Music Friday: Balloon Drop

Since a key feature of Music Friday is analyzing major party candidates' balloon drop song choices, let's take a look at Hillary last night.

🎈🎉 pic.twitter.com/c4S0l2FpRG

— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) July 29, 2016

She went with a Girl Power mix, starting with Sara Bareilles' "Brave," which is certainly more upbeat than Donald's "You Can't Always Get What You Want." LOOK OUT MILLENNIALS, WE'RE COMING FOR YOU!!!

(It was extremely hard to find embeddable video of this moment, so I had to steal it from LA Times reporter Mike Memoli.  Thank you Mike Memoli.)

If you're old, you couldn't help but remember the First Clinton Balloon Drop.


Man, everybody looks a lot younger. But come on, even if you're not old, that is some pretty good shit.  Those Clintons know how to get nominated for president, that's for sure.  By the time it's Chelsea's turn, her song will probably be "What If The Mirror Is Real And We Are The Reflection" by Jaden Smith.

Speaking of political music, here's "DonaldTrumpMakesMeWannaSmokeCrack." (Donald Trump also apparently took my space bar.)




This song, which actually isn't nearly as bad as it should be, is currently #2 on Spotify's "Viral 50" chart.  Here's a boring article about how Spotify determines what goes on the Viral 50 chart.  Here's a more interesting article about the actual human people who compose playlists for Apple and Spotify and Google Play.

Hey, guess what?  My friends in the Morning Line are making music again. Woods is playing at the Chapel tonight. And next weekend, of course, is Outside Lands.  This year I'm finally doing what I threaten to do every year and leave town so I don't have to listen to Outside Lands in my living room when I'm just trying to watch Dateline.  We're going to Guerneville for the weekend, so will there even be a Music Friday next week?  I don't know.  I don't know.

From the archives, but still relevant: Your Guide to Complaining About Outside Lands.

Haha, remember one year when Outside Lands had the Dave Matthews Band and the Black Eyed Peas on the same day? Haha.

DID I GET TICKETS TO FYF FEST YET: No.

How to disrupt the car rental industry, which needs some disrupting

We've been traveling a fair amount lately and that means renting cars and there may be, what, I don't know, 10 different car rental #brands like Avis and Budget and Hertz and Dollar and whatever else but it's always the same thing.  

1. Get to counter.

2. Give ID and credit card

3. Clerk tries to upsell you.  "How about a BMW 550?  Perfect for this weather!" This actually just happened to me.  No thanks, I can look like a dickhead just fine by myself, I don't need a BMW 550 to help!

4. Clerk warns you darkly of your financial ruin should you pass on the rental insurance.  "Sure, your insurance might cover it, but until their coverage kicks in, you will be forced to squat in a mud hole, covered in ants!  That could be very unpleasant!!!!"

5. Finally get your Mitsubishi Galant or similar.  Have you ever seen a Chevy Malibu other than as a rental car?  Does Chevrolet even make Malibus for sale to the general public?

Well, all that is about to change.  Meet bluechinchilla.com, the new car rental agency that will change the way you look at car rentals.

Here are the features of the disruptive rental car agency I just made up:

- We have normal cars.  Like you can get a VW Passat or a Subaru Outback or even a Prius if that's your Life Path.  Your funeral.  No "Buick Verano," whatever the fuck that is.

- All the insurance is rolled into the cost of the rental.  Sure, we cost a couple bucks more, but you're totally covered if you back into the Gateway Arch or whatever.  (Does not include windows being broken if you leave a laptop bag on the seat, you fucking moron.)

- Bring it back with however much gas is left, we don't care.  We'll fill it up and bill your credit card at whatever price the closest gas station to the airport is charging.  Don't worry about it, we cool.

- Our website will have a cool interface like Tinder or something but without the pain of constant rejection and disappointment.

- Is it going to cost a little more?  Of course it's going to cost a little more!  OK, a lot more.  But paying more just means you're important and cool!  

- Why bluechinchilla.com?  Chinchillas are known as the car rentals of animals.  No, I just made that up.  It's because bluechinchilla.com was available as of this morning.  Go innovate with us!

Who the fuck is Emirates' target demo?

If you live anywhere or have a TV or exist in the world you've seen Emirates Airlines' ubiquitous advertising, which usually features deeply contented youngish people casually enjoying a glass of probably scotch and a plate of probably lobster while seated in a plush beige airplane seat.  The ads are plastered all over the Powell BART station even as we speak.

Photo courtesy: Me. For once, I didn't steal someone else's picture.

Many, if not most, of these ads feature some kind of unimaginable Ultimate Premium First Class.  Like check out that chick on the right.  She's just getting OUT OF THE FUCKING SHOWER on the airplane.  I can't even stand up straight in an airplane bathroom and this lady's at a fucking air spa.

That's not all you get in First Class!  You get to "savor gourmet meals whenever you please" and "join the conversation in our A380 Onboard Lounge," which looks like the douchiest bar this side of Eastside West.

"You ladies come here often? WANT TO?"

LOOKS GREAT.  Who doesn't want to savor some gourmet meals and then shower off the scent of Axe body spray you'll get from standing in the same room as Chas up there?  Let's go to, say, Singapore!

Yikes!  That's a lot of money.  Singapore's a long way away, though, and you can take lots of showers.

Point is, I've never seen another airline use as their primary marketing focus a class of service that 99% of its customers will ever see.  Isn't it just setting up all us Coach Cattle for disappointment?  "Wait, where's my shower?  Can I go to the Onboard Lounge?"  "SILENCE, DONKEY PERSON.  RETAKE YOUR SEAT AND EAT YOUR FOOD PELLET QUIETLY!!!"  Seems weird.

Anyway, we're off to the less exotic destination of San Diego via a United Flying Person Crate, so see ya later.

You should take the train

Like my fellow blogger (and fellow Blogger.com user!) M. Strickland of Civic Center, who has often sung the praises of travel by Amtrak, we decided to take the train this weekend to visit my sister in Tahoe, where she's spending the winter with her bf, a couple of dogs, and metric shitloads of snow.  Seriously there is so much fucking snow.

Anyway, I have some advice: take the fucking train.  It is so much better than driving that you will wonder why you ever drove.  We took the California Zephyr from Emeryville to Truckee.  It continues on to Chicago.  Yes, it takes a lot longer than flying, but if you're in no particular hurry it would probably be great.  From here to Tahoe took about 6 hours, so not much more than driving. (It takes about 3 days to get to Chicago - if you leave on Friday morning, you get there Sunday afternoon.)

