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Dorkus Californicus: An Explorers Diary

On Friday, the 29th of June in the year of the lord 2007, a few friends and I went on an expedition to observe the Common West Coast Dork (dorkus califonicus) in it's natural habitat.

17:45 -- The 4 hour managers meeting finally ends. I drop my laptop on my desk, grab my cell phone and jog over to the parking garage, calling my co-explorers on the way over to reconfirm the meeting point

17:54 -- After a short, but harrowing trip down I-680, a 5 lane exit swoop, and two traffic lights, I park at the old Andronico's garage and power walk the one block down to B&N, the well known purveyors of crappy books.


17:55 -- The first dorkus come within sight.

17:56 -- We meet up and set up our main blind outside California Pizza Kitchen across the street from the dorkus' feeding grounds. Drea has devastating news: Prima is full, so we frantically send out an expedition to secure a table at Va de Vi around the corner.

17:58 -- We settle down, break out the lattes and start observing the about 250 dorks who have lined up so far. Much to my surprise, only about half of the assembled specimens were the expected dorkus geekus, dorkus basementdwellerus, and dorkus hipsterus. In addition to a strong showing of dorka mallrattia and materna soccera, there are many normal looking people.
17:59 -- Closer to the source, dorkus dorkus takes over, though, easily recognizable by his plummage

And by white on blue territorial markers.


17:59:30 -- Intrepid ABC journos are also out in full force. From the look on the reporter's face, she'd very much prefer Falludja right now.

18:00 -- A collective sigh followed by hollering and clapping as THE SOURCE opens.
18:01 -- The first dorkus has captured it's prey and performs a wild dance to the whistling and clapping of the entire line before he is set upon by ABC 7's local interest reporter. (I think that job would make me kill myself). While she gushes into the camera, ABC cable guy 50 feet back is overheard cussing about 'fucking idiots, waste of time, and why can't they release this BEFORE the weekend.
18:10 -- The hunt is now in full swing: every 30-40 seconds, a new dorkus catches its prey, the line keeps hollering and high five-ing every time another dorkus leaves. It slowly gets boring, so we repair to Va to an expedition dinner.
8:10 -- One frisee salad and dungeness crab pot pie later, we walk back past the feeding ground. The line is still evident, but shorter now. Nobody from the first pride still seems to be in line, so at least $120,000 have been regurgitated.
8:11 -- We stumble across one of many dorkus debris piles



8:15 -- On the way back to my car, I spot a rare dorkus moorus with trademark Crocs. No line here.

Ah, Shakespeare

From the Friday morning meeting at Apple Stores...

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Jobs.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is the iPhone Day.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on iPhones Day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
I the Pod, Lisa and Macintosh,
Jaguar and Panther, Tiger and Leopard-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Job's RDF shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in Gatesland now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon iPhone's day."

1 for 2

I was planning to go whale watching and to Pride this weekend. The whale trip got cancelled due to 12 foot waves at the Farallons, so I caught up on laundry and getting a tan at the pool.

Sunday, the 4 hour Pride parade blew through town. Mostly PG, and many couples marched down Market with their parents or children--Nothing like the Folsom Street Fair. Even the SFPD officers walked hand in hand with their domestic partners; and totally-not-gay mayor Newsom shook hands in a storm of wolf whistles.

Naturally, since the route goes right through the tenderloin, the gays totally freaked out the homeless. One guy 50 feet down from where I was kept howling "You fags will all go to hell" less and less coherently for about 2 hours until he finally passed out from the fortified wine.

Pics

ARRRRRRR!!!

Long story, but I got roped into manning Ye Olde Meat Pie Stand at the NoCal Pirate Festival. Load of wenches, drunks, and people with heat stroke and symptoms of overdoing Ye Olde Turkey Legs two stands over.

Guy on left got his ring caught in guy on the right's beard

I have seen this costume before, but I can't remember where

Marilyn Manson has a sister

Ron Jeremy is a pirate

Don't Stop Believing is a pirate song

Bermudas take away from the biker image

Obviously manned by Baristas

Ron White is right! When you hold a woman in a seashell

bra to your ear, you can hear her scream. 

(PS: Check out the chicken bone boots on the guy on the left) 

. 

I've arrived...

...I think...it took me about 10 minutes to find it weird that half the people in the Muni car were wearing monkey suits.

They all were on their way to the Haight Ashbury Street Fair. As usual for SF festivals, it brought together billowing clouds of burnt chicken teriyaki smoke, hammering House and Dance, Hare Krishnas, drag queens, and people clandestinely selling brownies out of backpacks.

So not a bad day, but given the location, I would have expected the Dead and CCR, not half the California MCs. Great brownies, though....

I hate down climbing granite...

It's perfectly safe to walk down 45 degree granite slopes, but is scares the hell out of me. Especially when the next level surface is 2000 feet down.

