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WEDDED BLISS The Newsletter for Michael and Rochelle's Marriage Volume III, Number 4 -- September 17, 2000 Table of Contents: Memphis Minnie's Has Arrived! Cocktail Party on Saturday September 23rd! Party Bonus -- Take Our Stuff! House Sit In October Mission To MARS Domain Names, Cheap!   Memphis Minnie's Has Arrived! Thursday, we were visiting Bob at Memphis Minnie's while he was working on the restaurant. He gave us a beer, swore he would spend all day Friday cooking, and that he would try to open on Saturday, September 16th. He has been saying he was about to open for almost two months, though, so we were a little skeptical. Well, we were wrong, and we couldn't be happier. At long last, Memphis Minnie's is open!!! In spite of pushing our way in the door before they were ready, we were official customer #3. Customer #1 was a 500 pound man we have never seen in this neighborhood before. Apparently he was waiting outside like the lady in the Mervyn's ad ("Open! Open! Open!"). Customer #2 was an ancient black man with a bow tie who left the restaurant happily gnawing on a rib. Hilda, Michael and I had a delightful lunch. Hilda had a terrific-looking brisket sandwich, but we couldn't decide on one item, and got the sampler plate to split between us. Beef brisket, Texas beef ribs, and Memphis Sweet Smoked Pork, plus beans, greens, and a corn bread muffin. We gobbled down every bite, and between that and the 500 pound guy, we're a little concerned about our weight. We have vowed to not eat there more than every other day, unless we have guests who need to try it. So if you're in the neighborhood and want to go, be sure to buzz our door.   Cocktail Party on Saturday September 23rd! Next weekend is Derek's birthday, the Folsom Street Fair, and the SF Blues Festival. Rumor has it a number of entertaining people will be in town. It got us thinking, which is always dangerous. Time for a party! When: Saturday, September 23rd 7pm-until we or the police kick you out What: Our house for cocktails and appetizers Originally we were going to serve drinks and trot over to Memphis Minnie's for dinner, but Bob is going to be closed because he is serving at the Blues Festival. So we've decided to take Bob's spectacular but simple food and nuveau-ize it. Here's the tentative appetizer list: Mini-Arepas (Corn Blini) with braised cabbage and Memphis Sweet Smoked Pork Beef Brisket Toasts with two sauces Fondue with Sausage and Potato Dunkers Pupusas with Spicy Slaw For those of you who have not visited us before as well as those who have, please note that the front our house is currently covered with scaffolding and green drapery (we're painting). It's our contribution to the neighborhood, though we're upset that this somewhat curtails our view of the nightlife.   Party Bonus -- Take Our Stuff! For those of you who are crap-o-holics or have homes, come early for our grand basement-clear-a-thon. The SF Housing Inspection Department notified us last week that they will be inspecting our basement the first week of October. Unfortunately, our basement has about 15 years worth of crap laying around, much of which predates our arrival to this lovely establishment. Things like gallons of flammable paints and thinners, right next to cardboard boxes, right next to water heaters. You know, the kind of stuff that gives inspectors heart attacks. So this Saturday (the 16th) is Household Toxin Removal Day. Next Saturday (23rd) is Dump Day, and Sunday (24th) is Goodwill Day. Feel free to let us know if you are interested in house parts or just want to paw around our basement and make fun of us. It all has to be gone by the 25th!!! Out! Never to be seen again! Free! Take it away! Goodbye! Really, it's going to happen.   House Sit In October Here's the deal. While we are away on our vacation (see last newsletter), we would love to have someone to housesit. Not for the security of the house but to prevent our cats from going insane. So if you would like to live in the Lower Haight for a week and love cats, let us know. We'll be in Chicago from Saturday, October 28th to Saturday, November 4th. Top 10 Reasons to House Sit 10. Bars, bars, bars. 9. Memphis Minnie's is right across the street. 8. Indian Oven is right around the corner. 7. Halloween in the Castro is just blocks away! 6. Handing out Halloween candy in the 'hood is scary. 5. Michael & Rochelle fear the Wrath of Cecil. 4. The engagement tub is really nice. 3. It's a cheap vacation. 2. You can stare at Michael's equipment while going through his undies! 