Thursday, December 19, 2013

6 Most Annoying Things I've Learned After Living 7 Years in San Francisco

I'm not a world-weary traveler by any means, but I've been around a little. I'm originally from Staten Island (NY), lived upstate for decade, and then moved to California where I've lived all over from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles and San Francisco, which I've been at for the longest. All the places I've been have their pros and cons (NY has great people but shitty-ass weather and LA has sometimes shitty people but excellent weather, etc) but none of these places hold a candle to the weirdness that I've discovered while living in San Francisco. The first couple years I spent going to college here I thought I was losing my mind, or was just a shitty human being who failed at life, because stuff that SFers found normal and cool I always found dumb, gross or illogical. It wasn't until I started taking occasional breaks from the city, as well as chatting it up with other transplants that had the exact same issues I did with "The City by the Bay", that I finally stumbled upon a magnificent discovery: SAN FRANCISCO IS FUCKING WEIRD!

And not that "kinda cool weird" feeling you get when watching an episode of Comedy Bang Bang. I mean the overly annoyingly annoying weird that makes you want to gouge out your eyeballs, rip off your ears, and cut out your tongue so that you can't see, hear, or speak of it ever again. You know that horrible student film you made in college that you never ever want anyone to see because the acting was terrible and the plot didn't make any sense? That's San Francisco.

And with that, here's the 6 most annoying Things I've learned after living 7 Years in San Francisco:

1) Any form of transportation straight up sucks (that includes walking)


When it comes to how I get around, like most people in SF, I usually alternate between three things; walking, driving, and taking public trans (MUNI, for those you not from here). The reason why I switch between these things, without relying on one or the other too much is because... well... relying on any one of these too much would drive the average person completely bat-shit insane (which basically explains the entire Tenderloin).



You'd think SF would be a great place to walk; it's a very compact city that has a lot of NYC influences, shops are typically right around the corner from where you live, and the scenery is unquestionably beautify around here. The reason why it sucks ass is because there's dog shit, used condoms, and human shit literally sprinkled around on every single block. It's not even off to the side or anything, it's literally plopped in the middle of the sidewalks to the point where you have to long jump over it. I'm sure there's some shoe cleaner company that makes a mint off of this city.

Driving in San Francisco is a private hell in itself, because everyone drives slow (thus making rush hours just as bad as Los Angeles), there's no place to park, and the meter people hand out tickets like they're Jolly Ranchers and it's Halloween. Plus the roads are unkempt, way too narrow on two-way streets, and don't make any logical sense from a city planning perspective. You can't make left turns anywhere, roads change names without warning, and some street-signs are flat out missing. That's all I'm going to say about driving in SF, because it's already pissing me off just thinking about it.

And then there's SF's famous MUNI system, which NEVER runs on time, breaks down twice a day (always during peak hours too) and closes at 11:45 on weekends basically diving you the choice to either give yourself a nice little DUI/car death or pay $40 for a cab where the driver "forgets" how to use both his GPS and credit card machine. The city decided to make the Simpsons' Springfield decision to waste all their spare money to make a shitty shuttle that goes from downtown to Chinatown (which, if you're ever visited, you know is basically walking distance) instead of modernizing their entire public trans system, which as of 2013, has received record-breaking complaints from it's citizens over it's hilarious inefficiency and poor management.

2)There's zero logic when it comes to the dating scene


=HOT!!!      
 =Ugly as a paper bag full of turds that you had to pay 10 cents for. 


I'm just gonna be straight up and say that I have a very hard time getting a date in this city. Like even one date. I'm not a shy dude either, I ask girls out all the time and am pretty chatty/friendly/confident by nature, but it never gets me anywhere. This is a problem I have never had anywhere else in any other place except for SF. Sure, I've been dumped/rejected before, many times in fact, but not even being able to get ONE date from girls that I know 100% are single (and straight) is something that I've found exclusively to be a huge factor in SF.

