Skip to content

Archived Observation

A week after the Littleton school shooting, the 10:00 News ran, like, five stories in a row about gun control. They talked to people at a shooting range, showed President Clinton pounding on his lectern while talking about new gun control laws, and spoke with the militant No Guns No Not Ever Bury Them All Right Now people. Gun control? How about bomb control? I read a newspaper article which stated that neighbors often saw the two boys coming home after school. The bored-and-snoopy neighbors would watch them go directly into the garage, and though their view was most likely obscured when the boys closed the garage door, the neighbors would still be able to hear the breaking glass and smell the noxious chemical smells that wafted out into the crisp Colorado air. Hmmm.

And where were the parents? "Son, if you and your friends are going to build bombs in the garage, you're going to have to be more careful of the car, OK? Those chemicals eat right through the paint." Did they think it was normal that their son would come home and promptly shut himself in a garage filled with chemicals? "What the hell are you kids doing in there?" "Umm, science… project?" "Oh. OK." These bombs could have killed hundreds of people if they had happened to be detonated. But no one mentions the bombs. No one mentions the mental health issues. No one mentions parental responsibility. They just focus on the guns.

There's nothing more annoying to me than the "extreme" people who think the only way to solve a problem is to take the most extreme measures, like believing that absolutely no guns should exist whatsoever. What, exactly, would that solve? Removing guns from society doesn't remove the fact that there are still a significant number of wackos who will stab you, smother you, blow you up, or even poke your eye out with a sharply-whittled twig if they so inclined. And when these "concerned citizens" say that we should make it a law that no violence be shown on television, in movies or in video games, I have to disagree. Two boys who played Doom killed their peers. What about all the millions of other kids who play Doom that haven't killed anyone? I mean, if every person who watched virtual violence committed actual violence, we wouldn't be having this guns-no guns debate at all. We cannot simply will ourselves back into a world of quilting bees and ice-cream socials. 

(Besides, I hear that those sewing needles are pretty damn sharp.)

Posted in Observations.

rev="post-740" No comments

By Janet – May 3, 1999

Stolen Logo

Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.

Saturday night, promptly after arriving at the Toronado, Ian came up to us and started pointing at the table behind us. Guys, he said, I’m tripping over that t-shirt. A few minutes later, Ian was trading a Toronado shirt for the shirt off of this bewildered patron’s back.

So, you might be wondering, what was so interesting about this shirt?

The shirt was from a bar in Chester, Connecticut (where the patron was visiting from) called Pattaconk 1850. The strangest thing is that the logo is the EXACT SAME as the Toronado’s classic pint-glass-in-clenched-fist logo.

Bizarre. It seems that 3800 miles away, another bar thought that they could rip off my bar’s logo and nobody would ever find out. Well, they were wrong… and a tourist in a brand new Toronado t-shirt has started what may possibly become a bicoastal brew-ha-ha.

Posted in The Barfly Chronicles.

rev="post-1442" No comments

By Avery – May 3, 1999

Archived Observation

Another update to the San Francisco 1999 Fashion Faux-Pas List:

4-29-99: Portico Cafe, 1st and Mission St.
The offense? Three letters: V P L. That's right, the dreaded Visible Panty Lines.

I know that the first thing that comes to your mind is "Hey, why are you looking at other people's asses when you are married to the beautiful and wonderfully charming Janet?" The reason is quite simple: I'm married, not dead. Before you get on your huffy high-horse or anything, it's not like I am ogling, staring or lusting after these asses… it's just that I tend to notice people's outfits when they walk by. Plus, it's an integral part in my research for the Fashion Faux Pas List.

Anyway, back to asses… pantied asses to be specific. There is nothing more disgusting than noticing a well put together outfit, just to see the person turn around and see a big honkin' v-shaped pair of panty-lines running up the side of each cheek.

Ugh. Can we say tacky?

Not that I want to start discussing Janet's choice of underwear or anything, but there is a great invention out there called the thong. I have heard that some people complain that they're uncomfortable, but I've never heard Janet complain when she's putting them on. Maybe some people find them uncomfortable because (I'm guessing here) they buy the wrong size. I know on laundry day when all I have left are a pair of one-size-too-small tightie-whities, they're pretty damn uncomfortable. However, when I wear the correct sized underwear, be it boxers or briefs, they never cause discomfort. Personally, I can't believe that if properly sized thongs were uncomfortable to the majority of women out there that the lingerie companies would still be making them.

Anyway, I digress. Back to thongs and VPL. When you get dressed in the morning, I assume that you look in the mirror. Right? Next time, do the world a favor: after admiring the front of your outfit, turn around so your back is facing the mirror and crane your head around and get a good look at your posterior. If you see the dreaded VPL, take immediate action.

