You should have brunch at La Urbana

When La Urbana, the sleek and expensive-looking fancy Mexican restaurant was going in on Divisadero, I have to confess I was predisposed not to like it.  A, I'm kind of an asshole and not above judging places without knowing anything about them and B, it seemed like the most conspicuous symbol of the Divis Corridor's transformation from a regular SF neighborhood with a 5-and-10 store, a pretty good Thai restaurant, an agreeable neighborhood bar, an auto repair shop, and so on, into Valencia II: Son of Fleece Vest, and that kinda bummed me out. But then it was Mother's Day and that's the hardest day of the year to score a brunch res for and they had availability and one thing led to another and we brunched at La Urbana yesterday.

I am so sorry I thought those mean things about you, La Urbana.  That brunch was fucking great.

FIRST OF ALL it was Mother's Day and they were handing out free champagne.  Maybe just to Moms?  I had a Mom with me - not mine, God forbid, but the mom of my child - and she didn't want hers and they seemed cool with just giving it to me instead.  I'm not 100% sure if they'll be giving out free champagne next weekend but I guess you can ask.

One of the things on the brunch menu is tortillas and avocado.  It's an appetizer I guess and it costs $4.  ORDER THIS.  These tortillas are dreamy and tasty and soft and melt in your mouth and why have I been eating those corn-flavored discs all these years.

L-R: Kid's plate, mid-avocado destruction, Strawberry Drink, aforementioned avocado, the Ur-tortillas, few strands of Wife's hair.

Also in this picture: a shot glass with some kind of strawberry liquid that you get as an amuse bouche.  My kid held it up to me and said "THIS IS STRAWBERRY DRINK!"  She then ate an entire half of an avocado.  (She pronounces it "abogado" which means "lawyer" in Spanish and will no doubt lead to a hilarious Three's Company-style misunderstanding if she's in Mexico in the next year or so and asks for an attorney.)

I got the Frijoles Puercos - pork & beans, essentially - with a big house-made chorizo link that was fantastic and some volcanically spicy refried beans and excellent scrambled eggs sprinkled with cotija,  Also some chipotle salsa that mostly avoided because I was burning up from the beans.  Delicious.  Wife got chilaquiles but she wasn't feeling 100% and so wasn't totally into them.  They looked great, though.

One of the problems brunch enthusiasts such as myself face is that most places have the same things.  There's a benedict, that's an omelet, here's a scramble.  That's wonderful and I love all that stuff but just finding something that feels DIFFERENT is nice.

I want to go back and get the carne asada hash next time.  Jesus that sounds good.

Total bill before tip was like $46 which is pretty good for 3 people for brunch in this town.  Of course, the booze was free and so if you're normal let's say $100.

One small complaint: I know you're a sleekly modern and grown-up City Restaurant, but you could throw together a kid's menu of some kind for brunch.  We ended up ordering kid an order of scrambled eggs and it was fine but there were a LOT of kids there and it's always nice to see 3 or 4 things that are kid-sized.  Just a thought.

Here's what they don't tell you in parenting class

On the occasion of Beyonce's third birthday, here's what I've learned about having a kid, so far, in part.

1. They start out eating just one thing, then will pretty much eat anything, then go back down to one or two things.

They start off with milk (and formula too, which is totally fine despite what militant breastfeeding types will tell you).  Then she started eating pretty much everything we were eating.  Her first two words after "Mama" were "bus" and "tortilla," if that gives you any clue.  I think her first favorite food was pad thai, which she'll still eat on occasion.  I never even heard of pad thai until I was like 23.  Then as she got a little older she got pickier.  No more broccoli.  No more corn.  Mostly mac and cheese.  She loves mac and cheese like teenage girls love One Direction.  I'm exaggerating about only liking one or two things, but she definitely won't eat the rainbow any more. Luckily she still likes fruit.

2. "It goes by so fast" is bullshit.

The biggest lie the baby-industrial complex has ever foisted on the American public is that "time just flies, you'll wake up one day and she's off to college."  Total crap,  She just turned 3 and it seems like it's been about 6 years.  I don't even remember her not being here.  DON'T GET ME WRONG I love her to death and wouldn't have it any other way but she gets up by 6:45 am at the latest every day and basically never stops talking.  It's kinda exhausting.  Time does not fly under those conditions.

3. Kids are kind of hilarious

Yesterday morning she wanted me to sing "Happy Birthday" to her so I did.  Then she had her sunglasses sing "Happy Birthday" to me in a funny voice even though it wasn't my birthday and her sunglasses are not sentient creatures as far as I know.  Shit like that cracks me up.  She also got "actually" from another kid at preschool and now says "actually" all the time like she's #notallmen on Twitter.  "Actually I would rather have cereal."  OK then.

4. Kids have the emotional response of Britney Spears that day she shaved her head

Sometimes they just lose their fucking shit for no reason.  We have literally asked her "Why are you crying right now?" and she's said "I don't know why I'm crying! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!"  One second she'll be happy and totally chill and then she gets the bad news that we're not having cupcakes for breakfast and WHAM total fucking meltdown.  I know it's all a totally normal developmental stage blah blah blah fine but just get a Livejournal already and let it out there.

