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(Bumbershoot as in umbrella, not the Seattle arts & music festival.)

According to Esquire magazine, The Proper Umbrella for “a grown man” costs anywhere from $50 to $775. Brooks Brothers sells a plaid ‘brelly at the low end of the range. For mere multiple hundreds of dollars more, Briggs offers a plain, black model.

If, as Esquire advises, an umbrella is “an investment”, okay, I can see spending $50. But $775? Are they freakin’ kidding?

Monday, March 26

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Sunday, March 25

Featured in today’s San Francisco Chronicle: Food bloggers dish up plates of spicy criticism.

Here’s what really stuck with me: One person interviewed for the article had recently checked online reviews for a particular restaurant. Noting that the restaurant had received “one star” (i.e., not good), the woman commented that she probably wouldn’t have chosen to dine at a restaurant with such a review. However, since the restaurant was the venue for celebrating a friend’s birthday, the woman went. She was glad she did; she had a much better experience than she expected after reading the review.

I sometimes check online reviews for restaurants, including restaurants I’ve already enjoyed dining at. And I’ve seen “terrible food” and “awful service” comments about restaurants with what I consider to be good food and adequate (or better) service.

Why are so many restaurant reviews negative? I think:

• Many people post negative reviews, and few people post positive ones.
• When I was a kid, my mother taught me (hypocritically or at least inconsistently, but that’s another story), “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.” With today’s instant gratification technology (gratechfication?)—blogs, text and instant messaging, e-mail, ability to post comments on Web sites, etc.—the opposite seems to be typical. If “treat others the way you’d like to be treated” is the Golden Rule, I guess these days society (wired society, anyway) goes by the … what? Flame Others Rule? Metaphorically Hit Other People In the Head With a Rock Rule? It’s All About You, So Do Whatever The Hell You Want and Don’t Worry About the Consequences Rule?
• Sometimes, for whatever reason, a restaurant has an “off” day.
• Sometimes people give a restaurant one chance and only one chance.*
• Some people dine while cranky or are impossible to please.
• Different people have different tastes and different expectations.
  
• The Boyfriend (TB) and I once ran into a coworker of mine and her daughter at a restaurant in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The coworker and daughter (C&D) had stopped by a different restaurant nearby, their favorite, and found it closed for the day. C&D decided to try “our” restaurant—for the first time. C&D asked TB and me if we’d been to this place before. We told them yes, we had, many times and we intended to come back many more. And we told them about some of our favorite dishes there. The next time I saw my coworker, I asked how she and her daughter liked the restaurant. Well, they didn’t. TB and I couldn’t understand how anybody could dislike this place, unless they were idiots. Or difficult to please. Or just didn’t like that kind of food.
  

* Having written all this, I refuse to give the coffee shop in Berkeley’s French Hotel another chance. I thought I wrote about the place last year, but I can’t find it on my blog now. I remember I ordered my usual Americano, sipped it while walking back to my room, and thanked Dog I had soy milk and sugar in my room, because the coffee was awful. Back at my room, I added soy milk and sugar and tasted the coffee again. Still awful. I added more milk and more sugar, and the coffee didn’t improve at all. I dumped it down the sink. Now, every time I walk by the place, I want to herd all the customers waiting in line over to the opposite side of the sidewalk while yelling, “Run away! Even if you’re a terrible person, you don’t deserve anything this bad!” (OK, maybe Shrub, aka George W. Bush, deserves it.)

PS: I just did an Internet search for “coffee shop french hotel berkeley” and noticed some positive reviews. Go figure.

Sunday, March 25

Berkely (has) rocks! Mortar Rock and Grotto Rock are near Indian Rock. I visited all three and shot all of these pictures today.

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The following albums contain pictures taken over the past few days.

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Saturday, March 24

The Castro.

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Some pictures in the following album are not safe for work.

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More words. Soon.

Saturday, March 24

Dinner at Nirvana, 544 Castro St., San Francisco (415-861-2226). Details to come.

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Friday, March 23

Once more to the Bridge! The Golden Gate, that is.

More text to come …

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Thursday, March 22

Morning brew at Peet’s Coffee & Tea, 2124 Vine St., Berkeley. The Boyfriend (TB) had a soy latte, I had my usual iced Americano.

• Taste: Good (Guerilla Cafe serves Blue Bottle Coffee, still my favorite in this area)
  
• Portion: Standard espresso drink sizes
  
• Price: Average (TB paid for both drinks, I don’t know how much. We went to Peet’s again a couple of days later and spent $6.55 on my usual and TB’s medium raspberry soy mocha.)

Lunch at Ali Baba’s Cave, 799 Valencia St. (the Mission), San Francisco (415-863-3054), with our new friends Carolyn & Fred (C&F).

• I had a “mezza” plate with hummus, baba ganouj, pita bread, and tabouleh salad
• TB had falafel, something else, and tabouleh salad
• C&F each had an entree, I don’t remember what

• Taste: Good, except neither TB or I liked the tabouleh (too much parsley and not enough cracked wheat, I think)
  
• Portion: Just right
  
• Price: Inexpensive ($23, excluding tip, to feed the four of us)

Dinner at Suriya Thai Restaurant, 1432 Valencia St (the Mission), San Francisco (415-824-6655).

TB and I ordered off the specials menu. I don’t know how frequently the specials change, and I didn’t make note of the names of most of the dishes our party ordered.

• To start, the four of us shared an order of fried sweet potatoes in coconut/sesame batter, served with a sweet & spicy sauce
• C&F had warned us about Suriya’s large portion sizes, so TB and I shared an order of red curry* with coconut milk, fried bananas, red bell peppers, and firm tofu
• Carolyn had the Emerald Noodles an a Thai iced tea. Fred had … um, something. C&F are omnivores and between that and the fact that our red curry was so delicious, I didn’t pay attention to C&F’s meals.
• We shared a bowl of steamed white rice

• Taste: Excellent
  
• Portion: Just right to large
  
• Price: Moderate ($52, sans tip, for all four of us)
• Other: Good service, and Suriya’s staff were quite helpful and solicitous in response to my request for vegan food

Sorry for the deficient dining details in this post. I usually make my notes on my handheld computer (a Dell Axim, if you must know) and I forgot it today.

*I’ve decided that red curry is my new vice. I must find delicious vegan red curry when I return to Seattle. I may have to go to my favorite Emerald City restaurants and do a yellow curry and red curry side-by-side comparison.

Thursday, March 22