Zuni, Morton's, Old Chelsea and the Great American Music Hall

On Tuesday, Brandy took the day off, and we went to lunch at Zuni. We split a Caesar salad, a burger with blue cheese and heirloom tomatoes and an order of shoestring fries. Wonderfully tasty, as always (I do, however, miss the truffle burger). We decided that that is the perfect amount of food for lunch. Especially since...

That night, we went to Morton's for dinner (yes, that's two restaurants in one day). Anyway, if you go to their website, you can find an offer for "Steak and Seafood for two" for $99. Being the frugal pair that we are (ha ha), that was of course why we were there. And to up our cheapskate quotient even more, we brought our own wine. Granted, we brought a bottle that they didn't have on the list: the 2002 Joseph Phelps Insignia (I'm not sure if everyone will be able to view that page, so if not, I'll just tell you that the Insignia earned a score of 96 points and was Spectator's #1 wine of 2005).

Needless to say, we had a fabulous time.

I won't go into the intricacies of the special offer since it's spelled out for you on the website, but we ended up with quite a bit of food to take home (although we did finish the wine), and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. We'll probably go back before the special ends on September 30.

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In other news, Brandy and I went to see Buffalo Tom and Juliana Hatfield at the Great American Music Hall last night. Great show.

Juliana played solo, which was cool for me since I had only seen her playing with the JH3 and her backing band previously. I'm still quite bitter about being out of town when she came through here on the Blake Babies reunion tour a couple years ago.

Buffalo Tom played their typically high-energy set, and it was cool to hear them rock out a bunch of classics along with stuff from their new album, which sounds great.

If you're reading this today (July 26th) and you live around LA, you can catch them tonight at the El Rey. I would highly recommend it.

Prior to the show, we grabbed a bite at Old Chelsea Fish and Chips, probably as a subconscious way to contrast the previous day's upscale dining. For the uninitiated, OC provides the fish and chips for Edinburgh Castle, one of the dingiest, divy-est, most wonderful bars in San Francisco. Located around the corner from the Castle, OC shares the area's decorating scheme: down market, waaaayy down market. Three tables, a small counter, and a heavy-duty fryer that takes up the entire back wall of the kitchen.

Now, looking at some of the Yelp reviews, I have to question the sanity of the some of the reviewers. Last I checked, fish and chips was not the stuff of gourmet legend. We're not talking about some meticulously prepared, delicate fillet of sole. It's street food, bar food, drunk food. It's supposed to be greasy.

And it is wonderfully so.

Plus, I gotta support Korean businesses, or they'll revoke my Asian card. I married a white girl; I'm already skating on thin ice.

 

Choose Your Own Adventure (or Things to Do in the Mission)

Well, this makes it four posts in three days. Weird.

Anyway, if you find yourself in the Mission in the near future, you should try looking for these little stencils on the sidewalk. [Yes, the picture is the link to the post on SF MetroBlogs.]

I must say that I loved these books as a child - the classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventures, the Middle-Earth-themed knock-offs, all of them. Very engrossing.

Actually, I'll bet (little) kids would read more if you did this sort of thing online (where you could just click your choice as opposed to the tedious act of flipping around in a book). I call dibs on that idea. I'll call it Click-Your-Own-Adventure™. Unless, of course, that's too close to the original name for my intellectual property attorney, in which case I'll call it... I don't know, Click2Pick™ or something less dorky.

 

Oh. My. God.

This story both angers and depresses me. That these people can continue to function without actually using their brain is an affront to all dead people (or to borrow one of their pet causes, an affront to all living Christians trapped in a persistent vegetative state).

"There have always been intellectuals who want to tell people how to live," Martha adds, to an almost visible sense of relief. That's it - the intellectuals! They are not like us. Dave changes the subject, to wash away this moment of cognitive dissonance. "The liberals don't believe in the constitution. They don't believe in what the founders wanted - a strong executive," he announces, to nods.

That's right, Martha. Intellectuals are not like you. Intellectuals use their intellect. My God, what a novel concept. They have brains, and they use them.

