See you later, Stinktown!

Yesterday I left work an hour early so that Amanda and I could zoom down to SF for a Spoon show at Cafe Du Nord. Unfortunately there were no advanced ticket sales, and even though we arrived at the venue 3 hours early we were around the 260th people in line. Du Nord's capacity is 250. They also gave out 150 tickets in various promotions (in the Bay Area) before the show. In order for us to get tickets, in other words, roughly 160 people in front of us would have to suddenly leave and give up their spots or die. We liked our odds so we stuck around for about an hour chatting with the people around us about how lame we were and drinking 40s from paper bags. Nobody died, though one fellow in full hipster attire was coughing a lot. When the bouncers came-round and told us for the 25th time that we would not be getting into the show so would we please piss off and die, we threw our empties at the door and cursed the band and then headed down the street toward our hotel; leaving behind a still-growing crowd of losers like ourselves. For lack of any back-up plans we checked out various dives and at some point picked up a third wheel named Eric (a self-proclaimed Pro-Surfer turned banker from Santa Cruz) who desperately wanted to show us the "best bars in the city" and later a fourth named Jimmy who was an elevator repairman and asshole. When that whole scene grew stale we ditched the hangers-on and found a breakfast joint where we picked at mediocre eggs that took an hour to be served. This morning we woke up at the crack of noon and headed to the Mission District for coffee at Philz and an always amazing breakfast served up by the tattooed and mulleted sweethearts at St. Francis. Both on 24th. Try the City-Lover. After breakfast we headed east and met Mom, Dad, Max and Isaiah at the UC Davis Arboretum where we wandered the trails until the heat became unbearable and we headed home.