Today I was introduced to Yamo, a cheap and decent Chinese lunch counter at 18th and Mission. I was also introduced to some wonderful Engrish text on the chopstick wrapper, which I’ve transcribed below for your enjoyment.
Welcome to Chinese Restaurant.
please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks
the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history.
and cultual.BAMBOO CHOPSTLCKS
PRODUCT OF CHINA
There’s been an empty lot at the corner of 15th and Dolores for well over a decade. Despite a sign promising condos to be built in “Fall 2010” (oops!) the empty lot is only used once a year to sell Christmas trees.
So what used to be there? It turns out the lot was once home to the First Southern Baptist Church, aka the Dolores Street Baptist Church. According to their website, they were a very liberal Baptist church that accepted LGBT folks.
In 1993, the church received an angry letter from a member of the Aryan Brotherhood who disagreed with the church’s views. The next day, the church was burned to the ground by an arsonist. Coincidence? Probably not, but nobody knows for certain.
Since then the site has been an empty lot.
Oh, and what about the boarded-up house next to it that’s falling apart? That was the parsonage of the church, aka where the pastor would have lived. The building is partly fire damaged and is slated to be rebuilt eventually.
The church’s congregation finally disbanded last year, but the community center they spawned, Dolores Street Community Services, is still in operation.
Photo by METROSTUDIO
You may remember the ads a few years ago that read, “My life is San Francisco, my home is Parkmerced.”
Advertisers aren’t know for telling the truth, and this is no exception; the ads seem to be implying that Parkmerced is part of San Francisco, which while technically true, is at the same time an assertion most San Franciscans would find somewhat dubious.
If they wanted to be honest, the ad would be like one of the following:
But why stop there? Other neighborhoods would have much more interesting ads than Parkmerced.
North Beach
Union Square
The Marina
The Mission
SOMA
Bayview
The Castro
Fisherman’s Wharf
What makes Sesame Street successful is that it’s fun enough that parents will actually sit down and watch with their kids.
One of their tricks was to re-purpose modern music with clever parodies. Here’s a few I scrounged up on YouTube.
Cereal Girl (parody of Material Girl)
Hip to Be a Square (parody of Hip to Be Square)
(I Can’t Get No) Cooperation (parody of [I Can’t Get No] Satisfaction)
Kids Love to Brush (parody of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun)
Rebel L (parody of Rebel Yell)
Hey Food (parody of Hey Jude)
If they made an album of these, I’d buy it.
Alexia Anthem sent me this video of an apartment fire in the Inner Sunset. You can see fire fighters are on the roof already, but the fire seems to be on two stories of the building, which is not a good sign. N-Judah service in the area is temporarily stopped.
Yesterday was the 2010 Santacon, also known as Santarchy, also know as “mommy why is Santa vomiting on our front porch?” day.
I started out in the Castro where there were a lot of interesting costumes including Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas, a blue Santa, and two young women inexplicably dressed as penguins.
This first photo is from the deck at the Lookout. On the left you can see one of Santa’s soldiers, complete with jolly war paint and a candy cane machine gun. The guy on the right with a mask was wearing an all red ninja outfit of some sort.
Later in the evening I headed to North Beach, where the lack of interesting costumes was made up for by an abundance of alcohol.
In this photo, drunken Santas had effectively stopped traffic on Grant between Vallejo and Green. Two Santas had taken it upon themselves to misdirect traffic away from this mess and into a traffic jam, but it didn’t stop more determined/stupid drivers from pushing their way through the crowd.
One other interesting note is this year’s Santa madness happened to fall on the same night as Krampusnacht, the night when Santa’s evil alter-ego punishes bad Children. Who knew?
A swarm of technicians descended on 16th and Mission today, decapitating the old parking meters and sliding in a fancy new “SFpark” meter.
Removal
New meters
I’m not sure exactly what’s new, but it appears to be solar powered, accept credit cards (yay!) and the new meters utilize sensors under the vehicle so “the man” knows exactly when to slap you with a hefty parking ticket.
Travel, movies, comedy, tech, and whatever I find on the streets of San Francisco.
Contact: mrericsir “at” gmail.com
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