The San Francisco Citizen

This one didn’t end well for the crayfish.

Stow Lake, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California

Just what is this tiny figure embedded in the top corner of all one dollar bills in circulation in the United States?

Some people think it’s a Great Horned Owl, but others say it’s a spider. You can see for yourself but that might strain your eyes. Let’s take a look using a Canon Macro Photo MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x lens at five times lifesize:

Not as owly-looking. Here’s a closer view:

You’d have to call that a spider. Or a spider/owl. Or a Spowl.

In this age of conspiracy theories, let’s assume a secret organization put on our currency a little figure, one that sometimes looks like an owl and sometimes looks like a spider.

Who cares about spiders and owls? The Bohemian Club, that’s who. Check out this scary two-hour movie, Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove, to learn more. We’re through the looking glass here, people!

Beware the Spowl.

Here’s the warning above the Bohemian Club at 624 Taylor in San Francisco - “Weaving Spiders Come Not Here.”

Get ready for Bohemian Grove up in Sonoma County in July - it’s like Burning Man for plutocrats. Check it out.

Generally speaking, that is.

Back in the day, old boxy 200-series Volvos had the rep of having drivers that had issues. But these days, it seems the worst motorists on the roads are caged-up in Toyota Priuses. Why’s that?

Could it be that the primary reason most owners bought is that the purchase “makes a statement” about them?

Getting the “what’s a matter you?” Italian-style hand gesture from a perturbed pedestrian on South Van Ness in San Francisco. The driver was blocking a crosswalk for a good 45 seconds while paying attention to something in his right hand. Note body damage from a prior allision.

Another Prius driver recently caused a stir in town by driving through the streetcar-only Sunset Tunnel and getting stuck for a few hours.  

Things have gotten so bad that some people keep an eye out just for these particular hybrids.

Keep a look out and stay safe out there.

Construction of the California Academy of Sciences building in Golden Gate Park proceeds apace. What is expected to be the largest and most visited green building in the world will have new admission prices that are 150% higher than before, but this thing should be popular nevertheless.

This didn’t end well for the gopher.

The parent bird, the tallest one, just hunted and killed a pocket gopher to bring back to the nest high above Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. The middle chick (fledgling now?) scooped up the undigested rodent to the chagrin of its siblings.

You can see the outline of the gopher slowly sliding down the neck of the aptly named Great Blue Heron.

Canon 600mm 4.0 IS with Canon 2x II extender.

There was a time when a big movie like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would open at a place like the now-deceased Coronet Theater. But The Castro was doing pretty well  for itself last night with a packed house on the first day of the new Indy.

Bullwhip? (Doesn’t everybody in San Francisco have one already?) Free.

Costco drinking water? $.12 plus $.05 CRV.

Fedora? $29.97 from Lucky Supermarket.  

Memories of entertaining the long lines of people waiting to get a good seat? Priceless.

View from the balcony includes an old-skool organist and a proper chandelier

Don’t forget to complete your Indiana Experience by purchasing LEGO Indiana Jones Adventures. All the cool kids are doing it!

So turn up your hearing aid (if you have one, as the Castro Theatre’s sound system seems a tad on the quiet side) and get on out there!

LEGO, the LEGO logo, DUPLO, BIONICLE, MINDSTORMS, the BELVILLE, CLIKITS, KNIGHTS’ KINGDOM and EXO-FORCE logos,
the Brick and Knob configurations and the Minifigure are trademarks of the LEGO Group.
© 2008 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. Use of this site signifies your agreement to the terms of use.

© 2008 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All rights reserved. Used under authorization.

Bike messenger Kirk Janes was killed yesterday morning in a collision with a truck at Fulton and Steiner in Alamo Square. San Francisco’s Ride of Silence, already planned for yesterday evening, was then hastily altered to start at this intersection.

The Ride of Silence occurs on the third Wednesday in May in almost 300 cities around the world.  It’s a bicycle ride to commemorate cyclists killed or injured while riding on public roads. It helps to raise awareness among motorists of the dangers they pose to cyclists. Unlike a Critical Mass event, Ride of Silence rides are not designed to stall traffic or create conflict with motorists.

A KTVU channel 2 news crew spoke with riders as they assembled:

Friends of Kirk Janes were on hand with flowers:

It’s unusual to see a group this large not chatting and making noise. At the infamous intersection of Fell and Masonic:

By now you’ve seen the latest viral video recreating Indiana Jones’ famous Boulder Dash? From the Gootube:

“We built a huge LEGO boulder and then made our friend dress up as Indy and run from it. Fun times!

(How respectful the Youtube poster was of our corporate overlords, taking care to CAPITALIZE corporate names.)

Anyway, it sure got plenty of Diggs. 

However, some have alleged that the giant Lego ball was styrofoam and that the makers merely sought to promote a new game. (Who knows, you might like it.)

Irregardless, this has led to confusion on the Internets.   

From Flickr via tillwe, are these LEGO bricks or not? (Commenter Phill says nay. Commenter Martin says it’s Duplo.)

Some appear to have lost their faith in the Web:

Viral is so mid-2000s, now it’s just being exploited and we’re all gonna hate it.

And the famous Laughing Squid is now trying to give credit to the entire crew that pieced together all 5 million Legos, to no avail.

Was Teak Motion Visuals or Teak Films Production behind this corporate subterfuge? Some think Sausalito’s Butler Shine and Stern  (wouldn’t it be nice to be “hanging out on a fucking sailboat, while getting paid coupla hundred an hour“) may have had a hand in it.

Only Time Will Tell.

But in the meantime and while we’re on the topic, take a look at  Teak Motion Visuals’ attempt at verisimilitude. How contrived does this scene appear on a scale from 1 to 10? Can’t you just see the guy with a baseball cap plotting out the most effective bouquet of garbage?

Are we really suppose to listen to this Amazing Group of Talented Creatives, and then ”Clean the Bay” and “Start With This Beach?” This particular beach at Crissy Field? Srsly? Until the sexy but trash-strewn drunkfest known as the Bay to Breakers Footrace gets rerouted, the Crissy Field Protection Area will never look like that. (If you want real, then check out San Francisco’s Warm Water Cove - it still looks like this.)  

The makers of these contrived bits probably had a good time getting paid to do them, but when you start fibbing and shilling… Will this LEGO stunt end up on the list of Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Gone Wrong?

Fail

Epic Fail.

Well, it appears this will be how B2b 2008 will be remembered:

“It’s often called the world’s longest party, but this year’s Bay to Breakers race through San Francisco was anything but fun for the residents, cops and public workers who bore the brunt of the drunken young “runners” who staggered around Golden Gate Park and the city’s west side, relieving themselves wherever it proved convenient.”

Imagine that!

Turkeybot ably captured a fine moment:

The Golden Gate Park Panhandle had far more than ten portajohns set up and waiting to go the night before the big race. But, Matier & Ross report that there were only ten there on the big day. Mmmm, how did that happen?

Speaking of the Panhandle, the half million dollar bathroom in the Panhandle was closed and surrounded by yellow police tape while racers were passing by during the early part of the day. Why was that?

This might have been the only place in Golden Gate park where people weren’t urinating. That’s all part of the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the longtime footrace. Most people had fun though, purported MUNI Meltdown or no.

See you next year!