For the first time since moving to my new pad I finally got my act together and rode all the way to work this past Monday.  I had the KarstyCam banded to my dome, but unfortunately the fastest time lapse frame rate my camera can achieve is 2 per minute so there are only a few moments in the video that give the illusion of actual movement (rather than just being a too-fast slide show).  Bonus points to those of you who can identify my two wrong turns, or trends of gas prices in gang versus non-gang territory in SF. :^)

OK, so it turns out that the skater gal that I posted a lame self-made video of in my last entry is famous, at least so far as inline skaters go.  Her name's Naomi Grigg.  Here's a better sampling of her Superfriends-like magical powers:

At the last Friday Night Skate a gal with legs that bend like rubber was in town from the UK who schooled us in working the cones.  I can guarantee that I will bever be able to do this.  Checkit:

This Tuesday was relatively action-packed for my quiet corner of Hayes Valley.  Just as I started gettin' busy with the telecommuting my house started doing some considerable shaking.  No earthquake, it was just the building on the corner getting torn down to make way for luxury condos that are rumored to aim to sell for 10% more per square foot than the other bigger development down the street.  I'm pretty psyched for the building to get done which should liven up my street and push the border of Hayes Valley a bit more eastward towards the Tenderloin.

Here's a cool shot taken during the split second when signage below the outer layer of siding was visible:

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Was it "art"?  A "mart"? "BART" headquarters? :^)

Tuesday was also the Tibetan peace rally before the Olympic torch came to town so  I grabbed my prayer flag and headed over to UN Plaza:

More pics here.

I'm the happiest Tin Chef ever.  Last week I sold my ultra premium 400 lb. hunk-o-junk Viking range to some eager and willing sucker on Craigslist for so much money that I was able to use the proceeds to install a 220 volt line to my kitchen *and* buy a top-of-the-line Bosch flat top range.

I'll admit that just as I'm dumbfounded why anyone would choose wine over water, or an IPA microbrew over a Coors Lite, people's affinity of cooking with gas rather than electric is unfathomable to me.  Flame is such an archaic heat source... I mean, the Neanderthals didn't happen to stumble upon the ultimate food heating experience when they hauled wood back to their cave-kitchens.  No.  In fact, I'm quite sure that if they had electric cooking appliances they probably wouldn't have died off and might even still be around today, winning Iron Chef competitions regularly.

By every conceivable objective measure a flat top electric range is vastly superior to gas.  Even Consumer Reports recognizes this.  What really stuns me is how my former Viking range -- which retails for more than many new motorcycles -- is such a stunningly inept implementation of inferior gas technology.  To maximize aggravation, all the burners are large in diameter to ensure that the middle stays cold while the edges (and the cook's wrists) are scalding hot, thereby requiring constant stirring just so the food has a chance to cook.  As a result, stuff sprays and spews like geysers all over the stovetop in a maximally uncleanable manner.  Jettisoned goop finds its way into the many stovetop crevasses imprisoned under the 5,000 pound iron burner grates whose ability to scratch the porcelain stovetop was apparently a primary design consideration.  I could go on an on.

Anyway, the Viking's gone now and I'm cookin' again like a 21st century epicure.  Yay!

Oh man, the coffee wars are getting intense here in SF.  First Blue Bottle stuns the citizenry by buying a $20,000 siphon machine.  Then in a bold counterattack, Ritual buys a few $11,000 Clovers and opens up a new kiosk inside a plant store deep inside gang war territory where you see the big bunches of pins on the Chron's homicide map.

Of course I had to go check out these new java scenes, so I made field trips to both venues to give their Jesus Coffees a try.  Not too surprisingly they were quite tasty.  But who can say if it was because of the beans, length of brew, or even my mood that day?  Time to experiment.

The whole deal about the Clover is that each drop of coffee is brewed for about the same amount of time as opposed to a drip/cone brewing process where the last drip from the filter is different from the first because it could have been hangin' with the beans for several minutes as opposed to a "more optimal" 37 - 39 seconds.  I got out my cone and two cups, primed the grinds with a few tablespoons of water (as per the helpful instructions on the Blue Bottle web site), waited, dumped in about 14 oz of water, and then switched cups after about 45 seconds.  The 0-45 sec. cup of coffee seemed slightly smoother than the 45-180 sec. cup, which had a touch of bitter aftertaste.  If I was doing this in a blind test it wouldn't be super easy to discern the two.

Conclusion: You can

1. buy an $11,000 Clover

2. pay an extra $1 per cup at Ritual, or

3. use more grinds and water with the cone method at home

It's all about the same.  With the latter option you end up with wasted coffee which you can feed to your cat, pour down the drain, or just choke down anyway. :^)