Thursday, December 31, 2009

. Muir Beach coastal trail

Come with us now on a pleasant winter walk along the Muir Beach coastal trail.


Out of the parking lot. Past the portable toilets. Hang a right at the sticky monkeyflower.

Who's this?


Skirt the horse corral. Cyclists and equestrians welcome. It's good to be outdoors, isn't it?


Turn right onto Green Gulch Trail. Don't forget to close the gate.


Or the shadowy deer demon will poop on you.


This land belongs to Green Gulch farms.


They make vegetables for San Francisco restaurants like "Greens".


Here's a spiky farm thing they use for farming.


Some parts of the trail are a bit muddy. We'll have to clean our shoes before we get back in the car.



Stop messing about now. We're coming to the Zen Center. What do you think they do with all these pipes?


That's a strange place to have a bath.


We can see the cars on the other side of the valley. I wonder if they can see us.


It's getting a bit steeper now. Don't get left behind.


Try taking longer strides. Open your hips. Lengthen your psoaz. Redwood trees, Douglas fir, coyote brush and cow parsnip. Watch out for the poison oak. Do you know what it looks like?

Neither do I.


Maybe it's growing in here.


We'll stop for lunch soon. Yes, I know I said that 20 minutes ago.
Let's pause a while and enjoy the view. Look how far we've come already.


We've found a little house. There's a bench out back. Maybe we can sit on it while we eat our lunch.


The sign on the gate says private property. But no one seems to be home. We won't be long.


Let's exchange potato chips.


These kettle chips are the color of shoe laces.


Looks like it's time to hit the trail again.


Not much further to the top. 900 feet vertical elevation. You can see our house from here.


What's that moving on the path up ahead?


It's a bobcat.


Pick up the children, wave your arms around, don't turn your back, and throw things. On second thoughts, let's just walk past.

Someone else has been this way.


Cloven hooves. The devil, perhaps.

Never mind that, look at the view.


It's all downhill from here.


Take your time on the way down. There's no need to hurry. The ground is uneven and it's easy to sprain an ankle.


Hey, who's this?


He looks familiar.


See you next time.


It's almost over now. Do you feel a bit sad? You can see the parking lot through the trees. And the portable toilets.


Back on the road. Wait a minute, I've heard about this place. Stop the car!


Cheers!

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Sunday, December 27, 2009

. Justification

Earlier this year Plymouth University researchers carried out a series of memory tests.

Doodlers performed 29% better than non-doodlers, the team found.

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Friday, December 25, 2009

. Favourite Beer of the Week - special Christmas edition

Trois Pistoles is one of those Frenchy-Canadian Unibrou beers that come in the big corked bottles with the jolly high abv.

It looks like this:



and it is named after a town that looks like this:


that has a building that looks like this:


which on the beer bottle label looks like this:


and is the setting for the "Legend of the Black Horse", which I could only find in French, so I ran it through a google text translator, and it said this:

The mysterious animal appeared without anyone knowing where he came from and was used to transport the stone from the church down to the coast where they erected a new building. But it was the devil himself that one should never remove his bridle. Unfortunately, someone ignored the recommendation and the horse disappeared, work not yet completed. And that is why there is still a stone missing,
as can be seen when visiting the village church in Trois Pistoles.

Crap legend. But it's a nice beer. It tastes like all the other Unibroue beers - rich and thick and sweet and malty. I drank it on Christmas Eve while I was making leek and artichoke crepes, except the cans of artichoke hearts I had bought turned out to be cans of 'heart of palm', which looks quite strange, like this:


but taste fairly similar to artichokes once you've added leeks and cheese and mushrooms and nutmeg and stuff.

And then it was Christmas.

Amen.

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. Other Doodles















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. It Isn't Christmas

...without a cat in a box.

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Monday, December 21, 2009

. Merry Christmas

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

. Favourite Things

Special guest blogger TonyBarony's favourite things of 2009


Favourite Movie
District 9


Favourite DVD
Let The Right One In


Favourite TV on DVD
The Mighty Boosh season 3


Favourite Podcast
Adam And Joe


Favourite Album
Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear


Favourite Comic Book
The Complete Essex County


Favourite Video Game
Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony



Favourite Non-Video Game
Bananagrams



Favourite Beer
Howling Wolf Weizenbock on tap at Monks Kettle



Favourite Bar
Miraloma Club


Favourite Brunch
Dosa on Fillmore


Favourite Socks
Smart Wool Hiker Street Crew

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Saturday, December 19, 2009

. More Doodles



















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. Favourite Beer of the Week

In the olden days of Germany (which were before the 15th century) the Germans used rye to make their bread and their beer. Then one day there wasn't enough rye to go around, so they passed a law banning rye in beer, and the Germans started drinking Pilsner instead. The law was repealed in 1987.

In the olden days of America (some time in 2001) the Americans started sticking rye in their I.P.A's, and they called it rye P.A.

Bear Republic's Hot Rod Rye (the first rye P.A ever) was recommended to me by our good friend Erik Marr, who runs a small maggot ranch in Austin, Texas:



To be honest, I can't tell the difference between rye P.A and IPA.

I can tell you it goes very well with chocolate cake and several games of Bananagrams.

Nif tried not to win every game of Bananagrams, but she couldn't help herself, except for the very last game which was a draw. This was me -


For some reason I forgot to photograph Nif's tiles.

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. The Best Thing

We went to a pot luck party. There was a white elephant gift exchange. We got the best thing.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

. Doodles

Sometimes in meetings I stop pretending to pay attention and doodle in my sketchbook.














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