Day 304: all hollow's eve

GIANTS WIN GAME 4 OF THE WORLD SERIES!
It being Halloween as well, I wanted to celebrate with what I found in my neighborhood today:

FEAR THE BEARD

And here it is all lit up:

FEAR THE BEARD...at night

Day 303: into the night

Journey to the End of the Night is an annual nighttime footrace wherein you must check in at certain locations in different parts of the city without getting tagged by people who are "chasers." It's essentially a massive citywide game of tag.

It's taken place in Seattle, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York throughout the year. On Halloween, however, it's always in San Francisco. So, in addition to the adrenaline from trying to avoid getting caught by a chaser, we're all in costume too.
Once you're caught, you become a "chaser" yourself. Therefore, by the end of the night, the chasers greatly outnumber the people actually participating.

We didn't last that long and were tagged shortly after the first checkpoint. Luckily we didn't care and spent the rest of the evening hiding behind bushes and cars to try and tag players, and taking transit around the city from checkpoint to checkpoint to try and stake out some new victims. It sorta went something like this:

Day 302: getting into the spirit

As you may have noticed, I normally don't like to post pictures of actual people on my 365 project (though I've made an exception here and there.) Unfortunately, there was nothing else worth taking a picture of today, so this will have to do.

It's the last work day before Halloween, and while I've read on twitter about peoples' huge office Halloween parties or themed Halloween days with costume contests and the like, I feel like I had to pull teeth when I tried to convince my team (minions) have a funny hat day.

Naturally I was the only one who actually dressed in a costume (I was a bus driver, for those of you who don't realize it yet).

torture, eh?

Playoff flu is in the air here in the Bay Area, and in case you didn't know, it's been awhile.

1994 was the last time any Bay Area sports team (the Oakland A's and Raiders, the San Francisco Giants and 49ers, the Golden State Warriors and the San Jose Sharks) has brought home a championship. It was the 1994 San Francisco 49ers who dominated the San Diego Chargers in the Super Bowl that year, 49-26. It was lopsided. With Bay Area teams having won championships in 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1988, and 1989, it was clear that our teams were the real deal. We dominated the 80s. There was no reason we couldn't continue this golden age.
But history shows that things never rule in anyone's favor forever.

It's been 16 years since any of our teams have brought home the big trophy (or cup, or whatever), and with the Giants 2 games away from winning the World Series (and clearly dominating), we're the closest we've been to quenching that championship drought (the Giants were in the World Series in 02 and the Raiders in the Super Bowl that same year...it goes without saying those attempts ended in futility).

There's no questioning I'm excited about this. There's no question that the whole Bay Area is excited about this (well...at least for those who don't live in the East Bay). But as I've noticed and is to be expected, I sure as hell see alot more Giants fans out there than I saw during the regular season or in the past 7 years of pitiful Giants seasons. The bandwagon/fairweather fans have arrived, and almost instantly every other person in the region is a Giants fan. They update their facebook statuses and tweet about the Giants when just a month ago there was hardly a peep about the sport. They're able to name off the Giants roster (the active one in the playoffs, at least) They're is sporting their black and orange Giants gear, taking pride in the $40 t-shirt that states that the Giants were the 2010 NL West champions.

It's inevitable. It's expected. And to an extent, it feels phony and sort of cheapens the whole experience for the fans who had stuck with the team throughout the year and actually could name off the roster who had been playing when the season opened back in April. There are multiple articles addressing this, and there have been quite a few venting their frustration with the sudden influx of "fans."

I'll admit, it bothered me at first too. I was frustrated at the fact that there were people who were pretending to speak about baseball as if they had followed throughout the season. It annoyed me that there were people who would mindless state "who are we playing now?...who? Ok...go Giants!" Where were you when the Giants were in 3rd place and didn't seem to have a fat chance to get into the playoffs? Where were you when we were swept by the A's and the Dodgers? Where were you when we lost 6 in a row back in June...and in August?

