2 is a couple, 3 is a crowd, and 4 is the max for eating out.
over the last three to four weeks i've eaten far too many large group dinners. group dinners normally start out with 7-8 people, and rapidly turn into a reservation for 20 at 8:30pm. granted, if we were in the suburbs and your nearest claim jumper, buca, or other large group accommodating chain restaurant was nearby then i'd not be writing this post. but we're in sf, and dinner in san francisco wasn't meant to be at a large table with your 20 closest friends (and their friends).
these meals are expensive. why do i feel as though every time i eat with 20+ people, the meal i receive yields about a $25.00 worth, yet i pay $50.00+. not to mention you always get pretty crappy service with larger tables, yet they force charge a whopping 18% gratuity. not to mention it's guaranteed that the effort of each individual whipping out a calculator to tally up each dollar and cent spent on which items they personally consumed is enough to fill an 8hr workday. so we go simple and split the bill. the assertive person at the table whips out their phone, fires up that tip calculator program, and says "$47.00 each". of course nobody has anything but $20's and plastic. this is when those people who were prepared for a large group dinner (hit the ATM beforehand to get cash) end up loaning out a few extra twenties to those who showed up with only cards in hand ready to eat.
there's also a lack of social interaction at these types of meals. restaurants aren't fit to have huge groups of people [exception: chuck e cheese]. so normally many tables need to be pushed together, and you end up with either a long straight table, an 'L' shaped table, or a "U" shaped table. regardless, you still end up eating with 3-4 other people since the rest of the people at the table are within shouting range at best. the worst of this scenario is when the person to your right is engaged in conversation to their right, the person to your left is engaged in conversation to their left, and the person in front of you is talking at someone on either side of themselves.
there you are, sitting at a table with your 20 closest friends paying $50 smackers for a meal that's average at best, and you're all alone. this is the time that you wonder to yourself: we're probably throwing down $1000 tonight for dinner/drinks. what other things could we have done for a cool grand?
the beautiful town of san francisco is worldly famous for many things: the golden gate bridge, alcatraz island, fog, fisherman's wharf, and of course food. the city of san francisco boasts a possible highest concentration of upper echelon dining experiences in the world. SF has some good eats! heck, the famous review website yelp.com was founded right here in san francisco.
as a resident of sf (i love saying that) it's more than likely that your regular tuesday dinner will take place at a one-off restaurant. one off restaurants are those places that don't exist anywhere else, the opposite of a chain. the good ones are run by a family, or someone who's been running that same restaurant for 50+ years. there's a deep feeling of authenticity, passion, personality, and love when you eat at the aforementioned restaurants.
few realize that as time passes, the human stomach yearns for that which it once despised. fast food! this weekend i had a taco bell craving, and despite the 8,391 awesome unique restaurants that are only located in the gorgeous city of san francisco, i ran for the border. i feel guilty for doing so, but once in a while ya gotta indulge in the clinically-proven-to-taste-good food that is mass produced and fits the description of the bad guys in fast food nation.
sometimes you just gotta sit at home and bust out all your laptops/desktops and get some computing done. every true geek knows that it's impossible to have the perfect setup, however we continually pursue the dream of an ideal...
right now i just want a simple remote access setup from desktop win xp pc to laptop mac, for a more greener download pc. a desktop consumes much more electricity than a laptop, and sometimes i have a download that may take 3-4 days. i'd rather have the laptop on for 3-4 days which will download just as efficiently as the desktop, however only use a fraction of the energy.
i was cruising down the street in my '04, and i saw tons of folks walking to the park. tons.
so snacks and i cruised down to the local dim sum shop and then meandered over to the park to see what was going down. we were greeted by 60,000 people jammin' to ziggy marley singin' his father's tune 'redemption song'. some people were young, some old. we saw tattoos, dogs, dreads, and beer. a few people were walking on stilts, others were doing the tightrope walk.
i held my first ‘career’ job back in the 50’s. technically the year was 2003, but the technology, mentality, and furniture was straight outta 1956. the company [carlton forge works] didn’t have a website. when prospective employees google’d the company name, my blog was search result #1 (i’ve since then changed that) because i mentioned the company name in a blog post or two. they barely had computers, let alone an online presence.
I almost choked on my own vomit when they introduced me to the machine I’d be using, a p2 450mhz powered computer with 256mb of ram. (i had a 1.5ghz computer at home, and we're not talking the newest specs either). i brought my own chair in, it was easily older than my parents and probably made out of wood at some point. i brought in my own mouse, and keyboard. but i could go on an on about how outdated and backwards my first job out of college was, everyone can to some degree.
there was a man who worked at our company. this man was very well known, and respected throughout the industry –albeit a bit creepy. there were plenty of rumors and stories about him, but really he wasn’t a bad guy. he was from the ‘old school’ and used to always give me shit for having my hands in my pockets. nothing pissed this guy off more. i thought, never has anyone cared that i put my hands in my pockets, but this guy sure had a pet peeve for it. when he first explained the reasoning behind his disgust for pocketed hands he said “in the movies, they always show the dummy walking around with his hands in his pockets” he may have said it more clever than that, as he obviously focused way too much time/attention on other people’s hands and where they were resting them when not in use.
my pants came with pockets, why not use them for more than a wallet and my phone?
