Balsa Man: a diminute effigy for a reduced community!

Filed Under Art, Burning Man, Fire, SF Bay Area | 2008-08-29, 13:28

Is it The Man or Balsa Man!?!

Originally uploaded by catcubed

There’s a large number of people who didn’t go to That Thing In The Desert this year. If you’re one of those lucky ones enjoying showers, real beds, flushing toilets, and the beautiful weather of the Bay Area, but looking for something to do this weekend, then look no further. Camp Riverton is hosting Balsa Man at Baker Beach this Saturday. Colin, Nifer, and Supervisor Ghastly have been hard at work building a 3ft version of the Man. For photos of the build check out the Balsa Man set.

The Balsa Man will not be alone on Baker Beach though. This little effigy has sparked creativity in other local artists, and rumors has it there will be a Temple of Reduced Expectations, at least one mini-artcar, and of course entrance signs. There are also rumblings of other small-scale projects that may make it to the beach. If you are an artist that wants to bring your small piece to the beach, get in touch with Colin for more logistics.

So, show up on Saturday, the 30th at sunset (8pm-ish) on the north end of Baker Beach to watch the little man burn. For all the info, check out CatCubed.com.

2 Comments

San Francisco Suggestions

Filed Under SF Bay Area | 2008-08-28, 02:10

I read a lot of blogs that run the gamut from industry stuff to just for fun stuff. On one of those blogs (you can guess which end of the spectrum it falls in I’m sure) a request for San Francisco establishments was requested. I commented on my suggestions, and then realized others might be interested in them as well. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Oh, you want to know my real motive for posting this on here? I wanted to check out the “Reblog” feature of Disqus comments.

As others have said, yelp.com is your best friend when it comes to finding a good restaurant in SF. My suggestions:
Papalote: the best burritos (2 locations)
Little Star Pizza: Delicious deep dish pizza (2 locations)
Lori’s Diner is super close and has breakfast. Not exceptional, but good cheap standard diner food.
Squat & Gobble: A good breakfast place. I always go to the one on Haight St. If nothing else it has a funny name.
Absinthe: If you’ve got a bit of cash, Absinthe has excellent food, a huge drink menu, and of course absinthe.

As for beers:
21st Amendment: a tried and true lunch stop with a good selection on beer
Zeitgeist: Don’t tell the other locals I’ve never been but I hear people constantly expressing their love for this dive bar.

Hit up an In-N-Out on your way to Monterey, as the only one in the city is up by tourist-trap Fisherman’s Wharf.
In Monterey, don’t miss the aquarium, it’s great. It’s also a great place for photos, just don’t flash the octopus. If you can also time it right, find out when low-tide is and walk down onto the rocks and you can find some interesting things.

As far as places to take photos, there are the obvious ones, Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate park, Alcatraz, Coit Tower, etc. Try to make it out to the Sutro Baths right around sundown.

Whew.. how’s that for now? :)

Originally posted as a comment by edrabbit on A Welsh View using Disqus.

2 Comments

Loud Explosion Wakes Up San Francisco

Filed Under SF Bay Area | 2008-08-05, 23:45

It was a few minutes after 11pm and Heather and I had just parked the car at Lyon St and McAllister when there was an incredibly loud boom and a flash of light out of the corner of my eye. Just suddenly, out of the blue. The alarm for the car across the street was set off by the shock wave and quickly windows and lights started turning on in the apartment buildings. I could be completely wrong, but it felt like we were incredibly close to the source of whatever this was as there was no measurable time between the flash and the boom, and that a car alarm was set off. If this had been further away, we would have seen the flash and then heard the boom, and several car alarms would have gone off if it was capable of setting the one across the street off.

As usual, I quickly Twittered it and then jumped on Twinkle’s “Nearby” view and Twitter’s Search page to see if anyone else had heard it. A couple twitters popped up quickly. GGJeffy, rockbandit, jklmnt, dewitt, and shannonk all reported hearing it.