At the risk of sounding like I masturbate to my of reflection (only on Thursday mornings, for the record), I'm not a "bad looking" guy. In fact, I'm pretty decent looking. I also am in good shape, tall, have a good steady job, try to keep myself well-groomed, and am, in general, a well-mannered upstanding contributing member of society (despite that all my blog suggesting otherwise). I've never cheated on anyone nor intentionally done anyone any harm. I'd totally fuck me (a lot of people even tell me on a daily basis that I should).

So when I try to get a date from a girl I like in San Francisco I ALWAYS get one of two responses: Ether she says "I don't know you well enough as a friend to go on a date with you" (isn't the "gettimg to know you" thing the whole part of the first date? I don't want to date my sister, thanks...) or she says "I'm sorry, but I'm going through a lot right now and just want to concentrate on me right now" (I'm asking you to dinner, not giving you a ring. Just take the damn free meal!). Every. Single. Time. Normally when I get rejected in other cities it's usually an acceptable "you're not my type" or a even more acceptable "fuck no", but it's the fact the all SF ladies give similar answers is what really weird me out.  And the WEIRDEST this is that this isn't exclusive to your's truly either. Every single guy (and even some women I know that aren't from here but are friends with girls who are) I talk to that is single, who is well mannered, decent looking, and not from SF, tells me they encounter the exact same problem on the regular from here. And these are guys that were getting dates left in right in other cities.

And the craziest thing happens when you take the time to observe who is actually getting dates in San Francisco and doesn't have this problem. Seriously, if you live here, just go outside for a couple hours and see what couples look like around here: All the most beautiful, accomplished girls, are always with the most homeless looking, uneducated, rude, ugly, out of shape, smelly, lazy, immature guys you'll ever see (I'm platonic friends with many of these ladies, so I'm not just pulling shit out of my ass here). And I'm not exaggerating because I'm bitter (I actually find the whole situation hilarious), that's actually the types of dudes around here girls find to be on a Chaninng Tatum level of hotness here. And these dudes they hook up with aren't a "beauty is skin deep" thing either; most are unemployed, alcoholics, cheaters, beaters, or just plain bad human beings. The worst part is, the girls that date these guys, don't think there's anything abnormal about how they treat them. The dude cheats on them or get arrested several times, SF girls be like "boys will be boys" and just continue on with the relationship with Mr. Evil Joe Dirt. And when the girl finally wises up and breaks up with the guy... The just go and and date the next guy they find that looks and acts exactly like the last one, thus the cycle continues.

And it isn't even like these guys have game or anything either. You see that drunk off his ass slob that came to the bar alone, instigates 4 fights per bar, can barely form words and dropped the last 2 drinks that were served to him? Well that is the guy that always pulls mad bitches on a Friday night. That's like if a 100% less suave and 100% more drunk Pierce Bronson never cleaned himself up when he great his hair out in Die Another Day and still managed to pull 6 Halle Berry's. I mean, I might as well quit my job, stop bathing, shaving, and live on the streets if I wanted to be a be pimp in this city.

Speaking of living on the streets...      

3)The housing situation is basically an extortion scheme

I'm very happy to be living in the place I'm at, because I've seen firsthand what SF's housing situation is like. My place isn't the Ritz Carlton (Hey! That's my name too... but lame because it's not spelled with a K. K's are cool!) the shower pressure is shit, the lights flicker on and off, and shit's falling apart all the time, BUT it's basically the playboy mansion compared to what else is out there for under $2,000 a month.
Take a quick look at these postings on Craigslist:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/

Notice a trend? All the affordable places are either in horrible neighborhoods, have a HUGE list of Nazi rules (like no overnight guests and no cooking), or are basically the size of a closet. And the worst part is, people literally line up bid on these small ass rooms, sometimes even offering more money for them than the initial price, because affordable housing is so scarce to the point of paying $800 just to life in a room that looks like this:
 (In case you can't tell, the shoe rack is the head of the bed)

