I'm a lasagna boy!

Doughnuts for dog-faces

June 3rd is Donut Day. Not merely some advertising exec's dream to drum up business, this tradition has its roots in The Salvation Army.

Donut Day was established in 1938 as a means to raise much-needed operating funds for The Salvation Army, and also as a tribute to Army 'lassies' who made and served donuts to thousands of soldiers during World War I. While the spelling of doughnut has shortened to "donut" over the years, the popular donut has been the trademark of The Salvation Army ever since WWI. While Donut Day was observed fairly extensively, especially following WWII, by The Salvation Army throughout the United States, the Army in Chicago has the longest continous and most successful tradition.

ED's ed

Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, has an outstanding editorial in today's San Francisco Chronicle in which she notes that, although the city of San Francisco will host World Environment Day 2005 this week, we are far from exemplary in putting people first in our transit and urban planning.

Ashes to ashes

The left-overs from today's double order of wings went into the silky compost bag endorsed by the Biodegradeable Products Institute for use in the San Francisco residential composting program. The bags degrade quickly, and contain no plastic, but rather bio-polymers made from sustainably-farmed agriculture.

A day to remember

This was the Rastafarian dog I saw out at Crissy Field:

He looked the same, coming, going, sideways, top-wise, like a brush from a gas-station car-wash.

How to clean up after your dog

Although I'm often joking that Duboce Park reeks unto the Paris of the 17th century, the park now faces a crisis of Noe-Valley-esque proportions: apportioning spaces of the small, smelly park for dogs and for children.
The sanitary condition of the park depends on dog-caretakers cleaning up after their dogs, but would you sit down where a dog has just left a odiferous coil of poop or a steaming sizzle of urine? Dogs de facto own territory by marking it with their spoor. The attendant discolouration of grass definitely indicates the area where a child should not play.

If the proposal entailed something along the lines of New York City's dog run in Washington Square Park, perhaps the world could get along. But Duboce Park is too small for separate off-leash dog runs and child play areas.

Miss Van on Fillmore

I was not a little surprised and pleased to see a door panel decorated by Miss Van on Fillmore St.. The coquettish girl is a familiar trope in Toulouse and Barcelona, and Miss Van had a group show in Los Angeles. How have I walked past this for the past six weeks!? I've stopped in the shops on either side of the door-way, waited for a bus, and gossiped with passers-by, but did not see the graff until this afternoon. Have I been asleep?

Miss Van on Fillmore

I was not a little surprised and pleased to see a door panel decorated by Miss Van on Fillmore St.. The coquettish girl is a familiar trope in Toulouse and Barcelona.

These are the people that you meet Pt XII

The frightening, curly-haired woman in front of us in the queue for coffee this morning turned around and screamed "boo!", but she really frightened us when she said she once "made a souffle, just to watch it fall."
The precious few waking minutes that Anna and I share on week-days we spend at the café. We see many of the same early-morning faces: the woman with the blue windbreaker, walking a handsome dog; the man who drives a pickup laden with ladders, and who sits outside to read and smoke a cigarette; the man with sideburns, who sometimes arrives on a motorcycle and sometimes in a van; the man who cannot control his yellow Labrador, the dog invariably following him inside with its tail wagging.

The view from the stoop

Ismail Merchant

The first day I cut school was in ninth grade, ostensibly to watch a video-tape of A Room With A View.
Ismail Merchant, one half of the team that made the film, died yesterday. A noted patron of the arts, cook, and producer, he epitomised high-low film-making.

Drink before you're thirsty

The time-honoured advice, "Drink before you're thirsty, and eat before you're hungry" indeed rings true. On a day as warm and sunny as today, when I, sudoriferous as ever, found that construction on that nice long bike-friendly stretch of Cañada Rd. means delays of as long as 20 minutes while a pilot car (bearing a sign with the legend "Cyclists do not pass") slowly leads traffic in one direction, and then another, delays due to a drainage upgrade (if I read the sign correctly). I had not been on that stretch of road in three or more years, even though my commute takes me quite close to it. I think that if I ride vigourously (20% faster: 18 kph, rather that my usual 15) I might complete this ride in three-and-a-half hours, which is only slightly longer than the usual commute. I need to leave home around 6.30, in order to avoid the construction delays on Cañada, which begin at 9.00; and this should also steer clear of the rush-hour of walkers and rollerbladers on the Sawyer Camp Trail.
... of course, I always feel more ready to ride when the weather is as glorious as it has been this week. Last week's riding was quite muddy and damp.

