Category — general

it’s a bad blurry phone pic, and I didn’t do a duck/kissyface/myspace pose… but here ya go- me in my manpris:

I’ve been busy with some life changes (I switched gigs – more on that later) so here is some miscellanea to tie you over until I have more time (and network access) to add some fuller posts.

-Yesterday I saw a Volvo station wagon and a Prius get in a fender bender. I was sad that I wasn’t in a good position to get a pic. For some reason, it really amused me.

-Today I was riding to work and, like in this last post, there was a shuttle bus blocking not only the bike lane, but the next lane too. A tough guy riding by smacked the shuttle bus with his hand and made a big noise. If he were a car bumper-sticker he’d be “No Fear“. Dork.

wow

-I noticed that some Spanish stations were added to the Comcast HD lineup.

I found a telenovela called Las Muñecas de la Mafia by chance one night. It could be the greatest show ever. Even if you don’t speak Spanish.

Check out this Wikipedia entry (before it gets changed).

Apparently it’s about a married drug dealer guy who goes out with younger women. It focuses on the younger women.

-In other news, last week I went to a restaurant that my parents have been too a number of times out here when they’ve visited. It’s called Brenda’s French Soul Food. And you know what? It’s damn good.

It’s tiny and there will be a wait, so get there early, put your name on the list and wait your turn — and then pig out on grits, biscuits and other stuff. It’s worth it.

-One of the other things I did last week was to stock up on Macarons at La Boulange on Pine (and Fillmore). Good lord those are good. Just a thought – Macarons vs Cupcakes- who wins?

-I was also reminded about how pleasant Trader Joe’s (and other stores) are during the working day when most people are at work. I also found that they have peonies the size of my head there.

-I also found out that peonies sounds a lot like panties when the cute cashier with a tongue piercing speaks to you.

-I’ve had a draft of a rant about The Tonga Room on my computer for a while but I haven’t had a chance to finish it. There’s been a lot of talk about “saving” (preserving) it if the hotel changes owners. I’m on the side of getting rid of it. In a nutshell, I think it’s run poorly by the hotel and the only way to save it is to let non-hotel workers run it.

-Oh, and a reminder: I’m a hater. I drink the haterade. (as if you didn’t know)

Here’s a copy of the front and back of a flyer that a police officer gave me last week on Market as part of a campaign they’re running with the SF Bike Coalition.  At first I thought he was waving me over to warn me about something or give me a ticket as I have seen a bunch of cops recently on “The Wiggle” warning riders who blow through the stop signs to knock it off when going downhill East…

I really like the clip art on it.

and the back (which is blue as well, I just don’t scan well)

I forgot to mention that Kevin’s IronMan In April (IMIA) is starting has started again. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll forward your contact information to him so he can set you up on beginnertriathlete.com where he has a group training section set up.

What’s IMIA? Well, Kevin wants us all to do the equivalent of an Iron Man event but instead of doing it all in one sitting you (or your teammates) have the entire month of April to do it. That’s 26.2 miles of running at once, or 1.75 miles every other day. 112 miles of biking, but if you’re riding to work every day like me, that’s only 2 weeks of commuting…. get my drift? You should sign up if you’re interested. Leave a note in the comments if so.

see my old IMIA post here

So last Tuesday I was riding home after work in my typical neon-yellow blinky getup when a funny thing happened.

As I was pulling up to stop at Divisadero I noticed an extremely stylish woman about to cross the street. She caught me looking and I smiled I tipped my hat helmet (as a proper Tejano would do).

I thought- hrm, she looks like that popular bike-blogger and coffee drinker Meligrosa. But I didn’t think it was her because she’s normally with her trusty blue bike, Frenchie, and she wasn’t tonight.

But it was her!

So, I tried to say “hey there, I like your blog, keep up the good work.”

But what I *think* came out of my mouth was “hurrrrrr durrrrrrr I liek ur blogggggg”.

“Smooth move, ex-lax” – I told myself.

Either way, she smiled back and kept on going to do whatever it is the stylish youngins in SF do and I rode through the Panhandle and the park and the rest of the way home to eat the rest of my leftover empanadas and play with my new thumb war lucha libre gift!

But apparently– I didn’t make as bad an impression as I feared.

my new luchadores!

Although I rode most of this week, I had taken about two weeks off from bike commuting due to weather. Well, half weather and half after work plans like hanging out with friends at Burger Bar, Rickhouse and wine bars in the ferry building and The Embarcadero.

So not being on the bike means I’m taking my lovely Muni Express to and from work. On the bus recently I *plowed through* some books. I had picked up a bunch of books at Green Apple over the holidays and the rainy bus rides allowed me to really catch up. It was quite nice actually.

