Room with a view

I told you already about managing to book in to the Marriott Marquis, one of the hotels closest to RSA Conference; one night in a “view” room and the other three in a standard. (Cost delta: $100+) When I checked in on the first day, the guy at reception told me that he’d put me in a view room, and all I had to do was talk with someone else at reception sometime on the Tuesday and they’d re-key my room cards to reflect checking out/checking in.

Look—procedure.

Well, that seemed nice, but when I got to my room, I thought the “view” part was a little disappointing:

However, it improved at night:

I must say that I like a city view at night. And I’ve missed living in a city with a skyline.

Herbs and spices

You know you’re in the Golden State when the benches outside Moscone Center have this notice on them:

Man, I do miss that kind of thing.

(Thankfully, I didn’t really notice many vapers. I swear SF was at the epicenter of that trend about six years ago. I did catch a whiff of marijuana as I was walking past Yerba Buena Park one mid-day. That somehow seemed appropriate.)

Fashion forward, with roomy pockets

This Craigslist job posting for a “personal assistant” came across my Twitter feed Wednesday, and it’s taken me all this time to plumb the depths of its narcissism and oblivion.

Even with the help of the lengthy stream of comments on the original poster’s feed.

Here was the original posting (since amended, which I’ll get to in a bit). I broke it down into chunks; if you click on each, and then click on the resulting screen, it should enlarge so you can actually read it. I can't believe these people got all this verbiage in a Craigslist ad:

A few thoughts:

They have nothing against sloths, but no dry senses of humor need apply? Are they fearful that someone might be mocking them if they think something funny was said, but they have no visual or auditory clues to that effect? I think they might be…

Happy to clean up dog shit and diarrhea; that seems a little unreasonable. Willing, I understand, but if I came across someone who was happy to do that, I’d frankly steer clear of him/her. As for the ability to lift a 40-pound dog up several flights of stairs, that seems like a red flag. There’s not an elevator in their SoMa abode?

It’s okay to be fashion forward, but leave room for the dog’s potty bags in your pocket. Huh. I guess that means that a fanny pack wouldn’t do it? Because there’d be room for the potty bags, but that’s totes not fashionable, y’know? I also wonder about the single hour a day scheduled for cleaning. Maybe their fifth-floor walk-up is very, very tiny?

(Someone on Twitter also called out the one hour per day that was Doodle-the-dog time:)

Also, their limit of five drinks per week seems unrealistic, given the list of duties and expected requirements. As everyone on Twitter pointed out, you work for these whackjobs, you need to drink.

Not quite getting most of the “bonus” characteristics, like:

Multilingual—what languages would these be, I wonder?

Knowledge of how to brush tangled hair without causing pain, starts down to Creepy Town, but it shifted into overdrive with “enjoy giving mani/pedis”.

The full spectrum of cookery seems quite ambitious for someone only being paid around $20/hour (the scale kept going down, and then up, but even the top end is below what a good cook gets), especially when that person is also cleaning, dog rescuing, providing personal protection, running errands, detangling hair, negotiating contracts, and a manicurist. Also, who’s up to date on GoT and Silicon Valley.

As you read through this Russian-novel-long posting, it’s interesting the number of times the writers insist that an applicant be willing to admit s/he is “not perfect”, “can own up to mistakes”, etc. And by “interesting” I mean “pathological”. At no time is there mention that they themselves might not be capable of doing the same.

Well, of course you have to jump through a serious of mindless hoops to apply for this job (including making a five-minute video explaining how you meet 100% of the requirements; yes, 100%), but the good news is they’re interviewing daily.

Now, here are a few interesting nuggets:

The original posting listed an hourly rate of $25-$35/hour. Which is certainly more than minimum wage, even in San Francisco. But it’s nowhere near what a top-notch PA gets, much less the dog wrangler, cook, meal planner, contract negotiator, body guard and all the rest of it.

And there is no mention of PTO or health insurance.

But throughout yesterday, the ad was apparently amended a couple of times, lowering the wage twice before raising it to a wider range.

And the last time I looked at the posting, they’d also included a very interesting datum about what they do that makes them unable to have a life:

They’re in biotech, folks. They’re #PharmaBro, x 2.

 ,

We can only hope that whoever takes this job doesn't give them enough time to reproduce.

And someone should rescue that dog. From them.

Gratitude Monday: Multiple media

Today I’m grateful for web alternatives to radio.

Because the Bay Area’s only classical radio station, KDFC, is in a fund-raising drive, and they’re reverting to their old, pre-public radio habits.

When I first arrived here in the Valley they Call Silicon, KDFC was a commercial station, possibly about the last one in the US devoted to classical music. Although listening to them for any increment longer than five minutes made me refer to them as “classics lite”, because they never played an entire piece. The most you got was a movement from a concerto or a symphony or a sonata before a commercial came on.

But evidently even that ratio of ads-to-content wasn’t paying off, because in 2011 the station was sold to the University of Southern California, which operates KUSC as a classics-format station for LA.

Ergo the pledge breaks.

Well, fair enough.

But since they started their fall fundraiser last week, they haven’t played more than a movement from a concerto or a symphony or a sonata before they slam you with four or five minutes of pledge hype.