Useful in treating sewage and for roasting nuts.

Another victim of California's voter-driven legislation: warning labels on foodstuffs that contain acrylamide. According to the FDA testing, arrowroot cookies have high levels of acrylamide. ... so do potato chips, butter crackers, and french-fried potatoes.

One Less Fixie

Seeing as how, as part of my "one front wheel" scheme, I have sold the stock Bianchi Pista wheels, I needed to sort out the replacement wheels. Birthday-boy jimg supplied two washers to accomodate the thin fork ends of the Pista (he compared them to the substantially-thicker Sub-11 fork-ends on one of the frames hanging in the workshop, and I realised that the Pista is a poseur bicycle indeed): these washers enabled the 120mm Phil flip/flop rear wheel to fit securely on the Pista. The front wheel, however, posed another problem entirely: the tyre, stiff as an leather saddle, refused to seat on the rim. One vise, two tyre-irons, and several sore hands later, it was in place, but we managed to puncture the inner-tube in the process. I suggested shelving the works until daylight: I'll ride either the Reparto Corse or the Kogswell tomorrow. I did sell the wheelset for a fistful of dollars and a nice "One Less Fixie" sticker, which I suppose would look perfect on a car (ah, yes: the web site advises "these really look best on your h2").

If I had this bike, I would eat more pizza from Arinell:

P.S. I love chain-guards.

Miscellany about bicycles

Yesterday I took stock of the bits and pieces of bicycle scattered through the house, workshop, and storage rooms. I wonder whether my "one front wheel to ride them all" approach will work: a low-flange Phil Wood hub, laced 4x to a box-section MA-3 rim. Beautiful, simple, and strong. I couldn't fit the tyre onto the rim, though, so I was happy to unearth the old pair of Suntour Sprint road hubs laced to older Mavic rims. I threw one of those onto the Kogswell and rode off this morning, only to see, by morning's light, that the tyre on the front was agèd to the point of rot. Nevertheless, with good fortune I made it all the way to work without incident.

At Mahayana (aka Salon des Biciclettes, a proper bike shop), where I picked up a length of Velox rim tape yesterday, I always get a chuckle out of the sticker on the side of the cash register: I park in bike lanes, like a dumb-ass. We always joke that we should print up a batch and slap 'em on cars parked in bike lanes. I'd run out just on the way to Civic Center, I swear: there are always so many dumb-asses idling in the bicycle lanes on Market between Van Ness and Eighth.

What part of a horse is that, anyway?

A day-old baguette and a soft cheese constitute my dinner. The cheese container had a label in French, German, and Dutch, but I couldn't make out the flavour from any of those (and am not quite sure why I bought it, other than the illustration on the sticker looked appealing). Now I know that raifort means^* 'horseradish' and that is a very odd thing to put into a soft cheese. I do, however, fondly recall a horseradish cheddar I ate a few years ago. From Wikipedia:

It has been speculated that the word is a partial translation of its German name Meerrettich. The element Meer (meaning 'ocean, sea') is pronounced like the English word mare, which might have been reinterpreted as horseradish. On the other hand, many English plant names have "horse" as an element denoting strong or coarse, so the etymology of the English word (which is attested in print from at least 1597) is uncertain.

^*(Oddly, Google could translate from the French into the German, and from the French into English, but not from German into English.)

BIM

I can hear the pleasantly monotonous voice of the Viennese light-rail system's electronic train announcements: "Mariahilferstraße ... Westbanhof". But, my word! their web site reeks of a fat government contract with no oversight. Much more straightforward and functional is this Flash-based timetable. The sound effect is quite nice, too!
Web sites notwithstanding, Vienna's trains and the service are magnificent, and apparently carry small cargo flats as well as passengers.

