ironic is that? You know that song, "Ring Them Bells," where the woman "travels 'round the world to meet the guy next door"? Well I had to wander through my back yard to catch the striped mosquito in my kitchen. But I digress...

Here are the photos of the striped mosquito, and there's not a doubt in my mind that it's the Asian Tiger Mosquito:




It's really quite beautiful. The photos don't do it justice. I really wish I'd had a good macro lens to take better photos of it.

Just so you know, I kept my end of the bargain and let both mosquitos go outside, and then I ran back in before they could swoop around and attack me.

Fishy Quote #17

"Bitter people are my people."

 

Dog People

I’m at La Colombe in my normal seat, and some woman left her dog tied up outside, and it kept barking. Not in an angry, aggressive way at first. More like a pathetic “where are you, master? Where did you go? Why did you leave me here?” sort of way. Then it started barking more aggressively AND jumping up at people as they left the café with food and coffee. And it’s not like the lady tied it up to run in for a coffee-to-go. No, siree. She got a mug of coffee and SAT DOWN at a table with a friend and left her dog outside. Why did she BRING the dog if she was just going leave it outside, tied up?

At some point I realized that there was a second, almost identical dog out there with it, but not tied up. We actually have leash laws in this city, u know. I so wanted to call the city dog catcher (do we still have one of those?) except that punishes the dog more than the owner, since it’ll end up being killed, prolly. She went out once and gave them a good talking to, and scratched them behind the ears. Yeah, THAT’ll teach ‘em, lady. That worked for about 60 seconds, and then it started up again. People had to hold their coffee up high to keep the dogs from getting to it. I was about to go over and say something to her. I wish Noddy’d been here. She’d’ve backed me up. Finally the woman and the guy she was with got up and left. Dog people, I’m telling ya.

Fishy Quote #16

When we were in Atlanta, Fishy sighed at one point and said, "I have a lack of indecent proposals in my life."

Atlanta

Fishy and I are in Atlanta for vacation.

First of all. Atlanta: gayest city I have ever been to in my life. And I've been to some pretty gay cities. I swear, everyone here is gay. Even Fishy, who always compl

We got here Wednesday night after some thunderstorms delayed our flights.

Thursday for lunch we drove to the Little Five Points area. We ended up eating at a place called "Savage Pizza." We decided to split a 12" pizza, which was NOT enough food, but we figured we could always get a snack later in the day, which we did. It's decorated with all sorts of comic book related art, action figures hanging from the ceiling, paintings of comic book covers, and the bathroom is literally wallpapered with pages from various comic books. All-in-all, a very satisfying decorating scheme. We walked around that area for a while after lunch. There are several cool stores there, and they have a really nice little natural foods store called something like "Sevananda," where Fishy bought some tasty vegan blueberry crisp for us to share.

Savage Pizza in Little Five Points

After we left that part of town, I was dying for some caffeine, so we went to this nice little gay bookstore/coffeeshop I'd read about on the web called Outwrite, on Piedmont Ave. (It was there that we saw our first Asian in Atlanta. How ironic is it that the first Asian person we see here is also gay??) Anyway, I had a coffee and Fishy & I split a piece of Chocolate Raspberry Cake. Fishy mostly just liked the frosting and left the rest for me.

Outwrite Bookstore

After coffee, we walked around a bit to see what else was in the area. We came across Piedmont Park and went in. It's absolutely beautiful. Although that was mitigated somewhat when we saw this woman take her dog over to a water fountain, and let it not only drink from the fountain, but slobber all over it and lick it everywhere with its big ugly wet dog tongue. Fishy stood motionless for a moment, in shock at what we had just seen, and then said, "I *WAS* going to get some water from that fountain." WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE THINKING?!!! She then proceeded to let her monster-sized dog run free as she passed a sign that said "Leashes Required For All Dogs." (This is the problem with dog people. They think these things are completely acceptable. Cat people would never be so rude.) I wish I had her name to print here plus a better shot of her face so that everyone knows what a bitch she is. "A bitch with a bitch," we joked.

