San Francisco Metblogs

At the Roxie: ‘Ready, Set, Bag!’ benefit for SF Food Bank

Mark Pritchard — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:49:26 +0000

The film “Ready, Set, Bag!” (formerly titled “Paper or Plastic?“) will be shown tonight at the Roxie Theatre in a benefit for the San Francisco Food Bank, the city’s non-profit group that helps feed thousands of families every week using groceries and produce donated by stores and growers. The program starts at 7:00 pm.

The film follows the finalists in the National Grocers Association Best Bagger Championship, which is exactly what it sounds like, I guess. Also on the program is a short, Leonardo, by Pixar animator Jim Capobianco.

Speaking of the Food Bank, VISA is doubling donations to the group right now. So go to their website and give ‘em some money. The Food Bank is a great community organization.

Strike at Berkeley, other UC campuses

Mark Pritchard — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:11:46 +0000

This morning, staff, non-tenured faculty and graduate student instructors at University of California campuses begin a three-day strike to protest the imposition of tuition hikes at the public university. Their website is UCstrike.com and you can follow events on twitter using the #ucstrike hashtag.

According to the strikers’ website, tuition increases this decade have meant that the cost of an undergraduate education has tripled since 2000. They lay the blame not only at the national economic crisis but the university’s commitment to over $1 billion in new debt for construction of new facilities, saying the system favors “construction over instruction.”

The strike is timed to coincide with a meeting of UC regents in Los Angeles. The governing borad is expected to approve new fee hikes.

Literary things to do this Saturday

Mark Pritchard — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:39:32 +0000

San Franciscans have a choice this Saturday: Apollo or Dionysus?

In Apollo’s corner, publishers and writers from two experimental presses, Sidebrow of San Francisco and Les Figues of Los Angeles, will appear Saturday at 7:30 pm at The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St. at Gough (map). Both presses publish poetry and experimental prose in small, interesting editions. I interviewed Les Figues’ Teresa Carmody a few years ago.

At the same moment, representing Dionysus, Writers with Drinks happens at the Makeout Room on 22nd St. Appearing are Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman TV series), Mary Robinette Kowal (Scenting The Dark And Other Stories), Kat Richardson (Greywalker), Naomi Quiñonez (Invocation L.A.: Urban Multicultural Poetry), and S. Bear Bergman (Butch Is A Noun).

More than 40 crashes on S-curve of death, CHP says

Mark Pritchard — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:17:03 +0000

Last night’s big rig plunge off the Bay Bridge, which happened at 3:30 a.m. when a semi with a load of pears hit the infamous S-curve too fast, was only the latest of more than forty accidents on the suddenly jinxed bridge, the CHP said, as reported by KTVU TV’s website.

The truck hit the curve at 50 m.p.h., which is the speed limit for much of the bridge, but not for the S-curve, a temporary detour installed over the Labor Day weekend as part of the decade-long Bay Bridge earthquake retrofit project. After a big rig crashed on the curve Oct. 14, spilling cargo across four lanes, CalTrans lowered the speed limit on the curve to 35 m.p.h. and installed new signs, but evidently they weren’t enough to draw the attention of a sleepy produce truck driver in the middle of the night.

The driver was killed when the truck went over the guardrail and plunged 200 feet to the ground on the shore of Yerba Buena Island.

Quoted in the SFGate.com story, a CalTrans spokesman blamed the driver, saying the crash was “another example of poor judgment.”

A reel of “raw video” on the KPIX website shows the impact scene before dawn, including a grotesque image of the driver’s severed forearm and hand.

Just another day in paradise

Mark Pritchard — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:26:31 +0000

From the Craigslist Rants and Raves section, just today:

A woman hates her ex because he poisoned San Francisco for her.
A “fatal hipster” neglected his girlfriend at Whole Foods.
“Mystery liquid on my floor this morning.”

Finally:

You humans are so weak, with your stupid rants. You think you so mighty! go fight a rhino or elephant! You all should leave this planet! Go to Saturn!

The cost of living in the Bay Area

Mark Pritchard — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:24:42 +0000

A liberal think tank, the Urban Land Institute, has issued a report on the cost to working people of living in the Bay Area. The report, Bay Area Burden, examines the impact on working people of high costs of housing and transportation, looks at how proximity to mass transit helps relieve the burden, and asks policymakers to take working people’s needs into account when making land use decisions.

Their website, bayareaburden.org, has a Housing + Transportation Calculator that’s fun to play with.

Hey, it’s an election

Mark Pritchard — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:39:03 +0000

It’s election day! Who knew? In San Francisco, the only interesting thing on the ballot is Prop. D., the proposal to put giant Times Square-type advertising signs on Market Street in order to “enliven” it.

Are they kidding? Apparently not. Here are some arguments in favor and a Chronicle editorial against. And here is the whole list of issues and candidates running, including City Atty. Dennis Herrera (unopposed).

Go to the SF Dept of Elections for results tonight.

Flickr photo of Times Square by Scott Beale at Laughing Squid.

Tonight: Dia de los Muertos (no drumming)

Mark Pritchard — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:34:13 +0000

Tonight’s the annual Dia de los Muertos event in the Mission. Unlike previous years, the procession starts at 24th and Bryant rather than in front of the Mission Cultural Center. The event starts at 7:00 p.m.

Bring pictures of dead loved ones, wear black, feel free to dress in skeletal attire. Kids are welcome.

Just a note to tribal/Burning Man types: leave your freaking bongo drums at home, OK?

Psych! Bridge reopens at 9:00 this morning

Mark Pritchard — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:41:37 +0000

After announcing the Bay Bridge would not reopen in time for the morning commute, CalTrans announced about 8:20 this morning that the bridge would be reopening by 9:00 a.m. The reopening follows five and a half days of blame, angst, repair, testing and inspection after a previous emergency fix broke last week on Tuesday afternoon.

Don’t count on Monday morning bridge reopening

Mark Pritchard — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:48:29 +0000

Safety engineers were still testing the most recent repairs to the Bay Bridge over the weekend, and the word mid-Sunday afternoon is: don’t count on the bridge being available for the Monday morning commute. Better plan alternatives. Update @ 5:20 pm: That’s confirmed, no Monday morning on the bridge.

Pictures show an eerily empty toll plaza, an eerily empty bridge, and stuffed BART trains. Meanwhile, a car thief blew through barricades in San Francisco and led police on a chase over the closed bridge, and most people in San Francisco today completely forgot there was any problem at all, since it’s a gorgeous, sunny, warm 1st of November.