Waller and Fillmore

Just a few weeks after workers tore out the ersatz Picasso mural(e)s, the storefront at the corner of Waller and Fillmore boasts a new design: Cafe du Soleil. A young boy was splashing red paint onto the concrete threshold this afternoon when I walked past. A man -- Mustapha Akhou, the managing partner of this shop? -- spoke from inside the door and told me that the café will open on Tuesday morning at 7, and stay open 'til 10, 11 -- "as long as there is demand". And tables will be placed outside, on the broad and sunny sidewalk on the north side of Waller. This café is another in the rapidly-expanding chain begun by the Boulangerie on Pine, near Fillmore. That shop had a certain je ne sais quoi, but now that one finds that shade of blue everywhere -- just so! -- the ridiculously high prices become less interesting. Rigolo on California and the café in the former Tassajara Bakery on Cole are also part of this enterprise, as is another sandwich-and-salad shop downtown. Pascal Rigo, the man behind Bay Bread and all this Francophilia, also runs a handful of restaurants (Chez Nous, Cortez, Petit Robert ... the list goes on) in San Francisco.
No word on why the Movida Lounge closed down. Perhaps their vision of being the wine bar where everyone waited for their table at Thep Phanom and the Indian Oven across the street never materialised? The several times I stopped in, the tables were humming but never crowded.
As for the Café de Soleil, it will continue to serve sangria, but not any hard liquor. The chalkboard inside listed a long list of bieres à pression, and the pretty counter-top had racks waiting to burst forth with buttery pastry and tasty sandwiches. Just like all of Rigo's other shops.

How we read today

An ugly chart, which shows that you, d. readers, are using hip browsers.

More successful than anyone thinks

The NYTimes, soon to begin charging for online content, has a story about the MTA's $3 million in missing revenue. As it turns out, the Metrocard is more popular than expected, and more riders are buying the deeply-discounted 30-day electronic farecards.

The 30-day MetroCard became more popular with subway and bus riders in March, right after its price increased, surprising transit officials who had thought that demand would slacken, at least temporarily.

Statistics released by New York City Transit yesterday offered the first glimpse at changes in fare-purchasing patterns since fares went up on Feb. 27.

Unlike previous increases, the February increase affected only the 7-day and 30-day unlimited-ride fare cards, along with express-bus fares. The base fare, $2 for a single subway or local bus trip, did not change, nor did the discount for regular MetroCard purchases of $10 or more.

The price of the 7-day card rose to $24 from $21, or 14.3 percent. The 30-day card rose to $76 from $70, or 8.6 percent.

In March, the 30-day card accounted for 28.1 percent of all fares sold, the highest proportion recorded since unlimited-ride cards were introduced in July 1998. A year earlier, the monthly card accounted for 23.6 percent of sales.

In contrast, the 7-day card accounted for just 22.6 percent of sales in March, the lowest proportion since June 1999 and a significant drop from 27.5 percent a year earlier.

Fares have become far more complicated in the past decade. The MetroCard was introduced in January 1994, free transfers between subways and buses in July 1997, volume discounts in January 1998 and a one-day, unlimited-ride Fun Pass in January 1999.

Riders face a hodgepodge of calculations in determining which type of fare card makes the most sense. They must take into account not only their regular commute, but their likelihood of using a subway or bus on holidays and weekends.

The transit agency, which is the largest subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, uses economic models to predict the effects of fare increases.

The agency predicted that the February increase would result in a shift away from both the 7-day and 30-day cards and toward the regular cards. (With the discount, a $10 card is good for six rides, at a cost of $1.67 a ride.)

Instead, customers appear to have moved away from the 7-day card while the 30-day card has kept its customers and may have attracted some new ones. It is possible that many riders take the subway so often that the $6 increase was not enough to deter them from buying the card.

Fare revenue in March was $2.9 million less than predicted: about $236 million compared with about $239 million. In addition to the effects of the fare increase, bad weather might have decreased ridership.

"What you're really doing is a little crystal-balling as to what people's buying patterns will be," said Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit. "You can't be 100 percent accurate in these models."

In an effort to help protect transit revenues, a committee of the authority's board approved changes yesterday to bring the rules of conduct for customers in line with a new state law. The law makes it a misdemeanor, rather than a violation, to sell a ride to another person by swiping an unlimited-ride card or by tampering with an expired card.

Total fucking godhead

Or, I'd like to check out your public protest. Another list? -- stop reading, stop reading for me now.

I need a formula to tell iTunes to list albums whose consituent songs all have four or more stars, or where the overall star rating averages to greater than four. This needs some sort of declarative language -- aha! Apple Script!

I suspect that the list generated will include:

• The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" (mono version ; stereo version ; studio out-takes)
  
• Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band's "Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)" and possibly also "Ice Cream for Crow"
  
• Emmylou Harris' "Wrecking Ball"
  
• The Fall "Live At The Witch Trials", "Totale's Turns (It's Now or Never)", "458489 A Sides", "This Nat-ion's Saving Grace"
  
• Pavement's "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain"
  
• Pere Ubu's "Dub Housing"
  
• Radiohead "OK Computer"
  
• The Replacements' "Let it Be"
  
• Talking Heads' "Fear of Music"
  
• Tindersticks "Tindersticks" (the one that NME called "Total f**king godhead")
  
• Wilco's "Summer Teeth" and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
  
• Yo La Tengo's "An then nothing turned itself inside-out"
  

Is that a bicycle when it rains?

