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Obviously, wine can cost a fortune, but usually is doesn't have to. After all, a great many of us know Two Buck Chuck and find it can be tolerable at times (usually after you've had a $20 bottle to start). I find that there is a great deal of satisfaction in finding a $5 that's really good though. Of course, it can be equally satisfying to drink the $100 a bottle level of wine and just enjoy it like I did the one and only time I had a bottle of Rubicon from Rubicon Winery.       I do have a bit issue in drinking expensive wine because while it tastes great and is incredibly enjoyable at the time you drink it, there is always the cost hangover from it, which is why we currently have a bottle of sweet wine sitting the fridge, waiting for the right moment to drink. I might add that this is a 200ml bottle (about 1/4 of a normal bottle) of wine. I love sweet wine, having gained a real appreciation for it in Spain last year and this is a bottle from my cousin's neighbor at Vehovar, which is a great little winery in Slovenia. So why does it sit around? Cost and the fact we simply can't replace it once it's gone, that's why.       Okay, so this bottle is 40 Euros for 200ml.       That makes it 200 Euros for 1 liter.       There is $1.51 to 1 Euro at the moment, so that makes it $302 a liter.       There are 33.8 ounces to the liter, so this is $8.93 per ounce.       This is a bit less than half the cost of silver per ounce, which, if this wine were a metal would make it a precious metal in my book. So, while it's nowhere as expensive as gold per ounce, you can see my hesitation in drinking it as it will be the most expensive wine I've ever had once I do drink it.       While this gives me pause and I've already tasted the wine before, at some point soon the plunge will just be taken to down it because it was after all a gift and I'm just starting to be a bit Dutch at this point in not drinking it yet.

Sunday marked the 80th Academy Awards which was an interesting show as no Americans won the acting awards. This speaks volumes about the state of acting in this country where it's more about being a pretty face than actually having any real talent. But partly out of curiosity and partly out wanting to balance an evening of watching revolting opulence, Number One Fan and I headed over to the Pacific Film Archive to watch a documentary about rape in Eastern Congo called, Lumo. Specifically, the film deals with the story of one woman healing from a gang rape by rebel soldiers where she developed a fistula due to the violence and savagery of the rape by the men. Read up on that link there and yes, it's about as horrific as it sounds. It's crippling to the women who have had it happen to them.       The film is excellent and while I was a bit timid to watch it as I was worried that the film would focus on the gory specifics of the fistula and the surgeries the women underwent to recover at a hospital sponsored by HEAL. Thankfully, the film did not do this. The film was a wonderfully well crafted piece that followed this woman, Lumo, as she goes from being bedridden in horrible shape in her home village, to coming to the hospital, to the slow path of recovery, which involves multiple surgeries with lengthy recoveries from each.       The film isn't some social studies experiment however. It takes an angle of actually getting to know all the women in this hospital and dealing with the fact that there is not only physical trauma for them to recover from, but also the mental anguish from rape, a possible pregnancy, and being completely ostracized by the people in their village. They become outcasts in their own homes and the film shows that in this safe commune of the hospital, they recover to some degree by having the support of others around them. Of course, there is also the return home to an uncertain future looming on all their horizons once they're healed.       To say the film is heartwarming story would be ludicrous. It's a hard look at the area around Goma where the brunt of the fighting between government troops and rebel fighters tends to hurt the civilians living there the most. Even still, it's an informative film that bears watching for anyone unfamiliar with this war that has cost millions of lives and continues to this day.       On a different note, I was quite interested by the audience. For those who don't know, February is Black History Month. While this film takes place in Africa, it was officially part of the Human Rights Festival. Even still, one would think that this would be something important to the history of blacks living in the US to some degree. This reminds me of a story though.       When I was living in Berkeley, I did a little stint working at the Berkeley Art Museum in the bookstore. It was some work thing I did for extra money to balance out my student loans. Pretty boring, but it paid the bills. So, it was about this time, in February of 1999 where I was sitting there, bored and the phone rang. This almost never happened, so I just picked it up and said, "Hello?"       "Hi, yeah, is this the Film Archive?"       "No, this is the gift shop for it and the museum. I can transfer you down to the archive if you want?"       "No, don't bother. No one's answering there. Listen, what's the program for films this month?"       "I don't know. This is the gift shop, but let me check." I ruffled through papers and found the program. "Looks like some black and white prints from the 40's. One or two minor short films. You can find it all online if you want."       "What?!! There aren't any African films being played down there?!!"       "Hmm, no, doesn't look like it."       "But this is Black History Month!"       "Oh yeah, I guess it is."       "This is a travesty. An outrage. Despicable. Despicable."       "Um, okay."       "Look, why are there no African films being shown for the month?"       "I don't know. I'm just a guy working in the bookstore."       "Come on, you've gotta know. I mean, how can you in good conscience tell me you don't know? This is belligerent racial insensitivity in its purest form."       My point of patience was gone with this guy and I pulled out my "race" card.       "Look, my family is originally Croatian. There has been a devastating civil war over there and they don't have anything, anywhere on this whole campus dedicated to it, let alone and entire month! Be thankful you get that."       "Ummm, okay put me through to the director."       "She's not here, but here's her number. Goodbye."       I probably wasn't supposed to give out the number, but then again, I also was just a guy working in the bookstore and not getting paid to deal with ax grinding boneheads. But, I brought up this whole story because as we were leaving after the screening, I looked around the audience and saw that it was maybe 10% black with the rest being mostly white. It just made me shake my head and realize that obviously my not solving the ax grinder's problem with the film program in 1999 has had vast and serious repercussions that has resulted in racial lethargy. Stupid me.