But they jumped the shark, in my opinion, yesterday, when they interrupted “The Heavens Are Telling” twice to ask for money.

Honest-to-Bach—how crass can you get?

Well, no—I shouldn’t ask that sort of thing. They’ll show me soon enough.

Meanwhile, I’ve got Pandora, and my own playlists that will get me through this drive just fine. So, once again—God bless the Internet.

Fish story

I am not exactly sure what’s going on in the world of little wriggling fish, but anchovies are disappearing from the supermarket shelves in Northern California.

Actually—make that they have already disappeared. Not one single Trader Joe’s in Cupertino, Mountain View, Sunnyvale or Los Altos has so much as a tin, and they’ve taken to spreading out the smoked trout and sardines to cover up the major gap.

And Whole Foods had only a few cans, when there was space for two suppliers. Great, gaping space.

The manager at the Mountain View TJ told me that it’s a system thing—no anchovies in the pipeline anywhere. Although he didn’t know what the problem is.

There was apparently a mass anchovy suicide last month in Marina del Rey—thousands of the little silver buggers washed up on the beaches there. But the supermarkets have been bereft of them for longer than that. And most of the suppliers for the canned variety are in Europe, apparently.

Whatever. What this means for me is that there’s no Salad Niçoise for the foreseeable future, because you can’t have that without anchovies, you just can’t.

Which means—a whole lot more pasta primavera salads. Dang.

Not an Easter basket

A while ago I was at one of the lengthier stoplights a couple of blocks from my flat & I noticed this woman waiting to cross the street:

Not much of a fashion plate, but I purely admire her ingenuity vis-à-vis after-market storage accessories on her bike.

Penises with teeth--for future reference

Yesterday there was a commemoration in the SF Chronicle of one of their film critics, who—in addition to reviewing movies—does a Q&A column in the Sunday entertainment section of the paper. It’s called “Ask Mick LaSalle”, because—as it happens, his name is Mick LaSalle and people write in to excoriate him, praise him and ask questions about pictures.

Since I’ve only been reading the paper for a couple of years (and only the Sunday edition, since their delivery person in San José couldn’t seem to actually, you know, deliver), I haven’t really paid attention to him.

But yesterday’s retrospective had one vignette that caught my attention; it was a Q/A from 9 April 2006:

“Dear Mr. LaSalle: From one young, aspiring journalist to a seasoned reporter, thank you for the realistic review of King Kong. Your line about the ‘penises with teeth’ is spot-on.

“Ted R. Utoft, St, Paul, Minn.

“Dear Mr. Utoft: Thank you, son. The first rule of journalism -- something your teachers will never tell you -- is that you should always try to get the phrase ‘penises with teeth’ into an article, any article, even when out of context. This is especially important early in your career, as a way of letting folks know that a bright young talent has arrived on the scene. Try this yourself in your school newspaper, and if anyone tries to stand in the way of your creativity, start knocking over furniture. As you represent the generation that will someday replace me, I want to help you succeed in every way possible.”

The review references “an attack by creatures that look like penises with teeth.” Since I’ve not seen the actual, you know, flick, I have no idea who/what these creatures might be. But it might be worthwhile recording it and then fast-forwarding it through to find out.

Meanwhile, I’ll have to work on getting the key phrase into more of my posts.

Every body to get from street...

Last Thursday in the Silicon Valley the news of the death of Steve Jobs competed with the taking down of a gunman who killed three coworkers at a local quarry.

And by “taking down” I mean “shot full of holes and dead, dead, dead.”

The interesting thing to me is that I first found out about it via a voicemail from the local authorities on my landline, alerting all local residents that the alleged perp had been spotted in my neighborhood. The VM included a description of the suspect and his car.

That was the first time I’ve ever had one of those emergency calls. And buildings on both Apple and HP campuses were locked down on account of the local sightings. I will also say that I was really careful about having to take out my trash that evening.

The other interesting thing to me is that the cops blew the guy away in a house about a mile and a quarter away from me.

Maybe there is a reason why my renters’ insurance went up $200 when I moved from San José to here…

Fishy in SF

I love living in the shadow of San Francisco; there’s almost always something going on there that boggles the mind.

Most recently—that I know of—is the Board of Supervisors are considering a ban on the sale of pets within the city/county. Down to and including fish.

Don’t get me wrong—I think anyone involved with puppy and kitten mills should be eviscerated in the village square on market day pour encourager les autres. And I guess if there are gerbil mills and guppy mills we ought to add those people to the list, as well.

It just seems kind of snooty for a city to basically declare all pet sales strenglich verboten. The designer dog crowd will have to drive to San Mateo to get their labradoodles and pocket beagles.

And I wonder whether this covers the sale of ornamental koi for backyard ponds. Because that’s going to piss off a lot of folks in Larry Ellison’s neighborhood.

Toothpick tour of SF

Okay, I’ve been in a bit of a puckish mood lately & I came across this… Well, what is it? Engineering endeavor? Performance art? Too much time on his hands?

I dunno, but it’s fascinating. Click on the start arrow & crank up the volume, because the artist explains what all the structures are as the balls roll through them. & make sure you watch all the way to the end—there are several paths for the balls.