5. TV is your secret weapon. Use it but don't abuse it.

There are parents who say "We don't allow our kids to watch TV." They are lying.  Sometimes you really just need 30 minutes to put some laundry in or stare blankly into middle distance and there is nothing wrong with letting Dora co-parent for a spell.  We keep a lid on it and don't just park her in front of the screen for hours on end but I firmly believe there is nothing wrong with catching some shows.

6. Overall, it's great

Big picture?  So far it's pretty great.  We're probably on the lucky end because apart from a few tantrums here and there, our kid is pretty chill and goes to bed without any trouble pretty much every night and is usually down for whatever, but on the whole, yeah, it's great.

Happy Birthday, kid.

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.

I need a ruling on this restaurant issue

SCENE: A bustling, fairly trendy restaurant in San Francisco.  The kind of place with artisanal cocktails that all have one ingredient you have no idea what it is and waitresses with full sleeves.  The Wife and I are out on one of our very very very very very very rare nights out together.  Baby Beyonce - who is now Toddler Beyonce I guess or even Kid Beyonce, because she's almost 3 and speaks in full sentences and has opinions about things - is being babysat by her great-aunt and great-uncle.

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS: Having drinks, perusing the menu.  I pick the following option:

OK!  I definitely know what beef is.  I know what braised means.  I kinda know what kohlrabi is - some kind of cabbage thing? Hey, the Times is ON IT.  I know what lollipops and kale are, never had them together, but what the hell, I like them both so it couldn't be that bad.  I even sort of know what bagna cauda is!  It's like a vegetable sauce you dip shit in, like a less-fun fondue.  OK, let's do it.

After the obligatory deviled eggs (seriously, if you have a restaurant and you don't have a deviled egg appetizer you might as well just fucking send your address in to Eater's "Restaurants That Closed" because you are FUCKED), entrees arrive.  It looks fine!  It's a little bit of beef with some green stuff sprinkled around it.

Now, of course, like all restaurants in San Francisco of the aught-teens, it is PITCH BLACK inside and so I'm basically eating blind but I take a couple of bites and it's fine, and then suddenly I take a bite and BOOM my mouth is full of fish taste.  ACK ACK WHY IS THERE FISH ON THIS.  I didn't ask for fish and don't want fish.  And this is like really sharp fishy fish.  Ugh.  My life is ruined.

The Wife sees me convulsing and examines the dish with her superior eyesight.  "It's an anchovy," she says.  WHY GOD WHY.  Why have you cursed my otherwise satisfactory dish with the loathsome presence of anchovies, the broccoli of the sea?

THE DISPUTE: Do I say something to the waitress or not?  Something like, "Excuse me, but I think some mental deficient in the kitchen accidentally sprayed stale fish all over my otherwise edible beef" or "Excuse me, I think someone's pizza from 1975 is missing something" or "Excuse me, please get this the fuck out of my sight."  The Wife says no, so I accede to her wisdom and say nothing.

(Further research conducted IMMEDIATELY after leaving reveals that bagna cauda "is made with garlic, anchovies, olive oil, butter, and in some parts of the region cream." Which, fine, mix them in the BC if you must, but that doesn't mean drape them all over my meat like a fish blanket.)

I guess I should have said something but I'm always like who does that?  I don't want to be that guy.

Anyway, have a good weekend.

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.

I have seen the future of fancified fast food, and it is the McDonalds on Sutter Street

While we weren't looking, the Food Engineers at McDonalds snuck into the Union Square area and installed a new restaurant.

Did I say "new restaurant"?  Yes I did.  But that's not right.  They installed THE FUTURE. (ominous organ music)

Outside it looks like it could be any McDonalds.  INSIDE it looks like Ikea and Virgin Airlines got together and decided to serve delicious meat.

Are you tired of pointing at the #2 on a grimy plate of pictographs and grunting incomprehensibly to a Pusher Drone?  NO MORE.  Now you order directly from a snooker table-sized iPad.

I was so blown away by THE FUTURE that I forgot to take a picture of the Hot Meat Order Entry Kiosk so thanks to Yelp user "John C." for grabbing this snap for me to steal and use on my blog to make $$$$ that John C. will share no part in.

Just like checking in at the airport, there are friendly Worker Bees buzzing around the kiosks to tell you how to push every single screen and basically render the kiosks a useless piece of technology because they're holding your hand through the whole thing.  DESPITE THIS I STILL somehow ended up accidentally ordering guacamole on my Fresh 100% Angus Burger and I don't even like guacamole on Mexican food much less on my burger,  IT'S NOT A HAMBURGESAS PEOPLE IF YOU'RE NOT IN CIUDAD JUAREZ.

But oh the choices!  Forget your usual QPC slapped together off an assembly line.  I picked the ciabatta roll and the sharp cheddar and the grilled onion and NOT GUACAMOLE as I indicated before although they tried to stick me with guacamole.

Then you go and sit down and THEY BRING YOU THE FOOD.

Check this shit out.  The fries come in a little fake fryer basket!  Je t'adore! And as you can see my burger is piled high with grilled onions and also tomato WHICH I DID NOT ORDER.  There are a few kinks to work out with the Calorie Delivery Kiosks still.

