After breakfast with fellow Metblogger Richard Ault at Just For You on 22nd, I found this shiny, bouncy new basketball court on Minnesota Street.

Wishing it was warmer? Make believe it is and get a free cone at Ben and Jerry’s today.

There’s nothing wrong with brown hair, except when it’s on my head. I feel like body parts are customizable cartoon avatars. If my online self has pink hair, then I should too.

There are a few stumbling blocks to procuring your pink hair, though. Drug stores typically only carry colors of the “natural” variety. One must trek to find the pink hair.

In my quest for pink hair, I was pleased to find a weird store, right in my neighborhood, with pink dye and more. Westwood Beauty Supply carries pink dye in many brands, including my favorite, “Special Effects”, and everything else under the sun as well.

These people have extensions in every variety imaginable, belly button rings, eye shadow in bizarre colors, purses, tiaras and just bins of crazy trinkets.

The trinkets look cheap, but they glitter. The owners don’t speak much English, and they don’t know much about hair. But if you know what you’re there for, they might have it and you don’t even have to go to a mall.

And hell, if you’re lucky, their resident copper chihuahua, Cookie, will be on-hand to greet you.

1524 Ocean Avenue
(between Capitol Ave & Miramar Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94112
(415) 586-1421

The MUNI K line stops right at the corner.
They are typically open from 10am-6:30pm, give or take…

Fellow Metblogger Jason and I attended this event at City Hall last year where the Mayor addressed the SBA members and other small business interests during National Small Business week. If I recall the food was pretty good and abundant, entirely supplied by SF’s most numerous small business population, restauranteurs. Beginning May 12th through the 17th, there will be events around town including the following:

Highlights will include our annual Flavors of San Francisco celebration at City Hall the evening of May 12; Start Your Own Business workshops on May 13; a Green business forum and party May 16; technology summits by both Microsoft and Cisco Systems; and the State of Small Business in San Francisco discussion on May 14.

We hope you’ll join us to network, learn and celebrate. Registration is available at www.acteva.com/go/sfsbw

For more information, please contact Gary Marshall at 415 744 6771.

Related:

• Small Business Week Hits the City
• SF has 2d most bookstores per capita

(Photo from my BlackBerry. Sorry about the blur: I was walking!)

Well, the line wrapped around the block and extended well down 19th Street, and they had to delay the start of the performance in order to get the capacity crowd into the theater. It was a good show.

The Golem, set in a medieval Jewish ghetto, was produced in Germany in 1920 — the year the Nazi Party was founded. As you might expect from that context, the film was at times baffling, at times infuriating, but always compellingly weird and thought-provoking. And the original music by Black Francis was basically awesome.

More after the jump!

The landlord has taken another victim, a Triathelete was killed this morning in North County San Diego. Sincere condolences to the family.

While San Diegans search for the “killer shark” the rest of the nation looks on with morbid curiousity.
If you regularly surf, swim, sail or dive in the ocean off california than you have undoubtedly been close to one of these incredible animals in your time in the water. Sitting on your board, quiet, and you know you are not alone. They are not just a northern california resident, as whites range great distances, just like their prey.

Afraid to get in the water? Don’t be ridiculous, Muni is more dangerous than a great white.
[poll=11]

Related:

• Surfpulse has an excellent archive of Shark sightings and attack reports for our region
• Pacific Coast Shark News – Listings of Sightings and Attacks

At 9:30 tonight, the 51st Annual San Francisco International Film Festival will present The Golem with Black Francis at the Castro Theater. From the capsule summary on the linked page:

A silent classic and an exemplary specimen of German expressionist cinema, The Golem is set in 16th century Prague. A rabbi fashions a proto–Frankenstein’s monster, sculpted from rough clay and brought to life through sorcery, to protect the Jewish ghetto from a Christian emperor’s decree that it be dissolved. Through means both surprising and charming, the creature manages to stave off the wrath of the emperor and his court. But it eventually goes haywire, as the rabbi’s jealous assistant turns the golem toward evil. A true juggernaut, the golem destroys everything in its path.

Black Francis, of Pixies fame, will perform original music to accompany the film.

Tickets are $15 for Film Society members, $20 for non-members.

