Mission Mission

The buzzer at Oddball Film.

Bay Citizen just published a piece on Judd Apatow’s new book, a humor collection that features some cartoons like the above and benefits 826. Here the filmmaker discusses his involvement with the popular charity:

I help out raising money for 826 LA. Last year, we did a big benefit that was a parody of benefits. We paid tribute to Seth Rogen for the charity work he had not done yet. and had all these big stars paying tribute to him. It was $10,000 a table but we served Kentucky Fried Chicken and Red Bull.

Click here to read several more tidbits about Apatow’s craft and upcoming projects and watch the accompanying video.

Buy (or learn more about) the book here.

Frickety Fresh (taker of this picture and author of this post’s title) wants to know.

I love this picture, and this picture wouldn’t exist had someone not tagged this plant, so……….. GREY AREA!!

Our buddy Mike Chino spotted this sexy little love note right out front San Jalisco (formerly Los Jarritos). No stopping. Don’t stop. Don’t stop, Daddy.

It had to happen sooner or later given the jungle-like chaos of Market Street.  You may have witnessed it yourselves from time to time, or possibly have been inconvenienced while waiting on piled-up Muni buses from an occurrence several blocks ahead.  You just never expect it to happen to you.

First, a little back story:  I was hustling down Market on my bicycle as I usually do and crossed New Montgomery onto that weird block where vehicles in the right lane turn onto 2nd Street while the cheese-gratered left lane is reserved for through-traffic.  Knowing this, I stayed in the left lane while also being careful to avoid the treacherous Muni tracks and BART vents when all of a sudden a taxi cab pulled out directly in front of me from the line of cars waiting in the right lane. 

I only had time to yell before I collided with the window above the rear left door side and tumbled onto the pavement (I’m sure his passenger was quite surprised as well).  I popped back up (as many bikers do instantly after getting in accidents of various severity–why does this happen so often???) and walked over to the side of the road where a bunch of bystanders immediately came over to see how I was doing. 

I was actually overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who stopped to help.  One kind woman even offered to take me upstairs to her office so I could wash up in the restroom (my elbow was bleeding quite a bit).  Another person walked by and asked what happened, to which a witness responded, “That crazy taxi just hit that guy!”  Someone else said, “I’m calling the police.”  Just as I mumbled, “Oh, please don’t do that,” a squad car pulled up behind and buzzed the siren.

Before I could say anything, another person exclaimed “That taxi over there hit him!”  The officer asked if I was injured and required any medical attention, but I said I just needed something to soak up my now quite-bloody arm, which he quickly provided.  Then he went over to get the taxi driver who had been waiting in his cab after pulling to the curb.  Since I wasn’t too badly hurt, the officer said he was just going to provide collision information cards for the driver to fill out in case I woke up the next day and couldn’t move.

The cab driver, a young and polite African fellow, was terrified, however.  While the officer was getting the cards from his car, the cabbie pleaded with me, begging me not to report anything, saying he would lose his job and imploring me with sad details about his family.  He kept repeating “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, please, tell the man, please,” over and over again.  I told him I felt fine and didn’t think I would have to make a statement or anything, but I just wanted his info as a precaution in case I ended up with some freak injury once the adrenalin wore off.  At the same time, I also warned him that he needed to be much more careful in the future, especially on a crazy street like Market, and that the move he pulled would have been unsafe under any circumstances.

With the situation resolved, we all went on our separate ways.  Hopefully the whole incident left a lasting impression on the cab driver so he drives a little more carefully from now on!  It’s not like he did it on purpose, but there’s a reason why cabbies in this city have such a notorious reputation.  As for me, hopefully my sore elbow won’t affect my drumming during the recording we’re planning on doing in the coming weeks.  It could easily have been much worse, so I’m happy that we were all able to walk away and go about the rest of our day.  Be careful out there, folks!

