Forbidden fruit

FDA Issues Warning on Cantaloupes

Cantaloupes? Is nothing safe? I was fine with tainted lettuce, because it's lettuce. But get your laws off my melons!

Five call limit

Sorry Mister Obama, after five calls (robo and human) for a single candidate I will no longer vote for that candidate. If you can't coordinate your phone list you can't coordinate a presidency.

Homeless Hangout

So the SF Public Library's main branch put $6 million into a facelift. The improvements seem nice and all, but the library is still disgusting and overrun with homeless junkies and crazies sleeping at the tables, making out (seeing this is what drove me to join a private library), and shaving and shooting up in the bathrooms. Nearly all of the reader comments on the news story mention this- so it's not just me being cranky.

Many of the improvements seem to speed up flow of people checking in and out- automatic check-in machines, speedier book check-out, and displaying more of the popular first-floor fiction books. Taken together, these improvements reflect user demand to spend as little time possible in the filthy, well-lit place for books.

It seems to me like the taxpayers just chipped in another six million bucks to avoid dealing with the homeless problem.

Dear P.J. Harvey

Congratulations on the new album. I just have a question: Where are the fucking guitars? It's all piano and harp. Are you Tori Amos now?

BM

I love listening to the change in attitudes about Burning Man from the people who don't go to it. In the late 1990's when I first got here, people would treat talking about BM like speaking about adventure travel: wow that's really cool that you went on a survivalist retreat in the desert. I admire you for it, but that's not my kind of fun.

Then it was known as sort of a raver party thing as it got nearer to the dot-com boom: yeah I've heard about it. It sounds fun but a little retarded. I'm tempted to go but really not all that tempted.

Then the new batches of people flooding into the city who played fusball at work and carried scooters on BART were excited about it, which is about the same time it became okay to mock Burning Man with friends you trust.

Then after the bust it seemed the hardcore burners became militant while word of the event spread further into the country. Here in San Francisco, we learned about after-burn and decompression parties and other exclusionary events: That party sucked; it was full of Burning Man people.

Then slowly the tide had started to turn against them. Otherwise cool people who continue to go to Burning Man annually finally shut up about it and started keeping it to themselves.

And now, it's only three weeks before the event that the chatter picks up. People admit they're going to BM like they admit watching American Idol- it's an embarrassing guilty pleasure. They say: I'm going to Burning Man, but I'm sure you think it's stupid. And more than ever before the average person is openly hostile to it. Rather than feeling someone out before making fun of the event, it's fine to talk shit about BM in public.

And when that guy lit the man on fire prematurely this year, people were laughing and emailing it back and forth at work, glad to see it get messed up. I thought that was a little cruel to be happy when others' good time is ruined, even if you think their good time is dumb.

But then again, I've been hating Burning Man since long before it was cool. Now that all these amateur poseur haters are joining in, it's just not as much fun anymore.

So I'm now declaring hating Burning Man over.

From now on it's all about loving Burning Man ironically.

But I can't talk about that right now. I'm busy planning the best decompression party ever.

Thwarted by Ikea

My futon couch/bed frame broke for good just before I went away on all my travels. I've had it for about 8 years and it was really comfortable up until a couple of years ago. The extra-thick mattress finally lost its shape, so after that point it's been just a regular sucky futon instead of an ultra-deluxe futon. Still, it's a futon.

So as soon as I got back from Idaho I set about getting a new one. I still like having a dedicated office, which means that I'll still be sleeping in the living room. But I thought at least I'd get a nicer frame. I found one at Ikea that's more of a fold-out couch that looked good and had an optional cover to make it look even better.

The problem is that the frame, good mattress, and cover all come separately. I went to the store once to try it out- it looked great and they had them in stock, so I came back the next day with a rental car to buy it. By this time, naturally, they had sold out of the mattress but still had the frame and the cover, both of which I bought because they assured me the mattresses were coming later that day and would be available the next morning. I was looking forward to my third trip to Ikea in as many days.

Meanwhile, I still had to my old futon to contend with. I disassembled the frame and put it out by the trash cans. I kept the futon inside leaning up against the wall so I could still sleep on it. Coincidentally, my new neighbor Brian moved in and to make room, they were throwing out some old mattresses. We decided we'd go in together on 1-800-got-junk for a pickup.

