Wah! Snort-snort-snort. Rwaah-oh-oh!
Oh dear god this is awesome.
The urge to create ringtones is strong in this one.
And these are extremely accurate transcriptions. I would love to be in the meeting where they decided on the spellings.
“Aaahowhaaahow?”
“No, no, no, you’re thinking Aargharghoo. It’s Ahhowwwahow.”
And of course there are others. It’s a trap!
We’re passing through the magnetic field!
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
While you can’t mix in your own music, you do have the Mos Eisley Canteena soundboard which is pretty epic in its awesominity.
I take this opportunity to repeat a question I asked from the early days — which bar in the Mission would Han most likely shoot someone in?
Hindsight
The Trulia Hindsight flash map is amazing – it is a time machine for house construction. Zoom through time and space.
And of course, the Mission’s Stamen is behind its awesomeness.
I Taco, You Taco, We All Taco
Bascom & Stevens Creek, SJ:
I enjoy tacoing under billowing clouds with moments of brilliant sun.
My Jarritos was GLOWING. Is that normal?
I had the breaded halibut taco which were MOST excellent. It’s called Dia de Pescao Mex Sí Food and is well worth a visit next time you’re in San Jose. (55 N. Bascom Ave. at W. San Carlos Street.)
Golden Gaaaate From Spaaace
Last week Soichi Noguchi, a Japanese astronaut aboard the International Space Station, took this picture of the Golden Gate Bridge and its morning shadow.
Holy crap. Please also take pictures of Bernal and Sutro. Arigato.
(Thanks to Alexis Madrigal for pointing this out.)
Nice lens, especially considering he’s about 200 miles up. For perspective, compare this to shots from Mt. Diablo, 30 miles away. Noguchi-san’s shots are like taking pictures from Reno.
Bonus picture – Mt. Fuji from space.
More great pictures from Soichi’s Twitpic feed, and he’s on Twitter too. (Twitterific has a nice translation tool btw.)
So how about an HD camera strapped to the bottom of the ISS with that level of zoom? NHK did it for the moon — get on it NASA. I’d watch that 24/7 on Comcast. (Well, OK, 8/7 given our land-ocean ratio.) Subscribe to twISSt and you’d know exactly when to look.
24th and Mariposa
By Wayne Thiebaud (via Spots Unknown, via goldenfiddlr, as well as brittneyg).
And yes, I just spent 5 minutes looking for potential matches on either 24th or Mariposa in Google Earth and Street View. Seriously people, get on it — that house and building look familiar.
I did find this house designed by Escher where 24th is interrupted at De Haro.
WTF is up with that window?
Asteroids
Remember this? As a child it always bugged me that the asteroids didn’t break up when they hit.
Thankfully, physics reigns supreme and our friend the Hubble telescope, with its shiny new camera, captured TWO ASTEROIDS COLLIDING.
(Yes, you are now humming the asteroid/Jaws theme in your head. Ha ha, such power I wield as a blogger.)
The white dot is the remaining asteroid, estimated to be 450 feet wide. Had it hit earth it would have been bad news (the one that made Meteor Crater in AZ was 3 times smaller) but it looks like we are better at seeing these things coming. More about the collision here.
Sadly no spacecraft was involved despite the many probes meandering about the solar system. Asteroid-wise, the Japanese have a probe returning a sample to Earth in a couple of months. More asteroid porn here.
The US has sent Dawn, a probe with a cool ion-thruster (see first image) to rendezvous with both Vesta and Ceres. They are the biggest in the belt (roughly 450km and 250 wide), in 2011 and 2015.
 Ceres |
 Vesta |
(images via University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Laboratory)
Vesta and Ceres’ size relative to our moon (via Wikipedia):
Mission trajectory:
Dawn should be a very interesting mission — they are the largest asteroids and scientists suspect that given Ceres’ low density, it may be composed of up to 25% water, and possibly polar ice caps.
I suspect that America’s change of focus of the space program (that abandons the moon, approved by Buzz Aldrin, no less) could very well be directed at the asteroids if it turns out that they are full of interesting and useful elements and minerals.