I set the tomato aside.  Later, a McDonalds employee approached and asked me if there was something wrong with the tomato and I said I DON'T REALLY KNOW BUT I JUST DIDN'T WANT IT and he said "I just want to make sure every order is perfect."  WHAT THE FUCK.

The Wife got a Filet O Fish which was not special in any way.  It was just pretty much your standard off the shelf Filet O Fish.  I recommend that McDonalds get their shit together in the fish department and start frying some individual fillets and dressing up the FOF a little.

The burger was actually really good.  It was like 73% better than a normal QPC.  I will definitely go back.  You should go there today.

Can you eat at the Rainforest Cafe and live to tell about it? Possibly!

Last Wednesday was my daughter's second birthday.  Happy Birthday Beyonce!  We took the day off work and went to Fisherman's Wharf to see the sea lions and ride the carousel and that kind of shit.  A couple of observations: (1) if you have to go to Fisherman's Wharf, it is much, much better to go on a Wednesday in March than, say, a Saturday in August; and (2) Pier 39 is still as terrifying and touristy as ever.  A shop that just sells puppets!  A man wearing a Bikini Inspector t-shirt!  Italians!

Then we went to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, which is what would happen if the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland opened a restaurant.  Lots of animatronic animals that go off every few minutes and a very loud soundtrack of Reggae for White People.  You enter, of course, through the Gift Shop, where one might purchase such items as a "Bag of Rocks" for $6 I swear to God I am not making this up.  I was hoping it would just be a random bag of gravel and sand but it's those polished rocks but still.

The actual restaurant is upstairs.  The best way I can describe the odor is that it smells like a wet dog.  I guess after years and years of dampness (and it is really humid or something in there) you just can't get the smell out of the carpet any more.

GODDAMIT this picture turns sideways when I post. Fucking Blogger.  Seriously I should have broken up with you a long time ago. Is it impossible to edit pictures in WordPress?  Because in Blogger you have to fucking join Google+ or some shit just to edit pictures.  Fuck that.

That was the view from our table.  The tiger would go off with a loud recorded roar every five minutes or so.  The elephant in the background flaps its ears back and forth.  The kid, of course, found this all delightful.

The food was not as bad as I thought, somewhere between airport and hotel banquet.  It was expensive as fuck, though.  Lunch was $64 after tip for 3 of us and we didn't even have booze, although RC is not shy about pushing fruity tropical drinks on you like you're on spring break.

But fuck it, the kid had a blast and it wasn't anywhere close to as bad as I imagined it would be.  Plus our server, Oscar, was incredibly friendly and nice and he must get stiffed by Europeans all day and to stay that nice must really take it out of you so I tipped him like 25% and should have gone higher but by that point I was starting to feel dizzy and overwhelmed and that tiger kept yelling at me.

There's also a downstairs bar that wasn't in use when we went.  On the way out there was a guy using a selfie stick (ugh) to take a picture of himself in the empty bar.  Where are you in your life when you're using a phone on a stick to take a picture of yourself alone in an empty Rainforest Cafe bar.  Are you shooting an ad for Despair?

Anyway, if I had an extra $100 burning a hole in my pocket and was at Fisherman's Wharf around lunchtime, I might go back.  Not alone, though.

The Bachelor: The Utterly Predictable and Boring Conclusion!!!

Yes, we have reached the end of what Chris Harrison calls the "wildest season in Bachelor history" which I guess is true if you think milk is wild.  Back in the frozen wasteland of Arlington, Farmer stares at the void to which he is trying to entice a mate.

Here comes Baby Voice.  Meeting the Farmily drives her pitch up to a level audible only by dogs.  Let's meet Mom, a sturdy type who looks like she could farm the shit out of something, and sit down for, what, sloppy joes?  Really?  That's the best we can do?  You know you're on TV, right?  BV goes around telling everyone how she can't wait to destroy her fulfilling career she's dreamed her whole life of having and move to this desolate abyss.  Farmer, meanwhile, informs the Sisters Three that he thinks Baby Voice will keep him "grounded" like what the fuck if you were any more grounded you'd be a fucking potato.

Next up is the Virg.  Playing to type, she brings cookies instead of wine like that whorebag from yesterday.  She gets the same sitdown with the sisters but blows it by telling them she's not sure she wants to move to Lunar Surface, IA.  Virg tells Mom she can't figure out why Farmer is single.  Fuck, I can even figure that out: because the only humans he ever comes into contact with are his own fucking family, duh.  Anyway, at this point it's so screamingly obvious how it's going to turn out that we all as a nation kinda lost interest.

Back in Dubuque, the Rio de Janeiro of Iowa, Farmer is going on family-free dates with our two finalists.  Farmer needs to have an important talk with Virg but it's hard because she's apparently staying in a Motel 6 by the freeway.  

Virg isn't 100% sure she wants to move to Arlington and says she doesn't know what she would do there.  I guess you don't know that my neighbor's sister makes $87 hourly on the computer . She has been without work for five months but last month her income was $21602 just working on the computer for a few hours. learn this here now..............

Dubuque proves too exciting and Baby Voice's final date is back on the farm.  They're going "harvesting" but it looks like they're working a big field of deadness so all BV will be harvesting is boredom and despair.  In a rare bit of insight, she says "This could be my future for a long, long, long, long time."  Then it's back to the Farmer pad, which looks like someone paid to stage a freeway rest area.

