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SirPablo posted:I went to the Reagan library this past Sunday. It was magical. I made the double Reagan library - Nixon library in one day exodus a few years ago. It was a pretty good goddamn socal day -- Republicans and traffic. That said the places really mirror the presidents, Reagan library is a fantasitc building in a really pretty location with no substance whatsoever inside. The Nixon library is rather austere and has a good bunch of history about Nixon's life and presidency.
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Aug 2, 2013 22:01
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SirPablo posted:I learned that Reagan single handedly saved the american economy by lowering taxes and getting inflation under control. Bork was not confirmed due to partisanship. Ron new nothing about selling weapons to fund terrorists. Socialism is Bad. It CAN be done. He was a proud union man. Peace through strength. I'd like to think there's a animatron of Nancy waving from one corner. Don't tell me if that's not the case.
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Aug 2, 2013 22:03
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Willa Rogers posted:I'd like to think there's a animatron of Nancy waving from one corner. Don't tell me if that's not the case. I hope it has a "The best blowjob in hollywood" sign above her.
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Aug 2, 2013 22:17
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Dusseldorf posted:I made the double Reagan library - Nixon library in one day exodus a few years ago. It was a pretty good goddamn socal day -- Republicans and traffic. That said the places really mirror the presidents, Reagan library is a fantasitc building in a really pretty location with no substance whatsoever inside. The Nixon library is rather austere and has a good bunch of history about Nixon's life and presidency. It's a rather odd pairing.
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Aug 2, 2013 23:01
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But you see he was a "Republican." I get that poo poo unironically and it drives me nuts.
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Aug 2, 2013 23:14
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Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
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 The Reagan library has a spanish mission style central courtyard with shaded walkways that I enjoyed the poo poo out of. If it wasn't a monument to one of the worst human beings in the world, I would have enjoyed it even more.  Gov. Reagan eating grapes during the Caesar Chavez's UFW grape strike.
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Aug 2, 2013 23:34
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Seriously though, they are both genuinely interesting historical places devoted to odious men.      
Bip Roberts fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Aug 2, 2013 |
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Aug 2, 2013 23:39
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The Nixon meeting Elvis story was brilliantly surreal.
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Aug 4, 2013 00:51
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FilthyImp posted:Unfortunately, "improving" downtown means turning it into a yuppie whitewashed paradise, evicting the low-income tenants, and not really doing anything to provide basic services for Skid Row, which is like a 10 minute walk from the glitz of that new Downtown Park/trendy Osteria. I live in downtown Long Beach, a.k.a. "the rear end-crack of Los Angeles." We have earned this name because Los Angeles and half of its suburbs dump their trash and sewage into the LA river, which opens into the ocean smack in the middle of Long Beach. If you over go to the beach here, it is possible to find all kinds of poo poo in the sand. In fact, walking barefoot is not recommended because of broken bottles and whatnot. Economically, the city has suffered very badly in the past five years. Most high quality businesses left downtown, and it has become a barren wasteland of abandoned buildings, empty parking lots and low-value shops. It doesn't help that there's also a WalMart (that I live across the street from) that attracts all kinds of people from the ghetto and drives wages down in the area. There is a lot of crime everything from petty theft to robberies. There's a public parking lot next to my apartment building, and us residents park our vehicles in gated areas of the lot. Despite this, my car has been broken into twice over the past year. Did I mention that I don't venture outside after dark, despite being a fairly strong guy? There is hope for the city though. Citizen volunteer groups do a lot of work to clean and beautify the streets. In fact I just got back from a tree-planting event where we planted 50 new trees on one of the main streets. Yay! There is also a federal courthouse a few blocks from where I live that's nearing completion. I'm hoping that it will drive away crime and attract supporting businesses and high quality shops to the area, even if that causes some gentrification. Fortunately, Long Beach is pretty good about investing in Section 4 housing, so the pain caused to low-income residents should be somewhat nullified.
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Aug 4, 2013 02:40
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Ardennes posted:Yeah LA has a long way too go (as a native), rail lines are being built but the metro area is suffocating in traffic. A big part of it is money, but there has been a real void of leadership as well.
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Aug 4, 2013 03:37
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We're doing pretty good, considering we've got all the sprawl of London without having built subways since the 1860s. And that we ripped out our functional-enough trolley lines after the auto-makers bought 'em. What's good for GM is bad for Los Angeles, I say. 