The regular coach seats are roughly equivalent to first class seats on an airplane.  They're big and wide and there's maybe more legroom than first class.  There's also an observation car (containing, for a time, my daughter, pictured above) and a dining car.  The food is not very good but whatever.

For our trip back Sunday, regular coach was sold out so we pretty much had to buy a private room.  It was kind of expensive but also it was really nice to have our own surprisingly large space.

And it was the only way we could have gotten out of Tahoe on Sunday, where it started blizzarding on Saturday and pretty much never let up.  In fact, we had to stop up on the summit while they plowed the tracks.

In a remarkable bit of bad timing, another long-haul Amtrak train, the Southwest Chief from LA to Chicago, derailed last night in Kansas, about 8 hours after we got off the (completely different and uninvolved) train.  A lot of people got hurt.  Still, it's probably safer than driving.  I'm sure there's numbers out there to back that up but I don't feel like doing the research right now.

I will say this: the whole experience is somewhat bumpier, for lack of a better word, than I expected.  We took the train from Boston to NYC to DC a few years ago but I don't remember it being as bumpy.  It kind of feels like low-grade turbulence on a plane a lot of the time.  And sometimes when it takes turns fast, you can definitely feel the whole thing leaning to one side, which is mildly disconcerting if you're not used to it.

Still, I would enthusiastically recommend.  Unlike air travel, everyone on the train seems pretty chill and relaxed and I didn't have that feeling like I wanted to kill everyone in sight like I do when I fly.  Try taking the train.

ilu Waze

For reasons too complicated to explain but involving preschool and the nature of time, my life now requires that twice a week I drive from the Mid-Sunset at just after 8:30 to a parking garage in the Civic Center area where I must arrive by 9:00 a.m. or the parking fee doubles.  IT'S REAL EXCITING.  If you know your San Francisco geography and morning commuting patterns, you might be thinking "IT CAN'T BE DONE" or "GOOD FUCKING LUCK" but I have a friend helping me and his or her name is WAZE.

WAZE is a traffic app like blood is a helpful liquid.  Basically what it does is take info from everybody who has it and is driving around in their car and puts it all into its computer brain and then tells you the best route to take to get wherever you're going.  Before I started using it I would miss the cutoff pretty regularly and get screwed but I haven't missed it yet since I started using it.  Disclaimer I don't work for Waze.

Plus the best part it also functions as a free game called DO I HAVE ANY FUCKING CHANCE OF MAKING IT ON TIME.  Here's the screen you see:

Or the screen I saw this morning anyway, while I was on morning commute nightmare Oak Street.  As you can see, Waze is telling me to turn left on Scott which I did and which worked out fine but see that time at the bottom?  The 8:58?  That's the time Waze thinks you're going to make it to wherever you're going.  It changes as you go along, depending on traffic or whatever.  WOW EXCITING.  So you can constantly check it and see how fucked you are.

This morning, I made it to the garage at 8:58.  THANKS WAZE.

Waze has not been without controversy!  Mainly because it's been steering loads of people onto formerly quiet side streets when freeways are jammed.  Oh well!  You can't stop progress!  

Google owns Waze now, natch.

I'm on hiatus

It's that time of year. Time to engage in some uncomfortable air travel and see the relatives and whatever.  I'll be back.

Your Complete 2015 Guide to Complaining About the Outside Lands Music Festival

1. The Lineup

Wilco?  Mumford & Sons?  The Black Keys?  More like Outside Dads, amirite?  And Elton John, for Chrissake?  That's not dad rock, that's great-grandad rock.  At least there's not a comedy joke band as a headliner, like they had one year.

Did you hear what Wilco did at the Pitchfork festival a couple of weeks ago?  The day before the thing started, they released a new album on iTunes or something and then they started their set at the festival by playing the entire album all the way through.  "Hey, we're Wilco, thanks for coming, here's 12 songs you've never heard before, fuck you."

2. Ticket prices

$135 a day, or $325 for 3 days.  That's expensive!  Mumford doesn't need any more of your money.  He'll probably just give it to Carey Mulligan anyway.

3. They shut down the whole park for weeks

via Twitter celeb Miche:

The damn festival's only for three days!  Why you keeping me out of my park that I pay good tax money to use for 13 days!  Or 12 days.  I don't remember whether you count the start and end days or how that works.  Anyway, they fence off a big section of the park.  It sucks!

4. Muni sucks

I mean, generally, but especially on the festival days, anywhere west of Van Ness or near a BART station.  Imagine trying to get home and waiting for a 5 Fulton only to see it zoom by without stopping, packed Tokyo-subway-like with horrible stoned teens wearing fringe vests and stupid hats.  And forget taking Uber anywhere; usually it's 1700x surge pricing or some shit.

5. Literally get off my lawn

If you need a bottle of Fireball during OL for a practical joke or to clean engione parts, good luck finding one because all the neighborhood liquor stores are sold out because all the execrable teens who were recently jamming up the Muni are now kneewalking drunk and peeing on your stoop.  That's right, if you live anywhere near GG Park this weekend, get ready for the Drunk Teen equivalent of the Mariel boatlift, as wave after wave of them crash upon your shore.  You can't even turn the hose on them because you might accidentally get some Drunk Teen runoff on your property.  Gross.

6. The Noise

Outside Lands features heavily amplified music that, depending on the weather conditions, is often audible well outside the park.  I made this map to help you evaluate your personal risk.

The best thing you can do is FLEE THE AREA.

The solution this city needs: GTFO

You know the problems.  There's nowhere to live and the rents are ridiculous!  BART is too fucking crowded!  Even if you say fuck BART, I'm driving, that's a goddam nightmare too!

Here are some possible solutions: (1) build a fuck ton more housing, especially in San Francisco; (2) Build a second BART tube from, I don't know, Dogpatch to Alameda to Fruitvale; (3) Build underground tunnels for cars all over everywhere.

That all sounds very expensive!  The second BART tube alone, which everyone basically already agrees has to be built, is gonna cost 12 billion dollars.  12 billion dollars!  That's probably more than Larry Ellison spends on yachts every year.

ALLOW ME TO SUGGEST AN ALTERNATIVE.  What's the common link between every single one of these problems?  TOO MANY PEOPLE.  Look at this:

Graph courtesy of FRED, some kind of economic thing blah blah blah Federal Rsserve Bank blah blah blah

Back in 1990, there were 723,496 people in San Francisco, at least until I moved here on October 15, then there were 723,497.  A lot of people, but in 2014 it's 852,469, including the doofus I saw in the Mission yesterday wearing a Facebook t-shirt, like who even does that? Why the fuck would anyone wear a t-shirt that says "Facebook" on it?

