Rants about the Bay Area

Ok... I've been in the Bay Area for about a year now so I think I have the right to get up on my little soapbox and bitch and moan about silly things that just annoy the hell out of me here.

Here's my Top 10 List of things that really tick me off about SF and the Bay Area:

10. CRT's are a dime a dozen around here.
Back in New York, it was pretty easy to get your hands an old computer that someone was getting rid of. Friends and family would give me their old computers for free. A lot of times, people would just throw their old computers in the trash. None of this Craig's List bs. (True story - One time, I was in Chinatown back in New York and someone junked all of these computers on the sidewalk in front of the Citibank with a sign on them which said, "Working". I didn't have any tools with me so I had to call up a friend in the area to see if he wanted first dibs on it.) It wasn't top of the line but I could still get some mileage out them. Fixed them up. Gave some of them away. It was my "hobby". My apartment looked like one big server room. Free monitors were hard to come by though. In San Francisco, I can't even get a free computer to fall on me. (Well, maybe a PII here and there but who really wants those?) But everyone here wants to have a nice LCD monitor so they just junk their old CRT monitors. I have 3.

9. San Francisco has a great selection of ethnic restaurants?
"Fusion" doesn't count. Ok... I have found some pretty good Indian, Japanese, Thai and Mexican places. The Chinese restaurants are ok. I'm not really sure what's up with the Korean people around here. There seems to be a lot of Korean people here but for some reason, they can't seem to get together and make one really good Korean restaurant. What's up with Korean people here??? And trying to find a place which has decent Jja jjiang myun is like searching for the Grail. I have yet to find a decent Russian restaurant. As for caribbean food, it's like they've never heard of Golden Crust or something.

8. Aging Hipsters.
Chris Rock has this whole bit about when you go to the club, there's always one guy in the club who's not really old but just a little bit older than everyone else. That guy is half of San Francisco.

7. The shortest distance between to points in San Francisco is not a straight line - Too many goddamn hills.
It took me while to figure the best way to get around San Francisco without having to walk uphill all the time. Mapquest wasn't really that much help. Plus, have you ever tried walking up or downhill after drinking? Let me tell you - it's no picnic.

6. Hippy Logic.
Is it so hard to have a coherent thought in San Francisco? Is it so hard to go from Point A to Point B to Point C around here? I am a simple man. I was brought up to believe that the simplest way is the best way. It doesn't seem like people believe that around here. I really think that they should step up the random drug testing in the Bay Area and be a little stricter with passing out the medical marijuana cards.

5. It costs me $2-something just to go one stop from West Oakland to the Embarcardero.
In the BART stations, I see these signs saying that BART came in 4th in the nation for Best Public Transportation Systems. I don't know about that... First thing, it doesn't run 24 hours day. (Ok... That does make a good excuse sometimes when you need to get out staying at some event or drinking too late. "Oh, sorry... I have catch the BART back to Oakland before gets too late.") Then it's at least $2-something to really get anywhere each way instead of a flat fare. Back in NYC, I could get from Brooklyn to the Bronx for $1.50. Sure, it would take me at least an hour and a half but I could do it.

4. Califormia is warm and sunny all the time... Yeah, right...
So I've always had this impression that weather in California was nice most of the time. Man, if I knew that it rained this much in San Francisco, I would have just moved to Seattle. I thought I wouldn't need any of my winter clothes after moving out here but I wear my Gortex jacket all the time.

3. Things are never really what they appear to be.
Where I come from things are what they are. Nothing less and nothing more. Everything looks so nice and shiny but if you actually took your nails and dug into the surface a bit, you may be pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised. In my old age, I don't like being surprised about anything.

2. Still damn hard to find a decent slice of pizza around here.
(Ok... the Mongolian pizza place down the block is kind of interesting.) And it's always like $2.75-3.00 for a bad slice of pizza.

1. Everyone here is working on the Great American novel... everyone here is a struggling artist... everyone here is a painter... blah blah blah...
But of course, nothing really comes out of it. People can't just be normal people here. It's like the word, "hobby", doesn't exist in the English language here or something.

DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution

From the New York Times, January 6, 2006.

By NICHOLAS WADE
Researchers have gained a major insight into the evolution of cats by showing how they migrated to new continents and developed new species as sea levels rose and fell.
About nine million years ago - two million years after the cat family first appeared in Asia - these successful predators invaded North America by crossing the Beringian land bridge connecting Siberia and Alaska, a team of geneticists writes in the journal Science today. (cont.)

Oakland Public Library (Asian Branch) schedule. 

iPod Scooters. 

Michael Masley - He opened for MacWorld or something. The instrument that he is playing is a cymbalom. 

Marble statue on the second floor of the Downtown Oakland Library - I was checking out the library last Friday and got myself a library card. It's been about 20 years since I've had a library card. 

Earthquake and Fire: San Francisco In Ruins.