Wilbur-Ellis, a privately held San Francisco based multi-national importer has recalled all the rice proteins it had distributed to five U.S. pet food manufacturers. Melamine had turned up in sample lots brought in from China.

FDA scientists have found pet foods contaminated by melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics and fertilizers. Melamine can also impart false positives in tests looking for high protein counts, and possibly a reason why it’s turning up in food.

Wilbur-Ellis noted that it obtained rice protein from a single source in China and shipped to a total of five U.S. pet-food manufacturers located in Utah, N.Y., Kansas and two in Missouri. No word on whether they advised anyone who may have consumed lots of their other distribution items like Shark Cartilage Powder, Trisodium Phosphate, or Mechanically Deboned Bovines.

The 80 year old Wilbur Ellis Co, was still being run by Brayton Wilbur Jr, son of the company founder up until his death last year. Wilbur Ellis issued a press release from their 27th floor offices at 345 California that you can read after the jump…
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I’m headed back to LA today so I’ll stop pestering your NorCalers with my crap, but will leave you with this request for advice about bike friendly hotels in SoMa. Oh his blog, Joi asks:

“Anyone know of a good bike shop in the South of Market area? I’m in SF a few times a month these days and I think it would make sense for me to bike around instead of cab for those out-of-walking-distance locations.

Also, I just called the W Hotel and they said I couldn’t store my bike there even though I practically live there. Stupid hotel. Anyone know of a hotel that’s around the scale of the W Hotel that might be more friendly?”

Looking for a reason to get out of the office today? It’s 420 after all, and the Red Vic is showing The Big Lebowski in honor of this fine day. This is becoming a tradition for the Red Vic as they had the same showing last year.

Come on down, enjoy the show…

If you’re bored with tho ho-hum of vertical cable car rides over Nob Hill and down Russian Hill, then get on a trainee car. Ooooh yeah.

We were on (what I would later learn was) the Chinatown dip- on Jackson between Mason & Powell, when the car started going backwards. After about 15 dings of communication between the conductor & brakeman, a woman got off. “You scared her off.” The instructor told his trainee.

Granted, it was the first rain after a while and it was a very packed rush hour Powell-Hyde. But poor guy. I have to say- it seems like a really hard job. What’s amazing is that MUNI drivers have such an attitude, and then they get this promotion to train on the cable car, and it’s got to be the most humiliating thing to learn to operate these things in rain/crowds. It didn’t help too when som jack-a** SuperShuttle parks on the tracks on Powell, or people don’t move to the back. He did collect fares, though, and he got some transfer folks who didn’t understand one-way tickets.

I’m in Bangalore, India for the week, and last night met Anita, the Bangalore metblog captain. My personal blog entry here. And my pictures from my trip, which ends Saturday, are on Flickr.

Update: On Saturday I also met Bangalore metblogger Ravi. And he interviewed me.

I got the 9am appointment to renew my license. Not that it mattered- the non-appointment line was moving faster.

Girl turns to another girl and asks if she can give her boyfriend directions from Broderick & Broadway here. It starts a long conversation in line at the best route. “Van Ness!” “No just take it down to Broderick.” etc.

They speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Spanish and English, at any time of the day there is a translator available. I checked, and no single state employee speak all 5 (that my cashier person knew of). I wonder if there was such a person, if they’d get paid the salaries of all 5? Hmm.

I passed 100%! Knowing how odd the logic is, and how strangely the entire test is written, I find this really scary.
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Spotted near the Civic Center today:

Wait, what?!

I’ve been waiting 45 minutes for a train that NextBus says will be here in 13 minutes and I think I have found the problem thanks to their live mapping functions. Looks like a serious traffic jam in the turnaround. I hope it wasn’t another homeless guy getting crushed :-/

Muni has been seriously going downhill since this new T line launched and I think we’re all getting pretty damn tired of it. The only thing that has gotten better is the fare police frequency. *sigh*

Water in Lotta’s Fountain
Originally uploaded by Darren Mckeeman.

I woke up at oh-my-god-thirty today, and wandered down to the 1906 Memorial Service at Lotta’s Fountain. The reason they hold it at Lotta’s Fountain is because this is where lots of people posted notices for loved ones, in addition to being the only source of water still working in the Financial District.

Every year, they crank the fountain up for one day. I am not sure if it’s still turned on today, but I took the chance to take a picture of the only day of the year you’ll see water still coming from this fountain.

There was only one survivor there this year, the 104 year old guy that works at Andronico’s in the Sunset. Out of the past three years I’ve been going to this, there has always been a rather hilarious elderly lady who invariably flirts with Gavin Newsom — enough to make him blush. This year we were all sad to hear that she had died in December. She was a hoot.

There were only about 150 people there this year at best. As opposed to last year, with 10,000 people. We got to meet the Chief of Police and the Mayor, and got to talk to them for a while too. Gavin intoduced us to Jennifer too.

The Mayor told me I had to remind you all that an earthquake is coming! Go to http://www.72hours.org and get prepared!