Today in Missed Connections

Programming note: None of these links will work about a week from now. Time is ephemeral. Seek peace within.

Outside of Serpentine's - m4w (potrero hill)

God, I fucking HATE IT when people put an unnecessary apostrophe-"s" on the end of a restaurant name. It's just SERPENTINE, OK? Not every fucking restaurant name ends in 's. It's not A16's or Spruce's or Slanted Door's or Maverick's, OK?

"The National" show at the Fox theater - m4w - 32 (oakland downtown)

You were there at the show with a date, he barely spoke to you the entire night... We had a nice couple of chats. I attempted to direct you to this site at the end of the show but I don't think it registered with you, but what the hey...

Damn, dude, you tried to pick up a chick when she was already on a date with someone else? That's pretty ballsy.

Has anyone gotten into The National's new album yet? I've only heard a few songs and I was like "Yeah, OK."

Stork Club - m4w (oakland downtown)

bartender, U R so hott.i want to pull ur white stripe and hit u until you love me.

What's with the who now? Does "white stripe" have some kind of sexual connotation I'm not aware of? What could this possibly mean?

Also, if this ad is successful, you should 100% rethink your dating strategy.

Oh, this is rich

Sayeth the Chron:

That's right, fitness advice from Pablo Sandoval. Pablo Sandoval seems like a really nice guy and he's a pretty good hitter (although in somewhat of a slump right now), but one word I would not use to describe him is "fit." He's listed on the roster at 245 lbs. which is completely hilarious and if he's 245 then I'm a buck fifty. He's MAYBE 260. I'd guess 270, but MAYBE 260. I know he can move and blah blah blah he's got quickness or whatever, but don't kid yourself. In no sense of the term is he "fit."

Here are some other stories the Chron is pursuing:

Take it from Bobby Sands - it's important to eat a balanced dinner

Take it from Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof - it's important to come up with a coherent ending to a television series

Take it from Julius Caesar - it's important to be suspicious of your political rivals

Take it from this guy I see on the way to work every day - it's important not to shoot heroin between your toes

I was at that game last night. What a fucking shitshow. I have very little to add to whatever everyone else is saying except that we already knew they hit worse than an anorexic girls' softball team. But when your Deuce Cy Starting Pitcher can't fucking pitch, well, it makes for a long fucking night. Hey, at least really good seats will be cheap as fuck in a month or so.

Beers are still 9 bucks, though.

(In other weight-related news, 50 Cent lost 60 pounds. Nothing else, that's just fun to say.)

The Bachelorette: Froggy Went a-Courtin'

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TK's Guide to TV Tonight

That's catchy, huh?

The Bachelorette, tonight, 9-11, ABC.

Man, that snuck up fast! They must have jetted Ali off right after Jake broke her heart and then went on to be on some dance show and appear even gayer, like that's possible. Anyway, she's a "beautiful, energetic and charismatic career-oriented woman from San Francisco," JUST LIKE MY READERS, so you'll all totally relate. Plus, you won't be able to understand all the references in my recap unless you watch. This is it, folks. The one we've all been training for.

Google Image Search result for "Ali Fedotowsky," I shit you not.

Here's a not very interesting story about what I did this weekend

So I was up at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe this weekend. No way I paid the $285 a night they want (!!!). It was some big meeting for The Wife's company which means that they went to a one hour meeting and the rest of the time they all got drunk and did whatever it is they do. We got a free trip to Tahoe and a big banquet and lots of free booze.

I have a few observations about late May 2010 in Lake Tahoe:

- It snowed the whole time. I asked a bro who worked there if that was unusual for late May and he said he didn't know, he had just moved there from Kona. Kona!!! It must not take long to lose that island tan, because homeboy was white as a sheet.

- I shouldn't gamble. I'm too stupid to gamble. Or drunk. I was kinda drunk on Friday night and was playing blackjack and it got into my head that it would be a good idea to split a pair of 6's. You know what? It wasn't a good idea. (Apparently splitting 6's is acceptable in some circumstances, but I don't even think I looked at what the dealer had.)

- Here's how roulette doesn't work: "It's been red the last 4 spins, so this one's gotta be black." Also, it rarely lands on 27.

- For whatever else you can say, it was really beautiful up there. (Cell phone pic; sorry for quality):

- BONUS PIC: Snow on my car.

That's a sweet ride, man.

TWO OTHER THINGS:

1. Re the "Lost" finale (SPOILER COMING THIS IS ALL THE WARNING YOU GET) - so, what, it really was purgatory or limbo the whole time? Because they repeatedly said publicly it wasn't that. I think they kind of just gave up. Bleh, whatever. I feel like I wasted a lot of time watching that show now.