Peek-a-Boo, Sutro Sees You
Sutro Sunset
Jesse Friedman of Beer and Nosh took some most excellent shots of last night’s post-storm sunset.
Sutro, the Mission’s sentry:
Epic wide shot, worth clicking upon and seeing the 2000p wide version:
Up in the sky! A bird! A plane!
Yep, a plane.
I love the house below and to the right of Sutro.
In Smog and Thunder, The Great War of the Californias – SF vs LA
California was teetering on the edge of doom. Animosity between Los Angeles and San Francisco had grown out of control. War was looming in the hearts of men and women from Petaluma to Pacoima. Then, in early May, General Juan Gomez de los Angeles led his Southern troops in an offensive against the Bay Area. Once the Battle of San Francisco began there was no turning back . . .
So says the introduction to In Smog and Thunder, the alternate history of a California at war with itself: SF vs LA.
Telstar Logistics points out this epic 2002 Ken Burns-style mockumentary available on DVD made by Sean Meredith, Sandow Birk and Paul Zaloom, based on a 2000-2001 art show by Birk. I was completely oblivious of both.
In 1996, Southern California artist, Sandow Birk, was invited to have an exhibit in San Francisco at Catherine Clark Gallery. “I spent a month living with a friend up there, painting and hanging out,” Birk recalled. “And everywhere I went, people would hassle me for being from Los Angeles. I’d be sitting in a bar and people would ask where I was from and then they go off on me: `It’s so horrible,’ and `How can you live there?’ At first it was kind of comical, but it became annoying. And that’s how I started having this idea about a fake war.’’ Birk imagined San Francisco’s worst nightmare: an invasion by Los Angeles.
Over the next six years, Birk created over 100 artworks in the series. The paintings developed into a wonderful critique and send up of 19th century romantic period history paintings. He saw all the overly dignified and majestically painted portraits of generals and battle scenes of the past as ripe for the picking.
So of course, LA attacked first:
The Battle of San Francisco – (detail, click image to zoom)
There was a battle for the Mission:
Major General Juan Gomez de los Angeles had only been the Supreme Commander of the Southern Army for six months before he led his troops into its offensive against the North, which he held no love for. In his teens Gomez lost his virginity in an unsatisfying manner in San Francisco at a Grateful Dead concert and had despised the city ever since. Despite facing superior firepower in entrenched positions, his veterans were able to gain a crucial foothold in the Battle for the Mission.
(Ha, don’t think so.)
SAN FRANCISCO FIGHTS BACK:
“Goodyear Blimp vs. Fuji Blimp” (Battle of Los Angeles)
Wounded morally as well as physically, San Francisco rebuilds. It ups military spending, re-commissions a large navy, and sets sail southward for Los Angeles. Letters from sailors tell of conditions on the ships at sea and the pain of being away. Civilians tell of the hard times and depravities at home. The San Francisco Navy surprises the Los Angeles Navy at sea and a battle ensues, in which Los Angeles suffers great losses. The San Francisco Army attacks Los Angeles in force . . . Fighting for key landmarks is intense, especially at the Getty Museum of Art which sits overlooking a freeway pass from the Valley. The San Fernando Valley, recently seceded from Los Angeles, is laid to waste.
I have yet to see the DVD but there’s a trailer available on the website.
At the end, the initial attack was obviously instigated by burrito inadequacy. Nice try, LA. Just send up your korean taco truck and we’ll keep our mighty navy at bay (because you know Gavin would want one…)
26th and Valencia Through The Ages
Restaurants and bars come and go. Toad’s is Dead, Long Live the South End Grill ‘n’ Bar. So say the signs. But history (oh why yes, history, as ye soon shall see) shows us there is no good reason a restaurant or bar can’t do well on that corner.
I never really saw that many people inside since it opened in early 2006. Yelp suggests that the owners are redoing the menu. The La Lengua corridor does not forgive mediocrity.
Pi Bar certainly shows you can draw crowds with the right idea and execution. Show us what you’ve got, SEBnG.
