Missing Month Well Stored

Once again I've managed a full month without posting. Why? Because I am no longer in San Francisco but rather home again in God's country where I've been making a valiant yet fruitless attempt to consolidate the contents of two storage units.

My first storage unit came during my college years. When I moved from my own apartment into a shared abode with the boyfriend of the time, not all of my furniture could make the move and still leave room for his. And so it began. The storage saga. In the fifteen or so years since the unit was first rented, the contents held in storage have varied widely.

For the first few years after college I moved often. First to a small apartment, then to a small house, and finally to a spacious 3-bedroom house with a converted garage. As I increased my living space with each move, my need for a storage unit decreased -- but it also coincided with the time of my brother's greatest need. He and his then wife were also moving frequently, small children in tow. The virtually empty unit began to fill again.

In time, I took a second job in Nashville. After a couple years of spending 4 hours of every day driving to and from work, I moved from the large house to a smaller duplex near the interstate and my things began to return to storage. This time joining whatever my brother had left behind.

Through a rushed move in the midst of 90-hour work week (coupled with a 24-hour per week commute), I watched as the storage unit began to take on a sinister disorganization which only got worse a year later when I traded in that small duplex near the interstate for an apartment in Nashville by way of another rushed move.

Though I'd finally killed the commute, my storage unit had become rather full and terribly messy. Furniture bought for the changing needs of each home -- a guest room here, a converted garage there -- now filled my storage. But on top, underneath, and beside that furniture, piles of miscellany had spread kudzu-like through the unit, tendrils everywhere. A box of knick-knacks sat on a fridge; Christmas decorations covered an oven; toys from my youth were heaped on a dining table; school books and notebooks lurked underneath.

When the time came to leave Tennessee entirely, there was no question that a second unit would be needed to store the contents of a working home: couches and chairs, beds and nightstands, bookshelves and books, desks and computers, dishes and pans. That second unit, not filled hurriedly, is blessedly organized. But the first...

Well, I've spent a month here converting THIS:

to THIS:

It may not be done yet, but it's getting there!

Finally.

Tuesday Noon Siren

Kiddies! Now you can play the Tuesday Noon Siren home game.

Get your clicking fingers ready. The Tuesday Noon Siren is only minutes away.

In San Francisco, you can hear it in STEREO!

Just click here at 12:00.

TRAUMA is no Jack Kennedy

I'll leave the rather accurate review of NBC's Trauma, set in San Francisco, to the guys who get paid for it over at SF Gate. To sum up, it's a pretty city shown well as the backdrop for a formulaic show in an over-saturated genre.  Nothing new here, folks, except the scenery.  And to be honest, that's the only reason I tuned in in the first place.  Because unlike what must be millions of Americans who keep this genre afloat, I am not a fan of the Surgical Soap Operas.

I am a fan, however, of San Francisco views, and the series opened with two beautiful shots of the bridges -- first the snobby, touristy Golden Gate and then the REAL one, which became the (almost) center of what one might call a plot when a tanker exploded more near than on the Bay Bridge.

Big money went into effects and the cast, of course, has that uniformly attractive sheen.  But the plot lines are thin and the dialogue may be where the series will live up to its name.  It's painful.

In one particularly "original" scene, the obligatory loose cannon character, "Rabbit," takes his Fastback Whatever (it was a night shot, so whether it was more good-guy Mustang or bad-guy Charger will be determined by people who either have a better eye or who are willing to watch that episode again) on an airborne cruise of a San Francisco hill not only making a less-than-subtle reference to a scene in Bullit, but also asking his passenger (and his audience) to put two and two together as he recreates the famous scene.  "Have you seen Bullit?" he asks, just before the jump.

Our response to that question is a groan.  Whether we've seen the whole movie or not, we've seen that scene.  And calling it out is like saying "ooh, look at me, I'm going to recreate it for you!"  Like no one has done that before.  Yeah.  We get it.  In fact, our emotional response almost parallels the response of his passenger, which SHOULD be a good thing.  Maybe, finally, we'll relate to someone.  Then, after the car lands, she opens her mouth.

