I've heard good things about Longitude, which has the benefit of being close to BART.
Only they're closed Mondays. Scratch that.
Allow me to be the first to suggest the salt evaporators along the bay shore. Not close to BART though.
Holy crap, a tiki bar. I don't know why that surprises me but it does.
What part of it surprises you? That tiki bars still exist? That there's one in Oakland? That I suggested it?
That there's a new (I assume) tiki bar that isn't Trader Vic's around here, I guess.
Beer Revolution? I don't know if that's close to BART.
Many locations along Broadway are now more accessible, because the free shuttle now runs to 10pm on weekdays! So Beer Revolution could work.
I can't be anywhere, sadly; in Austin, back Tuesday noon.
Beer Revolution a) has no indoor seating and b) has nothing other than beer. Great place on a pleasant afternoon, not good for a winter evening.
But seating's not great indoor or outdoor at BR, iirc.
For something a little different, there's the Hotsy Totsy on San Pablo in Albany. Google Maps says it's an 8 minute walk from El Cerrito Plaza BART (which sounds about right to me).
There's a restaurant in Berkeley that makes a drink called Sidelong Glance; too bad one cannot order that and the Tight-Knit Sweater at the same establishment.
I lived in an apartment within a block of the hotsy totsy many years ago, it was an occasionally fun place then. Not been for many years. Have fun at the east bay meet up!
In about 50 years, it's going to sell a drink called "Yoga Pants."
The Hotsy Totsy gave its name to one of the earliest and best blogs long ago, when it was just a seedy bar. I haven't been in a few years, but it seems to have been transformed by the cultural shock waves presently traveling north on San Pablo.
I have always found the organization of pseudopodium kind of baffling—also the mechanism for commenting.
(But I admire it and its proprietor.)
I'm pretty sure I got very drunk at the Hotsy Totsy once, but maybe it was another dive on San Pablo. There's probably a plaque so you can check. For the meetup, remember what Peter O'Toole said to a young Michael Caine after they woke up from a four day bender in a mysterious room -- don't ask what you did, it's better not to know.
All my life, I have driven past the Hotsy Totsy with a shuddering look and have never stepped foot within. I think it's been around long enough for this to be true for my mother. It would be awesome to go there, if possible.
I've been to the link now and that bar seems to have changed! Have fun anyways!
Say, isn't it time to split the East Bay / West Bay difference and have a Treasure Island meetup? Yelpers say the bartenders at this place can make "almost any drink".
My dad was on Treasure Island back in its navy days.
What percentage of the drinks can he make?
25, 26: Yeah, its days as a 6AM bar are long past at this point.
A small, but non-zero percentage of all the known drinks.
27: Does that place have a Geiger counter on the bar?
There's a bar on Treasure Island now? Wasn't all fancy like that when I lived there, that's for sure.
34: To be fair, most of the inhabitants had their intoxication needs taken care of closer to home.
What time are people planning on getting there, assuming that Hotsy Totsy is the place? I see that 6AM won't work. I'm still not sure if I'll make it, since it's a long way for me, but if I do I probably won't get there until after 8.
I can probably make it by 7 or so, but I suspect other people could be there earlier.
FYI, for anyone who didn't look at the Yelp page, there's a taco truck that parks outside. Something to consider if you're trying to figure out dinner.
I used to sometimes eat at the Taco Bell near there on my way home from school.
22 Its oldness/oddness was noted about 11 years ago: http://crookedtimber.org/2004/02/25/pseudopodium-putting-the-great-back-into-great-life-if-you-dont-weaken/
Consider this a request to please liveblerg the fuck out of this meetup.
Does anyone know how good the taco truck is? If I leave at my usual time I could be there 8ish, but I could leave sooner to get there closer to 7.
I might be able to make it... at some time during the evening... if I have already managed to wash my hair...
Wow the idea of a nouveau food truck in that neighborhood... wow. Is the der wiernerschnitzel further north on san Pablo still extant at least?!??
47: That's not a nouveau food truck. The fancy-ass ones are up at the Off the Grid at EC Plaza. But yeah, the Wienerschnitzel was still there last I checked.
Brad! I hope you can indeed make it! I have a question or two I'd like to pose to you.
neb - I went with the Pallett In Conflict lp, and 1 it was on his list of interest, 2 but he hadn't heard it yet, and 3 when listened to it was enjoyed by all, so many thanks!!!
