Mission Mission

Today, my epic Midwestern road trip has brought me to Indianapolis. Fearing for my safety, my friend Bri (a real-live Indianan) sent me a link to a post on Take a Breather called “Indiana McCain and the Obama of Doom”:

Two nights ago, a friend (and Iraq War veteran) was walking down the sidewalk wearing an Obama 2008 shirt when a man, eating dinner with his wife looked up and said, “So, you’re a communist?”

That same night, a person in the bar shared this story with my friend: “I was wearing an Obama shirt in here the other night and three guys surrounded me and started harassing me about the shirt. Realizing I was outnumbered, I asked them what they would like me to do. They made me turn my shirt inside-out.”

Another recent evening, I was driving my mom’s car, which has an Obama bumper sticker on it. As I was using a drive-thru ATM, a truck pulled up behind me and began chanting Obama’s name out his window, but not in a good way. More like a tone that invoked the ghosts of the KKK. I didn’t look back, I just pulled away and acted like I didn’t hear them.

And then there’s this zinger, brought to light by an acquaintance: “I hope every racist person in America comes out and votes against Obama.”

Indiana is an interesting place.

Lots more analysis here. So yeah, I guess I won’t be donning the “Fuck Cars” t-shirt I picked up this afternoon in Bloomington until I get back to California. Thanks, Bri!

Everybody’s favorite internet cafe/place to get Mexican Coke, Redtap, has posted special recession hours. Haha. (Thanks, Alexandra!)

Evany, in a post titled Cafe Platitude (ha!), sums up everyone’s (most everyone’s) thoughts on everyone’s (most everyone’s) favorite neighborhood raw-food haunt:

Sadly their food is kind of tasty, jerks. But their whole shitty concept makes me so crabby, I refuse to interact with them. So like a kid getting someone to buy wine coolers at the 7-11, I sent my friend Megan (who speaks hippie) up to the Cafe Gratitude at the farmers market (where of course they have a booth), and she purchased me three I Am Insightfuls as I stood off to the side, trying not to faint from rolling my eyes so hard. As the guy handed back the change, he asked Megan, his face all punch-me-in-the-face-please serene, “So what core value do you care about most?”

Read the whole thing here.

Scott Scotch Wichmann reports:

Suddenly I heard the high-pitched pops of Chinese firecrackers right outside the restaurant’s front window—one, then two more, then yelling, then something in my gut made me whisper, “Get down!” and I grabbed the wife and we hit the concrete floor about the same moment as everyone else. We heard more pops and people running outside. I glanced up and saw women in dresses sprawled flat, men in suits, busboys, waiters, napkins, bits of food…anybody looking in from outside would’ve seen a desolate restaurant full of empty chairs.

See the full story here.

Previously on Mission Mission:

Best Pesto in the World is at Farina?

I saw one of these at the Louisville Zoo yesterday and it blew my mind and I wanted to share. Link to Maned Wolf entry on Wikipedia.

Photo by LoquaciousD

The sound in this video is not ideal, but just watch her throttle the bejesus out of that little hollow-body guitar during the solos. Granted, it’s not the most amazing soloing in the world, but they make it work. They’re called Agent Ribbons and they’re from Sacramento, and they’re playing tonight at the Knockout. It will be good.

Remember that guy that got his ass kicked after binge drinking at Zeitgeist — and drinking beer before liquor? We kind of had a laugh at his expense, but today he defended himself in the comments section, and totally won us over:

But yes, the old adage, “beer before liquor.” I have to admit, that was my one juvenile mistake. My only excuse is that I’m new to SF and I was so awestruck to be living in this city that my judgment was temporarily skewed, which led me to continuously imbibe until I ended up a jack ass. Go ahead, you can haze me like a freshman now.

Anyway, the whole point of my missed connection was to hopefully make right a possible squabble, or just have peace of mind knowing that I fell down the stairs to the BART and only hurt myself, no one else. Please rest assured that my behavior was the result of basic human error and I’m not wandering your streets waiting to menace you. I’m just a guy with a black eye trying to smile about it.

Well, welcome to SF, and yeah we know it can be really awestriking and judgment-skewing, so be careful out there.

Telstar Logistics just uploaded this gorgeous vintage shot. Look how pretty the peak is without so much gear heaped atop it. Link.

So I started following it too. We’ll see what happens. Link.

Tree over at the Free Farm Stand extends an open invitation to participate in some real-life bee handling in the coming weeks:

The bees in our backyard are working their butts off and have produced probably another five gallons of honey. So I have put in a request for the extractor and plan to do the honey thing on Monday August 18^th. If anyone wants to learn more about bees and beekeeping and can help out at the same time please contact me.

Link. In light of the popularity of our account of the neighborhood’s recent bout with an unruly swarm, we’d assume lots of you would jump at the chance to get in on this golden opportunity.

Photo by wolfpix.