The volume control on the BBC iPlayer goes to 11.

1. If you want to get on a cable car, you should either go to a terminus or wait for a weekday.

2. There's a surprisingly shallow sandbar a way out from the coast and waves break on it! That's cool.

3. When the morning or evening sun isn't reflecting off the Golden Gate Bridge in a photogenic way, it is actually quite a dark red.

4. Golden Gate Park is not connected to the bridge, but is neat.

5. Things generally look awesome, probably because SF didn't consistently throw out everything over twenty years old, unlike some West Coast cities I could name; it has Flavour, and that flavour is neither Shiny nor Cardboard.

6. Joseph Conrad Square is actually a triangle.

7. This city has two science museums. TWO! No wonder it's so fantastic.

8. If every tourist trap is crowded beyond reason, the Maritime Museum is still manageable. And cool. Even when the main museum building is closed and the Balclutha is in drydock. The model of the clipper Champion of the Sea in the visitors' centre is worth a visit too.

9. The granite retaining wall on Pine and Mason is all that is left of the Hopkins Mansion, which was destroyed by fire. (yes, that fire.)

10. San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle were the first three big cities on the West Coast because they were the only places where marine commerce could get inland in any significant way; Seattle has Puget Sound, Portland has the Columbia River, and San Francisco has the bay (which goes on and on) and the rivers that drain the Central Valley.

( Eureka! Photos! )
Okay, Photobucket is being a poopoo head; if you can't see the pictures, come back later?

Today's discovery: There's a Smithsonian Channel.

It was on the TV in the common area, which I walked past twice today – once it was showing something about the Enola Gay with possible shots of Area 51*, and the second was a program about Kamikaze. Both of them had plain archived or recreated footage intercut with old men talking in a well-lit simple studio, not a splashy graphic or stylized video montage between them. What is this madness?

Please, Smithsonian Channel, don't tread the same path as The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel (which now, like the KFC urban legend, goes by its initials because it no longer contains actual Learning), which even PBS is tiptoeing down in an attempt to make programs it can sell on to the lowest-common-denominator cable channels. Remain a sanctuary for those refugees of the dumbing-down! You have a lofty name to live up to, don't betray it!


*It was in my professional interest for a while to know as much as I could about what the area around Area 51 looked like. I am not at liberty to discuss this.

It's time once again for one of my most annoying habits: Taking sober situations and making light of them for comic effect!

Jack Abramoff Jailed for Corruption
One of two things happened here: either the jury had no choice but to convict because anyone looking at him could tell he was guilty, or since his conviction he's thrown off all pretense and dressed up in character. I mean, look at that outfit! That is not the black fedora and trenchcoat of an innocent man.

Reunited in Meteorology
I don't suppose anyone else has noticed that there is both an Ike and a Josephine in the Atlantic this year. Just me, then? Thought so. I do hope you are all enjoying your mental stability.

The Great Race
Democrat and Republican would have you believe that what really matters are the policies and/or personalities of the candidates for president. I say, don't listen to what those squares tell you; what will decide this race is the quality of the delegates' hats! ( Visual Aides )

The friend I was paintchatting with had a phone call, and I have always been jealous of people who can paint glass effects realistically, so I painted my refreshing beverage. Matcha lemonade. Best thing ever (or at least this year, in the liquids department). I have to keep going back to Canada so Blenz can keep telling me what drinks are new and delicious. They're 3/3 so far. Also painted my snack. Blueberries = August. That one had been recently washed, that's why it's shiny. They're not usually shiny. But they are usually delicious, as that one was when I decided it was done being my model and I ate it. BC goodness. Thank you, gigantic Sikh blueberry farms, for letting me take part of thy bounty. I don't know what I shall do in September, which is blackberry season, because store-bought blackberries just ... aren't ... right.

It's bloody hot and I can't sleep and the internet is not cooperating. Don't make me watch Road to Perdition again, Internet!


MATCHA LEMONADE
1 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp matcha (green tea) powder
Sugar/Sweetener to taste (I use about 3 tbsp stevia)
2 L water

Mix the matcha powder with enough water to make a liquid about the consistency of paint – it works best to add and mix water gradually, working from a thick paste up to liquid, to avoid little powdery lumps. Add this to the lemon juice and sugar/sweetener. I mix it all up in an old 2L pop bottle and then fill the rest with water but it's probably classier to use a pitcher.

OMG, THE FIRE TRUCK. How could I have forgotten?

(Sorry for the subtitles and the darkness; this was the only clip I could find that was actually of the show and in English.)

I.
Our neighbourhood has many interesting residents, but one of the most notable (or perhaps noticeable) is a certain mockingbird. I can only describe him as ... talented. I hear him practising his repertoire daily: not only does he do the local mockingbird standards but he can imitate the calls of other birds, several different remote-activated car lock signals, and a sampling of other sounds. But, as with humans, genius is often accompanied by madness, and he does this at one in the morning.

II.
A couple weeks ago I lost track of time. My turtle watch died, the clock in our living room ran out of batteries, the new pendant watch I got in the mail arrived similarly without charge, and I'd left my cell phone charger at work so when it inevitably died the only way I had of telling the time was by computer. Eventually this coincidence of timelessness was resolved, though the wall clock doesn't seem to like rechargeable batteries much. Today I moved desks at work and the little alarm clock I have above my workspace lost its battery. I found it and put it back in but it doesn't work now. Is this a test, or a sign? Or just random fluctuations in the space-time continuum? Anyone know where I can find an honest to goodness wind-up clock?
(Not the one Ikea had; it's sealed like a tin and doesn't last long)

Today I go to Disneyland – again! It sure is nice knowing people with silver passes, ahaha...

In honour of American Thanksgiving* here is a smorgasbord** of ... things!

I went to Barnes & Noble the other day and their edition of The Portrait of Dorian Gray had as its cover image the portrait of Franz Liszt, which I thought looked a bit like a young Snape ... no? Maybe the Snape with the soft, vulnerable, sensitive side of fanon, but ... kind of ... Snapey. Uh.

Also, ( I rock! )

I recently had some yams that made me realize how people might grow up believing they didn't like yams. In an effort to redress this, I give you my recipe for ( my yummy roast yams. )

*and to give thanks that Canada was not founded by the Puritans, haha
**in honour of the Viking explorers in the New World