The rude bitch who let her dog slobber all over the water fountain

As we walked through the park, I took some photos that I hope to turn into panoramas. We'll see how they turn out. It's a very peaceful park, with not many people (at least during the workday on a Thursday). At one point, we came across the Atlanta Botanical Garden. They had these really cool, colorful scuptures inside that had caught our eye through the gate, so we walked around (there was a lot of walking today) to the entrance and decided to go in. Despite our initial hesitation at the $12 entrance fee, it turned out to be totally worth it, (even for Fishy, who as you all know is a cheap bastard) and we spent the bulk of our day there. The Niki de Saint Phalle outdoor sculpture exhibit is the largest ever of its kind, apparently, and they brought the sculptures in from all over the world, including the 8-ton La Cabeza from San Diego. (It was this huge, colorful skull. And you could even go inside it, which was lined with mirrors, and look out at the garden through the teeth.) The grounds are quite large, and include a small Japanese garden, a frog pond, green house, orchid house, aquatic plant pond, rock garden, a small woods, a children's garden, and more. I used up almost half of the memory card on my D70 there (I love taking photos. Have I mentioned that?), and we still have 2 more days left in this trip! Fishy took a bunch of photos, too, but wasn't very happy with how a lot of them turned out, unfortunately. I wish he'd buy a Digital Rebel like he's wanted for so long. He'd enjoy it so much. Right now he has a very tiny little camera that literally fits inside an altoids tin. It's great for basic photos, but when you start wanting high quality photos in low-light, it just doesn't do as well as he'd like. And it's not like you can jack up the ISO on camera like that.

Atlanta Botanical Garden

Fishy bought some really pretty stones at the gift shop for his mom for Mother's Day. Even I was surprised at how inexpensive they were. In Philly, they would have cost a dollar or two a stone. But he ended up getting like 20 for $5. He's never been one to turn down a bargain, after all. :)

For dinner we went to Atlanta Underground. Or is it Underground Atlanta? Anyway, we were remarkably unimpressed. I told Fishy, "I have never seen a more touristy place in my life." He replied with two words: "Fisherman's Wharf." I stood corrected. Anyway, we ate at one of those asian places in the foodcourt that sells bourbon chicken. The place as a whole reminded us both a lot of the Gallery mall in Philly (that's not a compliment), with mostly low-end stores selling cheap things, and lots of those carts that sell things like mugs with your child's photo on them. The high point of our underground experience was that I was able to get Fishy two of those pressed pennies he collects, the kind where you put two quarters an a penny into a machine and turn a crank and your penny comes out flattened with a design on it. I always get them for Fishy when i can.

Atlanta Underground

We got back to our room around 9pm and never went out again. To tired, and not really in the mood for a gay bar, despite the bathing suit contest going on at the Compound. So we watched Keith Olbermann on MSNBC til 1am and then went to sleep.

Friday, May 12.

I had breakfast while Fishy remained in bed. I was *SO* tempted to get the buffet, except for Fishy's warning as I'd left our hotel room: "NO OMELETTES!" So i got only an English muffin, a coffee, and then an OJ for Fishy. And still he sighed when he found out. Sigh... (See, Fishy?!! I can sigh too!!) I sat in the booth at the hotel restaurant surfing the web and checking my email as I drank my coffee. I overheard one of the waitresses saying, "I gotta get me one of those laptops too!"

The Aquarium. The Georgia Aquarium was the one vital part of this trip. If we did nothing else in Atlanta, we were going to be sure to make it to the Aquarium. When we got there, though, the lines were outrageous. If you go, be SURE to buy your tickets ahead of time. Tickets are sold for a certain time of day, and they sell out because they're still so new and popular, so get them online. We got there at 12:45 and had to wait until 2pm until we could get in. Fishy was clearly frustrated by it all, and I felt really bad for him. But time flew pretty quickly (in hindsight, at least, and we kept Fishy's blood sugar ramped up with half of a chicken pesto sandwich we'd sneaked past the guards, so that kept him less grumpy than usual.)

The aquarium was pretty great, but extremely crowded, mostly with small annoying children. They need to have "adult swim" hour or something for people who don't want hoardes of unruly school children surrounding them like gnats on a humid summer evening in a swamp. But I digress.... We were really impressed with the fish. Our favorite was the Ocean Voyage, which has this HUMONGOUS tank that contains thousands of fish, several schools of manta rays, and two very large whales, Ralph and Norton. We spent more time there than anywhere else in the aquarium complex. Second to the whales, my favorite part was the small-but-impressive jellyfish exhibit, and the leafy sea dragon, which must be seen to be fully appreciated. Oh, and they had another pressed penny machine, so I got Fishy 4 more pennies (aquarium-themed) for his collection.

