I will finally make the connection between hijacking and dogs

So yeah, I'm pretty much in love with the Mexican plane hijacking story because it is SO FULL OF WIN.

Let's review:

1. Hijacker claims to be on a "divine mission."
2. Said divine mission is to warn the President of Mexico that an earthquake is coming.
3. Because it's 9-9-09.
4. Which is 666 turned upside down.

Could it get any more awesome? WHY YES, IT COULD.

5. The hijacker ordered the pilot to fly to Mexico City.
6. THE PLANE WAS ALREADY GOING TO MEXICO CITY.

This is a hijacker after my own heart. Find the laziest, easiest way to do anything. Want to hijack a plane to Mexico City? Why complicate your life and hijack one that's headed for Ciudad Juarez? No way, man, take it easy on yourself and hijack one that's already headed where you want to go. In fact, with this plan, you don't even have to tell anyone you're hijacking the plane! Just keep it to yourself. You'll know you succeeded. Best of all, when it's over, you don't have to go to jail! Win-win-win all around. MARGARITAS FOR EVERYBODY!

It's the Dog Training Theory of hijacking. Find out something your dog can do and then claim that you trained him to do it. Our dog came with one preloaded feature: when you touch your index finger to the ground and call him, he comes over and rolls over on his back. So all I did was start saying "Roll over!" when I put my finger on the ground and people are all "WHOA AWESOME DOG TRAINING DUDE" and I just smile and nod. Same thing with hijacking. I think. Wait, what was I talking about?

More death rattles from Fifth and Mission

Everyone knows the San Francisco Chronicle isn't doing well. They keep cutting jobs. By some accounts, they're losing a million dollars a week. That's why the paper is thinner than it's ever been, the quality is all shot to hell, and they're charging more money for it.

(Side note #1 - I can't figure out the pricing structure to save my life. At the racks, it's 75 cents. [Sub-side-note - How do you make a "cents" symbol on a computer keyboard?] I buy it from the very nice lady at the 24th Street BART station. She charged me 75 cents for a while, then, without any explanation, went back to 50 cents. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't be outing this. Whatever, paper's going to be gone soon anyway.)

This is the worst fuckup I've ever seen in the Chron, though:

From yesterdays' Datebook section. I don't know if you can read the caption under the picture (I took it with my cell phone), but the caption reads as follows:

"Photo caption Dummy text goes here. Dummy text goes here. Dummy text goes here. Dummy text goes here. Dummy text goes"

Sigh. I don't know what kind of layout software they use or if they scratch the Chronicle into metal plates every day by hand or whatever, but clearly somebody dropped the ball in a big fucking way.

(Side Note #2 - Did you know that dummy text is often called "loren ipsum," because that's the first two words of the industry-standard dummy text, which comes originally from Cicero? And that there's a dummy text generator online? Of course there is.)

Yeah, I know it's not the end of the world or anything, but it's just depressing. I love, or used to love, the Chron, for all its foibles and fuckups. It was part of the fabric of the city to me, back when you had to read Herb Caen every day to find out what was going on and there was a whole staff of writers. I remember reading a Jon Carroll column the very first day I lived in San Francisco (October 16, 1990, if you must know) and LOLing. "LOLing" didn't exist then. We had to spell it out. Prehistoric!

(Side note #3 - Back then, both the Chronicle and the Examiner (RIP) published every day. 2 daily papers! For a news junkie like me, it was heaven. The Ex had its own little eccentricities - like calling SF "the City," with the "C" capitalized, which I loved, because WE ARE THE CITY - but I was staunchly a Chron man.)

So it'll be sad to watch the Chron go gently into that good night. Thanks a lot, Craigslist! Just kidding. Sort of.

Maybe I'll just go straight to 30-second TV spots

Hey look! All these local blogs have banner ads on SF Appeal!

There's the N Judah Chronicles!

And there's FuncheapSF! Isn't this fun!



(Insert needle-scratching-across-record-sound here)

Wait, what? Sexpigeon has taken to advertising?

In case you don't know, go ahead and click. Sexpigeon is more or less a photo blog that consists of cell-phone pictures (at least, I hope they're cell-phone pictures) taken mostly around the Bay Area and captioned with brief and witty text. It's often funny and mostly great and the guy who does it has a keen wit and a way with words that I sometimes envy.

