Archive for August, 2006

2006.08.19

Snakes on a Mother F-ing Plane

Go see it. I mean, don’t expect Oscars to be handed out, but this movie delivers. Trust me, go see it. You won’t regret it.

2006.08.16

Pictures From the SF Vacation

After several days of being lazy I finally sifted through the hundreds of pictures my Dad took and posted a few of his (and even fewer of mine). You can view them here.

2006.08.14

Playing the Tourist Part Two

A couple days ago I talked about a few places that I’ve gone with my family since they’re in town. Here’s the update…

Chinatown. You know I never realized how crowded this place is. Not just with the Chinese natives but with ridiculous numbers of tourists. I think I heard more Italian and French than English. It is a fun place to people watch, though, and it’s definately a very different sort of place than anywhere else in the City.

Bay Cruise. If you live here in San Francisco it’s very easy to take it for granted that we’re almost completely surrounded by water. Tons of water. All of it murky and cold, but that doesn’t matter if you’re on a boat, right? We took the Blue and Gold Bay Tour. The audio portion is kind of cheesy, but it’s really spectacular to ride under the Golden Gate Bridge and along the waterfront. I am glad we brought jackets, though; it’s balls cold in the wind.

The Stinking Rose. I know it’s one of those cliche places, but The Stinking Rose is one of my favourite restaurants. It helps, obviously, to really really like garlic.

The Pirate Store at 826 Valencia. If you love pirates then you’ll love The Pirate Store. I’ve been here dozens of times and never grow tired of it. As we brought my little niece I got to see the first trade of a toy jewel for a song, too. While you’re in the neighborhood you should also check out the always interesting and mildly morbid Paxton Gate and the excellent Borderlands Bookstore and their distinctive Sphinx (just ask!).

Ships ships ships. San Francisco is one of the greatest harbors in the world, so it makes sense that there would be a boat history here. We learned “Cargo is King” aboard the Balclutha and commented on why it would suck to be one of a couple thousand people on a large ferry boat if it sank while visting the Eureka at the Hyde Street Pier. Then we got our WWII submarine history lesson on board the USS Pampanito. Man, those were cramped quarters.

There were other things, too, like getting clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, visiting the de Young museum and riding the cable car even more. Other highlights were going out with my sister and the next night having my little niece come over and watch movies while I gave my Mom and Dad a night out at Bacar. There were many things we didn’t get a chance to do, too, like go wine tasting in Sonoma or surfing.

On of the surprisingly fun and interesting things we did while running around was get a lot of enlongated pennies (pennies you run through a machine which imprints an image on it). You can read more about those here. I think we got 20 or so from all over the City.

Le sigh. Never enough time, too many things to do. I must find a few people to go some of those things with. :) I have my Dad’s pictures so I’ll post a few of the good ones (he took almost 400!) in a gallery when I get a chance. But first I must get some sleep. Good night, sweet chicken bone!

2006.08.14

The Political Compass

We should all know that the old Left-Right linear description of politics is incorrect, despite the fact that even I still use the descriptions. You can be socially liberal yet economically conservative, or visa versa on either issue. That’s one reason why I like The Political Compass. It’s a quiz that checks two factors instead of just one, and plots where you are based on how you answer certain questions.

I like that I’m left leaning libertarian, but I wish the example they had given for my territory wasn’t Ghandi. I respect him and all, but couldn’t they come up with someone cool? :)

If you take the quiz post your result (unless you’re too embarrassed!) in the comments!

2006.08.12

Nothing Weirder?

Is there anything weirder than your sister hitting flagrantly on one of your best friends?

UPDATE: Whew, I was wrong. It turns out she was teasing him in a way I never could.

2006.08.11

Terrorism and Statistics

Being on vacation and all I failed until today to hear about a foiled terrorist attempt to blow up several planes using liquified explosives and an iPod. I’m happy they caught people who would do these terrible things but it still reminds me of an article I wrote over a year ago that shows you have a significantly better chance of dying in your bathtub or by lightning than you do by the hands of a terrorist. You can find that article here (reprinted here).