BUT I DIGRESS.  That means in the past 24 years we've added about 130,000 new people and zero new BART tubes and like 3 new apartments. No wonder there's a 2-hour wait for fucking brunch.

What we really need is plain: FEWER PEOPLE.

So here's the plan: We will offer 100,000 people a check for $20,000 if they move out of the Bay Area.  That's it, no strings.  You pack up your shit and hit the road, you get twenty thousand American dollars.  Holy shit!  You're already almost halfway there to owning this $45,000 charmer on Cabernet Parkway in Reno.  With 20 grand, you could probably buy a whole town in North Dakota or whatever.

It will be called the General Transitional Funding Office, or GTFO.

TOTAL COST: 2 billion dollars.  That's it!  Less than 20% of what the new BART tube alone will cost.

We can even break it up across the Bay Area a little.  Let's clear out, say, 60,000 people from SF, because that's clearly where it's most crowded, and then maybe 20,000 from Alameda County and 10 each from San Mateo and Santa Clara.  Marin and Contra Costa, you're on your own.  There's plenty of room out there.

Imagine SF with 60,000 fewer people!  It'll be just like it was in 2006.  We weren't really bitching about rents and that kind of shit in 2006!  It was an earthly paradise.  Look at these apartment ads from August 2006:

A delightful one-bedroom on Russian Hill for $1500!  A large 2 bedroom flat in Laurel Heights for $2750!  Yeah, it's still expensive but considering that ZERO BEDROOM apartments are now going for $2700, it seems like a pretty good deal.

Of course there will be enforcement issues.  What if someone who's taken advantage of GTFO tries to sneak back in?  I don't know, we'll figure it out.  Maybe a master list of everyone who got the money and check anyone who tries to rent an apartment or get a mortgage for a place in SF against the list.  We can work out the details later.  What if a homeless person takes the money and comes right back?  Who gives a fuck, we already spend something like $30,000 per year per homeless, so it's a bargain.

Just imagine San Francisco with 60,000 fewer people. Room to stretch out and breathe!  One less jackass looking at their phone and blocking the door on Muni!  It's only 2 billion dollars. Let's make it happen.

Is this the most expensive AirBnB in San Francisco?

Why pay $2,700 a night for a one-bedroom suite at the Four Seasons on Market when you could get a whole house?  Villainous, city-ruining AirBnB is here to help.  Sure, you could get some crappy studio in Lower Pac Heights for $175 a night, but we're ballers and we don't roll like that.  So I wanted to find out: WHAT'S THE MOST EXPENSIVE AIRBNB IN SF?

METHODOLOGY: I picked some dates more or less at random and then slid the money slider over to the top. Science!

The MOST expensive rental I came up with was the Payne Mansion, which features 17,000 square feet, 10 bedrooms and 2 industrial kitchens for $4249 a night, which actually seems PRETTY FUCKING REASONABLE for all that.  I mean, Christ, put a couple in each bedroom and that's only $106 a head.  20 drunk people frolicking in the "Gran Ballroom"!  Sounds like fun!  But that doesn't count because it's already a hotel and shouldn't even be on AirBnB in the first place.

The most expensive real person house I found was a "roomy, beautiful Pacific Heights/Cow Hollow 4 bedroom home" for $2128 a night.  It looks OK, I guess.

It's being rented out by "Erica" - IF THAT'S HER REAL NAME - from "TurnKey Vacation Rentals, a full service property management company based out of Austin, Texas," so I guess all that cash isn't even staying in California.  I would say that this represents all the reasons people hate AirBnB but sinec this place would likely be occupied by some rich Facebook dbag, it's probably a wash.

I mean, it's fine?  It's got 4 bedrooms and a large soaking tub and some kind of head statue in the living room that I definitely wouldn't want to look at if I was on mushrooms.

But over 2 grand a night?  I don't think so.  Especially when you can have this for $1144 a night:

Now we're talking.  a 3-bedroom penthouse on Telegraph Hill.  Oh my God I want to move into that photo and live there forever.  And it has parking!  In North Beach!  Madre de dios.

Even so, I thought I would find some really ridiculous prices, like some dude's place at the Infinity for $10,000 a night or something.  Fuck, the Presidential Suite at the Ritz Carlton is $6000 a night and probably doesn't have any weird head sculptures at all.  Pick up your game, AirBnBers!

Anatomy of Date Night gone wrong

When you have a kid, Date Night is a big deal because you get to go out with your Life Partner and someone else is taking care of your deal and so you want everything to go right because it doesn't happen that often.

Last night, everything did not go right.

The first part of the plan was to meet up with some friends at a Restaurant That Shall Not Be Named at around 6:30.  This plan was immediately complicated by the existence of April 20, which used to just be the day in April between the 19th and 21st but somehow in the past few years became 420, a big party in Golden Gate Park near our house where a bunch of stoners stand outside and smoke pot inside of sitting in their living room and smoking pot like normal people.  As a result, thousands of brain-damaged youth get someone to cover their shift at Carl's Jr and drive their cars from Concord or Antioch or whatever into a tiny corner of the city where my house is.  A trip of about 10 blocks leaving my house and heading for the Mission took about 15 minutes.  We were going to be very late.

[Not sure why this GG Park thing started.  It didn't happen a few years ago.  I blame Facebook.]

We got to the RTSNBN a little before 7:00, so actually not that bad!  It was very crowded.  Very, very crowded, which seemed odd for a Monday.  But the waitress appeared relatively soon and we got our drink orders in by say 7:00 p.m.

The FIRST INSTANCE OF CREEPING DREAD came when the waitress disappeared for the next 30 minutes.  No drinks, no taking our orders, nothing.  HERE is where I should reveal the rest of Date Night: we were going to see Porchlight, a monthly storytelling series at Verdi Club.  As it happens, one of our friends would be performing.  To make it more interesting, he was going on first, at 8:00 p.m.!  There's no way we wouldn't be done with dinner by 8 if we arrived at a nearby restaurant at 7, right?

Right?

Drinks appeared around 7:20, brought by Someone Who Was Not Our Waitress and in fact did not seem to know the names of the drinks.  We still have not ordered food.

The SECOND INSTANCE OF CREEPING DREAD came when I managed to flag our waitress down like I was a Semaphore Flag Operator in the Navy in 1942 so we could order food.  Now, at this point, I'm thinking, "OK, 7:30, get the food by 7:45, choke it down violently like a wolf eating a dismembered rabbit, and we can still make it by 8:00."  I asked for the check as we ordered to make this impossible dream feasible.

