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.

Urban Etiquette: Parking Wars

We open on a busy San Francisco thoroughfare.  The time is earlier this morning.  Our protagonist, ME, is just returning to his street from dropping off his adorable daughter at day care.  (Or, as she would put it, "day tare."  She can't do hard c's or k's yet.)

Our Protagonist rolls up to his block and LO AND BEHOLD there is a parking spot not 3 buildings away from his building.

[BRIEF INTERJECTION: I am #blessed enough to live on a street specifically, and a neighborhood generally, where parking isn't that hard.  You can usually find a space within 5 to 7 minutes.  On weekdays during the day, you can find a space basically anywhere you want.  I USED to live in North Beach and no fooling one Sunday night I once spent almost an hour looking for a space and finally found one on Bay Street which if you're familar with the area is NOT REALLY in North Beach at all.]

O.P. pulls into the spot and parks.  BUT WHAT'S THIS.  There's a pickup truck up ahead with its backing up lights on.  Let me illustrate our relative positions with a diagram.

I love trolling with Comic Sans. Someone is going to feel COMPELLED to say something about the Comic Sans.  The yellow thing is a bike lane BTW.

As you can see, Pickup Truck is double parked at least 3 cars up ahead.  O.P turns off his car and then sees Pickup Truck backing up towards him once the traffic clears.  Pickup Truck has his window down and is saying something.

Pickup Truck is staffed by a maybe early to mid-20's kid with a an attempt at a beard.  "Hey man," he says.  "I've been waiting for that space.  I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could back up."

"What, from all the way up there?" O.P. says.  Notice that O.P did not shrug and say "Tough shit, kid."

"Yeah," Pickup Truck says.

Now, at this point, O.P has two options.  He's already IN the space, so he could get out of his car, lock the doors, and walk away.  Like everything else in life, it's like that scene from Seinfeld.

O.P., however, chose Option Two: Roll Eyes So Broadly It's Visible From Heaven, say "Fine," get back in the car, and park around the corner.

HERE'S WHERE YOU COME IN.  Was that right?  Did Pickup Truck have any sort of viable claim on the space from 3 cars ahead?  If he wanted that space so bad, why wasn't he waiting, say, RIGHT NEXT TO IT?  Did someone pull out just as I arrived, when P.T. was already way ahead and he saw it in his rearview and decided to impose a Retroactive Space Save on a space he had absolutely no entitlement to?  What is right?  What is the nature of justice?

In a related humorous story, when The Sister lived in the Lower Haight she was getting ready to pull into a space when an angry woman pulled up next to her and yelled "YOU SAW ME TURN AROUND BITCH" implying that if you see someone turn around to get a space you lose all rights to that space.  I don't even think she saw her turn around bitch in the first place.  Life is complicated.

We are totally fucked

I used to have an existential dread of major, crippling earthquakes.  Like I would honestly just sit on my couch and worry about that.  But that got old and it never happened anyway so I have now focused all my existential dread on something real that really is happening:

The Drought.

We are so fucked by this drought that we can't even begin to comprehend how fucked we are.  The LA Times is here to scare the shit out of us:

Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing. California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain.

The article goes on with some suggestions that are so stupid and painfully obvious it's insane we aren't doing them.  Like mandatory rationing.  NO FUCKING SHIT.

Picture from the same LA Times article. I have no idea what this is.  Perhaps this is our New God that we must worship to get delicious water.

Of course we should be fucking rationing.  My sister has been up in Tahoe since January and she reports that her neighbors wash their FIVE CARS regularly.  That's not cool!  You know what else?  One single almond takes a FUCKING GALLON of water to grow.  Almonds aren't even that great!  BAN ALMONDS.

EDIT/UPDATE: Almonds are bad, but you know what else?  Fucking WALNUTS take almost FIVE GALLONS of water apiece to grow.  For one stupid walnut!  Walnuts are fucking disgusting anyway.  We could lose walnuts today and be better as a society and a people.  If you think you like walnuts, you've been tricked.  Walnuts are a fucking scam.  If you really sat down and tasted one, you'd be like "Ugh, I can't believe I've been putting this garbage food into my mouth.  I feel like throwing up just thinking about the number of times I've eaten this tree jizz. Yuck. I would rather die than eat another walnut."  BAN WALNUTS.

UPDATE #2!!!!: Thanks to loyal reader Rusty Staples I have learned that "Trader Joe's is recalling walnut products due to the potential health risk from Salmonella"!!!!!  SEE I TOLD YOU!  Walnuts aren't just gross as fuck, they also give you salmonella.  FUCK WALNUTS.

Also, Palm Springs, this is your fucking fault.  From the same Mother Jones almond truther article linked above:

Holy shit, Palm Springs!  That's what you get when your economy is built on golf and swimming pools.  Both golf and swimming pools should be banned.  There should be one golf course, that's it.  If you want to play golf, get in line.  Or get a drier hobby, like sand painting.  Also, Tahoe City is apparently full of people washing their cars too much.  So here's the deal for you, Tahoe City: you can use whatever snow you can melt from your backyard to wash your cars.  THAT'S IT.

Everyone says we should just build desalination plants!  OH SURE NO BIG DEAL LET'S JUST BUILD SOME DESALINATION PLANTS.  We have to have a fucking ballot measure to build a 4-story building so, sure, I don't see any problems in building an industrial plant right on the ocean.  Maybe nuclear powered!

To sum up, we should all probably move.

