If you live anywhere or have a TV or exist in the world you've seen Emirates Airlines' ubiquitous advertising, which usually features deeply contented youngish people casually enjoying a glass of probably scotch and a plate of probably lobster while seated in a plush beige airplane seat. The ads are plastered all over the Powell BART station even as we speak.
Photo courtesy: Me. For once, I didn't steal someone else's picture.
Many, if not most, of these ads feature some kind of unimaginable Ultimate Premium First Class. Like check out that chick on the right. She's just getting OUT OF THE FUCKING SHOWER on the airplane. I can't even stand up straight in an airplane bathroom and this lady's at a fucking air spa.
That's not all you get in First Class! You get to "savor gourmet meals whenever you please" and "join the conversation in our A380 Onboard Lounge," which looks like the douchiest bar this side of Eastside West.
"You ladies come here often? WANT TO?"
LOOKS GREAT. Who doesn't want to savor some gourmet meals and then shower off the scent of Axe body spray you'll get from standing in the same room as Chas up there? Let's go to, say, Singapore!
Yikes! That's a lot of money. Singapore's a long way away, though, and you can take lots of showers.
Point is, I've never seen another airline use as their primary marketing focus a class of service that 99% of its customers will ever see. Isn't it just setting up all us Coach Cattle for disappointment? "Wait, where's my shower? Can I go to the Onboard Lounge?" "SILENCE, DONKEY PERSON. RETAKE YOUR SEAT AND EAT YOUR FOOD PELLET QUIETLY!!!" Seems weird.
Anyway, we're off to the less exotic destination of San Diego via a United Flying Person Crate, so see ya later.
That's right, I've never seen a single episode of Full House. It originally aired between 1987 and 1995, or so Wikipedia tells me, a time in my life in which my interests were not aligned with family-friendly TV sitcoms. I understand that it was set in San Francisco and the Olsen twins were involved. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you a thing.
There is apparently a sequel series coming to Netflix. This trailer "dropped" as we say in the cool kids biz, yesterday or something.
I can tell it's set in SF because of the establishing shots of that bridge and Alamo Square. This is the exterior. I am informed by Google that it is at 1709 Broderick, vaguely near the bro-y section of Divisadero. I guess they probably hang out at Lion Pub.
Then there are some long shots of the interior. It looks expensive. These people were probably angel investors in Apple or something. The house is extremely staged. It is clear no one actually lives there.
BUT WAIT. At around 1:15, there is a development. A dog is in the house, apparently alone.
A car horn honks. Someone says, "Gosh, it feels good to be back. Hey, can someone help me with these boxes?" WHAT THE FUCK. Has the dog just been living in the fucking house alone since 1995? What has it been eating? Are there Olsen twins skeletons upstairs, stripped clean of flesh?
More voices. A group of people approach. The dog paws madly at the door. FINALLY, NEW FOOD. SALVATION.
Fade to black. Hopefully the next teaser trailer is the now-insane abandoned dog tearing them apart and gleefully consuming their limbs. THIS SHOW RULES.
Which means it's going to happen again. Probably soon.
Which means we need to get a pool going.
My initial idea was going to be that you have to pick a tech company AND a type of stupidity, so like if you had "Wash.io" and "Homeless-related" and Wash.io paid homeless people $5 to hand out flyers that said "Don't be as dirty as me" then you'd win. But there are too many ways in the universe to fuck up, so let's keep this simple. You just pick a tech company you think will fuck up in the next, say, 6 months, put it in the comments, and if you want to you can make a guess about how they do it but that's not required. So of course it's better if you say LYFT CHRISTMAS PARTY FEATURES ENDANGERED ANIMAL HORS D'OEUVRES but you can just say LYFT and that will do it.
Will there be a prize? Of course there will be a prize! I was thinking about making the prize this "Webvan Advertising Floaty Pen Eskesen Denmark Twist and Click Grocery Service" but if you read the fine print it doesn't even write any more! Just like Webvan itself, it is sadly defunct. I don't know, I'll think of something.
The deadline for entries is FRIDAY OCTOBER 30, for no particular reason. Let's go fuck up, tech companies!
For the past couple of hours, Airbnb has been getting slammed on social media for a San Francisco bus stop ad that was shared on Facebook. How bad was it? People (including Martha Kenney, who first shared the ad) started speculating that it may have been hoax, perhaps posted by someone who wanted to make Airbnb look bad.
via Techcrunch, and ultimately Martha Kenney, I guess. Thanks, Martha Kenney!
