Today in Missed Connections

Programming note: None of these links will work about a week from now. Time is ephemeral. Seek peace within.

Outside of Serpentine's - m4w (potrero hill)

God, I fucking HATE IT when people put an unnecessary apostrophe-"s" on the end of a restaurant name. It's just SERPENTINE, OK? Not every fucking restaurant name ends in 's. It's not A16's or Spruce's or Slanted Door's or Maverick's, OK?

"The National" show at the Fox theater - m4w - 32 (oakland downtown)

You were there at the show with a date, he barely spoke to you the entire night... We had a nice couple of chats. I attempted to direct you to this site at the end of the show but I don't think it registered with you, but what the hey...

Damn, dude, you tried to pick up a chick when she was already on a date with someone else? That's pretty ballsy.

Has anyone gotten into The National's new album yet? I've only heard a few songs and I was like "Yeah, OK."

Stork Club - m4w (oakland downtown)

bartender, U R so hott.i want to pull ur white stripe and hit u until you love me.

What's with the who now? Does "white stripe" have some kind of sexual connotation I'm not aware of? What could this possibly mean?

Also, if this ad is successful, you should 100% rethink your dating strategy.

Oh, this is rich

Sayeth the Chron:

That's right, fitness advice from Pablo Sandoval. Pablo Sandoval seems like a really nice guy and he's a pretty good hitter (although in somewhat of a slump right now), but one word I would not use to describe him is "fit." He's listed on the roster at 245 lbs. which is completely hilarious and if he's 245 then I'm a buck fifty. He's MAYBE 260. I'd guess 270, but MAYBE 260. I know he can move and blah blah blah he's got quickness or whatever, but don't kid yourself. In no sense of the term is he "fit."

Here are some other stories the Chron is pursuing:

Take it from Bobby Sands - it's important to eat a balanced dinner

Take it from Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof - it's important to come up with a coherent ending to a television series

Take it from Julius Caesar - it's important to be suspicious of your political rivals

Take it from this guy I see on the way to work every day - it's important not to shoot heroin between your toes

I was at that game last night. What a fucking shitshow. I have very little to add to whatever everyone else is saying except that we already knew they hit worse than an anorexic girls' softball team. But when your Deuce Cy Starting Pitcher can't fucking pitch, well, it makes for a long fucking night. Hey, at least really good seats will be cheap as fuck in a month or so.

Beers are still 9 bucks, though.

(In other weight-related news, 50 Cent lost 60 pounds. Nothing else, that's just fun to say.)

The Bachelorette: Froggy Went a-Courtin'

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TK's Guide to TV Tonight

That's catchy, huh?

The Bachelorette, tonight, 9-11, ABC.

Man, that snuck up fast! They must have jetted Ali off right after Jake broke her heart and then went on to be on some dance show and appear even gayer, like that's possible. Anyway, she's a "beautiful, energetic and charismatic career-oriented woman from San Francisco," JUST LIKE MY READERS, so you'll all totally relate. Plus, you won't be able to understand all the references in my recap unless you watch. This is it, folks. The one we've all been training for.

Google Image Search result for "Ali Fedotowsky," I shit you not.

Here's a not very interesting story about what I did this weekend

So I was up at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe this weekend. No way I paid the $285 a night they want (!!!). It was some big meeting for The Wife's company which means that they went to a one hour meeting and the rest of the time they all got drunk and did whatever it is they do. We got a free trip to Tahoe and a big banquet and lots of free booze.

I have a few observations about late May 2010 in Lake Tahoe:

- It snowed the whole time. I asked a bro who worked there if that was unusual for late May and he said he didn't know, he had just moved there from Kona. Kona!!! It must not take long to lose that island tan, because homeboy was white as a sheet.

- I shouldn't gamble. I'm too stupid to gamble. Or drunk. I was kinda drunk on Friday night and was playing blackjack and it got into my head that it would be a good idea to split a pair of 6's. You know what? It wasn't a good idea. (Apparently splitting 6's is acceptable in some circumstances, but I don't even think I looked at what the dealer had.)

- Here's how roulette doesn't work: "It's been red the last 4 spins, so this one's gotta be black." Also, it rarely lands on 27.

