Posts from — August 2008

Okay, I have the other two videos on youtube now.

The 1st one below is an edited version of the actual dinner- goes over the rules and voting and me stuffing my face and showing off my plate of meat.

I had a great time at my friends’ place and was just playing with the video software to see if I could get subtitles in there. It’s all in good fun, I’m not trying to be a catty bish– well, I am, but it’s well-meaning.

note: I may have to take this down if the hostess requests me to do so- I’m not sure she knew I was recording . . .

And after that last video was this one, capping up the night’s events- very introspective:

Enjoy

I got a new Flip Video Ultra the other day. They’re pretty goofy, but I wanted one just for giggles. Anyway, I wound up taking some clips (with Cory’s help) when I went to the South Bay yesterday to cook some ribs for a party.

Here are the first two vids…. take it easy on me in the comments, I was just farting around.

Just a note- I will upload the vids of the actual party because they came out well, I just need to edit them a bit.

That was the prep, this is cooking:

I’ll have the other videos up later.. . .

Happy Friday!

Quite possibly the most vitriolic rant about Great America’s patrons I’ve seen. I like it even though it smacks of that SF snobbery I hate.

As someone who loves streetfood, I hate stories like this one. (is streetfood a word?) That video at the bottom makes me hungry- and it makes me miss Guadalajara where I’d eat hot dogs like that after work. The vid’s interesting if you have time- but then again, I’m one who thinks food-borne bacteria is fascinating. [The big 3? Salmonella, Botulism, and my fave: clostridium perfringens.]

This story makes me nervous and frustrated about the movie biz. (no, it’s not about box office reporting fallacies- my other rant . . .)

There’s also an interesting blogging meme/theme going around on the food blogs. But for me it was only interesting for about 3 minutes. It’s called “The Omnivore’s 100 which I saw first on either Chocolate and Zucchini or Becks&Posh, I can’t remember. But it’s kind of a lame ass list. I hate to say it, but it sounds very old-school British. And I mean that in the “I don’t eat food from other countries and yet I live in an interesting area that has interesting food” kind of way. Snobby? Yeah, a bit. I mean, if you have to make a list of this stuff, you clearly aren’t getting out enough, or cooking enough for that matter. So for food blogs to have this list seems kind of lame. I think Cory’s even had most of this stuff and his list of forbidden foods is stuff of legend.

This morning I went to Starbucks for a cup of coffee (long story, I overslept and the bus was slow, so I didn’t have a chance to make espresso at home). And there was a woman two or three people in front of me on her cell phone.

The guys behind the counter were going fast, so they were asking ahead in the line- “sir/ma’am, what can I get started for you?” etc.

They asked the woman on the phone and she couldn’t hear them. Two guys in line (wearing earbuds ironically) said, “ma’am, they’re talking to you”. She said to one of them “I’m on the phone”. One said, “I know, but they’re trying to take your order.” And she rolled her eyes at one of the guys!

I looked at the ground and saw a piece of paper by the woman – a post-it note. I thought it was hers so I went to pick it up.

It had two words written on it in thick sharpie: “FAT ASS” (on two separate lines).

I was so tempted to say, “ma’am, you dropped this” to gauge her reaction. The cashier in line had seen me pick up the paper and smile when I read it so he asked what it was.

I showed him and said that I was tempted to give it to her and say she had dropped it. . . .

He said if I had done that he would’ve not charged me for my coffee (apparently she’s a regular at that store– and a regular b).

So see kids, you can be rewarded for being an a-hole.

GigaOm has a good article up listing their top 5 reasons business execs don’t work well with (engineering) PMs.

I liked this point in reason number 5: Failure to Focus …There’s no surer way to alienate product and engineering teams than to whipsaw them from project to project with an ill-conceived “Idea of the Day” approach.

I’m not sure I agree with all the points in the article, but it’s a good read. I can also see a c-level exec writing an opposite article “The Top 5 Reasons Engineering PMs don’t work well with our Executives. . . ”

I think it’s more common these days to see more complaints about Marketing Execs not understanding things though. But then again it’s usually an easier group to make fun of. . .

After my last post, RD sent me an email to tell me about a type of character she runs into all the time. I thought I’d put her comments up as this separate post.

RD: The citizen homeless guy.

That’s the homeless guy who takes it upon himself to enforce all rules of the bus to ensure smooth sailing for the bus driver. I saw him telling a dude to zip up his fly the other day. He folded a man’s walker for him so he could make more space, even moved people’s bags out of the way for better flow.

I’ve seen variations on this, but I’ve always called them “deputies” or deputy driver.

The Deputy and/or CHG usually ride the regular bus, not the Express.

My last deputy run-in:

The Deputies I usually see are the off-duty Muni drivers who happen to be riding so they can talk to their friends who are driving while they’re going home.

Once, on the 14 Mission, a Deputy was talking to his buddy the driver, and the driver had been telling people to move back and *not* get on from the rear– they needed to get on at the front and show their passes.