4)Everything in the city is strictly catered to the hipster crowed to the point where it's ridiculous




Everything in SF caters to a specific crowed: Those that hate the mainstream. This wouldn't necessarily be a terrible thing, but when EVERY place is like then, then the whole thing is a total oxymoron, because you're just making the weird and obscure into... the new mainstream. Now I've never considered myself to be associated with any specific crowed in general, I hate listening to Drake, but I dig Kanye West (recovering gay fish dating a Hobbit and all), and listen to a lot of Earth Wind and Fire. I just like what I like. I don't go out of my way to be a part of a certain culture. So when I go out to a bar, event, or other social setting, I get a little annoyed when every single place goes out of it was to cater strictly to people that are overly obsessed with banjos, wine, vinyl, strictly college only sports teams, and who love talking about ex Presidents and country music. That's seriously 90% of what you'll find if you go to a 4+ star reviewed bar that you found on Yelp. Every social spot is so ridiculously non mainstream that I am tempted to lock myself in a closet and blast horrible Top-40 Beiber music until my eardrums exploded just for a change of pace.

Also, no one is ever on the dace floor at these places for some reason. It's like "why didn't you just drink at home?". People tend to not socialize with other people unless they already know them, and the whole atmosphere in all these, supposedly social, spots is always very alienating. I went to a Lil' Jon DJ event at a very popular SF club last Saturday and almost everyone in the crowd was just standing around, looking board. No one was even getting crunk (which is basically the entire point in being in Lil' Jon's presence)! Sad...just... just sad.   

5)The weather has A.D.D.
 (SF in July)


If you venture outside on an average day in SF, you'll notice two things; 1. There's a totally different climate in each district you go to, and 2. each area's climate changes ever other hour. And I'm not talking about it being warm during the day and then cooling off at night, I'm talking it being 50 degrees in the morning, 80 degrees mid morning, 40 degrees in the early afternoon, 70 degrees at lunchtime, and then and continuous alteration between 50 and 30 degrees with wind from early evening until midnight. And every other day after that is just other random shit.  And if you drive to Oakland or San Jose (which aren't far from SF... at all) you get normal Northern California weather. It's like God's retarded brother Mickey, who's also addicted to sugar and paint, is solely in charge of this city's climate.

Now, you might be wondering at this point "Why they hell do YOU live here if you have so many issues with San Francisco?". Well I'm glad you asked that, homie, because that brings me to the final thing I find annoying about living in this city...

6)You'll end up staying here because it's also too damn easy to find a good, well-paying job compared to the cities that you actually want to live in




You don't see our McDonald employees protesting as much as the ones in NYC. You know why? Minimum wage here is going to be $11 probably within the next year. That's why. It most cities, you work one shitty-ass job for years and years, struggling to get by. Here?

Well let me just use myself as an example; I went from making minimum wage at a Nike store, to working at a condo complex, to working in sales at a start-up company, to making a respectable salary with benefits working in the financial district. All within a year. I didn't hunt down managers, I didn't have any connections, I didn't fuck my way to the top. All I did was keep updating my resume on Indeed.com and applied to whatever looked like a better job I currently had, maybe once or twice a week, until I finally ended up at the one I wanted in the first place.

I would rap this article up with something insightful to take away from my latest rant... but nope.

You can stop reading now.




Friday, November 15, 2013

Black and white comics

To quote Peter Griffin; "You know what really grinds my gears?" 


I can find tons of websites where people still complain about this:












Comics Nick Fury (Marvel Comics)






















Movie (and the comics for over a decade prior) Nick Fury



















But I can't find any websites where people still complain about this:



Comics Baxter Stockman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)







Thursday, July 4, 2013

Societal Black Memory Loss

Hey what's up y'all?

