Victims of another N line switchback

What did that judge say? Something akin to a slap in the fscr of muni patrons.

not for everyday

But at just $5 per person, how can you resist a buffet lunch with good fried chicken? Even if it is in Gold Lounge. The lunch was surprisingly good, with huge bowls of spring salad and Greek salad, two kinds of hummus, roast beef, veggie kabobs, fried chicken, and cake and cookies for dessert. I skipped the carrot cake because I believe it a crime against stomachs but I enjoyed the coconut macaroons (not to be confused with the French cookie confection.) The view was... different but nothing awful or distasteful. After all, we are eating lunch.

I love a good work of art

Some of the evidence from the first company picnic in four or so years...

Almost ready

I could go to the ballpark as is on Monday but I'm hoping that I will find a good half hour or so to add the blue tulle. Because that's what separates R2-D2 from girly R2.

the hit streak

Redemption from last night's fiasco was earned as Madison Bumgarner led the Giants to a resounding 6-1 victory over the Nationals tonight. Madison completed the game and everyone played well... Melky, Buster, and Panda started off a hit streak in the eighth that gave the Giants they needed for a win. That's right, everyone got to bat in the eighth!

This is Buster Bunny's and my last game before Colombia, so it was extra sweet that it wasn't cold, that the $5 splash credit on my ticket worked, and that we won.

Go Giants!

that plucky droid went to the disco...

I am on track to be the glitteriest and girliest R2-D2 ever...

do the robot

So I'm not a fantastic sewer, and the addition of a sewing machine didn't aid my endeavor to create an R2-D2 costume for Star Wars night at the ballpark. But don't think that I'm going to show up in plainclothes just yet.

I have returned to good ol' craft foam! I'm still sewing the patches onto the dress but now it's by hand instead of by machine. And for some reason, I'm just not that handy with machines.

Besides, foam is easier to cut than cotton cloth and naturally holds its shape. And... I got glitter foam! A short night's work produced these quick results.

R2-D2, here I come!

dear Outside Lands...

Dear Outside Lands music festival,

I still don't like you because you turn a 5-minute drive along the beach into a 25-minute tortuous crawl, you leave mounds of drug-laced feces in the park, and you sell yourself as the concert for everyone while charging a kidney for a ticket and the firstborn child in the family for a taste of SF's so-called best food and drink. Good thing you only come around once a year, right?

Well, I must admit that you are growing on me. Oh you are still self-righteously expensive and I won't be taking any walks in the park until the Department of Public Works has cleaned up Lindley Meadow, but I must say that something magical has happened this year. Traffic along the beach is not the monstrosity I expected, and I thank you for that. Perhaps I am just lucky, perhaps it is now bumper-to-bumper agony as I sit in my comfy home and type away. The parking lots at the beach are packed for such a nice foggy day but the roads are moving, and that's what matters.

Traffic along Ocean Beach was such a non-issue today that I had time to stop by the supermarket and pick up a few things for my mom. Oh sure, she's much closer to Safeway than I am but she doesn't like to leave the house on "dirty hippie weekend." Hey, you can't win them all.

So that's what they think of me...

I came into work today and found a giftlet from my boss... at first all I could think was "why Thor??" But the more longer I had it, the more I realized the special project has turned me into a sort of sassy Thor at work.

It's hammer time!

mystery solved... for now

Thanks to my brother's awesome dog-caretaker girlfriend, we are pretty sure that Soleil is a mix between a papillon and a chihuahua. The former explains the characteristic ears and tail while the latter is the strongest argument for her weird personality and why I love her so much!

Envious of her little doggy bed in the backyard? Just ask my mom for one.

Cheesy fail

Sur la Table was selling a DIY mozzarella kit at abour $10 less than the kit at Williams-Sonoma. What can I say, I certainly couldn't pass up a chance to make my own cheese!

Things started out okay... I warmed up a gallon of milk and added the citric acid and rennet as directed. But maybe the milk cooked too long, maybe I stirred things too much, but whatever I ended up with, it sure wasn't cheese.

The kit...

The gallon...

The agents...

The whey...

The curds...

The fail...

I'll stick to buying my mozzarella from the store!

hello thrifty

I am not a fan of wearing Hello Kitty on my person. Oh sure, I used to work for the mouthless cat. I still have a few stickers lying around and she is my go-to when I need a present for a young girl. But if I need or want to dress up with a Sanrio character, give me Keroppi or Chococat. Hello Kitty is too girly.

I am also not big on wearing the American flag. I have seen so many bad sartorial attempts on Old Glory - from oversized blouses to a five-year old's finger painting on nasty denim cutoffs - that I have simply written it off. No, a tasteful representation of the old Stars and Strips cannot be found on clothing.

Then, of all places, JCPenney laid both taboos to rest with this shirt.

Somehow these hearts and stripes feel vaguely like the US flag without being overpoweringly so. And Hello Kitty helps to break up the solid lines with, well, her cuteness, all without being too princessy. It's my new favorite tee, and I'll be proudly wearing this in Colombia.