Also got him Exploding the Phone, from which he is retailing a steady stream of tales. Like the kid who could whistle tones down the line, or the other kid who hooked up the line to a hammond organ or some such. Oh and calling "time" in certain area codes to get a "conference line." I think I picked up that rec from the Yorkshire Ranter? At any rate, suspect it might be of interest to some around these parts.
48: Actually, Off the Grid is at Hayward City Hall tonight (and every Monday night), close to the Hayward Bart station where I will likely be transferring to Bart en route to Hotsy Totsy. If I'd thought of it earlier, I might have suggested it (though all the seating is outdoors - better for a midyear Monday night meetup). Looks like I'm aiming for 8ish or a bit later now. Maybe I'll grab food there first.
||
Holiday visits can be disturbing in surprising ways: I just heard my dad say the word "awesomesauce."
|>
I think I'm not going to be there. After driving up from southern California late last night and working today I don't have a lot of energy to make the trip up there.
We are aiming for 8:30.
54: My mother started calling things cool around the age of 60. It still makes me cringe, every single time.
I am most likely not going to make it for having-a-cold related reasons. Tell Jackmo I love her.
Maybe I will put in a BRIEF appearance.
Update: there's apparently no traffic so I'm going to drink a bunch of coffee and go. Probably be there between 8:30-9.
OTG not out tonight. Probably taking the holidays off. Hope the taco truck is good. On BART now, heading up to HT.
54: Maybe the Flip-Pater isn't so bad after all.
BART just pulled over to let another train pass. That doesn't happen often.
Bart usually lets everybody die in a crash.
I'm at a different bar, if that helps.
I'm getting ready to leave. I have to be to work by January 5th.
Hey, meetup! You all seem like a bunch of pussies who totally wouldn't do five straight tequila shots. Prove me wrong.
I am sorry to be missing this but I am basically not in any shape to go out. Sorry also to be proving T"R"O correct, I guess. Everyone should by Bave drinks because he did me a huge favor yesterday.
The S----- H--- contingent is here. We cannot impugn the manhood of that contingent. Whose should we impugn? Wolfson's?
I'm feeling dumb for not figuring out what contingent Brad is referring to.
They make some sort of unspecified holiday nog here. Include me out, I think. Also there's slmething they set on fire that just set off the smoke alarm.
75: Squirrel Hill? We're not there.
Who else is there? Moar liveblogging.
Brad I desperately need to ask you about the content of the Berkeley Econ PhD program because I got in a spat with a grad student.
Holy shit dudes from Brad De/Long's former prison gang are there? Do NOT fuck with those guys for real.
You know with Armsmasher out there publicly reminiscing, and Darb gnoled commenting again, it feels positively millennial around the Interwebs.
83: I saw Spackerman doing so but not Armsmasher.
85: quite so; I misremembered.
84: always already should.
Also from the other end of the table I think Josh might be having the unspecified holiday nog.
How many kinds of nog could there be? If it's not egg, what is it?
If they were not pigeons on the grass, alas, what were they?
I mean this is the bay area. It seems clear to me there is vegan...what...it's always some punning negation in the name. Neg nog?
The Berkeley schtick is that no markets are ever efficient, no matter how efficient they look. The Chicago shtick is that all markets are efficient no matter how screwy they look. We are right...
Veg nog? "Neg nog" sounds like the Pick-Up Artist version.
Lisztomania starring roger daltrey on the tv
They're playing Lizstomania on the teevee.
94: Yes, but where do you stand on nog?
This is some high-quality liveblogging. Keep it up!
Isn't that supposed to be dammit, Janet?
Fuck you if you don't like egg nog.
Fuck you if you don't like other kinds of nog.
Ess before zee played by Roger Dalt-REY. Zee before ess, übermesch mess.
104 concludes the internet.
The conversation had now moved on to herpy.net. Jackmormon is expounding on its marvels at length.
I forgot to mention, re: the conversation about daycare Santas, that our 3yo had been steadfastly denying Santa's existence, but last week Santa did in fact appear at her daycare and she promptly peed her pants in lurid's lap.
