Kombucha SCOBY, Uke on the Beach, Shadow Puppets, Hot Dog Stand

Shut Up Little Man

Recorded secretly in an apartment in Lower Haight in 1987:

http://www.nationalradio.cc/Home/index.php?q=f&f=%2FComedy%2FRaymond%20And%20Peter%20-%20Shut%20Up%20Little%20Man

When will World War III start?

Every Tuesday at noon sirens go off in the streets in San Francisco and a voice says over the loudspeakers, “This is a test of the Emergency Alert System.” I hear it from in the house. 

I often wonder what the next emergency to be broadcast will be. Earthquake? Bombs? Riots? 

So Israel is killing what appears to be mostly civilians in Gaza. And next door there are riots in Oakland because a Bart police officer shot a man in the back while he was face down on the ground:

or http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/us/09oakland.html?hp

Lake Tahoe…. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Me, Alexa, Lars and Rudyard at Homewood ski resort in Lake Tahoe.

Hot Dogger, Hatter and Frisco Slang

I’m working as a hot dog vendor on the weekends. Franks, Brats and Spicy Brats, all made with grass-fed beef/pork, all delicious. Plus the view from Crissy Field, with Golden Gate Bridge to one side and the city to other, is spectacular. On my way to Home Sausage today I saw a dead pigeon on Duboce. 

On Christmas, my roommate Olivia tried her hat collection on on me and took some pictures. She says I have the perfect hat for a head. 

I’m living in Haight-Ashbury with a New Zealander and some SF Natives. There is, like any city, unique slang:

“OG” : “Original Gangster”, as in someone who grew up in San Francisco

“Hella” : “very”, or “a lot” e.g. “That hot dog is hella good”

“What’s crack-a-lackin?” : “What’s up?” (not sure if this is an SF thing or just something some people I know say…)

“Tripped out” : weird, exaggerated 

When someone refers to going to work “up north”, they’re going to farm trees

When someone refers to the “east”, they mean anywhere east of Minnesota

“Bird” : coke

“Boughie” or “ShiShi” : bourgeoisie, in a bad way

PREPARE FOR THE UNEXPECTED

plague, ARE YOU READY?

Prepare for the unexpected:

avoid crowds

wear a mask in public

don’t share personal items

avoid touching Wild Animals.

Touching, eating or drinking, breathing, or getting bitten by

dirt, water, countertops, our skin, our intestines, and many other places around us

will likely cause more illness and a larger number of deaths. 

By preparing now, we can slow the spread and minimize the effects. Protect yourself – they exist all around us and are invisible to the human eye

 

Excerpts from San Francisco Department of Health (2008) pamphlets titled “Pandemic Flu: ARE YOU READY?” and “germs, Infect Me Not.”

There’s a Fly on your Wall

That’s not a fly, that’s a chalk board.

All you need is a pencil, masking tape, an xacto knife, and chalk board spray paint. Draw the stencil on the wall. Cover the lines you drawed with masking tape. Cut along the lines, which you should be able to see through the masking tape, with an xacto knife. Remove the edges of the tape that are inside the stencil outline – the areas you want to paint. Cover the rest of the area surrounding the stencil, the places you don’t want painted, with tape and newspaper.  Spray at least three coats. Remove the tape and newspaper. 

And for the candy houses graham crackers, powdered sugar and candy.

False Advertising

This baby clear contains more than 0 grams of fat…

A good reason to eat food off the floor.

Being a traveler, and being the type who needs to eat about every hour, I end up eating in some strange places. I often get looks, because eating on the bus or train is “dirty.” Well, I have a good reason for why it’s not only okay for me to eat on the bus, but for why everyone should eat on the bus. Here goes. 

Humans are overpopulated. The best bet for the survival of our race is a sort of mass extinction. The extinction needs to kill a lot of people, but not all the people, and needs to leave the environment inhabitable. 

The most likely killer that fits these criteria is an emergent virus. Something that travels by air, and kills say half the people who get it. Like the avian flu, if the avian flu could travel by air and was infectious between humans. This is pretty likely, in fact scientists say it’s only a matter of time before a virus evolves to be that deadly that quickly. 

The strong and healthy will survive. Also, anyone who has been exposed to a virus of the same strain will survive. Let’s take the avian flu example: avian flu comes from the same strain as the flu of 1918. That means that anyone who got the flu in 1918 and survived has immunity to the avian flu. 

So, besides staying healthy and strong, if you want to survive the Ultimate Virus Extinction of 20?? you may want to expose yourself to as many viruses as you possibly can. Just think: if you get the virus now you’ll probably get great treatment. But, if you get the virus during the Ultimate Virus Extinction, the world will probably be in such disarray that you won’t get any treatment at all. 

And what is the best way to expose yourself to viruses? By touching things that a lot of other people have touched, and then putting your hands in your mouth (i.e. eating on public transportation.)

Now, this is all supposing that you actually want to survive an event that kills 7+ billion people. It is also supposing that my scientific logic is accurate, which it may not be as I am recalling it from a course I took three years ago.

Best in Animal

A brief list of the best of the best, the most of the most, in all the Animal Kingdom:

Best Long Distance Eyesight: Hawk/Falcon

Best Color Vision: Human

Best Night Vision: Owl

Will win in a land race, given it’s long enough: Human

Will win in a land race, given it’s short enough: Cheetah

Loudest: Blue Whale

Largest on Land: Savannah Elephant

Largest in Water: Blue Whale

Most Toxic: Marine Box Jellyfish

Most Conscious: Human

Survives longest without water: Kangaroo Rat

Longest Life Span: Giant Tortoise