Let's get to the fucking finale of this borefest.  Usually the Big Proposal is in Fiji or St. Maarten or some other place where you can get a fucking drink, but this time it's BACK ON THE FUCKING FARM.  Here comes Jeweler to the Stars Neil Lane who looks a little stunned to be in Iowa like WHAT IS THIS PLACE WHERE IS MR. CHOW OH GOD ONE OF THESE PRE-LEATHER JACKET THINGS BRUSHED UP AGAINST ME.  Looks like the proposal will be at a creepy abandoned barn left over from filming True Detective.  WHO WANTS TO PROPOSE IN CARCOSA!

Virg arrives at the Death Chamber first.  He lets her down with the old "you're gonna make somebody incredibly lucky."  That person is actually you, Becca!  She actually doesn't even cry in the Crying Limo.  Meanwhile Farmer stares at his tractor for a long time.  WHY CAN'T YOU BE A PERSON I LOVE YOU TRACTOR.

Blah blah blah he gets engaged to Baby Voice.  You really can get married after 3 1/2 dates!  Love is so real.

I didn't watch the whole aftershow but The Wife informs that the Shocking Announcement is that instead of just Kaitlyn being the Bachelorette, she and Britt are going to have to compete and let the men choose which one.  Oh for fucking fuck's sake, ABC.  God forbid we do anything without men deciding.  Fuck everything.

Watch me go full Comic Book Guy on this clip from Parenthood

Parenthood is a soap opera for grownups about members of an extended family that supposedly live in the Bay Area.  It's also pretty clearly shot in LA, and because The Wife is now extraordinarily tired of me shouting at the TV "THAT'S NOT SAN FRANCISCO!!!  THOSE PEOPLE JUST PARKED IN FRONT OF THEIR HOUSE LIKE IT WAS NO BIG THING!!! THEY'RE OUTSIDE AT NIGHT IN T-SHIRTS!!!!," I'll have to take it to the Internet again.  *shakes fist*

In the last episode, two of the characters supposedly are going to see a band at the Elbo Room, which is an actual real place in SF (for a little while longer, anyway).  (You can watch the scene here; fast forward to about 27:20.) This is what the actual Elbo Room, which is on Valencia, looks like:

Photo via Pinballnews.com, which is a real thing and had the best picture of the Elbo Rom I could find after looking for 35 seconds

And in the Make Believe Fantasy World of Parenthood, this is what the Elbo Room looks like:

Huh.  Not bad, actually!  They sorta got the sign font right and even included the corner doorway.

But look at this, down the side of the club:

Can you see the Transamerica Pyramid from Sycamore and Valencia?  I don't think you can.  Also, guess what, Sycamore Street?  You are now served by a cable car!  (It's slightly visible lower left, and you can see the tracks there.)  DING DING!  As all establishing shots in San Francisco must begin, a cable car passes through at the beginning of the scene.

Then it goes from merely inaccurate to absurd.  As one of the characters, Crosby, approaches the door, he is searched by a bouncer wearing a headset.

A bouncer wearing a headset.  At Elbo Room.

The bouncer reaches into his jacket and pulls out Crosby's "weed."

The idea that the doorman at Elbo Room would (1) search someone's jacket pockets, (2) pull out a baggie of marijuana, and (3) not let the person enter Elbo Room carrying said marijuana is about as likely as the Elbo Room having a VIP lounge where professional athletes order bottles of Ace of Spades and make it rain.  Any two-bit stoner who can roll a joint has a medical marijuana card.  Plus is weed even illegal any more?

Crosby protests that all he wants to do is "burn a little leaf in the toilet."  We're done here.

World Series game 7: Damn.

On July 29, the Giants lost to the Pirates 3-1.  It was their sixth straight loss.  Dan Uggla went 0 for 3 and struck out twice.  Dan Uggla, ladies and gentlemen.

Everybody said "THESE GUYS ARE GOING TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!! THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!!!! GET ME SOME OF THAT GIANTS BRANDED CHAMPAGNE AND LET'S POP IT NOW!!!!"

No, nobody said that.  Everybody said this team sucks.

Today, Dan Uggla is sitting in a man cave somewhere looking down at his hand and picturing a World Series ring on it.

It is hard to describe how improbable this whole thing is.  On October 1, me and a friend agreed that it would just be better to lose the wild card play-in against the Pirates than have to endure the grim reality of getting ground up in the playoffs.  The Giants winning the World Series this year is like Matt Damon just hanging around Boston and sticking with his construction job at the end of Good Will Hunting.

So after getting genocided 10-0 on Tuesday night, things did not look good.  The Giants were sending out Tim Hudson, a retiree from Georgia who broke into the big leagues before players used mitts and has a postseason record of 0-132.  Tim Hudson managed to carry the ball to the plate for about an inning and a half.  Thanks, Tim.  You can hit the early bird now.

