SubRosa Café – The Place to See and Be Seen!
Posted by Dave | September 15th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Music, Oakland
My new favorite café is SubRosa located near our neighborhood on Oakland’s 40th Ave between Telegraph and Broadway. This little vibrant spot also sports the excellent Manifesto Bicycles and indie-collectible record shop, 123 Records.
While getting my daily cup today, my bleary eyes noticed this interesting looking guy with spiky gray hair poking out of the bike shop with a folding bike. He looked like he was seeing if it was safe to go outside as he looked up and down the street. As I was thinking this guy looked familiar a woman walking down the sidewalk exclaimed, “are you who I think you are!”, it was then I realized it was David Byrne!
He told me he was waiting for a cab, and I explained that they are pretty pokey here in Oakland. He ended up hanging out where I was sitting the sidewalk benches. He went in a got some coffee and the ladies inside were super happy. Mr. Byrne was gracious and let me take a couple of snapshots with the shop owner’s iPhone.
Tags: 40th st., david byrne, Oakland, sub rosa
David Byrne Designs Bicycle Solutions
Posted by Dave | September 15th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Music, NYC, Oakland
After running into David Byrne yesterday while getting my morning coffee, I was curious to see he was getting a folding bike from Manifesto Bicycles next door. Turns out, he’s an avid cyclist and loves to cycle around his native New York City as well as the cities he visits while he is on tour. He has turned his creative attention toward advocacy of urban cycling as well as urban design.
He’s been designing some urban bike racks as well!
New Bay Bridge Connector
Posted by Dave | September 9th, 2009 | Filed under San Francisco
After we heard on the radio that the Bay Bridge was re-opening this morning, Dru and I decided to use the excuse of a getting a cup of coffee in SF so we could drive the Smart Car over the new Bay Bridge Connector. We brought a camera and I recorded our little journey, you can see that there is a CHP escort in our group of cars.
It was a surprise that CalTrans opened the bridge early this morning as there were some “issues” that were going to delay the re-opening, like a big crack found in one of the support spans.
New Section of Bay Bridge Moved In!
Posted by Dave | September 6th, 2009 | Filed under Oakland, San Francisco
Some great time-lapse photography of the labor day weekend Bay Bridge repair.
Even The Gangstas on Weeds Hate AT&T
Posted by Dave | August 18th, 2009 | Filed under Humor, Tech
Thought this was a funny dig at AT&T on last night’s episode of Weeds.
Blue Velvet, Black Coffee
Posted by Dave | August 5th, 2009 | Filed under Music
For most of the 90′s, my favorite radio show was Blue Velvet, Black Coffee on KAZU on Monday evenings. The show started with the Twin Peaks theme song and featured a DJ named Patrick, he spun mostly ethereal, gothy music. He frequently would record shop in Europe and bring back many recordings from labels like Prikosnovénie, Musica Maxima Magnetica, as well as larger labels like Hyperium and 4AD. Previously Patrick had a radio show called Left of Center.
Patrick no longer has a show on KAZU so I was wondering what ever happened to him? Does he still have show somewhere in radioland or on the Internets? Google searches don’t show up much. Once I found a image of one of his meticulously written playlists. He would write them out then have them scanned onto the stations website. Maybe someone out there knows where DJ Patrick is?
Rockband Birdie Cat
Posted by Dave | June 24th, 2009 | Filed under Humor
Out little Bella Kitty is now featured in her very first short, Rockband Birdie Cat! Dru plays Rockband a lot and now Bella plays along in between the songs.
High Power Rocket Launch Video
Posted by Dave | June 21st, 2009 | Filed under Tech
It was a great time in the Black Rock Desert. Ken McGrath accompanied me on my return trip to the launch site on Saturday. Seeing this 12 foot beast blast off made the whole trip worthwhile! It was also great to see so many other spectacular launches. I’ll post videos of them soon.
Compare this version of the video that I uploaded to YouTube. I might just post videos this way from now on as the quality is now higher with its HQ setting than exporting my flash movie files using WordTube. What do you think?
Funny Look At Oakland
Posted by Dave | June 21st, 2009 | Filed under Culture, Humor, Oakland, Politics, Tech
Oakland can be a great place to live – but it’s true, jaywalkers are everywhere and are real, real slow.
High Power Rocketry at Black Rock
Posted by Dave | June 17th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
I’m going to attempt the trek out to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada this weekend so I can watch Aeropac’s high power rocket launch. Aeropac has a launch waiver up to 100,000 ft. so there should be some exciting rocket flights!