The Georgia Aquarium

After we left the aquarium, on our walk back down Baker Street to the car, we came upon a 70-ish year old man, who saw my camera and started talking to us about taking pictures. Well, his english was OK, but he was still very confusing. We also weren't sure whether he was crazy, or just lonely and talkative, or what. From what we could make out, he was Polish, and had spent time in a concentration camp. He also seemed to be talking about a concentration camp right there in Atlanta, where Olympic Village was. And he talked a lot about the Jews. At first, we thought he was Jewish, but later he said that it was the Jews who'd put him in a concentration camp in Poland, but that he never knew why. He talked about how Hitler's original last name was Frankenberger and that he was Jewish, and how other Nazi officials were Jewish. Then he told us that President Clinton was actually Jewish. As I said, hard to tell. And something about a woman doctor at a nearby clinic who had previously been at the concentration camp. He seemed like a nice man, though, regardless of his other possible insane or anti-Semetic flaws. As Fishy said, it might have been that he saw two young(ish) people who hadn't lived through the "World War Second" like he had, and saw it as an opportunity to pass on his knowledge. He said that he'd written hundreds of pages about his story, and that now he'd add his conversation with us to his writings. If I'd been a little more sure that he wasn't potentially dangerous, I would have taken his picture, hoping that someone out there reading this might know more about him, because he was a very interesting person to listen to.

Next came East Atlanta. For our afternoon coffee, we went to Joe's Coffee House, where we arrived just in time before a huge crowd showed up. I got a coffee/chocolate frappe and Fishy got a raspberry italian soda. We split a piece of German chocolate cake. We walked around the area for a bit (small, but nice) before getting back into the car.

Joe's East Atlanta Coffee Shop

As we drove, we passed Emory, where Fishy's sister is graduating from on Monday. Since it's not likely we'd be in town again anytime soon, we decided to walk around campus a bit. I'd been hoping to find a nice view of campus I could make a nice panoramic photo of, but everything is so closed-in that it was almost impossible to find what I was looking for, so i gave up and we went back to the car, but we had a very nice walk around campus.

Next stop: the Atlanta Leather Company. We've been to a lot of leather stores/sex shops/erotic boutiques/whatever, but we were pretty impressed with this one. I mean, it's no Mr. S. Leather, but then nothing is, right? We got there just a few minutes before it closed, but it's not like we were going to buy anything there. The two guys working there were really friendly, and took time to show us all the cool stuff they had.

After ALC, we drove around the Buckhead area, but it was fairly late in the day by that point, and the only thing that was still open was bars and clubs and restaurants, so we drove for a bit, until we ended up at Lenox Square Mall, which was closing in 30 minutes. They had an Apple Store, and I was hoping they'd have a Mac-compatible compact flash card reader so i could backup my photos to my laptop, but no luck. We had dinner at the food court there. Taco Bell and Cinnabon (classy, eh?) I haven't had cinnabon in years (because Fishy usually doesn't let me get it anymore.) It was *good* but not *great* as Homer would say. The restrooms in the foodcourt area were out of order, so we had to trek across to the other side of the mall to pee. By the time we got back, Bloomingdales had closed their mall entrance, so we couldn't get back to where we'd parked. We found another exit and wandered for 20 minutes until we finally found our car.

Krispy Kreme. Earlier in the day, we'd driven by a Krispy Kreme. It was one of those big 24-hour ones, that clearly makes its own donuts fresh all the time, so we decided to go back for dessert that nite. I mean really, is there ANYTHING tastier than a fresh, hot Krispy Kreme donut??? (The answer is no.)

Krispy Kreme

Saturday

The day started with lunch. We ate at a place called Joli Kobe Bakery, a Japanese-owned French bakery that had wonderful pastries. We had brunch there before heading on our way. Good food. Recommended.

Today's main event was the Fernbank Museum. It was highly reminiscent of The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly. Or the Franklin Institute. It was smaller than we'd imagined it would be, but we had a really nice time there, even though it's clearly intended primarily for children. We also saw the "Amazon" IMAX film, which we hadn't seen before. They also had two amazing dinosaurs in the main gallery. I think it was an Argentinosaurus and a gigantosaurs.

Dinosaurs at the Fernbank Museum

Part of any good visit to a new city includes a search for the best cup of coffee in town. According to the websites I visited this morning, Aurora Coffee was the place to go. Interestingly, more than one person commented on the rude service there, but we had no problem. Unfortunately, their only real non-coffee drink was expensive "Fresh Samantha"-like juice, which Dan didn't want to pay for, so I drank my (very tasty) cup of coffee while Fishy read a comic book left over from Free Comic Book Day last week.

Aurora Coffee

I knew Fishy was hungry (because Fishy is always hungry), so we headed up the street to Belly General Store, which was supposed to have good cupcakes. Fishy got a vanilla one, which was quite moist, but which he thought was undercooked and smelled funny. I had to agree about the smell, which was vinegaresque, or perhaps even slightly moldy. But the cinnamon raisin bagel I had, we both thought, was delicious.