"Yeah, I saw Bullit.  I love Bullit.  I love Steve McQueen.  I got news for ya, buddy.  You ain't Steve McQueen."

And off we groan again.

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy."  

By the end of the episode, I had already written off the series.  It's not like there's a dearth of pretty pictures of San Francisco; one doesn't have to watch TRAUMA to see it.  In fact, it's prettier in The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.  But when the promo for next week's episode came on, I knew I'd be a glutton for punishment and tune in again.  Not because some clever plot point caught my attention -- Good God, no! -- but because I'd seen the scene being shot along the Embarcadero in July.

So while the show backed into a second chance in my living room, I'm not sure that will be true in living rooms anywhere else across the country.  Sorry NBC, but this one may just be joining ER in the "great waiting room in the sky."

Censored!

This cracks me up.

I was looking for information on a certain highway flea market in Middle Tennessee which might come in handy for dumping a few things after the Great Storage Cleanout of Ought Nine when I came across a guide to "anything that has anything to do with antiques," including flea markets. Okey-doke. I'll bite.

Sure enough, the Highway 55 flea market was listed, but so were a number of others which I knew nothing about.  So, I scrolled through.

Among the listings, I found this:  The Swee*censored*er Fleas Unlimited Mall.

The Swee*censored*er Fleas Unlimited Mall?  What would the word possibly be?  Sweet-f*cker?  Nah.  You'd expect an uncensored "T" for that one.  So what ... oh wait.  A clue!

The *Censored* Mall is on Highway 68.  In -- what's this?  Swee*censored*er, Tennessee.

Swee*censored*er, Tennessee?  Oh my.

LOL.

Sweetwater.

They censored the *twat.*

Whew!  Thank you Antiques Guide.  I'd never have noticed that was in there.  Now, I'll never visit that filthy place again!

Oh wait.  I never did.

;)

AT&T Park

 Giants v. Cubs, September 26th
Final score: 6-2 Cubs

Cruise Ships Everywhere!

It's not every morning that you wake up to find a Libra class cruise ship lurking at the end of the street, peering through your windows as you make your morning coffee.  And yet, with the Norwegian Star docked at Pier 30/32, that's exactly what I woke to find this morning.

And it's not alone.

Inspired by the floating bow, I fired up my long-ignored car for a little tool down the Embarcadero.  Sure, I could have taken the metro (also pictured above), but once every couple of months you want to be sure that the expensive knick-knack in the garage still works; and since Critical Mass cyclists will take over the roads tomorrow and I'll be leaving town soon after that for an extended visit South, today seemed as good a time as any to give it a whirl.

So.

The Norwegian Star is moored at Pier 30/32, yes, and her sister ship, the Norwegian Pearl is moored just a little further up the bay.  What brings The Star here, I do not know, but The Pearl is finishing up a 5-day Pacific Coastal cruise en route to LA, where it will pick up passengers for a Panama Canal run on the 26th.  The Star will also depart LA on the 26th, en route to the Mexican Riviera. 

Further still down the bay, near Pier 39, is the Golden Princess, belonging to another cruise line altogether.  And it's not alone, either.  On the other side of town, near Pier 48, its sister ship, the Sea Princess, seems to be taking lifeboats out for a spin....

...  while spinning in its own right.

Presumably, these are sea trials marking the end of the ship's refurbishment in dry-dock on Pier 70 since mid-month.

Ah... back on the water again!

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

I came to this post in a rather round-about way.   Tooling around the internet the other day I came across a video someone had made of the Death Star over San Francisco.  The video ends with shot of a couple of parrots in a tree near Coit Tower.  For some odd reason, this rang a bell with me.

Coit Tower is on Telegraph Hill, so I did a quick Google search for the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill.  As it happened, I hit on the exact title of a book, and a documentary filmed in the area in 2005.  As I found out more about the documentary, it became less remarkable that I'd pulled the title from thin air.  I'd seen it, long before I ever expected to visit -- much less live in -- San Francisco. 

In the documentary, a man named Mark Bittner became enamored of the flock of wild birds on Telegraph Hill and took to spending time with them, naming and feeding them.  He spent 6 years with the birds, until life intervened.  You can find out more about Mark and the parrots online and at your local bookstore.  But I wanted to see the parrots for myself, and as luck would have it, the trip would be a double win, as I had also wanted to climb the Filbert Steps, which are not only in the heart of Telegraph Hill, but which also lead directly to Coit Tower.