And as for our Founding Fathers, I do believe that a strong executive was exactly what they didn't want. What part of "representative government" do you not understand? More to the point, what part of the Constitution have you read?

Fucking morons.

Hey, all you Republicans with brains (I know there must be a few of you out there), these people are making you look bad. The more and more of these people I see, the less and less I think of your party as a whole. I know that every group has an extremist wing that regularly causes embarrassment, but this is getting ridiculous. When Arlen Specter is suddenly your party's voice of reason, you know you've crossed the Tiber. [Ha ha, get it? I made a religious joke, too.]

Anyway, thanks to the inimitable Boing Boing for the find and Alternet for carrying the article from the Independent UK (of course it took an English news source to capture a story this telling).

 

Rain in July?

In San Francisco?

Well, it happened last night. When Brandy and I awoke this morning (waaayy too early), it was obvious that it had rained ovenight.

I think it's great. A little rain washes away some of the dust, pee and detritus that tends to build up in San Francisco during the summer. The occasional summer rainstorm is one of the few things that I miss about the Midwest.

NBC11 said that it was the first time it had rained on this date since 1849.

You know what else happened in 1849?

• France issued its first postage stamp
• Elizabeth Blackwell became the United States' first woman doctor
• James Polk became the first U.S. President to have his picture taken
• Minnesota became a state
• The Department of the Interior was created
• Hungary declared its independence from Austria, only to be recaptured by the imperialist Austrians, who also captured Venice that year
• St. Louis nearly burned to the ground
• Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death for anti-government activities but his execution was cancelled at the last minute
• Luther Burbank, Ivan Pavlov, and Crazy Horse were born
• Just months after having his picture taken and making way for Zachary Taylor, James Polk died
• Dolley Madison, Edgar Allen Poe, and Frédéric Chopin also died

Crazy.

I wonder if, in 2165, someone's going to look back at 2007 and make a similar list of events. Even more, I wonder what will end up being historically notable at that point.

Here's to living in the moment.

 

I watch too much TV

The latest show on the Tivo...

Burn Notice on USA. For those of you who don't know anything about the show, it's about a spy who gets fired, except when spies get fired they get burned - cut off from all contact, frozen out of all bank accounts and assets, and otherwise just dropped off the face of civilized earth.

It's an interesting premise, and in execution it's a bit like James Bond meets MacGyver meets CSI. In tone, it's very similar to Psych, USA's other good show (I like Monk, but I can't really get into it, despite the presence of mega-cutie Traylor Howard). There's a certain amount of snarky camp, which makes it more fun and light-hearted than you would expect from the show's subject matter.

[As an aside, it certainly seems like USA has a "house style" for its new wave of original shows. Starting with Monk (San Francisco) and moving through Psych (Santa Barbara) and now Burn Notice (Miami), the USA mystery shows take place in bright, sunny locales and feature a more light-hearted tone than similar shows on other networks. Despite my propensity for dark humor (or perhaps because of it), I do like the contrast these shows provide. Sometimes, a bad pun is actually funny.]

Aside from the clever writing, Burn Notice has two more things going for it: Bruce Campbell and Gabrielle Anwar.

If I need to explain the significance of Bruce Campbell to you, you won't appreciate it even after I've finished. Gimme some sugar, baby.

As for the fairer of the duo, Gabrielle Anwar has been setting hearts aflame since Scent of a Woman (at least in the U.S.). On Burn Notice, she scorches the small screen as a slightly-psycho, completely-sexy, former IRA bomber. There's just something about bad girls, isn't there? The kind of girl that gets turned on by fistfights and gunplay? No? Oh, I guess that's just me.          :)

Anyway, the best part of this (slightly late) review of this new show? We're only three episodes in. And they're rebroadcasting the first few episodes, so it's not too late to jump onboard.

What? Like you want to spend more time outside during the summer or something...

And this, my friends, is why we have MySpace

Yes, MySpace is great for keeping in touch with current friends and finding old friends and making new friends. But if you couldn't tell from my friends list, I also really like to utilize MySpace as a way to keep up with some of my favorite bands.

