Impressed

From donate.barackobama.com:

Why must he play with my emotions so? The same day he supports offshore drilling, I also see this shirt. Mr. Presidente, do you suck or are you awesome? I can't decide.

I still miss The Wire

Holy crap, David Simon is writing a show about New Orleans. Yee ha! I'm still in mourning over The Wire - when I watched the last episode I wanted to hold a funeral. This new one has John Goodman in it, Lester and Bunk from The Wire, the woman from When the Levees Broke, and a ton of New Orleans musicians. Can't wait.

Cathedral of Junk

Something I missed seeing in Austin - the Cathedral of Junk.

Dagnabbit! Next time.

Austin

SXSW was much more relaxing this year than last year - Mike wasn't putting on a show, so we got to wander around with nothing we HAD to do. There's always a little bit of anxiety that you're not at the *right* show, that something amazing is happening at the place next door. But since we didn't buy badges, we were depending on the kindness of friends who could get us into particular venues.

We watched between 8 and 12 hours of music a day - exhausting! But fantastic. Here's a photo of the XX from the deck of the Mohawk.

Just down the street, Broken Social Scene was playing Stubb's. Too many bands, not enough time!

We also met a tiny baby named Luca. He was only a week old. Here he is with his dad, Dave - don't they look exactly alike?

We stayed with a friend, Erin, and her son Elliot, who is about 10 months old.

Both Luca and Elliot were fantastically adorable.

We drank a lot of margaritas, ate a lot of queso, and saw more music than I will ever be able to process. Especially since we saw Gwar: heavy metal + costumes + lots of fake blood = confusion for me.

If I were a real blogger type person, I would talk about the different bands we saw and how I feel about them. But I am not, so instead I am just going to say that we got to see friends and hang out and walk our booties off wandering the city, and it was a damn good time.

I heart Austin.

Trampoline

Holy crap, I can't wait until the fully-trampolinized airplane hangar thing opens in the Presidio.

Our beer!

Here it is - Brecki Brew, vintage #1!

Isn't it beautiful?

Reasons it is a good day

1. My brother is safely in Australia and says the the biological center is absolutely amazing.
2. My parents are getting their beehives tomorrow.
3. Last night I saw the very weird Animal Collective movie and did not have a single nightmare.
4. Wednesday there was a Russian River beer tasting at work, and it jazzed me up for our super hoppy brew #2 - to be bottled in just over a week.
5. The sun is shining and it's supposed to be in the 70's tomorrow.
6. Tomorrow is also our grilled cheese and homebrew party!
7. I'm about to start working with Witness on their education/advocacy campaign re:violence against women. And you know what? It turns out that the organization was started by Peter Gabriel. Ok then.
8. I am wearing my Tom's, which are the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned. Each step is glorious, like a wonderful cushion of love for my tootsies.
9. I really just woke up in a damn good mood. And it's Friday. Woot.

Annapurna

For about a year I've had it in my head that I want to trek the Annapurna Circuit. I've never been to Asia, I like my hiking vacations, and I've never walked for 17 days straight. Plus it sounds absolutely fantastic - a loop around the base of the world's tallest mountains.

Now, though, it looks like a road is going to replace the walking trail in 2012. Sounds like we're hitting the Annapurna in 2011, then!

PIE

There is now a pie and ice cream place in my neighborhood, hallelujah!

SXSW

I am going to try to make a list of the bands I saw at SXSW this past week/end. It is not going to be easy.

Thursday:

• Sleepy Sun
• The ukulele Beatles cover band
• Liars (links go to my Flickr)
• Wallpaper
• Roky Erickson and Okkervil River
• Teen Girl Fantasy
• The Morning Benders
• The XX

Friday:

• Mariachi El Bronx
• Frightened Rabbits
• Billy Bragg
• Man Man

Saturday:

• Holy Fuck
• Fucked Up
• Andrew WK
• Gwar
• Neon Indian
• Surfer Blood
• Past Lives
• Ty Segall
• Death

This may be a work in progress.

Bike camping

Mike and I have been meaning to go bike camping for a while, and this article has gotten me motivated. Who wants to slap some panniers on their bike and take a ride over the bridge to a campground in the Headlands? I'm thinking this is the perfect excuse to ride nice and slow - and to bring beer on a backcountry camping trip. I'm going to see about getting reservations at Kirby Cove sometime this spring/summer.

Ms. Winner's eye

I recommend taking a look at this interview with Cait on the photography blog Eye'em. Her photos are so very very pretty!

Mitten

You should really listen to "Cavalcade" on mynameismitten.com.

Happy St. Patty's

I think I am exempt from any holiday clothing expectations (i.e. wearing green) because I am an Irish citizen.

P.S. They were serving Irish coffee at breakfast here this morning.