First let me say that the Filbert Step are daunting.  Filbert Street transitions from a normal, everyday hilly San Francisco roadway to one of the steepest navigable streets in the Western Hemisphere (31.5% grade) consisting of roughly 400 steps (Yelpers disagree on an exact number, but a happy medium of 384 has been reported by a runner who claims to keep focused on the "burn" by counting them.  If she can run those steps, I'm taking her word for the number).

Before you ever see a parrot, you hear them.  On my trek up to Coit Tower and back down, I found that where you are most likely to see them as well as hear them is somewhere around the middle of the steps.  And it was there that I stopped and tried to capture a few snapshots.  It's amazing how those buggars can disappear in a tree of leaves roughly the same color as their plumes.  When they take flight, there are roughly 200 of the birds in the air, but when they enter the garden trees along the residential street, they all but disappear.  Some runners (Yelpers who failed to diligently count the steps) say that they've yet to see one.

Top left side * Click to enlarge

Such was not my problem.  I probably could have reached out and touched one -- or fed him if that was still allowed (it's not) -- but for hours of playing Where's Waldo with my snaps, I'm still not sure I ever caught that particular bird on film.  (Or on dig'.  Whatever the kids are calling it these days.) I did however, catch a snap of a few parrots sitting on the telephone wire, with the sun behind them.

 As I stood at the midway point of the steps, hoping for a better shot to come my way before I headed back down, a couple of gentlemen rose the steps, discussing the very thing which held our interest. The Wild Parrots of... well, hear for yourself. (60 seconds)

It seems that the parrots are laughing and taunting the fellows.  "Not the spot?  Of course we're here!  RIGHT here!"  As the fellows move on, you can hear their feet on the wooden steps.

So Star Wars wasn't the right movie to trigger this venture; but if the Death Star isn't hovering over San Francisco, The Birds definitely are. Cue Hitchcock theme.

Glass, Light, and Fog

As the sun set over SOMA last night, the glass windows of One Rincon Hill provided an interesting light show through the minimal fog, which had yet to fully roll in.

 

You don't see that every day.

Opera at the Ballpark

On Saturday, more than 25,000 fans took to the stands and field to enjoy a free, live simulcast of The San Francisco Opera performance of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” on the 103-foot-wide HDTV screen at AT&T Park.

It was an amazing thing to see opera -- for free -- in a baseball park.  Even more amazing was sharing the park with 25,000 others who (like me) probably don't pay to see productions like this at the War Memorial Opera House very often --  if at all.

My father, a season ticket holder to the Nashville Opera, once told me that he often ran into a man who routinely drove from Atlanta to Nashville to watch the opera there.  Surprised at this -- Atlanta has a perfectly good opera of its own -- my father asked him why he would make that long drive.  The gentleman's response was that the opera scene in Atlanta had turned into just that -- a scene.  It was where the wealthy went to be photographed in fine clothing; it wasn't about the music.  This man drove more than 200 miles because he wanted to ENJOY THE MUSIC rather than MAKE THE SCENE. 

It's a story like that which makes opera at the ballpark make so much sense. Twenty-five thousand people were happy to enjoy the music without buying a fancy outfit or paying a ridiculously high price to do so.

So kudos and thanks to you, San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Giants, for making the music accessible to us all.

Nicola Luisotti makes his debut as San Francisco Opera's music director with this audience favorite, in which fast-paced action is propelled by an irresistible stream of melody. Verdi's favorite themes of destiny and desire are threaded through this suspenseful story of a corrupt count, a dashing warrior and a Gypsy who plots to avenge her mother's wrongful death. David McVicar's visually striking new production is inspired by the haunting imagery of Francisco de Goya. Tenor Marco Berti and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, whose beautiful tone and emotional intensity thrilled audiences in last season's Simon Boccanegra, head a charismatic cast featuring mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and soprano Sondra Radvanovsky.

