Have a chill weekend

A million thanks to rillawafers for this unbelievably cool picture.

Unexpected New Bar Night: Bollyhood Cafe

So Stephen and I were drinking at Homestead last night and I was bemoaning the fact that here it was April 29 and I hadn't gone to a new bar this month and I was basically violating the sanctity of New Bar Night and I was consequently in a state of despair.

(SIDE NOTE 1: I like Homestead and all, but is there ever a time when it's not TOTALLY FUCKING PACKED? We were there at 7:30, still light out, wall to wall people. Seriously, when do I have to go there to not get bumped into a million times by some chick taking her (admittedly cute) chi-terrier mix back and forth for some unknown reason? Maddening.)

(SIDE NOTE 2: Yes, I know that on my extended East Coast Tour I probably went to like 20 New Bars. But the Rules of New bar Night are plain and they are clear: The New Bar must be within the limits of the City and County of San Francisco. So no matter how great the Silver Peso might be or how many prototype Apple products are available for stealing at the Gourmet Haus Staudt, those bars are simply not available for New Bar Night.)

So Stephen says, "Fear not! For I can help," or something like that. Down 19th Street we walked to the Bollyhood Cafe.

Pic stolen from "Furilo" on Flickr. Thanks, Furilo.

Despite the name, this does not seem to be an even vaguely Indian-themed bar. I don't know, maybe since it's next door to Little Baobab they thought there was some kind of National Theming Requirement on this block or something. Anyway, nice bar! Apparently started by some guys who used to work at Gestalt before that place had what I gather was a somewhat fractious change in ownership. Nice big room, interesting beer selection, friendly bartender.

Here's how friendly: When we were there, one of those Old Drunk Guys you see in bars (and no, I don't mean me, har har har) had reached his limit and it was time for him to go. Now, at most bars, the bartender would go "GET THE FUCK OUT" or something like that, but the bartender at Bollyhood is so nice it was more like Bollyhood was breaking up with the Old Drunk Guy. "Listen," he said, "I think it's probably time for you to go." "Mmmrphrrble," said the Old Drunk Guy. "No, really, it's been great, but this isn't really working out for us, and there are a lot of other bars out there, and I'm sure you'll be happy again with some other bar," the bartender said, or something like that.

Then this guy started playing music on his acoustic guitar and singing and we had to go. Apparently live music is one of the features as well.

ANYWAY, yeah, I like it. Not really a Destination Bar but a comfortable hang. Three and a half stars.

IN OTHER NEWS, have you guys noticed this? You know the new Safeway ads with the logo that looks like this?



Does that, um, remind you of anything?



Now, I'm not saying that Safeway is aiming for the Former Punker demographic or anything, but kids who were into Black Flag would be just about at the kids & minivan age now. I'M JUST SAYING IT'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. I'm not trying to start a "Flagger" movement or anything but JUST LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE AND COME TO YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.

Oh, speaking of Black Flag, how awesome is this?


OK, this is like a fucking novel now. That'll do it for today.

One more Giants thing, and that'll be it for a while, I promise

Well, thanks a lot, Giants! As soon as I write a post bemoaning the team's terrible offense, they respond with a 5-run win against the Phillies' Roy Halladay, who is certainly a Very Good Pitcher but if you read the News Media you'd be led to believe is maybe the reincarnation of Sandy Koufax, but with a nastier splitter. BUT ANYWAY the point is, as far as I can tell, that the Giants' offense only comes alive against really good teams. Mediocre teams? Meh, we'll phone it in.

Then they go out and put up a 6-2 win last night against Jamie Moyer, who's like 63 years old and has a 22 mph fastball but still. Offense!

Hey, wanna see the game today? Got $2.30?

Jesus Christ. Tim Lincecum's won 2 Cy Young awards, for Chrissake. I know it's at 12:45 on a Wednesday, but still. TWO CY YOUNG AWARDS. And he has a DOG NAMED CY. HOW CUTE IS THAT.

OH ONE MORE THING:

Thinking about making this the next Product Testing:

Little scared, though.

