Did you go? Me neither. Friends went and reported back about the bad crowd control, but the Flickr tags tell a different beautiful, feathery, glittery, smiley story. HotFromSiliconValley.com has an astouding 679 photos; majeztic has a few up, too. Enjoy.
As seen over on SF’s very own Billboard Liberation Front‘s blog, the Anti-Advertising Agency and out-of-control prankster Packard Jennings have completed their campaign to bring you the very latest in totally unmarketable messages to make you consume absolutely nothing. Refreshing and delicious! That’s right, it’s their Oakland Bus Stop Bench Project, where “The Agency created a survey to poll residents in the neighborhoods surrounding 10 Oakland bus stops regarding what advertising tactics they found most bothersome in their neighborhoods. Jennings then developed targeted illustrations for each neighborhood and the team installed the work.” Making me proud to be in the Bay Area, for the ten zillionth time. If anyone gets pics of these, please send them in and I’ll post ’em…
Today, while out sailing on the bay (ok, riding on a sailboat as I cannot sail myself), I came across some kite surfers. I have never seen this sport before, so I was facinated. These guys are strapped into what looks like a cross between a surf board and a snowboard, and then hold onto a parachute-looking kite. And they book it! They were sailing as fast as us on our boat, with the added excitement of occasionally flying up into the air and flipping around. They seemed to notice that we were sailing next to them to check them out and take pictures, because they came up right by the boat and did some tricks for the camera and the cheering audience.
(more pics after the jump)
As anyone who cares probably already knows — 20 minutes after it happened — Barry Bonds hit home run no. 715 today. But for listeners to the Giants radio broadcast, this was, for a few moments, merely a matter of speculation.
Bonds came up in the bottom of the 4th inning following a leadoff walk to Steve Finley. Byung-Hyun Kim threw a fastball on a 2-2 count, and broadcaster Dave Flemming started shouting:
“Swing and a drive, deep to –“
Then nothing.
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My glorious weekend plans fell apart due to SF flakiness – has anyone posted about that? – ( it was: WineCamp, but I lack the independent fortitude to go solo) and so I had to scramble to get a life. Luckily a friend of mine asked me to join her in tasting the new menu at her friend’s restaurant, Cav. Long bit about my dining experience after the jump.
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Most weekdays on my walk to work, I usually end up cutting through Yerba Buena Gardens sometime between 8:30 – 9:00. (Thank God I can arrive there ‘fashionably late’. [ahem]) Although the design of the place does feel a little ‘brand new’/architecturally stagey, it’s a welcome oasis of green amid the commercial bustle of SOMA. The part I look forward to most is having to squeeze past the group of elderly members of the Asian community practicing traditional Tai Chi work outs, like the sword and fan forms. With my headphones on supplying my personal soundtrack, it’s a serene way to begin the workday (especially when it’s a fan day).
When I was driving home Saturday evening, I thought that the sunlight hitting the church was so pretty that I leaned out of my car to take a quick picture while the light was red.
Curious about the church, I poked around online and found that it is named Sacred Heart. But the more I read, the more interesting the story got.
The church was built in 1898. It survived the 1906 earthquake, and so it provided food and shelter to the homeless. Then it had some minor damage in the 1989 earthquake. Because the congregation had grown so small over the years, the Catholic church decided not to retrofit the building. They closed the parish and planned on selling it to housing developers. For a while, it looked like the church might be demolished. Then last year, the owner of Chalk Hill winery bought the church. The church is now part of Sacred Heart’s school, renamed Megan Furth Academy.
And here I thought it was just another church.
Except in this case, the opera isn’t just in the opera house, but also just outside City Hall. The San Francisco Opera opened their summer season tonight with Madama Butterfly, and they had a live video simulcast of the proceedings on Civic Center Plaza. More pictures and impressions after the jump.
The Rite Spot looks from the outside like a complete dive — which is to say, very promising. The neon sign has ruled the corner of 17th and Folsom since the neighborhood was light industrial and railroad tracks ran just half a block away.
First plus: except for the ODC Performance Gallery half a block away at Shotwell, the neighborhood is deserted at night, which means plenty of parking. No endless circling or betting on not getting ticketed for parking in the middle of Valencia St. — there aren’t even any apartments at 17th and Folsom. Which means there’s plenty of space for you.
Inside you’ll find that increasingly rare thing: a quiet bar.
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A lot of mushroom activity going on here, folks. First of all, the Mushroom Mardi Gras in Morgan Hill is in full swing this weekend. I haven’t been–I only saw the sign for it as I was driving to Gilroy for outlet shopping–so if you go, please report back!
Also, I was just at Far West Fungi in the Ferry Building today, and wow, they have amazing mushrooms! Right now is Morel season, so they have lots of fresh Morels, plus all sorts of other fungi. They even have live mushrooms growing out of mysterious whitish logs.
A little kid there was obviously grossed out by all of the mushrooms, so the guy at the counter tried to offer him a chocolate mushroom instead. But the kid just would not be convinced that it was just chocolate wrapped in the shape of a mushroom, so finally his mom took the chocolate and ate it.