Park(ing) Day Enthusiasm Curbed by Heat

Park(ing) Day: an annual event where artists, activists, and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks. Originated in San Francisco by art and design collective Rebar, Park(ing) Day grew to a national -- nae, global -- event in a surprisingly short time.  The event was begun in 2005, and the PARKcycle, a man-powered park vehicle, debuted in 2007.

Now you'd THINK that if you wake up on Park(ing) Day in the city where it originated you'd see creative spots for miles.  Not so.  In fact, I had to work rather hard to find relatively few examples of observance. Could it be that I was looking in the wrong places?  Quite possibly.  But I had taken the precaution of checking the website for likely makeshift parks, so you can't say I didn't try.  Could it be that it was darned near 80 degrees in the shade in The City today and nobody wanted to set up on asphalt?  Also quite possible.

After waiting out the midday sun, I began my search at 3rd and Mission, roughly attempting to mirror the route the PARKcycle would have taken earlier in the day while visiting installations.  From Mission, I trekked over to Market Street (on which I didn't see a single park!), and eventually hopped the F-Line streetcar to Valencia, which had been touted as a likely hub for the event.  Walking several blocks from Valencia's origination at Market Street down to 25th, I passed only a handful of parks, most of them uninspired. Nothing like the rather creative pictures I'd seen from previous years.  Ah well.  Nonetheless, I took a few shots.

Though I would have preferred to have seen this thing on the move, I was at least lucky enough to spot the Rebar PARKcycle visiting the Bicycle Coalition area.

This folding chair park at Valencia & 20th lacked a certain panache, but did benefit from a row of trees.

This mini-park at Valencia &19th gets a few points for the wood pillar and its park ranger.

But this one at Ritual Roasters, Valencia & 21st was by far the most successful park I witnessed, for sheer participation.  Par(k)-tay!

P.S.  SFist has a better photo gallery of, well, pretty much these same parks.  There's one though that was obviously already gone by the time I walked past.  Free Design Clinic, Valencia and 20th -- where'd ya go?

I See Tweed People

According to Laughing Squid,  "Tweed Rides – group bicycle events in which riders eschew spandex in favor of elegant, vintage-inspired riding attire – are growing in popularity, with newly-announced rides in San Francisco, Chicago, and Sydney, Australia."  So when I heard that SF Tweed would be riding, I ventured out with a new-fangled camera hoping to capture a few jolly shots.  Unfortunately, by the time they finally sallied forth (with a rousing "tally ho!") the lack of light presented a challenge.  However, I did collect a few shots of the dapper tweeds frolicking on a tennis court in Delores Park before the pedaling began in earnest.

Though there was no sporting green, there were mallets.  Though there were no horses, there were bicycles.  So whether the game the Tweeds played on court should be considered polo or croquet is a question best left to them, but the games didn't end there, as they also performed choreographed moves on bike and field.

 

You may notice that even the lasses are sporting handlebar mustaches in this event.

A Tweed reminds the crowd that "we are not Critical Mass!  We obey the traffic laws and are polite to the motorists."  However, if the Tweeds have already entered an intersection en masse when the light changes, they are instructed to continue through.  Which is why many of them are carrying "Intersection Diplomat" signs.  Like this one:

As always... click to enlarge.

We're Off to See the Skidders

Assured by the Tuesday noon siren that all was well in The City today, I ventured out of doors to see for myself the much-discussed-of-late Hugo Hotel, a former tenement building which, in the roughly 20 years it has been sitting vacant has become a site-specific art installation (called Defenestration) featuring "seemingly animated" furniture escaping out through windows, heading for the fire escapes, and clinging to the side of the building.  Though the owners have been reluctant to sell, a jury this week decided that enough was enough and awarded the city eminent domain. The hotel is slated to be demolished and replaced with a mixed use facility to include "affordable" housing.

Now... had I done that much research before going out into the world, I might have thought twice about trekking my way out to 6th and Howard Streets, where the "site specific art installation" doesn't leap out at you quite as much as the appropriateness of the word "tenement."  There is no doubt on this corner that you are, indeed, on skid row.  Which is somewhat unfortunate because it's a very interesting building and, in another part of town, it might have been saved as a tourist attraction.  As it is -- where it is -- it won't be.