Oh, San Francisco

Pies-in-face attack roils anarchist-vegan world

(03-16) 18:30 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- An ex-vegan who was hit with chili pepper-laced pies at an anarchist event in San Francisco said Tuesday that her assailants were cowards who should direct their herbivorous rage at the powerful - not at a fellow radical for writing a book denouncing animal-free diets.

The perfect weekend

How to have the perfect weekend.

First, let's make it 65 to 70 degrees and sunny.

On Friday, attend a 1920's themed murder mystery dinner party. Have your boyfriend's band play their first gig at the party, and have it be awesome. Wear a flapper dress.

On Saturday go to Indian Rock Park in Berkeley for a gorgeous view of the Bay Area. Sit on a rock in the sun.

Drive further up into the hills, to Tilden park. Walk in the woods and around Lake Anza. Giggle at the naked peoples. Head back down to Shattuck just in time to pick up a pizza at Cheeseboard and a box of Thin Mints.

Attend a dinner party at a beautiful Victorian flat hosted by a couple that met while sailing ships around the world. Open a bottle of your homemade beer and find out it's delicious. Drink your hosts' homemade sloe gin. Cuddle with a puppy.

Spend all of Sunday on your bike, cruising up and down the Embarcadero as a volunteer for the bike coalition. Enjoy the sun and the crowds. Eat free tacos.

Head home to brew a batch of IPA and cook a dinner of butternut squash ravioli with sage butter. Watch episodes of The West Wing until you fall asleep.

Cheese celeb

Turns out a Wellesley alum is the Cheesemonger for The Kitchn. I practically almost know a cheese celebrity! And I'm definitely going to make my own buttermilk cheese, man.

I am pro-pizza

The site Floating Sheep tracks geo-coded Internets data and plots them on a map. The maps are pretty much all awesome, but I am particularly fond of the Great American Pizza Map.

"The map reveals that America seems to be largely pro-pizza with the red dots of pizza spreading across the landscape like a rich and robust tomato sauce. Perhaps there is something after all that everyone can agree upon."

Indeed.

Golden Girls as Wu-Tang Clan

Yup, Sophia is totally ODB.

Kerning issues

The typography nerds are ALL OVER the Godine 40th anniversary logo.

Here's the logo:

And here are the comments:

I really miss working there sometimes. (Also, kerning issues guy, your grammar sucks.)

UPDATE: It keeps getting better.

Miner's lettuce

Did you know that this stuff is edible?

Well, it is. It's called miner's lettuce, and it's everywhere in San Francisco. I think I'm going to have me a picking party.

Ezzie

This pretty much sums up my cat.

Redesign

I am not very design-y, but Blogger came out with really cool customizable templates, so I gave it a go. I hope you are not traumatized by the changes.

A note on my banner image: I feel really friendly towards pelicans. I love how they don't really have to flap their wings much. They are like, "We are such cool cats that we just glide along." They shake a wing every once in a while, but that is mostly when they are saying hi to me. And sometimes they dive down into the water and come up with a fish in their beak pouch, which is a skill I admire.

This photo was taken at Land's End when some friends were visiting from New York. We went at sunset and the pelicans came over the bridge and flew out to sea. I think they did it just to help me impress my friends.

Way to go, pelicans.

Do not fear the nettles

Oh my god, St. Pat is my favorite cheese in the whole world and 18 Reasons is having a release party for it today! I am oh so attending.

"Please join us in celebrating the 2010 release of Cowgirl Creamery's St. Pat cheese. In addition to tasting this much-loved local cheese, we'll also sample the amazing fluid milk that is used to make it and enjoy samples of (cooked) nettles from one of the farmers who supplies the Cowgirls with the green leaves needed to wrap up St. Pat."

What is St. Pat, exactly? "St. Pat is Cowgirl's seasonal springtime cheese. The cheese is made with whole organic milk from the Chileno Valley Jersey Dairy and is wrapped with stinging nettle leaves. Do not fear the nettles, since they are frozen to remove the sting before they are wrapped around the cheese. St. Pat, with its distinctive, green rind, commemorates the arrival of spring in Marin County. After three weeks of aging the cheese is mellow, soft, and full of flavor. The nettle leaves impart a smoky, artichoke flavor. St. Pat received a Gold Medal at the 2009 North American Jersey Cheese Competition."

HELL YES IT DID. Cowgirl Creamery is the badassest cheesemaker around, man.

Bottling

This weekend we bottled our beer. It wasn't yet carbonated (that happens in the bottle), but it was a tasty amber ale.

Now we have to wait two weeks, and it will be ready to drink!

Bike directions

Hells yes, Google Maps now has biking directions! This is seriously rad, even though I'm sure they won't always be perfect.

I am bummed I'm missing out on the launch party - a group bike ride at SXSW on the 13th. We don't get to Austin until the 17th. But I can't be too upset because that is only a week away! Next Wednesday I'll be drinking margaritas and listening to live music. I am also going to eat me some breakfast tacos. Yessss.

