Number Two is especially brilliant.
What things are you happy about?
Me? I’m happy our leaks are fixed and all this winter rain and storming has produced nary a drop in a bucket.
January 25, 2008
January 22, 2008
What a waste. How much did this cost?
We received our primary absentee voter ballots in the mail ten days or more ago. The ballots were the “unaffiliated” or whatever it is non-partisan ballots.
Well, we’d both requested to vote in the Democratic primary. What’s up with this? So we waited. And waited. And finally called the Registrar at the end of last week to ask what’s up and were told “Oh. The Democratic absentee ballots are just getting mailed.”
OK. So this means we got one ballot for the propositions and one ballot for the primary. That doesn’t make much sense but whatever …
Today we got our Democratic absentee ballots in the mail … along with a note that our previous ballots have been canceled and won’t be counted and we should tear them up and dispose of them.
Turns out the sharp as a tack folks down at the Registrar sent out who-knows-how-many unaffiliated non-partisan ballots to decline-to-state absentee voters who’d requested Democratic primary ballots. They then had to enter all the barcodes for the ballots that had been sent in error so that the system won’t count them, write up a nice note, print up the extra ballot work and … send out Democratic ballots to those voters.
How much is this flub going to cost?
And whose watch did it happen on?
Enquiring minds …
January 15, 2008
Looking very grumpy …
Went to a Vintners’ Club event at the Bankers’ Club on 08Jan. … a pinot tasting.
Interesting!
We went because his nibs lurves pinot noir and because David Bruce was going to speak.
One of his nibs’ students at UCSB (who grew up just a stone skip from the bucolic ville we used to call home) is someone with whom we still hang out and whose ballpark tickets HipLiz sometimes buys.
This guy, as a teenager, spent his weekends at his dermatologist’s Santa Cruz mountains home (dermatologist being Dr. David), digging dirt to plant the vines that became David Bruce’s foray into pinot making.
Here’s me looking very grumpy … ah… focussed.
Look at those glasses! We had twelve pinot noirs to taste. They were lined up and poured before we came in: six up, six down.
I am such a naïf. I could say, “Here are my top three. Here is my least favorite.”
Ask me to rate the intermediate eight wines, given forty-five minutes?
No can do.
But we had fun. …
Each person (who wanted) sent in their scores.
Each table put together their tasting notes.
The guy clockwise plus one was the winemaker for one of the wines being tasted (Domaine Chandon Reserve. Russian River Valley) and served as table chair.
I’d rated his wine [2] but the accumulated crowd wasn’t so generous.
The experience was interesting. What was really interesting was looking at the accumulated scores. Here’s a top scorer: five people rated it #1; five people rated it #2; six people rated it #12.
Whah?
It really is all about what you like in a wine.
Really!
So for the Vintners’ Club events, you rate the wines you’re tasting with no regard to what your spouse, best friend or most erudite wine snob might think.
Then you go ’round the table and seat#2 says, “This was my favorite wine because …” and everyone else goes round and says “Well … this is what I thought of the wine …”
Next person (seat #3) says, “This was my favorite wine because …” (or my least favorite wine or my second favorite wine because someone else already mentioned my favorite wine.) …
… until all the twelve wines have been discussed.
David Bruce (the gentleman on the left in the photo)… scored highest when the overall wine scores were totted up, and well he should.
We had a splendid time.
Afterwards, we said farewell to the amazing views from the Bankers Club and said farewell to our co-conspirators and headed up hill and home, stopping off at Boccadillos on Montgomery for some tasty pig parts before we walked the rest of the way … home
January 9, 2008
The top 12 ‘Top 10′ lists of 2007 / Best movies? Music? Look elsewhere. Here’s the real list to help digest the year gone by
The top 12 'Top 10' lists of 2007
Brilliant set of links from Mark Morford.
Yes! You can live in San Francisco for not much money at all!
Monica (of Sexploration with Monica) sleeps around housesits.
December 23, 2007
December 10, 2007
Louise Bourgeois CROUCHING SPIDER
Louise Bourgeois’ Crouching Spider was put in place on the Embarcadero last month. I haven’t had a chance to stop by and take a photograph but see it from the car window on my way home from out of town and pass it some times when my camera’s not at hand.
What a lovely and intense piece.
This photo courtesy of Darwin Bell / (some rights reserved)
Liked the angle of his shot. I’ll replace this photo with one of my own when I can.
Wine hos
Met a couple at the Slow Food crab fest at the County Building in Golden Gate Park a week ago yesterday. We were all taking the N-Judah home and they asked if we’d like to stop off for a glass of wine before catching the next N-Judah and continuing home. We said sure, and continued the fun we’d been having at the fest.
As a result of the evening, they invited us to the Wine Hos Winter Soiree, which was being held at their place in the Lower Haight last night. The Wine Hos meet monthly to try out wines. Their December meeting is one which they can invite friends or chance-met acquaintances to. The host provides snacks and the wine. The attendees split the cost of the wine.
Last night’s wingding was champagne-focused with sparkling cocktails and snacks after. Five champagnes tasted. Costs ranged from $24/bottle to something like $70. We had about eighteen people and ten bottles … so the shared cost was reasonable.
One of the hosts put together a sheet with the five champagnes listed on one side and on the other side a description of each. Except the descriptions were not necessarily next to the champagne they described. (One of the descriptions: “This one has the violet scent of Pernand-Vergelesses; oh man, even with no dosage this is jail-bait wine, more vinous and “serious” than ’04; sappier and, um, fuller-bodied. She said she was 18, your honor.”)
Our task was to match a champagne to its description. I got five out of five and felt like I’d survived a major exam. I also felt like I learned something about champagne at the same time in a congenial atmosphere.
The sparkling cocktails were great. The snacks were delish. The white elephant present exchange was a stitch. (We didn’t bring a white elephant present because we had nothing in the house to offer. With space at a premium, we tend to take anything we don’t need or love to the Goodwill post haste.)
We met interesting people, including a couple of regular wine hos who live about a hundred steps further down the hill from us (Small world!) and an adorable five-month-old Chihuahua named Jolene.
Brilliant evening. Loads of fun. Exhausted by the time we walked up the hill home.
Thanks for the invite!
December 9, 2007
Welcome to FoodieBytes – eat something new
Welcome to FoodieBytes – eat something new
Choose your city (Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, DC) and fill in “what” you are looking to eat.
Choose “San Francisco”
Enter: foie gras
Read entries for 142 (mas o menos) restaurants that serve foie gras in San Francisco (mostly, found one listed in Larkspur). Some restaurants are listed multiple times for multiple items on the menu. Brief (lunch, appetizer, &c.) indication of where on the menu, brief detail (“with stone fruit mostarda and cornbread”) and a click to View Menu.
Don’t know how current the menus are as the listings included an entry for Monte Cristo which died a while back.
[via Eater SF]
November 24, 2007
Full moon tomorrow
The not-quite-full moon rising over Berkeley. The setting sun reflecting on the windows in the East Bay. The Admin building on Treasure Island in deepening shadow. The Vallejo Larkspur ferry heading up to Vallejo Larkspur, jam-packed, I’m sure, with all those Vallejans Larkspurans who conscientiously came in to work today.
(Well, I =think= it’s probably the Larkspur ferry. The Vallejo ferry appears from pictures found on the Web to be a much zippier and larger boat.)
The Farmer’s Almanac has a list of full moon names and their meanings.