The Giants cobbled together a couple of runs in the top of the 2nd and then in the bottom of the 2nd Billy Butler, who I'm sure is a nice man with a good family, singled and then Alex Gordon doubled and then Omar Infante sac flied and Gordon scored and it was 2-2.  Jeremy Affledt came in and calmed shit down.  Now the Giants just needed a run.  HAVE NO FEAR, BRUCE BOCHY IS KISSING SOME BATS.

The side-eye is tremendous.

They got it in the 4th, a Morse single that scored Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval.  3-2.  NOW WHO SHOULD PROTECT THAT LEAD.

Everybody knew what was about to happen.  Madison Bumgarner was coming in.  Based on what I understand, Madison Bumgarner grew up in a log cabin HE BUILT WITH HIS OWN HANDS AS AN INFANT and invented cows.  He is as strong as rhinoceros on androstenedione and as calm and placid as a 37th-level yogi.  Despite having already pitched in 2 other games, he came into this one on 2 days rest and threw 5 innings.  Poor Royals.

Afterwards, Chevy Man passed from mortal to legend. And the Giants have won another World Series.  Prior to the start, The Wife said that whoever scored first would win.  She is an oracle, I'm telling you.

Prepare to be hated, fellow Giants fans, for we are now basically Yankees fans.  Oh well.

They've already got the banners up.  That was fast.

CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this story, we reported that Kansas City Designated Hitter Billy Butler "looks like chromosome damage and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome got together and had a party." After further consideration, this was unnecessarily mean and not in the spirit of being a good winner.  40 Going On 28 regrets the error.

World Series Game 1: Boring

I'm not gonna say that I have amazing predictive powers, but do I have amazing predictive powers or what?

(CAVEAT 1: Only if you consider 7-1 a "blowout." 7-1 could be a blowout!)

(CAVEAT 2: Please ignore the Readers Digest Large Print Edition font size but I'm so old I wear contacts AND use reading glasses sometimes and setting my iPhone font size to "Elderly Man" is the only way I can read/write texts without putting on glasses.  I'm at an age where every male in my peer group has to lift up their glasses to look at something you're showing them on your phone.  Don't laugh, you're going to get old and die someday too.)

OKAY THEN.  Here's the Giants plan: (1) Lay low for a whole season and don't make anyone think they're a contender; (2) Sneak into the playoffs via a one-game play-in system that didn't exist a few years ago; (3) Rough up the other side's ace in the first inning of Game 1, just like the last Series they went to.

First inning: Fucking GREGOR BLANCO gets a leadoff hit.  That should be the sign that something is very wrong.  I'm sure Gregor Blanco is a very nice man but he is not a major league leadoff hitter except oh maybe he is.  There's some silliness with Buster Posey getting thrown out at home AGAIN and then boom, Hunter Pence home run.  3-0.

“It was really loud in my head,” Pence said.

I bet it's always really loud in your head, Hunter.  Anyway, thanks to some early runs and then the coolly efficient killing machine known as Madison Bumgarner, a human lawnmower who is expressionless as he destroys and thinks mercy is for suckers, this game was boring.  Admit it, you were bored.

It gave us time to reflect on other things.  LIKE IS KEN ROSENTHAL REALLY THAT TINY??!!?

Not Photoshopped, I swear to fucking God

WHAT THE FUCK.  That's a railing behind him and then that oddly malevolent guy has to be, what, at least 6, 7 feet back.  Let's do some math.

I don't want to bore you with the calculations, but my scientists inform me that Ken Rosenthal is about three and a half feet tall.  He is a tiny Reporter Pixie, plucked from the Magic Forest to annoy the fuck out of us on Fox.

That's about it.  Nothing much happened.  One Royals guy hit a home run, and Billy Butler, whose head is as spherical and featureless as an orange, came close to one but missed and he looked so sad and little leaguer that The Wife actually felt bad for him.

Let's don't kid ourselves.  It's not over.  The Royals are an actual baseball team with real players and Madison Bumgarner can't pitch every night.  Actually, he probably could but that wouldn't be fair.  Anyway, more games coming.  It's going to be really loud in our heads.

Sorry I've been away

Honestly, I've been sick as fuck.

This all started Thursday night after a seemingly pleasant dinner and then drinks with some friends at mini-Austin and then I went home and went to bed and WHAMMO woke up at 2:30 a.m. sweaty and nauseous and all kinds of other bad shit.

Same on Friday and Saturday and Sunday and pretty much Monday.  At first I thought it was food poisoning but now I think it was some kind of flu because of how long it lasted.  Anyway, struggled back in to work today so they remember who I am and what I do around here and so that's why I haven't posted anything in a while.

Lying there shivering pouring sweat out of every pore and praying for death I did get some good blog post ideas though so stay tuned.

Now all that's left is an INCREDIBLY painful totally clogged left ear which I've been trying to treat via various bullshit recommendations from the Internet.  I know, not exactly South Sudan, but it hurts.  I'm sure it'll get better.

So that's about it.  I rarely get sick like this so it's really upset the whole herd.  Gotta give mad props to The Wife for basically doing everything while I lay in bed moaning/reading Countdown City/napping/alternating between uncontrollable shivering and gushing sweat like a fat guy in a sauna/not sleeping at all at night.  She's an angel sent from heaven.

The baby, eh, she wasn't really any help at all.

We'll be back soon.