(Incidentally, vis a vis earthquakes, yep, we're also fucked there too.)

Girl Scout cookies, ranked

10. (Tie) Cranberry Citrus Crisps/Rah Rah Raisins

"Cranberry Citrus Crisps" sounds suspiciously healthy.  Oh, it's "filled with 9 grams of whole grain!"  So it IS healthy.  NICE TRY GIRL SCOUTS.  You know what I'm not filled with?  Fucking Cranberry Citrus Crisps.

Rah Rah Raisins are just oatmeal raisin cookies but with yogurt chunks in them.  Why you gotta mess up a perfectly good oatmeal raisin cookie by putting yogurt chunks in it?

DISCLAIMER: I've never actually eaten either one of these, but I've never eaten compost before either and I can tell that wouldn't taste good.

9. Trefoils

Those hard little shortbread things.  There's nothing wrong with them, I guess, they're just boring.  They're the The Economist of cookies.

8. Lemonades

Trefoils, but tarted up with some lemon icing.  I see what you did there, Lemonades, and you're not fooling anyone.

7. Thanks-a-Lot

Trefoils, but with fudge on the bottom, and an "embossed 'Thank You' in English, French, Chinese, Swahili or Spanish." You can act like you're the Model U.N. of cookies, Thanks-a-Lots, but we know you're just Trefoils with a tan.

6. (Tie) Toffee-tastic/Trios

Of course there was going to be gluten free Girl Scout cookies.  I picked up a box of Toffee-tastics after my dealer chirpily told me "I tried them and I was surprised!  They're not bad!"  Girl was right, they're not bad, but you only get a single sleeve because only rich people have the time and money to be allergic to gluten.

I don't know anything about Trios.

5. Do-si-dos

Now we're getting into the money cookies.  Do-si-dos are peanut butter sandwich cookies not unlike Nutter Butters I guess.  They're good - certainly better than anything Trefoil-based, you can be sure - but maybe a little dry?

4. Samoas

The caramel and coconut ones.  They've been kicking ass and taking names since my little sister was a Girl Scout and she's in her 30's now.  Samoas are never not good.

3. Savannah Smiles

As far as we know, not named after either the Okkervil River song or delightful 1982 family comedy, these lemon-flavored sugar-dusted half-moons go down smoother than 12 year old scotch.  They should be called SAVANNAH FUCKING KICKS ASS instead of Savannah Smiles.

2. Tagalongs

Peanut butter coated in chocolate has been done - I see you there, Reese's - but Tagalongs benefit from a crunchy cookie base.  Get on our level, Reese's, or shut your damn mouth.

1. Thin Mints

BOW DOWN MOTHERFUCKERS.  You are in the presence of greatness.  Do  people take a nightmarish 12-hour flight to Paris and then put up with the French because the Mona Lisa is just a good painting?  No, they do it because it's the best.  Why does everyone buy Thin Mints?  Because Thin Mints makes every other cookie look like hot garbage.  Elegant in its simplicity, perfect in design, Thin Mints is as pure an expression of American exceptionalism as tractor rodeo.  Accept no substitutes.

R.I.P. Dad

My father passed away yesterday in his own bed at home, the way he wanted to.  In the end, it was cancer that got him, but after 87 years, the cause of death doesn't mean much.  I like to think he lived a life that was so full it's hard to imagine fitting it all into 87 years.

He was born in 1926 in rural Virginia, a place and time so far removed from my life that it might as well be another planet.  I've looked at the Census Records and suddenly there on the 1930 Census there's a boy, Robert, age 3.  Hiding behind the cramped, crabby handwriting on that form is a little boy who grew up with cows and chickens and rode his family's mule.  They ate organic, free-range food way before those labels were even invented.  They just called it "dinner."

Dad was the youngest of his siblings and has told me that being the youngest probably motivated him to work harder and do more.  What he wanted to do was fly airplanes, so when he was 17 he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, the precursor to today's Air Force.  Sure enough, they taught him how to fly.  Then they sent him to Japan to occupy the country.

He stayed in the Army even after the Air Force split off and they sent him all over the world.  Least Favorite Place: Greenland.  Most Favorite: Australia.  In fact, later in life, he badly wanted to return to Australia one day.  Never made it, though.  Along the way, he got married and had a couple of kids, my half-brother and half-sister.

After he got out of the Army, he flew for Continental Airlines, but instead of the Chicago-New York route, he went to Southeast Asia at the height of the Vietnam War and flew the Saigon-Bangkok route.  He was living in an apartment in Bangkok and riding a motorcycle to work at the airport.  I would have LOVED to have a drink with him at some bar in Saigon back then.  God knows, the man liked to take a drink.  It looked like it might be a problem until, as he told me, he got sick of waking up feeling like shit every day and suddenly stopped one day when I was a kid, no AA or anything.

He met my Mom in Bimini in the Bahamas and they got married and I was born and to say that things didn't work out between them would be putting it mildly.  After my sister was born, things deteriorated rapidly and they got divorced.  Things also didn't work out between Mom and me, and I moved in with Dad.  During that time, I think I started to figure out how to live and act and be in the world.  Dad's lessons were old-school and basic - take responsibility for your actions; everything you do has consequences; actions speak louder than words; give respect to get it - but those lessons are also sometimes the hardest to learn.  I learned them from Dad and although I'll never completely live up to them, he gave me something to shoot for.