Oh, I also got a sunburn. And some pictures.

Tuolumne meadows

Yosemite Valley from Sentinel Dome

Hetch Hetchy

Truthiness in Advertising

Awesome site comparing the ad pictures with what the fast food places actually serve. Hey, the Filet O'Seafood Parts And Plankton almost looks like in the flyer.

Back in Japan

I don't even want to think about the fact that I spent 21 hours on planes this week. Another whirlwind trip to the corporate motherland in Osaka. Actually, much preferable to the Tokyo office. KIX is much smaller and neater than Narita, even if it's on an artificial--and rapidly sinking--island. Always fun to see the guys building a new island just to the north so they'll have an airport when KIX slides under.

It was also the first time that Japan wasn't oppressively hot, and it only poured one day. On the other hand, I still don't understand how it can be more humid than the 100% days in Illinois, but they always manage to kick it up another notch. Even in 73 degree weather, I was soaked. Not much came out of the meetings, but I had an extra day that I spent in Kyoto temple-ing and gorging myself on Kyoto cuisine the first night and $1 per plate sushi when I was templed out the second day. Since I was the only foreigner for miles, I'll just assume that raw egg, spam, duck breast, and raw chicken sushi is normal. Fugu tastes just like very weak squid and is actually quite disappointing. My lips went a bit numb, so it was apparently the real stuff. The cook was nice enough to show me the special locked bucket where they have to keep the livers for the health department.

Oh, if you ever fly United--BRING YOUR OWN FOOD. The stuff they served was right behind 1980s Aeroflot for the worst ever.

Thank you CW...

...for making the series finale of Gilmore Girls suck so horribly that I'll never miss the show.

I _AM_ an idiot

Today, I managed the dumbest face plant ever. I took my "good" bike since it's finally summer here and totally forgot that it has disc brakes and front suspension. So I hit the brakes on gravel out in Crissy Field about as much as on the POS bike I used in winter and the next thing I remember is wondering why I was lying flat on my back. No permanent damage, except to my pride.

The Presidio is so beautiful in the spring.

(Almost) summer

Santa Cruz with mental seals, boardwalk and still stored lifeguard towers. I went diving, I froze my ass off in the water, and I now hate kelp. But it was great--and warming up on the beach with all the bikini wearing Slugs was nice, too.

WTF?

I logged into MySpace for the first time in months and it listed Sam Brownback as "Cool New People". I am officially scarred for life now.

Yay for the Carolinas

80 sheep found living in a suburban home euthanized. You can't make up them things Southerners do.

Thanks Leigh Ann for pointing out what kind of town you moved to. We only have meth labs.

At the same time, SC does politics as usual. Money quote "We tried to explain to the folks in Boston early on that it's a little different here"

Livin' on a Prayer

Weird. Some things you don't notice. I just found out that I apparently never bought any Bon Jovi. I just never occurred to me. Fixed that at the used record store. Long live arena rock.

From the WTF section of the book store

The Batman Handbook

With sections on "How to Throw a Batarang," "How to Make a Batsuit," and "How to Bulletproof Your Batmobile," this is the ultimate real-world training manual for any aspiring caped crusader. You'll discover how to:

- Train a Sidekick
- Execute a Backflip
- Survive a Poison Gas Attack
- Throw a Grappling Hook
- plus dozens of other crucial skills ...

Technical writing

I am such a dork. My subwoofer broke after 10 years, so I bought a set of new speakers on sale. Since the manual was so thin, I actually started reading it. It's pretty much the best manual I've seen in--like--ever. Clear, concise, assuming that the user isn't a complete idiot, and written with a very dry sense of humor.

"Never try to find out how loud your system will go- the answer is fractionally less than the volume that breaks it."

"If you are in any doubt as to how dry your ballast material is, a short period on a baking tray in a hot over should ensure that the material is dry. Please allow the sand or ballast to cool first [before putting it in the speaker stand]"

Sometimes you have to love British public schools.

Staying ali-iiiiiii-iiiiiii-ve

I shop at the Under One Roof Castro shop for offbeat presents like naked-men-bottle-openers and druggie-highway-exit quite a lot, but I wonder if it's worse to die--or to to depend on a charity named after the cheesiest 70s movie ever.

Go watch WorkOut

If you get Bravo, or have iTunes, you can't afford to miss this show. In today's episode, the super gay trainer is jealous because the lesbian owner's doing the straight trainer chick who shows clients pictures of her boyfriend's BLEEEP on her cell phone.

Why I love the Mac (most of the time) Part 3

Because some of the software just works so freaking well that you won't believe if you are only using Windows. For example:

MarsEdit, a program that lets me update my blog by simply sending email to it.

Vienna, the world's most awesome RSS reader. It's even freeware.

The new Camino beta which supports the system wide spelling dictionary.