What action should you take? My first suggestion requires preparation: buy some thong underwear to use in these occasions. If you have a unreconcilable fear of the proverbial butt-floss, try boy-cut underwear… their seams don't show, even under really tight or clingy clothing. If you are caught unprepared, and going without underwear isn't an acceptable option, why not just change into an outfit that doesn't show off the fact that you're wearing big-assed bubba-style plain old white cotton  $2.99 for a three-pack Wal-Mart panties? Go into that closet and find something that doesn't make your butt look like it's advertising Chevron gasoline! There's always a better option than going out and looking like an ass (oy, again with the puns here.)

It's every person's job to make the world a nicer place. Give a hoot, don't visually pollute.

Next time: Let's find a male fashion faux-pas or two, shall we?

Posted in Observations.

rev="post-741" No comments

By Avery – April 29, 1999

What’s That Smell

So I get on the bus at 7:15 AM to go to work, and I all of a sudden smell the smell of cat pee. Where is that coming from? I think. It’s not me is it? The cat didn’t pee in my bag, did she? If it was me, I would’ve smelled it when I left the house. Where is that smell coming from? I keep standing and riding (because the bus is packed, of course) and standing, and riding, until someone gets out at their stop and a seat opens up. I sit down.

Now I know where the smell is coming from. Great.

Posted in Muni Chronicles.

rev="post-1533" No comments

By Janet – April 26, 1999

Another Starbucks Morning

Every morning I make my daily pilgrimage to Starbucks. I don't go to an cute, little, independent coffee shop because they've all been gobbled up by the "A Starbucks on every corner" concept. There are none. (That I've ever seen, anyway. And most of the little coffee/pastry places downtown usually tout the fact that they "proudly sell Starbucks coffee."&#41 So, every morning I make my daily pilgrimage to Starbucks, and it sucks. Not because the coffee is bad, because it's actually not that bad, and not because you have to deal with the "everyone trying to squeeze through the one open door without touching the other unopened door" thing, and not because you also have to deal with the people who walk two abreast through that one open door, and you know that girl saw you and was only pretending to be spellbound by her companion's conversation while looking straight ahead as she literally ran you over…not because of all that, but because the Starbucks I happen to pass on my way to work is the world's slowest Starbucks in existence.

There's always a line out the door, and it's like the money-taking, coffee-pouring, order-chanting barristas are all thumbs. I have my $1.35 ready and waiting as soon as I get through the door, but it takes these people five minutes to pour a simple cup of coffee and press 3 buttons on a cash register. They always have to fiddle with the timer, or the frilly little coffee filters, and sometimes they have to take great pains to tip the coffee urn so that you get just the right amount of grounds in the bottom of your cup. How satisfying it is to finish a perfectly nice cup of coffee with a great big mouthful of grounds as you take your last sip! Once you get past the obstacle of paying (and stifling the urge to yell "Just take the money! Just take it and push the buttons later!"&#41, you need to patiently wait behind the people at the milk-and-sugar counter who feel that just because all of the different sugars and sweeteners and cocoa dust and cinnamon toppings are there, they need to put each and every one of them into their hot beverage. I once saw a man pour close to a third of the sugar in a sugar container (y'know, the glass ones?&#41 into his coffee cup, then stir it, then put in a packet of Sweet 'n Low, stir again, then some powdered cinnamon, and then I had to leave because not only was I growing old waiting, I was getting grossed out. I mean, I've heard of extra sweet, but why bother with the coffee at that point? 

Posted in Scowls.

rev="post-742" No comments

By Janet – April 26, 1999

Archived Observation

While Janet and I were attending West Virginia University, I started my fashion faux-pas list. This list chronicled every bad outfit and fashion statement that I saw during my year-and-a-half in Morgantown. By the time we left for Boston, the list ran over 100 entries long.

Not surprisingly, when we moved to Boston, it wasn't that much better. Luckily, six months of deep-freeze winter made for a half-year long fashion hiatus. Sure, people were probably wearing something tacky under their parkas, snow-pants, scarves and gloves, but it provided a needed respite from adding entry-after-entry to the list.

I figured that when we moved to California that the fashion sense would be better. It isn't. To punctuate this lack of fashion savvy, as Carlos and I were sitting at an outside table while drinking our Double Cappuccinos at Torrefazione Italia, I made my first official entry to what will surely become the San Francisco 1999 Fashion Faux-Pas List:

4-23-99: Battery and California Street, outside of Torrefazione Italia
While Carlos and I were enjoying a double cappuccino this afternoon, I noticed one of the most annoying fashion trends. The damndest thing is that it pops up all across the country on the first warm day of the year. The offense? Women who wear short skirts, nude pantyhose and open-toed sandals.

I can only assume that when people put this outfit together, they are trying to go for this first day of spring look, but they're worried that it might be too cool out to go outside without something to provide some extra protection for their legs.

Obviously, their mirrors only go down to their knees, because the visible stocking-seam running across their toes (which makes those little piggies look like a pack of sausages) just makes me cringe.

So come on ladies, if it's not warm enough to go without hose, leave the sandals at home.

Posted in Observations.

rev="post-743" No comments

By Avery – April 24, 1999