Now we're caught up to this morning. The junk collectors collected the junk and left. Then I made sure ZipCar had the big car available for rent. Then I called up Ikea to double check the mattresses were there and in stock.

So, as one would expect, the story ends with me waiting "three to five days" for more mattresses to arrive at Ikea, while owning a useless new couch frame and cover and having no old futon mattress to use in the interim. So I'll be sleeping on the floor next to part of a couch for the next week or so.

When I try to fight squalor, squalor always wins.

Scoots

The Bush sentence-commuting of Scooter Libby is astounding. If he really believed the prison term was "excessive" he could have let him go to jail for a while then commuted the rest of the jail time. Instead, he gets a fine and probation. Oooh! That'll teach you not to perjure and obstruct justice!

The president made the decision without seeking any advice from the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the Justice Department, the White House had previously acknowledged.

Finland, Land of the Punctual

I'm going to Finland next week and have been reading about travel (mostly what the local alcohols are) to get ready. I was very pleased to find this on WikiTravel.org:

Another highly regarded virtue in Finland is punctuality. A visitor should apologize even for being late for a few minutes. Being late for longer usually requires a short explanation. 15 minutes is usually considered the threshold between being "acceptably" late and very late. Some will leave arranged meeting points after 15 minutes or 30 minutes (maximum). With the advent of mobile phones, sending a text message even if you are only a few minutes late is nowadays a norm. Being late for a business meeting, even by 1-2 minutes, is considered bad form.

God that would be nice. Maybe I'll move there.

Oh the indignity

I was relieved that the stupid whales made it out to sea so that I'd no longer have to endure the hourly updates on the Chronicle's website, but they're finding extra stories to milk it.

I have to fully reverse the position I made on this blog earlier that the Chron should just stop worry about news and focus on features to save money, because as they continue to up the fluff I am getting increasingly nauseated with features on sick teenagers and animals. I'm starting to want some good old fashioned terrorism to ground me in reality.

My least favorite reporting that the Chron loves is reporting on their own reporting, and today there was a doozy! Back in March, they did a feature on cyber bullying. Then last week they ran another feature on how because of their feature, people were writing to the bullied girl to comfort her. Then today they ran a third feature on how since their last feature 1,000 more people wrote emails to the bullied girl in question.

My writing about cocktails for the paper is starting to look like actual news in comparison.

Summer of Suck

Fans, as you know I'm not a big lover of the Baby Boomers, the self-congratulatory generation. The SF Chronicle is doing a big series on the Summer of Love, which is confusing because it seems that every year someone is having an anniversary party for it. I've also mentioned before that I hate when the Chronicle publishes these insipid, pandering, nostalgic features to appease its present (aging) subscriber base, rather than doing much to encourage new subscribers to it. I'd say this series will do more to distance people of my generation from the Chron than endear people to it, and from the looks of the postings on the Culture Blog I'm right. It's amazing how many blog posters encourage this generation to "fucking die already." I thought it was just me!


Indicative of the Boomers is that they have absolutely no idea why anyone would dislike them, when they were so helpful to the world. In another ten years they'll probably outlaw euthanasia just to make sure they live for as long as medically possible, while bankrupting Medicare as they do it. Waiting for this generation to die off is like waiting for the end of the Bush administration- you know it's definitely going to happen and life is going to be *so* much better afterwards, but it feels like it's taking forever.

BS Phone Home

I've had the same cell phone company and number since I originally signed up around 1997. It was called Cellular One then. The company was bought by AT&T so then it was called AT&T Wireless for a while, then it became Cingular Wireless and now I've just been notified that it's AT&T again.

AT&T is also my DSL provider, not that I signed up with them either. It was Yahoo DSL, which then became AT&T.

Also, my phone company, formerly SBC, became AT&T as well.

Not that there is a communications monopoly or anything.

Rated R for Smoking

This is retarded. Movies with smoking will get stronger ratings than those without.

