Posts from — November 2008

I have two distinct bus riding modes: morning express mode & evening go home mode.

“Morning express mode” entails a combination of two or more of the following: being calm, enjoying the ride, reading a book, scoping out the lovely ladies, and sometimes listening to groovy tunes on the way.

“Evening go home mode” means grab whatever freaking express bus you see first. If you’re lucky, you get a good express bus and can repeat the morning ride experience.

God forbid you miss the last express bus and you have to take the regular bus with the proletariat & plebeians (oh wait,that would be me anyway) or crazies.

Unfortunately last week the two modes combined. Worlds Collided! and not in a good way.

I usually sit in the back row against the window in the mornings, but someone had already taken my favorite spot, so I was in the penultimate row. Almost as good, I know. I got out my book and started to read and got into my morning commute “tranquilo” mood.

It was a dreary morning, light rain, or at least very drizzly with a lot of fog in my hood, and cold too.

No more than a few stops into the commute, this one guy I see on occasion came stomping towards the back. He has that “older dorky banker/analyst but probably an accountant” look. He crashed out into the middle seat in the back row legs akimbo and panting for air because he had to run to catch the bus.

After sitting for a few minutes he realized he was hot, so he jumped out of his seat and hit that top vent in the ceiling of the bus to open up the vent-hatch with a loud ‘boom’ which got everyone’s attention in the back. Of course, taking off his tweed professor’s coat would’ve been easier, but oh well.

He was ruining the mood though with his loud panting and opening up of hatches. Besides, it was raining, so I think a lot of the passengers kept looking up waiting for water to start dripping down from the open port hole.

A few stops later, one of my favorite anonymous crushes got on the bus and walked (maybe sauntered?) towards the back and took a seat between tweedy-hatch-popper and my favorite seat in the back row. Or basically right behind me (which did me no good obviously). She was listening to her ipod and had a magazine with her and she started reading it after she settled in to her seat.

No more than two minutes later she very loudly (because of her ipod) yells “Do you like to read this magazine?!”

All of us in the back turn around to see who she’s yelling at. It was hatch-popper!

She continued, “Do you like this magazine, do you not have something else to read?!?*”

*I’m not sure what she said exactly here but it got this reply from hatch-popper: “It’ll do.”

She started mumbling under her breath in an oh-so-sexy foreign? accent and changed seats! (Good for her!) She moved up towards the middle of the bus.

Mind you everyone in the back of the bus is watching all of this now and everyone was rolling their eyes at hatch-popper.

I was very annoyed. He made my morning commute like

I now refer to hatch-popper as “morning douche bag”. He was on my bus again this morning and popped the hatch again.

Today in his rush to get out at the first stop downtown, kicked an older woman in her Achilles tendon because he wasn’t paying attention. She almost fell out of the bus and said something to him. He didn’t “get it” and said, “After you!” and waved or gestured towards the stairs that she almost fell down. She rolled her eyes and got off and went to work.

What a douche.

Bonus story– there’s actually a third mode for my bus rides- weekend and late-night rides. Sometimes the late-night ones bleed into “evening go home mode”.

Recently I caught a bus after leaving Angie’s hood and a crazy loud schizo guy called me a name.

I was sitting by the window across the aisle from said crazy, and he called me (after yelling at other people who wisely moved away) a “N-word F-word” (rhymes with chigger maggot).

He was loud too and pointed. I even looked around to see who he was yelling at, even though that I was the only one he was pointing at.

I could kind-of-maybe-sort-of give him the benefit of the doubt on the F-word, only because I got on in Angie’s hood (the ‘Stro). But the N-word? That’s a bit out there. But then again, so was he.

(thanks to Todd Z for the link)

Here’s an article from Calvin Trillin in the New Yorker. It’s a bit of a behind-the-story look at this past summer’s Texas Monthly Top 50 BBQ Joints in TX article where Snow’s was named the winner.

It’s a good read and it makes me really wish I had some good BBQ in SF.