The THIRD INSTANCE OF CREEPING DREAD came when we passed 7:40 with no sign of food, waitress, drinks, anything.  I pulled out my Flare Gun and shot a flare at the ceiling.  It bounced back onto floor and spun crazily, sparks shooting out in every direction.  The waitress somehow saw us.  "We're trying to make an 8:00 show," I said.  "Is there any chance we'll have our food soon?"  She said she would check.

Having already paid, we finally got up to leave at 7:55 p.m.  We never got any food.  There was a manager type at the door.  He explained he knew what was going on, presumably because the waitress who could have been using her time getting us food or drinks was talking to him.  There was some confusion about whether he could just box it up or whatever but I think we concluded he would just credit our cards back.  TO RTSNBN'S GREAT CREDIT, it looks like they completely refunded the whole meal, drinks and everything.

We made it into the Verdi Club right around 8:00.  Saw our friend perform.  He was great.  At 8:15 I walked/jogged in a dizzy low blood sugar daze to the McDonald's on 16th and Potrero and Jose set me up with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese (for me) and a Filet O Fish (for my Date).  We ate them huddled in the corner of the Verdi Club like animals.  It was delicious.  

Last Night a QPC Saved My Life

By then, all the seats were filled and neither one of us felt like hearing any stories.  We watched a little standing in the back of the room and split.

I want to reiterate that RTSNBN did the right thing, maybe even more than the right thing, by totally refunding us.  The 2 free drinks apiece were nice.  But still, man, you gotta get your shit together if you're serving the public.

There will be other Date Nights, but there will never be another QPC that tastes as sweet.

The 5L doesn't really work

Christ, what could be more pedestrian than complaining about Muni? But HERE WE ARE. You want hyperlocal coverage?  YOU GOT IT.

The 5L Fulton line seems like a good idea.  Make limited stops as compared to the poky old regular 5 line and you'll just fly through the city on gossamer wings, right?  The only problem is it doesn't fucking work.  At least at rush hour, in my experience.  What actually happens is that it is either the same speed as the regular 5 or slightly slower.  This to me is as inexplicable as quantum mechanics but here's two days of anecdotal experience.  These are not atypical experiences BTW.

WEDNESDAY there was a regular 5 with a 5L right behind it.  I thought I'd be all smart and get on the 5L because there is no way, given our current laws of physics, that a bus making every stop could beat a bus making like every 5th stop.

We never caught up to that damn bus.  Frustratingly, I could see it in front of us the whole goddam time.

THURSDAY the 5L was in front and the 5 was behind it.  Imagine my shock and horror as the supposedly slower 5 PASSED US and jetted off to the coast for a drink 'n tan.  I shook my fist in impotent rage, as I do at least once a day.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING.  As with many things, the causes are numerous.  First, it appears that many more people are riding the 5L, making each stop exponentially longer as all the #sheeple slowly get on and off with their backpacks and whatnot and then stand on the bottom step so the doors don't close and oh god it's just agonizing to watch.  Meanwhile there are fewer people on the regular 5 so it just pulls over for a sec and then is on its merry way.  FACTUAL SUPPORT FOR THIS BELIEF courtesy of Streetsblog (from whence the above pic was sourced also): "New 5L-Fulton Limited Muni Line Has Brought 2,000 More Daily Riders," and they are all SLOW AS FUCK.

Also, our driver on Thursday was one of those Turtle People who fears disrupting the spacetime continuum if they push it to more than 5 mph and also lets every car in the fucking universe go at every stop sign until there aren't any more cars left in the City & County.

Maybe it's better at off-peak times, but at rush hour anyway, the 5L is like Muni itself: a good idea, really poorly executed.  I'm going back to the regular old 5 (which has the newer better nicer buses anyway).

Sorry this was so boring.  Have a nice weekend.

The Bachelor: You fucked up, dude

We seem to have found ourselves in Bali, which is odd for this season because it's not in the Rust Belt and doesn't appear to be a featureless wasteland.  ABC sure saving the money this year though because even the resort doesn't look as swank as they usually do. Three and a half, four TripAdvisor circles tops.

First date is with Kaitlyn and poor Kaitlyn's hair has fought the good fight but has been utterly vanquished by Bali.  They're heading into some temple which features a statue of my corner store guy when someone takes too much change out of the Leave a Penny cup.

There's some walking around Bali which actually looks a little rundown tbh and then they're OH MY FUCKING GOD THERE'S MONKEYS ALL OVER ME OH GOD MAKE IT STOP oh wait I guess it's supposed to be like that?  Fuck that.  The only primate I want crawling all over me is Kaitlyn.  LOVE YA GIRL.

Outdoor dinner in a faux jungle temple setting of some kind.  K has a "weird fear of loss from my last relationship" but she keeps picking skin or something off her lips and that's giving me a weird fear myself.  Anyway blah blah blah and it's OFF TO THE FANTASY SUITE with a bathtub full of cherry Jell-O.  "It's rose petals," The Wife says.  Oh.  Farmer is "excited about the potential they have" which hopefully involves full-body antiperspirant because brosef is sweating like a fat man in a sauna.

Day 2.  While Kaitlyn walks of shame Farmer is off to meet Baby Voice at the docks.  Apparently Baby Voice can't hug anyone without jumping on them and wrapping her legs around them which must be supes awkward at family reunions.  They're off for some wine boating and face mashing and Baby Voice spends the whole time explaining why her sister is such a fucking bitch and WHOA girlfriend's got some serious rugburns on those knees.  Did she already Fantasy Suite with someone?

Doesn't matter, he's not listening to anything she's saying anyway.  Their outdoor dinner is at a slightly nicer resort.  Farmer's all worried that BV won't want to live in Abandoned Hellscape, Iowa, but she's all no problem!  I'll just quit my job that I've wanted my whole life and move to Depression Junction and squeeze out as many puppies as you want!  You're an inspiration for women everywhere, BV.  Off to the Fantasy Suite with you.

Day 3 with the Virg.  There's some boring walking around rural Bali and they drop in on the village psychic who big surprise tells them they should hit it tonight, so he's not really that good at psychicing.  Farmer says "No matter what we do it's gonna be fun" but THAT'S WHERE YOU'RE WRONG, SWEAT LODGE.  Their outdoor dinner is the same place as last night.  There's a lot of talk.  Are all virgins this boring?  She's also wearing a dress last seen on an episode of Three's Company.  Meanwhile he's sweating like Albert Brooks in Broadcast News.  Oh, here comes the Fantasy Suite card.  Virg voiceovers "He doesn't know he's going into the Fantasy Suite with a virgin."  Doesn't have to come out with one VA VA VOOM!!!!  Anyway, off to the FS where she breaks the bad news and he says "GET THE FUCK OUT" no I'm totally shitting you, he says he respects that, which is what you have to say.  The shitty thing is now he HAS to keep her or he'll look like a total dick who dumped her just because she's a virgin.