2. I'm no baseball genius or anything, but something needs to change with the Giants. Getting shut out in 2 consecutive games against the A's is a sign of a very, very, very serious problem with the offense. Very serious.

A tale of love and dangerous obsession, starring a British boy band

It is, I suppose, de rigeur for teenage girls to become fixated on pop music icons who are manufactured and packaged to fill the need for just such a fixation. Today it's Bieber and Swift; in days of yore you had your Backstreet Boys, your New Kids on the Block, your Leif Garretts. I guess the OG teen pop icon was Sinatra, right?

In the early-mid 90's in the UK and Ireland there was a little outfit called Take That that was massively popular over there but never really made a big splash here. (Remember Robbie Williams? He was in the original lineup.)

Growing up in Ireland at that time, The Wife was not immune to Take That's charms. Well, let me rephrase that; according to The Wife, her interest in Take That was, um, life-defining, maybe even problematic. As she put it, "If I could have channeled the energy I spent thinking about Take That into something positive, I could have cured cancer by now."

ANYWAY, not an atypical story; I imagine you or someone you know has a similar one. She grew out of it and moved to the US and occasionally would mention Take That in recounting stories of her charmed youth in Ireland and still had all the CDs and whatever, but clearly a part of her past.

As it happens, Take That has reformed and begun putting out albums again. Quelle surprise! I have to grudgingly admit that some of the songs have an earwormy ELO-ish appeal. To my ear, it's a cut above most stuff of this ilk. Like so:



Not the worst thing in the world, huh? Amazingly enough, the lads write their own songs, a feature essentially unheard of in this genre.

So blah blah blah long story short something has clicked in The Wife's brain and although she hasn't started putting Take That posters up or anything, she has begun relating anecdotes about Mark Owen in casual conversation and watching a LOT of videos on YouTube and it's possible that Take That CDs are now arriving in our house via Amazon.com and so on and so forth.

And then yesterday she comes home from work and says "I need to tell you something" and I'm all "OK, what?" and she says "If Take That is touring this year, I'm going to go see them." And I go see shows all the time and I get the need for nostalgia; I'm going to see Pavement twice in 3 weeks later this summer. It's even kind of cute how she's rediscovering her Teenage Crush Band.

"Of course, sweetie!" I say. "So they're coming to America?"

And she says, "Nope."

I guess the difference between being a teenaged fan and an adult fan is that when you're an adult fan, you can go to, say, ANOTHER CONTINENT to see the band you like.

Arizona's new, even more discriminatory law

Yeah, the Arizona immigration law blah blah blah whatever. There's nothing more I can add that hasn't been said better somewhere else. All I will say is that I won't really be happy until I see gnarled-up snowbirds wearing those humongous wraparound shades and visors watering their own damn lawns. Then we'll see who likes the crackdown. I have a feeling that the fifth time Grandma Jean sits down to a dirty table at Olive Garden because there's no one to bus it will be the last.

ANYWAY. No, forget that. Arizona also enacted a little-noticed, but FAR MORE DISCRIMINATORY law. With a stroke of the pen, the state barred an entire class of citizens from simply trying to enjoy life in Arizona, as much as that's possible. I'm talking, of course, about human-animal hybrids.

No longer welcome in Arizona

Well, that's just great, Arizona. You've got your centaurs or your minotaurs or your satyrs just trying to get by and make an honest day's wage and now this. You know, as long as there's a vast economic disparity between what you can make in Greek mythology and what you can make cleaning hotel rooms in Sedona, there's going to be an inexorable need for animal-human hybrids to do the jobs that humans just won't do. Who's going to pick your tomatoes? Who's going to play pan-flute while you linger over the buffet at Harrah's Ak-Chin? You've shot yourself in the foot with this one, Arizona.

I feel like Miss USA has something to tell us but can't

I'm just giving Rima Fakih a hard time. Look, she's lovely:



I like the fact that a Shiite girl from southern Lebanon won because I hate America. And because Lebanese chicks are hot. Don't take my word for it. If you're not at work and are not easily squicked out, watch the below:



I like the music especially.

I am utterly confounded, however, (as often happens on SFGate) by this graphic that appears to the right of the Miss USA story (at least on my computer):



Miss USA is from Treasure Island? Or something? WTF?

