Another beatuiful day

[mangosteen]

Woke up Saturday morning. Put on glasses. Checked email. Walked outside.
Another beautiful day in the Bay Area. 79 degF, 50% humidity, a nice breeze, perfect.

I'm willing to change my mind about the SF bay peninusla being endless boring sprawl. I mean, it is, but it's a bit denser than I originally expected. I got to do the other pilgrimage, which was all good. Happy burger goodness. xeger was asking me what the big deal was about said burgers. My main theory is that there are no fast and good burgers back east. I'd welcome differing opinions on that.

After that, we went to WeirdStuff, which is basically a large electronics surplus reseller. Either I'm not looking in the right places back east, or they just don't really exist, and most of the demand for such stuff is done by auction. Walking in there was walking back into a part of my youth, tagging along with my father through surplus electronics shops on Long Island, looking for random gear. The place smelled like metal and solder and ozone and chalk and whiteboard markers. The smell of engineering. The smell of real work getting done. I was walking around the store with a goofy grin on my face, saying "wow. would you look at all this stuff....". Fortunately, the backpack constraint came in really handy again, as all I picked up was a couple of cables and a t-shirt.

Later, I headed over to RT's house (the same place I went for the party the previous night), just to hang out and talk and geek and geek and geek some more. In this case, the geeking was about running sci-fi (and other) conventions. Very interesting discussions regarding the role of Hotel Liaison and Security during runtime. In addition, RT spent a bunch of time showing off his truly kick-ass audio system, and I now have a large list of music that has to get put in the "to be purchased" queue.

Observation: Most of my friends Boston have musical tastes that run towards the folky side of things. Most of my friends in the bay area have musical tastes that are much more oriented towards electronic music. In addition, several of my friends in the bay area have taken an intense interest in DJ'ing, re-mixing, and playing with said electronic music. Then again, these are a bunch of geeks, and the medium lends itself towards it.

After listening to large amounts of various kinds of music ("Um, dude? I can feel the drummer pounding on my cerebellum."), we went out, got dinner with various and sundry at a wonderful Chinese restaurant in Mountain View (Yulong something-or-other), and then acquired ice cream. Chocolate ice cream, with brownies, caramel, cononut and walnuts mushed into it. German chocolate cake in a bowl. Yum. After that, most of us went over to another person's place to play pool, listen to more great music, and get into the hot tub. Well, I didn't hot-tub. Almost everyone else did. But, I was near the hot tub. That's close enough for my California experience. We stopped playing pool around the point that I said "wait... I didn't hit the cue ball, did I?" Sitting outside near the hot tub, staring up at the stars (of which there were more than the seven-or-so that I usually see in Boston), on a cool summer evening, hanging out with friends. Happy.

At some point, we got back to RT's place, I got my car, drove back to where I was staying, and promptly fell over.

Realization: Yes indeed. This was the vacation weekend I signed up for.

Comments

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Cafe Yulong, on Dana St. in Mountain View... and the ice cream was probably at the other end of Castro [the other Castro, not the one you were probably thinking of].

fuo good grief

[cthulhia]

I wish I could remember the name of the chinese place in mountain view I was at last night. next to a bubble tea place. but we were there fairly late.

Re: fuo good grief

[xeger.livejournal.com]

You probably mean China House, if it's right on Castro, and kinda narrow and long.

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

The one thing I remember about Mountain View is that it has lots of restaurants, all of which close at 9pm. And precisely two bars. And pretty much nothing else.

-roy

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I can only guess that you weren't around for long :) The restaurants usually close at 10pm, and there's definately more than two bars (although you're doubtless thinking of Molly's and St. Stephen's Green). If I'm going to drink beer around there, the step off of Castro to the Tide House is generally a good bet.

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't spend much time in Mountain View. I was working and staying in Menlo Park for a couple of weeks (many years ago). I spent most of my evenings in the British Bankers Club. Just because it was in the same block as my office and my hotel, and you could smoke there... :)

Went out in Palo Alto a few times, too, but our visit to Mountain View wasn't a great success (maybe it was after 10pm, but we had a great deal of difficulty finding anything that was open...)

-roy

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Heh! Well - maybe some other time. The south bay and penninsula do have a nasty habit of starting to shut down around 10pm, though. The bars obviously stay open later - but surely nobody would be -eating- that late...

[owdbetts.livejournal.com]

It's not unusual for restaurants to stay open till midnight over here. Many restaurants will close earlier, of course, but I'd expect something to be open late...

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Well - there was something open late - one of the pubs serves meals well into the night, as does the cafe above Books Inc (then Printers Inc), and Tied House is also open to odd hours...