OK, time to pick a Premier League team

Hello! Ugly American over here.  Every 4 years I watch World Cup matches and announce to (1) my now-jaded Wife, and (2) no one in particular "OK! THIS is the year I'm finally getting into soccer."  So this is it.  I'm finally getting into soccer.

Now, I could get into MS or MSA or whatever the American soccer league is called but that's both boring and not nearly pretentious enough.  No, the only answer for Coastal Elites such as myself is to get into the English Premier League, which accomplishes the twin goals of being inaccessible and foreign.  It's kind of like being a fan of New Zealand new wave or Icelandic food.

SO THAT BEING SAID now I need to pick a team.  I was vaguely following Chelsea the last time I had this impulse, because I wanted my team to always sort of be in the running, and Chelsea always seem to do OK.  I gather that they're universally loathed by supporters* of other teams and they have an owner everyone hates so I guess they're the Cowboys of soccer.  That's a strike against them.  But I like the color blue, so that's a for. Plus, look at this adorable baby soccer hoodlum hooligan tracksuit I could get for Beyonce!

[* You call soccer fans "supporters," not "fans." Also, you don't call it "soccer," you call it "football."  Also, they sell liquor in vending machines.]

Then  there's Manchester United.  They win all the time!  They won in 2013, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007, and on and on and on.  That's boring.

Arsenal would be a good choice because I happen to know they have a violently active local fan base that gets up at 3 a.m. or something to watch matches at a bar in North Beach.  Morning drinking is always welcome but I just can't even with that.

What about Everton!  Everton is appealing because of the presence of Tim Howard, the amazing American goalkeeper who almost singlehandedly beat Belarus or Belgium or whoever.

But Everton never wins anything.  That would be no fun, to follow a team all season (or whatever they call a season) knowing you're not going to win.  (They won the FA Cup in 1995 but that's a long time ago. Also who cares.)

The Wife likes Tottenham Hotspur mostly because she likes to say "Tottenham Hotspur." She grew up in Ireland, so she was more into rugby and hurling, which I've still never figured out but involves a ball and some sticks and is apparently extremely dangerous.

Liverpool would be nice because the Beatles are from Liverpool.

There's a bunch of others but I'm already tired of this.  I'm sticking with Chelsea.  It's like being stuck in a dead-end job at a gas station: I'm not particularly in love with it, but I already have the jacket.

R.I.P. Dog

Leland was a cream-colored chihuahua-terrier mix.  That's what it said on his Rocket Dog Rescue info sheet, anyway.  I guess he could just be "white" but "cream" sounds nicer, doesn't it?  Rocket Dog got him from a shelter in Los Banos and then gave him to us.  The first time he came to our house for an audition he promptly pooped in the hallway, twice.  I think he was just nervous.  We still took him.

Leland loved the beach a lot.  He also loved Bernal Hill and Stern Grove and McLaren Park and a good sunny spot.

He would throw back his head and howl along with you if you got close to him and went "WOOOOOOO."  He also flipped the fuck out if anyone rang the doorbell.  The first time the doorbell rings and I don't hear maniacal barking is going to be tough.

Leland slept in bed, under the covers, on his back or on his side, pressed up against The Wife like a hot water bottle.  He would chase toys and bring them back to you, but only inside.  Chasing toys is a private activity.

Leland got lymphoma and we have to put him to sleep today.  He's been a part of our life for so long it's hard to imagine it without him.  No more dog-shaped indentations in the pillows on the bed.  No more dog hovering by the baby's high chair, waiting for her to drop food to him.  No more lying in the sun.  No more trips to the beach.

We love you, little guy.  Thanks for always being there for us.  Thanks for being such a good dog.

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.

Attack of the Smoke Detector Bird

Baby Beyonce is 13 months now (and fucking adorable, I assure you) and at this point her sleep pattern is such that she goes to bed around 7 pm and gets up maybe once or twice a night, usually around 1:30-2:30 and then sometimes again in the 4:00-5:00 range.  The Wife typically attends to her during these fairly routine and brief episodes.  Other than that, getting enough sleep has not been too bad.

Until recently.

We have a large tree in our backyard, and it appears that it has now become the morning hang of some kind of bird.  I'm not sure what kind of bird exactly except it sounds like the LOUDEST MOST DEFECTIVE SMOKE DETECTOR IN HISTORY and its preferred time to GO FUCKING NUTS is about 5:30 a.m.

Here's the tree. NOT PICTURED: Smoke Detector Bird

I know you're thinking I'm overdramatizing this but we sleep with a white noise machine on in our room and the call of the Smoke Detector Bird cuts through that like a Caramel Unwrapper through the quiet part of the symphony.  It might be OK if it had any kind of pleasing, mellifluous tone, but it's more like an abrasive BEEP every half second.  I tried to identify it online and the closest I could come is the Downy Woodpecker but that's probably not it.  The sound is close but not nearly as annoying.

One morning last week I finally lost it and decided to take some action, so at 5:45 a.m. I got up and found half a lemon in the fridge.  I opened the back door (we're on the second floor so we're level with the tree) and fucking CHUCKED THAT THING at the tree.  Voila, the sound of BEEPing receding into the distance.