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Aug 4, 2013 04:05
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enraged_camel posted:There is also a federal courthouse a few blocks from where I live that's nearing completion. I'm hoping that it will drive away crime and attract supporting businesses and high quality shops to the area, even if that causes some gentrification. Fortunately, Long Beach is pretty good about investing in Section 4 housing, so the pain caused to low-income residents should be somewhat nullified. Courthouses do not usually anchor nice business districts. They attract bail bondsmen, pawn shops, and payday loan sharks. I suppose crime might go down due to the police presence though?
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Aug 4, 2013 05:40
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Leperflesh posted:Courthouses do not usually anchor nice business districts. They attract bail bondsmen, pawn shops, and payday loan sharks. Also at least one lawyer bar. Be prepared for a lot of drunk and litigious behavior.
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Aug 4, 2013 05:42
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Leperflesh posted:Courthouses do not usually anchor nice business districts. They attract bail bondsmen, pawn shops, and payday loan sharks. The city projects that the courthouse staff as well as the lawyers and judges who will work there will also need housing, as well as places within walking distance to eat food and drink coffee/alcohol. I don't know... we will find out in December when it opens!
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Aug 4, 2013 06:06
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I'm a little confused w/r/t rentchat a few pages back. Were people saying that Bay Area rent is being driven up by speculation? How does that work? I've taken an interest to the issue of rent near SF because my friend is looking for a reasonably priced two-bedroom near Burlingame and isn't coming up with anywhere better than Hayward with affordable rent.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:25
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Rent prices are up because more people are in the rental market due to foreclosures, short sales, etc. Those same distressed properties are being bought up and turned into rental properties by among others, private capital firms. The accusation is that the private capital guys are using their market share to drive up rents.
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Aug 4, 2013 06:40
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Rent prices are also up because the population of the state has risen while total units of housing (rent and owned) have not kept up. During the recession, new home starts crashed. It will take a while before they catch up. The peninsula also has a lot less space for new suburban sprawl. New homes require infill and increasing density. There are open/green spaces but most of them are zoned as such (e.g., not for development). East bay still has some land left to develop, and land in general is cheaper, and the east bay cities are more likely to zone for more development. I actually used to live right on the border of Burlingame - my rented unit in a triplex was technically in san mateo, but if you crossed the street you were in Burlingame. We were paying $1400 for a small two bedroom unit with a small garage and an off-street parking spot, not including utilities. This would have been almost 10 years ago now. I imagine rents have gone up substantially since then. Burlingame is a fancy town of better-off wealthier people. Not at the level of Palo Alto or Belmont, but there are cheaper peninsula communities. Hayward varies between "OK" neighborhoods and scary shitholes. Be very careful about where you rent; there's places that are actually almost even nice, but most of the rental/apartment areas are bad neighborhoods. If you wind up east bay in that area, try for san leandro or union city instead.
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Aug 4, 2013 07:36
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Thank loving god that the BART strike was averted for now. Last time really put a loving huge damper in my week and was extremely stressful all around; I felt extremely bad for the working poor that have to get between multiple jobs and may not be flexible with hours. I hope BART is able to come to an agreement soon and I think the unions are overall coming out looking a little better than they did during the last PR battle but a lot of people I talk to while waiting for buses/trains often expressed anger at the workers and seemed to buy into the whole 'they make too much money!' right-wing bias despite being otherwise liberal people. I think I only encountered one other person that sympathized with the union and it's quite depressing reading a lot of comments as they read like Freepers 
Xaris fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 07:42
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Xaris posted:Thank loving god that the BART strike was averted for now. Last time really put a loving huge damper in my week and was extremely stressful all around; I felt extremely bad for the working poor that have to get between multiple jobs and may not be flexible with hours. I hope BART is able to come to an agreement soon and I think the unions are overall coming out looking a little better than they did during the last PR battle but a lot of people I talk to while waiting for buses/trains often expressed anger at the workers and seemed to buy into the whole 'they make too much money!' right-wing bias despite being otherwise liberal people. I think I only encountered one other person that sympathized with the union and it's quite depressing reading a lot of comments as they read like Freepers Bay Area: leftist until inconvenienced. Hartley-Taft is such bullshit. If the whole city had struck in solidarity they coulda got things sorted within a week.
