Posts Tagged ‘laguna’

Nissan Altima vs. MUNI Electric Bus Pole in the Western Addition – The Hazards of Driving on the Sidewalk

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012

Drive it like you stole it, or something.

Click to expand

I’m thinking 25 MPH? Maybe.

Just another day in the PJ’s…

Man, the Falun Gong Protest in Front of the Chinese Consulate on Geary Will Freak You Out

Friday, July 6th, 2012

I don’t know, which would you rather see when you look outside in the morning? Would you rather see freaky Blair Witch evidence or bunch of Falun Gong holding this pose?

Geary at Laguna:

Click to expand

I could go either way.

But, attention cultists, achtung baby: Signals intelligence officers are inside this consulate, sniffing your cell phone data packets, so to speak. Like a giant Google Maps car.

So, Falun Gongers, take your cell phone batteries out of your mobiles, if you know what’s good for you, whenever you protest over there.

Just saying…

Market Street Update: LITTLE WOOD ETTE, Open ‘Til Midnight, ATM

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

See?

Click to expand

Japantown Taser-Gun Cell Phone Mugging Foiled by GPS – Suspect Caught in Twitterloin at 7th and Market

Friday, September 30th, 2011

The SFPD has just fleshed out this story of a trip to Japantown gone wrong.

Turns out the guy trying to fence(?) the booty is less than 18 years old.

Anyway, all the deets:

“SFPD Arrest Suspect by way of Smartphone GPS Technology
11-106

Posted Date: 9/30/2011

San Francisco Police Officers at Northern Station arrested a suspect in connection with a robbery by way of GPS technology.

The suspect who cannot be identified due to the fact he is a juvenile, was taken into custody on September 29, 2011 and charged for possession of stolen property.

In this incident, the victim was walking home from work on the 1600 block of Post St. at 11:00 p.m. when she was suddenly shocked in the neck by a stun gun. The suspect then stole her belongings, which included a Smartphone. Shortly after, a group of good Samaritans came to the victim’s aid and she was able to call the police.

Responding officers arrived on scene and asked the victim if she subscribed to a GPS tracking device on her Smartphone. The victim stated, “Yes”.

A tracking device is a service that allows subscribers to track their Smartphone when their device is either stolen or lost. Using GPS technology, the officers were able to track the Victim’s stolen Smartphone to the area of 7th St and Market.

Officers responded to the area and were able to track down the Smartphone through its tracking device software.

The officers were able to detain the suspect who had the Smartphone in his possession. The suspect was placed under arrest for possession of stolen property.”

Well, I guess this is a happy ending…

The intersection of 7th and Market Street in San Francisco is the world capitol of black market iPhone sales:

Via JonathanPercy – click to expand

Hurray!

There’s Free WiFi in Japantown Courtesy of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center and AT&T? Hurray!

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Remember that jackass mayor we had not too long ago? Remember all his unkept promises, like Citywide Wi-Fi for San Francisco?

I do. Bad times. I think it was 2005.

Anyway, these days the few areas around town you where you can rely on free govt. Wi-Fi are around federal housing projects. (One time my Samsung could see the Valencia Gardens WiFi all the way from Civic Center. Good times.)

Anyway, I guess “jtown connected” is the Wi-Fi you can get on Post in the Western Addition.

See?

Click to expand 

Hurray!

Cold Busted: Bay to Breakers 100 Floats Ejected from Street Party in Hayes Valley

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Don’t think that you can just roll your float past the cops at Fell and Laguna this year.

Your keg-carrying float will be ejected for sure, it would seem – see the float near the top getting surrounded?

Via TraceyKThompson – click to expand

What Does This Photo of a 38 Geary Bus Stop Tell You About MUNI and San Francisco?

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Do you think that the people who installed the tree, the garbage can, the bus shelter/ad, and the curved stone walkway (on land that belongs to the nearby apartment complex) were all working together on this one?

I don’t. But at least the forgotten peds have the patio pavers now so they don’t have to walk through mud anymore… 

Looking west into the pouring sun:

There’s a feeling I get/  When I look to the west/ And my spirit is crying for leaving Click to expand

I mean, MUNI sucks, right? Don’t the people at MUNI know that by now?