The Chinese New Year Parade was this last Saturday and of course, being the ever-so-vigilant San Franciscan that I am, I was there, taking photos and getting everything I needed to write the blog article that you're now reading. Naturally, I am not alone in this, as San Francisco is the navel of the blogosphere, but the fact that you're reading this and not one of the other thousands (or at least reading it along with the other thousands) of articles about it, just warms my big loving heart somehow.       Anyways, aberrant musing aside, the parade kinda sucked this year. Last year was great. There was no rain. There were crowds and crowds of people and it was a good time that was so good that it made it hard to get off the few photos that I did. This year, there was no problem getting a good view of the parade and thusly, I have a much more full 2008 Chinese New Year Gallery for the viewing. Unfortunately, getting these shots meant slogging through a lot of rain and cold. There were a good number of people out there with me, braving the weather as well, but none of us were happy about it.       The parade seemed somewhat empty overall. There were these large gaps between groups and floats that led me to believe that some groups must of pulled out at the last minute due to the rain. Then of course, those whose stayed and were in charge of some dragon dancing, covered their dragons in plastic, which definitely mutes a lot of the appeal of the dragon.       And that was about it, just two hours of firecrackers and people, looping through the city. Oh yeah, there was also these guys, the Gay and Lesbian Freedom Band which had annoyingly weaseled their way in to the event somehow. I suppose it was to prove that this is San Francisco, they can do this, and yes indeed, marching bands are really, really gay in the end.

Ever think to yourself, you know, I really like the photos on Hudin, but I could do without the articles? Is there some way that I could just have access to new photos when they're posted and not have to bother with actually reading anything?       Well friends, I now give the option to just have a feed of the photos I post, because after all, they are something like 95% of my traffic it seems. You can just subscribe to this feed or you can click on the RSS icon anywhere in the photos section.       It's clean. It's fast. I give it to you. Soon there will be a dump of quite a few more photos in there, so stay tuned to all that's good from Hudin.

It wasn't that I looked in to a crystal ball and said, "Yes, I believe that July would be a good time to visit, Serbia. I see unrest in the future." No, it's just that I happened to be there when I was there, last July. Turns out that might have been a good time to make my first trip. The US and a large slew of other Western countries aren't so welcome right now due to the whole Kosovo issue.       On the one hand, I can understand the frustration of the Serbs. This is an unprecedented event and it has the potential to fuel other movements around the world that want to secede from their parent countries. Then again, maybe it doesn't. Who knows. Whatever the case, I don't think that burning the US embassy really does all the much to help the Serbian cause and I'm quite happy that I'm not there right now. It's not so much that I fear I would be in danger (even though my Serbian ain't that great), it's more that I wouldn't want to be representative of my country during this time and regardless of what people think, if you are a foreigner in another country, you are always representing your country. Just remember that the next time you vomit in to a canal in Venice or take a piss in the middle of Las Ramblas.

I am often told by certain Spaniards that I know when grabbing a couple of samples at Whole Foods or Cheese Plus that the free sample model doesn't work in Spain. Well, it does in that people will gladly sample whatever you have to offer and sample it fast and in hoards. In fact, if one is not careful in how the free samples are handed out, a flock of Iberian locusts will descent and ravage whatever there is in no time.       So, let me set up the video below. This is at a tourism trade fair somewhere in Spain. The fellow at the beginning is talking to the guy filming, who is about to take somewhere around 100 umbrellas out to the trade fair floor as promotional items. Once he leaves the safe confines of the staging area, hilarity ensues:       

