Big Wheel

John Patton - Got A Good Thing Goin' (Sale price $10.98) Patton and guitarist Grant Green are on fire from first note to last. Driven by Hug Walker's drums and Richard Landrum's congas, they perform some of the best work of their careers on the exciting funk session. Isn't this an RVG edition? If this is really going OOP and not just out of stock at True Blue, it would be the first case I'm aware of of an RVG remaster getting deleted.

Sometimes it kills in unexpected ways.

...It was Christmas when we stayed there, and we ate breakfast on Christmas Day at that Mel's Diner across the street. Couldn't believe it was actually open. Don't want to lead the original poster astray, so at the risk of sounding a little jerky I'll point out that being open at all hours is widely considered to be the only good thing about Mel's. Whatever it may have been years ago, it's now just a chain of greasy spoons where you go post-drinking at 4 AM. Given that SF has dozens if not hundreds of excellent restaurants, many of which are dirt cheap, I wouldn't waste a meal here (unless you're in the aforementioned post-drinking mode).

Sorry to hear about your wife. Do you know which UCSF campus her doctor is at? USCF is spread out among 3 or 4 campuses. The main campus at Parnassus Heights is close to Cole Valley and the Sunset; USCF Mt. Zion is nearer to Japantown and Pacific Heights, and the Mission Bay campus is near the ballpark in South of Market. One thing I forgot to mention is that the "best" things to do in SF are often CROWDED. Toronado is frequently packed at peak hours; there's always a line stretching outside Tartine (though it's usually worth it).

There are tons of good neighborhoods for walking (though some walks are strenuous because of hills). What do you and your wife like to do for fun? That may help narrow it down a little bit. Personally I like hanging out in the Mission (esp. the stretch around Valencia between 16th and 21st streets) but there are only a few nice B&Bs in the neighborhood. My dad stayed at one at 19th and South Van Ness, which did have a certain charm to it. Most of the hotels are in the Union Square area, which is sort of boring unless you're planning to see shows in the theater district. The advantage of Union Square is that it's a major hub for the BART and Muni, so it's easy to get to the Mission and the Castro from it. You can also get to Noe Valley via the J-Church Muni, where there is some nice walking on 24th or Church streets (though it's pretty tame). Or you could take the N-Judah out to Cole Valley, which is only a short walk from the Upper Haight, or further out to the Sunset (some nice stuff to see around Irving St and 9th Ave). I like the Inner Richmond also, with some nice walking around Clement Street and 1st-13th Avenues (great Asian food). Fun things to do in the city: parks, lots of them. My current favorite is Sutro Heights Park way out in the outer Richmond, in the northwest corner of the city. Golden Gate Park is enormous and always nice to walk through on a sunny day. Dolores Park in the Mission is a big hangout. A hidden gem is Grand View Park in the middle of the Sunset around 14th Ave and Noriega, which is a bit more of a challenge to get to without a car but has beautiful views of the whole area. Toronado in the Lower Haight is generally regarded as the best bar for beer. Tartine in the Mission is an amazing French-style bakery. I haven't included much on the Marina/Russian Hill/North Beach areas because I know them less well. In terms of going outside the city, any drive in Marin County is going to put you close to lots of things to do outside (wineries in Sonoma, hiking in Golden Gate National Recreation Area). Some people prefer to go south to Santa Cruz/Monterey (haven't spent as much time as I'd like in Santa Cruz and have never been beyond it).

Yeah, like countries ever needed a reason to grab extra territory. By this logic, WTF were white people thinking stealing a shithole like West Texas from the Comanche?

Yeah, that first session in particular is one of my very favorites. I hope "Don't Walk" is played on the loudspeakers in Heaven, or that at least I can bring the Mosaic box with me.

Here's an interesting study on the correlations between conservative Christian populations and payday lending. A couple of thoughts: -To some degree I wonder how much of this is really just that payday lenders and conservative Christianity both are most common in the poorest regions of the country. It's possible there's no causal relationship between being Jesusified and having payday lenders; the reason for the correlation just happens to be that you see payday lenders more (and legit banks less) where lots of poor people are. -While it may be true that outlawing payday lending makes the debtors worse off...I'd much rather live in New England than in Mississippi, and I think most of us would agree on this regardless of our income level. It seems rather counterintuitive that Mississippi will be much better off if only they take steps to make sure they look much less like Massachusetts.

