Bentley!

How about I post some pictures of a Bentley I got to TEST DRIVE on Monday:

Rookie

 

 This is how I parked it after the test drive. Cars like this 

should never be parked inside the lines and the wheels should

always be crooked to one side so it looks like you pulled into the 

parking spot at 90 mph.

Driving this car was absurd. The test-drive dude let me take it onto 280 for about 10 miles south. There was a decent amount of traffic, but he coaxed me into getting it up to 110mph at which point we saw a CHP and, synchronized, shat a cinder block. I don't know how we didn't get pulled over.

This model is the GTC Speed, I think. The only details I can remember about it is that it retails for $220k, goes 0-60 in like 3.9 seconds or something absurd, and can go 202 mph which makes it the fastest Bentley ever. I'm not really a car guy, but I think if I was ever going to blow an asinine amount of money on a car I would get a Bentley.

FUCK!

Gavin Newsom is not Interested in your Jokes

We had an enormous charity golf event/dinner at the club yesterday, which was attended by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom:

Through some horrible oversight by the event coordinators and Lake Merced Golf Club upper management, I ended up at the same dinner table as Newsom. We had the following conversation.

Newsom: So, did you play today?

Me: No, actually I work here. In the pro shop.

Newsom: Ooohh. So you're one of the pros? That seems like an interesting job.

Me: Yeah, it's fun. I like it. How come you didn't play today?

Newsom: I wish I could have. Haven't had much time for golf, lately. Especially with the gubernatorial campaigning.

Me: Yeah. Believe me, I know how that goes. [cheesy smile]

Newsom: [blank stare]

Me: ...

.....Aaannnd scene.

Alright! Thanks, Gav! Or is it, Gov? Get it? Gov? Do you? Really, do you?

Tuesday

The last two Tuesdays have been perhaps the coolest Tuesdays I have ever had. The first one was last week.

A member of ours (we'll call him Tom, for the sake of anonymity. After all, this blog has tens of readers.) suggested a couple of Sundays ago that Jake (one of the other assistant pros) and I get together with him and play some golf. This happens frequently. Members love to talk about playing with us, and we love to entertain the thought. Typically, we know we will never play with them because they don't really want to play with us, and we don't really want to play with them. But Tom is a younger dude who has always come across as a great guy, and he's a member who I thought I would actually like to spend time with on the golf course. So Jake and Tom suggest playing Tuesday so we start to get to pound out the logistics. (For the record, Tom inherited most of his millions and makes a few shekels renting commercial property, so he doesn't spend much time in the office.)

So the next day we start to consider when and where we're going to play, and we realize that the forecast is for pouring rain all day Tuesday. We decide to call it off and reschedule, but Tom has another idea.

"Let me call my pilot and see if he's available," says Tom.

This is a statement that I find completely incomprehensible. But then he goes on,

"The plane I want to take is too small for all of us and our golf clubs, so we'll have to take the jet."

Oh. Okay. Sounds good. The jet.

He calls back.

"Yeah, he's around. How about Bandon Dunes?"
"In Oregon?" I ask.
"Uh, yeah Kev. That's the only one. Forecast looks good there. We can beat the rain."

This is how Tom beats the rain.

The next morning, we arrive at a small executive airport south of Oakland, round the bend into his hangar, and see this WTF?

Tom show up and asks if we know the forecast at Bandon. We shrug our shoulders.

"Okay, let me check. If it's raining there we'll just head over to Vegas and play at my club over there."

Hah. But it turned out Bandon was sunny, so we forged on to Oregon.

Here are some pictures I took from inside the plane

Jake on the left, a man I call Uncle Larry on the right. Don't let
the bald spot fool you; Uncle Larry is a party animal
















Plenty of legroom in the CEO seat, thank you very much





























Clearly I did not take this, but it's a better view of the interior. Tom's was configured a little differently. Pretty sick.

Google for more images. This thing was amazing. Plus, I'm fairly certain that we convinced Tom to hire a topless midget to serve drinks. Baller.

The golf was great, too. Two of the most incredible courses I've ever seen laid right on the Pacific. Plus, I took a caddie for the first time which was a super awesome experience. All of this and I only had to pay for my caddie and lunch for the boys. Pretty amazing experience.

