San Diego. The beach life is a good life. +Sweet beach house +Much frolicking in sand, much baking of cookies and playing of many a loooong complex strategy board game… the must-have beach accessory of the season! FUNKENSCHLAG. (is a terrible game with a great name.)

Midnight bonfire +S’mores.. mm. Playing of paddleball/bocce/frisbee which turned into fiery frisbee resulting in death of frisbee.

Rented roller blades + awesome beach bikes in the same afternoon and cruised all over…Freeeewheeeeeelin… I adore that pink windbreaker. Mad fluorescent, big and billowy, it’s a lot of fun. <3

A good portion of my time during the trip was spent looking at, talking to, cuddling, or otherwise obsessing over this tiny creature:

Flufftastic 5 month old, 3 lb puppy that is a mix of Chihuahua, Poodle, Pekinese, and Dachshund. OMGWTFBBCUTE? He is like a tiny teddy bear/tribble creature that is really not like a dog at all.

Witnessed a teeny bit of Bay to Breakers… hordes of crazy folk including but not limited to Bowser, a ninja turtle, fruit of all kinds, a robot with an inflatable hammer who was bopping people on the heads (the back of the robot said “The humans are dead”)… and more tiny/skintight American Apparel outfits than you could shake a stick at.

And in totally other news,  I got to meet one of my blogging idols Doe Deere today!

Doe, A Deere indeed! <3

Garage Store! Just off the main drag. It was like a garage sale but more legit.

At one of several shoe stores, they had this sweet pony.

I think the salesgirl thought I was weird for wanting to photograph it. You clearly just don’t understand pony culture, miss.

Also, I got really excited about these space socks:

I can’t wait to wear these with… everything?? They also had them in purple. I probably need those.

Also bought a scholarly book on the history of disco (Edit: This book turned out to kind of change my life. Peter Shapiro’s Turn the Beat Around)

More Dolores Park funtimes last weekend…

Majestic mohawk poodle! Also was velvety soft! You can kind of see in this photo how neat the fur texture was… I give this dog 10/10 on the awesome scale.

Several impromptu musical performances…

Oh hey, band.

Oh hey, DJ dudes.

Plant It Earth

This one is just outside of a convenience store. Party time!

Hooray for jollity.. this one kinda reminds me of Sanrio. It’s probably at least 30-40 feet long. (Edit: They plastered over the left-hand 8 ft or so with commercial FUGLINESS. I am sad.)

Sweet art collective/gallery (Big Umbrella) right around the corner. Kinda weird hours but very cool.

Scads of gorgeous pink flowers lining 19th street.

Alta Plaza. Giant grassy steps into the hillside. Pictures do not do the view justice; you have more than a 180-degree panoramic view of the city from pretty high above.

Up and over the other side of the park, you can actually see out into the bay. So pretty! It’s like a little window into a peaceful ocean world.

From a certain angle, you can see Alcatraz really well.

Alamo Square is not as high up, but still has nice views. It is also filled with many cavorting dogs.

This particular hill is a stop on some tour-bus routes (Full House!) so every 15 minutes or so tourists swarm over the hill to take pics. Also it’s usually insanely windy, so don’t be deceived by its serene looks.

San Fran has a lot of very picturesque things.

Haha, the owner of that Beetle will probably think I’m stalking them, because today I passed by and once again that damn car was just looking super cool in the driveway.

I also took this random picture, because I liked all the shapes and textures going on. Also, you can’t really see, but Obama is on that milk carton on the left.

Then there are the parks that are bigger and more exciting, but take more effort in voyaging to them (also fun, when I have time). Dolores Park, on weekends is so crowded it’s pretty much an event unto itself.

It’s a lot like going to a music festival, with slightly less music. Only slightly! Because many people have instruments and sometimes do impromptu performances. And people do and wear odd and interesting things, and roving dogs come up to sniff and greet you. And sometimes passing merchants will offer wares to you. And now it’s sunny, and it’s positively grand!

Plus, the SF institution Bi Rite ice cream is adjacent…worth the line! Coffee Toffee … now that’s a flavor I can get [my mouth] behind.

Buena Vista. Tis in the Haight and is extremely big/steep, and has much foliage. The top is a fairly small enclosed circle of trees with some grass and limited views through the trees, but quite a few people were up there picnicking or laying about (both of which I proceeded to do).

(In fact, I have hiked up to the top once before, on New Year’s Eve of this year, intending to see the fireworks… buuuut because of the dense trees, we actually could not see ANYTHING, could only hear the booms and pops and speculate as to the starry wonders beyond our vision. Alas!)

I took this picture during the hike up, not from the top. It seems I still  managed to find the ‘Buena Vista’, tee hee.

So that’s all the park news for now. Hooray for parks. Is what I’m saying.

Edit: Golden Gate park deserves a post (or several) unto itself. McLaren park is another very interesting one (featuring the Jerry Garcia amphitheater! Seriously!) So mayhaps more on which, AALD.

Now this was a fun read. And a quick read, because I consumed the 10-book run (60 individual episodes) rather voraciously. It’s addictive! Like, more enthralling than a TV series even. It’s Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Pia Guerra. And it well deserves all the praise that’s been heaped upon it during its run over 5 or so years (ending in 2008).

