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or On the Perils of Living in California: item #23

So I was reading Derek Powazek’s Ten Tips on How To Be A Driver in San Francisco, and while I agree with what he says for the most part^*, there was something to which I simply had to take exception:

1. Bikes are our friends.
   I love how San Francisco has gotten so bike-friendly over the last few years. There are a lot more bikes on the road now than there used to be, and I think it’s rad. So be a good driver. Really look around for bikes. Note where the bike lanes are (they’re not always where you think they are). Stop when a bike is approaching. Smile and wave to let them know that you’ve seen them. You’ll often get a smile in return. That kind of brief moment of pleasantness can fill my sails all day.

OK, not to put too fine a point on it, but are you fucking kidding me?! Bicyclists in San Francisco are a scourge upon the face of the earth. The vast majority of them are rude, share the amusing misconception that they are indestructible, and in general display a troubling lack of regard for the safety of those they share the road with, to say nothing of their own. They can’t just be people who need to ride a bike to get from point A to point B because it’s convenient and inexpensive, like in most other cities. Oh, no. Not here in San Francisco. Because you can’t do anything here without turning it into a political statement.

And nowhere, nowhere, are bikers worse than in the neighborhood I used to live and still visit often: the Mission. These fedora-wearing hipsters on their idiotic single-gear bikes put the rest of the SF bike maniacs to shame. Let me tell you a little story. Now imagine the scene, if you will:

I parked my car for the day just past the corner of Valencia and a mid-block side street, and I’m just getting ready to leave so I can head home. An enterprising driver has noticed I’m leaving and is waiting behind me so he can pull in as soon as I leave. I put my car into reverse and start backing up, looking in the rear view mirror to make sure I don’t accidentally hit the guy behind me, and that’s when a biker decides it’s a great time to squeeze between my still-reversing car and the car parked just a few feet behind.

Seriously?! I mean, think about it for a second. Who’s going to win that contest? The…foolhardy…biker, or the two two-ton steel vehicles she’s sandwiched between, where the gap is narrowing? She’s—grrr…flames…heaving!

And don’t even get me started on the SF coalition of bicycle lunatics who shut down Market Street at regular intervals so that they can, with a fricking police escort, alienate and enrage beyond reason the drivers of San Francisco. Jesus.

Well, one thing is quite clear. Derek Powazek is a much nicer person than I am. Also: rad?

So I had a bit of an adventure tonight. My cousin was doing a hit-and-run visit, and after hanging out this evening, I had to drop her off to meet up with the rest of her party so they could head back to Sacramento for their flight out tomorrow morning. It turned out that the rest of her party was having a late dinner in Sausalito, so we made the trek over the Golden Gate to find them.

Ever tried to find your way around Sausalito’s labyrinth of ridiculously winding streets? Not a fun prospect in full daylight, but at night, it’s nearly impossible. On the way there, I had my cousin to navigate for me, and we still made a few wrong turns. On the way back, it was just me…by some miracle, though, I only made a single wrong turn. So now I’m safe and snug in my own apartment, but I would still be wandering around Sausalito if it wasn’t for the iPhone, which saved my ass on several occasions tonight. Without Google Maps and the triangulation function (mine’s the 2G edition without the GPS), we’d still be trying to find the restaurant. Three cheers for the wonders of modern technology. Banzai!

California’s interminable series of special elections today, this week’s Economist has a feature on California, “the ungovernable state.” You’ve long heard me rant about the utter failure that is democracy in this state—here is an explanation with historical context. The article paints a grim picture indeed, and says that the only solution may be to scrap California’s existing bloated constitution and write a new one. If so, the next few years could be very exciting for Californians.

becomes intimately conversant with the dangers of big government, the perils of over-regulation. Which is why, even given the scandalous nature of executive pay in many American companies, whatever we do, we should avoid legislation^† unfairly tying the hands of boards—whose responsibility it is not only to put together fair and competitive compensation packages for talented executives, but also to tie pay to performance—in the same way Californians have, year after year, tied the hands of government to make sound budgetary decisions.

^† Yes, I know they’re talking about Europe, but the issue looms large here as well.

Proving, yet again, that governing by initiative is a bad idea.

Ballot measures that should never have passed:

• State-wide:
  • 99 was put on the ballot solely to counteract 98, which didn’t pass.
• City of San Francisco:
  • A unfairly burdens homeowners (a mere 1/3 of the city’s population) with paying for improvements to local schools.
  • D: hiring quotas? Oh HELL no.
  • E unnecessarily ties the mayor’s hands in making appointments to the Public Utilities Commission, when the Board of Supervisors already has a veto.
  • H seems to be an unnecessary enhancement to an already comprehensive law. Waste of time.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the general populace is neither smart nor knowledgeable enough to make their own laws. What the hell do we pay our lawmakers for?