Dad & Me: The Early Years

As you can imagine, Dad was a staunch conservative, but he never sweated me about any of the crazy shit I did like moving to San Francisco with no job and no contacts when I was 22 years old or majoring in English or whatever.  He always said he'd support me no matter what and he always did.

It's not like his death was some sudden, devastating surprise.  He's been sick for a while, and given his age, I've been thinking about the Post-Dad Era of my life since my 30's.  You know what?  It's not at all like I imagined.  I sort of pictured being consumed by grief, but instead I feel kind of calm and relieved that he isn't hurting any more.  Of course, as The Wife, who's lost both of her parents, one just a few months ago, told me, "Grief isn't linear."  I'm sure I'll grieve in a lot of little ways for years, like every Friday around 3 when we used to talk on the phone, instead of in one big grief tsunami.  Which is fine.

This is sort of long and rambling and not quite as artful as I wanted it to be.  But here's to you, Dad.  If there is an afterlife, I hope you're up there now, flying a Beechcraft Baron, with a bourbon in one hand and a Winston in the other.  Thanks for everything, Dad.  I never could have got here without you.  Love you.

It's been a strange few days

Sunday night we had some friends over for dinner and Jessica was holding our dog and noticed that his lymph nodes were swollen.  He'd been acting lethargic too, and it was worrying enough that I took him to the VCA Animal ER on Monday, Memorial Day.

ASIDE: If you ever need emergency care for your pet, go to VCA at 18th and Alabama.  They were absolutely great.

The vet felt around and said it was lymphoma.  I wasn't really processing it and was like, "What's lymphoma?"  Lymphoma turns out to be cancer and it's incurable and basically now my dog is going to die.  We're working on treatment options with our regular vet but it doesn't look great.

I just found out I have cancer. Does this is any way get me more treats?

So that was Monday!  On Tuesday, we found out that my Dad's cancer, which we thought had mostly gone away, had metastasized and is now all over and it's pretty bad and my sister and I are flying to be with him on Friday.

My Dog and My Dad Have Cancer!  It's a country song.  Except it's real.

I'm not putting all this out there in a shameless ploy to get your sympathy, but more by way of explanation about why I probably won't be blogging for a while, or if I do, it's probably going to be pretty depressing.

I'm gonna need some whiskey
Cause I feel pretty blue
My Daddy got the cancer
And now my dog does too

I guess I'll work on the lyrics some more.

Oh, one funny story at least has come out of this so far.  Last week my Dad was doing some testing to check for brain cancer I guess and our half-sister sent my sister a text and she looked at her phone and it said "Dad has passed" and then she clicked on it and the rest of it said "his cognitive testing with flying colors!"  And the moral of the story is BE VERY CAREFUL HOW YOU PHRASE YOUR TEXT MESSAGES.

Show Report: Foxygen, at The Independent

Everyone knows that in the Celtic calendar, three days after the Blood Moon is motherfucking DATE NIGHT so we left baby Beyonce in The Sister's attentive care and hit the fucking town.

After a stop for some overpriced Mexican food, we found ourselves at the Independent to see Foxygen.  They had one of my favorite albums of 2013, the somewhat embarrassingly named "We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic," but I had heard some disturbing stories about their live shows - i.e., long breaks in the middle of sets, fighting onstage, and all kinds of other bullshit that bands shouldn't do but I think they're about 15 years old so what do you want out of a kid.  Also, the lead singer fell off the stage once and broke his leg.  The Wife had been exposed to the music just from me constantly playing the album last year but I don't think she expected much.

It was fucking great.  Go see this band if you ever get a chance.

One touchpoint for their sounds is Satanic Majesties Request-era Stones, and the lead singer did his best nouveau Jagger, down to the duckface and the utterly inhibition-free dancing.  Plus, they had three women backup singers.  INDIE BANDS, YOU HAVE BEEN DOING IT WRONG THE WHOLE TIME.  Why stand there glumly when you can have THREE WOMEN BACKUP SINGERS and dance around?

The Wife quickly developed a crush on Backup Singer #1, and no big surprise there, she was sexy as hell.  If you can see the way she's looking at Mini-Jagger, though, it's pretty clear The Wife had no shot with her.

Mini-Jagger's between-song banter was eclectic, to say the least.  "MAKE SOME NOISE IF YOU'RE PREGNANT!" he yelled at one point.  Then, looking almost directly at me (we were right up front), he said, "Who here got a babysitter so they could come to the show tonight?"  IT'S LIKE YOU'RE LOOKING INTO MY SOUL MAN.

Plus a lot of my favorite songs were frontloaded, which was was great because we had to leave at 11:20 because of our dopey baby.  Always stepping on our good time!  I'm just kidding, CPS, put the phone down.  But seriously, it's tough when the headliner doesn't even go on until 10:45.  Man, we are all fucking old.

Goddam it was fun.

This restaurant deal is great and you should get on it before they take it away; also, a New Bar Night

Yesterday was our anniversary!  Me and the wife.  4 years.  So we ditched the baby with my sister and did what we used to do before she came along - went out drinkin' & eatin'.

We met up at Local Edition, a vaguely newspaper-themed fancy cocktail bar in a vast subterranean basement on Market.  You can reserve a table for cocktails, which I really like, because it was already getting crowded at 5:30 when we got there.  It's a big dark room, as you can sort of see when I accidentally took a picture with the flash on:

Whoops!  Sorry about that.  Then I took another picture with the flash off.