I would definitely call it sci-fi, but it’s probably not like any sci-fi you’ve ever seen or read. I don’t think I’ve yet come across anything much like it… The premise is pretty extreme: at the beginning, a “plague” wipes out every male mammal, including all the men, except for one guy (the protagonist, Yorick, the titular “Last Man”).

He embarks on a voyage spanning multiple continents, on a quest to find his long-lost fiancee Beth. Along the way we see how the world (the women) have been coping with and reacting to the catastrophe. It’s basically one incredibly cool idea or detail after another that make for a very complete, realistic, and satisfying adventure. The dialogue is as snappy and fast-paced as in Buffy TVS, and just as hilarious and loaded with pop culture references.

It also has quite the cast of crazy characters, in addition to Yorick himself, who is an escape artist. It includes astronauts, geneticists, secret agents, ninjas, pirates, cow“girls” (cowboys not appropriate, haha), crazed man-hating lesbians, and a monkey. Hey, the monkey plays a very important part in the plot. Seriously.

Anyway, all wackiness aside, it’s also really thought-provoking, as any *real* SF should be, and makes a lot of interesting points pertaining to our own world. Or, I should say, it does a massively great job of… “speculating”, as it were. The series is a major achievement in any medium, and I’m bummed it doesn’t just go on and on forever. So do yourself a favor and CHECK IT OUT!!

The first episode is available to download here. They’re pretty cheap on Amazon, and to be honest, I checked all of them out from the library But I definitely plan to buy them in the future.

Vicereine Radio returns with a doubled-up episode: double the flavor, double the fun, and quadruple the grooves. Click the image above to listen, right-click to save, alternate link here

Outside a shoe store in the Haight (Her back says “Please don’t sit on me”)

Leaving the beach we came upon an apartment building. But not just ANY apartment building.

OH MY GOD. It’s Cutesaurus as a building!! (Hey EJ.. show us yer tits…!)

In the morning we first went to the SF Botanical Gardens at Golden Gate Park. Exciting flora to be seen.

Nature is most tranquil.

The next day, we went to the Fillmore square farmer’s market, which had funky jazz accompaniment by a cool band (sick bass!) and was attended by an amusing cross-slice of city denizens.

I queued up at the most popular vegetable vendor and was making my selections, rummaging through the beets and rainbow chard. I wanted to try something new… like a celery root, but I wasn’t sure about the celery root since I’ve never cooked it myself before… but I looked in the line and almost everyone was holding a celery root! So I was like wow there must be something to this celery root business. So I got a celery root too.

I know you’re probably thinking, HEY, if everyone jumped off a cliff with their celery root, would you do the same thing? And I answer you: probably.

Plus, what the heck is up with salted duck eggs??

Looks like a party, right?

The water was of course fffreezing, but it was actually much sunnier and warmer than I expected. I totally did not wear or bring anything remotely like beach-attire, but whatever. I still had fun:

We walked down the beach for some time and saw some amusing things. Like this:

Haha, she was just like, faceplanted in the sand (sunbathing, presumably…) The fellow in the distance was previously hard at work on the sand sculpture.

I found a crab body shell and decided to give Crabby a new life.

Go back to the sea, Crabby! Be free! …Go on, GIT!

Monday at Sugarbowl was one of my best days ever. Perfect weather, perfect snow, almost every run entirely to ourselves… diiiivine. The kind of day that reminds you that snowboarding is one of the coolest fucking things ever??

Bonus: Me vs. nature.

Tuesday was overall a fun nature day too, but I definitely had the grace of a clubfooted penguin on my cross-country skiis. It was enjoyable anyway, though my limbs were usually going in crazy directions, haha.

Also I wore EJ’s dad’s old boots from like, the 70s. (Because I have big feets and couldn’t wear his mom’s or sis’)

Comfyyyy. No. But they were better once I was actually going. I liked it the most when we were out off of the groomed ski resort areas skiing across the fresh, untouched snow on the lovely sunny hillside. Gliiiiding along with the greatest of ease!

Ski-posin! That’s me.

We barely saw anyone out and about where we went, which was also cool. Nature’s splendor! Snowballs were thrown, hills were hiked up and attempted (unsuccessfully) to be sledded down, and we sat upon an empty, stationary chairlift to rest.

If you look reeeeeally hard, you might be able to see a tiny figure in the distance in this picture:

So yes. Snow times = good times!

That’s my name! HELLO!

So that was pretty exciting. I also got some more pictures of *adorable* San Francisco homes.

Once and awhile you come across a store that makes you realize: I could really use an ornamental bird right about now.

I want to copy this birdcage yarn/felt art. So cute.

I continued on my way and got a disco sweater.

If anyone is wondering when I will wear such an item, I’ll have you know that I am considering wearing it to the Roller Disco on Thursday

And then of course I ended up spending a bunch on records!! AHH THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS. But I did get this awesomeness from the bargain bin.

I think the one in the belly shirt wins this Showdown… thoughts?