1. It will make you feel so much better about your own neighborhood.   Mission to MARS Yeah, OK, so we haven't been all that good about updating our web site. At least, that's what you've been thinking. But have you been there, recently? That's right, we went freakin' nuts. A total redesign, and a bunch of fresh new content. And we're not just talking text, we're not just talking new photos, we're not just talking photos of supermodels, though we have all of those things. We're talkin' movies, two of 'em. Written, produced, directed, and starring Rochelle. One of them also stars the Pope. I'll let your imagination, or your mouse, take it from there. Oh, but where should it take you? As you'll read in the next story, we've gone a little nuts with the domain names. We registered a new one, just for the new site. This one's permanent, unless we go into a witness protection program or something where we have to change our names: http://www.michaelandrochellessite.com/ Or MARS for short. So, visit MARS today! Oh, yeah, if that one's a little hard to remember, or the number of "s"s gets you confused, this one will get you to the right place, too: http://www.michaelandrochelle.com/ If you can remember both our names, you can find our web site. Joe Bob says check it out.   Domain Names, Cheap! Yeah, so, we're now the proud owners of 15 domain names. You are, of course, thinking we're crazy, but it's not that bad. OK, it's pretty bad, but you should have known that a while ago. This isn't a news, right? We (well, Michael) discovered a groovy domain name registration system called OpenSRS, that lets you register domain names for $10 a year. That's pretty cheap, at least if you're a geek and like to build Internet sites. (Come on, it's not like it's a choice between eating lunch two days in a row or having a new domain name, there's always microwave popcorn in a drawer somewhere at work.) Anyway, we registered a bunch of domain names, and helped some friends register a few more. And we thought there might be one or two of you who might like to do something like that yourself. Here's the deal (watch out, geek talk coming). OpenSRS is actually a back-end registration system, which allows resellers to hook their own systems up to it and sell domain names at a cost of $10 a domain. OpenSRS is a wholesaler, if you will, and the resellers have to buy domain name "credits" in bulk, to the tune of $250 (25 domain names) at a time. Not the sort of thing you do if you want just one domain name, you gotta be in the business of selling them to other people. Or, well, you can be a geek like Michael, and set up your own domain name registration system and hook it up to OpenSRS, just for a weekend's entertainment. Which I did: http://www.aldosoft.com/ars/ So, now I'm a domain name reseller, sort of. I'm not trying to make a profit, or even get rid of my excess credits. I just want to be nice to my friends. If you've a hankerin' for a personal domain of your very own, you can place an order for it using our system, and get it for $10/year. Plus a beer for me, since I have to manually process part of the transaction. Details on how are at the site. If you're still reading, here's the fine print. I am not providing DNS service, web hosting service, or offering to help you do your HTML pages. If you don't know what those are, or don't have a friend who can do it all for you, you probably don't want to register a domain name. There's no way around it, having your own domain requires you to know at least a little bit more technology than most people like -- or pay other people to know it for you, but there are plenty of much more expensive services out there for those with more money than time/interest. The exception to this is, if you think you've come up with a brilliant domain name, that you want to reserve until you get around to doing something with it, go ahead and register. No one will be able to visit your site, but you'll hold the rights to it. Who knows, maybe someone will offer to buy it from you; "business.com" sold for $7.5 million dollars. Selling stuff to dot.coms with more money than sense is a great way to get rich during the Internet gold rush. Final note: this offer is only open to people I know personally. If you're on our mailing list, you qualify, but don't pass it along; my system, because it requires my manual intervention on every order, isn't built to handle volume, and I don't feel like doing the work for free for people I don't know. Go to http://www.domaindirect.com/ instead, they're really good, and only $15/year more expensive.