Nothing to declare

OK, we're back. Did I miss anything big?

You know, that flight yesterday from Dublin to SF was 10 hours, but it didn't seem so bad. We were on Aer Lingus, and they have the personal TV monitors at every seat that have a selection of movies and TV shows and even video games, so that's pretty cool, plus they fed us every few hours, even in coach. So it didn't really seem all that long.

Felt fine when we got back, but then the jet lag really kicked in last night around 10, which would be 6 a.m. Ireland time. I was trying to watch the Giants, and it was into extra innings, and I literally could not keep my eyes open. I guess they lost in the 13th.

SO ANYWAY, we'll be resuming normal blogging operations this week. Hmm, looking at my stats, it looks like readership fell precipitously. Guess my travelogue didn't go over so well. Just wait until I post the pictures. Then we'll really see who's with me.

Ireland and me: part 2

So on Saturday we went to Super Hot Irish Girlfriend's nephew's First Communion. Until a few weeks ago, I didn't know there was such a thing as a First Communion, but I gather it's kind of a big thing for Catholics, maybe especially Irish Catholics. SO ANYWAY we all go to the church around 11:30 (or "half-eleven," as they say here) and there is an interminable Mass with lots of standing and sitting and kneeling and stuff. But the kids did little readings and sang songs and it was all cute as it could be. They're all about 8 or 9 years old.

So afterwards, there's a little party at a hotel for some of the kids and their parents, who tend generally to be in their mid-20's. The parents, not the kids. Two things initially surprise me about this party: (1) it's a drinking event (again, for the parents, not the kids), and (2) there's a DJ, even though this party is at 2:30 p.m. and, incredibly, the first song the DJ plays is "My Humps," which seems wildly inappropriate for a gathering dedicated to 8-year-olds.

The big rugby match between Munster and Toulouse started while we were at the party. When we got back to town, we went into downtown to meet some friends at a bar. Everyone downtown was wearing Munster gear and was horribly drunk. The bar, Michael Martin's, has a nice little outside area in the alley where it's located and it was packed. I'm not really the big-crowd type, and this crowd was fucking wasted, so I was happy to leave and go back to Sorcha and Phil's house. We had some pizza and beer and just hung out and chatted and that was great.

Yesterday we drove out to Garrykennedy, a little town right on Lough Derg. Beautiful drive through the Irish countryside. Had a huge lunch/dinner here:

I know, how fucking quaint can you get? It was like being in a movie, for real.

Then last night - you guessed it, more drinking. Phil was DJ'ing at the bar, so we had to go there, and then to another bar, and then to a club downstairs where they were playing dance music at jet-taking-off-volumes and people were dancing and I'm not sure what happened after that.

Today's goal: Not drinking.

Ireland & me

OK, I'm in Limerick, Ireland, and it's great, etc., etc. A few observations:

- Last night I was smoking ouside the restaurant where we were eating with Super Hot Irish Girlfriend's mother and we got accosted by a panhandler. She asked for "one euro." You know what the exchange rate is? One euro is real money to me.

- SHIG and I have been to the "Off License" twice. The Off License is a liquor and beer store. It's in a totally shady part of town near the hotel. Here, shady means that it's rundown and kind of deserted, except for vaguely dangerous looking Irish guys loitering around. SHIG's Irish friends confirmed that this was a dodgy part of town, but it really doesn't seem all that bad.

- The front page of the Limerick Independent featured Miss Limerick, who isn't all that, and Miss Clare, Aoife Gallagher, who is totally hot. Aoife, incidentally, is pronounced "Ee-fa." SHIG is displeased that I may have a little crush on Aoife Gallagher.

- Saturday is some kind of rugby championship between Munster (the province of Ireland that Limerick is in) and Toulouse, France. It's like the Super Bowl or something around here. There are shirts in the shop windows that say "Irish by birth, Munster by the grace of God" and tons of Munster rugby banners and flags and all that crap. The main street is going to be blocked off Saturday and they're showing it on big screens outside. From what I gather it'll be the largest outdoor collection of drunk people I've ever been near.

- Limerick's downtown is actually really nice. A lot of the streets are closed to vehicle traffic and there are a bunch of nice shops and pubs and so forth. Then there's the Internet cafe I'm writintg this from, which is basically a bunch of little carrels with computers and a bunch of Polish guys playing Counterstrike and isn't really a cafe at all.

- The vending machines in the hotel have beer, wine, gin & tonics, screwdrivers, and Powers Irish whiskey. This availability is lethal past midnight.

