[via nomined]

I’ll get my shovel.

[via @concernedpanda]

Whenever I see a cool car around the neighborhood, I take pictures and send them to my pal Eric up in Portland who runs Other People’s Things, my favorite car blog. He responds with some knowledge and we post the results here and it’s called “Car Beat.” Here’s what Eric has to say about this sporty little ride:

That is one nice Fiat you found. It’s a late model Panda, but that’ could mean a lot- this bodystyle was made from 1991-2003. It’s also the “4×4 Trekking” model, which puts it in the the hall of fame of amazing 4WD subcompacts alongside the Subaru Justy, Toyota Corolla All Trac, Civic Wagon, and the Panda’s Russian cousin the Lada Niva.

While I am no expert when it comes to import laws, this car poses a bit of a mystery if its legally tagged, as it is newer than 25 years old, which technically makes it illegal to drive in the United States. Nevertheless, it’s an an eccentric’s dream car, slow, (relatively) reliable, durable and Italian. That’s not a combination that you hear too often. Love that grille badge as well, it almost makes up for those ridiculous Italian graphics on the rear quarter.

Thanks, Eric! Gosh, I love sporty Fiats.

How do you celebrate when you’ve just hit three home runs in a World Series game? You head to the Mission to your favorite restaurant and convince the owner to open up for you, even though the kitchen was already closed.

Pablo Sandoval, his older brother (and uncanny look-alike) Michael and a few friends went straight from AT&T Park to Limon, the Peruvian restaurant on Valencia, on Wednesday night. The restaurant closes at 10, and Sandoval wasn’t finished with his postgame demands until well after 9:30. But being a star slugger has its perks.

“You have to open up after he homers three times,” said owner and chef Martin Castillo. “He’s a great customer. We always go the extra mile for him.”

Read on.

(Thanks, TK!)

[via The Crab and Monkey]

I’ve always been fascinated with the dynamic between these grizzled Chinese cooks and their young, hip, culinary hot-shot restaurant-mates. In case you never bothered to look up at the sign, Mission Chinese Food rents its space from Lung Shan and has essentially taken over. Lung Shan’s menu is now largely ignored.

Mission Chinese chef Danny Bowien mentioned that the owners have operated the restaurant decades and never seemed concerned that business was slow, they just liked having a place to hang out. Sure enough, if you ever go in on a weekday during off-hours you’ll see them sitting at the round table in the back chatting and reading the papers. When you order something off their menu, one of them casually gets up, strolls to the kitchen, and cooks it.

I hear a lot of criticism of Mission Chinese Food from Asian Americans for not being authentic enough, notably from my parents who are restaurant owners themselves. But I don’t think that’s the point. Bowien has always admitted  that he’s still learning to cook Chinese food. Still, it’s clear his fresh approach has struck a chord with a generation that these old-timers could never reach.

Chinese food has sadly taken a turn towards the junk food genre in America, being generalized a cheap take-out experience. Did you know that Panda Express is in the running for the “Best of Milpitas” list in the category of “Best Chinese (overall)”? Shocking. Sometimes it takes an outsider to break out of the mold.

Me? I like both the old and the new. My grandfather was a cook in a restaurant much like Lung Shan while I was a kid. At home, his food wasn’t gourmet, but I’ll never forget such fusion creations as “vienna sausage fried rice” and “fried fish with ketchup”. Not exactly traditional. He also was fond of peanut butter and cheese sandwiches, something that I urge all discerning palates to try.

Sometimes I feel the urge to dust off my shitty 1st-grade-level Cantonese and ask these guys about how they feel about this new crop of oddly-dressed kids dining in their restaurant. But I’m sure they would answer like many folks of their generation do, with a subdued shrug and “business is good.”

Update:

Arlo tells us that the photos are by Alanna Hale. More great photos of the Lung Shan gang are on her site and tumblr.

(Thanks, @katchatters!)

Pablo Sandoval apparently ate at El Farolito last night and all I got was this crappy picture. Sorry, folks. I’m no good as a paparazzi.

I was in line by myself and the three guys in front of me started freaking out after he walked out. “Dude! That was Pablo Sandoval!” That kind of thing. I need to pay more attention.