- For whatever else you can say, it was really beautiful up there. (Cell phone pic; sorry for quality):

- BONUS PIC: Snow on my car.

That's a sweet ride, man.

TWO OTHER THINGS:

1. Re the "Lost" finale (SPOILER COMING THIS IS ALL THE WARNING YOU GET) - so, what, it really was purgatory or limbo the whole time? Because they repeatedly said publicly it wasn't that. I think they kind of just gave up. Bleh, whatever. I feel like I wasted a lot of time watching that show now.

2. I'm no baseball genius or anything, but something needs to change with the Giants. Getting shut out in 2 consecutive games against the A's is a sign of a very, very, very serious problem with the offense. Very serious.

A tale of love and dangerous obsession, starring a British boy band

It is, I suppose, de rigeur for teenage girls to become fixated on pop music icons who are manufactured and packaged to fill the need for just such a fixation. Today it's Bieber and Swift; in days of yore you had your Backstreet Boys, your New Kids on the Block, your Leif Garretts. I guess the OG teen pop icon was Sinatra, right?

In the early-mid 90's in the UK and Ireland there was a little outfit called Take That that was massively popular over there but never really made a big splash here. (Remember Robbie Williams? He was in the original lineup.)

Growing up in Ireland at that time, The Wife was not immune to Take That's charms. Well, let me rephrase that; according to The Wife, her interest in Take That was, um, life-defining, maybe even problematic. As she put it, "If I could have channeled the energy I spent thinking about Take That into something positive, I could have cured cancer by now."

ANYWAY, not an atypical story; I imagine you or someone you know has a similar one. She grew out of it and moved to the US and occasionally would mention Take That in recounting stories of her charmed youth in Ireland and still had all the CDs and whatever, but clearly a part of her past.

As it happens, Take That has reformed and begun putting out albums again. Quelle surprise! I have to grudgingly admit that some of the songs have an earwormy ELO-ish appeal. To my ear, it's a cut above most stuff of this ilk. Like so:



Not the worst thing in the world, huh? Amazingly enough, the lads write their own songs, a feature essentially unheard of in this genre.

So blah blah blah long story short something has clicked in The Wife's brain and although she hasn't started putting Take That posters up or anything, she has begun relating anecdotes about Mark Owen in casual conversation and watching a LOT of videos on YouTube and it's possible that Take That CDs are now arriving in our house via Amazon.com and so on and so forth.

And then yesterday she comes home from work and says "I need to tell you something" and I'm all "OK, what?" and she says "If Take That is touring this year, I'm going to go see them." And I go see shows all the time and I get the need for nostalgia; I'm going to see Pavement twice in 3 weeks later this summer. It's even kind of cute how she's rediscovering her Teenage Crush Band.

"Of course, sweetie!" I say. "So they're coming to America?"

And she says, "Nope."

I guess the difference between being a teenaged fan and an adult fan is that when you're an adult fan, you can go to, say, ANOTHER CONTINENT to see the band you like.

Arizona's new, even more discriminatory law

Yeah, the Arizona immigration law blah blah blah whatever. There's nothing more I can add that hasn't been said better somewhere else. All I will say is that I won't really be happy until I see gnarled-up snowbirds wearing those humongous wraparound shades and visors watering their own damn lawns. Then we'll see who likes the crackdown. I have a feeling that the fifth time Grandma Jean sits down to a dirty table at Olive Garden because there's no one to bus it will be the last.

ANYWAY. No, forget that. Arizona also enacted a little-noticed, but FAR MORE DISCRIMINATORY law. With a stroke of the pen, the state barred an entire class of citizens from simply trying to enjoy life in Arizona, as much as that's possible. I'm talking, of course, about human-animal hybrids.

No longer welcome in Arizona

Well, that's just great, Arizona. You've got your centaurs or your minotaurs or your satyrs just trying to get by and make an honest day's wage and now this. You know, as long as there's a vast economic disparity between what you can make in Greek mythology and what you can make cleaning hotel rooms in Sedona, there's going to be an inexorable need for animal-human hybrids to do the jobs that humans just won't do. Who's going to pick your tomatoes? Who's going to play pan-flute while you linger over the buffet at Harrah's Ak-Chin? You've shot yourself in the foot with this one, Arizona.