Leonard finally persuaded me to end weeks of lethargy and let him fix my install of NewsBruiser, which broke when my host upgraded its install of Python. So I am back.

Since my last post, I have done various things. I saw Neal Stephenson and hung out with Sarah, I helped Leonard by having Salon staff taste-test his pear-maple ice cream and ginger-mango ice cream, I encouraged him to end Tonight's Episode, and I went to Millennium with him.

Millennium was expensive and takes a little getting used to. Don't get the fake-chocolate dessert or the "calming potion." I liked my apple-nut salad and tamarind tempeh. Also, it's scary walking through the neighborhood after dark, and so perhaps you'd prefer to hail a cab upon leaving Millennium. But eavesdropping-worthy people dine there.

I voted in another nightmare election. Within a few weeks, Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to hold the office of governor of California. I suppose it doesn't make a difference whether I say it -- it's going to be real nonetheless -- but it just feeds my despair to type that. Cary Tennis, Salon's advice columnist, wrote a good piece about the election. More depression in the clash between right and left: Terry Gross's depressing interview with Bill O'Reilly, where he walks all over her and she is a good, polite NPR person.

Less depressing: Operation Give, which distributes desperately needed goods to Iraqis. The necessity of this charity saddens me, but its existence makes me cry with hope.

Last night I dreamt, among other things, that I was reading a Wired article written by Stephane. In it, Stephane contrasted two kinds of minimalism. "Computer minimalism" is reflexive avoidance of ornamentation. Use sans serif fonts. On the other hand, a fellow named "Brad Metzger" practices "Brad minimalism," in which he does not try to hide the flaws of an object, but redesigns the object from scratch, in a closed performance, so that the flaws were never there at all. At least, that's what the dream-article said.

Later in the dream, I asked a guy on the BART, "Are you a computer minimalist or a Brad minimalist?" and he said, "I'm a subscriber."

I'm dreaming design theory now? I'm now a SoMa San Franciscan!