If you want to tell your friends what you’re doing this Saturday night, just make the above hand motion and say, “FOG AND LASER.” And then shoot a laser out your sleeve.

Here’s the deal:

Our running joke for the ‘FOG’ in Fog & Laser is that it stands for “Free of Genre” and we plan to hold ourselves true to this mantra. As a kitchen sink/anything goes/party jam kind of night, one might hear anything from 60s soul to 80s crowd pleasers. Anything from 90s guilty pleasures to the best electro cuts from 2005. A large emphasis will be placed on emerging indie and electronic music but that’s not to say we’ll hold ourselves back from playing a great forgotten punk tune here or a Smiths b-side there.

[...]

Did we mention fog machines and lasers?!! Of course this is one of the reasons it was so easy for us to name the event… but we do plan to up the fun even further with special guests, laser backdrop photo portraits, and great drink specials.

LASER BACKDROP PHOTO PORTRAITS. Rickshaw Stop, this Saturday, only $7. RSVP and invite your friends here.

[Hand modeling by Dennis Kernohan] [Disco epaulet by Tag Savage]

Full press release after the jump:

Fog & Laser’s first ever official kick-off extravaganza will take place on Saturday,
April 23rd, 2011 at The Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco, CA. In a nutshell,
the party will be just that: A large club/dance
floor + fog machines + lasers + great music (from any genre) to dance to.
Host DJs EmDee & RamblinWorker will be behind the decks
as your guides to the music portion of this equation. Rather than attempting to go into any great detail in defining the exact types of music
that will get played, let’s just say that if we think it will be fun on the dance floor, then it might get played. Our running joke for the ‘FOG’ in Fog & Laser is that it stands for “Free of Genre” and we plan to hold ourselves true to this mantra. As a kitchen sink/anything goes/party jam kind of night, one might hear anything from 60s soul to 80s crowd pleasers. Anything from 90s guilty pleasures to the best electro cuts from 2005. A large emphasis will be placed on emerging indie and electronic music but that’s not to say we’ll hold ourselves back from playing a great forgotten punk tune here or a Smiths b-side there.
With over a decade of DJ experience (Rockbox/Club Lovely/Club Neon/Debaser),
Matthew Davis (EmDee) and Steve MacDonald (Ramblinworker) both feel the time is right in San Francisco to have a party like Fog & Laser. Back in 2004, Steve and Matthew were co-founders of a legendary SFbased party known as Club Neon that took place at
The Makeout Room. Along with a few others we created a weekly party that literally had no rules except to have fun with friends and play the music we loved.
We often featured guest DJs and emerging bands—something we plan to do at
Fog & Laser as well when it hopefully finds a home as a monthly reoccuring event.
Did we mention fog machines and lasers?!! Of course this is one of the reasons it was so easy for us to name the event… but we do plan to up the fun even further with special guests, laser backdrop photo portraits, and great drink specials.
++
When: Saturday, April 23, 2011 – 155 Fell Street – SF, CA 94102
Where: Rickshaw Stop
Time: 9-2am
Cost: an economical $7
additonal details and to RSVP: www.facebook.com/fogandlaser

100+ bands you might hear loudly at Fog & Laser

40 Thieves
Active Child
Anoraak
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti
Azari & III
Bag Raiders
Black Strobe
Black Van
Boom Clap Bachelors
Bowie, Davis
Bot’Ox
Cash, Johnny
Cassius
Chateau Marmont
Crystal Castles
Cut Copy
Daft Punk
Depeche Mode
Destroyer
Digitalism
Dominant Legs
Dream Cop
DMX Krew
Eels
Electric Light Orchestra
Guincho, El
Flight Facilities
Foals
Franz Ferdinand
Fruit Bats
Gold Panda
Golden Bug
Golden Silvers
Gonjasufi
Harris, Calvin
Hi Tiger
Holy Ghost!
Hot Chip
Hundred In The Hands, The
Islands
Jackson, Michael
Jam, The
Joy Division
JR Seaton
Juan Maclean, The
Junip
Kelly, R.
Kids of 88
King, Evelyn Champagne
Kisses
Kraftwerk
Krystal Klear
LCD Soundsystem
Lionni, Tony
London Beat
Lynyrd Skynyrd
M83
Matthew Dear
Memory Cassette
Miami Horror
Minks
Mock & Toof
MSTRKRFT
Munk
Mustang
My Robot Friend
Neon Indian
New Order
New Young Pony Club
Nightriders
Of Montreal
Pacific!
Passion Pit
Penguin Prison
Phenomenal Handclap Band
Prince
Pulp
Radio Dept., The
Ra Ra Riot
Robyn
Ross, Diana, & The Supremes
Sadier, Lætitia
Smith Westerns
Smiths, The
Snowden
Soccio, Gino
Soft Cell
Soulwax
Spoon
Starfucker
Style Council
Suuns
Talking Heads
Tame Impala
Tapes ‘n Tapes
Tellier, Sébastien
Telonius
Tepr
The The
Thieves Like Us
Tiga
Tomboy
Toro Y Moi
T. Rex
Trickski
Turner, Ike & Tina
Twin Shadow
Vondelpark
Washed Out
Wild Nothing
Woolfy vs Projections
Yacht
Yelle
Young, Karen
Young Galaxy
Zombies, The
Zongamin