Today I got a good morning's wear on my Burley rain jacket, and began wondering if there really is something to riding a bicycle with gears (lots o' them). All in all, a great Bike to Work Day (rain or shine!).

"We really tried"

In a textbook illustration of schadenfreude, I chuckled when I saw today that Las Mesas has breathed its last. After (temporarily) losing their beer-and-wine licence, they never recovered, despite opening occasionally for "Mexican breakfast". After initially welcoming me and others last July, the shop's owner disappeared, replaced by a changing stream of hapless, arithmetic-impaired waiters. If they didn't forget to put chicken into your chicken enchilada, they gave out wrong change -- or both. The last time I visited, they confusingly deducted tax from the refund they gave after they realised they didn't have the ingredients to make the dish I had requested. Although I am sad to see the chic décor and the lush outdoor garden go, Las Mesas never made good use of either. Good riddance to this mediocre restaurant.
Some local businesses have saddened me greatly when they closed, especially when it happened prematurely. Opening a small business of any kind, not just a restaurant, takes great courage: running it effectively and building a loyal clientele takes an impressive amount of dedication and energy. Las Mesas, however, squandered its great location, cheap an' easy food, and nice décor by providing indifferent food, shabby service, and erratic opening hours.

Excepting every four hundred years.

Prompted by a technical discussion about date formats, I dug out a copy of David Ewing Duncan's superlative "Calendar: Humanity's Epic Struggle to Determine a True and Accurate Year", and found the author's blog.
As for the automated manipulation of the calendar, a colleague pointed out this tit-bit o' unix fun:

(salim@xampanyet) ~ % cal -3 9 1752

     August 1752         September 1752         October 1752     

Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa  Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 

                   1         1  2 14 15 16   1  2  3  4  5  6  7 

 2  3  4  5  6  7  8  17 18 19 20 21 22 23   8  9 10 11 12 13 14 

 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  24 25 26 27 28 29 30  15 16 17 18 19 20 21 

16 17 18 19 20 21 22                        22 23 24 25 26 27 28 

23 24 25 26 27 28 29                        29 30 31             

30 31       

Just as we find the railroads behind the standardization of clock time, we might credit the Church for the standardization of the calendar, done so that everyone can hunt Easter eggs at the same time.

It's good to be back

Swobo are back in effect! ... almost. Now that I am fashion-conscious, it's time to get some warm an' wooly cycling clothes.
Swobo's disappearance (was it five years ago already?) caused lamentation, not only for the loss of their spectacularly beautiful and functional clothing, but for their home-grown attitude and local presence. I also like their logo (apropos of which: while riding a 22 Fillmore past Dolores and 16th yesterday afternoon, one of the women seated next to me hollered out that she saw a lamb! Just like that! Walking with the dogs! And, lo and behold, 'twas a brown-eared little goat or some-such, in the company of two handsome dogs and a human couple).

A public telephone

The IMDb biography of Lawrence Tierney really impresses me. Drunken brawling, tough-guy attitude on- and off-screen, and impressions of his throaty, growling voice make for an interesting write-up. Not to mention that he had the best line in Reservoir Dogs, and the last line in Hill Street Blues.

When he guest-starred on "Seinfeld" in "The Jacket" episode as Elaine's father, he scared the cast so badly that they never had him back on. "He stole a butcher knife from Jerry's TV kitchen & hid it under his jacket. When Seinfeld asked him about it, Tierney pulled out the knife & started making the 'Psycho' slashing-violins sound."

A walk through Looney Valley

While walking around the 24th St. area west of Church St., I saw a refreshingly anti-San Francisco storefront. The owner's hand-lettered -- or should I say hand-scrawled? -- posters reveal a fervent adherence to Republican principles. The decorations also included several vintage Reagan campaign posters, which led me to scour the internet for memorabilia of one of the "Founders of America". Not to mention the federally-sanctioned mug.

And, speaking of politics in San Francisco: earlier in the day I had the good fortune to see Frank Chu in the flesh, part of the Bay to Breakers festivity.

What is wrong with schmetterling?

In my quest for the delicious warm croissant with ham, gruyere, and butter -- mustn't forget the butter! -- I have discovered Kerry Gold, a magnificent and sweet Irish butter.