What I did instead of Bay to Breakers

Twice a year (usually), a bunch of us get together and trade mix CDs. You end up with 10 or 11 new mixes. Plus, there's the beer aspect that can't be discounted. We did it yesterday at Lucky 13.




It was fun. And now I have hours of new music to listen to on the plane tomorrow.

After that, I went to a cookout at Peter's house.

Peter got a firepit. When I got home, I smelled like a forest fire.

I'm going to Ireland tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they have the Internet there, but I'm not sure how often I'll have access. So if you notice a precipitous decline in the posting frequency between now and the end of the month, you'll know why.

UPDATE: For those of you scoring at home, this was my mix:

VHS or Beta -- Can't Believe a Single Word
Rival Schools -- Good Things
Scissors for Lefty -- Marsha
Your 33 Black Angels -- Town & Country
Oxford Collapse -- Lady Lawyers
Okkervil River -- Westfall
The New Pornographers -- The Body Says No
The Morning Benders -- Damnit Anna
Irving -- Sleepy Inside
Delorentos -- Stop
The Redwalls -- Summer Romance

OK, gang. Be good while I'm gone. I'm going to ask Mrs. Murphy from next door to look in on you every once in a while, so no funny business! Call me every day! NO PARTIES.

Urban etiquette: an occasional series

Todays' topic: Stand right, walk left

As any regular commuter by BART or Muni knows, the rule on escalators is a simple one - stand right, walk left. In fact, this rule appears to be universal.

So why is it so fucking hard for people to figure this out? Now, granted, at rush hours the system seems to behave as planned, either because there are more experienced commuters or because there are so many people trying to walk on the left they pile up and the left-stander finally gets it through his thick fucking WWE-addled skull that he's supposed to move. But at non-peak times, you'll often see some fucking retard just hanging out on the left, totally oblivious to the fact that everyone else is standing on the right.

Now, if there's no one standing next to the retard on the right, that's cool - I'll just cruise around him and continue down the stairs in my normal breakneck rushing-to-a-fire speed that I employ to jet around town normally. But when Calvin Clueless is jabbering away with his mouth-breathing girlfriend next to him, I have to get right up behind him and then go "EXCUSE ME" which has the double-barreled benefit of making him jump a little and hopefully teaching him the walk left stand right principle.

They've got the right idea in London. If you try that stand left crap there, they will run you the fuck over, no lie. I saw it happen several times. That's the way the natural order is enforced, folks.

95 degrees

That's right. 95 degrees in motherfucking San Francisco. Now, that wouldn't be MAJOR FUCKING NEWS in Bullhead City, Arizona or even Riverside, but here in the city, we like our coffee expensive, our beer obscure, and our climate cold.

The good news: I like it. I grew up in the South, where 95 was a nice cool break in the weather during the summer. Add 80% humidity and then we'll talk. So I like these twice-a-year spells of extraordinarily hot weather. It's nice to be outside at night and not be wearing 4 layers of clothes. In May. Oh, also: chixx break out the tiny clothes. Nice.

The bad news: The guy I saw in Civic Center Plaza today who looked like Popeye with all the juice sucked out of him and was not wearing a shirt. Hey, sport, I respect the fact that you're 90 years old and have earned the right to go commando on a hot day, but seriously, do it at home.

Went to the Giants game last night. Never put a jacket on the whole time I was there. Fuck, that's nice. Meanwhile, the bullpen blew the tie and we lost.

And what's this I hear today? Lincecum leaves in the 6th with a 7-3 lead, striking out 10, and now you mean to tell me the fucking bullpen is blowing it again? Fuck.

In other news, did you happen to hear something about the gays today? I can't seem to find any information on it.

Oh, shit, I'm out of quarters

Maybe I'm missing something, but this whole parking meters to put in change for homeless people thing baffles me. If I put in a quarter, do I get 10 minutes of not being hassled? Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

This is SF's "homeless czar" lovingly cuddling one of the new homeless parking meters. If this is the best the homeless czar can come up with, we may need a homeless Russian Revolution.

In Giants news, Fail started again last night and actually didn't do that bad. But the real scream was when Yabu tried some kind of obscure glove-fu ninja signal to Bowker that he was about to attempt to throw out the baserunner and, of course, since Bowker is not a ninja, he didn't get the signal and the ball sailed past him and a bunch of Astros ran around and around and the Giants lost again.

Oh, and Super Hot Irish Girlfriend was there and she was on TV. Some big guy in an orange shirt got a foul and they were showing him and she walked right past him and sat down and thereby kicked off her international fame. I don't have any screengrabs, so you'll have to take my word for it.