Mall as greenhouse

How amazing would it be if malls everywhere took a cue from Cleveland and converted themselves into greenhouses and gardens?

Stuff I Will Eat

Mystery box, I love you I love you I love you.

From left: spinach, rapini, broccoli di cicco, butternut squash, savoy cabbage, escarole, carrots, leeks, spring onions, chard (massive chard!), collards, green garlic, fennel. Soon to be in mah belleh.

Stuff I Eat

Maybe everyone else knows this already, but the mixture of these items is delicious:

• grains
• beans
• greens
• fresh herbs

What you see below is my new favorite dinner: wheat berries with Rancho Gordo beans, escarole, arugula, fresh parsley, and homemade vinaigrette.

Damn it is good (even though I think my camera phone always makes things look a little gross). I'm home for a few hours at least one night a week, which is enough time to make big batches of grains and beans, so I think my weeknight dinner groove is now set. Next up is barley, or quinoa, or Israeli couscous, or one of the other dozen things I bought from the bulk bins at Rainbow this weekend.

Rainbow bulk bins: yuppie crack.

(Is that just coke?)

I like gluing things to other things

Is it weird that I would totally live in a house that the New York Times is calling out for its tackiness? The owners were gospel singers and evangelical preachers before constructing a 25,000+ square foot mansion! They used a cake decorating kit to ornament their house! The woman has a 34 pound bedspread trimmed in pearls (why?)!

A choice excerpt:

More glass shoes had been glued to a six-foot silver-and-faux-candle candelabra.

“My shoe-delier,” said Mr. Hart, 50, who was decked out entirely in black, complete with a black cowboy hat.

Ms. Hart, slim and raven-haired at 82, wore a tailored black suit trimmed with two dozen gold-plated teddy bears. “Larry did this,” she said, referring to the trim.

“I like gluing things to other things,” Mr. Hart said, by now stating the obvious.

Also at lunch was his brother, Garry, a 48-year-old contractor (“The normal one, like Marilyn in ‘The Munsters,’ ” Larry said).

I want to be friends with these people.

Age doesn't mean a thing unless you're a piece of cheese.

The grandmother of Mike's coworker is 91 and teaches aerobics on the Jersey shore. What a badass.

Some people wears glasses.

Including me. And since my purse got stolen last month and only my glasses (and a wool hat) went missing, I decided to get two pairs so that I am never sans eyewear again.

The ones on the left are black, and the ones on the right are brown and white. I was going for sexy secretary. I am becoming less photogenic every day (my nose isn't really that shape, I don't think), but the glasses are cute.

And who wants to teach me how to wrangle my bangs?

Brewery p*rn

Friday night Mike whisked me away for a super romantico weekend away. We drove up to Jenner on the Sonoma coast on Friday night, with a large veggie pizza from Little Star for company. The B&B had a deck with a hot tub overlooking the ocean (ok, actually the Russian River just before it hits the Pacific, whatever) and was freaking sweet.

Saturday we drove along the coast into Mendocino, then inland to the Anderson Valley Brewing Company. And my oh my, do they brew. We went home with a growler of something that was a cross between an IPA and a stout. So tasty, and a good marriage of the two ends of the spectrum - where Mike and I usually sit, wrinkling our noses at each other's beer.

Here is one of their copper mash tuns, brought over from Germany. Please don't drool on the copper.

Ain't it a beaut? The tour of the brewery was led by their maintenance guy, Robert, with whom we spent a nice afternoon talking beer, watching coverage of the Hawaii "tsunami", and listening to stories about his time traveling with the Grateful Dead. Of course.

Here's Mike by the bottling machine, happy happy happy.

I loved the factory episodes of Mr. Rogers when I was a kid - "Come see how candy is made!" Don't mind if I do! So the bottling machine was heaven for me - it had lots of moving parts, just like the machines on Mr. Rogers, but all for the sake of BEER.

That there's a reclamation pond. Anderson Valley, in addition to being 50% solar powered, processes the chemicals that they use to clean the tanks. Beautiful for a cesspool, no? And they have an 18 hole disc golf course!

We'll definitely be going back, probably for their Beer Fest in May.

Daily Routines

This blog is a collection of writers' daily routines - it's pretty darn interesting. And, as The New Yorker comments on the left sidebar, it is also appropriately titled. My favorite routines are the ones that talk about the drinking and the drugs and the sexo.

Snowpocalypse

You probably can't see this very well, but below is a flipbook-like series of photos that my dad took of my brother jumping into a huge snowbank, and then menacing my mother.

It is odd to be on the California end of the Snowpocalypse - we just enjoyed a 70 degree weekend, while my parents are dealing with winds that make the icicles on their house form sideways.