Oh yay! There's another Big Tech Conference in town which means a lot of dudes in goatees and dumb looking white cross-trainers will be runing over you on the sidewalk because they're looking at their phone. This one is even specialer though because something called "Bluewolf" decided to mark the event by putting shitty graffiti all over the goddam place.
According to their Twitter bio, "Bluewolf" "is a global consulting agency and proven Salesforce strategic partner that builds digital solutions designed to create results." I have no idea what the fuck that means. Bluewolf sounds like it should be a microbrewery in Boulder or a psych metal band from Austin. Instead I guess it's a bunch of jackoffs creating the fuck out of some results.
Gordon contacted the advertising firm contracted to do the work. The person she spoke with said his firm had tried to contact several city departments to get permission to post the logos, but was rebuffed. Still, more than 60 logos popped up on sidewalks Monday.
Gordon said the contractor — CivitasNow owner Jacob Taylor — told her his company would begin removing them.
But Blue Wolf CEO Eric Berridge doesn’t see the harm in plastering his company’s logo on the public sidewalks.
“We think it’s great for the city of San Francisco,” Berridge told us, noting that he lived in San Francisco for years after going to UC-Berkeley and growing up in Belmont. He said his company employs “hundreds” of people in the Bay Area.
He shrugged off any possible penalties from the city, saying “I’m sure that it will all work itself out. Everyone seems to be enjoying it. We went through the proper channels.”
Here's everything people loathe about tech companies in one neat package. Utterly oblivious tech CEO thinks "it's great for the city of San Francisco." How far up your own ass do you have to be to think that the City of San Francisco will enjoy your ugly graffiti that's meaningless to 98% of us? And who's enjoying it? Show me one person not employed by Bluewolf who's saying "Man, I wasn't sure this boring-ass lanyard party was going to be any fun, but these ads I can walk on have REALLY TURNED THINGS AROUND FOR ME!!!"
Sigh. It's just another example of tech treating San Francisco like their own little private playground and not a city with hundreds of thousands of people who don't give a shit about building digital solutions or optimizing results. Remember when that other tech thing celebrated making a ton of money by trashing Dolores Park and then walking away? Yeah, it's like that.
Jesus Christ, it's not that complicated. DON'T PAINT ADVERTISING ON PUBLIC PROPERTY. How can you not know that?
Why pay $2,700 a night for a one-bedroom suite at the Four Seasons on Market when you could get a whole house? Villainous, city-ruining AirBnB is here to help. Sure, you could get some crappy studio in Lower Pac Heights for $175 a night, but we're ballers and we don't roll like that. So I wanted to find out: WHAT'S THE MOST EXPENSIVE AIRBNB IN SF?
METHODOLOGY: I picked some dates more or less at random and then slid the money slider over to the top. Science!
The MOST expensive rental I came up with was the Payne Mansion, which features 17,000 square feet, 10 bedrooms and 2 industrial kitchens for $4249 a night, which actually seems PRETTY FUCKING REASONABLE for all that. I mean, Christ, put a couple in each bedroom and that's only $106 a head. 20 drunk people frolicking in the "Gran Ballroom"! Sounds like fun! But that doesn't count because it's already a hotel and shouldn't even be on AirBnB in the first place.
It's being rented out by "Erica" - IF THAT'S HER REAL NAME - from "TurnKey Vacation Rentals, a full service property management company based out of Austin, Texas," so I guess all that cash isn't even staying in California. I would say that this represents all the reasons people hate AirBnB but sinec this place would likely be occupied by some rich Facebook dbag, it's probably a wash.
I mean, it's fine? It's got 4 bedrooms and a large soaking tub and some kind of head statue in the living room that I definitely wouldn't want to look at if I was on mushrooms.
But over 2 grand a night? I don't think so. Especially when you can have this for $1144 a night:
Now we're talking. a 3-bedroom penthouse on Telegraph Hill. Oh my God I want to move into that photo and live there forever. And it has parking! In North Beach! Madre de dios.
Even so, I thought I would find some really ridiculous prices, like some dude's place at the Infinity for $10,000 a night or something. Fuck, the Presidential Suite at the Ritz Carlton is $6000 a night and probably doesn't have any weird head sculptures at all. Pick up your game, AirBnBers!