I guess I didn't need to show you both of those. Anyway, if you've been to a bar in SF in the last year, you know what it's like, drink-wise - lots of fancy liquors and absinthe and weird bitters and whatnot.  But the drinks were great.  I got a gimlet, which was superb as gimlets go, and something called a Yellow Kid, that had gin, lemon, something called Velvet Falernum that appears to be some kind of liqueur, dill syrup, some kind of vermouth, and ginger beer.  It was fantastic.  By the time we left, it was really, really crowded and there was some Business Douche in the front room at a table of other Business Douches and Douchettes who was yelling "WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!" like he was at Senor Frog's on Spring Break so hopefully that's not a major feature.  It was nice and quiet and grownup where we were sitting, so maybe it's locational.  Anyway, worth a shot if you're around Market and 3rd.

The main event was dinner at Cupola, the fancy pizza joint in the Westfield Centre.  Now, of course, when you hear "mall restaurant" you think crayons on the table and laminated menus, but this is like a legit restaurant.  Michael Bauer reviewed it not long ago and said "if it were in a freestanding storefront, the lines would probably be around the block."  In that review, he talked about this insane deal - a 10-course meal for $30 - so we decided we had to try it.

Holy shit, you guys.  It was fucking great.

You don't really know what you're going to get - I gather it's up to the chef, and varies from night to night.  We got started with some perfectly grilled asparagus with capers and egg, along with some marinated, sliced hen of the woods mushrooms with English peas.  And then shit just kept coming.  Lamb meatballs in a spicy sauce.  House-made hand torn handkerchief pasta in tomato basil sauce.  Butter lettuce with gorgonzola, pear, and walnuts.  A slab of fresh, gooey mozzarella with morels and toast.  Artichoke lasagna with an arugula salad.  And then an amazing pizza Margherita.  And then a chocolate ganache with some kind of ice cream and a hazelnut brittle and then some strawberry sorbet.

That wasn't even all of it.  It was a shitload of food, no lie.  All that for $30 a head.

Anyway, thanks to Big Mouth Bauer, the secret is out.  The waitress - a tiny, pixieish creature who was as nice and helpful as she could be - told us about three or four other table were currently having the same thing.  Get yourself over there and do this before it's gone.  And then you can proudly say "Yeah, I ate at a mall restaurant.  It got two and a half stars from Bauer.  And it fucking ruled."

Song obsessions, lately, plus bonus New Bar Night material

Hey, shout out to my fellow borderline Aspergies, do you get the same thing I do when you get fixated on a song and then have to listen to it over and over and over again? Almost everyone I know gets this, but most everyone I know has some type of diagnosable mental issue, so it's not a good sample.

Perfect example: My sister just discovered "Call Me Maybe." She reports that she's been having to sneak away from the people she's been vacationing with to listen to it in private so they don't make fun of her for listening to it too much. That's right, she's sneaking around to hear a song. Like she's a bulimic or something. A song-limic.

I gotta admit, CMM is pretty fucking catchy.

Anyway, I had two recently. The first one was "Leaders of the Free World," by Elbow. I'm not sure why. I kind of like the way it builds and especially the vocal melody and where he lands the notes in relation to the music.



Last week it was "A-Punk" by Vampire Weekend. I really liked VW's debut album when it came out (and, to a slightly lesser extent, their second album), so it's not like I just discovered this song, but what happened was I came across the lyrics somewhere and I had never really focused on the lyrics which is too bad because they're INCREDIBLE. Here's a video with the lyrics superimposed by some joker out there.



"She took it from his lily-white hand/She had no fear she'd seen the thing/In the Young Men's Wing at Sloan-Kettering."

Wow, that's pretty intense. You can easily build a backstory from that, but the song doesn't just come out and explain itself. I like that.

ANYWAY, I'm over both of these now and will be moving on to a new song obsession soon.

Oh and so Friday night I happened to visit the new Hi-Lo Club on Polk. I don't understand why Yelp has it classified as a "dive bar." It's not a "dive bar" in any sense of the term. It's more like a cocktail lounge but not a pretentious "cocktail lounge." Hardwood floors, cool pressed tin ceiling, nice long bar and some booths. Having recently been stung by a $13 gimlet at Alembic, I was pleased to see that the drinks - even the fancy cocktail menu drinks - were like $7 or $8. I had another gimlet to make a fair comparison and it was just as good as the $13 one at Alembic.

I also liked the vibe of the place a lot. It was like 10 pm on a Friday and it wasn't that crowded. I mean, it was busy, but not wall-to-wall people. It just has a good feel. I guess go now before it gets overrun with douchebags, which should be within a couple of weeks once word gets out. Oh, shit, I'm not helping.

[ADDENDUM: I know talking about the weather is hopelessly trite and cliched, but I just have to say that the last 12-16 hours in San Francisco have been fucking MISERABLE, even by San Francisco's terrible standards for July. I know that there's a terrible heat wave on in the rest of the country and they'd love to trade places with us blah blah blah, I could really go for one night when I'm not huddled by my heater. Outside here last night it was like the Scottish Moors on a bad day, what with the 50 degrees and howling winds and fog. Took the dog out for a walk last night around 10 (wearing 4 layers, of course) and immediately smelled the familiar scent of burning firewood. San Francisco, California: Where Summer Smells Like Duraflame.]

Guest Dog Program

(Obviously there are more important things to talk about, like the shit that happened in the Mission last night, but there are Serious Forums where people can condemn vandalism and all that jazz. You don't come for that. Let's talk about something better, like DOGS.)