Last night my wife and I were nearing the end of Simon Winchester’s book about the 1906 earthquake, A Crack in the Edge of the World, where he talks about the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake for a few pages. (Which I remember well: I was in Santa Cruz when it happened.) Ever since then I’ve always reassured myself that the next one won’t be so bad, because Loma Prieta relieved some pressure off the fault. Right? Right??

Wrong, apparently. Winchester writes, in all italics, “the Loma Prieta Earthquake was not a result of a rupture along the San Andreas Fault.” And then he goes on to explain what that means: the pressure on “our” fault hasn’t really been relieved since 1906.

Whoo boy.

Most disturbingly, he goes on to cite a still-current 2003 U.S. Geological Survey forecast that “sometime before the year 2032, along one of the seven fault systems that belong to the San Andreas cluster and that spear their way through the Bay Area, there is now a machine-computed probability of 62 percent that an earthquake with a moment magnitude of 6.7 or greater will strike. There will be damage and casualties on an impressive scale.” So I went to bed with fear in my heart, aware that I have no earthquake relief kit.

But in the morning I remembered an article I read in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine last year, right after the brief 5.6 quake we had on October 30. In brief, it’s about a guy named Chris McCloy. His business is to bundle together comprehensive earthquake relief kits at below-market prices. These include a tent and sleeping bags (because your building might be ruined), 2000 calories and 1 gallon of water per person per day for a week, and first-aid, sanitation and other supplies.

Basically, it’s one-stop shopping for earthquake preparedness.

His website is here and it’s well-worth exploring in detail, even if you don’t intend to buy a kit. (They are less expensive than they might be, but it’s still a lot to shell out all at once.) For instance, I find that the only things we’re really lacking from the 2-person box are the most critical: food and water. Time to set about getting those.

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Anyone who lives in the city knows it can be difficult to find a pet-friendly apartment. My landlord ok’d my dog, since he is “smaller than a cat”. Personally, as a lover of animals, I think landlords should be more lenient. However, a neighbor of mine is probably a good example of “pushing it to the limits”.

It’s hard to take a picture in the sunlight, but on a nice day with the shades are open, you can see a few of my neighbor’s feathered friends. (A few of the flock pictured below) I’ve counted up to about 21 medium-sized, tropical birds with free reign of the front room.

I can’t see too far into the apartment because it’s on the second floor; but in my mind, the rest of the room is decorated with hanging vines and leaves. Maybe a jungle sound effects CD is playing in the background? The windows are definitely decorated… with something else.

Speaking of birds… more pics after the jump

Greetings dear readers! I’m happy to present to you a weekly addition to SF Metblogs! Every Wednesday, I’ll pick a bar to write about and present my take and experience in hopes of giving you options for your everyday after-work Happy Hour needs so that you can effectively “Party Like it’s Friday!”

Comments are always welcome and please feel free to throw some suggestions my way! I’m an equal-opportunity drinker and always looking for new spots to check out! As this is a San Francisco blog, let’s try to stay within city limits. Although, I’m no stranger to the East Bay and would love to venture out that way on occasion.

Beale Street Bar and Grill

I was first introduced to Beale Street Bar and Grill when my roommate invited me to a thing his co-workers were having one night. Working in the Financial District in San Francisco has taught me never to turn down an invitation to a bar I’ve never been.

We’re so limited to what bars there are to go to in the area that it seems we tend to flock to the same ones repeatedly after work. I do get it; certain people have certain tastes. That much is… well, certain. But, I’m the type of guy that likes variety. I tend to not have a favorite type of anything. The Financial District seems to provide a certain specific type of venue for your happy hour needs. Sure there’s variety, but like any district in SF, it’s pretty limited. In the Financial District, there are mainly pubs and bars catered to those hard working people we like to affectionately (and sometimes not so much affectionately) call Yuppies.

I tend to really like dive bars. It’s not a preference in the sense that I’ll be opposed to go anywhere else. It’s just that I feel like they have an environment that’s much more comfortable than any stuffed up fancy place can provide.

Beale Street provides the happy medium. It’s still the Financial District and even their slogan says it’s “The Financial District’s Neighborhood Bar” and that tells me they can provide that comfortable dive bar experience you may want.

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