See you,
Steve
Ps, we did a test set up @ Rickshaw Stop today.

It’s going to be nuts!

SF Giants game tickets (3 pairs)
SIGNED Monte Ellis jersey!
Mas Sake – dinner gift certificates
Bocce’s Cellar – dinner gift certificates
Marin Bikes Factory Outlet – Tshirts and goodies
DVD set – Dreamworks bonus DVD set – with How To Train Your Dragon (2 DVD bonus set), Kung Fu Panda (2 DVD bonus set), And the original Shrek on DVD
Video game set – Shrek Smash n Crash Racing Gameboy Advance Game, PS2 Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, PS2 Karaoke Revolution Volume 3, XBox Toe Jam & Earl III, PC CD game Happy Potter, XBox 360 Kung Fu Panda game
Gourmet S’mores Book
Taylor Williams Massage – One hour therapeutic massage
Chien Center (Santa Cruz – Cindy Rasmussen) Massage – one hour
Chrome – messenger bag
Bar Crudo – $50 gift certificate
Reproduction photograph of Buster Posey – signed
Baseball signed by Travis Ishikawa
Photograph signed by Travis Ishikawa
2 passes to the Monterey Bay Aquarium – good for up to one year

Whoa! So this’s an event called Japan Aid SF, takes place tomorrow at the Make-Out Room. Bands will play, prizes will be raffled off:

RSVP and invite your friends here. Buy advance tickets (and raffle tickets) here. (You do not have to be present to win a raffle prize.)

Did you get a chance to spend some time and chill out in one of those temporary parklets this past Friday?  If not, here’s a peek at what you missed at PARKing Day 2010.  [Disclaimer:  NO SAVESIES were used in the commandeering of these parking spots]

As expected, the longtime PARKing veterans in front of Lost Weekend and Ritual Coffee went all out with a 3-meter spot featuring a camping ground complete with a tent on top of real sod and a portable forest of potted plants.  Attention to detail such as the inclusion of a panda clinched a mention as one of the best parklets of the day.

Similarly, the fine folks at SPUR also created a parklet so kickin’ it probably would have qualified for their useful map of POPOS (Privately-Owned Public Open Spaces) had it been a permanent thing.

Despite the fact that not all the parklets were as thoughtfully orchestrated, that didn’t stop people from getting into the spirit of the day.  As this fellow proves, all you really needed was a swatch of AstroTurf and a juvenile tree.

Or a kiddie pool and some sandbags . . .

Even the City tried to get involved, and while their effort and enthusiasm were commendable, their execution was found to be lacking.

And it looks like these people finally finished their “Park in front of a Park” installation. Pretty good compared to their slow start earlier in the morning.

Overall, another fine excuse for San Franciscans to not go to work for a day.  See you next year!

The photo comes from something called Pristine Parks Project, from their photo set Dolores Park – July 15, 2010. It’s a bunch of photos of stuff people left on the ground at Dolores Park.

I don’t want to get all political, but this captures the Mission experience just about right, right?

Photo by nomadjim.

Word on the street is that neighbors are furious that the old panda and bamboo mural at 14th and Valencia was painted over with this.  Eh, I kinda like it.

(More work-in-progress pictures)