Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill this week that would have made it illegal to text while biking, because it apparently wasn't already illegal to do that.  From KQED:

It was a veto message that, if not for the famous signature at the bottom, sounded like the guiding principle of a conservative Republican governor.

“Not every human problem deserves a law,” it said.

And the law we didn't deserve?

“Section 21213.5 is added to the Vehicle Code, to read:

(a) A person shall not ride a bicycle while using an electronic wireless communications device to write, send, or read a text-based communication.

(b) As used in this section, “write, send, or read a text-based
communication” means using an electronic wireless communications device to manually communicate with any person using a text-based communication, including, but not limited to, communications referred to as a text message, instant message, or electronic mail.

See y'all on gchat.

[Via SF Citizen | Art by Headline Shirts]

Reader Adam sent us his thoughts about the latest issue of 7x7 Magazine:

you read this article?  the whole thing warrants derision, but read these two paragraphs in particular:

I hadn’t considered the synergy between SF’s two biggest cultural pillars until recently. It took dining at Bar Tartine with a friend who wishes to go unnamed—a tech venture capitalist invested in some of the city’s top restaurants. That night, when I started talking in wonderment about the surge of restaurant openings in SF, recession be damned, he politely suggested I get my head out of my dinner. “What boils my blood,” he said, between bites of duck leg cabbage roll stuffed with liver, house-made sauerkraut, and dried cherries, “is that people in the artist community have never understood the connection between capital and the arts. And they take it massively for granted.”

Gesticulating with a curried, pickled carrot, he broke it down historically. “Look at the rise of Florence. During the Renaissance, you had the combination of wealthy patrons and artists. The wealthy patrons allowed the artists to take risks that they’d never have been able to take if they weren’t provided for.” While sommelier Alex Fox poured us some Von Buhl Riesling, he continued, “And it’s no different today in San Francisco, where food has crossed over into an artistic experience. Chefs and bartenders here consider themselves artists.” I had a disconcerting flash of Bar Agricole’s acclaimed bartender Thad Vogler posing naked like Michelangelo’s David, shaker instead of stone in hand. “Even farmers have artistic status here,” my friend astutely observed. “Today in San Francisco, the wealth gets poured back into our modern-day values: the church of food.”

What pretentious cock suckers, not that there's anything wrong with that. Cock sucking I mean. But com'on. For fuck sake, their sense of self importance is so utterly baseless, it's astounding. Florence during the Renaissance? Really? They're talking pop-up restaurants and food trucks and they're comparing it to Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance. Wow. That makes this little venture capitalist parasite what, one of the Medicis? OK, right, that make sense. Good thing he broke it down “historically” for the dumb fuck author. Except he neglected to mentioned one major difference, the Medici's descendants probably still run most of Italy and large parts of the world while this guy's descendants are most likely going to be working at McDonalds when all his lottery money runs out.

I feel better now. Tx.

No, thank you.

[Sightglass Coffeee photo by Niall Kennedy]

Jake from the SF Weekly brings to our attention a story from The East Bay Express about BarSpace.tv, the new iPhone app that lets you creep on people getting their drink on while you furiously masturbate in your iPhone-equipped fetish dungeon.  From EB Express:

Founded by a handful of Sonoma County entrepreneurs, the app, BarSpace, and its related Website, BarSpace.tv, employ a simple concept: Install cameras in bars and nightclubs and then streams that video live through a free iPhone app, as well as through the company's Website. The cameras are installed and paid for by BarSpace; each bar decided the hours between which they'd like to transmit a video stream.

The idea, according to the company's CEO, Mike Deignan, is that people can use the app to see whether bars are full or empty — or even whether their favorite bartender is working that night or what the dress code is. Essentially, BarSpace makes it possible to find out what you're getting into, in real time and straight from the source — to gauge a bar's atmosphere against your own expectations and inclinations, without ever leaving your home (or, in some cases, paying a cover). […]

But according to Chris Conley, a technology and civil liberties attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Northern California chapter, BarSpace — and technology like it — raises serious questions about personal freedom in the digital age. “Broadly speaking, we would be concerned as a civil liberties issue,” he said, emphasizing that he wasn't familiar with BarSpace itself and thus couldn't speak about it specifically. “The concerns that we would have are, first, that people are actually aware of what's going on — that people know they're being filmed and that picture is being sent across the Internet to who-knows-where. The bottom line is, people need to be part of the equation.”

Most of the bars on the list shouldn't impact the readers of the this blog, and the chaotic lighting of The Make-Out Room and the speeding phallis of Red State intoxication blurs the faces of many of its patrons (although the view of the stage is looking mighty fine).  Even so, who wants to be the lone guy singing karaoke in The Mint while there's still daylight?

SOMA startup 'Hipster' (which as far as I can tell is a hyperlocal Quora meets Foursquare with a hyperlame name that keeps getting everyone's attention,) is now attempting to lure in potential employees with a cartoonish benefits package that's GUARANTEED to offend the sensibilities of our readers and decent folk alike.  This afternoon they sent out an email blast to “Fellow Hipsters” which poses the following question:

What do $10,000, a year’s worth of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and skinny jeans have in common? Well, if you refer someone that we end up hiring, you'll be receiving all of that and more…

The website contains the following jpg gem illustrating the package, complete with a horrifically ugly 'fixed gear bicycle' and 'mustache grooming services'(???)  I'm surprised they didn't also throw in a years worth of UBER car service to-and-from your totes alt Mission dive to their SOMA offices.

First they make Coachella a 2 weekend event, and now this?  Fuck it, I'm moving to Bernal, shitting out some kids and joining that Dad racing league thing.