http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/7/17_Rice_Pudding_Wednesday.html

Recently I have been labeling the days of the week with something such as
Sandwich Friday. I do not believe in Taco Tuesday but I would not be sad if
a Taco Truck<http://images.google.com/images?q=taco%20truck&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-us:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=utf-8&sa=n&hl=en&tab=wi>would
park outside my apartment.

For the third Wednesday in a row I found myself in the Rice Pudding District
on Polk Street <http://www.yelp.com/biz/loving-cup-san-francisco> waiting to
go into Tonic. They are times when drinks are not that interesting and that
was one of them but I am probably a price
sensitive<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/price_elasticity_of_demand>drinker
(You learn economics reading my blog/reviews!).

A budweiser for more than $2 is not a special.
OK so I was in the Rice Pudding joint for the third time in three weeks. The
music is always good. Spoke to the Rice Pudding opposite of fred
<http://web.mac.com/hydra9/base_fred/base_fred.html> and she said she was
able to bring in her iPod. Good thing I was not working or we would be
listening to the theme from the Mary Tyler Moore
Show<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcl3b5lguco>.

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/7/12_8_Miles_and_Half_Manhattan.html


Took the BART from Balboa park. I am not sure if I ever did that.


I ran eight miles or to/from the Ferry Building to the Sports Basement. For
the most part I felt pretty good.

The farmers market is a bit RWP. I will stick to Seramonte.


Post run I wanted some Pizza and found a place called Rosanero
Pizza<http://www.yelp.com/biz/rosanero-pizza-san-francisco>.
One of those dumb things that people say like “make the whole plane out of
the black box material” is “there is no such thing as bad pizza”. Well as I
wonder the earth I have seen LOADS of bad excuses for Pizza including one
purchased from a vending Mac Hine <http://wonderpizzausa.com/> and a seafood
pizza in Salisbury, England <http://www.visitwiltshire.co.uk/salisbury/home>.
Sometimes this places will claim they are New York Style. Happily this is
one of those placed that does Pizza right. I had a slice of cheese (my first
slice at any new place is always cheese because the simplicity allows for
proper judgement). The second slice was a much busier slice but still quite
good.

Later in the day made my way to Union Square to see the Woodsy Allen movie,
Manhattan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/manhattan_%28film%29>. Never met up
with my droogs and saw half but it was a fun night.

Some days I struggle for something witty and clever to title my blog entry.
Not everything can be a Magical Mystery Tour, sometimes it’s the White
Album. (I am not saying that the White Album is boots but rather the title
and the cover is sparse. Today is not one of those days as the title was
very simple. I was In Churchton, Maryland helping my day move some dirt and
mulch. When I was done moving the mulch from the back of the pick up truck I
noticed that the tire on the trailer was flat. We then tried to inflate but
there was a puncture. We then jacked up the trailer but the jack got stuck.
Luckily this was fixable and the tire fixing stuff worked. My dad then had
to go around the block in the tractor.

Then when the flat was repaired, he asked me, “do you have any problems with
snakes”. This could never be something good. I imagined myself as either
Indiana Jones or Samuel L Jackson. It turns out that a fairly long black
snake with a white belly (kind of like Sasha if she was a snake). So I moved
the mulch from trailer to the pile as a black snack watched me. Then when I
was finished, the snake decided to check out the tractor so I have the title
for the day which is “Snakes on a trailer” and yes, I had the camera and it
will be uploaded to YouTube.

In the near future I will be getting one, maybe two new animal friends. Most
likely a cat and possibly a dog.
Yesterday I when I was doing my laundry I remembered how Sasha liked to jump
into the middle of the warm laundry and she would sit there all day.
Also If I was going on a trip, she would protest so I would have to pack the
night before. She was not a huge fan of travel.

The big upside of the cat is that they are way more self reliant than dogs.

My two all time favorite dogs is Noel (a stray standard poodle) and Cosmo (a
german shorthaired pointer) but Crown Colony has a rule that on some level
makes sense, that you cannot have a dog over twenty pounds. I am also not a
big fan of the other dog owners in the complex as they think it is OK to
leave their dog surprise in the roadway.

So I am going to ask the board if I could be the exception to the dog size
rule. I could imagine explaining why I am allowed to have a Newfoundland.

Maybe I should put more effort in getting more dog sitting gigs. Perhaps I
could dog/house sit for Robin Williams as he goes off and makes one of those
movies.

With last week's passing of Michael Jackson I am thinking of a collaboration
with one of the Beatles that was the most stunningly mediocre portion of a
masterpiece. It was like Godfather III.