I was surprised when I visited SFGate.com (the San Francisco Chronicle's website) yesterday and was suddenly presented with a whole new layout. Damn. It was about time. The old look was from a redesign that according to the Internet Archive, it was deployed some time around November of 2001, but it might as well have been from 1995. It was clunky, not very extensible, and just flat. Of course, on the comments for the article on the new home page you'll see that there were a good number of people who preferred the old design. Read in to these a bit closer and you'll realize that the main thrust of the ire is because people now have to learn where things are again, which is to say that people don't like the new look, because they're lazy. Obviously malaise is never a reason to avoid progress and I'm very thankful that the Chronicle redesigned the site, since I get my local news from there.       For those that really don't get it, there is a graphic to show what things do. I find these things about as amusing as the manuals for cars. It's a tool. It should be intuitive enough for people to figure out, just like a car should be intuitive enough for anyone to hop in and drive who has driven other cars. If this is not the case, then something went horribly awry. I think that this was just put up pander to the lowest common denominator given that they're a news publication. I don't know why they bother as people who don't like this will never really like it no matter what you do, short of going back to the old design.       As far as improvements, I like the flyout ('Index') in the upper right menu that gives you immediate access to all the sections in the site. This new layout of the page also allows them to tuck the ads in, in a much more classy way. I realize that for a commercial site, you have to have ads and I much prefer this manner than how they were just stuck on to the far right edge of the site. Lastly, while some people might complain about how "busy" the new site is, I find that it presents the newspaper's information in a much more organized form that is more compelling for me to spend time on. The way it used to be, I would just see an article, read it and go. This has more of a 'wikipedia feel' wherein I'm invited to click around a bit more.       So, good job folks and I know it couldn't have been easy given the endless meetings, committees, and hands that try and get in the mix when it comes to rebuilding a site of this scope. Maybe now your PageRank can climb back up from a five, because honestly, I've got a four and I do this for free!

For any visitor walking around San Francisco on a Tuesday in the middle of the day, it must be scary as hell. Out of nowhere, this air raid siren blasts at 130 decibels throughout the city. For the sane-minded person, they probably look around and see that people aren't doing anything more than crouching in to their cellphones harder so they can continue talking while walking. Thusly, the visitor shrugs it off as do most of the people who live in San Francisco, which of course begs the question as to why we even have them now, since we don't pay attention to them.       The system was originally designed to protect against air raids in World War II, although the system was completed long after the bombing of Pearl Harbor rendering it someone obsolete from the get-go. It's hard to think of it, but in the early 1940's, San Francisco and Los Angeles were technically front line cities in the war. To this day, you can still go and walk the old battlement trenches that were dug along San Francisco's western shores in order to provide a defensible front should the Japanese invade by water.       Obviously, nothing ever happened and yet the air raid sirens remain. During the Cold War, they were presented as a siren to alert to a nuclear attack, although given the blast radius of even a small nuclear bomb, there would be no sirens to sound should an attack hit. Once the Cold War threat lessened, which was not until the 1990's (I remember doing air raid drills in elementary school where we all had to get under our desks and that was less than 20 years ago), the air raid sirens were then thought of as a Public Address system in case of a natural disaster. This is one of the most common uses of the system in the Midwest where shit seems to hit the proverbial fan quite regularly.       So, along we went with the system being tested on a once a month basis just to make sure that it worked. Then September 11, 2001 happened and all of the sudden the Cold War fears were transformed in to Terrorist fears. At some point (and I don't know when exactly), they shifted from "testing" the sirens once a month to every week.       Is this necessary? No. It's designed to be an extremely simple system that is hard to destroy and once a month or even once every six months would seem to be adequate to check on it. But, in today's state of there being a "constant threat to the American people" it seems that we need to be reminded of how close we really are to complete annihilation via a weekly reminder that is heard over the entire city. Such as it is, I'm including an ever so helpful sound clip for those who haven't been privy to the air raid sirens of San Francisco.