The Insprion notebooks seem to run hot and have inadequate cooling systems. I wrecked two hard drives in mine by neglecting to always use the computer on hard surfaces. So yeah, at least partly my fault, but still...annoying that you have to be so careful with a portable machine.

To me Ellis sounds like someone who could have (and did) cut it as a bebopper, but eventually chose not to. Even if the grooves are more rock than anything else, there's still something down deep that implies the ability to swing. The album or two I've heard of Kenton sounded to me more like someone who is on the outside looking in - a guy who couldn't have pulled swinging off even if he tried. (Not to say it's necessarily bad, just to be evaluated on different terms.)

Thanks, everybody. Disneyland, airplanes, and strippers all in one day...it wasn't half as hot as that sounds, though. btw, FFA is an asshole

Are there still cheap OJCSs available at Newbury? I'm likely going to be in Boston next month for work and would stop by if there are.

bev is a man Wasn't Fran also a dude? I thought the story was that he meant to type in "Frank" when registering but inadvertently hit Return a little too early.

Does the clock display words on it for anything? And have you tried playing with "E, I, F, S, G" to see what happens when you set it? My guess is that it's a language setting: English, Italian, French, Spanish, German. (I know, German speakers would want a D instead of a G and Spanish speakers would want an E instead of an S....but as you said, the thing cost $9.) Here's a more expensive version: http://www.walgreens.com/store/product.jsp...;id=prod3253526 Note the language selections available.

McGraw is yet another example of my First Rule of America: always presume that anything coming from Oklahoma is bad until it proves itself good.

Gawd, I'm a doofus. I kept forgetting to finish my purchase, and now the sale is over.

There was a very windy storm in '95 that knocked down trees and damaged a lot of signs, at least in SF. When they get to a certain level, they should call these storms what they are---typhoons. Except they aren't typhoons. A typhoon or hurricane forms in the tropics in warm water and rotates around a well-defined center that eventually becomes an eye if the storm gets strong enough. What we had was just a big nasty winter storm - comparable to a nor'easter on the East Coast. 70mph gusts are not fun, but they don't even reach to the level of a category 1 hurricane (which has to have sustained winds - not gusts - of >74mph to even be called a hurricane).

Well, fortunately I'm not one of them. The power did go out as I was standing in the shower, though, and stayed out for at least 10 hours.

I just walked a mile in this shit. We had worse in Florida, but of course SF infrastructure is wimpy and my power went out as I was taking a shower. The Bay looks like it did through most of Star Trek IV .

The 5 Neat Guys also do a mean cover...

Has anyone linked to this one yet? For the Big Lebowski fan in the family. Pretty sure it's only available on the 45s from the website. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7nVZhqb04

Another good SCTV clip: http://youtube.com/watch?v=USh-msend-o

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/11/brian-wilsons-l.html

Not to nitpick, but the post the may or not have been the "last straw" for Jim doesn't even seem to me to have been a negative post: Past tense (ok, past progressive or whatever): this is the sort of self-centered arrogance which was ruining the board. Given the context that the poster making this post left the board in frustration and then came back later , it seems to me that this is what he intended and not something like: this is the sort of self-centered arrogance which ruined/has ruined the board.

Review airfarewatchdog.com first for all the best fares, then book directly with the airlines when possible. Also, try moving back a day - try different dates/days of the week if you can be flexible. I can't imagine that the East Coast to Madrid in winter should set you back much more than $600-700. I flew Thanksgiving weekend Boston-London one year for $250. How much of a pain in the ass are you/your daughter willing to tolerate to save money? It may be much cheaper to use major hubs rather than try to make the most direct route. For example, I bet NYC-Dublin on a major carrier, then Dublin-Madrid on Ryanair would likely save a big pile of cash. What is your preferred starting airport? Edit: ah, I just realized the return leg of this journey is going to be in April-June. My hunch is that fare sales for the high season haven't happened yet and that for this trip you'll save the most money by buying a one-way ticket now and another one-way in a couple of months. Does your daughter have firm dates set on when she needs to be back in the US?