Though I did take my camera along for the visitation, this was a part of town where even if you could find a shaded shot out of the noonday sun you wouldn't necessarily want to display valuables.  (I took the shot above and quickly pocketed my camera). I decided to share better pictures taken by braver souls instead.

There are very decent ones HERE.

But since I was out, I decided to take advantage of other photographic opportunities.

You see, although it's been far too long since Frank Sinatrat made an appearance on these pages, he is back on the prowl.  After a long, unplanned stay in Nashville, Frankie came home with a friend -- Lion L. Messi -- who Frankie is showing around.  There's a long backstory here, playing out on Facebook, but by the time of these pictures it had become obvious to Messi's owner that while Frankie had pants, Messi did not.  These are the first of a series of shots in which Messi will only venture out fully covered... and, well, his options were limited.

Messi, I'm glad you're willing to go out again, but....

A stop along Market Street

 

 Frank, are you SURE this is the way to the wizard?

These don't look like poppies to me....

Yeah, yeah... "great and powerful."  Got it.

Now look, my friend here needs some pants!

Weather? Is That... Weather?

Although a certain portion of the SF population might disagree, being awakened by the unexpected flash of lightning and crash of thunder this morning was a welcome surprise for those of us who've spent the last few years in weather-free Southern California.

At the same time, it reminds us that sometimes -- no really -- plans can be changed by a shift in the weather. There were several outdoor events scheduled for the day, including the 14th Annual Ghirardelli Chocolate Festival, Shakespeare in the Park (two things I was going to do), and something called the Power to the Peaceful Festival (which I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole). Alas, now that everything is cold and wet, I imagine that I'm not the only one who'll be skipping these events in favor of the warm and dry.

It's probably not enough rain to keep the Giants from taking their "we're in this thing... no wait, we WERE in this thing" trouncing by the unmentionable team from SoCal tonight at AT&T Park (broadcast for our home disappointment); but on the other hand, those poncy so-and-sos (I need to work on my smack talk) just might melt in the non-surf wetness, giving the Giants their one obligatory win of the three-game stand.

Yay!

I Told You She Was Real

For years (when the subject has come up) I've been telling people about this Skipper doll I had when I was a kid. "It was kinda like prepubescent Skipper," I'd say. "If you rotated her arm, her breasts would grow." I'm not sure anyone ever believed me. Now, thanks to a random comment posted in response to the upcoming Altered Barbie show in The City, I can prove it. Thanks Sarah. Whoever you are.

Fine, Blogger. You Win. This Time.

I finally did it. I abandoned my old template in favor of this new design. Why had I been resistant to make this change? Well, because I HATE the archive options. The old design didn't give a flip when I wrote something and didn't organize by date. It simply gave you a list of Post Titles. If you liked the title, you'd click through and read. Now, I used to work pretty hard on interesting titles and I didn't want to see them disappear to lists of "May" and "September." Worse, under this new template you get stupid little triangles (aaauuuuggggghhhhh!) by the monthly header if you want your post titles to show. Blogger, if you're listening, THIS IS UGLY. Just gimme a list of post titles and be done with it.

So I've been thinking of moving the blog to Bravenet or another provider (I have friends who seem to like WordPress), but ultimately, I'm attached to this one. And, frankly, I'm not writing often enough anymore to bother with a move. So a little redesign (with ugly archives) and... here she is.

Unfortunately, to make a banner out of the picture at the top, I had to crop out the offending tag. Friends who've followed me on Facebook and other outlets will get the joke -- the armless OCD statue helpless to straighten the upside down tablecloth, tag showing. For the rest of you, here's the full shot:



Fitting, no?

Kells Irish

While the meter maid gave an unsuspecting San Francisco citizen a ticket, I snapped this shot of the Kells Irish Restaurant and Bar ("pub" in the fine print) through her minuscule vehicle.

I visited Kells in Seattle a few years ago.

There's a T-shirt to prove it somewhere.

