Blog Master G

Jen and I leave early this afternoon to begin our long (4- to 6-hour) drive down the coast to Santa Barbara. I’m really looking forward to it. I love road trips, and it will be the first extended drive (San Francisco to Lake Tahoe notwithstanding) I will have done since buying the Scoob last May. Plus spending time with my wife driving down the beautiful California coastline won’t suck, either.

We’re going to the wedding of Anne and Max tomorrow. That should also be lots of fun. We’ll get to spend the weekend partying with all Jen’s coworkers. Woohoo! I’ll try not to embarrass her too much in front of them. As Anne and Max themselves can attest (they came to our wedding), my dancing ability is not the greatest skill I possess. But after a few drinks, who can tell the difference anyway?

It will be interesting to be a guest at a wedding now that I’ve been on the other side of the fence. I certainly have a great deal more respect and appreciation now than I did before for what goes into planning a wedding.

I checked the dogs into Planet Canine this morning. Hopefully they won’t start any more fights this weekend, although Stella was already doing so in the lobby when Buster arrived.

In any case, that’s all I have to report for now. I’m just psyched to get out of town for the weekend. Until next time… adios.

Target: The Westin St. Francis

Last night Jen, Jess, Ben, Enoch, and I participated in San Francisco Flash Mob #3, organized by the mysterious folks behind the The Mob Project. It was our first. And it was great fun. It went a little something like this…

After reading the August 11, 2003 coverage in the SF Chronicle of the last Flash Mob in Dolores Park, I knew I had to participate in the next one. So I (and Jess) signed up for the email list. And we certainly weren’t the only ones. As of today, the SF list has quite the following:

Members: 2476
Founded: Jul 11, 2003

On Tuesday evening I received this email with details on where to meet, but not what would happen:

Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 21:44:08 -0000
From: The Mob Project- San Francisco
Reply-To: the_mob_project-owner@yahoogroups.com
To: the_mob_project@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [the_mob_project] Instructions for MOB #3

You are invited to take part in MOB, the project
that creates an inexplicable mob of people in San
Francisco for ten minutes or less. Please forward
this to other people you know who might like to join.

INSTRUCTIONS – MOB #3
Start time: Wednesday, August 20th, 6:23 pm
Duration: 10 minutes

(1) At some point during the day on August 20th,
synchronize your watch to
http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Pacific/d/-8/java.

(2) By 6 PM, based on the month of your birth,
please situate yourselves in the meeting locations
below. Buy a drink and act casual. If you are attending
the MOB with friends, you may all meet in the same
location.
January, February, March, April:
Lefty O’Douls at Powell and Geary
May, June, July, August:
Cafe Espresso at Powell and Sutter.
September, October, November, December:
Union Square Sports Bar near Powell and O’Farrell.

(3) Then or soon thereafter, a MOB representative
will appear in the bar. He or she will pass around
slips of paper with your instructions. Commit the
instructions to memory and put the slip in your pocket.
ONCE YOU ARE AT THE MOB SITE, NONE OF THESE SLIPS OF
PAPER SHOULD BE VISIBLE.

*****JOB OPPORTUNITY*****
This job doesn’t pay any money, you can’t put it
on your resume, and there is a small chance of a
brush with law enforcement. Sound like fun? We need
FOUR VOLUNTEERS to assist in passing out instructions.
If you are a fan of meaningless subterfuge, enjoy
talking to strangers, and are 100% CERTAIN you will
be attending tomorrow’s mob, this might be the job
for you. Volunteers will need to be in the Union
Square area by 5:30pm.

If you meet the above criteria and would like to
volunteer, send a message with your cell phone number to
mobproject@yahoo.com.

-The San Francisco Mob Project

We all met — along with a barful of other mobsters — at Lefty O’Doul’s, a quaint Union Square bar normally frequented by only an older crowd and tourists. I wondered if the bartenders were confused about why so many people were there. Some time before 6:23pm, we were handed slips of paper with the following instructions:

INSTRUCTIONS- SAN FRANCISCO FLASH MOB #3- “MR. SANDMAN”

(1) 6:23 Leave your meeting location and proceed to the lobby of the Westin St. Francis Hotel, on Powell between Post and Geary. Hide this slip of paper so it is not visible.

(2) 6:30 Begin greeting everyone you see in the lobby as if they are a long lost friend- hugs, high-fives, you get the idea. If anyone asks what is going on, tell them it is a kindergarten reunion from Omaha.

(3) 6:34 Everyone will immediately fall asleep sa if a spell has been cast. Fall to the floor and take a nap. Try to look as if you are actually asleep… curl up, suck your thumb, snore. Feel free to cuddle if you know your neighbors. Try not to giggle. Act like you are in a deep sleep and cannot be woken up.

(4) 6:36 Get up and stretch as if you’ve just had a great night’s sleep. If anyone approaches you, just tell them you suddenly felt very very sleepy and needed a nap, but now you feel great.