This is a bit long, so I'll post about today later on...

Barack? Are you There?

I'm definitely a little hot over the news that AIG execs are going to be the beneficiaries of 165 million of our dollars for their ... hard work? I guess. But what has me even more upset is the way our government -- again -- looks as though it just has absolutely no fucking clue what it's doing. Observe these bits of Tuesday's New York Times lead story:

The Treasury and Federal Reserve officials said they had known about the bonus program as far back as last fall.

Seems like a long time ...

The program has provoked public protests from a handful of critics and at least one Democratic lawmaker in Congress — Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, a member of the House Committee on Government Oversight ...

Outstanding! An oversight dude to keep track of what's up and let people know that this is happening.

Mr. Cummings said he had been communicating regularly with A.I.G.’s chief executive, Edward M. Liddy, about the bonuses ever since December. Mr. Cummings said he was particularly concerned that the bonuses were supposed to be paid by March 15, adding that he assumed Treasury officials had the same worries.

“I assumed that they were well aware of it and would take appropriate action” before the March 15 deadline, Mr. Cummings said.

Ahh yes. The old assume routine.

Mr. Cummings said. “In light of the biggest quarterly loss in history, you would think that A.I.G. and Mr. Liddy would have been able to convince folks who were supposed to be getting these retention payments, based at least in part on performance, that they might want to voluntarily not take all or part of them.”

What the fuck? Are you kidding me? You think this Liddy guy can walk into a room full of people expecting their fat ass checks and say, "Look, I know you have a contractual right to this cash -- which I am holding right here in front of you! -- but the economy has tanked pretty badly and there's not much money to go around anymore, so why don't you be a pal and forgo this awesome bonus that will help you pay off your staggeringly huge mortgage, huh?"

Also, wouldn't you think the current state of the economy and AIG make AIG employees more likely to want to get as much money as they can as soon as possible?

But administration officials said that the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, did not personally become aware until last week that an even bigger round of payments was due on March 15. Administration officials said Mr. Geithner learned of the deadline early last week, when the Federal Reserve Bank of New York alerted him that the bonus payments were coming due.

How this man -- who heads the organization that owns 80 percent of AIG -- could not know about these bonuses amazes me.

A.I.G. executives said they would never have proceeded with the bonus payments before getting approval from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

“We would never make any important business decisions without discussing them with our government managers and owners,” said one executive, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

So somebody knew, but nobody knows who knew.

Both agencies have insisted that neither of them [the Treasury or Federal Reserve] “owns” A.I.G., or controls its management decisions, even though the federal government owns almost 80 percent of the company. As a result, the Treasury and Fed officials have repeatedly resisted forcing the company to disclose more about how A.I.G. was spending taxpayer money.

I can't believe the government could give away so much of our money and just have no idea what is going to be done with it. They own 80 percent of this company now, but nobody knows who is in charge! Obama needs to get a handle on this shit before his ass gets racked up as someone who can't control his government.

In-N-Out

Carmina executes a fairly efficient kick to the groin of my In-N-Out Burger doubting. (Cheese-steaks ain't from Pittsburgh, bitch)! Tommy briefly takes a break from showing pictures of himself to make what I can only assume counts as a valid point at Berkley. I am left holding the limp, lifeless body of my previous post.

With that said, I stand by my lukewarm feelings for In-N-Out. While I don't hate it (and never said I did) I just don't think it's that much better than some of its alternatives. It ain't gourmet. It's fast food, and when you get down to it, that shit is pretty much all the same. There are some that taste better than others, but the difference isn't that extreme. It's likely that if you find one fast food burger tasty you probably find them all at least somewhat delicious because they're all essentially cut from the same mold.

However, I totally get why Carmina defends In-N-Out the way she does. If someone told me Krispy Kreme was the same or better than Dunkin' Donuts, that person would be shived. I know full well that they're pretty much the same. And Krispy Kreme does some things better than Dunkin' Donuts. But I will never like Krispy Kreme as much as Dunkin' Donuts. You know why? Because Krispy Kreme wasn't open at 1 am when I was too high to stand, and needed a dozen donuts to stay conscious. And Krispy Kreme didn't exist in Pittsburgh the night I stuck and killed that homeless man with my car, and needed some coffee and donuts for the 5 hour drive to and from Lake Erie where I disposed of his corpse. The sentimental value of a place wrought from years of memories with friends and family and heinous acts against humanity is powerful, and cannot be touched.