Somehow, through the magic of Mr. Penney, this $10 shirt only cost me $5. Woohoo!

sew ready

In preparation for the upcoming Star Wars night at AT&T Park on Labor Day, I've borrowed a sewing machine from Speedy to make my R2D2 costume. Now I won't be creating the dress from scratch since that is much too difficult for someone who has never sewn anything more complex than a quilt. But I'm positive that I'm capable of applique-ing blue scraps of cloth to a pre-made white dress. I just want this to look a little more polished than my hand-sewn Marge Simpson costume.

So I've succeeded in threading the machine. What's next, you crafty chingra?

Third time's a charm

It was only our third time at Elephant and Castle's trivia night. We went past 4th. We zoomed past 3rd. We skipped 2nd place and for the first time ever, the team known as "I'm Rick James, bitch!" landed in 1st place! That resulted in a prize of $50 off the bar tab, which was well received by the team.

The questions started out easy, maybe too easy... who is the youngest daughter in the Simpsons family? What breed is Uggie from "The Artist"? We stumbled in the third and fifth round, the fifth being the infamously obscure music trivia round. And then the sixth and final round ended. Quizmaster read the answers and I tallied that we got 8 out of 10 correct. I added 8 to our score for a total of 52 and grimaced as Quizmaster announced that the third place team racked up 52 points. Oh well, third place again isn't shabby at all.

But Rick James wasn't called. Nor was he called for second place with 56 points.

Then as Quizmaster called out the many people that comprise Rick James, I remwmbered that the points in the last round are always doubled.

We had 60 points. And for the umpteenth time of the night, Elephant and Castle resounded with the screams and cheers of that table in the back.

Yes we were loud, but what would you have done about it? I'm Rick James, bitch!

the world should come to the classiest ballpark in the States

San Francisco will be hosting the finals of the 2013 World Baseball Classic! I always wondered why MLB awarded a World Series to a team that only played in the contiuous 48 States and sometimes Toronto... then this little e-mail came along! Wish I'd known about the World Baseball Classic sooner.

Given the Giants' strong showing in the All-Star Game, can we expect to see some black and orange in Team USA?

U.S. VENUES FOR 2013 WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC ANNOUNCED AT&T Park Will Host Semi-Finals and Finals World Baseball Classic, Inc. today announced the United States venues for the 2013 World Baseball Classic, which will be played at sites throughout the world in March. San Francisco will make its debut as a host city for the World Baseball Classic, succeeding San Diego's PETCO Park (2006) and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (2009) as the host of the Semi-Finals and Finals. Miami's Marlins Park will be a second-round host venue, and the homes of the D-backs, Chase Field and Salt River Fields, will serve as host venues for the first round. International venues that will host 2013 World Baseball Classic games, pool composition and game dates will be announced in the weeks ahead. Complete coverage | World Baseball Classic

as good as gay paree

Admittedly, it has been difficult finding a good macaron. Rarely have I actually had a bad one but, well, after eating palm-sized macarons in Paris, it's hard to find some in San Francisco that can compare.

So let it be no surprise that I had to leave the city limits to find an equitable macaron! Masse's Bakery on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley is the place to go not just for perfectly textured macarons but also innovative flavors. You'll never find a mango-flavored macaron in Paris but here, it's just the flavor du jour.

Clockwise from top: Violet cassis, apricot, mango, and raspberry.

The extra nice touch is that when I asked for iced tea, the girl behind the counter actually brewed me some black tea - steeping loose leaf tea leaves for a proper amount of time - before adding ice. This is no ready-made iced tea, this is real refreshment and I could taste the difference. Perfect for a swelteringly sunny Saturday.

il divo

If you need to make your mother happy, treat her to  a show with the beautiful quartet Il Divo! We had to drive all the way down to San Jose to the Civic Auditorium since it's one freeway exit away from the hp pavilion, it's certainly not a journey we haven't taken before.

The staff at the Civic Auditorium appear to be considerably older than those at other venues and weren't as proactive when it came to playing usher. As a result, we and many other people played the seat shuffle as we struggled to find our real seats. But eventually everyone found their place and the Armani-clad heroes of popera entered.

Many a back of someone's head...
a clue to the median age of crowd at the concert.
What can I say, popera panders to a certain demographic.

Sing me "Passera" anytime!

Sebastien, Urs, Carlos, and David take a bow.

The greatest question of the night: Why did Urs wear driving gloves after the intermission? The second half is when the men shook hands with any woman who came to the front... is the Swissman a germophobe?

eat first, talk later

On a very sunny Saturday my lovely Tater Tot had a craving for Indian food. After showing off her new wheels (mobility is key!) we headed off to Vik's Chaat Corner/Chaat and Market on 4th Street and Channing in Berkeley. The Chaat part is a large cafeteria-style eatery with a pretty good selection of Indian street food and entrees, both vegetarian- and meat-friendly.

The dosa is a little crispy on one side and a little chewy on the other, and stuns with the length of the pastry sticking out past the plate. I liked it but Tater would've preferred it if the dosa was filled with potatoes instead of a cauliflower mix. What can I say, Tater knows her taters.