The Motion Picture Association of America announced Thursday that smoking will be considered when rating movies and that "depictions that glamorize smoking or movies that feature pervasive smoking outside of an historic or other mitigating context may receive a higher rating."

Sometimes don't you just want to punch liberals in the face?

Oh so sad

Lest anyone accuse the Chronicle of yellow journalism, here was the important news banner stretched across the website this evening (one day post-highway collapse):

Evening Commute Goes Smoothly
Updated 10:05 p.m.: But experts say those conditions won't last
Detours | Video: CBS 5 / YouTube | Map | Traffic | Maze page

Remain alert! It's like the Bush terror color scale, except instead of a desperate attempt to justify stealing constitutional rights from the public, it's a desperate attempt to make San Francisco's only real newspaper seem relevant (and as an extension, the city itself).

There was a job posting for an editor at SFist.com, a website whose main purpose is to pick on the Chronicle. A couple of friends recommended I apply, but you know what? That's entry-level humor lobbed at an easy target. A challenge would be mocking the city full of amateurs, instead of the coverage of it.

Feng You

Backers of a proposed community college building in San Francisco's Chinatown say the flowing glass tower will be imbued with feng shui -- the ancient Chinese concept that the placement of things brings balance to their surroundings and promotes prosperity, health and happiness.

But some residents and merchants say City College of San Francisco's new building is a 17-story, 253-foot "monstrosity" that would loom over Portsmouth Square -- and has already created negative feng shui.

"The objective of feng shui is to achieve harmony with the environment," said Albert Cheng, a community leader and strong opponent of the proposal. "The whole fact that this proposal has created such a disturbance is a sign that it is not good feng shui. It is really historically, architecturally, esthetically incompatible with the neighborhood."

Seriously. You're arguing that because a building is tall it violates your Ancient Chinese Secret? Feng shui has become a legitimate architecture critical analysis tool? Oh okay, I guess I missed when that happened, because it sure seems like a bunch of stupid hocus pocus to me!

I pushed her over the edge

I was doing my laundry last week on Tuesday. The reason I do it on Tuesdays is because Bothersome Crazy does hers on Mondays, and I hate listening to her insane ranting. I had several months without running into her and it was super. But this recent Tuesday she showed up when I had just put my clothes in the dryer, meaning I would have to spend an hour in the same room as her. Damn!

Within two minutes of entering, she went up to some guy and started her old routine. "It's so expensive, and I'm not rich, huh? But you have to do your laundry. You HAVE TO! I do! You HAVE TO!"

I had used a broken washer that day. I had sticky notes with me, so I labelled it as broken. But it turns out that was Bothersome Crazy's choice of washer too. "It's broke! It's not broke! It says broke and but it's not even broke!" She walked back and forth between those washers and other (perfectly good, available) ones, contemplating out loud the huge monkey wrench thrown into her plan. Back and forth, back and forth.

"The other laundry is cheaper! This is expensive! They say the machines are broke and they're not even broke! Huh?" On and on she went, getting herself more riled up. I was regretting labelling the broken washers because it was making her even more bothersome than usual.

Then something wonderful happened. She had a meltdown, pulled all of her clothes out of the washers, and ran out of the laundromatt screaming about going to the other one instead.

I made a mental reminder to always bring sticky notes with me to do laundry from now on.

Note to Self

I read most of the current New York magazine article on children's self-esteem. It's about how praising children's intelligence actually makes them lazy and unwilling to try things at which they might fail, whereas children praised for their effort work harder and do better.

(By the way, after reading that summary sentence, you can skip the article. I was about 3,000 words into it when I realized it was just repeating that thought ad nauseum.)

I only read the article because I hate children, and know that the self-esteem nonsense has been creating monsters out of them for decades. If you've ridden public transit, surely you've seen it too: the stupid (and/or poor) kids scream endlessly about how great they are when they can't even form coherent sentences, arguing over their inherent perfection. The smarter (and/or richer) kids air their unearned entitlement whenever possible, spouting banal nonsense to each other (as opposed to at each other like the poor kids), then perking up and throwing around statistics when impressible adults are around.