...or did you mean something more interesting :)

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

yeah, _fat burger_ and _in and out_ is pretty good. i esp favor _fb's_ giant super with egg. it's a colon blocker, but juicy and good.

the closest thing i know of here are a couple local joints, that do a mighty fine job. other than those though, new englanders seem to enjoy mcd's or burger thang or puny dry stuff. odd.

musically, i dunno, i think most of 'our' friends mights generally be folky on the outside, but a lot of us do the electronica thing. i'd say a solid 1/3 of what i own is _electronica, german industrial, euro dance/trance, and i'm starting to get into psy goa_, _classical_, and then _folky_ :> with crossovers in top 40 and classic top 40 like stuff.

[lachesis.livejournal.com]

"Observation: Most of my friends Boston have musical tastes that run towards the folky side of things. Most of my friends in the bay area have musical tastes that are much more oriented towards electronic music."

(yeah, I'm sure you knew you'd get comments from the peanut gallery on this one...:)) For me, the LAST thing I listen to is folky-music; not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that (thanks seinfeld) but of the people I know here in Boston, it's not as high on their list. If you're interested in 'other' stuff, I can ask around and see what you might find to your liking.

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

Two, two, two unrelated comments in one!

1) If you're looking for good fast-ish burgers, check out Fuddrucker's in Saugus (it's a chain), and Bartley's Burger Cottage on Mass Ave in Harvard Square. Neither is as fast as a McDonald's or any of its ilk, but both are faster than your usual sit-down place. Both make excellent ground-dead-cow-on-a-bun.

2) For electronic music in Boston, track down the next Freezepop gig, and see what people there can recommend beyond Freezepop itself.

[ceo]

I've been disappointed by Fuddrucker's lately (they seem overpriced and not that good), but Bartley's continues to rock my world.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

But In-N-Out is from HERE!!!

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to change my mind about the SF bay peninusla being endless boring sprawl.

Too bad most of the tech jobs are there, instead of in Marin, San Francisco, or the east bay (all of which I think I'd prefer).

After that, we went to WeirdStuff, which is basically a large electronics surplus reseller. Either I'm not looking in the right places back east, or they just don't really exist

We had 3 surplus electronics places right around MIT maybe 15 years ago. One of them became PCs For Everyone -- computers had a higher margin than surplus electronics, I guess.
IIRC, the others all closed down.

Most of my friends Boston have musical tastes that run towards the folky side of things.

I developed that only recently, upon discovering WUMB (U. Mass. Boston's folk radio station). Could radio be making a difference in the tastes of many others you know around Boston? (Or near SF, for that matter. I never learned my way around the dial there well enough to develop an opinion of it.)

Then again, these are a bunch of geeks, and the medium lends itself towards it.

... and your Boston-area friends aren't geeks?

we went out, got dinner with various and sundry at a wonderful Chinese restaurant in Mountain View

Dude, you've got to do San Francisco's Chinatown some time. It rocks.

staring up at the stars (of which there were more than the seven-or-so that I usually see in Boston)

Are you comparing a peninsula suburb to Somerville or Cambridge?... The latter are practically downtown. If you go out near the 128 (I-95) tech firms, you'll see stars everywhere. Even just over the Cambridge line into Arlington is quite starry.

I don't mean to suggest that the peninsular west doesn't have some really nice features, but stars in the sky aren't a real factor of differentiation.
:-)

[mangosteen]

Too bad most of the tech jobs are there, instead of in Marin, San Francisco, or the east bay (all of which I think I'd prefer).

Too NIMBY-ish, too expensive, and too inaccessible, in that order.

... and your Boston-area friends aren't geeks?

Let's hear it for the ambiguity of the English language. Yay.

What I meant to say is: of my friends in the bay area that listen to large amounts of electronic music, a significant amount of them are DJ's, or do re-mixes, or other such things. Then again, these are a bunch of geeks, and the medium lends itself towards it.

Dude, you've got to do San Francisco's Chinatown some time. It rocks.

Already have. I did that with my sweetie a couple of years ago. We were staying at a friend's place in SF, and decided to head to Chinatown that day. We somehow completely forgot that it was Chinese New Year. I have pictures. That was fun. Chinese bakeries are a goodness. In addition, I must recommend the Kam Lung bakery in Boston's Chinatown.

Are you comparing a peninsula suburb to Somerville or Cambridge?... The latter are practically downtown. If you go out near the 128 (I-95) tech firms, you'll see stars everywhere. Even just over the Cambridge line into Arlington is quite starry.

Really? Never noticed, even when I've been out on the 128 belt at night. Keep in mind that it was only about 3+ years ago (at Baitcon) that I first saw more than seven stars in the sky. I'll keep a lookout next time I'm standing still someplace out of town.