It's back again.  This morning, right on schedule at 5:30.  Fucking bird.  I don't have an infinite supply of lemons so I don't know what the fuck.  I think we might have to move.

ONE OTHER THING.  Another year of SF Weekly's Best of San Francisco awards, another year I didn't win Best Blog.  Um, congratulations, Bold Italic.

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.

Credit where credit is due: United

As you may know, I've had beef with United Airlines for quite some time.  One time, hilariously, I went to Arizona through LAX and United fucked up 3 out of the 4 segments. But if it's fair to bitch about it when things go wrong (and my oh may do I enjoy that), you must also give praise when things go right.

SO GOOD JOB UNITED ON THIS LAST TRIP.

Once again we were off to see Mom in Arizona.  The less said about what actually happened there the better, but if you follow me on Twitter you know it wasn't particularly fun.  Anyway, instead of giving United 4 chances to fuck it up, we booked a direct flight from SFO to Tucson.  Slightly more expensive (about $370 apiece) but hopefully worth it in the reduced chances of fuckup.  Also, with a kid it's nice because it's one straight two-hour shot instead of flying to LA, getting off one plane, getting on another plane, blah blah blah.

Both flights were on one of those smaller planes, namely an Embraer CRJ-200.

PHASE ONE: SFO TO TUCSON.  It went great!  The Wife and I were separated by a few rows, and I was handed Beyonce and told to look after for two hours.  Meanwhile, The Wife enjoyed two hours of uninterrupted reading time, something she does not normally get.  I was in seat 1A and guess what?  I was surrounded by a group of 8 women off to a spa resort weekend.  You can imagine the reaction Beyonce got.  That 2 hours fucking FLEW BY.  We got to Tucson 1 minute early.  GOLD STAR FOR YOU UNITED.

PHASE TWO; TUCSON TO SFO.  After a few days with Mom, we were a little PTSD-y and really needed things to work.  I was just waiting for United to cancel the flight.  They did not.  We were sitting next to each other this time which was fine.  The flight left on time and got to SFO 15 minutes early.  Here is Beyonce pointing at Watsonville.

So, all in all, a total success.  Maybe because United Express is operated by Skywest Airlines, posing as United, and not actually United?  Maybe Skywest should take over all of United's routes! Then we'd actually get somewhere.

The Bachelor: Don't touch Mama

It's Hometowns Week!  What does that mean to you?  Nothing hopefully.  What it means to me is that I have to watch this fucking show 2 nights in a row.  See you in hell, ABC.

Oh great, we're starting in Kansas City.  I have beef with Kansas City, so to speak.  Anyway, that's where Rootsy's from.  Figures.  They do the usual park meetup and then go get some BBQ and then go to an empty bar and ride a mechanical bull.  It's like Urban Cowboy but with less Scott Glenn and more peroxide and vapidness.  Over to Rootsy's house, where everyone is so scrubbed and white and wholesome that the one brother with a neatly trimmed beard is so outré by comparison that he might as well be a heroin addict public masturbator.  Rootsy's a Rich and her house is one of those usual suburban nightmares where it looks like Pier One threw up on Country Living.  They have dinner next to a Viking Great Hall fireplace and they're all "whatever decision is fine" and nothing interesting happens except Roots tells Dad that being a Suddenly Mom at 26 will be no problem because she's been shown a lot of love!  HO HO HO.  If that made sense, beagle puppies could operate an MRI machine.

Act II: Atlanta.  Andi.  Her hair is two different colors now!  The Wife says, mysteriously, that this is due to "Ombre," which I gather is a contagious disease of some kind that gives you awful looking two-tone hair.  Oh, good, they're off to the shooting range.  Welcome to Stereotype America, Whan.  Andi describes herself as "salivating" over the prospect of popping off a few rounds and hey, whatever.  Whan is TERRIBLE at guns.  He finally hits the fucking target after like 30 tries.  If there is a poor charging at you and you need to Stand Your Ground, Whan is not the one you want holding the AR-15.

Andi's family is even more white and scrubbed than Rootsy's.  Dad LITERALLY looks like a bullet and there are probably not a lot of Obama voters in this household.  The producers are trying to make it look like Dad is some kind of maniacally confrontational asshole but he's actually just NORMAL in that he's somewhat suspicious of the idea of his daughter marrying some dude she's been on ONE date with.  Meanwhile, Mom is MILFing on Whan and touching his arm and asking him to dance and Andi literally throws herself between them like Jesus Mom you're embarrassing me please stop touching the foreigner.

Next we travel to Sarasota Florida and during the Establishing Shots they show the skyline and beach and WHOA WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS THING

In case you can't tell, that's not people recreating the famous picture, it's some kind of nightmarish public art thing that looks like it's about 40 feet tall and hopefully will one day come to life and trample the hapless citizenry.

(Oh God, it's 25 feet tall and somebody paid half a million dollars for it.)

Anyway, back to our regular horrifying thing.  Mom Renee is here.  "I'm going to literally eat my son when I see him" she says.  Your cannibal cult activities will not play here Renee!  Admittedly, her reunion with the kid is pretty cute, despite her failure to literally eat him.  They're at his little league game, and son Ben reports that he plays "shortstop, pitcher and catcher mostly" and JESUS CHRIST let's get this team some more personnel because Ben is stretched a little thin.  Renee's family seems OK.  Mom is clearly one of those ice-clinking-in-the-cocktail-tumbler-at-3-pm types and they're all fine and nothing happens.