By now, you know the drill: do something awful, get a lot of press, and someone sets up a fundraising page and you are handsomely rewarded. (Here's just the latest example.)
Remember how everybody used to smoke? (Does not apply if you're a millennial; watch Mad Men and you'll get the idea.) Now hardly anybody smokes. I even used to smoke and I quit. One thing that happened is that everybody who smoked died. Also, people started looking at smoking as gross and nobody wanted to be around it.
By now, you know that almonds take a gallon of water APIECE to grow. Think about how much water we could save if people stopped eating almonds! So here's my idea: a massive PR campaign making almond eating as shameful as smoking.
Here's a few I threw together just to get us started.
(Quick note, I haven't registered Noalmonds.com yet, somebody better get on that before Big Almond swipes it out from under us.)
We'll also need to lobby local governments to set up NO ALMOND ZONES in restaurants and bars. "Almond consumption only in designated areas," like by the compost bin.
Might take 15-20 years, but we can make almond eating so repulsive and shameful only West Virginians will do it.
Please don a vomitproof garment before gazing on this promotional flyer from Colliers, marketing the uber hip new Vida development on Mission Street, "The Heart and Sol of San Francisco."
Distressingly, it appears that in the future, movies will consist solely of Iron Man and Harold & Kumar sequels, along with repeated showings of "Gatsby" and "Star Wars." Even the thinkfluencers of the Vida will eventually see their brains necrotize and rot after the 58th viewing of Iron Man 4.
This flyer appears to be an attempt to lure a business into the GROUND ! FLOOR! RETAIL! of the Vida. It has the cheery cluelessness common to real estate agents and marketing execs.
Hoo boy. Yes, we do love our "avante garde" theaters [sic] in the Mission, this "uber cool dinning [sic] and shopping destination." As soon as a real estate brochure labels your neighborhood "uber cool," it is officially over.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE.
"The Mission has been a beacon for all things 'tech' since the 1990's."
WHY YES THAT'S TRUE.
Mission Yuppie Eradication Project, c. 1998, via FoundSF.org
"Heavily populated by programmers, Facebook and Google have added multiple shuttle lines to Mission Street over the last two years, and estimates that after the Marina, it contain the largest population of its employees in San Francisco."
I'm starting to be won over by the dogged refusal to use proper grammar or spelling. Anyway, you've gotta love the utter disregard for anything that's actually been happening in the Mission in the past 4 or 5 years. And the explicit call-back to the Marina? Now that Plumpjack's bought the Lex, nothing's impossible! LULULEMONS FOR EVERYONE!! WHOOOO!!! I LOVE THE MISSION!!!
Famous web site Buzzfeed is looking to hire a "Staff Writer, San Francisco." Since I already staff write just for fun and enjoy lazily daydreaming about leaving the choking conformist corporate culture of my current job I decided to see if I'd be a likely candidate to staff write for Buzzfeed. No, it turns out, I would not.
First, I am over 25 and have a decent haircut, and it says right there on the site "NOTICE: WE DO NOT HIRE ANYONE OVER 25 OR ANYONE WITH A NORMAL HAIRCUT."
Here are the "Responsibilities" meaning what I would be doing during the time I'm not looking at other, better web sites.
I could do this! As long as I don't have to ever, ever say "tech/startup space" out loud. Blech. Blech. I like contributing to the conversation about culture and I try to do that every day.
Here we have requirements, which is the part I like to call "WHY I WON'T BE HIRED TO BE STAFF WRITER FOR BUZZFEED"
You see that Buzzfeed is so fucking TERRIFIED of haters that they had to put in "No haters" TWICE, once with an exclamation point! NO! HATERS!
Well, on behalf of me and other haters, fuck you, Buzzfeed. You won't silence us!
Let's see what else. I'm not 100% sure what emotional intelligence is but I probably have that. I have the ability, but not the willingness, to take the perspective of others, so I'm good there. My dog had a "positive, curious, playful disposition" but I couldn't say I do.
Ok then. This has been 17 Great Reasons Why I Won't Get a Job at Buzzfeed.
I just voted down at City Hall! No one asked me for my ID because I'm white. I'm pretty good at voting because I've done it for a long time with varying levels of success (still mad at u, stupid AL GORE). But in SF the ballot is like 10 PAGES LONG and I'm busy and don't study as much as I need to and some things still surprise me.
1. Nancy Pelosi is running for Congress! She hasn't run that many ads that I've seen. I voted for her because I like Nancy Pelosi Drive in Golden Gate Park. Little heads-up would have been good, though.