So one of my roommates and I have been going through a bit of a peanut butter phase recently—we both like it on our morning toast. And, tragically, we recently ran out of it. No big deal, you say. Just go out and buy more. Not that simple, bub.

Where I happen to live in San Francisco, I’m about equidistant from two fancy-schmancy gourmet markets, Bi-Rite (Bi-Me Rite Out of House and Home) and Whole Foods (Whole Salary Foods). And normally, I love this; I have, at my fingertips, gourmet (and expensive!) chocolates, more fresh (and expensive!) cheeses than you can shake a stick at, imported (and expensive!) French lemonade, exotic handmade (and expensive!) fruit preserves, and some beautiful organic (read: expensive) vegetables, among other (expensive!) things.

So a few days ago I went to B-MROoHaH on a grocery run, where one of the items on my list was a replacement jar of peanut butter. Between the various jars of soy butter and other nut butters, there was one type of 100% organic, freshly ground, non-hydrogenated, lightly salted creamy peanut butter. Ok, sure, I thought, and brought it home.

I learned my lesson the next morning when I put it on my toast. It was…not good. I mean, it was certainly peanutty. Too peanutty. It was like distilled essence of peanut, mixed with ground peanuts, with some peanut oil added in for flavor. I mean, if I had wanted to eat peanuts, I would have dumped a handful of Planters on my toast. No, I wanted to eat peanut butter. And the texture was all wrong! I’m used to peanut butter with the consistency of spackle. This stuff kind of sloshed around when you tilted the jar…<shudder>.

After I choked down that single piece of toast, I decided that the only way the rest of that jar would be palatable would be in a PB&J sandwich with some really sweet jelly. It would not do solo, on a piece of toast. So today, I went down to WSF to see if I’d have better luck.

But I should have known better. I went in, walked up and down the aisles a bit, finally found the peanut butter. And stood there dumbfounded. Between the cashew butter and the soy butter, what should I find but more of that 100% organic, non-hydrogenated bullshit? I want my hydrogenation, dammit! Say what you will about the stuff that choosy moms choose, but it tastes good.

Why is it so hard to find a simple jar of peanut butter? Now I’m going to have to get in my car (which I rarely have to use these days), and drive all the way to my nearest mega-mart in order to get some good old Jif. Yeesh.

a 4.4 magnitude earthquake hit 5 miles west of Glen Ellen, CA, about 51 miles north of where I live in San Francisco. We happened to be sitting around our living room talking with a friend who had dropped in, when one of my roommates said, “Is that an earthquake?” We all said we didn’t think so, but 10 seconds later the whole room shook. The temblor was not strong enough to dislodge anything on the bookshelves, but it was disconcerting all the same. It felt much stronger than the only other earthquake I’ve experienced since moving here. Thus far, no damage or injuries have been reported.

From Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame):

Recently we had a heat wave in California. My air conditioner broke because, I assume, it is not designed to operate in hot weather. That was the bad news. The good news is that I solved the problems in the Middle East. Allow me to explain.

During the several days that it was 112 degrees and I had no AC, all I wanted to do was build an IED and kill the AC guy who kept driving right past my office and helping other people. In fact, I wanted to kill everyone who didn’t agree with me on just about any point whatsoever.

And I realized that the problem with the Middle East is insufficient AC. If you think about it, virtually all of the organized violence in the world is originating from places where they have poor air conditioning. And in the desert, 112 degrees is considered a pleasant day. Imagine how grumpy you would be at 125 degrees. And guess what I never see on TV when they show footage of the Middle East?

Shade.

Every frickin’ person they interview in the Middle East is standing directly in the sun. Some shade would be a good step toward world peace.

You know, he just might have a point.

I can tell you that during the heat wave here in San Francisco (where it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was inland—nobody died in our apartment)—city of virtually no AC, since the average annual temperature is 57.1 degrees Fahrenheit (statistic courtesy of cityrating.com)—I was ready to perform violence on anything and anyone who caused even a minute rise in my body temperature. Let’s get some swamp coolers over there posthaste! (Via InstaPundit)

immigrants, and, being one—both American and immigrant—I thought I’d weigh in on the immigration reform issue that is so hotly debated these days.