Aside: I also believe that the basic wrongness of hip-hop music is due to self-esteem training that began in the 1970's and 80's. The person doing the heavy lifting is the anonymous guy making the beats, who is rarely also the person talking over them. The one rapping about how great he is is usually unoriginal and untalented and learned the value of high self-esteem in the public school system. It's not that all rappers are without artistic merit, but almost anyone could have a hit album if Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, or the Neptunes were making the beats and producing it.

But back to my story- after all, what is blogging if not talking about oneself incessantly, like rappers of the internet- I realized that I was a test case for the praising intelligence versus praising effort.

I always got straight A's in everything until college. My brother was a B and C student. I'd bring home a report card and it would always be the same old thing, but if my brother got a B+ in something then they'd fall over themselves and we'd all go out for sundaes at Friendly's to celebrate. I think there was some reward system where we'd get 20 bucks or some portion of it for good grades, and they'd fluff up my brother's portion to encourage him, whereas to me they mustered all the enthusiasm of paying taxes.

But here's the real rub: My parents once told me when I was in 7th grade or so that they thought my brother was actually more intelligent, and I was not as smart but just worked harder. So rather than praise me for good grades they insulted me. (Note: is it any wonder I hated my parents?) This didn't result in me throwing myself off a bridge, but it drove me to try harder and get smarter and further prove that my parents are stupid hicks.

In the end though, my brother developed a work ethic in college and is the married one with a couple of houses whereas I stew in adolescent squalor. But I do work really hard at it.

Terrific Idea

School to offer car to lucky student with perfect attendance

(02-07) 17:07 PST Santa Ana, Calif. (AP) --

The school district is giving students with perfect attendance a chance to enter a lottery to win a new car.

School officials said this week they hope dangling the keys to a Chevy Aveo donated by a local dealership will save the district money by curbing absenteeism.

Santa Ana Unified is facing a $17 million budget deficit and loses up to $40 in funding each day a student misses school.

Some critics say the giveaway focuses attention on the car, valued at $12,575, rather than schoolwork.

Parent Anabeth Pineda, however, said she liked the idea.

"It can't hurt to give away a new car to help attendance," she said.

Um, yeah. It would be fucked up enough to bribe kids into not skipping school in the first place. What's worse is encouraging kids who come to school anyway to show up when they're sick so that they spread germs around in the hopes of winning a car.

I'm sure attendance will be a net gain this year!

Dear Rachael Ray

Who the hell are you? I'm guessing somebody Martha Stewart-ish, but I don't know. I hear about you all the time but I'm not sure what it is you do. Are you a celebrity chef? A thrifty saver-lady? America's Best Housewife?

But more to the point, what the fuck are you doing on my box of Triscuits? Did you invent the recipe? Did you bake them? I doubt it. Why do I have to look at you when I'm enjoying an otherwise delicious snack?

I don't know why you're here in the first place, but please, please go away.

Sincerely,

Camper

GREETINGS FROM THE FOREIGN OPERATION MANAGER INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK GHANA

Why is it that the (formerly known as Nigerian) wire transfer scam email always comes in all capslock?

Life's Full of Smurfs

I have had a backpack full of change (except for quarters) that I've been trying to get rid of forever. I go to one Safeway and they don't have a CoinStar machine any more. I go to another one and wait in line only to have the only one that works break down on the person in front of me. And today I learned that the CoinStar machines, the ones that don't take out 10% of your money for a service fee if you get an Amazon.com gift certificate instead of cash, have been replaced by CoinMaster machines that still do.

Note to banks: fuck you for not taking loose change. You're a bank! If there was a bank that offered free coin counting machines, I'd switch to that bank on principle.

So anyway, I was in Safeway getting ripped off by the CoinMaster, then went shopping. I noticed that the Veggie Patch fake chicken nuggets were on sale two-for-one, so I bought two of them. I only buy the fake meat- this brand and Morningstar Farms stuff- when it's on sale because normally it's also a huge ripoff. Why does a hamburger with buns and crap cost a buck at McDonald's while a veggie burger made out of the stuff you feed to the cows that make those burgers cost four bucks a pack?

The problem when the fake chicken nuggets are on two-for-one sale is that I come home and eat two packs of them right away, thus saving no money and doubling my caloric intake. Somehow, this is someone else's fault.