Been kind of obscure for awhile I know, but I'm back here, where you like it or not, with a brand new post:

I set some time aside to talk about something that has been bothering me recently, and by recently I mean always. That something is how "Blackness" somehow instantly creates memory loss in our society. What do I mean? I mean that most things/events/etc. that garners sympathy, admiration, or recognition from Black people is instantly and conveniently "forgotten" by society as a whole. I'll give some examples:

The American economic crisis:
Who does everyone blame? Obama. But, conveniently everyone has completely forgotten that it was during the previous President's term that the stock market crashed (If you don't believe my half-black ass, look it up... or watch this speech Bush made addressing the crash during his term http://youtu.be/YsDmPEeurfA). And yet who gets all the "impeach" signs made up for him and pictures that compare him to Hitler (...really?), Obama. It's like blaming the janitor for a giant turd someone else left on the floor.

The reinvention of the Super Hero genre:
Talk to most comic fans, read most articles, etc.; What is the movie that everyone claims reinvented the Super Hero genre for the new generation? 2000's X-Men. X-Men is the film that everyone praises for creating the template for deep, dark, intelligent, and gritty Super Hero flicks. Seriously, ask anyone and that's the movie they'll say. Seriously go ask someone right now or do a Google search. I'll wait...
...
...
OK, so X-Men is undoubtedly the first of the new wave of Super Hero flicks, right? As a matter of fact, as Lex Luthor would say in my least favorite film of all time: WRONG! It was 1998's Blade (also a Marvel comic), an awesome film that is also arguably a better film than X-men (mostly because of this line: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXhKzY0BKwY). The movie also didn't get any credit for utilizing bullet time a full year before it was made famous in The Matrix. Do you ever hear anyone EVER praise Blade for basically recreating the comic book/Super Hero genre? Nope.

Lando Calrissian
You ever hear anyone praising that dude for blowing up the 2nd Death Star? Nope. They only remember that he betrayed Han.

So that's my rant for today. Cheers!

PS: During the whole gay marriage thing (maybe you heard of it, not sure if it got enough news coverage... sarcasm), this MUCH BIGGER ISSUE was completely ignored by the media, the repeal of anti-discrimination laws against voting minorities in the South, or Jim Crow laws.: http://www.upworthy.com/civil-rights-defenders-won-this-fight-in-1965-this-justice-explains-how-its-been-undone-in-2013?c=ufb1

Happy 4th! And remember, buttholes and firecrackers don't mix.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Superbowl

Superbowl is today (GO NINERS!) and while I'm interested in the game, I'm also interested in some of the movie trailers we'll be seeing. I'll post some on here if I get a chance (and if I'm not too wasted). Cheers!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

GIRL TRANSLATOR


I love women. Everything down from the way they talk to the way they walk fills me with a deep joy and some of that good 'ol fashion American horniness (restraining orders pending, I'm sure). Now girls, unfortunately, are a different story. And yes there is a huge difference between women and girls. HUGE, I say! Don't get me wrong, what I'm talking about has absolutely nothing to do with age (though I am strictly sticking to talking about the 18 and up crowd, cause you know... eww). The difference between women and girls is the sense of maturity and class that they present (or, in most "girls" cases, lack). Women tend to know what they want and how to get it. Girls have absolutely no idea what they want...ever, but expect everyone else to and give it to them whenever they want it...even though they don't know what "it" is. Make sense? No? Good, then we're both on the same page.

Women are hard enough to understand, but girls are damn near impossible. So since I have nothing better to do with my time right now (and, let's face it, if you're reading this, neither do you) I thought I'd compile a list of examples of key girl phrases and translate their real meaning for you that I have learned over many years through trial and error (mostly error) up to the infant stages of the year 2013:

Key Girl Phrases v. Actual Meaning:
  • We should just be friends = I want to keep you around as a shoulder to cry on, someone to carry my stuff, and be an emergency penis in case I can't find a better one when I'm drunk and horny.

  • I don't care about money=I care about money

  • I'll think about it = No

  • Sorry, but I'm not ready for a relationship = Sorry, but I'm not ready for a relationship with you.