But if it's one thing I learned, it's that you have to welcome these hundreds of thousands of new fans and supporters. Why? It's because of what this pending championship is bringing to the Bay Area. It's something exciting. Something magical. A common ground for San Francisco and Bay Area residents alike to rally around and actually root for.
It's giving people a reason to go to happy hour with their coworkers, it's providing an excuse to go to a bar on a Wednesday night. People are honking their horns downtown for no particular reason, while residents in normally quiet neighborhoods are hooting with joy and blowing air horns. It's become a hot topic of conversation for everyone, whether you're at school, at the office, or even on public transit.

What this World Series is doing (and I could say this about any sports team in general) is providing a sense of unity for the San Francisco Bay Area (with the exception of those few bitter A's fans who refuse to accept the fact that they are just damn jealous). BART stations are laden with black and orange streamers, newspaper headlines are dominated by the successes of the team, and City Hall and Coit Tower are actually lit up in orange:


And most important of all, it's just alot of fucking fun.

So I say let's just enjoy the moment as it's unfolding in front of us. Regardless of whether you're a diehard fan who's disgruntled at the fact that there are all these n00bs trying to pretend they've been around for the team through thick and thin or if you're a green eyed A's fan (pun intended) wishing it was your team in the spotlight, let's get caught in the moment and appreciate what this seemingly improbably (according to most national sports writers) playoff run is doing for our community. It's as if the city has turned into a huge college campus wherein everyone is rooting for the home team, even if they're not entirely sure why.

I don't see any point in taking the "hipster" approach to rooting for sports teams (ya know, the whole 'I was into them before it was cool to be into them, but now that everyone's into them, I can't be into them...cause it wouldn't be ironic thing). The sense of community and anticipation of our first championship in 16 years should provide enough adrenaline and exhilaration for the region as a whole, something I think that regions who see championships regularly take for granted (I'm looking at you, Lakers).

So, soak it in everyone. The atmosphere isn't something we get to enjoy very often, so let's get lost in the party while we can. It may be another 16 years before we get to experience this all again.

GO GIANTS!



"Were you at a party?"
"No, I was at a bar with alot of medical marijuana"
-as heard on Muni

Day 301: pac bell park

GIANTS WIN GAME 2 OF THE WORLD SERIES!

And this time I wasn't stuck behind a computer in a windowless lab to witness it. As a matter of fact, it possibly being the last home game the 2010 Giants will play (God forbid they have to make the series exciting and stretch it to a Game 6), I figured I had better stop by the park at least once and soak in the orange and black atmosphere for one last time this year.

Day 300: gigantes

GIANTS WIN GAME 1 OF THE WORLD SERIES!

...and I was stuck in class tonight. Good thing they provide a TV in the hallway near the elevators on campus.

Day 299: CS5,FCS,ARC

I signed up to volunteer again tonight at the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival taking place at the beautiful Castro Theater:


Unfortunately, I didn't go there tonight. This is where I spent my evening:

In an effort to gain some sort of skills in the video editing/video marketing/filmmaking/motion graphics field, I've managed to enroll myself in some classes to learn Adobe After Effects. It probably was a bad idea to try and teach myself 2 completely new and slightly unrelated software suites at the same time (I'm trying to teach myself Final Cut Pro too), while my full time job decided to give me a massive project that is forcing me to re-learn ANOTHER software suite (ArcGIS) and some tools I haven't used in a fairly long time.

Top that off with the lack of internet at my apartment still and my brain just starts to hurt that much more.

Day 298: transit oriented

The L train stops right in front of my apartment. My work is right across the street from the 12th Street BART station. The SF State campus I go to is right upstairs from the Powell Street BART station in downtown San Francisco.