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Aug 5, 2013 14:21
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CNA-California Nurses Association and Kaiser will be getting into their bi-annual pissing match again in 2014 too. Kaiser is probably weirdly loving the fact that they'll be on the hook for the "Cadillac Tax" on most of the existing CNA plans for the tune of $35M+ and will act accordingly to make CNA look like greedy I-bankers that have vacation homes in Aspen and Monaco.
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Aug 5, 2013 16:51
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Obdicut posted:It also really doesn't matter. Just call it 'fusion' cuisine and be done with it. There's plenty of variation on how Mexican food is done inside Mexico, too. I mainly just miss the hell out of it. I just got back from three weeks in Hong Kong and Guilin, and I can say that in my totally biased opinion, the Chinese food in San Francisco is head and shoulders better than the Chinese food in China/Hong Kong proper. Yes, the ingredients are better, and no, tripe does not taste good no matter how "authentic" you are trying to be. The only food in Hong Kong that knocked my socks off was at Din Tai Fun, and that is a dumpling place based in Taiwan.
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Aug 5, 2013 22:32
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predicto posted:The only food in Hong Kong that knocked my socks off was at Din Tai Fun, and that is a dumpling place based in Taiwan. There's Din Tai Fun locations in California.
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Aug 5, 2013 22:44
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Dusseldorf posted:There's Din Tai Fun locations in California. Not in San Francisco.  Other than that, however, the food in San Francisco is god-tier and I will brook no disagreement 
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Aug 5, 2013 23:55
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predicto posted:Not in San Francisco. Anchor Oyster Bar is my favorite restaurant in the world. By-rite Salty Caramel at Delores Park on a sunny afternoon is glorious. Taqueria Cancun, how I mess the burritos of thee.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:57
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predicto posted:I just got back from three weeks in Hong Kong and Guilin, and I can say that in my totally biased opinion, the Chinese food in San Francisco is head and shoulders better than the Chinese food in China/Hong Kong proper. Bullshit. You might be right about China proper, but the Chinese food in Hong Kong is better than the Chinese Food in SF if you go to the right places. Also, the Chinese food in South Bay is better than the Chinese food in San Francisco.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:04
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ntan1 posted:
I work in Milpitas and I love eating at a different Chinese restaurant every day. The only part of the Sinosphere I've been to is Taiwan but I'd say the Chinese food in the South Bay is pretty drat close to how good it tastes there.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:18
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ntan1 posted:Bullshit. You might be right about China proper, but the Chinese food in Hong Kong is better than the Chinese Food in SF if you go to the right places. "If you go to the right places" is too much of a caveat for me. I had a lot of meals in Hong Kong, at some highly recommended places and some "why not just go in here im hungry places." In my (admittedly anecdotal and undoubtedly Westerized) experience, the food wasn't special. It certainly was better than the Chinese food you get in Truckee or Iowa City, but not as good as in San Francisco. I can't speak to the South Bay, because I never eat down there, but if your Chinese food is that good, more power to ya. Overall, San Francisco eats are on average the best that I know of, both Chinese and almost everything else. (Except for pizza, our pizza is mostly mediocre)
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Aug 6, 2013 00:24
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SGV is where the best food is anyway.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:26
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Obdicut posted:Anchor Oyster Bar is my favorite restaurant in the world. I had Bi-Right two days ago. Who cares if it is foggy? That was after a Menage a Trois from Ike's Place. I woke up from my food coma 14 hours later.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:29
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Having lived in SF/OAK/Peninsula/South Bay and now Sacramento...there is good Chinese/Vietnamese/Japanese food out here not just Applebee's every other block. All set up by Bay Area transplants though except maybe the Japanese places.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:30
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predicto posted:(Except for pizza, our pizza is mostly mediocre) Escape From New York Pizza disagrees (But yeah mostly)
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Aug 6, 2013 00:32
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predicto posted:(Except for pizza, our pizza is mostly mediocre) My pizza scale is calibrated for Chicago, and Little Star (now in Oakland too! only 7 minutes from my house!) is the only bay-area pizza that I have found that is worth going back to.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:58
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predicto posted:I had a lot of meals in Hong Kong, at some highly recommended places and some "why not just go in here im hungry places." In my (admittedly anecdotal and undoubtedly Westerized) experience, the food wasn't special. It certainly was better than the Chinese food you get in Truckee or Iowa City, but not as good as in San Francisco. What are you ordering? Hong Kong Chinese places are not really good for anything westernized Chinese or non-regional. It's just like how Taiwan has better Chinese food than Northern California, but you don't go to Taiwan ordering Peking Duck.