Kind of funny that just a few days ago bOING bOING posted a link to a PDF that has the same point of view and noted that the point of terrorism is to create terror, not to kill people. This is true. Yet I know in the coming days and weeks I will be supremely irritated when all we will hear over and over again from our governments and the media is that we are under attack, that our way of life is threatened, that if we don’t spend billions of dollars on senseless and useless security measures we’re all going to die, and the pundits saying if I don’t agree with that then I’m at best misguided and at worst a traitor.

Terrorists are criminals. Gramma getting on a plane to visit her son across the country and bringing water with her is not. Never-you-mind if she wants to listen to some music instead of her neighbor on the plane.

Dear anti-terrorist brigade: please start using your brains instead of your panic. You are letting the terrorists win without even killing anyone. Thank you.

2006.08.10

The Police Get All the Good Parking

8PM at North Beach on a beautiful San Francisco night when everyone is going out and there is zero parking available. Except if you are the law. The police are so-o lucky.

2006.08.08

Playing the Tourist

Mom and Dad (and me)A large portion of my family is in San Francisco visiting and I’m getting a chance to play tourist. I’ve lived in many cities that are popular tourist destinations with loads of interesting places to visit but, because I live in them, I rarely do these things. So it’s nice to hop on a cable car or visit the Sutro Bath ruins. It’s very easy to take the place you live for granted, and that’s sad when it’s one of the best cities on Earth.

One of the places we visited that I’ve never done in the almost nine years I’ve lived here was to goto the Exploratorium. What a great combination of hands on science and interesting bits and bobs to play around with. I come from a family of geeky/nerdy folk (sorry, Mom, but it’s true) and this was right up our alley. I was quite jealous of their working miniature marine steam engine. Some of the biology exhibits were also quite memorable like the chick embryo growing or the mouse heart cells pumping. I definitely want to return!

Of course walking among the tall columns of the Palace of Fine Arts is its own reward.

We’ve also visited the San Francisco Zoo, which I haven’t been to in a very long time. The elephants are gone, but the steam train is there and so are all the animals. In the nice weather many of them were even out and wandering about. Except the koalas, which were just sleeping. Why does anyone like koalas? Stupid animals that sleep all day and are grumpy and violent when disturbed. Oh wait, that sounds like me in the morning.

Karma on the Cable CarEven something as simple as riding the cable cars at night was so nice. It’s kind of silly but I would ride those things every single day if I could. I wish this city had never gotten rid of all the trams and trolleys. My personal feeling is that was one of the worst moves they’ve made. Buses suck.

Of course we went to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park (here’s an interesting history). This is one of my favorite places in the city. It’s unfortunate the fish are missing from the garden. For anyone who’s seen Memoirs of a Geisha you will instantly recognize many of the views. Of interest to note is that fortune cookies in America were introduced here, and are not Chinese at all but are of Japanese decent.

We’ve also run up and down the “new” China Town on Clement Street, run around in the water at Ocean Beach, eaten in North Beach, and dealt with the crowds at Fisherman’s Wharf. The best thing is their visit is only half gone. Hopefully I’ll get inspired to write more interesting stuff about the places we’re visiting so you don’t start thinking, “Oh god, here he goes about his boring freaking life again…”

2006.08.08

Adult Life

Over heard this evening… The Defiant One waxes philosophical.

Mothers always want their small sons to get on with adult life.

What they don’t know is they can’t until they meet their adult wife.

Brilliant. I’ll have to weave this into a song someday.

2006.08.06

NicVAX

Well this sounds interesting. A vaccine to help you kick the smoking habit. It has an interesting approach, too. It builds up anti-bodies to nicotine that eventually prevent the chemical from reaching your brain and releasing dopamine into your system. You can learn some of the more technical stuff at the product homepage. Currently they are in the testing phase but it’s being fast tracked to FDA approval, though it probably won’t be available until 2009.