I'm enjoying the perks of living completely through public transit, but as a result my legs hardly get any activity nowadays. To compensate, I've forced myself to get off the train at stops a few blocks away from my apartment. It's not the 2.5 mile evening treks I made back when I was living at home or the 14 mile expedition I made to Half Dome, but it'll do.

mm19

Gnarls Barkley - Crazy (Harmonica version by Bad News Brown)
You know me and alternative instrumentation to pop songs. So here's a badass version of Crazy on harmonica.

Adding to the bucket list: learn a song on harmonica. Maybe this one. On the really huge harmonica the guy is playing on the side.

"Were you at a party?"
"No, I was at a bar with alot of medical marijuana"
-overheard on Muni

Day 297: bed, bath, berlin, and beyond

Signed up to volunteer at the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival tonight at the Castro Theatre. While I was expecting to be performing some menial job like cleaning up the leftover trash left in the theater seats by patrons (a job I did eventually end up doing), I did manage to work the theater during the Q&A sessions and was able to sit in on a few films.

One of the shorts I watched, A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation had a whole 2 minute long sequence involving how the main character did nothing but "eat, sleep, work, and repeat" for a year. Guess you can imagine how I've related.

Day 296: casa

Visited home for the first time in a while today. Since moving back to the Bay Area and living at home, I realize there were some things I did take for granted for sure. Family to greet you when you're home, free food, 200+ channels, easily accessbile bbq, and a nice view from the top floor.

But as I've said in a previous post, I have a life to live and bills to pay and people to meet and friends to hang out with and bills to pay and places to explore and bills to pay and bills to pay. I want to ultimately settle in the Bay Area eventually, but I don't think I'm ready yet, still.

Free laundry here, though, is enough to keep me around though.

Day 295: they're very creative

Yes, that is what the place is really called. At least there's no guessing what they're serving. Good kimchi, by the way.

Day 294: orange and black

I don't normally like sprinkles on my donuts, but in the spirit of the Giants playoff fever/torture/whatever you wanna call it, I felt like I should.

Day 293: rabbit ears

Due to the lack of a cable connection in my apartment unit, I've been forced to rely on a 20th century technology to gain access to television waves. It's the first time since I first left for college that I've only had access to local channels.

I mean, I guess I shouldn't mind this too much. I never really watched much TV growing up (save for the Simpsons and the 10o'clock news), but finally living on my own again, I was really really looking forward to having Comedy Central.

Day 292: corrective

I know that I live in a fairly safe and quiet neighborhood (with the exception of my upstairs neighbors), but this is the nicest police station I have ever stepped foot into.

Then again, I think this is the first time I'd ever stepped foot into a police station...either way, I'm telling the truth.

Day 291: the town

"Oakland is so charming. I feel like this big patch of grass would be a wonderful place to just hang out and read"

"Crackheads hang out on that big patch of grass."

mm18

Maxwell - Cold
Very few artists can enjoy moderate success, go on hiatus for about 10 or so years, and come back with music whose quality is just as good or even better than what made them successful in the first place. (Eminem did a fairly good job with this despite the fact that thanks to the like of Lady Gaga, his shock value has greatly fallen...on the other end of the spectrum, Boys 2 Men did not age well)

Though I'd have to say that there were only a few standout hits on Maxwell's newest 2009 album, Black Summer's Night, I've still got say that this pioneer of 90's neo-soul has still got it.

"It's cause he's white. He's got no rhythm. He should listen to his coach. He's black. He's got rhythm."
-RS

Day 290: orange october

Things like this only happen once in a blue moon:
-I get a raise
-I hear from my brother
-I see my sister
-I find time to catch up on 30 Rock
-a blue moon
-I have an evening to myself
-the Giants make the playoffs

...so that last item being so, City Hall in San Francisco has been aptly lit orange to celebrate our success in the the MLB world as of late. While it was a shame we lost tonight, it's all good. We've already made it further than anyone expected us to, so let's enjoy the ride while we can since the last time we made the playoffs, Barry Bonds was still playing, the Niners had a winning record, and I was a sophomore in high school who still wore silver chains with big dragon pennants on it.