Our last stop is beautiful Sacramento, the Kansas City of California.  Here's Krazy Klare and Whan says "I can't wait to see why you are the way you are."  ME TOO WHAN.  There's a strange interlude with something about dead Dad and then we're throwing rocks at the hapless geese in the pond and then off to meet the fam. HOLY SHIT IT'S A TON OF CHICKS.  Luckily they're all wearing different pastel colored shirts so we can tell them apart.  Sister # Whatever says "My dad was the ultimate Southern gentleman and Juan Pablo seems that way to me."  Yeah, if you KEEP GOING FARTHER AND FARTHER SOUTH.  Sister Green Shirt is officially here to piss on Clare's parade.  She thinks Clare is "manipulating Mama" who is apparently a mute and then hides in the bushes to make sure nobody talks to Mama?  Or something?  SGS makes Clare look like a Zen master.  Whan wants to talk to Mama and when SGS tries to body check him he uses the soothing tones you would use to calm a frightened animal or a schizophrenic and this seems to work.  Oh, Mama speaks Spanish!  Perfect, they can discuss how Venezuela is caliente, no I didn't make that up.  Mama actually has more sense than the rest of them combined.  Clare and Whan top it off with a makeout sesh that suggests she might violate the No More Fucking rule right there in the driveway.

OK, let's shoot this horse in the head.  We're in Miami and Whan reads a script about everyone's "amazing family" and whatnot.  First Rootsy then Krazy Klare and then since we've already seen 10,000 promos for tomorrow, we know it's Andi and not Mom.  Bad choice dude, now who's gonna therapy the other chicks when you don't have time?  Renee is on her way out and says "There are actually men exist like him" which yeah, I guess so.

Tune in tomorrow for some shocking something blah blah blah shoot me.

My favorite tweets of 2013

I meant to do this annually, but I did it once in 2010 and forgot.  Anyway, I feel like it's been a while and I need to post something and I don't really have anything substantive to say.

(You don't want to hear about recycling poachers any more, but let me just say that my next-door neighbor has invented a new way to make recycling poaching even more annoying.  Last night he waited until the RP was outside on the sidewalk and then rained down empty cans from his second-story window, like a medieval townsman emptying a chamber pot, except instead of shit it was empty aluminum cans that pinged off the sidewalk like TINK! TINK! TINK! while the RP scrabbled around scooping them all up.  Unbelievable.)

Without further ado.

Mondays, amirite? pic.twitter.com/zw2HAYR64Z

— Lindsey (@Lahlahlindsey) March 11, 2013

The look on the dog's face.

my Boston PD source says an arrest has been made and also he's not the fucking rat YOU'RE the fucking rat you lace-curtain motherfucker
— alex pareene (@pareene) April 17, 2013

Shazam, but for feelings.
— Kate Horton (@ladymisskate) May 4, 2013

Girl, are you a hotel swimming pool, because you sure are shallow and seem to have a chemical imbalance.
— clowntraps (@clowntraps) May 13, 2013

Well, I'm sure a Florida lottery winner will act responsi- (AIRSHIP MADE OF OLD FORD MUSTANGS AND ILLEGAL PETS EMERGES FROM THE CLOUDS)

— sir broosk (@celebrityhottub) May 19, 2013

That's one of my favorite tweets of all time, actually.

"She called her sister & they talked about what they ate & how guilty they felt about eating it." - NSA listening to my phone conversations

— Sonia Mansfield (@TheSoniaShow) June 7, 2013

@brittneyg oh sorry about that

— Richie Nakano (@linecook) June 23, 2013

Oh a start up?????!!!!!!! Sounds cool tell me mKILL YOURSELF

— Дашка (@dashkanekrasova) July 10, 2013

Topical!

Girl are you a University of Phoenix degree because I'm pursuing you online and from my couch

— MattyTalks (@mattytalks) July 19, 2013

I'm a big fan of the "Girl are you" and the "Girl you can call me" tweetforms.

*affixes a second leash to a hot babes dog while shes tying her shoe* would you look at that. we have the exact same dog. this is incredible

— Löwenäffchen (@Lowenaffchen) July 26, 2013

I just found this one a couple of days ago, even though it's from July, and have been laughing about it ever since.

Sometimes when I'm talking to someone, I imagine what they'd look like as a chair. I've been tested for autism twice.

— Molly McAleer (@molls) July 26, 2013

Hi I'm 2 Chainz, as you all know, I love big booty hoes. But there's nothing "big booty" about childhood diabetes

— Larry Bird (@stonerfish420) August 8, 2013

Realest dude alive is the guy dressed as a croissant at the Yeezus show.

— Otto Von Biz Markie (@Passionweiss) October 27, 2013

The Wife and I both laugh every time someone mentions this tweet, which is a lot in our house.

Wait what do you mean Jesus loves me? Did he say something to you? OMG I'm freaking out right now tell me his exact words.

— 5318008 (@primawesome) December 4, 2013

Strong contender for best tweet of the year.
See you next year! I promise to work harder on the content side.