Thanksgiving Observations 2004

1) There is poker overkill on television these days. As I am flipping through the channels, there are at LEAST three channels showing some version of Texas Hold 'em. I am a fan, but this is truly out of control.

2) The Washington State Governor's race is currently separated by a mere 42 votes. Republican Dino Rossi leads Democrat Christine Gregoire by 42 votes out of nearly 2.5 million votes cast. Unbelievable. Then a revelation happens in the Chen household. My mother voted absentee but didn't sign her ballot. She signed the outside envelope, but didn't sign the ballot itself, thereby negating her entire vote. Only in Chen-land.

3) My father (a foreign policy blue stater, economics purple stater and social red stater) has decided that the Hallmark channel speaks for him and his fellow red staters. He says movies on the Hallmark channel are what middle America wants to see and appreciates, certainly more than the show Desperate Housewives. Ok, Dad, whatever gets you through the night.

You all should be ashamed of yourselves...

Look at what showed up in my email this afternoon!!

Congrats to Ernie C (10 wins and Monday points pick for $13) and Chris D. (5 wins) on their picks.  The Thanksgiving games start THURSDAY, so get your picks in early this week!  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Me of all people, should NOT be winning the football pool.

Remember the Dewey Decimal System?

Remember back in elementary school, making that special (to you at the time) midday field trip down the hall to the library? If you were to walk into it today, some things might be different. You probably wouldn't see the space consuming card catalog. Microfiche machines? Again, they are few and far between. We can thank technological advances for eliminating the presence of those things which were cumbersome and repetitive tasks. However, one contant remains from your first days in that first library experience, it's organizational structure, the Dewey Decimal System.

I distinctly remember asking my 1st grade teacher (Mrs. Scholl) why didn't the library put the books on the shelves from smallest to the largest? The other reigning question of that time was why didn't the library just organize the books by the book cover's primary color? In both cases, it is because the characteristics one sorted by could change from one edition of a book to another. For example, I wanted a book that I believe to be orange and 4 inches thick. But the copy in the library was blue and quite thin. This is a major flaw. The subject matter and title of a book are integral to the book and can never be changed. This is the characteristic by which we sort books and use the fleixble system Dewey created.

Adobe Bookshop (3166 16th Streeet between Valencia and Guerrero) and here is how they have allowed themselves to organize their books since the beginning of November 2004.

The Red and Yellow books area

The Green and Blue books area

Pretty neat, huh? Alas, this ordering of books will be replaced by the traditional method as of Monday November 22nd, 2004.

Right across the street from Adobe is my favorite place in San Francisco to get a bagel, Katz's. Here's the sign out side their front door:

Look at the cool vehicle passenger

You never know what you are going to find on 16th Street.