Yes, it's true. I was awesome back then.

Day 289: poor, poor car

You probable can't tell (and it's not the first time I've posted about the poor state of my car), but there is yet another dent on the poor Markmobile. I was backing out of a space as an oncoming vehicle blindsided me. While it was partially my fault (shh, I'm not admitting it though), the other driver seemed very adamant in not reporting this to the insurance company.

As a result, I got $100 in cash from the dude, assuming I'd use it to repair the damage. Hah. Yeah right. I got ramen instead.

Day 288: the grapevine

I'm seriously getting too old for these middle of the night road trips. I can't even last through 3 hours of driving after 9pm anymore. Who am I?

Day 287: the boss's orders

Boss told me to write this down.

So I did. By taking a picture of it.

PS...reading what's on the board, yes, my work is just that exciting.

Day 286: where I be

Work. Class. Make lunch/dinner when I get home to pack for the next day. Repeat.

Seems to be my life as of late.

Day 285: fresh air

It was a beautiful 85 degrees in San Francisco today (which means it's finally summer here in the Bay Area). How did I celebrate it? By spending 11 hours of my day behind a computer screen, of course.

Since the warm weather during the day translated into warm weather in the evening, I decided to take a stroll to Union Square to get some fresh air. While getting "fresh air" may seem counterintuitive in trafficky downtown San Francisco, it was nice to enjoy the nighttime lights and the still lively streets.

Oh why kid with you guys. I really just needed a picture of the day.

Day 284: no pressure still

Hey, remember when I took a picture of the heart of my company's operations? Well, here it is, in its new form in the new office.

mm17

Coldplay/Sufjan Stevens - Clocks/Chicago
Have you ever heard of Coldplay? Apparently they're some alternative rock band that hasn't really experienced much mainstream success. I mean, I've never heard of them. I heard they won a grammy though, or somethin.

On the flip side, I applaud any of you who have heard the folksy-electronica-ish sounds of Sufjan Stevens, who is best known for his album Illinoise.

This isn't the first time that first time Sufjan has been sampled or mashed up. What stands out here is how little had to be changed on both ends to have these two tracks mesh together so well.

"John McCain is older than chocolate cookies"
-KE

Day 283: blue angels

Happy 10/10/10 everyone!

Today marked the end of Fleet Week in San Francisco, and as such the closing day finished with ship tours, air shows, and of course, the flying of the Blue Angels:


I'll admit, I had never been to a Fleet Week event until last year. There just wasn't that much of a military presence in my family, so I don't think the appreciation of our nation's longtime history of military superiority was ever emphasized as a child. Any interest in warfare I got from playing Civilization 2.

Day 282: cal memorial

As a Bay Area local and an alumni of UC Berkeley's baby brother, I'm surprised I never made my way up to actually see UCLA play at Berkeley's Cal Memorial Stadium. In fact, I think it's the first time I've seen UCLA football play at a visiting stadium.

I'd been spending more around this campus lately, and I'm only now realizing what a stark contrast there is between my alma mater and here. I can really see how some could have been torn having to choose between UCLA and Berkeley (I wouldn't have known, I wasn't accepted). The differences between the two campuses are fairly profound and exactly what you would've expected. Berkeley's weather is dreary, it's a bit run down, full of aging hippies and buildings that are falling apart. Sunny LA's placed so much emphasis on campus beauty and glamor so every aspect of campus seems to aesthetically be in tip-top shape. Berkeley's campus and surrounding neighborhoods are more lively and the homeless roam with unperturbed students. LA makes a huge effort to shuttle their homeless off campus and students are aghast at even the sight of one.

Shame that we lost. Was I really expecting otherwise though? At least our home venue is prettier.

Day 281: where everybody knows your name

Visited the bar across the street for the first time since I started my tenure here at the place. Had to watch the NLDS game 2 there since I didn't have TV yet (Go Giants!)

