The Hopp Stop

• A blogger installed a SSD hard drive in his 2009 13″ MacBook Pro. This is exactly what I did (replacing the optical drive so that I now have a 100GB SSD for the OS and a 1TB regular hard drive for my files), and it’s easily the best computer upgrade I have ever done, well worth the money. My computer is so much more responsive, it’s almost unbelievable. Moving to an SSD really opens your eyes to how much the storage system serves as a bottleneck in today’s computers. I went with an OWC SSD, as the reviews were all glowing.
• This week’s NY Times Magazine has a long article on Oregon’s high-speed football offense.
• Burrito Justice is up to his usual cool work in San Francisco, putting together some resources on the Cone of Invisibility for Mission/Bernal residents, in which the BoA building blocks the Transamerica Pyramid. One note from the end of the post: there used to be a quarry on top of Bernal, evident in one of the photos.
• The NY Times has an article about increasing use of rabbit ears to get HDTV. I’ve actually been using a $40 HDTV antenna (complete with rabbit ears for VHF frequences, as well as quasi-futuristic ray gun part for UHF frequencies–or perhaps it is the other way around) for a month now, and it works quite well, especially since I can connect it to my TiVo for DVR usage. There is some susceptibility to interference if you move the antenna or sit by it when watching, but it’s tough to complain given the monthly price ($0). We’ve also been using Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus to get our TV fill, and have purchased some shows via iTunes (e.g., Mad Men). The only thing missing is live sports, which would be covered if Cablevision was an ESPN3 partner–then I could watch live sports on my Xbox 360.
• Road trains in Europe? Sounds pretty good to me, as it means more efficient utilization of roads without road infrastructure investments. I expect that automated driving will involve a mesh network between cars, not communication with the roads, given the cost of building out a smart road infrastructure combined with challenges of keeping it current.

By the end of last night, our group (Blake, Steve, Anne, Vanessa and me) had a collective case of the meat sweats. Why? Because we attended the latest Petting Zoo meat fest at the Bloodhound bar in SoMa. In short, it is a celebration of meat, with whole animals grilled, cooked and carved in the bar or the alley next to it. Steve and Ann had been to a couple prior iterations and gave it a big thumbs up, so Blake, Vanessa and I joined them yesterday evening. In short, the Petting Zoo was awesome, although I don’t think I can take that level of meat consumption more than every six weeks or so.

Last night’s event centered on a pig roast and the cooking and carving of a goat, with some lamb burgers and various charcuterie (awesome beerwurst, blood sausage, chorizo, etc.) thrown in. Blake, Steve and I arrived right when the doors opened at 6pm so as to procure a seat–all that meat eating wears you out. There were bowls full of chiccarones (fried pork rinds) set around the bar, while servers walked with platters of charcuterie, chorizo on sticks, and little sausage sliders with great buns and sauerkraut. Blake and I started off the evening with a highlighted cocktail, an Old Fashioned made with maple syrup and infused with bacon. Normally I don’t want to have anything with whiskey or bourbon, but this drink was great, and not too sweet. I liked it enough to get another one later on in the evening.

[All the photos are up on Flickr. Slideshow below, or click through to see them larger.]

By the time Vanessa and Anne arrived, they started bringing out additional meat products, including a lamb burger patty on a stick that Vanessa liked enough to eat–the first time I can remember her having lamb. The takeaway is that if it is really good meat, super fresh and prepared right there, it is good enough for Vanessa! The center of gravity then shifted to the back of the bar, where the meat men started carving animals, beginning with a goat and ending with a pig. We kept an eye on the side window to watch for servers with new meat platters walking around towards the front door, near our location, so that we could descend upon them and get the pick of the meats.

After a couple of hours of meat consumption, we were all oozing lipids and ready to head home and detox. The event wasn’t cheap, at $42/person, but I certainly got my money’s worth in meats, plus admission included a drink ticket, which I  used for that $9 Old Fashioned cocktail.

A note on the photos: despite the very fast prime lens on my Panasonic GF1 camera (max aperture of f 1.7) and large sensor size, the light was still too dim to allow for spontaneous shooting (“Please freeze for a minute so I can hold the shutter open long enough to get sufficient light”) without a flash, but I didn’t want to have the horrible flash look in the photos. So MacGyver Hopp in action! I wrapped a kleenex around the flash to diffuse the light, which worked like a champ. When Vanessa arrived, she gave me a barrette to clip the tissue on securely. Problem solved. I noticed a couple other folks using similar solutions last night.

Vanessa and I visited Pi Bar (new pizza/good beer place on Valencia) with a large group on its second night, which was also a Friday (October 2). As Chris posted over on his blog, we had a mixed experience that night. The wait was a bit long, some of the pizza was great, some wasn’t so great, etc. About what you would expect at a place working out the kinks, so you cut it some slack.

Last Friday (October 9), Vanessa and I popped in for a pie before we headed down to Carmel for the weekend. We ordered a salad to start and a small pepperoni pizza. The pizza was cooked about to perfect (although we initially feared it was a bit overdone) and the salad was great. About the only area for them to improve was a long wait for the pizza. But hey, they haven’t even been open a month, so they are definitely still in their grace period. Pauline’s and Gialina are still my faves in town, but we’ll keep checking Pi Bar out, especially given the close proximity to our apartment, and the tasty beers on tap.

Thanks to Siedel’s initiative, Vanessa and I made a trip tonight to the shiny new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, along with Joe and Cynthia. On Thursdays from 6 to 10 they have a “Nightlife” event, which is basically a cocktail party at the museum with various DJs playing. I’m not sure who the DJ was tonight, but the area around his setup included bicycles with flashing lights. OK! Most folks were dressed up and showing a lot of skin and makeup. Pretty entertaining when mixed in with African savannah exhibits.

Anyway, the museum itself was very enjoyable, especially the aquatic parts. I think I may be related to the albino alligator, although it didn’t have any freckles, so maybe not. And special for Go Go is the Galapagos hissing cockroach photo. Not my favorite animal there.