Ad-verse Conditions

In July, the USS Private Conversation moved from San Diego, California, to San Francisco -- a welcoming place for load-bearing ships such as this. Of course, of late, our cargo has been exceptionally light. Now that our flabby-assed crew has finally finished moving the chairs about, we hope to be drumming up business again in no time. For now, though, the best we can do is share some of the little things we've noticed while sitting on our butts.

For example... commercials continue to be annoying. Sure, they are once again creeping up to volumes twice that of the programming you are intentionally watching, but it's more than that. They've gotten... dumber.

Canada Dry is now advertising that its Ginger Ale is made from... drum roll please... real ginger. And claims this is a "nice surprise." REALLY? Is anyone really surprised that there is GINGER in GINGER ALE? If so, I've got another surprise for you. You'll never believe this one... there is GINGER in GINGER SNAPS, too!

I'll let you sit down to recover from that bombshell before moving on to the next irritating commercial.

There's a bank with a current "even kids know it's wrong..." campaign. One little boy wants to keep playing with "the red truck" taken way by a limited time offer and replaced with a cardboard cutout; a little girl is placed on a bike, but told she can only ride it within a limited area roughly the size of the bike itself; and two little girls are offered ponies. That's the one we hate.

Come along with me on this one and hate it, too. It's fun!

Bank Guy to Little Girl A: Would you like a pony?
Little Girl A: Yeah.
Bank Guy gives Little Girl A a toy pony.

Bank Guy to Little Girl B: Would YOU like a pony?
Little Girl B: Yeah.
Bank Guy calls to live pony: Tck Tck Tck.

Bank Guy: Here you go, this is for you.
Little Girl B, petting live pony: Wow! That's fun!
Little Girl A: You didn't say I could have a REAL one.
Bank Guy to Little Girl A: Well, you didn't ask.

WELL NEITHER DID LITTLE GIRL B! But does Little Girl A point this out, or protest, as any little girl in this situation would? (Come on, tell me you believe the FIRST thing out of her mouth wouldn't be "neither did she! It's not fair!") No. She just sits there and takes it.

Even adults know this is wrong.

And does it bother anyone else that Billy Mays commercials are still airing? "If it breaks, we'll replace it free!"

No, Billy. You won't. I'm sorry, but... you won't.

Hummingbird in Hand

Some months ago I installed a hummingbird feeder on the balcony of my San Diego apartment. At the time, it was a whim. My mother had bought the feeder but had never hung it. After months of looking at the the thing sitting empty, I filled it and put it out. In no time, the little birds came to drink from the glass and I found that I enjoyed their visits. I've kept the feeder full ever since.

This Friday, while I was preparing for a visit of the human variety, I left the balcony door open for a blast of fresh air. I left the living room and went to work in the back of the house for a while; when I returned, I found that one of my small avian visitors had found his way inside.

By the time I took this shot, the little guy was exhausted from batting himself against the window, seeing the freedom of open air in front of him but forgetting that he'd come in another way. I'd tried to coo and shoo him, but to no avail -- he had no intention of flying back through the door.

Though my initial appearance seemed to stir him to frantically try his escape through the pane, once he'd gotten used to my nearness he calmed. He would fly up the window pane looking for an exit before he'd land again on the window's track, which became a perch between attempts. I remembered a video of one bird-enthusiast who encouraged hummingbirds to feed from his bare hands, and -- though I'd be afraid to try this with any larger bird -- I began to place my hand on the track of the window until it became his resting perch between attempts.

Hummingbirds are incredibly small. You know this looking at them. You'd think that knowing this would prepare you for them to be equally incredibly light -- but it doesn't. If I had not been able to see the bird in my hand or feel the tiniest touch of his claws, I'd never have known he had landed by the weight of him.

I tried several times, with the bird perched on my hand, to move away from the window and lead him toward the door, but while the movement itself did not seem to startle him, the increasing distance from the window did. I'd get a little farther each time, but never far enough to expect to lead him outdoors again.

Finally, when he perched on my right hand, I gently lowered my left hand over his back so that he would not spread his wings and fly back to the window. I thought he'd protest; that when we moved farther from the window than we'd gotten before he'd begin to flutter against my grasp. He didn't. He sat calmly in my hands, his head peeking out of the ride, until I arrived on the balcony and removed the hand over his back. He stayed a moment, and then sped away to the nearest tree.