Tiananmen Square Massacre 21st Anniversary – A Black Celebration at our Chinese Consulate

Monday, June 7th, 2010

It’s hard to say exactly how many people marked the 21st Annivesary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre* in front of the Chinese Consulate on Laguna down in the Western Addition on Friday, June 6th. It seemed like they had a caravan of 30-40 cars plus a giant moving van but I didn’t see a big crowd or anything.

A motorcade passing City Hall before the protest:

As seen on Laguna near Japantown:

The protesters had a lot of interesting posters displayed. Are people still jailed 21 years later? No se, I’m a little gun-shy about checking out strange websites ever since Google sent a message to warn me that, apparently, Red China (or, specifically, a dude with an IP address from Red China) hacked into my GMail account two days ago. And that struck the Googlers as a bit odd since I also logged in from San Francisco multiple times the same day. Oh well. China has lots and lots of energetic hackers operating for their own purposes 24-7, of course. Anyway, if you want surf around, knock yourself out:

The events of 1989 represented the huge challenge to the Communist Party of China’s position as supreme political authority in the world’s largest country. The Party didn’t know what to make of this kind of thing, at first:

Anyway, here’s the mise-en-scene from Friday: a protester carrying a funerary display up Geary, a plainclothes Fed (Jacqueline Bauer?) assigned to protect the consulate building, and a young dude from Armada Security paid hourly to do the same thing:

So, nobody scaled the building to fake hang themselves they way they did back in aught-eight. This was the scene  just before a Chinese dude on the roof famously cut the suspension line. Simple physics tells us it took slightly more than a second for her to hit the balcony about 15 feet below. Ouch:

No, things were pretty mellow at Friday’s protest, excepting for the guy who shouted out, “Why don’t you all go home, motherfuckers!”

Something very San Francisco about him – what do you think, is it the convertible Mercedes lifestylemobile, the tattoos, the Hollywood-director baseball cap, the rage, the unsolicited advice yelled at strangers? Something in that area…. 

Cyclist gal was all, WTF, racist dude?

The next day, Armada had an older fellow marking time minding the store as baseball-hatted Chinese intelligence officers entered and exited the building.

Just another day in Paradise.

See you next year.

*With 400-800 deaths in and around the square, on or around June 4, 1989, all told – that still appears to be the best guess.

San Franciscos Anti-Graffiti Paint Truck is Amazingly Free of Graffiti Itself

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Listen up, taggers. Here’s one of the vehicles they send to censor all your public art. This thing must be loaded up with every color of paint imaginable - it’s huge.

Now, wouldn’t it be a score for you to tag this giant rolling canvas - you know, poetic justice and all?

This thing is your white whale – keep an eye out:

Click to expand

And look what they do with that truck – they paint over your scribblings just as soon as you put them up, leaving only a ”wet paint” sign. Thusly:

Courage.

A Ford Pinto Being Driven Unironically on the Streets of San Francisco

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Never thought I’d see it but, yesterday, this aging Ford Pinto Runabout was being driven on the streets of San Francisco in a non-ironic fashion - as if it were a normal car!

Only In San Francisco. Click to expand – note whitewall tires:

Confer the similar AMC Pacer being driven the normal way, in an ironic fashion, around Lowest Haight near horrible Octavia Boulevard. See the difference?

NB: If this Pacer were a Pinto, the flames would be coming out of the rear wheel well, instead of the front. About which more anon.

Now, Wikipedia says some Pintos were built just across the bay in Richmond(!), CA. See that monstrous building with the solar panels? That was the haunted Ford factory, back in the day. But didn’t this factory close down back in ’55, 15 years before the Pinto era? Think so. 

Anywho, maybe the Pinto wasn’t all that unsafe after all (compared to other cars in its class at the time), despite that Pulitzer-winning Mother Jones magazine bit/press conference back in 1977 and the received wisdom of today. Regardless, flaming “Pinto Madness” inspired the Gene Hackman / Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio film called Class Action- that was the 1991 movie shot in San Francisco that had absolutely, positively nothing to do with any kind of class action lawsuit. Anywho.

Keep on truckin’, yellow Pinto lady!