Why that job may be hard to find
It's always easy to blame the "tough times", but in reality yeah, things are kind of tough. See below and watch the whole animation from 2004 here.
31 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: economy, us america
Know your San Francisco Hood
This is actually quite cool in that the Chron has set up an interactive map for people to map out where they think they actually live as in, which neighborhood. Unfortunately they didn't really parse things so well so you get, "The Mission" as well as "Mission" or "Mission St." Maybe they'll fix that in a final version, but it's it's interesting to see how people are defining their sense of place in this city.
It's all based on this article which talks about how real estate types are working to rename a great number of areas, like calling the "Financial District" the "Barbary Coast" for some godforsaken reason. Obviously, things aren't selling well if this is what they're spending their time doing. Take a look and map out where you are if it's still available. I'm either in "Nob Hill" or the "Tendernob" depending on who you ask. Thankfully I'm not in "Tenderloin Heights". They're a bunch of drunken snobs over there.
30 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: maps, place, san francisco
Wave is great, but where's my HTML 5?
The big buzz since yesterday is surrounding Google Wave. After having read a rundown of this thing, I find it to be rather cool. I'm not alone in this as a great many people feel the same way. The best thing is that they stole Microsoft's thunder over their Bing release, which is always cool.
One of the reasons that I'm rather fond of what Wave is doing is that while doinking around with Facebook's API and Connect systems, I've been a bit lazy to really dig in to them as much as need be. Sure, I know enough to get in there in program up an App, but why? I have nothing on this site that's worthwhile to spout about. Maneno could maybe use an app, but it's in its infancy and needs a lot of things before it needs a Facebook App. And this is why I think Wave will be cool in that it will crush Facebook's proprietary system. It will be open source and do just about everything that Facebook is currently trying to do. I like that. I can get behind that. I can develop for that. Oh, but wait...
Wave is going to need HTML 5 support before it really takes off. As I can see, we're screwed when it comes to HTML 5 support. Firefox 3.1 has it, but we're still officially on Firefox 3. Safari 4 in theory has it, so that's good, although Apple, as super early adopters often crap up standards, so I have a feeling it won't be until Safari 5 that the support will be trustworthy and 4 still is in beta. Explorer is just out in the cold altogether with not even Explorer 8 having support these days and I hope that this is the think that ends up killing off Explorer use. Lastly, Chrome doesn't have support in version 2, which is the current version. I find that odd given that Google is pushing Wave, Wave would like to have HTML 5, and Google makes Chrome. I assume that support will shortly be forthcoming.
So, Wave does appear to be the future, but it's a future we'll have to wait for. Personally, I'll be thrilled to not have to use that damned swfobject JavaScript hack to get Flash working correctly on my sites, since the "video" tag will handle. It's going to be a long day in coming though...
29 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: facebook, google, google wave, internet
How to know when internetz foulness is afoot
Funny thing when you search for 'Kenya' on Google. The number one result is for this crappy travel guide and information portal. Things like the Wikipedia page for Kenya, or the official government site, or the CIA factsheet page all take second fiddle to this. Why? Simple. Someone has paid a great deal of money for what is called "black hat" search engine optimization (SEO). Lots of companies do this and usually get away with it. Sometimes they don't as when Google de-listed BMW for doing similar things. Play with digital fire and thee do get digitally burnt.
Undoubtedly, this lousy page which is number with stay that way until Google realizes what's happening or they get tired of paying what are probably massive bills to make this happen. I briefly worked for a company that did this type of thing and they were amazingly effective, although insanely expensive.
25 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: google, seo
For larger holes, call PG&E
Below is what happens when PG&E (our power and gas monopoly in California) decides to dig a one meter deep by half meter wide L-shaped trench in the street, then cover it with metal plates, then come back two weeks later. What started as a small trench which they needed to dig for some unknown reason and then desert turned in to this massive hole when one of these metal plates worked loose a little bit and then cars and buses kept passing over it. Thankfully someone from the city noticed it and called these doofuses to fix it. Had they not, there would have definitely been a car, bumper down in the trench or even better, an Academy of Art bus in the same position full of fragile little artsy princes and princesses urinating all over themselves and then "arting" about it later. I would have actually have paid to have seen that--the crash in to the trench, not the "arting".
As it was, PG&E did a cut-rate blacktop job over it that will probably stay that way for six months or so until the next rainstorm comes in and washes it away.
22 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: construction, san francisco, transportation
When the times get tough, the rinds get selling
I have a friend of a friend who is in the habit of blaming pretty much everything on "tough times". I admit, it's a pretty crappy economy as well as a crappy lot of other things. But, "tough times" being the excuse for an inability to do anything gets a bit old. That and they've been doing it for the lest two years or so, when times were definitely not so tough.
