Archived Observation Lounges for the following months can be found here:
[Avery] 10/28/98
There are certain things that I take for granted. Like the fact that every
spring and fall, we adjust for Daylight Savings. However, for some reason,
Arizona has decided to ignore the fact that the other 49 states lose and
then gain an hour in the Spring and Fall respectively.
I do believe that any rights not granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution fall under the jurisdiction of State Law, and I to feel that every State has the sovereign right to govern itself as long as the rules are constitutional. However, I am sure that the Founding Fathers never expected states to screw around with the time zones. Hey, Arizona, get off the fence and choose: Pacific or Mountain time! You only get one!
[Janet] 10/20/98
The manipulative use of the phrase "If it's OK with you" tends to vex me.
A girl where I work always seems to have things "come up" during the day,
like the phone company installing a line at her house, or an appointment,
or having to be somewhere for something. Since I have the honor of
covering the phones for her while she is out, she has to tell me she
won't be there, and she always relays her plans with "if it's OK with you"
tacked onto the end. "That's fine." I say, but what I really feel like saying
is: "why are you asking if it's 'OK' with me when you have obviously already
made your plans, confirmed them, and cleared them with your boss?" If
I said that it wasn't OK, I'd just end up looking like a bitch, and she would
do whatever it was she had to do anyway. Passive-aggressive much?
[Avery] 10/18/98
San Francisco is known around the world for its beautiful weather... never
too hot, never too cold, and rarely do we ever get a significant downpour
of rain. This makes for an amazing city to live in. You don't need summer
or winter clothes... and you just need to have an umbrella in case we get
a little drizzle.
However, now that we have been living here for a few years, we have realized that there are some real benefits to having a major downpour once a month or so. The biggest benefit is that the rain cleans the crap off of the sidewalk.
Now, before you think that I am exaggerating, while walking to the tattoo shop this afternoon, I had to play dodge the disgusting stain on the sidewalk all the way from the apartment to the tattoo studio (about 12 blocks). There was some puke, some dog feces, and some indescribable messes that were most likely caused by a human's intestinal tract.
Back in Boston, we would get a good rainy day at least once a month. Though we complained while it was raining, we would always comment on how clean everything was afterwards. In San Francisco, there is so little rain, the City has to hire professional street cleaners to come by with steam-cleaners and steam the shit off of the sidewalk.
Envision this: A man, spraying hot steam at a pile of hardened puke... which turns the semi-solid puke into puke vapor that all of us passers-by can inhale.
What's the solution? El Nino? Zambonis equipped for asphalt, not ice? I don't have a solution, but there has to be something better than making all of this street-shit airborne.
[Avery] 10/13/98
This evening, I watched one of the most absurd ads that I have ever seen
in my life. McDonalds is now offering a breakfast bagel. Ok, that in itself
is not so crazy... but the toppings are the most amusing thing that I have
seen in ages. McDonalds is currently offering three different types of bagels:
Steak with cheese and egg
Ham and cheese with egg
Western Omelette (ham, onion, pepper) with egg and cheese
Why do I find this so absurd? Well, Bagels are considered a Jewish foodstuff. There are certain Jewish laws called kashruth, known by English-speakers as Kosher. You see, Jews are not supposed to eat pork (which eliminates the Western Omelet and the Ham bagels) or have Meat (steak) and Cheese (milk) in the same meal. Which means that this ostensibly Jewish breakfast is completely inedible by a practising Jew.
Now, I know that bagels are now just considered a common foodstuff... not relegated to Jews and New Yorkers anymore. But come on... it's as sacreligious as a Corned Beef sandwich on white bread with lettuce, tomato and mayo.
I have observed that Americans don't really care if they co-opt other cultures' foods. I guess it stopped a hundred years ago with Americans making Chop Suey... a food never conceived of by the Chinese. Now, a Mexican staple, burritos, are being filled with all sorts of non-Mexican crap and being passed off as World Wraps.
The interesting thing is that we've half-assedly modified every traditional food of another culture to the point that when people go to an ethnic restaurant, they get disappointed when the real version of the dish doesn't live up to the TGI Friday's version of it. How many people walk into their first Japanese Restaurant and order the Chicken Teriyaki, just to find that it doesn't taste anything like the Chicken Teriyaki that they got last weekend at Chili's. Hell, I've heard people at a real Mexican restaurant send back real margaritas (2 parts tequila, 1 part Triple Sec, 1 part fresh lime juice) asking for one of those real margaritas... you know the kind... those alcoholic slushies.