The next day.  Farmer stares meaningfully at the ocean, as required.  He is confused and this calls for a sit-down with Chris Harrison, who does not seem to suffer from the Bali Flop Sweats like Farmer.  They have a long talk about something, I don't know, I kinda zoned out at this part and then looked at my phone for a while.

Day 5?  7?  A milllion? Who cares.  The Rose Cer is going to be at the Most Sacred Temple in Bali where no touching is allowed so it's perfect for the Virgin.  Baby Voice has taken on an odd hue that does not go well with her coral lipstick.  Oh, wait, Farmer has to go have a private chat with the Virg but instead of dumping her like a sane and normal person he drags her back out.  Of course Baby Voice gets the first rose.  Then  the Virg, duh, just like I said.  You fucked up real bad dude.  He escorts Kait to the Crying Boxy Minivan where she actually has her shit together pretty well.  Farmer uses his ABC-issued sweatpad to try and blot up some of the rivers of sweat as she pulls away.  This is dumb.

The Bachelor: n00dz

It's Night 2 of our Special Two Night Event/Painful Slog and we're still in Des Moines and going on a solo date with Becca who "likes to take things slow" OR NOT AT ALL I GUESS RIGHT HUH WINK WINK.  They sit around and talk about how she's never been in love before.  Whatever.  Back at the hotel, SparklyBritt is leaving! Oh wait, no she's not.  Oh, wait, she is.  What the fuck?  I guess they can't fix her roots in Des Moines and she needs to see her hair team back in LA.  They're about to start the Rose Cer and Britt needs to talk and everyone is SO MAD.  I think she wants him to beg her to stay or something but he gives her the "I'll walk you out" which I wish you could use to end any relationship.  Like, instead of a protracted and annoying divorce you could just get up off the couch and go "I'll walk you out" and that would be it.

Anyway, your Final 4 is Baby Voice, Virgin II, the Pornstar, and Kaitlyn.  Sorry, Carly's Eyebrows.  That's what you get for snitching.  She gives a pretty good Crying Limo performance about how her family will see her "really sad again, like they always do." God, why such a downer, Carly?

Time for hometown dates.  Literally ANY PLACE in America will be less depressing than Farmer's hometown.  First we're off to Shreveport Louisiana, where Becca has some kind of Stevie Nicks of the Playground thing going on.

Becca's got a Nancy Grace-style Mom and a sister who looks like a guy dressed up as Becca.  Sis basically says Becca is a passionless husk who will never want to do a sex with a man.  Nancy Grace and Farmer head downstairs and what, are they running a gym in the basement?

Mom says she's never seen Becca holding hands with anyone, so maybe Sis was right.  Wait, it is just now dawning on me that Becca still hasn't told him she's a fucking virgin!  Oh man, this is going to be the best Fantasy Suite ever.  They head over to the ferris wheel at the LA State Fair and there are probably people who have literally lost their virginity on the ferris wheel at the LA State Fair but not tonight.

Next, Baby Voice in Chicago, or actually a featureless suburb.  Off to the fertility clinic where Baby Voice works and there's an uncomfortable moment when it appears that she and a coworker are going to have Farmer ejaculate into a cup but that seems more like Jade's territory!  WACKA WACKA.  Then over to BV's sister's place where sister sensibly refuses to bless the potential TV union until BV's the last one standing.  Good for you, sis.

Off to Phoenix to meet Kaitlyn who said she was Canadian? Oh, her family lives there in the winter.  Obama can't control the border!  For some reason they go to a recording studio and record a rap song. I guess the producers drew that out of a hat.  It's basically the whitest thing since fruit suspended in Jello.  Over at K's family casa, we learn that Mom is very protective of Kaitlyn since her "last experience."  Yikes!  Cheating or beating, one of the two, I bet.

Time for Jade in Gehring, Nebraska, which looks like the Vegas strip compared to Arlington.  Here we meet Dad, Dad's fiancee, and Mom.  Dad's fiancee is probably a hairstylist who exacted an awful revenge on Mom.  There's also a chinbeard brother and EVERYONE is just fucking DYING to tell Farmer about the porn but don't.  Chinbeard, though, says that Jade is a "wild mustang" even though he's not an Old West saloonkeeper so I don't know.  OK, time to fess up.  They check into a seedy motel with a laptop and she beats around the bush so to speak for a while and then breaks the news and then shows him the goods!  This is the face of a man looking at his date's naked body:

This is where I'd be CANCEL THE REST OF THE SHOW WE ARE GETTING FUCKING MARRIED but Farmer's pretty chill.

Back in Iowa for the Rose Ceremony and guess who gets cut?  That's what you get for being honest, Jade. Next time take a hint from Becca and withhold, withhold, withhold.

Next week, we're finally GOING SOMEWHERE.

The Bachelor: Arlington, Where Hopelessness and Suicide Meet!

First off, let me say there was an hour-long clip show or something I will not be addressing because fuck you have to be kidding me plus it just looked like it was 30 minutes of The Widow Kelsey dissembling and 30 minutes of former Bachelorette Andi on a wicked crying jag.  Fuck that.

So we're still in fucking Deadwood like we are going to die in this cowboy Jersey shore.  Megan the Simple corners Farmer to ask him a very important question.  What is the sun.  No, it's actually what does he think about her.  I guess not much because suddenly she's leaving and now she'll never find out where babies come from.  There's supposed to be a Rose Ceremony anyway but Farmer cancels it because next WE'RE GOING TO IOWA and if he's going then by God every one of you has to go too.  Man, these chicks probably watched old seasons where every week was like ICELAND! PARIS! INDIA! and this season it's SOUTH DAKOTA! IOWA! A GAS STATION BATHROOM!  They got rooked but they still have to say bullshit like "Iowa is so pretty" and "Oh my God," I shit you not, to footage of pigeons.

OH MY GOD IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL

Solo date with Jade in Farmer's hometown!  Holy shit, Farmer's hometown is a Dorothea Lange picture but more depressing.  Oh look, it's the town sign!

Well, I guess "Where hills and prairie meet" is better than "Hellish Moonscape of Despair."  After a quick tour of Farmer's house, which looks like one of the places they don't pick on "House Hunters," it's off to downtown Arlington, a bleak nightmare of boarded-up stores and nothingness.  That night, they go to a football game at Farmer's old school and then after the crowd chants "Kiss! Kiss!" and these are their primitive mating rites in Arlington. Luckily we're not here for the "Kill! Kill!" ceremony.

