Mission Mission

This just in from Andrew W.:

Hey San Francisco! We’re in town still and want to keep giving you ice cream, so we got together with our friends in Still Flyin’ and are doing just that.

Tonight at 6:30 in Dolores Park we are having a free ice cream social as well as a mini show from Still Flyin’ that we’ll be recording for Road Trippin’ with Ice Cream Man.

So get over those mid-week blues with some upbeat music and delicious Ben & Jerry’s treats!

If the music video for the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today” is any indication, ice cream and rock music is an awesome combination.

The current theory held by residents of the building that burned this Saturday is that the blaze was started by by a recently-evicted tenant. The disgruntled tenant allegedly set a mattress on fire and left the gas stove on as an act of revenge. SF Appeal has more on this development.

I have a couple of friends who lived in the building who lost a great deal of their belongings. It’s not the fire that causes all the damage. Water from the sprinklers does a lot of harm, too. I hope for their sake they find this (alleged) asshole.

As you may have heard, there was also an unrelated shooting involving three victims on the corner of 17th and Mission later that evening. Not a good night for that block.

[Photo by Army of Robots]

Previously:

Fire on 16th and Caledonia

Looks like the now open Commonwealth decided to keep the unearthed Hunt’s Quality Donuts sign for the time being. The El Herradero sign was not so fortunate.

Wanna bet that they’ll have a tribute donut dish on the menu? I can’t go there yet because they politely asked us early donor certificate holders to chill for a few weeks while they get off the ground.

Our business manager would like me to add: “As you know, cash management is a challenge for new businesses. We’d really like Commonwealth to be around for the long term, and these first few weeks are key. Ask them to wait a little bit, maybe a month, before using the gift certificates.”

[Photo by David Gallagher]

Previously:

Adios, El Herradero

Unmasking the Past

“I’m right by the big-ass unicorn balloon.”

[via We Built This City]

MIT’s Copenhagen Wheel just took the 2010 James Dyson Award for the US.

Here’s what it is:

• A self-charging motorized rear wheel that fits on existing bicycles
• A trip/traffic planner that syncs with your docked smart phone
• A social networking tool (throwing social networking into everything is the new putting a clock into everything)

See the demo video for more information:

At a projected cost of $600 per wheel, not to mention a big red “steal me” target of a design, I think you’d better get a good cable lock for this sucker if it ever becomes a reality. But from the sound of things, it may be GPS equipped meaning you might be able to track it down if it gets lost.

Go ahead, purists, tell us all about how this is the worst thing to happen to cycling.

[via core77]

Meli at Bikes and the City met this MacGuyver of bike rear view mirrors. I love the idea, but I wonder how he cut the mirror or if he just found one that fits.

Quick, without peeking, what kind of beer is that cap from? Head over to Bikes and the City for the answer.

Whoops.

This is news to me, but MUNI buses are equipped with front-facing cameras that have been used to spot parking violations since 2008. Due to a software glitch involving daylight savings time, the city issued 4 months of bad parking tickets. Either that, or MUNI buses are equipped with hidden flux capacitors.

ABC has the scoop:

Through a California Public Records Act request, the I-Team has confirmed the cameras on 17 buses failed to switch over to Daylight Saving Time in March, and that technicians didn’t catch the problem until the end of June.  The time was off by one hour, so the city issued 510 bad tickets during those months.

So if you’ve been ticketed recently, you might be entitled to a refund. Check the full list of affected tickets or give the SFMTA a call on your cell phone, which contains a clock that is far more advanced than that of a MUNI bus.

[via Dan Noyes at abc7news.com]

OMG the Mish! was all “OMG!” over this mural of Valencia Street on the wall South End Grill ‘n’ Bar. Look closely and you can spot Omer the rocker (aka Bum Jovi)!

If you want another challenge, see if you also spot the six things that are missing from this mural. Answers over at OMGTM.

Planning for the proposed park on 17th and Folsom is shaping up nicely.

The current design includes such non-standard park fare as a community garden area, an outdoor classroom, greenhouses, rain-collecting barrels, and even “demonstration gardens for wildlife habitat and water conservation”. Holy crap, was this thing designed by EarthFirst?

As if that weren’t enough, the park also features espaliered fruit tree fences and a bioswale! What, you don’t know what those are? Good thing Curbed SF did this thing called “research” that we casual bloggers keep hearing about:

And so you don’t have to look them big words up: a bioswale is a planted filter for water runoff from paved areas, sort of a ditch with a reason. Espalier, originally French and both a noun and a verb, is the technique of training a plant, most commonly a fruit tree, to grow on a grid or a fence.

[via Curbed SF]

Hey, remember the 90′s? Remember Puck from the The Real World SF ’94? Well times are hard, even for homophobic bike messengers named after hockey equipment.

Puck’s own ZO messenger bag is for sale on Ebay, along with a bunch of his other junk collectively called “Puck’s Treasures“. They don’t come with certificates of authenticity, so who knows if they are legit. I guess that sorta fat guy posing with the gear could be him; I don’t really remember what he looks like. But then again, if you’re actually interested in buying this crap, maybe I don’t care if you get ripped off or not.

Suddenly, I feel the urge to have a Real World ’94 marathon at Bender’s. Does anyone have these on tape?

[Thanks to Millie Castro for the tip]