I only had a spoonful of the chicken biryani and didn't find it particularly flavorful, but judging by Tater's sigh of defeat, it must've been filling.

The potato and spice-filled samosa cholle plate was delicious, as expected. I don't think I've ever had a bad samosa, but I did like the garbanzo bean sauce thing on the side. Whaddya know, they found a way to make garbanzo beans taste good without turning it into hummus!

My absolute favorite was the lamb baida roti, or a very hearty bread pocket filled with very tasty ground lamb. I've never been a fan of the smell of lamb meat but that wasn't a problem with this good ol' (just a little) greasy dish. Yum, I would love to have another one of these right about now.

After lunch we peeked into the small market and found spices that Trader Joe's doesn't have (whole cloves, ground nutmeg, cardamom pods) at pretty good prices. Looking for whole star anise? You'll find it here, along with a pickled version of every fruit and vegetable imaginable sold in a can. Quite literally, you can bring a taste of Vik's Chaat Corner home.

a new galaxy

I'm trying something new today... I'm blogging from my new smrtphone! The process is slower and more unwieldy than my good old desktop but I think it's about time I tried something from this millenium.

There are issues... nothing makes me realize how much I love traditional keyboards than my amateur smartphone typing "skills." Or the fact that I accidentally deleted the photo I uploaded earlier and I can't find the equivalent of CTRL+Z on this smartphone. Also, I don't know how to copy and paste so I probably won't be linking each post to the blog's facebook page over the phone.

My new Galaxy and my old Chocolate...
re-added via my trusty desktop computer after the above mishap.

Anyways, on to other things. My beloved chocolate phone began to run out of battery power every night, leaving me with one less alarm for the morning. Well, I guess 4 years is a good run for a second generation mobile phone. So yesterday I asked a friend for advice and marched into the Verizon store. This girl was on a mission and nothing was going to stop her!

After many questions and a short tutorial, I left with the Samsung Galaxy S3. I picked the Galaxy for the awesome camera because frankly, if I'm going to spend this much money, I want this device to do double duty. Perhaps even triple duty as a backup computer, but first I'll need some more practice on this tiny keyboard.

By the way, this old camera was purchased in 2005. Replacing a 4-year old phone and a 7-year old camera in one go ain't half bad!

The limited-edition Harajuku Girls camera designed by Gwen Stefani,
when her first solo album made her my idol.
Picture taken by my smartphone!

(And now more text from the comfort of my equally-old PC...)

There's a lot to learn, and a lot of connections I never wanted but I'll need to accept in order to use the smartphone. For one, Verizon/Android/something insisted I sync my gmail account if I want to use blogger on my phone. That sucks because my gmail account is not my principal account and I really use it just to blog. Also, syncing two email accounts with my phone added a lot of unnecessary "contacts," most without phone numbers and therefore something I would not consider a contact. It also brought back citizens of my very old address book, some people with whom I haven't had contact in over ten years and others whom I don't even remember. I guess I was lucky that I only had to delete 200... well, not quite. My phone says I cannot delete "read-only" contacts. Well as my phone, I'll tell you who I want to delete, and you'll like it!

This whole connectivity thing also unevenly dug up photos associated with my two blogs and loaded them into picasa, which I have never used but must be owned by google because why else would they mysteriously appear on my phone? And for some unknown reason, I cannot upload photos I took with my phone to blog posts I made with my phone unless I accept and add google+. Fine, google, collect my information and use it for your evil plans. Just let me hide in a cave when you take over the world.

Last complaint: why does every new phone come with predictive text turned on? And why are they making it more difficult to turn it off by making you weave through a convoluted tribulation of settings? Honestly, who actually needs predictive text? I don't need to accidentally send a message about "sex" when all I wanted to say that "texting is hard" on my new phone!

But really, after just over 24 hours I think I am warming up to the oversized phone. With this I'll be able to snap pictures more easily while I travel and blog (albeit poorly) on the road. I can check my email at any time, though I certainly don't feel the urge to. But the important thing is that the option is there. And, I've waited so long to get a smartphone that Angry Birds is free!

the gritty truth

What's for dinner? Why come to Beachside Cafe, my friends! And that's just what we did.

Speedy chose the fish & chips... the fish fillets fell apart at the touch of a fork. The fries are the soft and salty sort, not the crispy shoestrings type that kids go crazy for. All in all, this plate got a thumbs from Speedy.

Driver tried the chicken and waffles, my Beachside favorite, for the first time. Everyone agreed that these superbly breaded chicken cutlets beat out Little Skillet's fried chicken and waffles.

Snapshot and I both tried the beer-can chicken, marinated in Guinness beer and served with brussel sprouts and cheesy bacon grits. The chicken was pretty good and had an intriguingly savory flavor. The brussel sprouts were not bitter (yes!) and once again, the grits survived my appetite. There's something about that incarnation of cornmeal that really fills you up... as Driver laughed, he used to think grits were prison food.

Oh, what would my cousins in Georgia think of that!