Check the website listing of events to see the nine hosting neighborhood and details on each of the days events. The events/venues include Chinatown Alleyway Tours, Chinese Historical Society of America, Asian Art Museum, Main Library, California Academy of Sciences, Cartoon Art Museum, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Giant

The film company, matrix productions, reputedly destroyed the overpasses and surrounding material after they finished filming so that no one could use it again. I’m not sure about this, though, because the area is at the western edge of the former Alameda Naval Air Station, where I can’t imagine a lot of overpasses were originally needed. (Perhaps they built up and then removed their additions.)

Here’s a Google Map of what’s left.

And, in related news, it seems that Google Maps is about to get two more layers of resolution. High-res places are rumored to include our fair city, New York, and Los Angeles, with more to follow. This is very cool.

The sorely-missed Le Bon Gateau, gone before it really got going, has been replaced with a French-esque bistro; opening this morning at 476 Castro Street.

Sunday brunch is promised, starting at 09:00. Beer & Liquor license in three months, they say. No WiFi (yet). Pictures and narrative to follow.

Unfortunately, there was either a mistake or a change of plans. The VIPs filled the museum, and the hoi-polloi were told to stand in line for another two hours. Luckily, perhaps with the presence of a half-dozen SFPD officers lounging around the pool registering, the anger raised in the stroller-wielding crowd was sublimated to furious drinking of vanilla lattes on 9th Avenue.

The queue’s length last night around 10 p.m. was unbelievable, stretching all the way down to JFK and towards the Conservatory of Flowers as far as the eye could see.

The museum claims to be open today until 5 p.m. Let’s all go and enjoy.

I’d hoped to be posting from overseas, but ‘net access was spotty without some serious work. Now that we’re back in our fair city I want to express my deep pleasure at living in a place which is (1) reasonably warm, (2) offers a staggering choice of well-prepared cuisines, and (3) at an often reasonable price.

More than once, whilst eating either over-priced or poorly-prepared fare, I said to my wife “we eat like kings in San Francisco”. Sometimes it just takes going away to really notice what’s here. Ohhhh, I’m glad to be back.

Trumpeting how “world-class” you are is akin to wearing a tee-shirt that says “I’m great in bed”; if you weren’t compensating for something you wouldn’t be needing such a thing.

Where’s this rant going? Well, I’ve heard KFOG radio describe themselves as world-class just once too many (while at a friend’s house, this evening). In the old days, when Boston was having similar problems, I gave up on commercial radio because - despite protestations to the contrary or the rare A-Z through the catalog - a very small number of songs are recycled ad nauseam. We in the real world call it “payola radio”. (Boston’s eclectic radio stations have one by one been bought out and now all play the same oldies format as you can “enjoy” in every major market.)

At home I can enjoy radio streaming across the Internet, or my collection of songs ripped from library CDs, but it would be really nice to have a radio station that knew about Dropkick Murphys or Manu Chao.

KFOG, you’re not that good in bed.

The city of San Francisco aggressively enforces the closure of the public parking lots at Ocean Beach. Okay, you say, at 3 am on a Saturday night? 2 am? No; get this: 10 pm!

That’s right, this “world class” city shuts down your ability to hang out at 10 pm. Shameful.

Three or four police cars cruising up and down the parking lot, threatening a $76 ticket for cars not moved. Great use of resources, but that’s not my point at this moment. We chatted with one of the officers (while his dog kept barking and smashing his face into the rear window; impressive). This is how the conversation went:

Me: You guys are shutting down the beach at 10 pm?

Officer: Oh, no. The beach is open. It’s the parking lot that’s closed.

Me: (trying to figure out why the parking lot needs to be closed, to save it for tomorrow?) Uh, okay, well, where can we park near-by?

Officer: I can’t really advise you on that. (Seeing my face of “uh, you can’t get help from a police officer these days”, he tried to help.) There’s no legal parking anywhere around here.

Me: So what you’re telling me, if I understand you, is that the beach is open, and my children and I may enjoy the bonfires, but we can’t park the care here, nor anywhere near-by, nor anywhere in this area at all?

Officer: Yep.

What a sad state of affairs. How low have we come when we have to deal with such a pointless Catch-22? What could possibly be in the public interest to close a parking lot at such an early hour?

It’s yet another thing which makes us look foolish, as a city. This is the best we can do? Sigh.

Strolling by the Le Bon Gateau caf

Hershey, that fine purveyor of reasonably unimpressive chocolates, has announced it’s gobbling up Joseph Schmidt Confections and Scharffen Berger. This after they’ve noshed on Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut, maker of all the Hawai’ian tasties you’ve bought when visiting the islands.

For the love of all that’s dark and sweety, why? To provide the expertise gleaned in decades of making milk chocolate for school-children? How depressing. Soon all that’ll be left to our San Francisco palattes will be Ghirardelli, which is light years away from Hershey’s proud offerings of Ice Breakers, Good ‘n Plenty, and Swoops (a chocolate version of potato chips).

I think I’m going to fire up the stove and make a hot cup of Ibarra hot chocolate and drink my sorrows away.