As you may or may not be aware, The Wife and I live in a 2-unit building with my sister. I mean, The Sister has one apartment (downstairs) where she lives with her roommate, and The Wife and I live upstairs. We call it The Compound. Here's our flag:



"Nos Ebrii" is Latin for "We Are Drunk."

Anyway, I have a dog (a roughly 18-pound Chi-terrier thing) and my sister has a dog (much larger labradoodle, lovable and friendly but kind of a doofus) and her boyfriend has a dog (big thing, not sure exactly of ancestry, see pixx below) and when they're all around it's like a goddam kennel or something. But of course they're all awesome and we love them all blah blah blah.

See, here's my dog with The Sister's Boyfriend's dog:



TSBD, the one at the top of the pic, is named Chewie and is about as laid-back as you can get. If he were a person he'd be the rough equivalent of Brad Pitt in "True Romance." (Jump to around 1:09 for the good part.)



Chewie's decided that he likes our place upstairs. A lot of times on weekend mornings when we get up, this is what we see in the kitchen window.



So we let him in and he pretty much just pads into the bedroom and lies down and goes to sleep. We have carpet and my sister has hardwood and she theorizes that he likes it upstairs because he doesn't slide around as much. Possible, I guess.

This past Friday, we cooked out in the backyard and watched some Giants and stuff. They went back downstairs. A while later, I went into the kitchen and guess who's back?



Creepy, huh? I think it's the flash that makes it kind of horror-movie looking. Anyway, I let him in and he walked down the hall into the living room and passed out on the couch.



That's where I found him Saturday morning. I guess he's our semi-permanent houseguest.

Presenting the Results of TK's First Annual Vodka Tasting

THE COMPETITORS:


L-R: Skyy Citrus, Belvedere, Smirnoff, Stolichnaya, Ketel One

CONTROVERSY!!!: I didn't realize I bought Skyy Citrus so when the tasters remarked that Vodka #1 tasted "fruity," I didn't understand. Whoops. Shouldn't have used that one.

THE METHOD

Blind tasting. There were three tasters: The Wife, The Sister, and Periqueblend. Each received 1/3 oz of the vodka. The tasters did gave each vodka a score from 1 to 10.

THE RESULTS ARE IN.

A clear victory for capitalism and wealth! The most expensive vodka, Belvedere, won, with 27 out of a possible 30 points. Second place was Ketel One, with 26 points. Then Smirnoff, with 23 points, Stoli with 18, and finally Skyy Citrus (again, whoops) with 13.

TASTING NOTES

#1 (Skyy)

The Wife: "This has some kind of a fruit taste"

The Sister: "It burns"

Periqublend: "It's sweet or something"

#2 (Smirnoff)

The Wife: "This is the Belvedere"

The Sister: "Now we're talking."

Periqueblend: "Very smooth."

#3 (Ketel One)

The Wife: "No, this one is the Belvedere."

The Sister: "This is better than the last one."

Periqueblend: "I want to do this same thing but with whiskey."

#4 (Stoli)

The Wife: "This is better than the first one."

The Sister: "This is booty. Mid-shelf."

Periqueblend: "Clean. Not that bad."

#5 (Belvedere)

The Wife: "Really smooth. This has to be the Belvedere."

The Sister: "This is good. This is the best one."

Periqueblend: "Is there some kind of fruity thing going on?"

TK's Recipe of the Week

I was going to start this feature a while back and then forgot to. Shit's been super busy and I can't be responsible for that. Anyway, I'm starting it now.

Brunch, as we know, is more than just a meal. It is a Life Requirement on par with oxygen and reality TV. But we can't always go out for brunch. It gets expensive and we can't take our dogs. Instead, tomorrow or Sunday invite some peeps over and make this shit. It is SO FUCKING GOOD that The Wife and The Sister always demand it and I'm all I CAN'T MAKE THIS EVERY TIME YOU BITCHES WANT BRUNCH and they're all SHUT UP AND MAKE THE HASH and then I make the hash.

Sources indicate that this recipe originated with Gordon Ramsay. If that's true, dance in heaven, you foul-mouthed famewhore British son of a bitch, for your gift to us all is immeasurable.

Let's get on with it.

CHORIZO, RED PEPPER, AND FINGERLING POTATO HASH

1 lb. fingerling potatoes
1 large sprig rosemary
Olive oil
8 oz. loose chorizo
1 red bell pepper, diced
Butter
1/2 red onion, finely diced
4 eggs
Sea salt & black pepper
Champagne
Orange juice
Pomegranate juice
Acme Bakery herb slab

Open the champagne. Pour into glass with either orange or pomegranate juice, your choice.

Boil the potatoes in a pot with the sprig of rosemary until they're just cooked, not like super-soft, but enough so a knife slides easily into them. Rinse them in cold water and then get someone to cut them in half or cut them in half yourself, what do I care.

Heat a big pan over medium heat and pour enough olive oil in to coat the bottom. Put in the chorizo and saute it until it begins to release its oil, then throw in the onions and peppers. Take a sip of your drink and saute all that stuff for like 4 or 5 minutes, until the onions start getting soft.

Add the potatoes and a big hunk of butter and mix it all together. Keep stirring it and sauteeing until the potatoes start to get a little crispy, so like 7 to 10 minutes. Salt and pepper the whole thing.