Jelly General Store



Afterward, we walked around the shops there, in the Virginia Highland area. Fishy got a mother's day card at CVS (with hours to spare), we both tried some free samples at an upscale food shop (the kind of place that sells a small bottle of lemon pear marmalade for $8), and we bought a "mini-cone" of Geranium flavored gelato for $1 at an ice-cream parlor where the salesgirl was the most non-friendly person we've encountered so far on this trip.

Oh! And we met Jesus Christ. Well, that's how she introduced herself, anyway. A pretty woman sitting on a bench saw my camera as we walked by and asked,

"What are you taking pictures of?"
"Everything." I responded truthfully, smiling.
"Tell me! Tell me!" she said. "Do you want to take a picture of Jesus Christ? Here I am, the genuine article."

At this point, I was still unsure whether she was just really friendly, or whether she was also crazy. Then I got a whiff of her and realized she was probably crazy. It was that I-haven't-bathed-in-three-months kind of smell. But she was indeed very friendly, and we talked with her for a few minutes. She showed us the stuff she'd been writing, and drawing. She even drew a picture of "the spirit" of "one of her personalities" while we watched, and she labelled it "Atlanta." I guess she is the spirit of Atlanta, perhaps? Anyway, I took a few photos of her (she especially wanted her photo taken with her Evian water, which she said was her favorite), and we eventually said good-bye.

The woman who called herself Jesus Christ

We walked around a bit more and ultimately ended up at Soul Vegetarian restaurant for dinner. It was Fishy's suggestion, which was more than a little shocking given that he'd specifically said he wanted "meat" for dinner. It was a medium-sized place, run by African Hebrews (or at least African-American Hebrews in this case), and the food, although vegan, was delicious. And the service was very friendly. The best part, we both agreed, was the vegan Mac & Cheese.

Soul Vegetarian Restaurant

We ended the evening back at Krispy Kreme again, where I got two hot, and Fishy got two Strawberries-and-Cream donuts before driving back to the hotel for an early bedtime, since my plane leaves tomorrow morning.

Equality Forum 2006, Christian Protesters

I just got home from a fantastic day at "Sunday Out," the street-festival portion of Equality Forum. I ran into a few old friends I haven't seen in ages, met some interesting new people, saw a bunch of cute boys, talked with the protesters, and took about 350 photographs.


I do not like the protesters, Sam-I-Am. One day, I hope we'll look back at these photos of these hateful signs and feel the same way about them that we feel now when we look back at photographs of signs that say "Whites Only." They have no business coming to our events and disrupting them with their hateful messages. The come in the guise of people who love us, who simply want to save our souls. But all they ever do is tell us that we're "abominations," that we're evil, that we're going to hell. I've grown somewhat accustomed to their presence at gay events, and that bothers me most of all. Can you imagine a black pride rally, and the Klan showing up, and all the black people there just quietly accepting their presence???

I don't mind if they're simply present, quietly handing out pamphlets. And that's what a few are doing, but the main group of protesters walks around carrying large signs containing offensive, anti-gay language, and preaching loudly through a megaphone. It may be legal, but it is rude and it is immoral, and it is wrong.

Here are the loudest:

Michael Marcavage:

Michael is with "Repent America". Several years ago when he was still a student at Temple University, he was involuntarily committed to a state mental hospital after some sort of Christian protest he was involved in on campus. Why they let him out of the hospital, we'll never know. Today, he believes that the government should "uphold God's law" by rounding up gay people and killing them.

Jason Storm:




I don't know what ministry Jason is from, but then: who cares? The thing you probably notice right away about Jason Storm is that he's smoking hot. I mean, I never like goatees, but I'd totally do Jason Storm. You can see above the photo where he's looking right at me. I'm hoping that's lust in his eyes. Jason came to Penn's campus a year or two ago, and I was somewhat impressed with him. He can be charismatic at times. And on a college campus, I have no problem with him. The problem at gay events is that it's hard to take him seriously when he's doing is gosh-darned best to ruin the day of everyone else present. And he says awful things. For example he quotes the high suicide rate among gay teens as evidence that there's something fundamentally (no pun intended) wrong with them, rather than as evidence that so many impressionable gay teens internalize the horrible, hate-filled message that we are evil abominations who don't deserve to live. I completely lost my temper at him last year at the same event and screamed back at him before I even realized I'd opened my mouth. Also, did I mention that I'd do him?