  • It's not you, it's me = It's you. It's so you. You really suck.

  • Stop = More. Faster. Harder.

  • That is so interesting = OK, that's enough out of you. Let me talk about me now.

  • We totally should hang out sometime = Meh... Maybe I'll see you again... Or not. Don't really care.

  • We shouldn't do this. = I want you to bend me over and forcibly **** my ****ing brains out. Don't you dare ask for permission. Come on, It's not rape until I scream "RAPE!".

Sigh...

What the HELL, New 52???


Hey readers (all 1 of you),

This will be my first post in ages as well as my first post of 2013. Hooray!! (Applaud)

This subject is a little dated, cause the issue came out months and months ago... last year... But I'm talking about it right now. So deal.

Anywho, this is in regards to DC comics' New 52 Batman Annual #1. It features a story with Mr. Freeze, reintroducing him and providing him with a "fresh" new origin story for the New 52.



(Excellent art. The story is another story...)


Long story short, it pissed me off. And me being a ridiculous Batman fanatic, I got to blog about it. I actually liked most of the New 52 Batman stories (Aside from what they did with Tim Drake and Harley Quinn), but this one made me want to drop-kick a toddler (if I was just slightly ticked off, it would only be kindergartner).

(Spoilers ahead.)

OK, first things first. Ever since Paul Dini reinvented Mr. Freeze in "Heart of Ice" of Batman: The Animated Series, the character has gone on to be, arguably, the most dynamic and sympathetic character in that Batman universe. Mr. Freeze represented the pure moral dilemma of Batman: Vengeance vs. Justice. All he wanted was to be reunited with his wife, which he sacrificed everything for, and that was what made his character stand apart from a Joker or a Two-Face. He was a pure grey area. A villain where the only thing that separated him from Batman, was the fact that he felt that the ends justified the means. Every crime, death, or mayhem that Mr. Freeze committed was in service to his beloved wife, which made him a deeper character and one that we, as an audience, could relate to. Unfortunately, this is one of the things that the "New 52" has completely done away with (or "shat on" if you will).

The story in Batman Annual #1 changes Mr. Freeze from a sympathetic madman to nothing more than just another psychopath. The issue begins with Freeze recalling time with his mother as a child, but quickly moves to an escape from Arkham Asylum. The story seems to be going great at first; Freeze does some cool (pun not intended) ice moves, kills a bunch of guards and goes on a crusade to kill Bruce Wayne (not Batman), now blaming him for separating him from his frozen wife Nora. Seems like the good 'ol Freeze, right? That's what it seems like until the issue jumps the shark. Like 3 sharks. Great whites on steroids.

As more flashbacks keep popping in-between Freeze rampaging his way to Bruce, getting weapons from The Penguin, beating the crap out of Robin and Nightwing, and basically dealing out a heaping dose of murder to everyone that isn't a reoccurring character, we eventually come to a twist ending. And what a twist in is.

The twist is: there is no Nora. Mr. Freeze was never married. It is all in his head. He is just a complete delusional wacko with mommy issues. He keeps thinking random cryo-frozen people are his imaginary wife and starts a scenario to keep coming back again and again, trying to "save" them and killing anyone in his way. He's not a sad frozen loving husband trying to save his beloved wife, he's just a frozen nut. So basically, Dini's complex version of the character got shatter on.

After Freeze is arrested by Batman, the issues ends showing Freeze as a child with his mother again, who is now crippled and stricken with Alzheimer's after falling into a frozen lake, and putting her out of her misery, but drowning her back at the said lake. Apparently explaining his homicidal maniac behavior in the story. Wow...

Thanks "New 52" DC... You just took a complex, excellent, tragic villain with an original and interesting back story and broke him down to just another cheap Norman Bates rip-off. Which is also an insult to Norman Bates. So you just shat on both Paul Dini, Batman, and Hitchcock with this issue. Thanks again.