When the potato stuff is almost done, either poach or fry 4 eggs. I like poaching them, but I'm not gonna tell you how to run your life. If you fry them, it's not the goddam end of the world.

Divide up the hash into 4 portions and put an egg on top of each. Serve with the bread and more champagne.

When finished, recline on the couch. Moaning optional, depending on how badly you're hungover.

Serves 4, duh.

This Fucking Old House

My life right now is kinda consumed with working on this new place we're moving into but I'm not really a fan of home makeover blogs and so I'm not really psyched to document how we hung up a vintage map of the Transcontinental Railroad and then have my comments section fill up with "So cute!" comments. Instead, here's an askew picture of our new living room, taken from our new dining room, and featuring my sister's dog:

The place has potential but it's trashed right now. There have been tenants in there for like 10 consecutive years and it shows. We have to pull up all the carpets and paint the whole interior and also do some work in the kitchen. There's crazy sound transmission between the first floor (where my sister is living) and the top floor (see above), so we have to put down soundproofing material. We got 2 bids for this. One wants around $4,000 to do it and the other guy wants $17,500 in cash - no checks or credit card, like hand him stacks of $20s wrapped up in those little paper sleeves. SHAY DEE. Anyway, so yeah, that 13 grand difference kind of takes Guy #2 out of contention. I've never house shit before but is this standard? There's a 400% difference in bids to do the same thing? What the fuck?

This whole thing is going to be fucking expensive and everyone's all "Oh, you should paint the interior yourselves" but fuck that, I'd rather pay someone and have it done right than do it myself.

ANYWAY, this is already a snooze so sorry about that. I'll try and have better content in the near future once this fucking stress bolus has passed through my system.

Bars of the Inner Richmond: A Limited Survey

Here's some news: We're moving to the Inner Richmond. Long story, but there it is. As it happens, we will be occupying the top floor of a 2-unit building and The Sister is on the bottom floor. This is not the setup for a sitcom, although now that I think about it, it has certain sitcom-ish potential.

ANYWAY on Saturday The Sister and I checked out some of our new neighborhood bars. I've been to all these places, so technically it wasn't a New Bar Night, but it's been years so it sort of was. We were out between roughly 7 and 9 pm, so we probably didn't get the Full Saturday Effect, but that's enough disclaimers now. Here's where we went:

We walked into Buckshot, took one look around, and walked out. It looked like a bunch of kids at a county fair where they happened to serve booze, what with all the skee ball and shuffleboard and picnic tables. I hope someone's checking IDs. (Also, their website says "Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES! - - - - - - - - poop on a stick!" That probably tells you everything you need to know about Buckshot.)

Next we went to Ireland's 32. I actually kinda like Ireland's 32, as far as Irish bars go, but Saturday night it was in full sports bar mode, with the Saints-Lions playoff game blaring from all 15 or whatever TVs. I'm not opposed to sports bars per se, but it just wasn't what we were looking for. I've been there other nights and had a good time though.

Maintaining the Irish theme, the next stop was the Plough & Stars on Clement. Nice enough place, but The Sister's drink was super-weak which made her more surly than normal. Perhaps sticking with beer here would be advisable. Also, apparently not everyone's drinks were weak, because there was a group of super shitfaced guys careening around the bar. Ah, youth. Maybe it'll be more of a weeknight bar.

Moving down Clement, we came to the Bitter End, which might be a semi-Irish bar. At this point, there is very little to distinguish one place from another. They're all that kind of exposed-wood-pool-table-TV-screen-wooden-booth kind of places. Another way young crowd.

Last stop: the 540 Club. Not an Irish bar, thank God. We actually liked this place a lot. Divey but cool. The bartenders were totally friendly. Also fairly young crowd, but not as college-y as the other places. I guess the Yelp says it gets crowded on weekends? Not when we were there (but, again, this was at like 9 or 9:30 pm). I could see hanging out here.

Then we took a cab to the Tenderloin and some other stuff happened. The end.

Two anecdotes that illustrate how the New South continues to resemble a Flannery O'Connor short story

Anecdote one:

A few days before Thanksgiving, something broke on one of the upstairs toilets at my Dad's house and water leaked through the ceiling into the living room on the first floor. It was kind of a mess but didn't destroy Thanksgiving or anything.

Anyway, Dad's next door neighbor is a plumber and he came over and shut off the water to the offending toilet and then proceeded to tell us, in more or less an unbroken monologue, about how his house was once saved from burning down in the middle of the night because there was a tiny hole in a bathroom pipe that spewed out water and extinguished a fire that had started in the bathroom (!!!!). He opined that it would have been extra tragic if he had died in a fire because when he was 12, "both of my grandparents burned up in a fire when they lived next door." He left and later returned with a dehumidifier that he rented for Dad.

Anecdote two:

A cashier at the grocery store told my sister "I haven't seen you in a while." She said he must have her confused with someone else, because she doesn't live there. He said, "Oh no, I remember you. You were in this store eight months ago. The Lord has blessed me with the ability to never forget a face."

The Lord has also blessed him with the ability to win big by card counting in Vegas, but he didn't mention that.

(If for some reason you've never read any Flannery O'Connor, do yourself a huge favor and pick up a copy of her Complete Stories. You won't regret it.)

Deadpool UPDATE!

Looks like Gaddafi's dead! Wanna see a gross picture? Guess I got my Halloween costume!

Anyway, seems like a good time to update the Deadpool. Cast your thoughts back to January 7, 2011, when I first posted this year's Deadpool. Let's see how our contestants are doing.