I still think it's pretty damn cool that this place is literally outside my window. See?

It's probably the closest I'll ever get to having the Westwood-esque convenience of having both places to eat and places to get smashed within walking distance of where I live.

Day 280: YPG

The Young Planners Group of the American Planning Association, Northern California Section hosted a networking/mixer/lecture event to showcase different ways urban planners can utilize social media to better engage the communities they work and live in.

I know I've gone on a rant about how I've recently discovered that urban planning was the wrong path for me, so I'm just as surprised as you are that I found myself at this event. Honestly, I think I only found myself here because I'd get free food and beer if I volunteered to help (and free food and beer did I get).

But I had a realization last night. I know I've continued to beat myself up over how I don't feel like I've progressed and how my life has been at a sort of standstill. And for as long as I'm still working my soul-crushing 8-5, I will still be. But amongst seeing all the familiar faces, names, bosses, and classmates from the various city governments, planning agencies, and classes I've dabbled with in the past year, I realized that I actually had progressed. I was going somewhere. I made a decent dent in the urban planning industry here in the Bay Area. It's just that on my way to the party, I changed my mind and turned the car around (or since I'm talking urban planning here, I transferred to the next train going the opposite direction).

The fact that I was able to still network with these folks and offer my contacts and resources to those who are still trying to break into the field was a bit of a relief for me, actually. I don't think I'll ever be working in the field with these folk ever again, but at least I know I wasn't completely complacent in the past year. It's just a damn shame that in the end, it was almost all for naught.

Day 279: the L

The L-Taraval light rail is now a part of my new commute to work. Not as fast as BART but twice as frequent, this particular train has helped save me 5 extra minutes than my old commute. Downside: no 3G connection in their tunnels like BART does.

Day 278: city college at night

...isn't that bad, actually. And I'm not knocking on community college or transfer students or the campus itself. There's just a certain feeling of "I need to get the hell out of here" in the air whenever I'm here, and I'm no different, really.

Day 277: dome sweet dome

Oh em jay, my new apartment is starting to look like a home. Considering it used to look like this:

I'd say it's quite an improvement.

mm16

RJD2-Ghostwriter
RJD2 is one of the more dynamic samplers of our day, having produced tracks for Aceyalone and Cunninlynguists. This particular tracks samples Elliot Smith's "I didn't Understand" and does quite a fine job of it. But I'll let you be the judge of that.

"You're from Kansas? Well, Melbourne is nicer than your shithole"
-overheard while in a line in Vegas

Day 276: mousey

Saw this on my way driving through the city today.

Heh, heh, even the little wind up thing spins while he drives.

Day 275: collegelofts.com

So I've officially gotten my keys to my first apartment on my own since making my way back home to the Bay Area last year. I've mentioned in recent posts my adventures in searching for a place and gathering furniture quite extensively, so I don't think I'll need to get into that.

To compensate for my tiny, closet sized bedroom, I decided to invest in a loft bed in order to attempt to create more space. Also considering that I've managed to acquire all my new furniture quite cheaply through Craigslist, I haven't really had a choice in what kind of furniture I end up with. In turn, the loft bed frame I purchased for a mere $20 looks similar to something you'd find a dorm. Couple that with the fact that my upstairs neighbors are as loud as a frat house (I hear every footstep and it sounds like they're playing football upstairs every night past midnight), and I've come to the only logical conclusion:

Oh lord, I'm in college again.

Day 274: art murmur

Oakland Art Murmur is a monthly event that takes place in the first Friday of every month. A group of art galleries stays open late on this particular Friday evening for visitors, locals, yuppies, and aging and pungent hippies to enjoy. Light refreshments may also be served.

I only went to one gallery, since it was on the way to the BART station tonight. I did enjoy it more extensively last December, however. Considering that was back in 2009, I don't have a mention or a picture of it.