The German expression alles ist in Butter ("Everything is in butter"): everything is in order. It is based on the fact that in the Middle ages, fragile articles were transported using butter as we use thermocol today. For this for example tableware was inserted into warm liquid butter. The butter solidified itself as it cooled down and so protected the fragile goods. At the destination, the butter was again liquefied and poured off.
The English word "butterfly" has its origins in the medieval superstition that witches transform into butterflies in order to steal farmers' cream or butter.

Ocean Shore Railroad

I received a copy of the long-awaited Ocean Shore Railroad, part of the "Images of Rail" series published by Arcadia Publishing. The historical notes on the idealism and history of rail along California's Highway 1 bring a tear to my eye: the right-of-way is now occupied by motorways, but the scenery of beaches and mountains remains beautiful. By the bye, construction has begun on a new, $270 million tunnel at Devil's Slide.

After the tunnel is opened, the unused 1.2-mile portion of Highway 1 will be converted into a hiking and biking trail with parking on both ends.

Hobo ho

From A-Word-A-Day: today's word, the historically awesome bindlestiff. Reminds me of days tramping on boxcars, going 'round to the side door for a plate of warm stew, sitting down by the tracks and having a toothless cigarette. Oh yes.

As we vanquish the manxome foe

Striped bicycle lanes come as a mixed blessing -- a double-edgèd vorpal, if you will -- in San Francisco. They provide an ostensible safe haven for cyclists, a path away from the door zone, in a lane clear of motor vehicles and separate from pedestrian traffic (never mind that this morning an absent-minded walker stepped off the kerb directly into me as I pedalled up to Van Ness Avenue!). However, cyclists might become inured to the hazards of cars turning right across their visible right-of-way; cars sometimes resort to using bicycle lanes when frustrated with heavy traffic, as on Guerrero before Army St. Enforcement barely addresses this violation: after all, possession, nine-tenths and all that. Cyclists must use the lanes once they become available, and must reïnforce the public perception of bicycles as having the right to a full lane.
Yesterday the City of San Francisco finally designated a continuous bicycle lane on Market St., after years of wrangling. And traffic turning right onto 10th St. was queued down the length of the new lane.
The lack of a continuous bicycle lane on Market St. has long frustrated me, because of the volume of car and bus traffic makes cycling difficult and, for the inexperienced cyclist or driver, very dangerous. Market St. is a wonderful, flat and well-paved path from the waterfront and parts east to my neighbourhood, but pedalling in perpetual paranoia of a motorist turning abruptly right, or of the 71 Noriega roaring across the bicycle lane where Haight meets Market makes for an unnverving experience. The sections of Market where the bicycle lane vanishes to make way for street parking or a turn lane result in a confusing experience (perhaps not as much for motorists, who have the right of way by dint of weight and presence); they also result in erratic behaviour by cyclists (do I move to the sidewalk? do I nervously stick close to the kerb? what do I do?).

Frosty insults

Last week I discovered that the local Ben & Jerry's ice-cream parlour closed, but my pain pales compared to that of the boy who got punched-out by a Pittsburgh ice-cream vendor. Not only does this boy have the label "pudgy-faced" forever attached, but he's suffered nightmares about push-carts and frosty treats ever since the incident last May.

A Good Humor man was served 18 months' probation Tuesday for losing his cool with a foul-mouthed teenager.

Nazzareno Didiano, 44, stopped dishing out peanut butter bars and Blue Bunnies last May 12 and began pummeling a pudgy-faced Bloomfield teen during a meltdown.

The teen, now 14, told Allegheny County Judge John A. Zottola during a brief trial that Didiano grabbed him by the arm, yanked him from his bike, punched him in the face and slammed him into a wall.

The attack came after the boy berated and cursed Didiano over the cost of his cones.

"I wanted to tell him I didn't appreciate being talked to like that," said Didiano, who denied punching the boy.

Zottola ruled he did not believe Didiano and convicted him of simple assault. In addition to the probation, Didiano must take anger management classes and reimburse the teenager $20 for damage to his bike.

The teen giggled as Didiano recounted the obscenities directed at him.

Didiano, who worked for Paul's Ice Cream Co., served up his own frosty insults.

"I told him he didn't need any ice cream anyway because he's fat," said Didiano.

The teen, about 5-foot-5 and 140 pounds, responded by calling Didiano a "bald (expletive) ripoff." Didiano later attacked when he found the boy sitting on a bike two blocks away.

Assistant District Attorney Dan Regan presented photographs of a red-faced victim with a cut inside of his mouth.