the other night i was reminded of this old school mentality, and how things aren’t so similar these days. someone was talking about their workplace, and how they start their day at 7am sharp. everyone shows up at 6:40 or so, to get some coffee, read the paper, and warm up before the day starts. the person explained that there was one coworker in particular who showed up at 6:59 each day, and sometimes ended up pushing over into the 7:01 territory. he kept on about this person’s idiosyncrasies in the daily schedule of their office. at one point, he noted that it wasn’t abnormal to see this guy “hands in pocket whistling dixie” come 7:20.
i almost blew milk out my nose when he said that. i realized that there’s a whole generation of people who hate hands in pockets. (this person was pretty 'old-school' as well) no wonder clothing of yesteryear was so friggin tight, so people were not able to put their hands in their pockets! pockets were to be used for any nickels you may find on the ground or for pocket watches if you had the luxury of owning one.
i wonder what my generation's pet peeve is? not knowing how to change ringtones? when i'm 60+ yrs old what blatantly normal things will get me all ruffled and result in me telling some whippersnapper that he's doing something wrong continually?
labor day, the day where everyone who participates in the labor that occurs here in the good ol' us-of-a gets to rest.
well, i rested. i can't say i really do labor on a daily basis -but i do work for a bank and banks believe in holidays.
so how to better enjoy an atypical monday (a monday with great weather that is) here in san francisco, than to hit up the full house houses with some wine and a frisbee! i think i need more mondays off.
my friends are in town this week, and when friends are visiting there's always something going on. but as we get older i've noticed that the energy is the same, but the stamina is on the decline. sometimes just staying up that extra ten minutes means you don't miss out on something that could be talked about by everyone the entire remainder of the trip.
i just flew back from los angeles, and boy are my arms tired...
after a quick and easy trip down to la, i realized just how easy it is to hop down to southern california for some hot weather and smog. the city of la still holds a special place in my heart. although i've yet to live in a 'cool' part of la. (the two jobs i have had in la county, were approx 30-45mins from hollywood, santa monica, downtown, manhattan beach, melrose, etc etc... ) i still spent plenty of time in and around those areas.
let me end with a quote you all know "i'll be back".
i joined friendster back when i was in college, and introdced it to almost everyone i knew. it was so much fun i then joined myspace, and eveyr other social networking site i was able to find, some of which i have since forgotted the url at which they live. everyonesconnected.com, orkut.com, something-cute-and-whitty-about-friends.com ???
the point, let's get to it.
i was a social networking account creating addict. there were at least 5 to 6 individual social networking sites that i joined. thing is, once i created an account and added a few friends, i didn't really spend much time on the site. i think 150 was my "acceptable" number of friends, and once i landed that many i 'gave up' and reverted to logging in only when i had a "you've got a message/comment/friend request" email. the allure of the social networking sites wore off quick.
then i met facebook. when i was on my account creating rampage, facebook was locked to users who had a .edu email addresses only. mine had expired by this time, so i was s.o.l. facebook was rather genius about limiting their users to college kids for two reasons. elimination of old perverted men posing as 18 year old boys/girls, in order to talk to 18 year olds. and everyone on the network was (in theory) smart or educated, i mean, they are in college! when facebook was proven hit, they opened the floodgates and enjoyed more advertising revenue than you can imagine [they allowed all people to join/register].
Facebook is where i drew the line, but not technically. i singed up, and didn't use my real name or my primary email address it was only a temporary thing. the reason i signed up was simply because a friend posted pictures on her facebook account, the only way to view them was to have an account myself. not too far down the line afterwards i deleted the account.
why did i draw the line at facebook? maybe i'm old school, or perhaps new school -i'm not sure which i am just yet, but i know i'm not "present school". if it's popular to the masses now, i'm either not caught on yet, or completely over it.
i remember the days of when, people had blogs and time. each day i could check each blog and see who's updated and who hasn't. entries, pictures, thoughts, new layouts, etc just about every friend i knew had a blog.
now everyone has a facebook, or a myspace. those pages are not only boring, they're ugly. at least facebook doesn't allow horrendous layout changes or bogus background images. nonetheless i'm not akin to them in my old(er) age.
i'm waiting for the new generation of social networking: location based and real time. with almost every person in my address book armed with an iphone, location based information generation is a slide of the finger and a few taps. i imagine being at a street corner when i pull up an app, and see who in my network has been where i've been, when, and possible notes/pics they took while there.
maybe i'm ahead, or behind. should i just go make me a facebook account now or what?
my coworker derek has a knack for whiteboard drawings. he likes to write on the everyone's whiteboard. some of these are pretty much an inside joke, but what's great is that most people know these signals in my office!
we hung in SD for a bit, and adam turned 27. mom made a cake and adam made some wishes. i remember back when we were kids, either of my sibling's birthdays felt like my own birthday. party, cake, friends, usually some theme (i think i had 'the hulk' themed plates/napkins/cups one year.
things are still the same, but i'm just lucky to be around when my brother's birthday hits (and we don't have themed cups/plates/napkins anymore).
whenever i come down to san diego, a few hours of fishing in la jolla must be in order. this time we went to a new spot where you have to first catch a small fish in order to then catch a bigger one (using the small as bait!). we caught bait, and of course have a few fish stories... "the one that got away was this big".
the great thing about being on vacation is the fact that you can chat online with working friends, while drinking beer and watching seinfeld duke it out with newman (his nemesis). too bad it's cloudy here in san diego, which san francisco enjoys sun and heat. i'm just not the lucky guy when it comes to weather.