Some other protesters worthy of special mention:

Denny and Merv:














Denny (left) was standing at 5th and Market, quietly handing out religious tracts. Ironically (and I told him this, too), I came *SO* close to wearing that same shirt that he was wearing today! Thank god I went with the green polo shirt instead, right? Anyway, I spoke with him for a while, and I was impressed with his non-confrontational style. He and Merv come from a ministry in Virginia. I later learned that Denny has 10 people (or is it 10 children?) in his family. Apparently they mostly live on donations that come in from around the country. I spoke with Merv, too. He's originally from around Reading, PA, apparently, but I forget where he says he moved to. Both were extremely nice, and neither was from the same ministry as Michael Marcavage or Jason Storm above, although they were familiar with both. Denny said they'll probably hand out 4000-5000 tracts today. And I know from experience that they have to buy those tracts--they're not free. As you may know, i collect religious tracts. I started collecting them at gay events, actually. The idea was that if *I* took a pamphlet, then that's one less that someone else could take and potentially be poisoned by.

And that's a great segue into our next specially-featured protester:

Caleb:

Hands off, boys; he's Christian. Caleb, it turns out, is Denny's son, but I didn't know that at first. Still, it explains the scraggly beginnings of a beard that Caleb is growing. The encounter started when I saw Chumley wearing an official Equality Forum staff pass and a microphone headset, rushing off down Market Street. My spidey sense tingled: Something's afoot! So I headed off after him. It quickly became apparent that he was following a guy (Caleb) who was handing out religious tracts and collecting them from the recipients. Indeed, Chumley had a stack of 10 or 15 in his hand already. I asked if I could have them, for my collection, but since he didn't know me from Adam at the time, he said no, possibly figuring me for another Christian protester. A woman followed closely behind, and I followed closely behind her. We all stopped walking when we'd gone halfway around the block, at something (4th?) & Chestnut. There the conversation began:


Chumley made it plain--much to Caleb's chagrin--that he would continue to follow him as long as he kept handing out those religious tracts at Equality Forum. Chumley was eventually called away, leaving the woman (Amena) and I with Caleb. We stood and talked on that corner for at least a half hour. It was actually a very pleasant, very interesting conversation. Obviously, Amena and I disagreed with Caleb, and we debated back and forth, each of us explaining our view of God, trying to find flaws in the other side's argument, and so on. Caleb seemed quite surprised that we even believed in God. So right there it was nice to be able to help humanize gay people to the fundamentalists who preach against us and disabuse them of the myths and misconceptions they have about us. And we learned about him--a 16 year old from a large family, who has a job framing houses, but will probably one day give that up in favor of doing outreach, and he's homeschooled (no surprise there) and he's never seen The Matrix (another big surprise), and he thinks Fred Phelps is evil (a surpise at last). And this conversation had the added benefit of occupying the time of someone who would otherwise be out trying to brainwash other gay people. We were right across the street from Xando, and I offered to buy all 3 of us a coffee if they'd like to join me (I was getting hot, plus tired of standing up for so long. It's 3 hours later now and I'm still exhausted.) They declined, alas, and the conversation continued for a bit until we all returned to the street fair. I was extremely impressed with Caleb. He's only 16, but he clearly knows what he believes, he's very familiar with the bible, and you have to admit it takes a heck of a lot of guts to go out and minister to thousands of people who basically hate you. Too bad he's so misguided.

Some other protesters:



Oh, and I love this. It happens quite a bit with these protestes. You go to take their photograph, and they hide their faces. Wow. They must be SOOOOOO proud to be doing God's work, huh?




Now, I don't want you to think that everyone at the street festival just stood quietly and ignored these dillweeds (can I say that?).

I don't know this woman, but I love her. She stood and watched the "Christian" protesters for a moment, then she went and proudly stood next to them while displaying her flyer for transgendered people who are transitioning. I gave her a hug:


This guy was walking backwards while he verbally engaged the protesters, who were themselves walking through the street fair. He was clearly angry, and justifiably so:



This guy had only two words--Sieg Heil! :


The angriest of the counter-protesters. This man was not taking shit from ANYONE, and least of all the faux-Christians who pretend to "love" us. He was just screaming at them as he accusatorially pointed his finger at them. The crowd applauded him:


Another man who yelled back:


These guys have been around for the last few "christian" protests. I'm not sure who they are, but they're great. They use their banners to hide the "Christians" from view, and they chant and shout to drown out the hateful messages the protesters are spewing.


Here's Chumley, using an air horn to drown out the voices of the protesters:


This guy made his own sign right there on the spot and proudly stood directly in front of the protesters. I think the sign speaks for itself:

And finally, the people who really DO believe that God loves us. They lined the street and guarded the front of Christ Church, where MCC was holding a religious ceremony.





Heroes, all.