I'm not sure where my breaking point was on the American custom of tipping. Perhaps it was the 18% I automatically had added to my bill for a dinner for two at Chez Panisse. Or maybe it was a recent meal with friends where they insisted on leaving what amounted to a 33% tip. I'm not really sure, but my ire towards the system of tipping in the US has swelled to an indefinite point of frustration and to a large degree, disgust. No, I'm not disgusted with friends who leave large tips (I used to do this as well), but more our society as a whole wherein we feel compelled and forced to leave large tips for any variety of reasons (they make no money, I know how it is for them, you can afford it, etc.) My disgust also lies with the restaurants who seem to revel in this practice as it allows them to pay squalid wages to their employees, thusly levying the salary of their workers solely upon the backs of the customer.       As you can see in the Almighty Wikipedia link above, the origin of the word came from, "to give unexpectedly". My, but how we have strayed from the original intent and naturally this is something that varies greatly by region. My preference is often for the European models where it is still not an expected item, but more a bonus for a job well done. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against tipping; I'm just against it as a constant when doing anything outside of your home and having a service charge that is part of the price is fine too. But my favorite tipping model overall has to be from the Japanese, "...tipping is rare, it is usually assumed that if you liked a restaurant you will reward them by returning." I have never seen logic in a more easy to digest form than that.       I don't really don't need to rant anymore about tipping I suppose, as Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs did that oh so well. But even there, he was eventually cajoled in to putting in a tip, which seems to be the way it goes for all of us eventually. Having gotten sick of this practice, I'm starting to see why my cousins in Slovenia flat-out told me to stop when I went to leave a 10% tip. I know what you're thinking, "I'd hate to work in that country.", but the difference is that people who work in service jobs are paid a lot better. The tip is again, back to its root of being "given unexpectedly". Ah, but how can we do this in the US? People earn so little here in restaurants! To which I greatly beg to differ. Servers in San Francisco will often earn up to $60,000 a year and for what? Bringing my plates to me? Honestly, I could do that myself if it were allowed. And then of course there are bartenders who make even more than that because of tips drunken idiots shower them in. I mean, why does some guy get a 25% tip for opening a bottle of beer for me in a place where they're charging $4 for it and it costs them around $.50? Yeah, I know, you're paying for ambiance which is most likely the reason I've all but stopped going to your typical bar.       It's all a ridiculous circle that ends only when we as the customers say, "Enough! Charge me the actual cost and be done with it!" To this end, I feel like taking a first step and when at restaurants where there is good service and an actual reason to do it, leaving a 5% tip. I do acknowledge that peoples' salaries come from this, so I would never suggest ended it all overnight, but maybe that would be the straw that broke the crappy system.       No more tipping at the damned bars until the bartender has actually done something worthwhile and not just stared at my lack of hipster apparel when I first enter. And that's it. This is a systemic deep-rooted problem with the culture in the US by which we put our fingers in our ears when it comes to knowing the full cost of something (ex. sales taxes, cleaning fees, extended warranties that are added on to the price tag) but if we can get past this, then, as silly as it sounds we can actually have systems like national health care. Explaining that is for a future post.       Okay, yeah, everyone is going to start throwing eggs and booing me at this point, but I don't care. I'm done with this system. You can even call me Dutch if you want, but I can take it and my 5% tipping is coming soon to a table near you even if that means I get called out in a forum.       

Yeah, I was out there with all of the rest of them; the observers. We all had our cameras and we were ready for the action that was San Francisco Pillow Fight 2008. It's in its third year for the city and has grown to a pretty sizable event. I slacked out last year and didn't go, but managed to walk the five minutes from where I was working to see it this time around.       It's a fun thing and a great way to work through any Valentine's Day angst before going out for the evening. People enjoy themselves and they bash the crap out of each other. But, by and large the one thing that I saw was the ring of people that were taking photos on cameras or cellphones (ergh...), and people filming the thing. It seemed like there were more spectators than there were participants. Number One Fan and I were planning to participate, but couldn't find any pillows that we felt like destroying, because destroyed your pillow will become. I was shocked as to how many pillows blew up and then of course with the explosions, came the feather down which was nasty to say the least. It ultimately didn't matter as everyone was really enjoying it despite the inability to breath or see.       But still, there's the issue of all of us just watching, which admittedly cuts down on the potential fun that everyone could be having. Scoring this point home so eloquently was a fellow walking around in a purple outfit saying, "Bloggers! This is not a spectator event! Get a pillow and get in there!" He could not have been more right, especially as I'm proving now by racing home to put up a 2008 Pillow Fight Gallery and write this article about it. And yes, I do see the irony in this. I'm a blogger and thusly I spread irony on my toast for breakfast.       In the end, I find the blogging aspect a fine endeavor, but there's a simple way to cut down on the amount of photographers and videographers like this guy and that's to have the fight an hour later. The light was pretty sketchy at 6, but with a huge aperture and 1600 ISO you can still get off good shots. But in just 30 minutes or so, it all goes to crap and you've got to use a flash, which just doesn't work well on fast moving, large crowds like this. Toss in all the feathers floating around and you get some really lousy shots which would hopefully equal more people fighting. Of course, without the voyeurs watching them, would you lose the participants as well? It's a funny society here these days.       Next year, if I go, I think I'll leave the camera at home and pillow-up early on. I'm just a littler terrified because there are folks who come fully masked up (I laughed when I first saw them until I couldn't breathe), padded out, and armed with some nasty, stanky pillows and even leather couch cushions, which I think is unfair. There are some rules to Pillow Fight, to which I would add a sixth: 'If you come to Pillow Fight, you have to fight."