"He instigated the whole thing," said Didiano, who is looking for a new job.

The teen's mother said she's satisfied with the verdict, but complained that her son is now self-conscious about his weight.

"This has been a nightmare," she said.

As for the closer-to-home cold an' creamy: the Castro St. Ben & Jerry's was run as a non-profit by Juma Ventures, but nary a word appears on their web site, nor on Ben & Jerry's. Alas! for their other shop, on Haight St., lacks atmosphere and outdoor seating. Phooey on Haight-Ashbury.

These are the people that you meet Pt XI

What a convivial ride to work I had this morning: while I was pedalling through the city, I stopped at a red light with a handful of other cyclists. The fellow on my left, riding a fire-engine red track frame, looked at me and said, "Great day for riding, isn't it?" I concurred, and said, "They almost always are." Then, thinking about the ride home last night, added: "Sometimes the roads make for rough going." He laughed and agreed. What happened last night? Well, jimg and I met up at Giordano Bros. to sample their wings (dry but yummy) and rode home on roads reminiscent of Pittsburgh: full of potholes and patches.
At Menlo Park, I saw a familiar fixie get on the train, armed with a cup full of Borrone coffee: Mike and I chatted for a bit, and then rode together from San Antonio to Shoreline Amphitheatre. The weather was warm, and comfortably so.

Someday I will run in to Kent Peterson, who does nothing but ride bicycles and obsessively write about it.

Fire on Haight St

Just afer 6.30 this morning, a great conflagration swept through the building on Haight St. that houses the Horseshoe Café ("Under New Management"). Smoke billowed through the sunshine, and a half-dozen hook-and-ladder trucks, ambulances, and prowlers converged on the block. Trolley buses were halted at Divisadero, but an unfortunate few are stuck between Steiner and Pierce. Others with diesel backup engines motored along Waller or Page, creating emergency transit zones.

Get it together, Part II

After missing the Five Boro Bike Tour, you'd think that I'd have my tickets all set for the LA River Ride. But no. Next year.

Max and Jen in the meadow

In the beginning

Kate sent a copy of In The Beginning, a history of the King James translation of the Bible. The initial chapters of the book chronicle the travails of other translations, and of the political and economic forces that drove translation. The author jumps about a little, and tends to the didactic rather than the scholarly in the structure of paragraphs, but does provide an amusing bit of verse about Martin Luther:

Devil: Monk on the latrine?
You shouldn't be reading matins here!
Monk: I am purging my bowels
While worshiping almighty God
You can have what goes down
While God gets what goes up.

In a twist that Ericson would love, Luther apparently had his philosophical breakthrough on the cloaca (in polite Latin).

Search for my family history

The Scotsman has made their entire archive available online.

We're going to rip 'em out now!

I am very happy to have a copy on CD of The Replacements' "Let It Be". And I must give props to the most suggestive (provocative?) jukebox in San Francisco, at Zeitgeist: a few years ago hearing "This Ain't No Picnic" reminded me to dust off my copy of Double Nickels on The Dime -- what an evocative title! -- and a few nights ago I caught the strains of "I Will Dare." -- which has one of the best, bounciest riffs of any punk rock song. Now I have a chubby stack of 5 1/4" albums next to me, at long last the replacements for the records I never listen to any more.

Uh, no pun intended.

The Replacements landed a spot on Saturday Night Live, but they were roaring drunk throughout their performances and Westerberg said "f*ck" on the air. Their concerts had became notorious for such drunken, sloppy behavior. Frequently, the band was barely able to stand up, let alone play, and when they did play, they often didn't finish their songs. The Replacements also refused to make accessible videos -- the video for "Bastards of Young" featured nothing but a stereo system, playing the song -- thereby cutting themselves off from the mass exposure MTV could have granted them.

... this is something very similar to when some people in 1987 walked into a record shop and found The Beatles' records finally on CD. Or when "Pet Sounds" finally came out on CD.