TK had Zsa Zsa Gabor, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Bennett, Willie Mays, and Jerry Stiller. I haven't checked on Zsa Zsa lately. Still alive? I think she's still alive. So all I got is Liz. I feel bad for picking Willie Mays, but this is strictly business, nothing personal, Say Hey. 21 points.

(To recap, to determine your points, subtract the person's age at death from 100. That way, you get fewer points for picking the Extremely Old/Close to Death. If you pick over 100, you lose points. That's on you. Blame the playa, not the game.)

The Wife had Roger Ebert, Hal Holbrook, Queen Elizabeth, Tara Reid, and Liza Minelli. I just checked and Hal's still alive, so no luck here. 86 years old and still doing the Mark Twain schtick! We should all be so lucky! 0 points.

The guest anonymously known as Sigmund had Michael Douglas, Dick Clark, Betty White, Margaret Thatcher, and Tracy Morgan. Unless you can die of getting laid too much, Michael Douglas is gonna be fine! HAR HAR HAR. 0 points.

The Sister had Lindsay Lohan, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Fidel Castro. She tried to sneak in later and add Aretha Franklin. I DON'T THINK SO BITCH. Anyway, lotta good it did her. She's still got an outside shot with Castro, I guess. 0 points.

Stoney selected Bret Michaels, Natalie Portman, Jimmy Carter, and David Crosby. I kind of like each one of these picks for different reasons, but I hate to inform Stoney that it's not 1736 and so the chances of Natalie dying in childbirth were slim. 0 points.

Finally, we have Natasha. Fucking Natasha picked: Hugh Hefner, Gaddafi, Kim Jong-Il, Amy Winehouse, and Dick Cheney. Winehouse, obviously, was a points bonanza, and Gaddafi wasn't exactly ancient either. Natasha is fucking walking away with this. DON'T LET NATASHA GET CLOSE TO YOU, FOR THE STENCH OF DEATH IS HEAVY ON THIS ONE. Also, WATCH THE FUCK OUT, KIM JONG-IL. I mean, if you're even still alive. 104 points!!!!!!

So, in other words, even if Zsa Zsa, Tony Bennett, Willie Mays, and Jerry Stiller all get ahold of some bad mussels at a charity auction in Lake Havasu, I STILL CAN'T FUCKING WIN. I need to remember to pick some young people next year.

Hmmmmmmm.



Watch your back, pretty boy.

More fun with Mom

Me and The Wife are going to Arizona to visit Mom on Thursday. Pray for us. In advance of our visit, I received an email with the following information:

1. She will be making breakfast for us on Friday morning. Apparently, I have not eaten a meal she has prepared "in 30 years." Pretty sure this can't be true, but that's her apparent belief. True, I eat at her place sparingly, but that's only because she favors food far past the expiration date. That seems to be a thing with Old People.

2. I am to leave some room in my suitcase so I can "carry back some kitchen utensils" she picked up for my sister (who's getting a new place) at garage sales in and around her Arizona retirement community. That's right, I am to leave room in my carry-on to schlep back Corningware and used spatulas. I don't think so.

Mom's always on the go. For her, a family visit isn't complete unless the day is chock-full of activities. Sitting around and talking is her idea of hell. Thus, she asked me to suggest some activities we could do. I suggested the Pima Air & Space Museum, just to see how that would go over. That didn't go over very well. I haven't been asked to make any other suggestions since then.

We're staying at a resort in this oldster community. Know how you can tell it's an oldster community? The bar & grill in the hotel closes at 8.

A true story of injustice averted. And a pop-punk cover of a Joni Mitchell song.

It's Friday! Thank God. Here's the Parasites' cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now":



How I got here today: Go to bagel store. Order sesame bagel toasted with butter. Lady at counter asks if I want butter "on both sides." (Odd, but whatever.) VOILA. Parasites' cover of "Both Sides Now" pops into my head.

But that's not what we're here to talk about today. Remember that whack-ass chick that's renting the garage next to my house? The one who's stealing the parking spaces? Who wanted to use our wireless network? SHE'S UP TO NO GOOD AGAIN.

First, a little backstory. As part of this bitch's quest to monopolize the parking spaces in front of our house, she parks her fucking beat-up hooptie scooter in one of the spaces to occupy it so then she can pull her car into the other half of the space and half in front of her fucking garage. I'm not explaining this right but you get the idea. Basically, her janky scooter is always always always parked in the same space in front of our house. She only moves it for street cleaning. It's basically a traffic cone with a basket.

So yesterday I'm coming home from my workstation and there's a Lexus SUV (annoying, I know, but that's another story) parked in front of the scooter WITH A NOTE ON THE WINDSHIELD. Oh yay. I love a good bitchy note. So I read it and basically it's Bitchy McBitchface accusing the Lexus of knocking over her piece of shit scooter! And she says "I've already reported this to my insurance company"! So I roll my eyes and go inside.

Where I talk to my sister (who is temporarily staying with us after breaking up w/ her bf, but that's a whole other story) who's just as nosy as I am and constantly watches the Outdoor Activity like I do and SHE SAW THE WHOLE THING GO DOWN. And guess what? LEXUS SUV HAS BEEN FALSELY ACCUSED. Sister says that Lexus parked and like an hour later the scooter topples over TOWARDS THE LEXUS and then McBitchface comes out and huffs around and leaves her Poison Pen Letter.