I am talking about of course, "The Girl is Mine"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y96mdVTMByk

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y96mdvtmbyk>It is as if
*Michelangelo<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1c1ggls_enus327us327&ei=k71ksv2-kylblafx0tas&sa=x&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=michelangelo&spell=1>
and *Leonardo <http://www.mos.org/leonardo/>*da
Vinci<http://www.mos.org/leonardo/> combined
their talents and designed a storage unit. *
*
*
*Here is the Wikipedia entry on The Girl is Mine*
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Is_Mine*
*The writing of both the music and lyrics is lazy and uninteresting. What is
amazing is that the song reached number 2 on the billboard charts and sold
over a million copies. *
*
*
*Both Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney are geniuses. *
*
*
***People stop me on the street and ask me about my favorite Beatles song to
which I have a standard answer. There is quite a bit of Michael Jackson's
music with both the Jackson 5 and as a solo artist that is good but I have
never thought, you know I have not heard, "The Girl is Mine" in a while. *
*
*
*The album Thriller is a stunning masterpiece/landmark but its first single
is a monument to the ordinary and mundane. *
*
*

If you get a chance, check out a website we put together
ronaldi.org

We are raising money for the leukemia and Lymphoma society & The Parkinson's
Institute.

I am really glad that I am dog sitting this week. They have been a welcome
distraction.
This morning I got up to discover that they helped me out by fixing their
own breakfast this morning. They made a bit of a mess out of the cereal
variety pack and the box of power bars. If I ever had to write a book and it
had to be short, it would be called, "Things that labs refuse to eat"

Last week when I was anticipating some future events I was thinking how
being frozen and then unfrozen would be a pretty good option. (thinking 1)
Buck Rogers 2) Futurama 3) Planet of the Apes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM0p9VHeoyA (WOW! this songs really sucks!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeJs0_26XMk&feature=related

Right now I am both sad and thankful but fast forwarding to the periods of
your life where you are eating circus peanuts and riding roller coasters is
an empty existence. I am not terribly religious but Buddhism deals quite a
bit with the inevitability of suffering.
http://www.pbs.org/edens/thailand/buddhism.htm
I do not believe in reincarnation, everyone says they were Napoleon but
accepting that In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and
unavoidable.

Here is a video of my Mom on her 68th Birthday in April of 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVpP-a5UlcQ

A lot has happened in the past five days. None of it was unexpected but
still hard.
I started the greatest Blog in 2002 as a way to communicate and share.

Not sure what I am supposed to write/not write.

In some ways I have been very lucky. My calorie drawer
http://tinyurl.com/nfwv8t has always been full.

I am dog sitting Raider and Brando this week in Palo Alto. It was Tuesday =
Pub Quiz so I was driving when the call came. I knew what the call was.

Pulled over into a parking lot (Blockbuster and Dennys) because I knew the
next moment would be cemented into my memory and I never go to Denny's or
Blockbuster.

One of the things that makes life special is that it is finite. You do not
know at the beginning how long the film will run. You can have an awesome
movie that is 90 minutes long (Up) or you can be in the theater for 3 hours
(Titanic, which I hated hated....)

My world is a slightly different place. Still figuring it out. Will probably
always figure it out and then it will change, and I will change...

Unless you have a blank square you cannot use the word Drizzle in Scrabble.
Driz_led would be a GREAT collection of words.
Anyway it is drizzling in San Francisco.
Looks like Futurama is coming back with more episodes and I heard the theme
from Buck Rogers. Made me think that it would be OK if I was frozen and
ended up in a future with easier space flight. It is interesting to see how
more advanced our cell phone technology is in the early 21st century
compared to the 1960's version of the 23rd century.

For whatever reason, I have not been the Greatest Blogger for the Greatest
Blog. I could imagine doing a Google search on that term and see I am no
longer on the front page due to my laziness.
First off, on Monday I saw Up
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/up/
which was really good. When I saw the preview in January I thought how
interesting could they make a movie about a guy who put a bunch of balloons
and flies his house. The people at Pixar did a bang up job once again.
Perhaps they could do a remake of Star Wars Episode I.
If you see the movie, spring to see it in 3D. It looks like the movie
industry has made a compelling reason to watch movies in the theater.
Also the first five minutes of the movie is really touching.

Onto Tuesday, played pub quiz with a bunch of randoms and we got it together
and finished. 3rd. One of my favorite names is Noel. Great name.

Yesterday I skipped the season finale for Kickball to run in the Duskbusters
and running is one of those up and down things, between a few factors the
last month has been down but I felt strong and I beat a dog in the race (No,
I did not beat a dog)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=263655&id=705175300&l=10c655fc84
A little bit slower than last year but faster than the horrible Bay to
Breakers.

I do not allow people to eat dairy products in my car even though my car is
older than the Dreamcast.

Saw from the stream of Facebook updates, that David Carradine would be the
subject of most of the pub quiz names next Tuesday. I did enjoy Kill Bill II
as I saw it during the brilliant, "free movies for people named Marcus...."