It is not easy (eating out-of-doors)

Patricia Unterman, proprietor of the stalwart Hayes Street Grill (which was known before "Hayes Valley" was happening), author of the Bay Area dining-out Bible, San Francisco food critic-about-town, has written up a half-dozen of her "choice spots for outdoor dining". She tips her hat to Zuni, B-44 of Belden Place, and to Fourth Street in Berkeley (maddening difficult to get to, at least from San Francisco) -- but does not ask the question:

Why is outdoor dining so difficult to find in San Francisco? I have long kept a small, secret list of "places to sit outside and have someone bring me food" -- I prefer table service to the Squat-and-Gobble cafeteria-style setup.
For as vibrant and verdant a city as San Francisco, we have precious few outdoor rest.s. A dearth of sidewalk space, congested main roads, and odd zoning (a separate license is required to serve alcohol outside!) all contribute to a decided indoors eating experience in San Francisco. Oh, and the weather: tempestuous and mercurial, from one day to the next one doesn't know which way the wind will blow.
I have eaten at Zuni's sidewalk patio, and it's disgusting: buses and cars slowly driving past, belching fumes; a bicycle lane a few feet away from my plate of food; and mendicants seeking a sip of my drink. Not the most conducive atmosphere to digestion. On the other hand, a plate of ribs in the beergarden at Zeitgeist , neatly set back from the road (even as the new Central Freeway passes above), is a pleasure. But it's not sit-down dining. Even Belden Place, with its assortment of Iberian and Gallic cuisine, becomes chill and dank in the evening; during the day, it's a alley for deliveries.

HOWTO: install a personal cert for Mail.app

After starting on a quest to sign my personal email messages, I found this three-step HOWTO at MacMerc.

Thawte has a clear signup process, with well-presented information about security and why they ask the questions they do. They also allow you to customize the questions for password recovery, which I liked a lot.

Thawte then send a special URL to the email address specified for the certificate. Once you follow the instructions within, another browser window opens. This leads you through the steps to requesting the actual certificate: you need to choose the type X.509 cert: select "Netscape Navigator / Communicator"; neither Apple OSX nor Mail.app are an option.

You will receive a second email message when the cert is ready. Returning to thawte's web site, I clicked on the certificate name and then on "Fetch" caused Safari to download the cert (via a PC Application named "deliver.exe" -- the most curious part of this process, since the cert is all about security, and sending me a small, unexpected, and anonymously-named app to "deliver" something onto my computer is counter-intuitive. This finally stuck it into my Keychain.

The coolest part comes now: I opened a new mail message in Mail.app, and voilà!, an icon appears at the bottom-right of the addressing pane, and I can send signed email messages.

The time has come to name names

salmagundi

While trawling a pirate web site I saw the word journal that my father read, and that introduced me to the academic study of kitsch. I turned to the ever-ready google for a definition of salmagundi and find that it is "a highly-seasoned pirate dish made from available meats or fish" or, generally, "meat-salad dish with hard boiled eggs, beets, anchovies and pickles", or, even more generally, an assortment.

From what tree came this fruit?

An iconic portion of my diet, the doughnut, is again getting a bad rap.
With the Food and Drug Administration's recent update to the "food pyramid", the slothful among us are encouraged to eat more fruit and veg, and more of the whole grain, rather than refined.
I wasn't especially pleased when Cookie Monster, of childhood staple Sesame Street, changed his tune (literally) and suggested that his namesake is a "sometimes" food.

May 3, 2005

THE CONSUMER
Kick the Doughnut Habit, and Make Your Nutritionist Smile

By MARTICA HEANER
o matter which route Reginald Burns takes when he drives to work each morning in Houston, he knows every doughnut shop along the way. Almost every day, he stops for a fix: a Diet Coke and six doughnuts - any kind as long as they have just emerged from the fryer.

"A hot doughnut literally melts in your mouth," said Mr. Burns, 47, a finance director for a nonprofit organization.

Doughnuts have long been an American breakfast staple. At the same time, their lack of quality nutritional content makes most nutritionists cringe. This contradiction makes them a perfect talking point in the debate over how strict dietary recommendations should be.

Some dietitians believe that people should strive for an ideal diet, cutting out foods that that have been stripped of many nutrients, packed with potentially detrimental ingredients like the unhealthy kinds of fats or both. In this view, doughnuts don't make the cut.

"When it comes to health, the only thing good about them is the hole," Carla Wolper, a senior nutritionist at the New York Obesity Research Center. Other nutrition professionals say that few foods are terrible enough to be banned altogether. Thus, Sesame Street's Cookie Monster now calls cookies a "sometime food."

So what about doughnuts?

Within the sweets spectrum, desserts like ice cream and apple pie have some redeeming value - the calcium in dairy products and the antioxidants in fruit. Even chocolate contains beneficial phytochemicals.

But doughnuts have nothing to offer, said Jayne Hurley, senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group in Washington. They are loaded with sugar, refined flour and the fats known to increase heart disease risk: saturated fat and partially hydrogenated oil that is loaded with trans fat.

