San Francisco and what to do in it

How did the move go?

― Il suffit de ne pas l'envier (Michael White), Monday, March 29, 2010 5:02 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

oops, sorry michael! missed this.

we love the new place. we cleaned out the old one this past weekend, which took FOREVER, but it went well. i just set up my record shelving last night, and everything is coming along. our new neighbors rule, and people are always cookin with the doors open and hanging in the yard with beers. A+

i just buy four barrel and blue bottle beans, but i've heard TJs has good/cheap beans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/dining/09sfdine.html

"Third-wave" coffee roasting is lmao.

and people are always cookin with the doors open and hanging in the yard with beers. A+

Nice!!

Mr. Tooker said Four Barrel, which has been open a year and a half, is wildly profitable: he estimated the cafe’s retail side generates revenues of $100,000 a month, with 45 percent of that profit.

Mr Tooker can take that shit and go fuck himself. That is way too much money.

what's insane is that four barrel is probably one of the more obscure shops out of that whole class of ritual, philz, blue bottle, sightglass, etc.

and the current ne plus ultra, the V60 glass cone from the Japanese company Hario.

really?? they're championing a paper drip??

"what's insane is that four barrel is probably one of the more obscure shops out of that whole class of ritual, philz, blue bottle, sightglass, etc."

It's also probably my favorite. It definitely has the best space.

pretty sure sightglass is the most obscure of those

I've never been to Sightglass so yeah it's more obscure to me.

This is making me wonder how profitable the blue bottle satellite at my place of employment is. I'm certain the answer is "very".

Well the mark-up on coffee is insane and these places are always packed so yeah I'm guessing "very" is probably accurate.

What Alex said. The mark-up on coffee makes wine look like a deal.

All the more reason to make sure that your favorite yuppie coffee peddler is fair trade. /hippy

MWhite, who is the dude on your block who is painting landscapes from both sides of the sidewalk? Kudos to him.

No idea!

brew your coffee at home! even an expensive bag of beans will seem reasonable then.

http://brainslip.blogspot.com/2010/04/come-on-even-tribecha-is-better.html

http://www.leastwastefulcities.com/study_Overall.html

dunno how the toxic sludge "compost" fits into this

That actually makes me feel kind of good. Unfortunately the mostly right MUNI criticism piece in the Weekly made me feel kind of bad. :(

I haven't read that yet. Should I bother?

jaxon,

El MiGueLores?

Of course, in my language, that area is called "I'm going down to the El Rio."

didn't finish the MUNI article tbh, not telling me things I don't already know. pro-labor as I am, that agency will never be fixed until a new contract stripping out all the bullshit is in place. and there is a LOT of bullshit, MUNI employees basically make more money the less they show up to work.

It's good. Maybe not novel, but its pretty comprehensive.

Shakey, what also bugs me about that is that, for example, my morning bus driver, always the same Muslim dude, is polite, friendly and ALWAYS there. It's not just us getting screwed but in a sense him, since he's a conscientious guy who doesn't take random days off 'just 'cause'. Pro-labor doesn't have to mean pro-insane-business-practices.

First time I used the Muni, I thought it looked pretty great on paper (you can get pretty much anywhere you want) but could not believe that most lines stop at EVERY block. That is some BS.

eh that doesn't really bother me. there are express/limited lines for all the more popular routes.

NTRVP, just to quibble, it's every other block on the local routes.

Ha well it seems like every block, and the routes I take definitely have periods where they stop at every block. That actually reminds me, do you call a 'block' any length of street between two adjacent streets? e.g. I would call between Dolores & Guerrero one block wherever, even though on 23rd there is a Quane, Fair Oaks and Ames between them?

I would call the Dolroes to Guerero stretch a block for the purposes of overall distance or orientation unless it was for parking and then I would be more specific about which 'block' it was. For my purposes, though, MUNI is usually almost as quick as a taxi (I have to find one) or my car (I have to find parking) unless it's a long haul.

now that we have a kid (who's not yet old enough to ride the bus) we drive the car a lot more - to parks, to the store, etc. I still take MUNI everywhere else tho, and I expect as she gets older, our use of the car will decline. cuz yeah parking is a bitch.

"eh that doesn't really bother me."

It should bother you! It's slows down the entire system and makes it that much expensive and inefficient! And it is compounded by the fact that the busiest lines don't have bus-only lanes (not to mention the silly and easily fare collection metods, etc)! The slowness of MUNI is one of the main reasons why more people don't ride.

"easily evaded"

I suppose... but you just know the shitstorm MUNI would get if they just said they were removing a bunch of stops to speed up transit times.

If I didn't have a garage and an old fully paid-off car, I wouldn't have a car, even with today's MUNI.

I know people do it, but I ain't takin a 2yo everywhere on the bus. travel time would increase massively and it would just be a nightmare imho

Sure but they should still do it. MORE people would ride and they'd make more money.

xp Yeah my parents did it.

I ride with toddlers and little kids all the time with rather mixed but not horrible results but the 'terrible twos' are not an age I would personally like to take on MUNI and often dislike when they're there. Otoh, those kids who have been taking MUNI before that age tend to be better behaved than those kids for whom it's the first trip or only an occasional experience. The previous scientifically proven sentences are based on my towering intellect and completely anecdotal experience on pretty regular routes.

I've never had a car and lived in cities all my adult life, the Muni is great (and cheap) compared to most and although slow I wouldn't get a car just on that basis. Mind you I haven't tried it in rush hour yet, and I imagine taking a kid + grocery shopping is stressful enough to fork out for a taxi. That's not to say they shouldn't improve all that stuff they mention in the article, esp bus lanes. The 24-Divisadero is *painful* - stop at traffic lights - move 10 meters - stop at bus stop - move 20m - stop at traffic lights - move 10 meters - get in hilarious Muni fight - argghhh

mmm Kung Fu Tacos. I approve

I have semi-regular appts in Laurel Village, and coming back when I get out of the bus on California or Post (depending on what westbound bus I get on Cal), I've started not even bothering w/the bus and just walking down Divis which is a pleasant enough walk and frankly more pleasant than that stretch of bus and about the same amount of time.

24 Divisadero is the worst bus (possibly in the universe) in terms of timeliness. I regularly walk from California/Divis to Castro/Noe without seeing a single bus on the horizon.

Plus, even if you do get a bus, it tends to be full. I do take it to Noe Valley, though. I just don't do the Divis corridor.

Surprised the MUNI has that bad a rap. Living in Dallas all my life, functional mass transit was like spotting my first unicorn.

It's a very mixed bag, but yeah I think most people acknowledge that even at its worst it's still pretty great despite too often being needlessly slow and unreliable.

milo, even w/ all the aggros, the crazies, the taggers, the delays, etc..., you're talking about a city that's 7x7 miles squared and highly conctrated toward the eastern side of the city; it might suck but your trip is unlikely to suck for very long.

hey i am going to be in this city on thursday! for a few days, then driving up the coast w/ friend. i haven't been to SF since 1994! o_O
i guess i will figure out what to do in it!

That's why I'm surprised - I thought MUNI did a good job the two weeks I was there last year. The only time I had to grab a cab was making it to a Giants game when my girlfriend was slow getting ready.