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Aug 6, 2013 00:59
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withak posted:My pizza scale is calibrated for Chicago, and Little Star (now in Oakland too! only 7 minutes from my house!) is the only bay-area pizza that I have found that is worth going back to. I lived in Chicago for 5 years. The closest I have been able to find to a Giordanos/Edwardos stuffed pie is Paxti's. If you haven't tried it, it's pretty good. For NYC/Jersey style, Village on Clement is pretty good, or a slice from Arinell on Valencia works in a pinch. But there are 250 pizza places in SF and 240 of them are the same puffy, overly bready crap.
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Aug 6, 2013 01:18
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ntan1 posted:What are you ordering? Hong Kong Chinese places are not really good for anything westernized Chinese or non-regional. All sorts of stuff. Mostly noodles/dumplings, things like cheung fung, roast pork, dim sum and pineapple buns, claypots, congee. Not gourmet stuff. My wife won't let me eat duck because ducks are awesome. predicto fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 01:23
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predicto posted:All sorts of stuff. Mostly noodles/dumplings, things like cheung fung, roast pork, dim sum and pineapple buns, claypots, congee. Not gourmet stuff. I'll eat as many of those necrophiliac rapists as I want How common are places where you can buy a whole roast duck? I only know the San Diego area. Speaking of, Filner really needs to gtfo already. Two weeks of therapy isn't going to change the fact that he's a misogynist rear end in a top hat. Tarezax fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 03:08
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predicto posted:I just got back from three weeks in Hong Kong and Guilin, and I can say that in my totally biased opinion, the Chinese food in San Francisco is head and shoulders better than the Chinese food in China/Hong Kong proper. Yes, the ingredients are better, and no, tripe does not taste good no matter how "authentic" you are trying to be. I spent 2 weeks in rural Sichuan and Hunan and the food was unequivocally the Worst. Everything was greasy as poo poo (they put oil on plain ol' steamed cabbage  ), everything had a same-y taste due to the lack of a variety of spices, and there was a serious lack of good sanitation which meant eating anything was like playing a game of Russian Roulette, except 5 of 6 of the chambers are loaded. Like, they literally turned off hot water in several places I ate at except before and after meal services.I'm not sure if I received a true authentic dining experience since I was doing a tour bus kind of trip, but that trip alone turned me off chinese food for months.
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Aug 6, 2013 03:24
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predicto posted:All sorts of stuff. Mostly noodles/dumplings, things like cheung fung, roast pork, dim sum and pineapple buns, claypots, congee. Not gourmet stuff. Yeah, you missed out on a lot of stuff. 1st AD posted:I'm not sure if I received a true authentic dining experience since I was doing a tour bus kind of trip, but that trip alone turned me off chinese food for months. You received a True Mainland China Rural Authentic Dining Experience (TM) ntan1 fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Aug 6, 2013 |
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Aug 6, 2013 04:32
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Now finding a decent schwarma in the east bay is a drat nightmare.
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Aug 6, 2013 04:41
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I used to get shawerma at a middle-eastern deli in San Mateo on 37th ave. called Alhana Foods, but last time I went by, it was gone. The guy who ran it, Abe, was a Lebanese guy who had training as a french chef and then opened his own deli. One time I brought an Israeli co-worker there for lunch and she said it was the most authentic hummus she'd had in America. I'm completely gutted that it's gone. Over here in concord I've tried a place called Mediterranean and their shawerma is OK, but too tomato-y. The falafal is good though. Their hummus is too, uh, I'm not sure how to describe it. Creamy? Liquidy? It's not quite right. Regarding SF pizza, is Indian Pizza still on 46th and Judah? It's not at all remarkable as a pizza place or as an Indian food place, but their namesake is a tremendous thing that is instantly addictive. For Chinese food I used to go to a place on the corner of 6th and Balboa, because I used to live half a block away. It was always packed with nothing but chinese people, the menus were mostly only in chinese, and the food was amazing. That was in the late 90s though so I dunno how it is now or if it's even still there.
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Aug 6, 2013 05:20
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