Heart of Darkness ca. 2007

Just giving props to one of the most amazing travel blogs ever. Makes me want to go and dread it at the same time.

Point Lobos

Live seals this time. It's 80 degrees out here and sunny like heck.

Swords, Dragons, and Decomposing Sea Lions

Chinese New Year in San Francisco...loud, crowded, and actually a bit of a letdown.

The next day, I saw this interesting rock in Pacifica, so I climbed down to take a picture.









What did I learn?

Decomposing sea lion is the worst smell EVAH!!!!!!

Sunday

Why does everyone overroast?

After a long trip through Starbucks, Peets, local coffee shops and gourmet roasters, I finally found a store that sells 5 ppound bags of Lavazza again. The experience left me wondering why every American roaster overroasts their coffee? At Starbucks it's a given, they use their stuff mostly in highly sugared drinks, so they have to give some bite to average beans. Peets is a bit better, but still deliveres dark, glossy beans that kill most of the taste. And the local roasters--from BlueBottle in SF over Hudson Bay Co. in Rockridge, to Quartermaine and Coyote in DC (and at any stop in between)--are either not far behind, or way worse.

It doesn't have to do with strength, or caffination, or even local differences: every "gourmet" coffee bean in the States is roasted within an inch of its life.

Lily or Lavazza beans make a cup that sits up and barks, but if you look at the beans, they are positively pale, or even slightly greenish compared with the standard US stuff. Might it be that they use pretty much pure Arabica? Or is it just as simple as "Starbucks set the taste of American coffee drinkers and anyone must follow or perish"?

Hey, maybe it's not even Starbuck's fault. NYC diner coffee 25 years ago was thin, black, and bitter.

Insomnia rocks

It's 8:30

-I cleaned the kitchen to Metallica
-I did two loads of laundry
-I rearranged furniture
-I vaccumed to AC/DC

And I annoyed the crap out of the folks downstairs.

Pundits

Theismann--WRONG
Salisbury--WRONG
Hoge--WRONG
Jaworski--WRONG
Schlereth--WRONG
Allen--WRONG
Mortensen--WRONG
Golic--WRONG

Embarrassing Sport Pundit Nitwits

Fog free weekend

Something like 30 degrees in the morning and westerly winds for the last week or so. The perfect mix of no fog, no tourists, and awesome waves.

Any given Saturday

Now that three friends and colleagues in as many weeks have accused me of "hating" Notre Dame, I'd like to clarify:

I don't hate Notre Dame, they are one of the 50 best NCAA football teams. I don't hate any players, I just have issues with their fans, their organization, their loudmouthed alumni, and the guys who've only watched them on NBC. Notre Dame is NOT the best team in college football and they are not even a top ten team. Arguably, they are a top 25, but they are always ranked about 10 places higher than they should be because they have two very unique advantages any given Saturday:

-They don't play in a conference. Any given Saturday, players give just the little extra effort when playing conference rivals. Alabama plays just this much harder when they play Florida, Oregon plays just that much harder when playing USC, and even the pathetic Illini get off their asses when playing Ohio State. OK, Michigan and USC bring out their A game when playing the Irish, but a lot of the middling Division A teams don't have a special stake in the Irish games.
-They play the service academies every year, essentially getting three free wins. Now, Vanderbilt, Indiana, and Stanford provide the same service for the SEC, Big Ten, and PAC 10, but that's one game per year; and even they could probably beat Army, Navy and Air Force any given Saturday. So STFU about "strenght of schedule" while at the same time cashing in on three freebies per year because of tradition.

0-9 in bowl games is all you need to know about how ND fares against top ten teams.

I'll start rooting for them once they decide if they want to be on a level playing field and play Division 1-A, or be the Harlem Globertrotters of the NCAA.

Happy New Year

I had a few days off, so I did a 3 day drive along the parts of Highway 1 I hadn't been to. Back for bar crawl and the fireworks on the Embarcadero (no pics, sorry).

Hangover only lasted until early afternoon--there is something to be said for sticking to mojitos and bubbly.

Rennaisance Fair Attitude

Somehow this guy seems not be quite in the right spirit.

Cali drivers, take 2

I've complained about the mind boggling incompetence of California drivers before, but today, some 20 of them took it to a new level. Diamond Blvd to Willow Pass is a two lane left turn. A bakers dozen who somehow passed the exam decided that the best way to utilize them was by using the right lane only--blocking anyone behind them from using the left one in the process. WTF??? So it only took twice as long for everyone behind them.

I can understand that the concept of multiple lanes might overtax one or two people's brains, but 20??????

Five or more...

Great day in the city, but I am shot for today. Before coming up with my New Year's resolutions, I thought I'd take stock to the rhythm of fives (or more). Feel free to add yours.

Five movies you can watch over and over again?

Kill Bill Vol 1
Mary Poppins
Ronin
Pulp Fiction
My Fair Lady

Five songs you find yourself belting out in your car?

Amazing Grace
Running--No Doubt
Dancing with Myself--Billy Idol
Danny Boy--(just about the only song that makes my cry)
The River--Springsteen

Five favorite vacation spots?

Venice
Anaztasi Ruins
Penang
Herdubried
Belize

Five (or more) favorite roads?

Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Ft. Bragg
New Zealand Highway 5
CA 4
Alaska 1 (Anchorage -- Homer)
Tangier--Boulemange
Stilfser Joch
Dear God In Heaven Who Came Up With This Idea??--AKA HI 30 between Kapalua and Waihee
Icefield Highway in January

Five favorite towns?

