As a Geography major and a bit of an obsessive about all things urban, I’m bothered by sloppy social science. Tonight’s example involved my participation in a research study where one of the questions was “how many cities of over one million population have you lived in?”. She just didn’t understand that I needed a concrete explanation of whether she was referring to central city or metropolitan population, and she couldn’t see why it mattered…
While I’ve never lived in a CITY of a million people (San Francisco is just shy of 800,000), I’ve lived in METROPOLITAN AREAS of over a million people for all but the three (sucky, miserable) months of my life spent in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in 1986…
Am I just being anal?
Mark‘s back from Fresno in a few minutes with presents and clean laundry, and I’ll be able to sleep better tonight. Funny how he should mention in his new “100 Things” essay (currently on the front page with no perma-link) that he sleeps better when I’m in bed with him. I was just about to do a journal entry on the same subject. It’s amazing; I’ve never been able to sleep with anyone in the same room with me before, much less the same bed…
This from the one who used to pick up boys in bars, bring them home, have sex, and then force them to leave, baffled, by telling them “it’s too bad you have to go now”, even when they’d previously expressed no such need…
If anyone needed proof that the folks at The WB have gone off the deep end, this should suffice. What horrors will we see? Hammer going off to work, gold-plated lunchbox in hand, to do commercials for the credit counseling firm he’s promoting these days? Corey Feldman introducing Emmanuel Lewis to the joys of heroin? Sheesh…
I’ll stick with my “Flintstones” marathons on Boomerang, thanks…
Does anyone really like canned tuna packed in oil? I’ve never met anyone who admitted to it, and I notice that — when both versions are on sale at Safeway — the tuna packed in water is invariably sold out while there are cases and cases of the slimy, nasty oil-packed variety…
All the same, someone must like the stuff, I guess, or they wouldn’t sell it anymore…
Please note that the above question is purely rhetorical and does not require any sort of email response, be it to defend oil-packed tuna or to tell me how my craving for canned tuna is killing dolphins left and right. Thanks…
A road trip was necessary. We both wanted to see snow and pretend we didn’t live in San Francisco. We succeeded. Friday night took us to Placerville, where we decided to rest up and explore before seeing the snow farther uphill on Saturday…
Dogs and special service along the way…
As it turned out, we didn’t stay in either of these motels…
Nor this one…
But we did eat at both these restaurants…
Our motel had the narrowest double beds in the free world, I think, but made it for it by also having full cable and free pastries in the morning…
I didn’t sleep well (even after staking out my own miniature bed), but we got out at a reasonable hour and had breakfast at the corner diner, marvelling at the light fixtures, the space-age sign, and the cheap food. Afterward, we speny way too much money on books and old road maps and other stuff downtown before driving up Highway 50 for a quick look at the snow. We ended up going all the way to Lake Tahoe, with Mark clutching the wheel to avoid black ice all the way back…
Saturday night’s dinner was pizza at this semi-redneck sports bar and pizza parlor, which was at least slightly more appealing than it sounds. After dinner, we explored Placerville some more, watched a little TV, and slipped into our respective miniature beds…
Historic spot, historic town…
He drove. I took pictures…
Fredo is buried somewhere in that lake…
Mmmm. Neon…
Daunting mountains…
The Placerville Penis. I think it was supposed to be more yule than tool, but I’m not sure…
Sunday morning brought more free pastries, a Mexican breakfast, and laundry with the locals (which is fast becoming a vacation tradition). We headed back to san Francisco early in the afternoon, stopping in Sacramento for a Wal-Mart run and in Isleton for a crawdad melt. Of course, we made it home in time for The Simpsons, even though we were too tired to care very much…
It was a good weekend…
Hmmm. An unexplained and unplanned 12-day absence. This is to confirm that I am in fact alive and relatively healthy. And that’s about it. Not, mind you, that anything’s wrong. I just haven’t had much to say lately. I’m once again thinking of my computer more as a workplace than an entertainment zone…
But, by way of quick updates:
- Road trip last weekend. Pictures soon.
- Planet SOMA — and this whole personal web-publishing thing to which I’m paying almost no attention lately — celebrated its seventh anniversary on Monday, and I had to be reminded of that fact by reading Becky’s site.
- Liking Safari. A lot. I’ll like it even more when it starts having actual preferences settings.
- I now have friends in Albany, which is a whole new experience for me.
Funniest read of the week (from The NYC Anti-Hipster Forum, via Chromewaves)…
Christmas was rough on a lot of retailers this year, and apparently my little Safeway in the Financial District is still wooing those ever-elusive holiday shoppers. I stopped by on the way home tonight just as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” kicked in on the Muzak…
It was rather sweet, in a creepy sort of way…
Unrelated (more or less): a letter-writer in the Chronicle today stated “I am amazed that Californians living near the Oregon border who shop in Oregon because there is no sales tax remain in California! If they don’t feel any responsibility for sharing the cost of California public services, why don’t they move?”…
Spare me. I was surprised to see that the writer was from Sonora, as he has a very San Franciscan viewpoint: specifically that one must repeatedly (and cheerfully) be gouged just for the “great privilege” of living here. Bullshit. If I could save 10% or more on all my purchases by making a short trip to a place which does a better job of managing its finances, I’d do it in an instant…
My sense of civic pride does not require a vow of poverty, thanks, and if I were forced to do all my shopping in San Francisco (or California) as a requirement of residence, I’d most definitely move…
Saw Troll at the Peacock Lounge last night. They’re an interesting band and I’d like to see them again someplace that doesn’t, well, suck. We also saw this very stupid-looking boy in a fur hat and goggles and a tough question was raised: are fashion victims among the protected classes who get to use the handicapped seats on buses?
Note to the fine folks at Hahn’s Hibachi on Haight Street: annoying circuit clone techno-dance music is not conducive to good digestion…
Time for breakfast. Mmmm. Manwich omelet…