I read somewhere that my favorite band is the second best selling artist of
the decade, which is odd because I was blamed for the breakup of this band.
I am talking about the band that Paul McCartney was in prior to Wings!
called the Beatles.
Anyway I needed to set out for cold medication as I have a bit of a cold.
(If I turn out to have swine flu, and I meet my maker, it will be very
ironic.) Between my knee and my cold I am in the whole should I run or not.
I do not want to be getting anyone else sick so I am lying low.
Went to the Dollar Store in Pacifica and my expectations were second tier
items for a dollar and not my favorite Beatles song ever. I have pretty much
had the same favorite Beatles song since my oldest Brother gave me his 8
track collection when he went off to college. That song is I am the Walrus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yNcE8c3j2M
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Walrus
When a song is played in a store, they are many difference experiences going
on as the various people make a judgement or ignore the music all together.
I am sure if they would have given us all surveys about the music at that
time, my score would be the highest.

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/5/29_Knees_and_Poodles.html

So if you do a Google search on Greatest
Blog<http://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+blog&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-us:official&client=firefox-a>my
blog shows up at the top search result. On
Yahoo I am the second
result<http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=greatest%20blog&ei=utf-8>and
no one uses Microsoft anyway.

But to be honest I think this has been a week of sub par blogging mostly
related to Sandwiches I left in my car last week.

Quite a bit happened including a phantom knee injury and getting a knee
brace and sneezing quite a bit followed by an odd kickball game in Golden
Gate Park.

If you went to the BBQ on either Sunday or Monday, the Wedding Road Trip at
the Red Devil Lounge or the kickball game on Wednesday then your pictures
are here in one of the four boxes.

Hopefully I will be more inspired to write proper entries that are read by
well I am not sure who reads the Greatest Blog.

Like when I got a couple of good news and then I said, I am going to see
some standard poodles and then I did. Maybe I should aim a little higher.

So the origin of me going to this deli starts in the late 1970's when I was
a contestant on a kid's game show.
To make a long story short, I screwed up (did not identify a Robin) and ever
since then I wanted to go on a game show and redeem myself.
Its 2009 and I am planning on going to New York city. I check the Who Wants
to be a millionaire website and see they are having auditions so I change my
flight.
A couple of days before my flight my cat (Sasha) is not doing well. Would go
into the details but it is not relevant. Just remember, Sasha not feeling
well. So I take her to the vet and they give me loads of medication that I
need to give twice a day. It would be hard to get someone else to give her
the medication and I would be a stress ball so I decided to postpone my
trip.
Now besides seeing friends and family and redeeming myself on Millionaire,
my main motivation for going to New York was 1) slices of Pizza 2) Deli
Sandwiches. So I turned to my Facebook friends for ideas on Sandwiches. They
recommended Miller's East Coast Deli.
I order a Ruben with Swiss on rye. On accident they build a second sandwich
which they give to me for free. O happy day!
In addition I deliver quite a bit of food to a friend of mine with a jacked
up ankle and a cute dog.
I eat the first sandwich outside of the Marcusmobile, in fact I ate the
first half and I was full. I ate the second half of the first sandwich later
that day.
Now, I normally do not recommend using your car as a storage device but I
left the second sandwich in my car overnight. I am sure it is a recipe for
food poisoning but it was fairly cool.
Saturday morning I ran eight miles as part of a training group, was rather
hungry on the way back and remembered, hey you have a sandwich in the car
from yesterday, your bonus sandwich!!
So upon my return I got the day old sandwich from my car and ate it on the
couch in the Sports Basement (kudos to sports basement)
It was really good.
(On a side note, Sasha my cat is doing better, will see when I can try out
for who wants to be a Millionaire.)

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/5/24_A_bonus_sandwich.html


At this point, you know that my trip to New York city has been postponed.
Outside of seeing family and friends, my primary motivation was deli
sandwiches and slices of pizza. So I asked Facebook where should I go for a
New York style sandwich and they pointed me to the East West Deli.
For the second consecutive Deli trip, I got a bonus sandwich.
Delivered a bunch of food to a banged up Lucy’s Mom and took the little
muffin for a w

Prior to the bonfire went to the Park Chalet.
Went to the Urban Diversion
bonfire at Marshmallow Heights but did not bring my camera as sand and
cameras do not mix.

When I ran eight miles on Saturday morning I thought about the bonus
Sandwich which I ate inside the Sports Basement. It’s amazing how much of a
difference a few degrees colder makes my ability to run. Will probably skip
badwater.

Went to a BBQ in a very foggy San Francisco with my Wednesday kickball team.
A friend of one of the teammates brought up that no one brought mainstream
beers like Bud Light.