(5) 6:37 Immediately leave the hotel and disperse. Anyone interested in meeting their fellow mobsters for a post-mob beverage can head to the Union Square Sports Bar at 7pm.

And we did just that. Except for the part about the sports bar. We went back to Lefty’s and played some funny pub trivia with the older crowd.

The concept of the Flash Mob is great: A couple hundred people come together to confuse onlookers and have a good time. There’s no political motivation and there’s no violence. Just fun. Hotel security got a bit freaked out and apparently called the police. But, of course, the mob had entirely dispersed before any cop was ever on the scene. And it’s not like we were doing anything wrong. Flash Mobs rule.

I can’t wait for the next one.

Gabe & Jen pose with a fellow mobster

Ben & Enoch mingle with the mob

Ben with fellow mobster

View all Flash Mob photos on Ofoto

Not really. But now that I have your attention, I’m happy to announce the official launch of julytwentysix.com, Gabe and Jen A_nderson’s official online wedding (and honeymoon) photo album.

We’ve spent the last several weeks sifting through oodles of photos from various sources and are happy to officially announce the site today. Even though it currently houses only wedding-related photos, we will likely use the site to host future photos, with the domain julytwentysix.com symbolizing the beginning of our new life together.

Our favorite photo, taken shortly after the service outside the Vassar Chapel

Proceed to julytwentysix.com for 300+ of our favorite photos.

Last night at Nickie’s on Haight Street…

View slideshow on Ofoto

Kat’s 30 or so closest friends gathered for a night of bass thumpin’, Guinness drinkin’, and booty shakin’ at Nickie’s on Haight St. We had lots of fun with this photo shoot.

We’ll all miss you tons, Kat! We’ll see you in N’Orleans next year. Kick ass in Michigan.

As I wrote on Monday, I had narrowed down my choice in a new Mac either to an iBook or a PowerBook G4. After tons of great input (thank you!), the choice is obvious: PowerBook G4.

But the bummer now is that the 12″ refurbs on the Apple store that were going for $1399 just two days ago are now gone. I guess I should’ve jumped on that. The good news, though, is that the specs on Apple’s latest PowerBooks have leaked to the rumor sites, which means the official announcement can’t be far behind. Once that happens, I’m hoping for an even better deal on a refurbed PowerBook G4. So now the waiting game begins.

This one is still available, but a bit more than I’d like to spend (and I don’t think I really need the DVD-R capability of the SuperDrive):

PowerBook G4 867MHz/256MB/40GB/SuperDrive/E/12″TFT – Refurbished $1,599.00

Within the next few weeks, Jen and I plan to begin production of my Dad’s next book, a new version of 100 Faces of Marin. I am a Mac man at heart (and logged 4 years doing tech support and sales in the Apple Computer Store at Vassar), so I’m thrilled that this project gives us an excuse to buy a new Mac. My 7600/120 just isn’t up for the task these days… and my PowerBook 520c hasn’t been started in years.

I’ve been out of the Mac game for an embarrissingly long time (bet you couldn’t guess by my old-school Mac references, huh?), so I’ve been soliciting input lately from my Mac-savvy friends and would appreciate input here, too. Our primary need is for a machine on which to do production work in Photoshop and Quark. Laptops are more convenient and are great for watching DVDs on planes, so we’ve ruled out desktops. So the choice now is between the following two machines from the Apple Store:

PowerBook G4 867MHz/256MB/40GB/Combo/E/12″TFT – Refurbished $1,399.00
iBook 900MHz/128MB/40GB/Combo/E/56K/12″TFT – Refurbished $1,149.00

(I’m a big fan of refurbished electronics. It’s a great way to save a couple hundred bucks.)

So the question is: Should we go for the iBook, or fork out the extra money for the G4? Higher resolution on external monitor will be an important factor, and the G4’s S-video output is just a kick-ass feature. Image processing aside, the speed (and running OS X) should be pretty much comparable, yes? I am, however, leaning toward the G4.

Please share your thoughts and recommendations. Thanks in advance. I appreciate it.

I woke up from my very deep sleep sometime around 5am this morning. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, then climbed back into bed. Two more hours to sleep. I didn’t fall back asleep right away. Strange, considering the whirlwind, action-packed weekend we had. Jen also woke up around the same time. When 7am rolled around, we both struggled to get the day going. What follows are some hazy reflections on the weekend.

Ben, Jess, Enoch, James, Jen, and I joined Kat (back in town from her South American travels) and Brian at Albatross in Berkeley for drinks and games (Enoch and Brian cleaned house in Pictionary). James passed around his flask of Hot Damn. My favorite toast of the evening on the topic of people who mountain climb and bike and do lots of outdoorsy things: “I don’t do stuff. I drink,” said Kat. We all drank to that. Someone called Dan in New York around 1am CA time/4am NY time. He thanked us via email the next morning. …2am bird dog and lemon chicken dog at Top Dog… mmm, mmm, good.