Tonight, I was really happy that I do that.

Tonight, I received a bulletin from the supremely lovely and talented Juliana Hatfield (or her duly designated MySpace representative / publicist) saying that she would be playing a show in San Francisco on July 25.

Tonight (or any other night, for that matter), that would have been enough to get me to buy a ticket. But she's also opening for Buffalo Tom.

Yay!

Two of my favorite musical acts, playing together at the Great American Music Hall. Ah, musical nirvana... or damn close to it.

If you're wondering why I seem to be creaming my pants, metaphorically speaking, you can take a listen to these two fabulous artists here or here (MySpace sites). Or here or here (official sites).

Perhaps you'll even feel compelled to buy tickets yourselves. See you there...

 

FanFest, Part I

OK, already late for work, so you'll have to just content yourselves with these pictures.

And yes, I broke down and started a Flickr account.

 

All-Star Weekend

Hey, kids.

Remember when I mentioned that I had volunteered to work the All-Star FanFest? Well, it turns out that I passed my FBI background check (no jokes, please), and I'll be working two shifts.

I'll be one of the first people you see on Friday, since I'm working the box office lines on the first morning of the event (that would be tomorrow at 9 a.m.). I'll be there until 1 p.m. in case any of you were thinking about coming down to Moscone West and harrassing me.

I'll also be closing the whole thing down on Tuesday, working the noon-to-5 p.m. shift. As if to rectify some great karmic injustice that's been done to me, I'll be working the Legends table that day, assisting former MLB greats as they sign autographs for legions of adoring fans.

Who am I kidding? This is going to be karmic retribution. I'm sure I'll be running crowd control on the weird fanboys and socially-inept baseball obsessives who've come to stalk some famous old people. I'm fully expecting to have to hip check at least a couple Jeff Albertsons. Hopefully, I'll at least be able to get a couple autographs.

In any case, I will be wielding a camera both days, so hopefully, I'll have some cool pictures to post over the next few days. And who knows, if you come down, maybe I can prove to your boss that you were ditching work and not just calling out sick. Muah ha ha ha ha ha ha...

 

Goo Goo

No, Brandy's not pregnant. That would interfere with our ability to drink like champions on our impending Alcohol Tour of Europe™ (also known as the Joy of Drinking™ tour).

The title refers to the band, the Goo Goo Dolls. And no, I don't like them; I rather dislike them, honestly. They make innocuous radio rock (that I once heard brilliantly described as "unoffensive") in much the same vein as Counting Crows, except not good.

So why am I writing a post about them?

Well, I'd been ripping MP3s of my huH Magazine music samplers and decided to ride a wave of nostalgia and actually listen to them. So as I sat, surfing the Web and listening to random tracks, I was grabbed by an intro soaring from my speakers, at once anthemic and evocative. I raced (with my mouse) to pull up the iTunes window so I could see who was playing this heart-stirring guitar call just as the song shifted into the verses.

Oh, the Goo Goo Dolls.

It was then that I realized why I dislike this band: because I could like them. Let me explain.

To me, the song, "Flat Top," suffers from the exact same problem I had with one of their big radio hits, "Black Balloon." I really like their guitar intros and, to a lesser extent, their choruses. But the verses bother the shit out of me. And as far as I can tell, that's because all the verses sound the same.

I'll let the music tell the story.

"Flat Top" - intro [links pull up an MP3 file, so it should launch your music player]

See, wasn't that nice? Sweeping, catchy, very nice. But then, it devolves into the same old, double-time, Johnny Rzeznik verse. But wait for the return of the intro, this time as the chorus.

"Flat Top" - first verse and chorus

It's that contrast - the parts I like, I really like and the parts I don't, I really hate - that drives me batty. If it all just sucked, I wouldn't care. But I want to somehow rescue the good parts and make them into their own good song.

Oh well, sometimes it's best to just recognize the soul-crushing nature of promise unfulfilled and get on with it.

I'm fast-forwarding to the Mother Hips and "Shut the Door," which was also a part of those samplers. Ah, sweet music...