The Passion of Aladdin

Tonight I watched Aladdin, which was rather whatever. Then I followed it with The Passion of the Christ, which is torture to watch, and I'm not just talking about the plot.

I was thinking that the movie doesn't add anything to the understanding of the bible (actually it wouldn't make a lot of sense if you hadn't already read the bible), and it's not like a character study either. Pointless.

But then I did have a a previously unthought thought about the Jesus story: What's up with virgin mother Mary? Okay, if you had a virgin birth (which is totally not right IMO- if you're going to give birth to the son of God, how fair is it that you don't get to have sex with God? Cause like, that would have to be great sex. And also, at what point did she get married? She was married when she had him, which means that either she couldn't even have sex on her honeymoon or else Jesus was getting an inter-womb facial when she did. But then I guess that wouldn't be a 'virgin birth' but just a virgin conception, and the bible is pretty clear on that.) and you knew your son was the son of God, then why the hell would you let him become a carpenter? Like, you know he has better career options that that.

I'd have opened a tavern and been like, "Hey Jesus, how about you zap us up some more of that wine? The customers are thirsty." And speaking of wine, how smart is it that the Jews were all dying of thirst in the desert and Jesus takes the water and turns it into wine? For the son of an omnipotent being, he didn't know jack squat about hydration.

I need my safe place

I went to the Safeway in Potrero Hill for the first time in only a month or two, but now it's all changed around. They yuppified it, and it sucks. They have a kitchen accessories section with overpriced measuring cups and a Williams-Sonoma cookbook rack. They have a much-expanded natural foods section (formerly the natural food aisle) with a bunch of bulk food bins at the end. The coffee section seems to cover three aisles now. The vegetable section now has hardwood floors and organic tomatoes stacked into neat little pyramids. They shrank the size of the checkout lanes so everyone is jammed in there together.

They also have a giant circular nut bar. Seriously, like the size of my bedroom. I'm not sure if I was just hallucinating, but I think you can put your special blend of nuts into a grinder there and make your own peanut butter. WTF?

It's weird because that Safeway is fairly ghetto, and San Francisco is already packed full of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods and Bi-Rite already. Do they think the overpriced grocery demographic is underserved?

If this is their new plan, I'm surprised they haven't yuppified the Safeway at Church and Market yet. But then again, I haven't been there in a week.

Christmas Jingle

I was just in Safeway shopping for booze. They were playing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer over the loudspeakers and I started getting angry.

Basically, the other reindeer are a bunch of fucking jerks who shun Rudolph until his freakish mutation comes in handy. Then all the reindeer loved him? What kind of moral is that? Handicapped people should be locked away until they can prove themselves useful?

In the claymation version of the Rudolph story, even Santa chides Rudolph's father Dasher when Rudolph's mud-covered red nose is exposed.

If I were Rudolph on that foggy Christmas Eve when Santa came begging I'd be all, "Fuck you, Santa. And fuck your fucking elves, and the rest of you reindeer can eat shit. I hope your whole fucking North Pole melts from global warming and some PETA militant cracks your fucking skull for wearing fur. I'm out of this ass-factory, and I'm taking the dentist with me."

Newspaper Futures

There was a really good article in the SF Weekly about the future of the SF Chronicle. (And one of the rare mature articles about the Chron to come out of the Weekly- usually they're juvenile.) It was an analysis of the direction of the newspaper, from a money perspective. The Chronicle is losing subscribers faster than most newspapers, and losing a million dollars a week in the process. On the other hand, readership of the paper seems to be growing, as many people read it online. Yet the online arm certainly makes less money than print. Some points that stuck out in the story:

• The Chron is transforming from a publishing company to an information company.
  
• They're selling their printing presses, and will now outsource the printing of the newspaper.
  
• They're investing hugely in the online arm of the company, adding podcasts, additional photography, video, and a new "continuous news desk" to facilitate getting news reported quickly.
• They recognize that by the time you get the paper, you already know all the news that happened yesterday, so they're not bothering to print it on the front page anymore.
• New staff must be able to say how a blog or podcasting will add to their beat.
  