It appears that the wonderfully in touch Whole Foods has decided that due to these tough times, they need to start selling products that are more within reach. Thus, the reason they apparently have the nerve to sell the rinds of Parmesan cheese. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. The fact that this actually exists and is trying to be sold for $20 a kg is proof yet again that Whole Foods seriously needs to either get a clue or fold up shop. Although they have peeked my curiosity as to whether they might sell fish bones, yogurt mold, and used wine bottle corks in the near future. One can only help that their attempts to get more in reach of the "common people" will continue.
21 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: better buying, cheese
Bay to Breakers 2009: The year of the swine
You know that feeling when you suddenly come up with a great idea? It could be when you're in the shower, on the toilet, making granola, or maybe just really, really stoned out of your gourd. Whenever it happens, you suddenly feel this light shining upon your mind and you believe that you have come up with with the most amazing thing in the world and no one, simply no one, has come up with this idea either.
We've all been there and as much as we never want to admit it, while we were on the toilet crafting bits of genius, some other guy was stoned in the shower, thinking up the same bit. You suddenly realize how often this happens when you go and watch (or go forbid, run) Bay to Breakers, our annual footrace in San Francisco. It's a great event that is a much sweatier version of the annual Love Parade with more beer and less drugs. Hey, it's a pretty gay city. We love our parades, costumes, and shits.
The only issue with Bay to Breakers is that after you've seen a few (2006 and 2007) it gets to be a common routine. For a friend who lives a block off Hayes Street, this means having to deal with her street being awash in urine and drunken morons (more on that later). For me, this means seeing your rather regular set of sexy nurses, salmon running upstream (which I don't get tired of), the "Elvi" (Elvises), fairy winged chicks (and dudes), a fleet of gnarly, fat naked folk, and a plethora of others standard B2B outfits. It's still fun though, because what makes it change from year to year is that there are those with the aforementioned toilet ideas who try to break out of the mold and try something new. This could mean any number of Borats, Napoleon Dynamites, or Reno 911s running around. This year, it was the swine, as in swine flu. H1N1 was represented in any and all forms from floats to costumes, to... whatever. Piggy was everywhere, but because the piggy cough was something of a nebulous load of media hype, the embodiment of "swine flu" in the race was different for all those trying it. I had to respect it.
As far as the annual drunkenness goes, I have to say that it was definitely less. Yes, there were plenty of trashy Marina and Mission/Hipster types bouncing around like idiots, but the amount of massive quantities of alcohol was definitely reduced. This article states to the contrary, but it was wrong on many counts. They were mainly trying to limit people pushing carts that were just full of beer kegs through the race. They managed this to a large extent. I have no idea as to how it went further down the course, but it was not the scene that I've known from previous years. Yeah, people were still drunk when they hit Hayes Street Hill (the 4km mark), but I think it was more limited this time. People had drank themselves out because they couldn't carry as much. Also, it was damned hot for San Francisco. A 30C day in the middle of May isn't that common. Some folks (as much as I refuse to admit it) might actually have been sensible and realized that they could have killed themselves walking 12km with only beer to hydrate them.
Anyways, B2B is over for the year and maybe, I'll actually try to run it one of these days. On the lazy note, a photo set will be following as I and #1 Fan took about 300 shots today.
17 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: bay to breakers, san francisco
Have your lard and drive it too
Take a good hard look at this temporary license plate paper on a new car of my cousin's. For anyone from the Central Valley of California, this means nothing. It's a big fat place to go buy cars in the town of Manteca. For anyone who knows Spanish, the ugly truth comes out though and that 'fat' aspect becomes especially true. Yes, in Spanish this means, "Lard Auto Square". That's maybe not the foulest thing out there, but it's near the top and let's not even talk about what happens in the summer.
15 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: california, central valley, language
Found amongst the digital rubble
While out of town for last Christmas, I spent a few days in Barcelona (my wannabe home) and I cleaned up pretty much everything on my last tourist to-do list, including seeing these Roman columns. That was back in January. It's just today that I finally dug through all the scraps of picture and video on my Spanish mobile and I found that there was a video to go along with the photos. I present it to you below in all its pixelated glory. Still cool columns though despite the quality.
14 05 2009 0 comments
Tags: barcelona, catalonia, history, spain, video
Really? A Cup Of Brown Joy?
America is a coffee country because of the shit that went down in 1773. After that later 18th century date, drinking coffee was seen as more American because it was less British. Just as drinking tea was seen as more British because it was less American. And it's not so much that I mind coffee, but more that I mind this brown turd water in a paper cup that people generally try to pass off as coffee here. Give me a proper Italian espresso or cappuccino, or maybe a Bosnian Coffee and I'm okay with that. There's flavor. There's something to it. It's not bitter water that I'm just trying to choke down for the sake of a jolt.
So, as originally seen here, this is the only "glory" that I get when it comes to being a tea drinker. Teacore rap really does little to make my drink of choice any tougher, but it does make me wanna shout, "Assam! Lovely!"
