Value Add

Hell no we won't go...

I'll be picketing in front of Luisa's tonight on Union from 7pm - 9pm, for anyone who wants to join. See more on why, here. See more on what you can do to help here.

I've never taken up signage and marched against this ridiculous war. Never marched against the atrocities in the Darfur conflict. But get a snobby, uninformed restaurateur with too much time on her hands threatening to close down one of my favorite neighborhood bars, and I'm up in arms. Me and friends will be marching on Luisa's protesting the close of the John Barleycorn pub. Her place is on Union street somewhere. Join me if you'd like.

MIKA...

My big gay brother introduced me to Mika the other weekend while in Portland visiting friends and family. I know I'm kinda late to the game on this guy(hence making myself feel better if you're reading about him for the first time here), but damn I can't stop listening to his new album Cartoon in Motion.

A straight-up cross between Prince and Freddie Mercury Mika transcends the sexually charged, "I'm going skins on this dance floor" gay club scene and pushes head on into mainstream pop. He's even got a song called 'Big Girls(you are beautiful) paying homage to that Queen of Queen which he sounds so much like. You've got a cousin in Idaho who thinks Bush is giving brown people 'the what for'? I still think he or she might like this guy. He does re-use some beats putting a little Mika'ism on them, but luckily the American public has already been exposed to that.

If you have a minute check the dude out and let me know what you think. He'll stay in my iPod rotation for a while. I'm super...thnx for asking...

Burrito Monday

Do you like lettuce on your burritos? If so, why? As I continue to consumer 3-4 burritos per week it's something I wonder about constantly. I've been to the most authentic burrito places in the mission, Oregon, San Diego, etc., and most don't offer lettuce on burritos. You have to ask and there might not even be any in the building.



Every now and then I get a burrito with lettuce and I think to myself, wow, this is different. But, the burritos contents also turn the lettuce warm, which freaks me out a little. Warm lettuce really isn't that good. Whadya think? ....

The Trifecta That Wasn't

I was this close to pulling off one of the most unprecedented upsets in the history of March Madness this past month and it almost went unnoticed. There was no Jim Nantz to interview me before the game, no CBS montage dedicated to what might have been, so I quietly just went about my business to see if I could go from Reno, to Lake Tahoe, to Las Vegas, in consecutive weekends. Still holding....

The sleep deprivation brought upon by just one of those trips is enough to give a 30-something young professional a case of the Monday's for weeks. The only thing that held me back from completing this historic endeavor was...you guessed it. A girlfriend. Think about it...I was one girlfriend away from hitting Reno on March 10th weekend, Tahoe March 17th weekend and Vegas this weekend. I'm a little disappointed in myself for not pushing her harder on this one. But people keep telling me I need to pick and choose my battles. Something about compromise. I don't  know...seems weird.

The Reno trip was great. Won $ on the craps table and in the sports book. Tahoe would have been great as it's a yearly trip during March Madness the guys from work take. Lots of chili dogs and open windows I'm told. This weekend will possibly rival my future wedding day and birth of my first child as greatest times ever, as my boy Erick "Kicker" Christensen is having his bachelor party during the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament.

I guess there's always next year to look forward to. After all, I am a Pirates fan so I'm used to disappointment. With each new year brings the hope of a World Series championship, and a Trifecta realized. We'll see....

Yeah..I'm a home owner

So I'm from Portland, Oregon. Some call it the city of roses. My friends in California call it Canada. Regardless, Portland is a nice city. Smaller than San Jose, CA but bigger than Toledo, OH, Portland has a transient past and it rains a lot...which means one thing to a San Franciscan. Affordable housing. I would say the average hard working young person in San Francisco feels they have a better shot at making a professional sports team than owning a home.


My immediate family, mom...dad...twin brother, all live up in or outside of Portland and I would like to move back there someday. I've recently started looking at home ownership in the Pacific Northwest and have conversations with old friends that go something like this...

Me: "Hey Dave(about to own home #2), I saw a 4 bedroom 2 bath for $400K. I'm thinking of buying that."
Dave: "Wow...that is really expensive."
Me: "A 1 1/2 bedroom 1 bath middle floor condo in North Beach is $750K"
Dave: "Oh. Cool. You people are insane."

Some days I think home ownership is something that could be right around the corner for me. I can taste it. Take my respectable savings account, head up to Oregon and I'll make it work. Get into major debt here trying to pay my mortgage and I'll make it work. Other days it seems further away than Iraq. And to most of you, honestly,  how far away does Iraq feel? Are we even at war? If the Daily Show didn't do a parody report nightly I wouldn't even know we were there. Anyway...I feel like that call from the Pittsburgh Pirates is right around the corner today.

Saving Money

I refuse to acknowledge how little I've contributed these past months.

Does packing your own lunch save you money? Here lays a debate that rages inside the heads of every young urban professional. Let me ask the same question differently. Does packing your own lunch when buying contents of said lunch from Whole Paycheck, save you money?

I still think there's a lot of healthy debate out there on this subject. OK..maybe at the end of one full month if I do buy the contents for a sandwich and make this sandwich back at the office I'll realize true value(add) and save some cash. But I don't think it will really make that much of a difference. I bought a pound of turkey, 80z of sliced cheese, a loaf of bread, some mayo and mustard today at Whole Paycheck and I am going to make myself a sandwich until the turkey runs out. The cost, $24.

My control will be the actual sandwiches Whole Paychecks makes. It doesn't matter what you eat when you eat our, or where. Everything is the same price. I either pay $7.50 for a sandwich at Whole Paycheck, or $7.35 for a burrito or $7.87 for sushi. All the same. There is no debate here.