(I should explain that the windows of our living room are DIRECTLY ABOVE these parking spaces and if you're in the living room you basically see and hear everything that happens out there. It's not like she's sitting in the window spying on the neighborhood. Not that she wouldn't do that, but I don't think she was.)

WAIT IT GETS BETTER. As she is recounting this tale of False Accusation to me, LEXUS SUV OWNER WALKS UP AND READS THE NOTE AND STARTS INSPECTING THE SCENE OUTSIDE. She looks exactly like what you imagine when you hear "Lexus SUV owner." ANYWAY, I shove my sister out the door to right this injustice and volunteer to be a witness because anything that will fuck McBitchface is good with me. And the first thing Lexus says is "I DIDN'T HIT YOUR SCOOTER!!!!!!" and my sister is like "Chill, lady, not my scooter," and tells her the whole story and everything. JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED BITCH.

Wow, this a boring story. I just realized that. Sorry.

More important brunch news

By now you guys know how important brunch is. (Wow, that's just 3 posts - a search for "brunch" on my blog returns like 10 posts.) Part of the importance of brunch is trying new places, so in that spirit we checked out Uva Enoteca in the Lower Haight for brunch on Saturday.

Not too crowded at 1 pm on Saturday. In fact, not crowded at all. It was just us (me, Wife, Sister), a table of like 7 hipsters, and one table with 2 girls. I was told there would be bottomless mimosas, but there were bottomless bellinis instead which I'm not too crazy about but whatever.

The food was pretty good. I got the fried eggs, which were 2 sunny side up eggs that arrived cold. Maybe not cold, maybe room temp. Still, warm would have been good. Came with what was advertised as "bacon" but I'm sure was pancetta. Also a salad and a little "potato cake" thing. The best part is that, pre-tip, the total tab was $60 for 3 people, including 3 bottomless bellinis. We ended up drinking 2 pitchers of them but based on the table of hipsters it looked like you could pretty much hang out all afternoon and keep getting pitchers brought to you.

Anyway, just OK, not great. 3 stars out of five.

Then we had pints on the back porch of Mad Dog and then some more things happened and the upshot is The Wife was super-hungover yesterday. The end.

Brief reviews of things from this weekend

Churchill: The newish bar on Church and 14th. Friday happy hour was like the 3rd or 4th time I've been there and it is always packed. At least during the times I go there. They are going to make SO MUCH MONEY. Anyway, I like the place OK, I guess. I'd like to go sometime when it's not crazy busy to get a better idea. I had a Pimm's Cup (give me a break - it was like 75 degrees out, that's like Crazy Surface of the Sun Hot in SF) that tasted a little weird, not sure why. The Sister's Moscow Mule was pretty badass, though. 7.5/10

Uber car service: We go outside, The Sister pushes a button on her iPhone, and we're getting into a black town car driven by "Mischa" 3 minutes later. I did not pay for this service, so it was a fucking awesome way to get across town. How can you not like riding in the back of a town car driven by a guy who may or may not be in the Russian mob and never takes off his sunglasses? 10/10

The Royal Cuckoo: Newish bar on Mission and Valencia. I don't know, it's probably better when it's dark out. We got there at 7:30 and it was still bright out and it didn't seem exactly right. I like the feel of the place, and there are the usual artisanal cocktails and hand-muddled herbs and whatever and also a guy showed up and started playing a Wurlitzer organ and we all got a little Twin Peaks-ed out and went across the street to Knockout for beers. I'll try it again, though. 6.8/10

Nickie's: I always forget how much I like Nickie's. Everyone there is super nice and it's got a great convivial vibe, which you want from a pub-feeling kind of place, and I always manage to get into a conversation with a stranger here, usually someone interesting. I gotta start going there more often. 8/10 [Oh look, I wrote about Nickie's in 2008 and said about the same things. Well, good to know it's still good.] [Also, Nickie's, your website auto-plays music! BAD!!! BAD!!!!]

The brunch I made at home on Sunday: Scrambled eggs with andouille sausage, green onion, and cheddar. Hash browns. Fresh fruit. Mimosas. Fucking heavenly. 10/10

Le Colonial: Sunday was like the perfect night to sit on the veranda (and I do not use that term lightly) and have what turned out to be some really, really good Vietnamese/French food. Again with the weird cocktails, though! I got a mojito and it had orange juice in it. Yuck. But the food was outstanding and it's a great atmosphere out there on a warm night. Fucking expensive as hell, but sometimes you just gotta go for it. 8.2/10

Guy Getting Shot by BART Police at Civic Center Station on Sunday Night: They got a report of a guy with an open container of alcohol acting drunk at Civic Center Station? Dude, that is EVERY DAY AT CIVIC CENTER STATION. Fuck, I'VE been that guy at Civic Center Station. Good thing I didn't get shot. Anyway, I'm sure that it will be determined that the cops acted reasonably and whatever. That's how these things always turn out. 3.5/10

Cedar Rapids: I guess I would describe it as "cute." It's a cute movie. There are a few laughs, and John C. Reilly should get nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role as the Huge Douchebag. He was really fucking phenomenal. Worth Netflixing, I guess.

Illegal Fireworks in the Mission Last Night: Jesus Christ, people, WHAT THE FUCK. It sounded like a fucking war out there. I chugged a bottle of wine around 10 to take the edge off so I could go to bed without having flashbacks triggered and then I realized I didn't have any flashbacks to trigger but it was still pretty intense and the wine helped anyway. 1/10