2. There's like a whole page of just judges. Mostly it's just YES or NO. I voted yes for everyone EXCEPT ONE because I like to keep them on their toes.
3. Oh shit, this year you have to vote for your favorite attraction.
I wrote in "Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theater" but I hope Coit Tower wins. If you voted for Fisherman's Wharf I don't even want to talk to you. The campaign those people ran was DESPICABLE.
4. I studied the David Campos vs. David Chiu race pretty hard but I DIDN'T GET TO VOTE IN THAT ONE. What a fucking ripoff.
5. I voted no on the soda tax because get back to me when you start taxing LITERAL BAGS OF FUCKING SUGAR. Do you know how much sugar is in a 1-lb bag of sugar? ONE POUND. That's so much more than is in a Coke. If we are gonna tax sugar, go all the fucking way or go home.
6. Nobody's running against Carmen Chu for Assessor! She must be good at assessing.
7. After I was done I didn't even make it back to the counter before some lady approached me and said "All done?" and then took my ballot. WAIT DO YOU EVEN WORK HERE? I think I just got voter frauded. Where are you, my Republican legislator friends? HELP.
8. THIS IS NOT A JOKE, NON-SAN FRANCISCANS, but this year we had to fucking VOTE on whether to have artificial turf soccer fields and what kind of height restrictions to have at Pier 70. This is ridiculous. Next year we will have ballot propositions like "What should the first movie be at Dolores Park Movie Night" and "Should I pay for a garage or park in the street" and "What's your favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry's" and "Who's Sharon? I have her name and number but don't remember anything about her."
Anyway, you deserve to be heard, so get out there and vote if you have political sensibilities similar to mine. If not, it's a fucking hassle and waste of time and you might as well just stay home.
I get a lot of emails asking me to promote things on my blog because (1) people mistakenly think I have some huge reach and am totally influential when I'm really just an elaborate newsletter for drunk cranks; and (2) I forgot what 2 was. Mostly 1. Most of these emails I just ignore, but I'm making an exception because this one actually looks pretty cool.
Local publisher Last Gasp books is having a Kickstarter for their fall publishing season and I am all about supporting the arts, especially when the arts includes "Beyond the Dark Veil," a "compilation of extraordinary and haunting photographs documenting the practice of death and mourning photography in the Victorian Era and early 20th century" or the "Fetish Coloring Book," which looks extremely dirty.
And here's the thing: a lot of Kickstarters have bullshit rewards like "OUR EVERLASTING THANKS!!! :)" or "Your name on the Memory Wall on our website which No One will ever look at!!!!!" but you actually get shit when you donate to Last Gasp. Even as low as $15, you get one of two books. For $25, you can get the dead people book or a t-shirt or even a tote bag like they're KQED or something. This all sounds like a pretty good deal.
For $500 you can get a "Night out in North Beach with Ron" but I'll need more information on "Ron" and what a "Night Out" might include before I'd take a flyer on that one.
Anyway, I have never before pimped someone's Kickstarter but this sounds legit to me. At least go look at the prizes & shit.
Let's momentarily set aside our own little Tiananmen on the Mississippi and review some disturbing footage we have recently received here at 40GO28 HQ.
First up is Sarah Palin. Remember that this woman once had a reasonable chance to become President of the United States. Well, not really, but much closer than us. If just 12 or 13 states had changed their mind and swung McCain's way, and then he was accidentally shot in Florida while trying to go to the dentist or buy a newspaper, today we'd have President Palin telling Vladimir Putin to get his troops out of Usain Bolt.
Here's the video:
She appears to be - and I say appears to be because I'm not sure Sarah Palin even knows what she's saying - responding to the claim that a worker in America should be able to survive on the minimum wage, which I personally think is a reasonable proposition but not Sarah Palin.
(Credit to some poor bastard intern at Slate who had to transcribe this group of words that were put together and tumbled out of this lady's mouth in no particular order)
"We believe?” Wait, I thought fast food joints, hurh. Don’t you guys think that they’re like of the Devil or something ... Liberals, you want to send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that you just don’t believe in, thought you wanted to, I dunno, send them to Purgatory or somethin’ so they all go vegan and, uh, wages and picket lines I dunno they’re not often discussed in Purgatory, are they? I dunno why are you even worried about fast food wages because ... Well we believe in an America where minimum wage jobs, they're not like life time gigs, they're stepping stones.