Solo date with Baby Voice in the compared to Arlington vibrant metropolis of Des Moines.  "Des Moines has a real metropolitan feel to it," Farmer says, which means he saw a brown person there once.  They go to an "art gallery" and are so moved by the experience they spend the rest of the day taking snaps of each other.  DES MOINES: FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!!!!!

Meanwhile the rest of the chix decide to road trip to Arlington and check out their potential nightmarish future and they're wooing like they're going to Cabo instead of a Walking Dead set.  Their reactions when they actually get there are pretty priceless tbh and they have the vacant expressions of Vietnam vets who saw things you can't imagine, man.

HUMOROUS AND TRUE IOWA SIDENOTE: Whilst texting last night with a friend whose brother went to college in Iowa, we were unbelievably pleased to learn that friend's brother's first year roommate in Iowa hadn't seen an ESCALATOR until he was 17 years old.  MOVING STAIRS!!!! WHAT SORCERY IS THIS!!!! Iowa.

Back in Des Moines, we meet Farmer's three best friends, who look like they enjoy cigars and racism.  They're out at some bar and fuck, after Arlington, Des Moines looks like the Lower East Side.  Baby Voice wants to talk about her "family dynamic" which is that her Mom's dead and she isn't in contact with her Dad.  That's sad!  Maybe he got eaten by zombies in Arlington.  She's looking for someone with great parents because she doesn't have any and wants some!  Back off, lady!  I'm still using these ones!

Jade can no longer carry the weight of her Dark Secret and decides to unburden herself to Carly's Eyebrows.  She did some nude modeling for Playboy!  BFD, Jade.  Playboy is tamer than Chuck E Cheese.  Call me when you do Hustler or your name is an autofill on Redtube.

Group date with Britt, Carly's Eyebrows, and Kaitlyn.  There's about 10 seconds of ice skating and then Britt tells Farmer with a straight face that she "felt alive" in Arlington which I guess so because you were literally the only person there.  Carly's Eyebrows ain't having it and she blows Britt up to Farmer and tells him that Britt DID NOT FEEL ALIVE AT ALL in Arlington THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Later there's a lot of blah blah blah with Kaitlyn and Britt.  Britt is very upset about not being in First Place!  Kaitlyn nervously hides behind whiskey.  I like Kaitlyn.

It just ends.  No one gets kicked off.  Tonight it's on again.  It's the Most Dramatic Episode ever, probably.

The Bachelor: A-virgin therapy

Christ, I am so fucking sorry for that title.  That is really, really terrible.  Sorry.

Tonight's Special Guests will be a trio of Chris' unnamed sisters, who will interview some of the chixx and decide who gets a Very Special Date with the Farmer.  Hey, beats drinking warm goat milk like last week, I guess.

A bunch of the Ladies are off with C in 2 cars with C driving one and HOLY CRAP THEY'RE LETTING MEGAN THE SIMPLE DRIVE THE OTHER ONE.  I didn't know you could still get that kind of insurance, ABC!  One of the Ashleys comments "For me, if a guy is driving, it's one of the sexiest things he can do."  Whoa girl, your commute must be SEXCITING.  Wait til you see me parallel park!  Holy shit, put your clothes back on!  Anyway, this odd procession makes its way to some sad-looking 34% full reservoir somewhere in Southern Cali and it's not long before bikini parts are flying.  The Widow Kelsey is NOT AT ALL HAPPY about this date and the "muddy water hellhole" that compares unfavorably to the lakes of the Great State of Michigan!  We're in a drought, bitch!  Not our fault!

Back at the house, the Farmer Sisters have concluded their interviews - not before making Carly cry because she's never been loved, Y I K E S - and JADE has been named the new Regional Manager!  I mean, she gets to go on the date or whatever.

Let's head back to Lake Hellhole where there's going to be some camping!  Oh shit, Krazee Ashley is ready to throw down.  What she's "most scared of" is having no music so she starts chanting nonsensical syllables and doing her epileptic seizure dance.  Kraz gets a chance to sit down with C and maybe show him the other night was an aberration and she can be totally normal.

Sad trombone.  As C struggles with this admittedly layered and complex question, Kraz is onto new topics!  "Look at the moon.  It's so weird to me.  And we're sitting here.  Like that's weird to me."  It's pretty clear now that Kraz is either (1) putting on an act trying to get national attention (2) trying a series of powerful hallucinogens for the first time on network TV or (3) actually in a dissociative state and no one is helping her.  Anyway, she closes strong with "I love everything about you" and

Kaitlyn kind of nails it when she says "I don't think Ashley is here for the right reasons because I don't even know if she knows where here is."

VIRGIN TIME!!!!  She decides she's going to spill the beans to C and sneaks into his tent in the middle of the night and thank God they aren't filming in Texas or she would be all kinds of shot.  She jabbers some nonsense about not being experienced and it's like if you're gay and just tell your parents you like musical theater and think "That should about do it!"

I'm gonna really condense the Big Date with Jade because it's essentially just a half hour commercial for some new live-action Cinderella movie like GOD I am so sick of seeing stories about privileged white people overcoming their struggles.  This date mostly consists of them eating dinner alone in a huge room and then dancing alone in another huge room while a movie plays in the background.  It's like an agoraphobic's dream date,  Anyway, they both are essentially personalityless so I assume they will end up together.

Group date starts with a bunch of chicks in wedding dresses getting on a plane.  Hey, Mormons in the Sky!  Next month on FXX.  Anyway, they land at SFO and they're going to run some mud obstacle course to raise awareness for MS or something.  Obvs Jillian is SUPER INTO THIS and everyone else basically quits and Jillian beats that course like a bitch who snitched on her to the bulls.  She is awarded a night dinner which she will CRUSH TO DEATH.

This dinner takes place high atop the Fairmont here in lovely SF.  Jillian has figured out how to put on a dress.  C is babbling non sequitirs.  "Family is really important to me, where do you see yourself in five years?"  He's just reading random First Date Question Cards together. Jillian unleashes a word firehose on hapless C and literally asks him if he'd rather fuck a homeless girl or go celibate for 5 years.  DON'T ANSWER THAT.  Understandably alarmed, he boots her off the show and somehow she doesn't beat the shit out of him.  We'll miss you and your guns, J.

Cocktail Party!  It's Round 2 of Trying to Tell Him I'm a Virgin.  She gets it out and SURPRISE! He "totally respects that" which is what you say anytime you find out an adult woman is a virgin or is paralyzed and can paint with her toes or whatever.  Oh shit, Becca's a virgin too!  Everyone's a virgin now!  Baby Jesuses all around!