But I do love this exciting Toad’s review on their website, via yelp:
the mission jumps into the bay…and swims to the bottom of the ocean…and stares…and stares…and stares at the bottom…and finds its soul…and finds its eternal flame…and emerges with newly found clarity and resolve…and produces a spectacular working class establishment that the old man would be proud of…
(drumroll again!)
toad’s is that establishment! toad’s is the old man’s prayer to the gentrification of the mission! toad’s is the retrosexual’s answer to the metro-pussification of the mission!
toad’s is simply a glorious pub/restaurant in the outskirt of the valencia area (valencia and 26th), which means no hipsters or metros cuz we all know that those people are too scared to venture past 24th street. omg! it’s soooo scaaary out there!
24th is certainly a hipster semipermeable membrane.
Anyway, that building has been there since at least 1889, and as you will no doubt be unsurprised, the corner has always had bars and restaurants aplenty as we can see from the Sanborn maps. (Red are bars and green are restaurants. S stands for store, F for Flats and D for dwelling. (The Sanborn codes are deceiving – for the record, “Out Ho” sadly does not stand for out house, just “Outer Building”. But FB stands for Female Boarding, aka Bordello.))
Click to zoom:
Drilling into what was where when — in 1889, Toad’s/1499 Valencia was actually 1441 Valencia (but nothing shows up in the directories). By 1899 the block had been renumbered we see that 1499 Valencia was run by James and Mary Ward. James passed away sometime between 1901 and 1907, and Mary ran the saloon for a few years afterward. (There is a widow Mary Ward listed in the neighborhood until 1913 though it is unclear if it’s the same one.)
By 1918 Chris Petersen had taken over, but Prohibition forced him to turn it into a soda fountain shop which he ran until at least 1927.
The history of the spot now occupied by Dovre Club across the street is even more interesting.
From at least 1886 to at least 1901 (if not 1906), a man with the particularly awesome name of Cornelius Crowley ran a saloon on the NW corner of 26th and Valencia.
Before the renumbering of Valencia, 1498 was 1442, so he lived above the bar in the start. But he soon did well enough to buy a lot on San Jose and 25th in 1888:
His house is in orange below.
Nice front yard! Cool discovery – that octagon is a 50 foot windmill that lasted until at least 1915.
In 1896 Cornelius threw a summer saturday night party at his house that was pleasant enough to be noticed by the SF Call:
He continued to run the bar for at least another decade until his sons (or so I assume) took over:
Remember that 212 changed to 242 in the mid 00’s.
You can see the progression on this block of San Jose Ave from 1889 to then (and effectively today). 1889, 1900, 1915, 1950. (Rotated with west up, north to the right.)
UPDATE: I initially thought he got to live in the cool house that now sits there, but I just figured out it was not built until 1916. But a long-time Mission dweller named John Stelling moved in soon after it was built, and lived there until 1924. Residents of 242 from 1911-1924 listed here.
UPDATED UPDATE: The current owner of 242 SJ reports that Mayor Angelo Rossi (1931-1944) may have owned the property, and that
Rossi was also a bootlegger and rumor has it that his fortune more than doubled during prohibition. We recently opened a wall in the basement and found more than a case of very old Carta Blanca bottles that probably were holed up there by a resident drunk or construction worker as we think that part of the house was added afterwards.
John Stelling was a bookkeeper, and I thought it was a bit odd he moved into a giant house like that. One possibly related tidbit — he worked for Rolph Shipping, owned by Rossi’s predecessor, Mayor “Sunny Jim” Rolph (1911-1931), who helped start Muni amongst other things. Connections?
But back to Cornelius — the last record I have of him of before he passed on to the great big bar in the sky is 1909. His family continued to run the bar until Prohibition. (Given the number of bars in the city, that transition must have been a brutal real estate issue.) Afterwards, it was a cigar shop, a restaurant, and a grocery.
(As for after 1927, that would involve me actually getting up and going to a library which isn’t going to happen soon.)
So — next time you’re in the Dovre, make a toast to Cornelius Crowley and his epic 35 year bar empire.
Burrito Justice 