There appear to be at least two ideas going on here. One is that "liberals" don't like fast food joints, so why would you care what happens to the people who have to work there? Oh, Sarah. This may be a difficult concept for you to grasp, but it's possible to not endorse a product but still care about the people who are forced to work to produce that product. I feel terrible for the poor schmucks who have to put together your brain-damaged drivel and put it on the Internet! See?
Also, we're liberals, we don't believe in Purgatory, although watching this video is probably a close approximation.
The second idea is at the end. Minimum wage jobs aren't supposed to be "life time gigs," but stepping stones. OK then! You need to get off your ass and CREATE SOME MOTHERFUCKING JOBS and then hire some fast food workers.
Video #2 is an advertisement for Modelo Especial, an unexceptional Mexican beer that wants to grab the dbags-who-think-they're-hipsters market.
Although the problems with the scenario depicted in this ad are legion, here are my main points:
1. "Good thing you invited Tommy, who triples your street cred." What, because he's wearing an Urban Outfitters beanie and some Warby Parkers and didn't shave today? Maybe he triples your street cred in a nursery school or an Applebee's.
2. "You order three Modelo Especials, earning seven slow nods from the crowd." When is the last time you gave a fuck what some 20-something toolbag at the bar was ordering, let alone gave a "slow nod" to indicate your approval? If seven people a a bar gave me a "slow nod" when I ordered a cheap Mexican beer I would assume they were all in town for a Parkinson's convention.
3. "Then you remember your ace in the hole, Dylan, and his encyclopedic knowledge of garage rock." OH GREAT THE THREE GUYS HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME ARE TAKING OVER THE JUKEBOX WITH THE ONLY SONICS SONG ANYONE KNOWS BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY BEEN IN 28 COMMERCIALS. Great going, Dylan. Your encyclopedic knowledge of commercially palatable garage rock is going to get all our asses kicked.
I'm apparently not the only one bothered by this ad.
That classic question: If you had a time machine, would you go back and kill the person responsible for the Modelo Especial commercial?
— The Tens (@thetens) August 19, 2014
Oh good, now grownups can wear onesies and advertise their team loyalty at the same time. This is going to be a big hit with the Adult Baby community. But hey, this is the way dressing is going. We are in the "Oh, Fuck It" era of fashion.
Matt Cain knows that even $127 million doesn't guarantee financial security, so he cannily agreed to pick up some extra cake on the side shilling for Patxi's Pizza (which, BTW, is delicious).
Not bad! I AM CONVINCED, MATT CAIN. BRING ME A PATXI'S PIZZA. At first I was confused about the "Tricky spelling, though - P - A - T - X - I - S," as if we couldn't read it right there on the screen, but then I realized this was a radio spot. Oh OK.
Next to Bruce Bochy, Matt Cain has Sean Penn-level acting chops. Bochy also pimps pizza, but for Patxi's bitter rival Amici's. Bruce delivers his line readings with all the verve of a Soviet prisoner recording a confession extracted under torture.
You know who wastes Cain and Bochy both, though? No surprise here: Sergio Romo. He's got no lines in this Mercedes ad, but he's got mad style.
I vote Serg Most Likely to Have a Viable Pitchman Career After Baseball.
Then there was this unpleasantness:
Perfect, Brian Wilson for Taco Bell. One is an embarrassing nauseant with an outpost in the Marina and the other is Taco Bell. I am happy to say that I was way out in front in the Hating Brian Wilson game and started hating him long before he left the Giants. His whole schtick is so fucking tired at this point. His current 0-2, 14.40 ERA gives some small comfort.
Vodka used to come in one flavor: vodka. Vodka was vodka flavored. That was fine. If you wanted a drink of vodka, you got a drink of vodka. Maybe it was Sunday and you put tomato juice and spices in it and it was a Bloody Mary, but it was still vodka in there.
Then people started dropping produce in vodka and letting it sit for a while and making infused vodkas. This was somewhat OK, I guess. I had a cucumber vodka once that was interesting. There was a whole bar on 2nd near the Giants' stadium (which was then Pac Bell Park, I think) called INFUSION that specialized in infused vodka. OK, whatever.
Apparently convinced that the palate of the drinking public now more closely resembles that of a 6-year-old child than a Soviet truck driver, vodka manufacturers have now departed reality and begun producing a whole slew of Children's Birthday Party Vodkas.