I'm glad I changed my mind and made it. It's too bad normal traffic can't be weekday evening holiday week traffic it. I think that's the fastest I've ever driven up and down 880 and I wasn't driving faster than the fastest cars in my general vicinity.
sorry i missed this, i live in california so i have no 'scuse,
Thanks to all who came out for us. After you all bailed, we went across the street to bowl, but the wait for a lane was too long, so we played pool. Thus ends the liveblogging.
83, 85, 86: In the film adaptation of Unfogged, that reminiscence and the fact that he didn't acknowledge replies saying Unfogged is still around, will be the first sign that we're actually all dead but don't know it yet.
Also, I think I went to that bowling alley on a Superbowl Sunday in the early 90s. There wasn't a wait for a lane.
I don't know enough about the details of "Thrash Metal" to know whether this is for neb or Ripper, but if you think trying to make yourself known to other Mineshaftarians in a public place was potentially humiliating, I give you this.
That's a joke, everyone knows you don't use the real band name.
Also, the meetup ended not with knife fights or broken marriages but bowling. Lame!
If society finally breaks down because of climate change/economic collapse/whatever, what are the odds that by the time we're old one commenter will be drinking mead from the skull of another commenter? It's not zero.
It is if "whatever" is all the bees dying.
Which actor would play which commenter? Or would everyone of every gender just be played by Steve Buscemi?
The Berkeley schtick is that no markets are ever efficient, no matter how efficient they look.
I'm trying to puzzle through what you mean by this. Assuming that "efficient" means "perfectly efficient" in the way that economists traditionally defines that phrase, this seems trivially true. Everyone acknowledges that various markets are better or worse approximations of perfect efficiency. So probably Berkeley's shtick is that no markets can even be described as reasonable approximations of perfect efficiency? I.e., efficiency is not a useful model for thinking about the way that any real market functions? I would buy that as well, although depending on how exactly it got sketched out, it would also come close to being trivially true. The value of efficiency as a model is not in approximating real world markets but in predicting the comparative behavior of real world market based on the degree to which they resemble efficient markets. In every real market, "inefficiencies" and market failures of various sorts dominate over efficiencies, but these market failures can be analyzed usefully by comparing them against a baseline of theoretical efficiency. (I feel like I must be missing the point because I don't think anything I've said would be disputed by the Chicago school.)
108: I am also enjoying Christmas 880, so much more mellow than crabby Everyday 880.
Oh, just to clarify: it wasn't nog, it was some sort of boozy hot chocolate. Which went down *very* easily.
Also the taco truck's stellar Yelp rating isn't just down to it being right next to a bar.
120: Agreed, the burrito I had was quite tasty, although the food selection was rather limited (basically burritos and tacos in several varieties).
"Oh, just to clarify: it wasn't nog, it was some sort of boozy hot chocolate. Which went down *very* easily."
It did. I can testify. Took him, like, two minutes...
"If society finally breaks down because of climate change/economic collapse/whatever, what are the odds that by the time we're old one commenter will be drinking mead from the skull of another commenter? It's not zero."
Making a functioning water-tight drinking cup from the skull of an enemy is actually a fairly high-tech endeavor. It won't be possible with complete collapse...
Or, you could saw off the upper part of the skull and turn it upside-down. Maybe not as cool looking, but low-tech.
I've always assumed most of us have undergone elective trepanation.
Elective? I think you should consider the virtues of trepanation by random lot.
Ugh. Brad never shows up unannounced at 'Burgh meetups. (which I can't believe my computer tired to autocrat as "metopes")
Everything else is turning up Pittsburgh. On Facebook, a Nebraskan just shared a post about that missing nurse from Pittsburgh. I was going to make some comment about how I saw that guy's picture on a phone pole and how Facebook was now a very non-specific phone pole. Then I decided against it because it's a very tedious point and because maybe they know the kid's family.
OT—whatever it is: weird cycling this morning. A car dealership sign that usually reads high said 10 degrees, I'm guessing 7-8. Bike made squeaking noises, pedals were hard to turn. Heavy jeans not enough, my legs were my most exposed parts, felt like they were on fire. Even though I kept pulling my balaclava away from my mouth to keep my lenses from fogging, it was covered with rime in about 20 minutes.
I can remember busy days on Dec 31, divorce prove-ups, dashing back for real estate closings, (urgent for tax reasons) meeting the same people—the lawyers—at the party in the late evening.