But first, a brief rant (did you really expect otherwise?). I was driving in to work earlier this week, and happened to be listening to NPR. The California Report came on, and its subject that day was the apparent “heated debate” over language in the immigration reform package that’s currently making its way through Congress. Some group of well-meaning citizens had taken exception to the usage of the words “illegal” and “alien” to describe, well, illegal aliens. They preferred to use the word “undocumented” instead. After recovering from my attack of outraged speechlessness^*, I determined to rant (er, blog) about it online forthwith.

This is just the kind of crap that, besides being engineered to drive me right up the wall, detracts from the genuine, important issue of immigration reform and mires all the players in useless semantic debates. This, it seems to me, is the surest way to get people to stop taking you seriously—not, as they seem to believe, the contrary. What they should be focusing on are common sense proposals to improve our nation’s obviously lacking immigration policy, not quibbling over terminology. I could continue, but then I’d just get worked up and deviate from my point, which won’t help anybody.

Let me begin by outlining my position on the issue. First, being a legal immigrant to this country, I have what some may consider to be conflicting positions on the issue of illegal immigration (and I don’t care what they say; illegal is the perfect word, seeing as these people are breaking the law). The first, as you might suspect, is that I sympathize with those longing to escape oppression or crippling poverty or even lack of opportunity for the chance to live the American Dream (or at least to survive or live moderately well in exchange for hard work).

But the second is that I take a very dim view of trying to do so illegally. Illegal immigrants (and the government’s knee-jerk reaction to dealing with the problem) make everything harder for those who want to come here legitimately. The surge in illegal immigration in the past couple of decades, and, of course, the ubiquitous effects of 9/11, have ensured that those who want to come here legally (even on a travel visa!) have to jump through endless hoops, with no guarantee of success. Why is it that the people who bother to try and do things right are penalized? This is much like my rant on how people who buy their movies and music legally are the ones that have to suffer through the unavoidable don’t-pirate rants from the RIAA and MPAA. The good guys really do finish last.

So what can we do about this? Well, first, we need to tighten our borders. Make it harder for illegals to get in, because once they have, it’s really hard, if not impossible, to get them out again. Part of that is making the punishments for sneaking in—and getting caught—much more severe. That, though I have no evidence to back up the assertion, would be a much more effective deterrent than the half-hearted policy we have now. I had brief designs of pointing to the extremely low rates of DUI offenses in Europe and justifying them by indicating the draconian punishments for doing so, but I’ll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

Secondly, we need to make it easier for those who want to come in legitimately to do so. The current, tortuous immigration process is beset by crippling bureaucracy and appalling inefficiency (a hallmark of any government institution, you might say); anyone who has ever stood in a line at an INS office will know what I’m talking about. They are, at best, completely uninterested in making things easy (or just easier) for wannabe American residents/citizens, and at worst, are active hindrances to our lives and goals. Which, as you might imagine, is an encouragement for those who want to want to avoid all the rigamarole of trying to get in legally.

This can all be summed up by the following: don’t punish the good guy. I know this is a radical proposal, but how about we try to reward those who try to obey the law, and punish those who don’t?

^* And really, you’d think I’d be inured to such idiocy by now, but I am continually shocked and awed. Only in California, man.

According to this AP article:

The five-year housing boom is showing increased signs of cooling, and that’s likely to mean slower growth for the entire national economy. The big question now is whether home prices will come crashing to earth with even more severe consequences.

The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that sales of existing homes climbed to an all-time high of 7.072 million units in 2005, up 4.2 percent from 2004 and the fifth straight year sales have set a record.

However, in a sign of slowing activity, sales fell by 5.7 percent in December, marking the third straight monthly decline, something that had not occurred since early 2002.

Economic slowdown? Not good. But here’s what’s good for me:

The Realtors reported that the median price for an existing home sold in 2005 rose to $208,700, up 12.7 percent from 2004. That was the biggest annual increase since a 14.4 percent rise in 1979.

But David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors, said the days of double-digit price gains were probably coming to an end. He predicted price increases would slow to more normal gains of around 5 percent to 6 percent this year. Some analysts cautioned that the hottest markets in places like Florida and California could see actual price declines.

Price declines? Hallelujah, I say. The median home price in my neighborhood in Mountain View as of a couple of years ago was more than $750 K. I am not kidding. And this is for 1000 sq. ft. fixer-uppers. I would have to move more than an hour away in order to be able to get even a decent place for half a million dollars, which I still wouldn’t be able to afford. So a drop in home prices would be pretty welcome.