There are superstitions about finding birds in the house, most of them dire. But after hearing my story, my mother found this interpretation somewhere on the internet:

A small bird flying into the house means true good luck: if it was a hummingbird, its great fortune. Hummingbirds are the reincarnations of true good angels of wealth. Good fortune will befall you and your home; its now blessed by a angel.

I don't know about angels, but if the opportunity to hold a hummingbird in your hands isn't good fortune, I don't know what is.

Women Attracted to Men in Expensive Cars My Ass

If you've been following this blog -- and I know you haven't been -- you know that I haven't posted anything interesting in months. There are several good reasons for this, too numerous to mention. But the most recent excuse for this is that I underwent my first surgery this month.

Prior to that, I visited ailing family in Michigan and, directly after my own surgery, I hosted visiting friends in San Diego. Which, by the way, was the most fun I've had in a very long time. Thanks, Denise and Lizzie!

Okay, so I mentioned some of my excuses. Sue me. (No, don't. I'm unemployed and paying medical bills right now. You won't get anything.)

The thing which brings me to my blog this morning is a link which a Facebook friend posted, claiming that girls really are more attracted to men in expensive cars. In his post, my friend claimed that this was exceedingly obvious. What a crock!

Look, there's no denying that if you put 10 cars in a row and ask me to pick the most attractive one, I will certainly have an opinion. The same is true if you put 10 single men in a row. But if the car I found most attractive happens to belong to the man I find most attractive, it will be a coincidence at best.

Here's the thing which women learn with time and experience: the guy getting out of the car is more important than the car from which he gets out. Granted, if the car is a Ranchero so rusted that the bed has been kicked off the chassis, the doors are held closed with a bungie cord, and the floorboard has a hole in it allowing a tornado of leaves to accompany its passengers, I might think twice about the driver (yes, I've met this car); but in most cases, four wheels and a working engine are all that are required.

What time and experience teach us is this: as a general rule, the worst men drive the best cars. The spoiled, entitled, bossy, manipulating men go for show -- and nine times out of ten, that showy car is no indication of his income. Until he proves to you that he's a lawyer or doctor, it's safe to assume that his parents bought the car or that he's a drug dealer.

Okay, okay. That was a sweeping generalization and I know it. But COME ON. What kind of cars are we talking about here? Let's go back to the scientific study. Here I use "scientific" loosely.

Here's how researchers tested the women. "The university team showed women pictures of the same man sitting in two cars - a £70,000 silver Bentley Continental and a battered Ford Fiesta. The women, who were aged between 21 to 40, picked the man sitting in the Bentley ahead of the same man in the Ford."

You think I made a sweeping generalization?!? Here's the choice -- binary, mind you: a shiny new Bentley, or a battered old Ford. This isn't even a fair test comparing a new expensive car to a new affordable one. One is pristine the other is "battered." There doesn't even need to be a man anywhere near the car to predict the winner of this contest. Christ.

Let's see... are women really more attracted to men in EXPENSIVE cars, or to men in cars which haven't been ABUSED. I refer you to the aforementioned Ranchero. You could have done the same test with two Bentleys -- one new, one battered. Guess which one women (or men for that matter) would prefer. Yeah. But in that scenario the headline couldn't read that they prefer the expensive cars. Grr.

Crap science.

Punxsutawney or Punk'd Sutawney?

Associated Press

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — The world's most famous groundhog saw his shadow this morning, predicting this already long winter will last for six more weeks....

According to German superstition, if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2 ... winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.

Since 1887, Phil has seen his shadow 97 times, hasn't seen it 15 times, and there are no records for nine years, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

Rowley said the Groundhog Day festivities is Pennsylvania's largest tourist gathering in the winter. And if Phil's forecast proves correct it should bring even more tourists to the state.

"It's six more weeks of skiing," Rowley said.

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Is it just me? Ninety-seven times out of 112 (we can't guess which way on the 9 years the records weren't kept or were lost), old Philiable has predicted six more weeks of skiing in Steeler Country. Does anyone else but a member of the Royal Order of Punxsatawney Groundhog and Tourism Board get close enough to the animal see his shadow?