These are ACTUAL FLAVORS of vodka made by Pinnacle, a cheapish vodka owned by Jim Beam which, according to its website, "starts with the finest wheat grain from the Brie region of France" but ends up at Safeway for $9.99:
Cookie Dough Vodka
County Fair Cotton Vodka
Cake Vodka
I don't even know what "County Fair Cotton" vodka might possibly taste like. Organic Textile Vodka? Dress Short Vodka? 800 Thread Count Vodka. But none of these are as nauseating as Pinnacle's newest innovation:
That's right, the two things that make airports bearable, Cinnabon and booze, together at last! How the fuck you make a vodka taste like the pure fat/sadness of a Cinnabon is beyond me, but the Morbidly Obese Alcoholic in your family finally has a product custom tailored to his or her needs. As long as we're doing airports, Pinnacle, I eagerly await Panda Express Vodka and Pizza Hut Express Vodka.
I shouldn't say that, because I imagine pizza vodka is not far off.
Not that Pinnacle is alone in this Alchemy of the Damned. Smirnoff now makes Iced Cake Vodka, Fluffed Marshmallow Vodka, and Cinna-Sugar Twist Vodka, so when it's your turn to be Drinks Mom at soccer practice, you know where to start.
As a humorous sidenote, Smirnoff also makes a line of malted beverages/teenage alcohol gateway products called Smirnoff Ice, including such flavors as Smirnoff Ice Pineapple which I bet smells just as bad puked up behind Taylor's house at 12:30 a.m. as it did when you opened it after shoplifting it from Lunardi's.
Smithwick's is a solid red ale brewed in Ireland. The consensus on Beer Advocate seems to be that it's fine, nothing spectacular, but not bad. I like it a little more than that probably.
Smithwick's used to have a perfectly fine package/bottle design.
You've got your castle, your 18th-century date to show how long it's been around, a little bit of green, and a nice scripty logo. Like Beer Advocate would say about the beer itself, it's fine, nothing too good or too bad.
Smithwick's was doing fine and then, I imagine, they hired a consultant to jack up sales. This consultant, a heartless, emotion-free autocrat, told them they had to redesign their perfectly good logo and packaging. Smithwick's - and again, this is just my theory, I don't have any actual proof - hired the same design firm that works for Axe Body Spray and Uber and any other design you associate with assholes who wear flip flops and yell into cell phones on the train. This is what they came up with.
Ugh. It doesn't even look like beer any more. Now it looks like one of those faux malted douche juices like Redd's Apple Ale. In fact, look:
It's like the exact same colors and typeface and everything. I'm sure the experts at DoucheBranding have done extensive research and know that packaging should be red to catch your eye in an increasingly crowded shelf ecosystem or whatever kind of shit they say, but it looks awful.
DoucheBranding also convinced them to make a TV commercial featuring - I am not making this up - a CGI squirrel who runs around the Smithwick's factory making beer at night. Apart from the obvious problem that YOU CAN'T MAKE BEER OVERNIGHT, they didn't even have the decency to use an Irish band, instead opting for the Kaiser Chiefs.
(One postscript - I just learned from rading Diageo's Wikipedia page that, in addition to Guinness, Red Stripe, Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Tanqueray, Smirnoff, and Rumple Minze (shudder), Diageo owns bourbon fetish object Bulleit, which has done an incredible job of positioning itself as some kind of artisanal handcrafted bourbon when in fact it's just part of Everything Co. Good job, Bulleit!)
It's been a while, huh? Let's see who's changing up. Nothing says love like a new handle!
Our first Name Changer comes from the Humboldt County Classified Post and I mostly love it because it looks like the HCCP is really going for that gold rush look, even online!
Doesn't that look totally 1849? Anyway, it appears that Michael Donald Castillo is getting back to his roots and going with the much spicier Miguel Donaldo Castillo. Ole, Miguel! I heartily approve. Why be Michael Donald when you can be Miguel Donaldo? Michael Donald works the loading dock at the Lucky. Miguel Donaldo is a mysterious stranger with a cape and an air of danger! Smart move.
This next one is kind of hard to read, but bear with me because it's SO WORTH IT. I'm not sure what paper it came out of, but the name change is in Butte County, so who knows what the fuck they're up to up there.