Lazy Saturday working on the soon-to-be-announced wedding photo site, followed by James and Enoch arriving around 2pm to pick us up for a late brunch at Kate’s Kitchen in the Lower Haight… while we waited for Ben and Jess to arrive, a crackhead tried to entice us into purchasing stolen grade schooler’s artwork (valued at a million dollars)… the French toast orgy (photo from the first time I had it on 1.20.2003) kicked my ass, so my wife helped me finish it.

Sunday Zinfandel dinner party at Jane and Sarah’s in beautiful Montclair… I ate some red meat, which I rarely do (maybe once or twice per year, and usually only at Jane and Sarah’s or James’), and some delicious lasagna… Jen and I brought a $10.19 2000 bottle of old-vine De Loach zin that we thought (as usual) was a shoe-in for victory. As usual, though, we thought wrong. Our bottle placed 13th. Of 14. But I gave it a perfect 15 (and suspected it was ours, since it was colder than the rest, as was the Safeway from which we had bought it; so I tried, apparently unsuccessfully, to convince others to score high for good ol’ #8). And proving that wine tasting isn’t the most scientific practice, one bottle of $3.99 Forestville placed nearly last, and another identical bottle placed in the top 5. Gotta love it. Jen and I once raved about the glory of Forestville (unbeknownst to us that it was Forestville) at one of the previous varietal parties (Cabernet, perhaps?). Timid Timmy the greyhound rescue let me pet him for the first time ever. Joe and I compared notes on investing in real estate. We both want to be landlords. Joe’s Jen confessed that she’s a fan of my blog (yay, Jen! and don’t worry — I can’t really tell when you’re reading this). Kudos to Jane and Sarah for another smashtastic event.

Sunday we took Stella to Crissy Field, her favorite dog beach. She frolicked in the ocean, chased her tennis balls, and tried to start a fight. She’s such a grumpy old dog now. But maybe some dogs just like to do their own thing the same way some people just like to do their own thing. Then we had a book meeting with Suzanne and photographer Reggie to discuss the production of the next 100 Faces of Marin… we get to buy a new Mac; I’m excited about that. I toured four open houses… it’s really hard to find something that feels right. Delicious seafood dinner with Ben and Jess at PJ’s Oyster Bed to celebrate his birthday and their moving to Menlo Park (we’ll miss you guys)… my grilled trout topped with bay shrimp, onions, peppers, tomatoes served on the skillet was incredible… then we watched Sex and the City at our (just-cleaned) apartment while sipping limoncello…

Another stellar weekend for the memory books.

They entertain us. They terrify us. Sometimes they’re so bad or silly they make us laugh. Our culture is strangely drawn to the phenomenon of horror flicks (as if the world isn’t a scary enough place on its own). What is it about this genre that attracts us?

There’s the unbelivable story, the mystery, the suspense. There’s the super villain or bad guy — sometimes we’re cheering for him and most others we’re scared and waiting on the edges of our seats for him to appear next. But mostly, I think it’s the adrenaline. Most people live without too much danger and excitement in their lives, so horror movies offer an escape from the mundane; they allow us to suspend our disbelief and enter a world of the impossible wherein the characters must run for their lives, watch their every step, and always never “be right back” (see also: Scream).

What’s your favorite horror movie of all time? What’s the scariest? What’s the scariest scene of all time?

My favorite is probably Scream. The scariest in my mind, partly because I was rather young when I first saw it, is the original Nightmare on Elm Street. And the scariest scene of all time for me is in the original Nightmare when Freddy kills the first girl and drags her bloody body in a big plastic bag around the room.

Perhaps subconsciously inspired by today’s release of Freddy vs. Jason, I added three horror flicks to my DVD collection today: Scream and
Scream 2 (rounding off my collection of the trilogy), and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

And we still have two months and then some until October 31.

I have two thoughts about today’s widespread power outage that crippled the entire eastern United States and parts of Canada:

1. Why must every major event that happens these days be immediately followed by “But wait, it’s not terrorism!”??? Or, as the NYTimes put it: “No Initial Sign of Terrorism, Officials Say.” It’s just a power outage. They happen.
2. This country could care less about conservation. Let this outage be a wake-up call to the people of this country that there is not an endless supply of power. We need to change our ways. We need to plan for the future and not be reactive. If we don’t start switching to natural and clean sources of energy (solar, hydrogen, wind, etc.) soon, it may be too late. A vast infrastructure needs to be transformed. That takes time.

No problems here in California (for a change).

I wrote these entries in my notebook while in Hawaii for the honeymoon:

Honeymoon Reflections #1 (7.29.2003)
Honeymoon Reflections #2 (8.2.2003)

Life was pretty chill on the Big Island, so not a tremendous amount to report, but memories nonetheless.