Earlier this week I had a free morning and decided to take a walk and have some coffee. Of course it’s never just that easy so rather than hitting up just one coffee shop, I thought I’d go on a mini tour of a few of my go to shops along a few mile stretch just to see how they all stacked up against each other. I started off in the Mission and knew I had to hit up Ritual. For years this was the place I’d travel across the city to visit but for some reason it seems to have dropped off a bit recently. Or maybe the other offerings have just gotten much better. Maybe it’s just that the people there don’t seem to care as much as they used to. That said, the were the only place I visited that had vegan donuts available so that more than justified the trip there. Don’t get me wrong, stacked up against most other coffee shops in the city Ritual is still very high up on the list, it just happens they weren’t the very top of the places I visited.

Stop #2 was just down the street at Four Barrel. This is my favorite spot in the mission and very much worth walking out of your way to get to. Assuming it’s not on your way of course. As some what of a nomad I haven’t spent enough time here to be considered a local, but I’ve always had a damn fine espresso when stopping by. I’ve heard from folks who I consider much more local than me that sometimes the employees here aren’t the nicest but I’ve never experienced that and this is till the place I take anyone when I need to have a quick meeting in SF and want to show off some amazing coffee.

From here I ventured into SoMa to visit the not yet completely open but already much talked about Sight Glass. Anyone who remembers the early days of Four Barrel will appreciate the set up here – It’s basically a small cart with a machine and limited menu stacked in front of a curtain that hides what promises to be a really amazing set up once construction is finished. Because of this it’s not much of a place to hang out yet, but I think that’s going to change quite a bit once they are finished building it out. As far as the coffee itself goes, this was my favorite stop of the day and the espresso I had was bright and interesting, exactly what I wanted at that point. I can’t wait to go back here in the near future.

From there I walked way over to Cento. I used to go here anytime I was working near south park and dig the secret back-alley-ness of it. You really feel like you are in the know or something. And as far as the other coffee shops for a good many block radius, this is definitely your best option. That said, my espresso wasn’t the greatest and I think in the future I’m going to stick with the lattes here.

To wrap this trip up I doubled back and hit up Blue Bottle near Mint plaza. This is again one of my fav spots in the area and when everyone else suggests Starbucks it’s always excited to skoff in their face and take them here for something much better. Also the mad scientist lab set up of this shop and the fact that they carry Tcho goes a long way in my book of awesome. Usually I rave about their coffee as well, but in comparison to everything else I’d had so far this was kind of boring. Not bad at all, really good in fact, but predictable. It’s entirely possible I’ve just been hanging out with people who are excited to push the limits and haven’t been drinking the normal stuff recently so my perspective is skewed. I’d also walked several miles in the sun and had enough espresso to kill a normal person.

Regardless, everything I had was damn tasty and I’ll probably do this again soon. Anyone else want to join?

UPDATE: TedR posts in the comments that SF Gate has a more detailed story up. They say:

Mehserle, 27, was taken into custody in Douglas County, Nevada, said Deputy Steve Velez of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was also confirmed by David Chai, chief of staff to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

Mehserle was arrested in connection with an investigation by the Oakland Police Department into the shooting of Oscar Grant, 22. An Alameda County judge signed an arrest warrant, and Mehserle surrendered without incident, authorities said.

Douglas County sheriff’s officials refused to disclose what crime Mehserle was accused of committing in the arrest warrant. Deputy Velez said Sheriff Ron P. Pierini would make a statement on Wednesday.

So according to them it’s not officially murder charges yet, just in connection to the shooting and the actual charges will be announced in a press conference tomorrow.

It appears that police in Oakland shot and killed a man on New Years Eve. He was apparently involved in a fight on BART but this is unclear as things quickly spiraled out of control. The police pulled him and several other people off of the train.

There was an SF Gate story on the incident. The story (for those who aren’t reading the link) details what the witnesses saw. In short, a man was shot and it was said he was shot in the back, while on the ground. The comments on the story are horrible, most of them directly side with the police and suggest that all of the witnesses were lying. Some of the comments are simply racist and many suggest this is what you get for having a fight in public. While I certainly found it doubtful that the police would murder someone or even shoot them in the back (especially in such a crowd) it’s pretty clear that this is what happened.

At least two people took videos of the shooting and one of them had a direct line of sight. You can clearly see that the victim is talking to the police. He raises his hands as any reasonable person would, especially when dealing with the police. This is I would expect someone to comply, to show that they don’t have a weapon and that they mean no harm. The police put him on his stomach. This was with multiple police officers handling him.

He was reported to have begged to not be tasered. Supposedly he said that he had a four year old daughter right before he was put on the ground. The police officer in the video is clearly not at risk of any serious violence. Another police officer was holding the victim down. He had time to think and his response was to pull his gun, stand up, wait, aim and then he fired a shot directly into his back.

Unfucking believable.

Time to send that cop to prison where he belongs. He undermines any reasonable authority we give to the police. He and police like him are the reason that I have very little faith in any authority. I feel for the family of the young man who was murdered. I hope they sue the shit out of the police and they take that cop down like the pig that he is.

Here’s a link to the video.

Local author/blogger/personality Tim Ferriss has been working with the History Channel for a while now on a possible series and tonight the pilot episode will be airing. In Trial By Fire Tim will take on a new skill each episode, something that usually takes years to learn, and try to master it in a week. As you can see from the sneak peek the first one takes place in Japan and could go horribly wrong. (though I suspect since he’s still alive and can walk it worked out OK). He talks a little about where these shows might take him in this interview on Gadling. If you’ve ever seen Tim talk, or read his book The Four Hour Work Week you know this is going to be a damn interesting show.

Over on Laughing Squid, Todd Lappin found this amazing video from the cockpit of a Virgin Atlantic flight in a 747 as they fly in and land at SFO. It’s full of all kinds of knob turning and checklist checking, as well as amazing views.

More pics on my flickr stream and witty commentary on my twitter tweets.

What do you get when you cross a blow up monkey, a litter box, and 42 bottles of wine?

I spotted this on the sidewalk. Seriously, WTF??