Why our local major league baseball franchise is struggling: an analysis

WARNING: This post is going to be heavily baseball-related.

Went to our first Giants game if the year on Saturday. They won! The first notable thing (apart from the fact that beers cost the same this year) was the resurgence and continued amazing pitching of one Barry William Zito, now toting an unfuckingbelievable 3-0 record and 1.32 ERA. Now, I may have been a tad hard on Mr. Zito occasionally in the past, but all is forgiven.

I've heard all kinds of weirdo psychological explanations for this, like he's somehow convinced himself it's the second half of the season or something and last night an astrologer on KNBR patiently explained that no, DUH, it's because Jupiter is in Scorpio or some shit like that but I DON'T CARE as long as this keeps up. We shouldn't even be talking about this. It feels like we're going to jinx it. Just smile and nod at Z when you see him at Tacolicious and that'll be fine. He banged Alyssa Milano! But I digress.

The second notable thing is the COMPLETE FUCKING LACK OF ANY MEANINGFUL OFFENSE. You see, the object of the game of baseball is to have your runners cross home plate in quantities greater than the opposing club's runners. THIS SIMPLE FACT HAS ESCAPED THE GIANTS.

In the past 7 games, the G's have scored 1, 2, 0, 2, 4, 2, and 0 runs. My old softball team, which was comprised mainly of moderately-functioning alcoholics and guys with hip replacements, regularly scored more runs than that. We had a guy who separated his shoulder sliding into third and HE scored more runs that that. Pathetic.

The weird thing is, the Giants rank 18th in the bigs in batting average with runners in scoring position (.231), which doesn't sound THAT bad, but I am so fucking sick of seeing guys stranded on second as someone (*cough*Bowker*cough) strikes out swinging at a pitch in the dirt.

Remember how the Giants brought in DeRosa and Huff to help with the offense? .235 and .238, respectively. Oh thanks that's a big help.

What's going on here? I can think of 4 possible explanations.

1. The Giants don't understand the rules of the game of baseball

i.e., the object of the game is to score runs (see above). I consider the likelihood of this fairly low because Randy Johnson was here last year and he's old and he's seen a lot of games and probably figured it out and told some of the other guys and they probably told the rest of the players, like when that one monkey figured out how to crack open nuts with a rock and told the other monkeys and now they're basically a simian version of Emerald Nuts.

2. Not enough steroids

Now we're onto something. More steroids=more home runs=more runs generally. I nominate Bowker to get on the juice. He'll look fine with a bigger head.

3. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and those liberals in Congress

Your one-size-fits-all explanation for anything that goes wrong in the country.

4. "We're having a tough time getting runs across the board"

Gee, thanks for the insight, Captain Obvious Bruce Bochy.

My sincere apologies

Let's get meta for a second.

Here's a peek behind the scenes at 40goingon28. Most days, I don't have to sit around and think up something to write. I'm usually so bursting with rage/paranoia/fear/anger/disillusionment that the voices in my head are screaming for release and leaving a comment on SFGate won't do, so I write it here and you read it and I find temporary relief and we all walk away happy. Or angry, or whatever.

Then today I was all "Man, I can't think of anything to write about" and I was poking around the Internets and I liked the story about Lohan's Dad showing up at her house with the cops (especially given her on-the-spot Twitter update ["i have no choice but to make this public, due to my sister's safety, as well as my own, 'my ex-dad' just WALKED INTO MY APT like the devil's"] - and what does that even mean? Loahn has an apartment like the devil's?) but honestly, at this point Lohan defies attempts to make fun of her and I feel for her anyway (CALL ME LINDSAY IF YOU SEE THIS YOU KNOW MY MAKE-A-WISH IS A WEEKEND IN L.A. WITH YOU).

So I was like "What is it? Why isn't anything coming to me?" and I realized that I'm neither (a) drunk, (b) boiling over with rage, (c) the victim of a perceived slight that the perceived slighter may or may not know about, or (d) about to unleash Hate Stares on someone talking on a cell phone at the ATM or walking 4 abreast on the sidewalk. No, you know what?