We briefly heard a quick siren about 5 minutes later, but not the barrage of fire trucks and cops one would expect from an explosion as large as it sounded. I still have no idea what it could be. There was no smoke, just a white flash and loud crack. There doesn’t appear to be any damage on transformers of anything around here. It happened just as a bus was passing by, so I wonder if there was some kind of crazy electrical arc since it was a white flash, no damage, and no smoke. Others are suggesting a rogue firework or stick of dynamite. I’ve set off my share of fireworks, and this was much louder than even most mortars. Other theories point to a transformer blowing up. And the weird thing was there was no echo. Aliens.. must have been.

7 Comments

Violet Blue and Boing Boing Debacle

Filed Under Geek, News, Pranks, SF Bay Area, Websites | 2008-07-02, 17:03

For those that don’t know, Violet Blue is a well-known sex educator and Boing Boing is one of the most(?) popular blogs on the internet. If you haven’t heard about Violet Blue’s posts getting pulled from BoingBoing, there’s more than enough press out there about it. Even the LA Times picked up the story. I don’t want to get into a long post about my thoughts on the matter, but I did want to share something I thought worth sharing.

I setup VioletBlueVioletBlue.net to house all of the Boing Boing posts that had been “unpublished”. These posts are all taken directly from archive.org where the old versions of the posts are kept. Boing Boing publishes their stuff under Creative Commons, so I am redistributing their work with attribution. I wanted this content to remain around and in a form that is easily locatable, i.e. not buried in archive.org’s wayback machine. If you have a blog post that previously linked to the post on Boing Boing, then feel free to link to its equivalent on VB2. These posts aren’t getting unpublished any time soon.

If I missed anything or made any mistakes on the site, please let me know. I make no claims to being perfect by any means.

6 Comments

AT-AT T-Shirts

Filed Under Art, Funny, SF Bay Area | 2007-11-13, 22:44

mooflyfoof pointed me to these incredibly awesome shirts (of course after she got one for herself so now I can get one or else we’ll match *fist shaking*). Not only is the design available on t-shirts, but also hoodies, and infant t-shirts. To clue in those not from the Bay Area:

According to George Lucas, the AT-ATs were based on the tripod fighting machines from The War of the Worlds. He also took inspiration from elephants and loading cranes in West Oakland–hence the nickname “elephant walker.”

via answers.com

Buy your own from the girl and rhino. If you’re curious about the West Oakland AT-ATs, may we suggest a flickr search?

3 Comments

San Francisco Pie Fight!

Filed Under SF Bay Area | 2007-11-02, 18:15

Today Market St saw quite the mess at the Powell Cable Car turnaround. A Pie Fight erupted amidst the throngs of tourists. Mike Morris was able to get some good pics while dodging the pies.

2 Comments

5.6 Earthquake in the Bay

Filed Under SF Bay Area | 2007-10-31, 11:34

Last night was an interesting evening. After meeting up with Rubin, Jake, and Audrey we headed to get sushi, only to find that BART was closed due to a suicide. Then during sushi at Miyabi, we thought we heard someone drop something in the kitchen. The sound was questioned, and we stopped eating to notice that the ground was kind of swaying. I looked up and saw the lights swinging from side to side. The other diners paused for a minute and you could see everyone waiting to see if things were going to subside or get worse. This was the first quake that I’ve been able to ask “Is this an earthquake?” instead of “Was that an earthquake?”. Being in the moment and realizing what was going on felt slightly more comforting. I even had a chance to flip open my Sidekick and send a Twitter message during the actual earthquake. Unfortunately for my “geek cred” Dan beat my to it by 4 seconds (I blame the Sidekick’s slow SMS sending).

Of course afterwards, we were all looking up info on the magnitude, watching the after shocks register, checking on friends, and deleting Twitters and IMs from just about everyone in the Bay Area. But everything is fine, very little to no damage around and as we waited for BART I noticed that the signs in the station said that there was an “earth tremor” and that trains were slightly delayed as tracks were being checked.

