Taggage Baggage

Just when I think I'm going to settle down to a nice morning of writing, Bad Tempered Zombie tagged Gifted Typist, who in turn tagged me.

Barbara said-

This is a link meme, whereby you link five of your favourite sites and then tag five others to do the same.

I don't read the papers as much as I used since the whole Iraq debacle kicked off, but I do have to keep up with local events and that's what the Internet is for.

SF Metroblogs and SFist help me do just that. They also feature links to other blogs and sites that cover San Francisco, so the two blogs pretty much cover everything in that aspect.

A prime example is this, which I saw this guy get pulled over. Most of the time I can only describe these incidents to you, but somebody is always quicker with the camera or camera phone than me.

If I have just a little free time and I don't want to involved by reading one of the regular blogs that I do, I hop on over to Paper Cuts, a book blog by the New York Times. It's updated about four or five times a week and there is usually a mini-interview with an author or someone in the publishing field. You don't need to register for the NY Times to read it either.

The Rap Sheet has everything you need to know about crime books and writing. Stuff and interviews with authors. Books and DVDs that are coming out, as well as the conventions.

Free Translation is where I go for quick decipherings and little things to throw into the blog. What, you didn't think I really spoke Spanish, did you? I can read a few languages, but I can barely order a burrito in Spanish and if the counter person deviates just a little bit from the normal patter or questions, I spontaneously combust.


Now, I don't tag because then people feel bad when they don't respond. So, consider this an open tag and if you feel like doing this? Put a link in the comment section and I'll post it up here.

Apparently Blogging Kills

I tend not to link articles from the New York Times, because they charge for old links after so many weeks and is it really worth while to pay for an article that doesn't have someone that you know personally or yourself.

I read this, but didn't bother to post it. It's a sad and tragic story about bloggers who make their living from their blogs, passing on from work-related stress to the great post in the sky.

SFist has linked it and after the NY Times link goes up to six bucks, you'll still have the SFist article to give a cheaper gist of it.

If A Tree Falls In San Francisco...

If a tree falls in San Francisco, koan or not, you best believe that you will hear it. Hell, you can't even go down my street without a tree going "George of The Jungle" on you.

Branches to the left of me...

...Branches to the right of me...

...Onward, onward, into the valley of takeout. If you go three blocks further down, you will see the house that was used as an exterior establishing shot in "So I Married An Axe Murderer." It was the home of the McKenzies, who were the parents of Mike Myer's character, Charles.

So just what exactly is behind this lumberjack's nightmare? Two storms got together and created the perfect wind storm, George Clooney. We are talking about gusts up to 100 mph in the East Bay and 78 mph in the City.

Everyone was soaked as the gusts of wind made umbrellas useless (note that the next three pics come from SF Gate)...

...Just like here on this picture, up on Twin Peaks, where the gusts measured the strongest for San Francisco. All practicality went out the window and I saw many a pedestrian struggling with or trying to save their umbrellas. They often didn't notice the traffic signals changing and I had witnessed more than a few near misses, where people either went back into the intersections for their umbrellas, or they outright crossed against the red light during their futile efforts.

Everywhere you looked, the garbage men were angry because the wind knocked over every garbage and recycle can that was put out. The Christmas trees that were put out for recycling, did Mary Poppins imitations because the wind flung them at people and cars. But branches and Christmas trees weren't the only things that were falling or being flung.

Timber! This is down the hill from where I grew up, on Bosworth St. Back on my current side of town, you couldn't even drive through Golden Gate Park and many a traffic light was out.

This is on Dolores St. and I guess there are some things that even Swedish engineering cannot account for. The other irony is name of the street that it happened on, because dolor means "pain" or "suffering" in Spanish.

Click on over to SFist, where you will see what happened to the other side of the hill from where I grew up. There's a nice little "before and after."