As some of you know the playa is an interesting and challenging environment. This time of year there can be lakes, floods and lots of mud. Here is a recon video shot yesterday.
Improv Everywhere – The Mp3 Experiment
Posted by Dave | June 15th, 2009 | Filed under Culture, NYC, Tech
Improv Everywhere which brought us Underwear on the Subway and other flash mob participation events, now brings the Mp3 Experiment. Participants started on NYC’s Roosevelt Island, then started listening to programmed set of steps from a Mp3 file on their iPods. The creepy voice and its series of events reminds me of Negativland’s A Big 10-8 Place.
Beatles Rockband
Posted by Dave | June 7th, 2009 | Filed under Music
As a lifelong fan of the Beatles and avid Rockband player, I was checking out the E3 introduction of the Beatles edition of Rockband. This is the impressive animated intro by Pete Candeland, known for his work with Gorillaz.
Trailer Tales
Posted by Dave | May 29th, 2009 | Filed under Humor
I went down to Santa Cruz couple weeks ago and shot this little video of Jay working on his new mobile home.
Tribute to Drunken Karaoke
Posted by Dave | May 23rd, 2009 | Filed under Humor
Time For Monaco!
Posted by Dave | May 22nd, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
Thrilling race through the streets of Monaco – a vain spectacle for sure!
I still have to figure out where you can catch it on TV. I’ll probably just find it on the Internets somewhere…
Help Santa Barbara
Posted by Dave | May 7th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
I hope my friends and their loved ones in the beautiful Santa Barbara area are safe and their homes preserved in this seasons horrible inferno.
Photo by Susie Gray
One Got Fat – My Fave Film from Grade School
Posted by Dave | May 3rd, 2009 | Filed under Humor, Music
While attending DeLaveaga elementary school, whenever the projector was rolled into the classroom we knew we were in for a treat! Various films were shown to either fill in for the teacher’s incomplete class plans or to give the kids a little bit of a ‘fun’ break. A lot of films were public safety oriented or educational in some way. My all time favorite was this freakish bicycle safety flick, “One Got Fat”. In the early seventies anything with monkeys or monkey people was popular – “Planet Of The Apes”, “Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp” were big hits at the time.
“One Got Fat” still holds up pretty well, at least on a dark level. Poor bicycle riding was punished in gruesome accidents, even one with a steam roller, how classic! The background music and sound effects are also delightful. I’m sure now days, this film would be un PC in some way. Also featured, is the original snark narrator, Edward Everett Horton of Fractured Fairy Tales fame.
Birdhouse for your Soul!
Posted by Dave | April 19th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
New app for the Twitteratti from the good folks at Sandwichdynamics.
Why can’t other app demos be like this one? Dig the Popcorn in the background!
The Monitors are your Friends
Posted by Dave | April 8th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
My friend Ken McGraff just sent me a link to this video of The Monitors, a 1960s sci-fi movie on YouTube. Great soundtrack!
Pay Taxes – Get Told to Delete Photos
Posted by Dave | April 8th, 2009 | Filed under Uncategorized
This afternoon I had a wonderful visit to the Alameda Government center to visit the office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector. In order to not be hit with a huge penalty for paying late, I thought I’d visit in person and get a stamped receipt as proof of paying in a timely manner. When you arrive at the Alameda Government center on Oak St., you are greeted by Sheriff Deputies and an airport style security arrangement where I had to remove my belt, keys and iPhone and run them through a metal detector. After passing security, I was free to stand in a long line to pay my taxes. After the line seemed to stop moving, an employee came out and told the taxpayers that the, “system had gone down”. Since I just needed to drop off a check and get a receipt stamp I waited another ten minutes to get my property taxes processed.
Happy that I had gotten this chore out of the way, I was walking down the halls of government when I noticed this amusing sign for the Treasurer & Tax Collector. The logo seems to symbolize some kind of Utopian world of money, houses, computers and people! I snapped a couple shots with my iPhone right in front of some of the Deputies when one asked me what I was doing. I told him I was taking a picture of the sign on the wall. He then told me that he thought it was against the law to do that. He then conferred with another deputy that said it was against the law. He then asked me if I could delete the picture. I told him that it was too late – it was already, “in the cloud”! He asked me what I was taking the picture for. I said it was for my blog and that I cover interesting events in the community. The deputy admonished me that this was no good and that I need to get permission to take pictures. He repeated I better delete the picture when I get home and that it was a misdemeanor. I shrugged then left.