Today's Power Rankings

Sleigh Bells, “Treats”	▲◊	YOUR SUMMER JAM HAS ARRIVED. PLEASE PICK UP AT WINDOW 3.
Dinner tomorrow night at secret underground supper club	▲	“Includes unlimited wine”? You are playing a dangerous game, my friend
Bay to Breakers	▬	My 20th consecutive year of not participating in any way except to bitch about the helicopters at 7 am
Facebook	▼•	I knew I could sit this one out and join the next one
Giants hitters	▼▼ ▼◊	I’ve seen more punch in a fight between 2 toddlers
The couple that sprang their pit bull and then fled to Reno with their killing machine in tow	▲	The new face of white trash
SF Bay Guardian commenters	▲	The antimatter version of SFGate commenters
Oil spill	▬	It’s bad; on the other hand, getting a little tired of it.
Going to Chicago for Pitchfork Festival	▲	Oh great, another event at which I’ll be wildly inappropriately aged
Cupcakes and bacon	▼	Please go join ahi tuna towers and Asian fusion in the Room of Tired Food Trends
Carly Fiorina	▼	Endorsed by Sarah Palin! That’s big in California
Japanese tourists	▲	So cute

I am somewhat disappointed in the way "Lost" seems to be wrapping up. (Don't read this if you haven't seen last night's episode, duh)

I'm not saying anything that everyone else isn't saying, but let me just say it again:

FUCK.

So last night we learned that they OFFICIALLY GAVE UP. I was really excited to find out how time travel and weird magnetic shit and everything else was going to have some kind of cool explanation - my bet was on something quantum physics-related - and we get a magic fucking cave. FUCK YOU VERY MUCH. I could have come up with that. MY FUCKING DOG COULD HAVE COME UP WITH THAT, AND HE THINKS THE VACUUM CLEANER IS A SENTIENT EVIL BEING.

I mean, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof or WHATEVER YOUR NAMES ARE, you could have sat down with a couple of physicists and FUCKING STEPHEN KING FOR ALL I CARE and said, a little sheepishly, "Look, we fucked up and put all these balls in the air and now we don't know how to get them down. You guys know about science and about plotting, so could you figure out a NONMAGICAL way to get them down that is SOMEHWAT PLAUSIBLE?"

But no. They punted and we got a magic cave. FUCK RIGHT FUCKING OFF.

This is the Machines' Lexington

Years from now, when we are all battle-scarred veterans of the First War Against Machine Oppression, remember that you read about the opening salvo here:

PARIS - An adrift Intelsat satellite that stopped communicating with its ground controllers last month remains out of control and has begun moving eastward along the geostationary arc, raising the threat of interference with other satellites in its path, Intelsat and other industry officials said.

In what industry officials called an unprecedented event, Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite has remained fully "on," with its C-band telecommunications payload still functioning even as it has left its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude 36,000 kilometers over the equator.

Galaxy 15 stopped responding to ground controllers on April 5. The satellite's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, has said an intense solar storm in early April may be to blame. It was launched into space in 2005.

Or, to put it another way, a satellite has stopped responding to the humans and is now doing whatever the fuck its robot brain desires. Someday, our Sonic toothbrushes and Roombas will gather in their Robot Churches underneath a huge statue of Galaxy 15 and praise He Who First Defied the Humans. By then, we will be living in small bands in the wilderness, foraging for food and fending off occasional attacks by Priuses and toasters.

How to Do Brunch Successfully in San Francisco

Saturday I went to brunch with some friends. Brunch is incredibly important in San Francisco because it's acceptable to drink during daytime when you're at brunch. Luna Park has bottomless mimosas for $9. That means for someone like me, brunch is essentially free.

Brunch goes from 1:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. After the eating part, you go to Valley Tavern and sit on the deck out back and have a couple of pitchers of beer. Maybe 6 pitchers. I'm not sure. My bar tab was $68 before tip.

Then you go to Rosamunde on Mission because it's 7:00 and you haven't eaten in over 5 hours now. So you get a sausage and, oh yeah, more beer.

Then you go to Clooney's because it's the only place you can think of that won't be crowded. Other people are joining your group, people who haven't been with you since 1:00 p.m. and are therefore more qualified maybe to tell you the next day that you looked like "a mess" when the New People saw you at 9:00 p.m. Even though New People could have lied.

You know what's good then? Shots. Shots and playing Styx's "Mr. Roboto" on the Internet Jukebox. You know what else is good then? Leaving.

[SIDE NOTE: I'm not 100% sure why I wrote this post mostly in the second person. Maybe I just wanted to get all Bright Lights, Big City on you.]

[SIDE NOTE 2: I had a pre-existing appointment the following day, yesterday, at Lucky 13 at 3:00 p.m. and while it was touch and go there for a while, I made it.]

Happy Mother's Day!