I'm in an awesome mood. Got my tickets to my first Giants game of the season tomorrow, the sun is shining, having dinner with my Lovely Wife tonight, I know where my car is, no one has wronged me SO FAR TODAY, shit is just going my way.

(Not to say there isn't some stuff going on - remind me to tell you about how my shirts keep disappearing and it's either my laundry guy or someone with a taste for slightly trendy collared shirts is breaking into my house, and also about how my dog boarder dropped my dog off THREE DAYS EARLY when we were out of town but it all turned out OK but still.)

So that's that. I know you come here expecting a certain Product, and that Product may involve some sarcasm and a Fresh and Dystopian View of the World, but I can't deliver today. Shit is just going too well.

We'll try again tomorrow.

I almost feel bad about doing this

Luckily, not too bad.

Oh, good! I need me some reverly.

(OPTION TWO: something involving "Reverly Hills 90210")

Three totally unrelated things

First unrelated thing:

Actually, a cleanup from the Boring Travelogue that I forgot to include at the time. One night in New York - I think it was a Saturday night, but I'm not sure, we went to the theater and saw this play that was kind of meh but then afterward we walked over to 9th Avenue to get a drink. There are a ton of restaurants and bars along there but they all looked a little too loud and crowded and stuff and we wanted something a little more mellow.

So we walked into this place that had its door closed on a very warm night (WARNING SIGN NUMBER ONE). It was kind of an Irish bar. Let's call it "McFrightening's." Very dark inside. Blaring music. About three patrons at the bar. Bald, Irish bartender. The Wife goes back to the bathroom and I order before I realize that McFrightening's is not going to be the ideal place for a relaxing drink. It's more like the place where three patrons glare at you while you drink your drink as fast as humanly possible and then pay and get out. Just as we were leaving (after, say, 5 1/2 minutes) another couple came in and ordered and then we could tell they realized their mistake too. They looked at us kind of pleadingly but we were like "Sorry, you poor bastards. We can't help you." On the way out, I noticed that the enormous fucking guy at the barstool by the door had a jagged scar from his ear down his neck. I'd hate to see what the other guy looked like.

Second unrelated thing:

We got back Sunday night late and I had the day off yesterday too because I believe in always having a day off between when you get back from vacation and when you go to work. I turned on Channel 2 around 9 and Fox was showing NASCAR racing. Somewhat odd, but I figured that a race had gotten rained out the day before and that was why.

(SIDE NOTE: For the life of me, I cannot understand the attraction in watching NASCAR. I don't want to get into a whole thing about it, but it seems terminally boring to me. I understand that some people don't like baseball, which is retarded, but de gustibus non est disputandum and all that. Still.)

So I posted one of my wry observations on the Twitter machine:



HI-larious, right? Guffaws all around at the absurdity of it all. And now let's move on.

But wait! Maybe not. One "Smokey_14" is committed to fighting misapprehensions about NASCAR. And misapprehensions r serious bizness!



Sigh. I'll try to keep it on Larry the Cable Guy level from now on, Smokey_14.

Third unrelated thing:

Local free paper/front stoop litter/would-be right-wing organ/sad shell of its former glory The SF Examiner reports:

A Mega Block Party planned for North Beach that has the potential to draw thousands of unruly partyers to the troubled stretch of Broadway could bring violence and mayhem, police and neighborhood groups say.

[blah blah blah]

Recent violence in the area includes a case in which a car allegedly ran down a pedestrian while driving away from a shooting. The Feb. 19 incident killed San Francisco resident Luis Prieto.

The issue of police staffing for the upcoming Broadway Mega Block Party has police and city officials pressing nightclubs to help pick up the costs of the additional security.

The event, which is planned for May 29, allows people to buy a wristband and have total access to at least eight participating clubs in North Beach — including Fuse, Dragon Bar and Bamboo Hut — according to event promoter Papa Entertainment.

Oh yeah, this seems like a good idea. North Beach on Saturday night is already basically an Ed Hardy date rape tequila shots block party. This idea is like hanging a huge "Free Drakkar Noir in North Beach" sign in every mall in Antioch. I hope "Papa Entertainment" gets stuck with the bill for this.