I really wish that America had a national dish that some other culture could pervert. Then maybe they'll understand what every native Nihon-jin feels when the're offered a Teriyaki Chicken Wrap.
[Janet] 10/13/98
When I first started to take cabs in San Francisco, I used to give the cabbies
huge tips at the end just because I was glad that they didn't drive all around
town to go 5 blocks or hijack me and drive me into the desert or something.
But taxi drivers in SF still give me the creeps. Half the time, when you
get into the cab and say hello, they don't even answer you. Hell, they don't
even look at you, like the other day when we caught a cab. Not to
mention, when we were almost at our apartment, Avery asked out of curiosity
how much the minimum would be to use a credit card. At first the driver ignored
us, then he acted all huffy when Avery (politely) asked him again. After
he answered he leaned over and turned the volume of his Big Band Swing radio
station way up. That'll teach us to ask a question.
I suppose that's not as bad as the time we caught a cab in North Beach, the Italian section of the city, probably one of the longest cab rides we would ever take if we happened to go out. We got in and gave our address, as we usually do: "Page, between Fillmore and Steiner." "Page?" asked the Asian driver with a heavy accent. "Page." we said. "Page?" the driver said again. We had had kind of a bad night out for some reason, so we were already in semi-foul moods. "Yes. PAGE." He started driving in kind of the right direction, but then the route started looking a little unusual, and something just didn't seem right. "We're going the wrong way," I grumbled to Avery, to which he hissed "No, he's just taking a bad route." Eventually, after watching the meter tick higher and higher and getting tenser and tenser, not wanting to say anything for fear of the guy yelling at us, which they sometimes do when you act like you know the city better than they do because after all, they're the ones driving around and around all the live-long day, we found ourselves in the Marina, Land of Yuppies. Now I knew for sure that this was really, really wrong, as this area was nowhere near our apartment. At that instant the cab turned right and we both saw the street sign and screamed in unison "Not BAY Street! PAGE Street!"
Moral of the story: when you think you're going the wrong way you usually are, and if a cab driver repeats himself more than twice when verifying the address, it's Not A Good Sign.
[Avery] 10/11/98
Has doing nothing ever taken more out of you than being active? If you haven't,
then you obviously have never been tattooed. This afternoon, I went in to
see Idexa at Black
and Blue Tattoo to get the color touched up on my latest tattoo, and
to see some designs that she worked up for my arm. For those of you who don't
remember, I am working on a forearm tattoo piece... currently, it consists
of four fish (flounder, cuttlefish, skate and tuna) and some seaweed that
I had sketched up on my own about six months ago. When I got to the shop,
she surprised me with a new set of fish based on my original four: a crab
(which I love), a seahorse (which I love), a conch shell (which I love),
a jellyfish (which she is going ot re-work based on some suggestions) and
a starfish (which didn't float my boat, because I just don't like starfish).
So, it looks like I'll be back in the shop this December to get these new
sea creatures permanently etched into my arm.
Anyway, back to the tattooing process. As the tattooee, all I had to do is sit still and do nothing. It's Idexa that has to do all of the work. However, after three hours of solid adrenaline and endorphins, I am just plum worn out. I barely have the energy to even write... but it's worth it. As they say: if it didn't hurt and last forever, everybody would have a tattoo.
[Janet] 10/4/98
I find it interesting that one of the things that alterna-people wear these
days are Dickie's pants, now sold in stores like Urban Outfitters. This is
interesting, if not just a teeny-tiny bit amusing, because ten or so years
ago, my stepfather at the time also wore Dickie's...to work at his job as
a machinist at Pratt and Whitney. Dickie's were sold at K-Mart back then,
and my sister and I used to make fun of them because they were considered
to be ugly, factory-worker, poor-person's pants. They sure have come a long
way -- I overheard the following not too long ago: Bartender to friend,
presumably explaining why he was wearing baggy checkered shorts (and a white
T-shirt) on a cool-ish day: "I have my Dickie's in my bag...I had a feeling
he [the other bartender] was gonna wear Dickie's and a white T-shirt, and
sure enough he's wearing Dickie's and a white T-shirt." I guess girls aren't
the only ones worried about showing up at the party dressed the same!