• They're beefing up the feature sections of the newspaper, instead of hard news reporting.
  

I not only find this fascinating, but I think it's a great vision of the future. The news is old before the newspaper can print it, so don't focus on printing it. On the other hand, a publication that's all feature stories is called a magazine. The trick will be finding the balance in getting the amount of feature story revenue to afford the news coverage and reporting staff.

Though it doesn't appear they're offering it right now, in recent months the newspaper has allowed a partial-week subscription of the print edition Wednesday through Sunday. Why would they do that? Because those are when the features sections come out: Wednesday Food, Thursday 96 Hours, Friday Wine, and the big Sunday edition.

That subscription offer was the first sign I saw that the Chron knows the value of these sections. You get your news online, but many features are more fun to read in print. This is the reason I like to see the paper. In the paper, recipe stories look better. Nightlife and social scene pictures look better. Long stories read better.

Ads are less obtrusive in print than they are online. Online, they try all sorts of tricks to put them in your face like pop-ups and click-throughs, which intrinsically makes you hate them. In print, they line the sides of the page and I actually glance through them quickly to see if there is anything interesting. Online? I want to avoid them.

So assuming the Chron knows all this, what would make the printed paper a cultural dynamo? What would make people like me subscribe to it again because there is more value in the features sections? Here are my suggestions:

• Put the travel stories in one place. Right now there is the Sunday Travel section, then another travel article in the Sunday Datebook, then also a Thursday Travel section. In the end, the Sunday Travel section is too thin and you might miss content printed other places in the paper. Why not combine all the stories in one place, and break it into local travel, national, international, and specialty travel just like the format of the paper itself.
  
• (That said, I have two pitches out to their travel section, so I would just like to say all the travel sections are perfect just the way they are.)
  
• Expand the Books section. I'm not sure why this section shrunk so much recently. San Francisco is supposed to have one of the highest numbers of bookstores and bars per capita. But the book reviews there I've usually read in several different places before the Chronicle prints them. As Litquake and other literary events prove, San Franciscans love books and authors, so the paper should reflect that a little bit better.
  
• Michael Bauer's food blog on the website is great reading. I think that content- trend pieces mostly- would work well in the pages of the paper. The print version doesn't give much of an indication that Bauer's got his finger on the pulse of culinary San Francisco- he just reviews single venues- but the stuff in his blog is what eating in this city is all about. Likes/dislikes/trends/annoyances/etc. (People have a less of a problem with dogs in restaurants than they do babies.) On the other hand, you wouldn't get the awesome comments that people leave on his blog, from diners who never tip more than 8% to waiters who think anything less than 25% is an insult.
  
• The Wine Section should hire Camper English full-time to cover cocktails, spirits, beer, bars, home mixology, and the like, and to blog for them as well. Duh No Brainer!
  

And likewise, the online version of the paper could be better tuned to its advantages. Possible improvements are:

• Tagging news stories. This would allow users to easily create customized news pages for themselves. For example, a story about a murder in Tahoe would be tagged with "Tahoe" "crime." One about skiing in Tahoe would be tagged with "Tahoe," "ski" and maybe "travel."
  
• Then users could build specialty news pages based on keywords, like news aggregation sites.
  
• This would also make searching the archives easier.
  
• This would also drive up ad revenue, as items tagged with keywords like "ski" would get targeted ads like "skiweatherreport.com" posted nearby.
  
• Additional photos, videos, and podcasts for news stories. The Chronicle has already been doing this with feature stories. In the age of digital photography, it costs almost nothing to put up extra photos that accompany print news stories. So why not do more of this? Photo pages make for great online ad placement, as people are used to clicking "next" with a new ad on each page.
  

Like many people in this city, I want the hometown paper to be something I'm proud of. I don't want it to be all fluff and wire stories (see: The Examiner) even if that's the bare bones way to stay profitable. You can drive up revenue in the culture sections of the newspaper to pay for the news reporting. There are advantages to online news (speed, searchability, repackaging opportunities) and of print (layout, advertising, texture) that can compliment each other by taking advantage of different aspects of the same stories.

So get it together, Chron.

And P.S. Hire me to rock your Wine section.