I don't know if you can read it, but the present name is "Margaret Dolores (Delores) O'Donnell" and the proposed new name is "Lady Margaret Watts Schneider Vallier Marks O'Donnell." LADY MARGARET! Swoon. This is somebody who is doing it right. Lady Margaret is not fucking around.
Our last changer is also a bit of a doozy. It's out of LA.
New Name: Black Kennedy Lincoln. Drops mic.
Have a great weekend, everybody! Especially you, Lady Margaret.
Via Matt Graves (RT courtesy BurritoJustice) comes this truly unbelievable rental listing. Since it's on Craigslist, and listings on Craigslist, like dandelion spores or red supergiants, are impermanent and ephemeral, I've screencapped part of it below:
WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT HERE IS A 2-BEDROOM IN THE MISSION FOR TEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
We all knew rents were out of control. But this. I can't even. So many problems here.
FIRST, if you have $10,500 a month to spend on housing, why the fuck would you give it to someone else? $10,000 is roughly the mortgage payment on a $2,000,000 mortgage. Buy a $1,000,000 place and cut your monthly housing nut in half! Use the rest to buy $4 toast! Fuck, buy $8 or $10 toast and you're STILL coming out ahead!
SECOND, that ad. Oh my God that ad. "With the hottest microclimate in San Francisco, Mission is caliente." Are you fucking kidding me. Are you intentionally making fun of the Mission's Latino heritage, or was that just a happy accident? For the love of God, fellow white people, do not call things "caliente." This is one step removed from putting on a giant sombrero and poncho and going to a Cinco de Mayo party. THIRD, if you MUST rent, here's a 3-bedroom penthouse on Russian Hill with parking for $10K. You save $500! And it's SO MUCH BETTER than the Mission place. Plus, you won't look like a total asshole walking out of that new building on 19th and Valencia. On Russian Hill, everybody's rich! No one will care that you're a rich too! In conclusion, please do not rent this unit.
San Francisco Neighborhood Stereotype Greeting Cards
What does Chinatown say? Congraturations! Get this and many other simpleminded stereotypes of various San Francisco neighborhoods in this lovely set of greeting cards. Your friends will roar with laughter when they get a card from the Haight Street hippie wishing them a "Groovy Birthday, Man!" Guess what? It's foggy in the Sunset! SO IRONIC. (NOTE: Set does not include Ingleside or any other neighborhood where recent transplants don't go.) $27.00
Wooden Moustache
Choose this fun, funky accessory for the person on your list who keeps a sombrero in their closet for Cinco de Mayo and who would think a wooden moustache is hilarious. Item has no practical use whatsoever. No returns. $49.95
New Mission Resident Handbook
Did you just move to the Mission from Back East? SO DID WE! With this handy guide to your new neighborhood, you'll be all equipped for your new life in San Francisco's most vibrant neighborhood. What do you do when a brown person tries to talk to you? Which burrito is most like Chipotle? Is it OK to call the police if there are no more outlets at Ritual? Get the answers to these questions and more! $35.00
Wooden Map of San Francisco
It's a map of San Francisco...but it's wooden! This somehow increases its charm. (NOTE: Ships directly from Etsy.) $165.00
Craziest SF Characters Trading Cards
Schizophrenia? More like Schizo-FUN-ia, right? This whimsical deck of trading cards celebrates the kooky weirdos who aren't getting proper mental health care and who make San Francisco such a fun place! Here's the Man Who Thinks He's Talking to God Who Harrasses People Outside Civic Center Station! Oooo, trade you for Woman Who Carries Rags Around in Plastic Bags and Paints Her Face With a Sharpie! $75.00
Actual Muni Bus
The ultimate accessory for the tech wizard who has everything! This is an actual, full-size Muni bus that you can use to go wherever you want! Finally, you won't risk rubbing up against a poor when your personal Muni bus rolls through the Mission and the Lower Haight picking up your coworkers en route to SOMA. How about taking it to 49ers games at the new stadium? Now that the team plays 40 miles away, there's no chance of city residents actually taking Muni to games! You'll be MUNIficent in your new ride! $165,000
San Francisco Cutty Bang Map
Find your nearest local purveyor of Cutty Bang, the true San Francisco treat! Not every corner store has airplane bottles of Seagram's, Tanqueray, and Bacardi Limon. With this handy map, you'll be getting faded in no time, playa! $55.00
TK lives and works in San Francisco. He occasionally travels to places east of the Caldecott Tunnel, but not very often. His interests include bars, reality TV, and irony. Things seem to be going fine.