London
Chiang Mai
Wellington
Santa Cruz
Marrakesch

Five books you've read more than five times?

Fiesta--Hemmingway
Beneath Another Sky--Ridgeway
Ulysses--Joyce
Exodus--Leon Uris (not since 1990)
Vineland--Pynchon

Five places you really want to go?

Torres De Paines
Australia
All parts of the Himalaya
India
Fiji

Five (or more) favorite views

Ouarzazate
Belize's Barrier Reef
Yosemite from Ohmsted Point
Cliff House in Mesa Verde NP
Waimea Canyon
Muir Beach
Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
Mt Cook


Five (or more) worst meal ever?

Soft shell crab
The fish the first night in Ambergis Caye
Eggs sunny side up in Kamphaeng Phet (not for me, but for the 40 other tourists)
Hash (made from the leftovers of the meat sauce, made from the leftovers of the solyanka, made from the leftovers of the steaks made from the leftover of the rib roast,... do I have to mention it was in Moscow?)
Waaaaay-past-it's-due-date oyster on the Champs Elysees
Bandera Annual Silver Sage Corral Benefit Chili Cookoff
Fried rat in a Shan roadhouse (actually, not bad until I saw the ingredients on the way out--I puked until the next morning)

Five (or more) worst smells?

Tanneries in Marrakech
Farting sea lions at Pier 39
River/sewer/water source/pool in a small town outside Melacca
Feast of St. Anthony (bir sardine cookoff in Lisbon)
The 5 climbers on the bus back from Mt. McKinley
The old Forrest Service latrine at Valdez Glacier (they posted a sign apologizing for the "putrid conditions")

Turkey Day

What happens if you turn left at the end of the driveway and just keep going? I did just that to escape tryptophan and Black Friday and 6 hours, some interesting driving and a few black bear tracks later, I was 20 miles outside South Lake Tahoe. Sadly, the only skiing was a few runs at Heavenly. Drove back late Saturday to escape the first interstate-closing snow of the season and spent Sunday watching the first season of Newlyweds and predator-shopping at Macy's.

Working hard

I was sailing in the Caribbean, so there haven't been updates in a bit.

Weird California

Last weekend took me through the only US town ever founded by Chinese, the Sacramento Delta--as close as you can get to dirt poor Louisiana backcountry in California, over the capital's Disneyland; all the way to the gold discovery reenactment in Placerville, known throughout the world as the original Hangtown and, not coincidentially, the birthplace of Kinkade galleries.

How many ensigns can spell Ticonderoga?

Fleet week. Really too crowded to see much, but I went for a two hours walk through the City's newup and coming section: Hayes Valley, a fine mix of Gucci and druggy. There is a really cool German restaurant next to the homeless shelter, though.

I didn't even know SF has a new metro system, much less that you can take it right to within 500 feet of the Pacific.

The Blue Angels were pretty cool, but I felt sorry for the Coast Guard guy flying the Hercules right before them--cool job and all, but he has to know that everyone who's watching is there for the F18s.

Dumbest sign ever

Ocean Beach

20x zoom on a point and shoot--cool, eh?

The Nimitz

To put it in perspective

Ticonderoga

A perfect Saturday

Cal plucks, trusses and roasts the Ducks.
Vols neuter the Bulldogs.
Auburn Tigers loose.
LSU Tigers drown in the Swamp.

See you in the Top Ten.

Even better the other Tigers manhandle the Yankees. Not that I care about Detroit. ;-)

Oh, and Indiana won their first Big Ten game this year. Go Andrew!!!

PS. Someone should go after Oregon for bribing referees. They've got a touchdown and a few pass interferences deeded to them, and they got away with the worst personal foul I've seen in college football in a long time.

Gay Square Dancing Makes Me Giddy With Happyness

I don't really know why, it just does. Or it did for the first time today at the Castro Street Fair. The sight of buff, bare breasted, hatted and booted cowboys two-stepping with each other is at once beautiful and deeply subversive. Only downside: I haven't heard this much Shania since my last trip to Alberta.

The other big event in the city was the reopening of the Emporeum as the biggest Bloomingdales outside of 5th Street. Amazingly, putting it next to Nordstrom didn't create a spontaneous implosion that would have sucked the Powell/Market corner into a blackhole of hipness. The biggest jaw-dropper is the hand bag floor--yes, they have a three-football-field floor of handbags surrounded by smaller stores for the more exclusive handbags. I think I might be able to get away with a few in SF, but I couldn't make up my mind between Spade and Tumi. The Diors, D&Gs and Versaces were also cool, but way out of my price range...

OK, seriously, though, it must be the only food court that sells sashimi by the pound, and slices and dresses it for you on the spot. Mhhhhh, Saku tuna.

Top 10 things I learned over the weekend..

The other pictures that go with this entry are here

1. Dragon boat racing is THE place to meet hot, buff Asian-American women.
2. 90% of the people who are into leather shouldn't be.
3. Wearing a full latex suit in 80 degree weather is NOT sexy.
4. Hard core leather freaks are totally nice people.
5. Furries are bitchy.
6. Some people can walk with 5 pounds of metal hanging off their privates.
7. There has to be an age limit on public mastrubation--and it's not 80!!!!!!!
8. Fosters and teriyaki chicken is a killer combination on an empty stomach.
9. The SFPD recruits at the Folsom Street Fair. Lets try that in Alabama.
10. Pink channeling Joan Jett is cool,but very un-NBC.