Sunday, June 30, 2013

Pride

Ben returned from Germany last night, just in time to go to the Pride parade today! It was a ton of fun to be surrounded by so many rainbows and high energy, happy people - the fact that DOMA and Prop 8 both got struck down this week made the whole celebration extra exuberant. It was also insanely crowded, so hard to get good photos, but I managed to snap a few...
Rainbow Robot!

I don't usually associate health insurance with rainbows..
...or the power company, for that matter.
Gay DNA!
Hehe. Wiener.
It was a nice way to celebrate the destruction of our traditional marriage, now that the gays getting married has ruined it for all of us.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Put a bird on it

The building that houses the San Francisco TFA office is undergoing some renovations, so part of the lobby is blocked off with temporary drywall. The wall has some colored lines painted on it to make it less construction-zone-y, but this week there was a new decor addition:
Yes, those are dozens (hundreds?) of creepy fake birds. It looks kind of like a demented taxidermist got a hold of a glue gun and went to town.
Honestly, I'm not even sure if it was a purposeful redecoration or if it's a prank - it seems too weird to be intentional, but like too much effort to be a gag. Maybe this is California being way ahead in the home decor fashion scene, and in a few years we'll all be hot gluing stuffed animals to our walls...

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Yet more San Francisco wandering

Ben is in Germany for a conference this week, so I spent today walking around the city solo and hitting all the tourist-y spots we haven't seen yet. First up was Alamo Square Park, for the painted ladies famous from Full House:
They were pretty much exactly what I had expected, although I was surprised by a cute playground nearby:
From there I walked down to Haight street, where I had a nutella crepe for lunch and took pictures of all the pretty houses I passed.
This was my favorite because it was the most colorful.
Not a house, but I took a picture for my pork-obsessed father.
Next I went up to Lombard, and worked up quite a sweat in the process since getting there requires climbing some pretty steep streets. I also climbed all the steps to the top - I think there were about 250?
View from the bottom
Proof I was there
View from the top
Pretty house on the street
I had planned on going to Coit Tower next to check out the view, but it was such a foggy day it didn't seem worth it. So instead I made one last stop before returning home, for a delicious and nutritious end to the day.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Sushirrito

LOOK WHAT I ATE FOR LUNCH TODAY:

Yes, it's a real thing.
California never ceases to amaze.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Cookies Rule Everything About Me

Ben and I have been to Berkeley twice now, and each time we walked past CREAM and I was desperate to go in, but the line was out the door and we didn't have time to wait. So when I had today off (because I worked last weekend in Sacramento), I decided to go to Berkeley to eat there. I figured that there would be less of a line on a Monday afternoon, but I was wrong.
Happily, since I didn't have anywhere to go afterward, I was able to wait in line and finally consummate my desire for an ice cream cookie sandwich.
It was totally worth the wait. I will definitely be making a few more pilgrimages there before the summer is over!

Musée Mécanique

After the Cable Car museum, we walked up to Fisherman's Wharf to visit the Musée Mécanique, a free museum of hundreds of antique arcade games and other coin-operated mechanical devices. All of the machines still work, so armed with a stack of quarters you can have a lot of fun wandering around and playing with them. There are so many different machines it was almost overwhelming, so I've tried to divide them into categories for sharing here.
Museum Entrance
Sign on most of the machines
Models of Everyday Scenery
I guess that before there was TV and movies, it was very entertaining to watch moving models of various types of work sites. You know, fascinating places like...
Oil Fields!
Saw Mills!
A Farm!
A carnival! (Actually this one is fun)

Music Machines
There were lots of elaborate music boxes and variations of player pianos. We didn't spend as much time with these machines since they were the most straightforward, but there was one incredibly cool one that - in addition to being a player piano - also had lots of drums and tambourines, and even a triangle.

This music box had dancing ballerinas
Close-up of the ballerinas

Love Machines
You know, because the best way to test your ability as a lover is to squeeze a metal handle, or shake hands with a creepy wizard.
From "flat tire" to "lovable"
I got "innocent" on this one
Sexy without nipples
Sex Wizard
"Shake hand of wizard...light indicates sex appeal"
One of the options is "gay," no idea in what sense

Fortune-Telling Machines
In addition to their insight on our sex lives, many machines also have words of wisdom about our futures. I tried one in which "Zodi" uses a typewriter to share your personal horoscope - it was neat in that you get to keep the typewritten paper "Zodi" creates for you.
Instructions to "establish mystic contact"
My horoscope
Martini tried a palmistry one, which was cool in that it actually sent up little pokey-things to prod her hand before spitting out a pre-printed fortune.
The small sign under "Insert 50 ¢" says "For over sixty years these unique American devices have been dispensing with absolute accuracy reliable information upon which to base future life-making decisions. Without them and left to chance, one might only guess what mistakes we frail mortals might have made..."
Front of Martini's fortune
Back of her fortune
There was also a "career pilot" machine that promised to tell you what career you are most suited for, among options like "love pirate" and "stooge."
Also "adagio dancer" and "clock watcher"
Games
Unsurprisingly, a lot of the machines were interactive games. They often turned out to be more fun in theory than they were to actually play, given the difficulty of controlling the mechanical components, but it was still neat to see what types of activities people considered game-worthy (and how many of them are still popular topics of video games).
Football! Complete with knitted sweaters.
Bowling!
"Sidewalk Engineering!"
Sharpshooting!
Wresting! This one has a warning about its "superhuman strength"
Executions 
There were multiple machines that re-enacted various types of executions. Maybe these should actually be considered part of the "everyday scenery" category?
"English Execution" machine
"French Execution" machine
"English Execution" in action (hanging)
"French Execution in action (guillotine)
Execution of unspecified nationality

Old-school Racism
Most of the machines were in the neighborhood of a hundred years old, and it showed. A lot.
That is a dead American Indian in the center
"Cantina de Rosa"
 "Opium Den" full of Chinese figures
A Polynesian dancer
This was part of the carnival display - note the African man as one of the wild animals.
I know "hillbilly" isn't actually a race...
...but these were still pretty offensive.

XXX 
There were lots of versions of peep show machines, but since they were from the Victorian era, most of them were pretty tame.
This one contained a fully clothed man and woman touching each other on the shoulder.
All I could see in this one was feathers.
Miscellaneous Weirdness
"Old Harry had one too many again"
Another drunk
This Ferris wheel was made by prisoners out of toothpicks
No idea what is going on here.
This was really cool - a Proxinoscope from 1889 that showed a girl skipping rope.
Last but not least...
All good museums end with a gift shop, and true to form this one was entirely mechanized.