A lot of them weren’t doing it — and suddenly pretended they didn’t speak English, so the Deputy came allll the way to the back and kicked off all the kids (and adults) who had gotten on at that stop. It was awesome.

SFist.com had a Muni-related post/pic the other day when someone sent them a pic of someone clipping their nails on the bus/muni. Yum.

Just a quick wine recommendation for you (especially the Texans who read this).

Keep an eye out of Luchador Shiraz. It’s pretty darn good- even better if you decant it. Oh, and it has a Mexican wrestler on it, and everyone knows I can’t resist that.

$17 at K&L in San Francisco, it should be under $20 for those of you in TX (it’d better be under 20 . . ).

Specs’ site doesn’t have it listed, but maybe one of you can comment if you find it elsewhere.

Just decant it for a bit first.

I don’t know why, but I was thinking of things that I cannot do, or cannot do well.

Obviously it’s a short list:

1. Eat soup gracefully

2. Stay awake for a whole episode of CSI:Miami.

I swear that show knocks me out 10-15 mins into it- and then it’s off to sweet sweet dreams of the white-pants-wearing Eva LaRue/Natalie Boa Vista).

3. Stop my inner snob when I’m out and about…

What’s at the top of your list?

Look, I’m the first to admit how lucky I am on my commute. I get to take an *express* bus. That takes away 90% of the riff-raff right there. And usually, there are quite a few hotties on my bus (mmm 1BX).

But I still like to make fun of people you see on both the express and “local” busses. I wish I had pics for this, but I haven’t been able to sneak any lately.

Today I’ll point out two generic types a la In-N-Out Burgers– aka Animal Style:

1. The turtle.
The turtle is someone who wears a backpack or large bag, doesn’t get a seat, and doesn’t move all the way to the back. To make matters worse they don’t remove their backpack.

They typically stand at the rear steps blocking not only the aisle, but the exit as well. They have no spatialization skills.

2. The T-rex
Ah, a special creature, not limited to just the bus.

A T-Rex is a woman who usually has heels on and holds her purse or bag in the crook of her arm, not in her hand. If she’s a real T-Rex, she won’t be able to walk correctly in her heels either. (I can imitate this in person). Sometimes if she can’t stand in her heels and uses her free hand to grab the bus rail-strap thing she can become a BPL (see next item)

Two other stereotypes for today:

“Balance Problem Lady”

(sexist? maybe . . . but based off empirical data, I haven’t seen a man do this yet)

Every 10 bus rides or so there seems to be a woman who gets on who has balance problems. Usually– usually, it’s an older woman (not elderly, just older) who doesn’t get a seat and has to stand and who doesn’t seem to be aware of when the bus is about to start/stop.

I’ve only seen 2 (sober) women completely fall over, but I’ve seen most BPLs almost fall quite a few times which is how they got their nickname.

They’re hard to describe because they’re not stumbling from walking when the bus is in motion. They’re just standing there.

side note on BPL-
I’m not sure if the problem comes from an actual balance issue, or if it comes from being perpetually unaware of the behavior of the bus.

I have a theory though that if I put a “balance problem lady” in my car (front seat) with a cup of coffee/drink, she’d still spill it on herself with every sip because she’d be the type to try to take a sip just as the light’s turning green.

Last one:
“Self-righteous guy”

Usually a NYTimes reader.

SRG is usually the first to yell at the driver if he misses a stop in the afternoon. In fact, I just ran in to a SRG.

A SRG pulled the cord to stop on one of the Avenues. But the Express doesn’t “technically” stop at all the stops, although depending on driver’s whim (and the route), they may.

– eg. the 38 will stop at Arguello, 3rd and 6th- but the 38BX38L is really only supposed to stop at Arg and 6th. But a lot of times the drivers don’t care in the afternoon.–

Anyway, the driver today was sticking to the rules/stops and wasn’t stopping at 3rd. So an SRG screamed “baaaack doooorrrr!! my god why isn’t this guy stoppinggg??”

A woman next to him (and me) said, “they don’t normally stop at 3rd, it’s not an Expresslimited stop.”

SRG retorted “Well, they did last Friday”

So I said, “okay, well, tomorrow morning you should try to catch the inbound 38L at 3rd and tell us how that works out for you.”

SRG rolled his eyes and had to suffer the indignation of getting off at 6th.

Once I saw a guy yell the same thing at the driver because he wasn’t going to stop– and the SRG hadn’t even pulled the cord!

One other example of a SRG. In the mornings an express bus will have one last stop before it goes all the way inbound to downtown- hence the Express moniker. The bus is usually packed by then and sometimes not all the people can get on.

If they can’t get on at that last stop, the SRGs (girls too) will put out their arms/hands and roll their eyes and sometimes yell at the driver from the street.

Btw- when that happens I usually smile and say “schadenfreude” under my breath as I wave out the window.

Bonus:
PinkBag Ladies

Don’t mess with them. Ever.

The nickname comes from the pink plastic bags they get after shopping for veggies in Chinatown.

Always defer to them.

Rarely seen on an express bus, they have their own schedule.