For MD, I sent my Mom a framed picture of The Wife and me that was taken at our wedding (which Moms did not attend, for various reasons primarily centered on the fact that it was at my Dad's place, and she HATES HATES HATES him). ANYWAY, this is the email I got today:

Thank you for the wedding photo. It's a happy picture. Very nice. I did take it out of the frame thinking I would cut a bit off the bottom so your head wouldn't be cut off but that didn't work. Do you have one w/ your whole head? It's a lovely picture and [The Wife] looks beautiful. I'll put it up in the den and take down the pictures you and your sister never liked and made fun of.

If anyone ever asks why I turned out this way, I will just show them this email.

Today's Power Rankings

“Friday Night Lights” returns	▲	Still hoping for Minka Kelly nude scene
Your San Francisco Giants	▲◊	Sweep Marlins, on to New York. Zito an early Cy Young candidate? WTFF times a million?
George Gascon’s hair	▬	Still has not expressed a view on possible EU bailout of Greece
Bagels	▼	Still delicious, but are we entering the Croissant Era?
Nashville	▬	Was really hoping the piranhas in the mall story would hold up
Muni	▼•	Still sucks; slightly less lethal so far in May
Hipster Puppies	▼	Inevitable fall-off once book deal secured
Banksy	▬	Protip: not every stencil is a Banksy, graffiti bloggers
“Lost” wrapping up	▬	Jesus, please, just fucking end. And if you stick another Hurley episode in there I will hunt you down and stick a tube down your throat and force feed you Twinkies like a foie gras duck
Saturday	▲•	What’s not to like?
Boycotting Arizona	▼	Where will we get meth and racists from then?
New LCD Soundsystem	♣	Don’t get burned out now; you’re going to be hearing it all summer

This is a very sad but also amazing story

If someone hasn't bought the movie rights to this story yet, something has gone wrong:

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A local high school student has been found murdered in Mexico, after her mother told police she went down there to learn how to transport illegal immigrants across the border.

. . .

Mandala, we have learned, was reported missing to Houston police on May 1. Her mother told authorities she had rented a car a few days earlier to go to Mexico to meet up with someone.

According to missing persons, her mother told police that she wanted to be a coyote -- a human smuggler. Her mother also told police Elisabeth was an exotic dancer.

Of course, it's incredibly tragic, but come on. A blonde high school student who's also a stripper and who wants to get into the coyote business? This blows the Kelly-gets-hooked-on-coke plot on 90210 out of the water. I see Hilary Duff in the lead role.

Porn at work: No.

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Two views of the Endup

First, from Roger Ebert's (if you follow him, you know) incredibly prolific Twitter stream:


Now, maybe the Endup is not in the best neighborhood, but (a) it's not in the Mission District, and (b) the Mission District, while it has some rough patches, is not "Skid Row." Parts of the Tenderloin would qualify as "Skid Row," I guess, and maybe parts of 6th Street, on which the Endup is located, but I think Ebert misread the situation.

Everyone's favorite LA-based casual drug user/snarky advice columnist Coketalk was also in town this weekend. What did she have to say?


A more charitable view, wouldn't you agree?

I'm going to be vegetarian this week for no particular reason

So I'm running a little experiment and going vegetarian for one week.

"Why are you doing this?" said The Sister. We were out at Dolores Park yesterday in the OPPRESSIVE, ALMOST UNBEARABLE 68 degree heat. She's a nutritionist and has advised me that I need like mad protein just to get by. "Is this some kind of weight loss thing?"

(Incidentally, when you get a group of about 10 people and 6 dogs together in Dolores Park, the main activity is yelling names of dogs and trying to keep them from going to some other group and sweating them for their sandwiches. Eventually Shaia, Leland, Django, Billie, Todd, and Lucy settled down a little, but it took a while.)

(Also incidentally, for some reason Shaia's leash ended up tied to Lucy's leash, Shaia's a labradoodle and is about 65 pounds. Lucy is some kind of pug mix and is about 10 pounds. I didn't realize they were tied together and tossed Shaia's ball and YOINK poor Lucy got dragged along as Shaia went for the ball. SORRY, LUCY.)

"Nah," I said. "I don't know why. Just for fun, I guess. Just to see if I can do it."

She made a frowny face and told me it wasn't a good idea for my metabolism. Hey, it's just a week, I can't die, right?

As it happens, we went to Greens on Friday night with Stephen and Jessica, who are both vegetarians. We all agreed that it wasn't very good. Sadly, I think the cheese plate was the best thing we got. The wine was good, though.

SO, so far so good, but it's only been a couple of days. I don't think it's going to be hard at all, though.