But I don't know. He doesn't seem like the sort that would advertise. As far as I know, there's no ads on his own site, which means that he doesn't make any money if someone clicks through (or is there something I'm missing here?), so I guess I don't get it. Of course, of course, everything isn't always about money and maybe he just wants more readers and whatever. Fine.

Maybe I should do a banner ad! Something like:

Yeah? Yeah? You like it?

Or maybe:

(P.S. This one's for Jessica, who specifically requested more MS Paint art on the blog.)

(P.P.S. I accidentally erased part of the box on the right side using the little square eraser in MS Paint. So whoops.)

(UPDATE Thu 9/10 - Well, my dream has come true, I think. For reasons inscrutable to me, the good folks at SF Citizen took my dream and ran with it. Behold, my banners ads now festoon that site, gratis. In fact, I didn't know it was going to happen. Thanks, I think!)

Things that have pleased and displeased me recently

Pleased:


- Continental Airlines is my new airline.

Believe it or not, I am here to actually praise an airline. I was an American Airlines man for years and years, but I'm so on Continental now it's not even funny. Look, airlines have treated us all so bad for so long that we're pathetically grateful any time anything goes right, but Continental even beats that out. To wit:

1) You can select an Exit Row seat 24 hours before the flight when you check in online. FOR FREE. Can't do that at all on American, and Northwest charges you $40 or so for it. For someone like me, who's 6'4" and basically HAS to have an Exit Row, this is a fantastic advantage.

2) They actually give you free food. I know, that's no reason to choose an airline, but isn't it kind of nice?

3) Every flight I took on this trip - every single one - was almost exactly on time, or was within 15 minutes or so.

So bon voyage, American. You can suck it. I'm all about Continental now.

(If you work for Continental and you're reading this, I'm not shamelessly shilling for free First Class upgrades, but if you want to toss some my way, I'm sure we can continue to see glowing reviews here on the site.)



Displeased:

- I know SF is hurting for money and everything, but this is ridiculous. The Wife parks her car on a street near our house where we've been parking for years. The only parking restriction is street cleaning, 2nd and 4th Fridays, from 8 to 10. She parks it and doesn't go by it for days. Then one day last week she goes to use it and there are THREE TICKETS ON IT. Why? Because at some point in the prior few days, the city threw up residential permit parking only signs and then started slapping tickets on her car.


OH HELL NO. We're protesting this shit. How about a little warning next time, fuckers?

The Pitchfork Top 20: 9-1

20-15 here

14-10 here

Is this becoming a slog? I just want it to be finished now.

9. Animal Collective, "My Girls"

Like a weirdo post-modern Beach Boys, matching soaring harmonies with bleepy-bloopy synth music. (I would say "Beach Boys on acid" but I think that's redundant.) It's OK, I guess.

8. Radiohead, "Idioteque"

OK, now I think Pitchfork is just picking this song to be difficult. Sure, it's a nice song and everything, but it's clearly not one of the Top 10 songs of the 21st century. It's not even the best Radiohead song. It's not even the best song on Kid A, for Chrissakes.

7. Missy Elliott, "Get Ur Freak On"

Yeah, I guess so.

6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Maps"

No question, it's a great song. I must also draw your attention to Ted Leo's amazing cover of Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" (speaking of, unquestionably one of the Top 20 songs of the aughts), in which he also goes into "Maps" and then back into the original song. Pretty fucking cool.

5. Daft Punk, "One More Time"

Again, I'm probably not the best person to evaluate this or write about it, since my knowledge of electronic music in general is pretty slim and I know almost nothing about Daft Punk. In fact, this might be the first Daft Punk song I've ever listened to all the way through. So if you guys think it's a totally important song and the best Daft Punk song and one of the best songs of the 2000's, I'm in no position to argue.

4. Beyonce f/ Jay-Z, "Crazy in Love"

OK, this is going to sound totally cynical, but do you think it's possible that Pitchfork slotted this song at #4 just to show that they're down with the regular peeps and not ivory tower elitists who only listen to Grizzly Bear and American Folkways recordings of Delta bluesmen from 1937? That's not totally out of the realm, right? Great hook on this song, BTW.

