Saturdays are meant for ping pong

Stellar day San Francisco. Well done. Some friends and I had breakfast at the french joint up the street from my apartment. It is verging on t-shirt weather here. Everyone met up at around 10:30 for brunch. I was the first one there and I put my name on the waiting list as there can be up to an hour wait for a table. The gingerbread pancakes are good enough to wait in line for 3 weeks, so an hour is no big deal. I walked down the block to get a newspaper after signing the waiting list. I looked down on the sidewalk and saw what looked like a business card. It caught my eye and I picked it up to get a closer look. I don't really know what to say. That was it, no address or phone number for me to call and dispute their claim.


















After brunch we headed next door to get bloody marys. It really is one of the best I have ever had. It has green beans, garlic and olives in it. Shame the bartender is a grizzled old bastard who hates damn hear everyone. It is hard to fault a man with such a mastery of his trade though.















We drank, sat in the sunshine out back and played ping pong on their well-worn table. It can get pretty competitive, and occasionally a mildly sauced player will send a ping pong ball hurtling over the fence into the middle of someone's breakfast next door. It's usually best to either deny it or just run.














Last night I went to a pre-season Giants-A's game. It was my first time at the stadium. It's a hell of a place, right on the water. It was a pretty good game too. We all watched Barry Bonds swing for the fence every time at bat and fly out every single time. We gorged ourselves on hot dogs and beer to keep warm. Never a bad idea.
















Tonight my friend Jerry is in town with The Mars Volta. I am going to take the train out to Berkeley to catch the show. They are really one of those bands that can take a show in either direction. It can be pretty exciting and manic, or they can run it straight into the ground by playing one sond that lasts 45 minutes. We'll see. I am dragging my friend Kevin along too. He listens mostly to bluegrass. This will most likely cause his eyebrows to fall off. Not too much word on the Interpol front these days. I am meant to fly to NY for rerhearsals and then to the middle of Canada for a week or so. Not too sure because this thing hasn't gone off yet.

Or I could be in Germany

I am extraordinarily greatful to be back in California. I could be in Munich, soaking up the good vibes in Bavaria. Instead, the rain let up the minute my plane landed at SFO, and the weather has been wonderful. I don't have any pictures of Germany at hand, so just use your imagination in this brief comparison.



























The unexpected time off has been great. I have found the time to sleep, unpack, and even give my 2 month-old rice cooker a name.















I noticed yesterday that my kitchen is beginning to look a bit like Jackson Pollock's pants.
















I was inspired by this link on Harley's blog to a site about what 'creative types' have on their desks. I was really into this illustrator who collects old mugs to put pens and pencils in. He has a really great Gromit one that I'm pretty jealous of. So, I decided to take a picture of the desk where I had been sitting. I don't spend a whole lot of time here as I am usually in, well, Germany or some such hell hole. In the few days that I've been back I have managed to ravage what little space there was on the small desk. In the photo you can make out the following:

-The complete Calving and Hobbes set
-A half filled-out pile of tax forms
-The remains of my unopened mail from the last month
-A care package for my little sister who has mono
-A postcard of a dog balancing 3 cups and saucers on its nose
-A glass of white wine
-A band and crew photo from the last show of the Death Cab tour
-A copy of Kramer's Ergot

It's starting to look a bit like the kitchen.















I am fortunate enough to live at the base of a street that climbs at about a 45-degree angle. In the few months that I have lived here I have seen all manner of strange shit happen on this hill. A month or so ago a guy with an old pickup hauling a washer/dryer in the back really went for it up the hill and the washer/dryer toppled out the back of the truck and hit a parked car. I watched this from my living room window. I was in a bathrobe and slippers eating a bowl of cereal at the time. A few days ago I saw an old van tear ass up the hill and watched with sheer delight as the entire bumper ripped off the back, dragged for a block or so and fell completely off. I am not the type who delights in the misfortune of others, but I am also not one to pass up a good laugh, occasionally at the expense of someone else (or their vehicle). So the other night I was sitting in my living room, halfway through a bottle of wine, and I hear the sound of someone throwing a bucket full of cutlery down a drainpipe. It turns out that these two kids were riding this beat old scooter up the hill when it crapped out and the two totally ate shit in the middle of the street. I was fairly concerned for a moment until I realized that they were visibly stoned from a hundred feet off and the kid on the back of the scooter had a huge drum strapped to his back which, undoubtedly caused the weight displacement that pitched them off the bike. The laughing continued as they dropped the scooter not twice, but three times trying to start it on the hill. Sometimes the world is a great place.