My favorite photo of the damage (as pointed out by s4xton) was this one:

Immediately after the 5.6 rumble, there were a number of after-shocks. These have continued through the night and today ranging in magnitude from 0.7 to 2.8. There are also forecasts of a 30% chance of an aftershock of 5 or greater. Hang on everyone!

image source: USGS by way of SFist

Google turns out the lights

Filed Under News, SF Bay Area, Websites | 2007-10-20, 04:07

On Saturday, October 20, 2007, San Francisco will go black for one hour (8pm-9pm PST) as it participates in “Lights Out San Francisco”. In addition, the citizens of SF are encouraged to install at least one compact fluorexcent light bulb to help reduce their energy consumption. In a show of their support, Google has changed the background of their page to black. This page is targeted at San Francisco users, since this is a local thing, so chances are you are seeing the normal Google page if you aren’t using an internet connection that traces back to San Francisco. This isn’t to say that you can’t join in and turn out your lights from 8pm-9pm. For more info, check out Google’s page and check out the official Lights Out San Francisco page.

50 Comments

How not to win my vote

Filed Under SF Bay Area | 2007-10-03, 11:05

If you’re running for public office, don’t call/email/send me unsolicited campaign drivel. It just lets me know who NOT to vote for. On top of that, at least put my email address in the To field, so I know which one to unsubscribe without having to pull up the email headers. Email received (with my reply) below:

On 10/3/07, Harold wrote:
> It is time for the voters to unplug the political machine that controls this
> city and place the responsibility for government squarely on the shoulders
> of someone who will make every decision based on what is best for the
> citizenry.
>
> My name is Harold Hoogasian. I am a third generation San Franciscan. My
> business, Hoogasian Flowers, was established by my grandfather. The
> philosophy taught to me by my family is that whenever possible, one should
> use local, San Francisco based businesses to provide goods and services, in
> order to keep the dollars in our own San Francisco economy.
>
> I call on the voters of this Great City of San Francisco to rise up, UNPLUG
> THE MACHINE of party politics and CONSENT to a BETTER WAY OF GOVERNMENT. If
> you will elect me to the Office of Mayor of San Francisco, I pledge to bring
> excellence to every area of endeavor and to seek the highest level of
> success in resolving homelessness, improving transportation and addressing
> the other issues that confront us.
>
> To meet this challenge I ask your help:
> 1) Please contribute money to our campaign
> 2) Call and volunteer to work on the campaign
> 3) Call or e-mail us and volunteer to place a campaign sign your window of
> your car or home
>
> Together we can build a future of which we all will be proud.
>
> Harold M. Hoogasian,
> Candidate for Mayor
> 415-229-2710
> If you would rather not receive information about this contested mayoral
> election,
>
> Reply with “unsubscribe” in the subject line: campaign@unplugthemachine.org

Please add this to your basic issues for your platform and I might reconsider:

6. A stand against unsolicited email – Spam is out of control. We cannot tolerate the level of email we receive in our inbox every day. As Mayor, I will do nothing about this annoying intrusion as I have an established track record of sending unsolicited email to undisclosed-recipients. This issue should have my full attention as people are unable to unsubscribe from these emails when they don’t know which email address they were sent to.

Vote for Chicken John!

Remote Control Bus Stop Rave Flash Mob

Filed Under Pranks, SF Bay Area | 2007-09-17, 23:40

Oh sf0, you are responsible for so many great things (not to mention me moving to San Francisco). What’s the next best thing? Oh, a sequel to the great Remote Control Bus Stop Rave Flash Mob? You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ll be there!

No idea what I’m talking about? Here’s the video from the last one:

And here’s the task that was posted on sf0.
And here’s info for the one this Friday:

Greetings fellow humans!

This Friday, September 21, starting at 9PM, there will be a remote control bus stop rave flash mob. Someone set up a music rig (hidden in the eaves of the bus stop) that goes off when someone sits in the bus stop or walks in front of it. Join the mob, it will be fun. Watch this youtube video of a previous bus stop rave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktm-LxCoe_I

WHERE:
– Bus stop at the corner of Haight and Fillmore in SF (headed west)
– CLICK HERE to see a map

WHEN:
– Friday, September 21, 9:00 PM

WHAT TO DO:
– When the music and lights start, go to the bus stop and dance.
– When the music stops, vacate the bus shelter,
– Be friendly to passer-bys and locals. Encourage them to dance.
. Eventually, as the night goes on and we all become more intoxicated, this will evolve from a flash mob into a more of a bus stop rave.

Bring your friends. It really is a lot of fun to party in bus stop that has its own sound system.