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/5/24_The_Menagerie_and_the_new_Star_Trek_movie_plus_bonfire_8_miles_and_BBQ.html

YouTube has an awesome feature where you can watch old TV shows and with the
X Box 360 you can stream to your TV.

Anyway when I went to see the new Star Trek movie I thought it was going to
(btw if you are going to see the movie do not read on) be more focused on
The Menagerie as that was the Enterprise pre-Kirk with Captain Pike.

But the movie was a whole other reality based on an alternate reality. Both
times Captain Pike got captured.

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/5/17_A_tough_Bay_to_Breakers.html

This is one of those days that I am taught a lesson. Bay to Breakers was
hot, not hot like back in the day (which is a relative term) when I used to
mow lawns.
One of my main motivations for moving (and staying) in the Bay Area is the
weather.
The first couple of miles I felt fine but going up the hill in the heat with
no real breeze I was wiped out. Got a second wind in the park and finished
well but I was chasing shade.
This means that for the time, I will limit my races to the city limits of
San Francisco.
Ran into after the race a host of characters as I turned around and so I
ended up run/walking almost a half marathon. I am walking funny.
Saw this guy drop $32 dollars and I picked it up, then ran after them and
gave it back to them as that was the right thing to do. Turns out some
friends of mine saw me in the act of not acting the fool.
Acted as a sherpa for various characters on public transit and the location
of clean bathrooms.

btw I finished the race in 86 minutes which was 14 minutes slower than last
year. I am still in tomorrow’s Examiner.

But like last year, It took me longer to get from the city to Daly City than
it took me to run the race.

This week, I have a dog guest. Her name is Lucy.
Anyway among her items she has is an item called a Kong. You put stuff in
the kong and it makes the dog happy.
Here is the equation, Kong + (Peanut Butter or Bits of Hot Dog or food) =
Happiness. If I just gave her the Kong, then it would not mean that much. A
bit of peanut butter brief happiness. But the challenge of getting the
peanut butter makes it that much better.
The struggle makes the Kong filled with peanut butter that much better than
just the Peanut Butter.

I have found the path to happiness, if I was a dog : )

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/5/11_Star_Trek_Do_not_read_if_you_are_planning_on_seeing_the_movie.html

I just got back from seeing the new Star Trek movie. They did a great job.
It was the second movie I saw with the Golden Gate Bridge.

I have always liked Star Trek but was never super into it beyond the
original series and the first six movies.

Do not read any further if you are planning on going to see the movie.

OK so here is my question, in the original series, I remember them hanging
out at Vulcan a few times. In this version of the movie the planet is
destroyed and Spock’s Mom is obviously killed. Is’nt this a bit different
from the original series?

On the way out I heard some people discussing the movie. I then asked them
and they informed me that Vulcan had not been destroyed.

Found the movie to be fun, exceeded expectations, kept my attention.

http://web.me.com/hydra9/Site_5/Blog/Entries/2009/5/9_Marcus_and_the_Monk.html

When I woke up, I did not think that “Why did the monk cross the
road?<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22why+did+the+monk+cross+the+road%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-us:official&client=firefox-a>”
would be anything besides a hilarious joke but was part of a short
misadventure where your humble
narrator<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22humble+narrator%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-us:official&client=firefox-a>sees
a monk on the wrong side of the ride as he goes to 24 Hour Fitness.
When I was done working out she was still there looking lost so I motioned
to safely cross the road. I asked her if she was lost and told me that she
needed to go to El Dorado.

I asked if she was a Monk and she said she was. Part of me expected to be
attacked by bandits <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/martial_arts_film>


We then went to the
Marcusmobile<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-us:official&ei=pmofss6uno7msgpv8izfbg&sa=x&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=1997+nissan+sentra&spell=1>and
I had the Monk hold my phone that provided directions. The monk was a
bit frazzled because they were lost and late. I was very centered and calm. A
study of our brain waves would have been interesting.
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/dalai.html>

When we got to the destination they invited me inside and gave me some
bananas.

The teaching of science has always been an important issue for me because it
provides the foundation of logic & reason (the scientific method).
When you teach something that is utter nonsense (Intelligent Design, New
Earth Creationism) that has the same backing as Santa Claus then you
undermine the students thinking ability.
In the context that the Bible was written, Creationism was the best
explanation available to tribes wandering around the desert. Many cultures
have a creation myth which is fine but it must be told in the context and
has no place in the science classroom.

Schools all over the country have tremendous challenges like the % of kids
that cannot read, do not graduate or FAR more disturbing those that graduate
but cannot read.

I do not think that teaching folk tales in science is the answer. As Obama
said, "I would applaud the restoration of Science to its proper, rightful
and prominent place in the USA - it is overdue. "