Here's who's staying: Baby Voice, iCarly, Megan the Simple, Still Not Sure Who Samantha Is But She Keeps Hanging Around, Virgins I & II, and SparklyBritt.  Finally, Krazee Ashley can get some help.  Also out the door are Chick With Dark Hair I've Never Seen Before and Juelia the Pool Party Ruiner.  Better days, ladies.

UPDATE!!!!!! THE PLOT THICKENS.  According to I'm sure reputable source "The Stir," Krazee Ashley isn't a hairstylist from Brooklyn AT ALL.  No, she's just a boring office drone from Atlanta.  Good luck finding a hairstylist in Brooklyn with no visible tattoos, just like I said.  Her Instagram feed looks like Normal Off the Shelf White Girl America.  So it was an act.  Lame.

TV Roundup

I'm back!  I've been on hiatus.  This included air travel (surprisingly not that bad; travel on Monday and Friday of Thanksgiving week if you like avoiding crowds); family (great); and the incredible biscuits of the Loveless Cafe (incredible).

A girl and her breakfast (NB: bacon does not come pre-shredded).

ANYWAY, now we're back.  Sorry for the long layoff and whatever.  We are now in Peak TV Season what with some series finales and mid-season finales and basically all kinds of great shit going on so let's take a minute and reflect on the wondrous bounty the Lord has giveth upon us.  And by the Lord I mean Comcast Xfinity.

SONS OF ANARCHY - Blessedly in the final season, with the series finale December 9.  This season sort of mirrored the show as a whole; there were some good parts and some really, really bad parts.  Luckily, it seems like they're pulling it together towards the end.  The last few shows have been excellent, so I'm pretty optimistic they can pull off a satisfying end.  At first we thought everyone was going to die but maybe not.

90 DAY FIANCE - Everybody's on the train(wreck) now.  Just read Beth's outstanding recaps at Your Slow News Day. Watch it now, because this is the last season it's going to be good.  From here on out, the couples will all be totally self-conscious and playing it for the camera, just like Jersey Shore with Central Americans.

THE WALKING DEAD - Just got to its mid-season break with a SHOCKING DEATH of a formerly minor character who was given lots more screen time this season so we could get invested and then moved by her SHOCKING DEATH.  Hey, at least something is fucking happening this season.  Kill 'em all, if that's what it takes.  Why am I even watching this show.

PARENTHOOD - On a break until January 8 I think. My ideal series finale would be Zeek drowning Max in a bathtub and then sitting in his prized classic convertible in the garage with the engine running but instead it'll probably be more of Ray Romano's stupid family hogging all the scenes.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the indispensable TV on the Radio show on BFF.FM, everyone's favorite Internet radio station, every Sunday morning at 10 a.m., in which the ladies discuss TV shows and life itself.  Perfect to enjoy with your half cap and cruller or bong hit or whatever it is you do.

Best airport food is at DFW? Come the fuck on.

A couple of days ago Internet dinosaur Yahoo! (or is it just Yahoo now, sans excitement) went and published a list with the unwieldy title "Every Important U.S. Airport, Ranked by Its Food and Drink," when they could have just said "Best Airport Food" or gone full Upworthy with "Every Airport Serves Food. Which One Has The Best Will Shock You."

[DIGRESSION ONE: It was actually 3 days ago, so I guess it wasn't a "couple" of days ago, but really, can't a "couple" be up to 4?  Like if you said "I'm meeting a couple of friends at Hometown Buffet" would that ALWAYS mean EXACTLY 2 friends, or could it mean a loose assemblage of up to 3 or 4?  Maybe just 3.]

[DIGRESSION TWO: No, seriously, I really want to know why Upworthy, and Upworthy alone, has a stylebook that calls for Capitalizing The First Word Of Every Title Including The Articles Like A And An And The.]

Like everything else they do, Yahoo fucked it up.  Let's cut right to the chase: they said the airport with the best food in America was human stockyard Dallas-Fort Worth.

If you have ever flown on American Airlines, then you know the sinkhole of human misery and pathos that is DFW.  Long lines of dead-eyed humans dressed for a slumber party in a Third World dumpster shuffle aimlessly on and off the TRA'AIN from one endless terminal to the other.  Luckily, there is a plethora of tasty and nutritious food to satisfy these weary travelers!

Not really.  Here's what you get in Terminal C:

I know what you're saying.  HOW COULD IT BE BAD IF THERE'S A WENDY'S.  Of course you're right.  Wendy's is magical.  But does a Wendy's and an Au Bon Pain and a Chili's Too make for the Best Airport Food? No.

(Also, WTF, Taco Bell Express?  Taco Bell is pretty fucking fast already.  I can't imagine how you make it express.  I guess you could have a Food Product Gun that shoots a pre-made slurry of Meat Substitute and spray cheese into either a hard or soft edible wrapper, but that's about it.)

Don't come at me with your Grove Natural Snacks.  That's yogurt covered raisins in a plastic pouch.  The rest is all garbage.  I've eaten at the Texas Stadium Skybox Bar & Grill and it tasted like someone put McDonalds into a food dehydrator and then reconstituted it in gasoline.

SFO came in second.  Just for comparison's sake, here are your options in SFO Terminal 2:

Andale Mexican Restaurant

Burger Joint

Cat Cora

Lark Creek Grill

Napa Farms Market

Peet's

Starbucks

The Plant Cafe

Pinkberry

Vino Volo

Wakaba

But yeah, I guess Manchu Wok would beat the shit out of grilled steelhead salmon with mashed potatoes, broccoli, and sundried tomato-bacon vinaigrette. 

A few words about the return of 90 Day Fiance, TV's greatest achievement

90 Day Fiance is a reality show about people who get engaged to foreigners and then the foreigners come here on a special visa and they have 90 days to either get married or GTFO.  Sounds mildly interesting, but the producers are GENIUSES at casting and finding the right couples to follow.  Beth Spotswood did an excellent job breaking down season 1 here.  Now season 2 is upon us and it looks just as good or maybe even better like that's even possible.

Just like a drug addict who sees a Ziploc baggie, I get triggered around some reality shows and start to feel that feeling like I want to recap them.  As you know, I quit doing the Bachelor/ette but I'm thinking about starting up again for this shit.  It is a target-rich environment, let me tell you.

We've got Justin, who lives in Silicon Valley and looks like a techbro but is actually an elementary school teacher and obviously has something wrong with him because he had to find a potential wife in Colombia while he was there for some sports thing and then he brings her to America and we find out it's mostly so she can clean his apartment.  So now Justin has green card AND I.R.S. problems probably.