To recap - Sandwich material is $24. I won't have to buy new bread or condiments over the course of the turkey's sustainment, however turkey is $12.49 a pound. So, I'll go through a couple of weeks worth of sandwiches and see how much a I really save. I'll bet you at the end of 30 days I save something like $12.76. Then I can justify eating out as much as I want. This should come in handy some day when I'm married.

Luisa Hansen Must Go...

Luisa Hansen must go. You can find out why here, via my Yelp review of her lame Italian restaurant in sleepy Cow Hollow. And, check out the save the John Barleycorn site here as well.

Basically, I have a problem with restaurateurs buying the lease from under beloved drinking establishments, while kicking them in the balls. Shame on you Luisa Hansen. I'm sure there is a building in Pacific Heights or The Marina that will suite your needs.

New Meebo Interface

Logged onto IM through Meebo this morning to find a new interface...and I think it looks pretty cool. Have not done much with it yet or really checked it out, but from initial looks, seems solid. A bit more stylish and looks friendly. Nice work from the Meeboians.

If anyone out there isn't using Meebo for their IM, definitely check it out. It's been much easier for me to use than Trillian and other IM aggregators. Are they called that? If not, sorry Meebo. :)

Guys with cell phones in shitters

You're not going to believe this, but I've been traveling a ton in October. Which is a major disappointment because one of the only reasons to live in San Francisco is the weather during this month. October in The City is right up their with bread and water on the 'need it to stay alive scale.'

The other weekend I was in Virginia for a friend's wedding, detailed here by the uncompromising Sheila. Then it was off to Ashland, Ohio to visit my girlfriend's family and watch her cousin complete Ashland High's first 9-0 football season in 60+ years. This is in the town's 100th year of high school football, which btw is commemorated in EVERY downtown store window via full pictures of each player, BIOS and war paint. Good luck boys. This week I'm in Philadelphia working at a Voce client, Unisys, and Thursday night fly back to San Francisco...only to get back in the car Friday and drive to L.A. for THE Halloween party at Bob Roy's. (pic of my costume on the left)

Needless to say, I've done a bit of traveling lately and no matter where I go and how many air miles I accrue, I always run into the guy who thinks it's ok to take cell phone calls in the shitter. And apparently I'm not the only one. More on social ineptitude here.

This needs to be broken down.

First, it's hard enough taking a deuce anywhere that isn't your own bathroom. And that's final. When I walk into an airport restroom in Chicago, or Atlanta, or Philadelphia, the last thing I can pretty much handle is some dude talking away on his cell phone as he clears the deck. And what about the other 284 guys in there doing their business, blowing their noses, washing their hands...?...the noise is something else. I mean a lot of noise. I start to wonder...has anyone ever called me while in the shitter at the airport?

The blatant admission is also shocking. "Where are you?" the person on the end of the line inevitably asks. "Oh....I just got into San Francisco and I'm in the bathroom." This is when I look over as the guy next to me is taking out his junk and my urinal is flushing. How can you possibly talk on the phone at this point? It is just baffling. I wish blank stares of amazement could explode heads.

If anyone out there gets off a plane and thinks they need to reach me immediately, please don't. I'll simply hang up once I hear the first echo or toilet flush.

Just stick to the script...

First, I want to thank Frank the Tank for guest posting today. Work has been crazy the past few days and I'm coming off of a drunken weekend in Reno playing cards, downing Coronoa Lights and fighting off the advances of female Russian card dealers.







    By Frank the Tank

Colin, thanks so much for letting me post to Value Add. I really do need to get something off my chest and here's the perfect forum. What's up with the Olive Garden? I mean seriously..that place freaks me out. Very clean restrooms though. Especially the one in Brea, California.

My girlfriend and I were at an Olive Garden last night, which was lovely...and at one point before the meal started I noticed a waitress from the corner of my eye. She came over to us and asked if we would like to sample some of their white, or red wine. The white was a Kendall Jackson Chardonnay which the girl HEAVILY endorsed and the other a Sterling red. I thought the only people endorsing Kendall Jackson that adamantly were *very social* stay at home MILFs.

I was taken aback. I haven't been to the Olive Garden since the incident with Marissa and the trust tree and I pretty much blocked that out of my skull. So other than that, it's been like a good 6 or 7 years. When did they start offering you shots of wine? Has that always been the case? And wow, how many families of 7 or more were there last night? A lot.

Probably the most alarming thing about the experience is the need for everyone, and I mean everyone, to stick to their scripts. If anyone-  patron, hostess, waiter/waitress, cook, serving tray, etc., abort from the script, you're looking at potential mayhem. The waitress finally got around to asking if I would like a glass of the Chardonnay and I said that I never drink white wine after 10am, so no thank you. Her face was similar to what I imagine the guy who first found fire looked like. Immediately, panic set in.

Is he serious? What could he mean by that? He did not say red or white, or no thank you. I need to get the bread sticks..the bread sticks. Oh god, now what?

It was an amazingly awkward exchange. Eventually, survival functions kicked in and she was able to right herself enough to come back and take our order. Once the food arrived, she checked back with us at the 3 minute mark, just like you're taught at a move em in move em out *high end* chain eatery.

I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid. Or maybe I really do miss Blue as much as everyone says. But I'll be damned if their wasn't this weird energy where if there weren't 48 people waiting for their table, or if the restaurant dipped below 36 families of 7 or more eating, or a guy didn't answer the would you like a Chardonnay question with 'yes please or no thank you,' that all hell was about to break loose. I think that's the last Olive Garden experience for me. I'm 0-2 in that place.