But at the back of my head I started to feel guilty health-wise. I was starting to feel lethargic. I was anxious for a break in the SF rain. But at the same time I felt that I was enjoying my books and that was more important. Well, maybe not important, but maybe a feeling that reading books was a more valuable use of my time.

I was back on the bike this week and trying to read at home at night. I felt healthier… but I wasn’t keeping up with the reading. A classic tradeoff.

What do you guys do? I know Angie can’t read on her bus- she’s too popular. But she reads at home- Jodi does as well, I follow her (and Tessa) on goodreads.com and I know they read a ton of stuff.

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was recommended by a friend and I dove in w/o knowing much about it.
I thought it was a good story, but just okay. It’s a heavy and depressing subject, but the author did do a good job in keeping me interested.
I found some of the editing a bit distracting- and normally I don’t notice or care about that.
I also wore a bit weary of the device of jumping back and forth from the two timelines- although I wouldn’t know how to present both Anna’s and Trudy’s stories any other way. I must get annoyed easily by that timeline literary device because it really distracted me in Water for Elephants a lot too.

Despite my two stars, I’d recommend it.

View all my reviews >>

Edit- maybe I need a 3 day rule for books too. I was thinking more about this book today (and then wound up talking to the person who recommended it to me to begin with)… and I think while my criticisms remain, I should bump up the rating a bit more for the way the author handled the Anna character- especially at the end of the book…. I’ll chew on this more.

btw- if any of you are on Goodreads.com, add me as a friend

I’m not going to write one… or am I?

Seems like a lot of people are anxious for 2009 to be over. I guess I didn’t think it was that bad. Sure, I’m ready for a new year, but I’ll be officially OLD in 2010 and I’m not looking forward to that.*

But looking back on ’09, things weren’t that bad for me. They weren’t perfect, but there was some good stuff. (I’m not going to bitch about work in this post… that’s another ball game, and I’m pretty decent at separating my personal/work life)

We got a new president…

I met a cool girl (things didn’t work out, but we know what Tennyson said)

I started the year out jogging a lot, then in the spring switched to bike commuting and that’s helped my health (and mental health a lot)

The biking helped me look forward to more Wednesday Waffles…

I had a lot of good great wine with a lot of good great friends

Friends got married!

And I got to see a lot of you all, including a lot of you Texans who I miss a lot…both visiting you there and those of you who visited here!

I don’t think I’d change any of it.

I hope all of you had a great ’09, and here’s to a even better 2010!

*I’m sure there were some negative things… I raise a glass to those who aren’t with us any more, and those of you who have had some bad times, or bad health. Here’s to you….

Pencil in Saturday, Jan 30th for me. I’m going to have a party. I’m still trying to figure out the location.  I’ll send out an evite thing soon.

btw, I have a list of bars to call about their availability & rental prices, but if any of you have ideas/requests send me an email and I’ll add them to my list.

Looker trailer and opening clip. That opening clip was hot hot hot for a 11 year old (still is). I was talking about Looker last week and it showed up in a movie blog post on Wired this week too. Now I can talk about Looker and Runaway and maybe people will know what I’m referring to.

READER QUESTION: Do any of you use Remember the Milk or Google Tasks? Do you like one more than the other? (My RTM pro account is expiring and I’m not sure I’m going to renew)

Transjordania – Wikipedia link. If I was talking to you about this it’s because I was telling a story about trivia. Painful story

Don’t forget to add The Flood to your RSS readers: http://theflood.kenneths.org/

Freak Angels – a weekly serial comic from Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield. I really like it, but I get frustrated that I can’t just grab the pages through the screen and skip ahead a few weeks. I guess that’s why it’s a good serial though right? Keeps me interested.

READER QUESTION: Are any of you flickr users planning on migrating over to Picasa given the sale that Google’s having on storage space? (Other than Patrick who is an enthusiastic “yes”)

Rant: The Prisoner on AMC. I recorded this on my DVR and gave up in the 2nd episode and deleted the whole series.

Rave: Google Voice’s transcription and online voicemail. When Kuz calls and leaves a message it reads: “Hi, I’m on a cruise.” I love that. I’m on a boat mofuggas! Oh, and I got another message from Christine (oh she of the beautiful cupcakes) and she said “Hi darlin’” at the start of the message– I’m not saying I looped it and listend to her call me darlin for a full 5 minutes, but one *could* … just sayin’

Rave: American Cyclery (map) – They rebuilt my back wheel… and it’s awesome. Great service. I just try not to look at the custom bikes when I go in… too tempting.

Link: I know this blog will offend some people, but they have great links. Like this video of the Christian Side Hug. There’s another post about Christian mimes performing to Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. Mimes, people, mimes!