I do like this bit from the column:

Lexington, a trading town of twelve hundred people in Lee County, is only about fifty miles from Austin, where Texas Monthly is published, and Texans think nothing of driving that far for lunch– particularly if the lunch consists of brisket that has been subjected to slow heat since the early hours of the morning.

Mmmm brisket

Your two random videos for this fine Friday:

and:

As everyone knows, I’m way into women’s fashion and trends despite my own non-sartorial appearance (hey, the guayavera and jeans look works for me, so I stick with it).

So I just wanted to report on an annoying trend that the lovely ladies of SF have been getting into for the past month it seems. It’s almost as annoying as the winter capri pants fiascos I’ve seen for the past few years.

Anyway- the party foul? Rings on the middle finger of the left hand.

No big deal you say? Well, it’s a big deal to me because the solo ring on the middle finger of the left hand confuses me into thinking the girls are wearing an engagement or wedding ring for a second or two.

That’s enough to make me stop my oh-so-subtle scoping of said lady- because for me, wedding/engagement rings are like inviso-rings. I’ll instantly stop “scanning” when I see one (well, I pretend to)*.

*Although my friend Angela says I shouldn’t adhere so strictly to this policy as “married women like to be checked out too”.

Anyway, girls, I like jewelry and all, but not confusing stuff. It’s throwing me off my game. Thanks

your #1 fan,
Kenneth

edit: I should have written more clearly- what I’m really talking about is when the girls only have 1 ring on total, and of all the fingers they pick the middle finger on the left hand. Also- this morning, a woman had a really nice ornamental ring on her left hand ring finger, that confused me for a bit .. but it was so large that it was obviously not a wedding band/engagement ring. Okay, I’l shut up now. Thanks

The instructions for making coffee using the machines at the office:

put two scoops of grounds into filter which is in the filter basket. click ‘full pot’. after pot is made, move it to the side and make sure the lid is closed. Enjoy your coffee.

But there’s always one puss who thinks the fresh coffee is too strong… boo hoo. And you know what they do? They make one giant weak ass pot of coffee and don’t put a note on the carafe with a warning “hey, this coffee sucks, kthanks”.

So hey, don’t ruin the pot of coffee for everyone, just make the pot as you should and pour yourself a half mug and put hot water in your mug. Don’t ruin everyone else’s day. Assholes.

Next rant should be about the dorks who cut the Friday donuts into thirds. “ooh, half a donut is too much boo hoo….”

I crack myself up sometimes…

It’s not even that funny, but I still “heh’d” at my desk . . .

I grew up in a state that doesn’t have voter initiatives. I still think it’s kind of odd to have them when there is already a full time legislature. That’s what they’re there for.

Granted, I understand the opposite argument that it’s less weird and more democratic to have initiatives, but I still think it’s a sign that the legislature is slacking if voters are trying to do things “on their own”.

But what really boggles my mind is that the state allows people from other states to organize the initiatives. Like what happened with Prop 8. To me, that’s crazy. I can’t imagine that happening in Texas.

Imagine that the great state of Texas had initiatives and imagine one getting close to a vote that was even only rumored to have a source in an out-of-state organization. All you would have to do to defeat the bill/ref/initiative would be just to use your deep Texas senatorial drawl and say, “ladies & gentlemen this here voter ref was financed by people from …. Oklahoma” (or some other lesser state) and boom, end of initiative.

That’s one of the reasons why I think it’s so weird that the peeps in CA let the folks in Utah organize and get stuff on their ballots.

links:

Sam Spade Blog rant on the LDS

La Times

and a Daily Show clip to lighten the mood

sacbee story

Yes it’s been a while. Here’s how it usually goes-

insert statement here about how I’m shocked that I haven’t watched many movies (even though I have – I even had a quick blurb about the artistic Torque which you really should watch with your friends and beer this week)…

I then complain about how I haven’t been to the cineplex in a while (although true, I did finally go see The Dark Knight when it was out) on this line here ..

Okay – now we’re ready for me to whine . ..

See more …

Interesting vid I saw after catching up on Reason magazine’s blog.