3. M.I.A., "Paper Planes"

What a great fucking song. Totally agree with the placement on this list (and, if anything, it could even be higher up). It's like a team of scientists worked on a song that would include everything hipsters love, from The Clash (the song is basically laid over "Straight to Hell") to female rappers to lyrics about Third World poverty. I don't mean that in a bad way.

2. LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"

I don't know. It's a perfectly good LCD Soundsystem song, as far as I know, and I like it just fine. But the second best song of the decade? Probably not. Side note: James Murphy sings a lot about getting older, doesn't he?

1. Outkast, "B.O.B."


Look, I like Outkast just as much as the next guy, and Stankonia was a fine album, and this is a decent song, but I just can't say that it's the best song of the 00's.


So what is? What do I think is the best song of the 2000's? It's hard, because there's been a shitload of good music in this decade. I'm tempted to go with "Since U Been Gone" (Number 21 on P'fork's list, incidentally), since it's emblematic of the American Idol phenomenon that took over popular music in the 2000's and it just happens to be an outstanding pop song, but it probably has to be a Radiohead song, just because they're probably the most important and most interesting band in the 2000's. "Airbag"? "Paranoid Android"? Both of those would be solid picks. I don't know.

Back to SF tomorrow. Hope everyone's having a nice weekend!

I am writing this from a strange and distant land.

As you may have gathered, I'm out of the office. I've returned, as I am wont to do once in a while, to my ancestral homeland.

(L-R: Me, Dad, The Sister, some relatives)

So here's how it goes down here: there are thrice-daily trips to the grocery store; a lot of cooking; a lot of eating; and then a lot of sitting on the back porch and drinking wine. Wine that's left over from the wedding, at this point.

Speaking of, we had a lot of wine left over. Like almost 5 cases. So I boxed up 2 of them and took them to the UPS Store to send back to SF. As it turns out, it's fucking expensive! Like $50 a case to ship. Still cheaper than buying it over again, I guess. Guy at the UPS Store says, "What are you sending, bricks?" And I laughed ruefully and said, "Yeah, I'm sending a house back there on the installment plan" and he laughed and laughed.

P.S. Everyone in the South is on their cell phone ALL THE FUCKING TIME. There is SO MUCH to talk about here that it takes 24/7 cell phone talking to get 'r dun.

I'll be back on Monday, so don't freak out. We're having our own personal Burning Man here, if you replace "large burning wooden man" with "22 inch Weber grill" and "3 hits of ecstasy" with "2 bottles of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc."

Product Testing: McDonald's Third Pound Angus Burger

I don't go much to McDonald's any more because I got sick of getting the McFeeling about a half-hour after I ate there. If you ever eat at McD's, you know the feeling I'm talking about.

But after seeing repeated commercials for the new Angus Third Pounder I finally gave in.

The Pitch: "The More the Meatier"...."So thick and juicy, you're gonna need an extra napkin."

The Product: I went with the Bacon and Cheese Angus Value Meal, which came with a medium french fries and a drink. I got a Diet Coke. $7.11 total. As for the bacon and cheese, hey, in for a penny, in for a pound.

I know what you're thinking: After ordering 1/3 lb. of beef with bacon and cheese slathered on it, who the fuck do you think you're kidding with a Diet Coke? I know, I know. The lady behind the counter looked momentarily perplexed too. I just like the taste of Diet Coke better than regular Coke. Speaking of, someone recently told me you can still get Tab somewhere. If you see Tab in the wild anywhere, let me know. I kind of fondly recall its bizarre petrochemical taste.

The result: Not bad, actually.



The bun was nice and soft and tasted fresh. The meat actually tasted like meat, which is unusual for McDonald's. It's not like Quarter Pounder meat (which must be like 75% fat) or the little pucks that are in the flat regular cheeseburgers (which are also full of a magic potion that cures hangovers, but that's another story.) Big slices of red onion. The cheese tasted like the usual McDonald's cheese.

The only weak point was the bacon. It was those super-thin translucent bacon slices that are basically just grease held together with fat and with some kind of bacon flavor added. What would really makes the TPAB a monster would be thick slices of real bacon, but that's probably beyond what McD's is capable of.

The damage: For the burger alone, 790 calories, 39 grams of fat. With the fries, my totals are 1170 cal. and 58 grams of fat. That sounds like a lot. But hey, I can have about 2600 calories a day, so I can still eat dinner! Yay!