A healthy version is hard to find. In a glazed blueberry Krispy Kreme, for example, there is not a blueberry in sight. The "fruit" is concocted from sugar, corn syrup, corn cereal, partially hydrogenated oil, natural and artificial flavors and dyes.

One doughnut is not likely to kill anyone. But purists argue that clever lobbying by the food industry is behind the idea that processed foods, like doughnuts, can be a sometime food.

They point to the government's new food pyramid, which is vague when it comes to suggestions that people limit certain foods. The vagueness, critics say, stems from an agency, the Department of Agriculture, that is charged not only with nutrition education but with keeping farmers and ranchers in business and advancing the marketing of American agricultural products that include many ingredients in fast foods.

The recently released 2005 U.S.D.A. dietary recommendations give a green light to "discretionary calories" from foods that may be high in fat, sugar or alcohol. For example, a person eating 2,000 calories per day is allowed 267 discretionary calories - or about the amount in one glazed doughnut.

Of course, this junk food allotment is only risk-free if a person is not trying to lose weight and has met all nutrient requirements, eating nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day, according to the guidelines. It also assumes that people are able to eat in moderation.

In fact, few people can stop at one doughnut, and consuming six is likely to lead to overeating and to displace nutritious foods.

Cynthia Sass, an author of "Your Diet is Driving Me Crazy" and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, argues that "most people are so far from ideal nutrition that it is unrealistic to expect them to be able to eat perfectly."

"If a person truly craves doughnuts," she said, "quitting cold turkey may lead to rebound binges that can have disastrous affects on weight and health."

Some experts say succumbing to a warm doughnut's allure may increase cravings.

"Foods containing both sugar and fat are the most palatable and have an appealing mouth feel," said Dr. Kathleen Keller, an appetite researcher at the Obesity Research Center, adding that companies "conduct extensive research to determine the exact sugar/fat proportions that are the most enticing."

Such feel-good foods are not only hard to resist, they may actually be addictive in people with a stronger than normal genetic propensity to like foods that are especially high in fat and sugar. Brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging show that lean and obese people react differently not just to eating tasty foods, but even to looking at them.

And high-carbohydrate foods like doughnuts, brain scan studies find, raise the levels of two brain chemicals, serotonin, linked to mood, and dopamine, associated with pleasurable, rewarding sensations, in obese and normal-weight people.

Dr. Walter C. Willett, a Harvard researcher who is the author of "Eat, Drink and Be Healthy," and a hard-liner when it comes to nutrition, recommends that people kick the doughnut habit. "When it comes to health, I do not believe a person should compromise," he wrote in an e-mail message.

But it is not always so easy. Dr. Eric Swartz, a chiropractor in Los Angeles, admits to a lifelong struggle to keep his doughnut consumption in check. "I have managed to limit myself to eating them once a week, but I could not completely give them up because when I'm depressed, they always make me feel better," he said.

Most Americans seem to suffer a similar loss of fortitude in the face of temptation. A study published last week in Archives of Internal Medicine found in a survey that only 23 percent of 153,000 adults reported that they followed the researcher's basic criteria for healthful eating.

You've got a head full of traffic

I have a fascination with photos of crashed cars, but I am not the only one (cue reference to J G Ballard). Aram's picture takes the cake.

Ro-sham-beaux

No fewer than six people have drawn my attention to this New York Times story on how a game of rock-paper-scissors settled a business deal. I employ this method for determining who rides shotgun ("ah, good old rock!"), who pays for ice creams, and myriad other daily decisions.

To eat, under the sea

A restaurant that would entice Captain Nemo:

        the first ever all-glass undersea restaurant in the world opens its doors for business at the Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa. Ithaa* will sit five meters below the waves of the Indian Ocean, surrounded by a vibrant coral reef and encased in clear acrylic offering diners 270-degrees of panoramic underwater views.

No word on whether the restaurant features a "dive-through" window.

Bridgewater's brave new world

Bridgewater state college will make its students full-time learners:

It was a few years ago that the lab entered the brave new world of WiFi (shorthand for wireless fidelity standards), but great strides have already been made toward making Bridgewater the only completely WiFi college and town in America. The placement of antennae around campus means that students can use their laptops on the college's buses. This will turn downtime into productive time, Mr. Harman said.

Must we do everything all of the time? May in San Francisco is mural awareness month -- and we have many, many beautiful murals, on shop buildings and alley walls and derelict warehouses -- but I cannot find any current information about it.