The first season was all dudes importing foreign chicks, so it was refreshing to see Chelsea, an American girl who went to Nicaragua and hooked up with NICARAGUA'S MOST FAMOUS POP STAR, a tiny person called "Yamir" with occasionally frosted tips and a carefully considered slouch.  I hate to be a cynical bastard but Yamir is using her to get to this country and become American pop star, I promise you.

Nicaragua's biggest pop star (L) and a too-trusting American woman (R)

And then there's Brett, a pasty mid-30's who somehow knocked up a woman and has a daughter and lives with an older lesbian couple and whose best friend looks like Paula Deen.  Brett is all kinds of weird.  He went online shopping for a mate and found Daya in the Phillippines or Philippinnes or however you spell it and this is going to be supes awkward.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go full retard and recap every episode, Bachelor-style; it mostly depends on how much I've had to drink by Sunday night at 8, but we'll see.

(There was also a Where Are They Now show about last season and while it was a hoot to see that Mormon missionary/general schlub Alan and Brazilian knockout Kirlyam are still together and appear to be blissfully happy, their segment mostly consisted of a trip to Alan's family reunion which looked more painful than kidney stones because (1) it appeared to by dry, since they're Mormon, duh, and the only thing worse than a family reunion is a DRY family reunion, and (2) no I'm wrong, it gets worse, because it was a THEMED family reunion and the theme was REDNECK.  A redneck themed family reunion in Utah.  With Confederate flag sightings.  If that didn't send Kirlyam screaming to the TAM ticket counter, she can survive anything America can throw at her.  BONUS FACT: once she gets her green card, she can start modeling. Oh no Alan.)

The Burning Man "Rapture": Is It Real?

No.

If you're late to this, here's the theory behind the so-called "Burning Man Rapture": every year, tens of thousands of San Franciscans decamp to the famous dust festival in the Nevada desert, transforming our Fair City from a Skinnerian warren of crowded streets and jam-packed restaurants into a leisurely, spacious redoubt by the sea, wherein one can simply stroll into otherwise inaccessible restaurants at prime dinner time, look around the empty rooms, and say "I'd like that table."  To hear adherents tell it, the city essentially empties out and you can go anywhere you want without waits or lines.

I've been a long-time Rapture Truther, and I'll tell you why: It's total bullshit.

Maybe, at one point in time, it might have been semi-true.  Maybe in the late 90's or early 00's, it might have actually seemed like there were fewer people in the Mission, although it's hard to know how much to attribute to Burning Man and how much to any of the other 10,000 places people could go on Labor Day.  (I say the Mission because that neighborhood has always been a hotspot of Burnerism, but maybe not so much anymore what with the $1.5 million condos and the $5000 one-bedrooms.)

Anyway, a simple bit of math should clarify.  There were about 70,000 people at Burning Man this year (the most ever - it used to be in the 20-30K range).  Even if HALF of them came from San Francisco (a highly doubtful proposition), that would represent 35,000 people out of a population of 800,000 - hardly enough to make a dent.

But don't take my work for it.  Here are some data points:

No Burning Man effect at the Alembic. Noisy & crowded like always.
— Mike Cohen (@mike3k) August 31, 2014

The line at Mission Beach Café was wicked long at 10:15 AM ... so much for any burning man effect
— miche (@michesf) August 31, 2014

The 'burning man exodus' has become a myth. The Mission is crowded this weekend. The burners have moved to Oakland. http://t.co/dY2t8yTvpC
— Fred Sharples (@fredsharples) August 31, 2014

From an email I got from a trusted correspondent:

1. We went to new restaurant Plin at Valencia and 14th. Big room. Only available seating was at the bar. In other words, the restaurant was CROWDED.

2. We went to Dalva. It was fairly populated circa 10 p.m., but was NOT crowded.

3. Went to Elbo Room thereafter. CROWDED. Had to "elbo" our way through the crowd.

4. Sidewalks were navigable, but certainly not empty.

I think Fred Sharples probably nailed it.  Many Burning Man types, whatever that is, have probably been priced out of SF in the last 5 years.  Maybe there was some noticeable effect in some East Bay locations, but maybe not.  Anyway, our New City is not particularly conducive to renting warehouse space for your Fire-Breathing Dragon Car any more.

So there you go.  To the extent there ever was a Burning Man Rapture, those days are gone.  Stop resurrecting this nonsense every year.

Fun with latitude, also, this is a long walk

So I was idly wondering, as I do, If you left San Francisco and walked in a straight line across the US, where would you end up?  FASCINATING RIGHT?

So let's assume that CHP would close the Bay Bridge for us.  There would of course be a lot of helicopters and shit to document TK'S WALK ACROSS THE US.

At first it's super boring.  Mostly just wilderness.  The first town of any size we score a direct hit on is Dodge City, Kansas, which, like San Francisco, is at 37 dgrees, 45 minutes north of the equator and thus is in an exact straight line with SF.  HELLO DODGE CITY!!!  Bet you didn't know you were San Francisco's Longitude Partner.  MWAH!

Onward.  We'll pass just north of Harrisburg, Illinois, and straight through Rineyville, Kentucky, where "[t]here is no formal town government; elected county officials oversee roads."  SOUNDS WILD.  Walking walking walking we will hit Hanover, Virginia, a suburb of Richmond, and then step into the Chesapeake Bay just north of Ingram Cove, not far from Kilmarnock, Virginia, and the Hughlett Point Area Preserve.

I hope we can swim, because we've got a long ways to go before we emerge again onto dry land near Crystal Beach Road in Onancock, Virginia.  In fact, here's a picture of almost the exact spot where we'll walk, dripping and covered with seaweed and crap, out of the Chesapeake Bay.

I found this picture attached to a home listing nearby.  3 BRM for $699K!  Sounds like a good deal.  Little does the future buyer know that he or she is DIRECTLY IN LINE with San Francisco.  (The beach is facing the wrong way because it's on a peninsula kind of thing. Take my word for it.)

After crossing the Eastern Shore of Virginia, we shall plunge into the Atlantic near the inelegant-sounding Gargathy Bay.  So there's your answer!  If you go in a perfectly straight line across America from San Francisco, you walk into the Atlantic not far from Parksley, Virginia. (Parksley's actually at 37 degrees 46 minutes, so it's lined up with the northern half of SF.)

If we're so inclined, and a willing partner is nearby, maybe we can prevail on Reverend Rod, Wedding Officiant, to hitch us up before we begin our long long journey across the Wild Atlantic.

I know what you're asking.  WHY IS THIS SO BORING.  No, the other thing you're asking.  WHERE DO WE POP OUT ON THE OTHER SIDE.

Portugal.

This has been fun!  Let's do it again soon.