Alas, I still don't see why In-N-Out is so against bacon. I bet if they put bacon on their menu I'd like it there a lot more. And then, Carmina and I could be friends again.

Bacon up That Inventory, ctd.

Amazingly, there is some debate regarding the bacon burger and its place atop the burger chain.

CKG:

Good points, but I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you a little. As delicious as bacon is, it's a very strong flavor, and there are some rare occasions where it will clash with the overall harmony of the burger. I'm thinking especially of mushroom-themed burgers, and maybe types of onion-topped burgers (sauteed or fried onions).

There is, however, no reason whatsoever to get a burger without cheese. That's just fucking stupid.

The problem here is that these mushroom and onion themed burgers CKG speaks of are not nearly as good as the bacon burger. I can't imagine eating enough bacon burgers to say to myself, "You know something? I'm sick of bacon burgers. Better switch it up with this vastly inferior other kind of burger." It's like saying, "Ice cream in a waffle cone is pretty much unbeatable, but just for shits I'll go with the sugar cone this time."

Carmina:

have you considered the secret spread (read: thousand island dressing)at in-n-out? I would say that sauce (read: crack) does not need cheese or bacon (which they don't offer at in-n-out n-e-way).

Thousand island is delicious. No one denies this. But I would prefer ketchup, barbecue sauce or ranch on my burger, because 1) they taste great on a burger, and 2) they nicely compliment bacon. You see, I'm about building around the bacon as opposed to building around the beef.

And for the record, I don't get the In-N-Out fascination. When I moved here I couldn't wait to taste In-N-Out. I used to see all sorts of Hollywood fucks like Ashton Kutcher with his In-N-Out bags and figured it had to be unbeatable. However, it is very beatable for many reasons, not the least of which Carmina mentioned above. They don't offer bacon. But beyond that, it just isn't any more delicious than any other fast-food burger. In fact, it might actually be inferior to Burger King. And between the latent biblical messages and the secret menu items, I find myself increasingly frustrated with their presumption of awesomeness. Just put your products on a big board above the cash registers like everyone else, okay? Don't make me feel like a dick because I don't know that I can get a burger "Flying Dutchman Animal Style." And if I want my subconscious to be attacked by hidden biblical references, I've got Tim Tebow

And for fuck's sake, offer bacon.

Bacon up That Inventory

I had a delicious burger for lunch today. Naturally, it had bacon and cheese on it. A couple of weeks ago at work, someone had a burger that did not have bacon or cheese on it. I almost screamed. What in the hell was this man thinking? I tried to ask him but the words would not come out, I was so affronted. I really can't understand why someone would eat a burger without bacon and cheese. Every single place in America that serves burgers serves some sort of burger that has bacon and cheese on it. And that burger is always (always) superior to the burger without bacon and cheese. And don't even get me started on what barbecue sauce can do for a burger. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. That's delicious.

So as I was enjoying my bacon-and-cheese-burger, I started thinking about bacon, and just how fucking much I eat it. I took inventory of my last 18 meals (as far back as I can definitively remember), and I realized that 12 of them have featured bacon!

I was wondering why I was in such a good mood recently.

Hai

Meet Trout:

The View From My Window

Nothing gets a bunch of stupid Mission hipsters out of bed early on a Saturday like the prospect of trolling through someone else's unwanted clothing. This picture is an aerial view of dozens of tall skinny 26 year old dudes in 6th grader's jeans and girls in pork-pie hats, sifting through four garbage bags of someone's old clothes that were sitting in front of my apartment at 9:45 am.

Not pictured: four fixed-gear bicycles

What I am still trying to figure out is how so many of them wound up here. Was this organized? Did some old, retiring hipster send a message out to some hipster d-list saying, "Come sift through garbage bags full of my old clothes on Saturday at 9:45 sharp." Or were these hipsters drawn to these bags of old clothes like seagulls to old bread, hearing the bags hit the sidewalk from miles away and flocking. We may never know.