Previously:

Pedestrian Struck by Taxi on Market; Muni gives up

Cyclist Down at Fremont and Market

Cyclist Dead After Hit and Run Collision

Creep In An SUV Targeted 4 Cyclists Last Night

Hey, babes. According to my Facebook wall, Ryan Christopher Parks (A.K.A. Boots Hamilton) requires your presence at his performance tomorrow night at Amnesia:

I don’t understand the Dave Winfield reference either, but Ryan is a sweetheart, despite all the yelling. And I hear he’s a musical genius, despite this YouTube video. RSVP via Facebook event page here.

That what exactly?

I tried Google to no avail:

Lisa Everydayphotos asks:

Hey! I’m about to make a big decision and upgrade from my shitty flip phone to a smart phone. My question is this:

Do I get an iphone or is at&t service in the Mission as bad as everyone says? I’m hoping to harness the wisdom of highly opinionated Missionites and hear whether at&t is really as absolutely awful as they say. Worth just staying with my current plan and just getting the Droid I keep hearing about.

Any chance I can spark some heated debate here?

First of all, don’t knock the flip phones. Ever hear of a little blog called honeyjets? Those photos are all RAZR, baby. Secondly, this will get ugly. The last time Kat mentioned buying an iPhone in passing, it got a shitstorm response that totally overshadowed her actual post.

Full disclosure: I am an obsessive iPhone user. I just got 3 stars on every level in the first world of Angry Birds. That takes at least 250 hours of use. But, I also happen work in a  job that lets me test every major smartphone that hits the market, so I definitely have somewhat informed opinions on this matter… none of which I will use here.

I think the iPhone is way more fun to use, and it’s operating system is just more smooth and polished. I don’t make too many voice calls, so I can’t honestly speak accurately to how reliable AT&T is in the Mission. I have never had any major problems, but 80% of my calls last five months in the Mission were, “Where are you sitting? Oh I see you.” I’ve noticed a few problems in other neighborhoods, the Haight mostly. Battery life stinks. It doesn’t bail on me mid-day, but I have to charge it every night. The apps, maps, and web browser are the best. The camera and video on the iPhone 4, to my eyes, are about as good as it gets.

Android phones can do pretty much everything you care about, but it’s a bit more clunky. If you’re not coming from an iPhone you probably wont notice at all. There’s not as many quality apps available. All of this is going nowhere but up and they will catch up in all those categories soon. One other problem is that updates to Android OS are carrier-specific, so if your phone doesn’t sell well from their perspective, it wont be kept up to date with all the cool new stuff from Google. That can be a bummer. Perks are you don’t need iTunes to use it, tight Gmail/Gcal/Geverything integration, way better customization, and of course, carrier options (VERIZON).

If you care a lot about voice calls and being able to bang out text messages on a hardware keyboard, get the Droid 2 on Verizon. You will be happier. If you want the best multimedia/internet experience and will settle for mediocre voice performance (AT&T), it’s still hard to beat the iPhone 4.

Wow, I just re-read the question and realized I didn’t really answer it at all. Good luck.

Readers: what do you think? Here, I’ll save you some time. Check one:

[  ] NERD RAAGE! I DISAGREE WITH EVERYTHING

[  ] YOU’RE ALL YUPPIES, I USE A ROTARY

[Photo by TerryJohnston]

Mission-based Pirate Cat Radio has been through some tough times. Last year, they were fined $10,000 by the FCC and forced to limit their streams to the internet exclusively.

Now they have an unique opportunity to take the “Pirate” out of “Pirate Cat” and get a legitimate FM license. Yup, they want to become a real, legal radio station. Does this mean we’ll be hearing more Red Hot Chili Peppers on their playlists? Because, let me tell you, I just don’t get enough of those guys on the radio.

The only obstacle is an astronomical fee of $60,000. In two weeks. If they had a soundboard, this is where they would cue the reverse slide whistle.

They’re going to have to sell a shit-ton of coffee to get there, but you can help them out on their kickstarter campaign. Pledging $25 gets you a T-shirt and a sticker. So if you like what they do, help them out and wish them luck.

[More info at Pirate Cat Radio]

Soccer Karate tells us all about “a dugout prank to fill the catcher’s equipment with helium” here. Go Giants!