Trivia night is a popular event offered by many San Francisco bars. Among them is The Bitter End, which in addition to questions to stump the eggiest of heads serves up $10 pitchers of beer, alcohol and t-shirt give-aways, and a raucous atmosphere. The best part of trivia at the Bitter End though? “That’s gotta be Tim,” said Jesse, a trivia regular. Tim, a 25 year old native San Franciscan and USF alumnus, is known for his perpetually popped collar and skills on the mic as the host of Trivia Night at the Bitter End for the better part of the last two years. He researches the questions, coordinates the event, tallies the scores, and berates the audience seemingly all at the same time.

To keep things interesting between rounds, there is a best team name competition which awards the best team name (not everything is tricky) as judged by audience reaction. The winning team is treated to a round of shots, courtesy of Tim. Often the winning team names are a clever bon mot, a witty reference to current events, a crude and unfounded disparagement of the moral fiber of the host’s mother, or some combination of all three. Tim’s favorite team name: War is God’s Way of Teaching Americans Geography (he noted with disappointment it later turned out to be plagarized from stand-up comedian, Paul Rodriguez). Tim isn’t in love with the mother jokes so we don’t see eye to eye on my favorite: Tim’s Mom is Givin’ it up for Lent (offered this year on Mardi Gras and one of the few if not only printable instances of a Tim’s mom joke). Fortunately, Tim’s mom isn’t aware that her good name is being sullied in this fashion, but that blissful ignorance was nearly shattered when she made her only visit to Trivia Night. “At first it was something my friends would just do,” Tim said in reference to the mother jokes. “But one week my father came to visit trivia, and so I had him stand up and wave. That night the best team name was For a Good Time, Call Tim’s Dad. The next week, my mom came out. It really blew up and things got a bit nastier. He knew what to expect from the week before, so my dad lead my mom out before we had to read off the team names.”

While they often provide the biggest laughs, the best team name contest is only a distraction from the main event. Trivia Night is a competition, so what do you win? It’d be easy to say anyone who goes will come away with a smile, but actual prizes go to the top three teams, and it’s something everyone can enjoy, cash: thirty dollars to the winning team, twenty to second place, and ten for third.

The money is as well earned as free money can be. Trivia is often very tough. Try it for yourself. Here are a few recent questions from Trivia Night. Click to find the answers:

Name the top three selections in this year’s NFL Draft.

In which century did the first crusade occur?

What archipelagic nation has the fourth highest population in the world?

Trivia Night, every Tuesday at 9 pm at The Bitter End. Located at 411 Clement between 5^th and 6^th Avenues. Arrive early if you want to get a seat.

For a while now, I’ve been hearing quite a bit about a certain neighborhood eatery. Frequented by all the college kids and still totally underground (alright, built into a hill), the buzz is unbelievable. I walk past it just about every day, and I’ve decided that I owe to myself to find out what everyone’s been talking about. I am, of course, referring to the Bon Appetit-run Market Café found at the University Center on the University of San Francisco’s main campus. Now, before you call shenanigans on my unfamiliarity with my own school’s cafeteria, bear in mind I’ve never lived on campus and reside only a couple blocks from school so heading home for a meal in the middle of a day of classes is about as convenient as—and cheaper than—any on-campus option.

Not being initiate to Market Cafe culture, I asked around for what I should expect. Tiffany Dempton, a senior media studies major, visits the Cafe (pronounced as you would ‘calf,’ but you knew that) once or twice a week “They have a lovely lasagna,” she said. “Chicken with portabello and goat cheese and what I think was asiago sprinkled on top.” That actually sounds pretty good, I thought, now I’ll have something to look forward to.

So with lasagna on the brain, and days, not weeks, left in my college career, I made the trek up to campus to explore what has been for many students the first frontier of life at USF. Arriving at the Market Cafe at around 2 pm on a Tuesday, I was first struck by the emptiness of the place. I thought this place was bursting at the seams with students. And it was not just a lack of students, but the food stations were abandoned too. Deli station, salad bar, pizza: all empty. It is difficult to say which left first, the student or the cafeteria worker, but either way the place was dead. In fact, it was so dire my only options were pre-packaged sandwiches and some bell peppers on ice. I opted for the sandwich.

If you think a roast beef sandwich wrapped in cellophane does not sound great, you’d be right. Paired with some particularly slimy tomatoes and some mayonnaise that I shouldn’t have deconstructed the sandwich to get a look at, getting the thing down was a chore. And along with chips and a soda, the tab came out to nearly ten dollars. American. Now, let’s summarize: a sandwich wrapped in plastic, a mundane bag of chips and a bottle of soda to be enjoyed in a graveyard-like environment, all for the (truly) amazing price of $10. This place is madness. Shaking my head as I turned for home and looking hard for a silver lining to my experience, I realized at least I hadn’t been missing out on something great all along.

Robots!

Since little league, I’ve had a special connection with benches. A sturdy and reliable means of relaxation, the noble bench provides all who sit on it with the opportunity to rest their bones and allow life to slow down even for just a moment. I think we all remember that it was the eminently quotable C. Montgomery Burns who once said “Ah, yes, sitting— the great leveler. From the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn’t enjoy a good sit?”

Can’t say that I don’t, Monty. In fact, my affinity for idling on benches has allowed me to discover one of the great treasures of the Inner Richmond. Located somewhere in Golden Gate Park, (I realize it will be pretty easy to figure out where I’m talking about from the description, to say nothing of the fact there’s an actual picture of the bench in this entry, and that because of its high-traffic location it’s already nowhere near exclusive, but let’s continue to play this game, shall we?) the mystery bench has stood perched at its post near (where?) since time immemorial, when I moved to the city two years ago.

Hidden in plain sight during the day, shrouded in darkness at night, this particular bench allows for surreptitious surveillance of three bus stops, a busy intersection, and an entire apartment building. The theater of life at the height of its unawareness. Or, you know, creepy people-watching if you aren’t trying to glorify antisocial behavior.

Creepy or not, it’s interesting. Regardless of the time of day, ten minutes don’t seem to pass without some kind of activity, and in this town, it’s usually weird. Even an old lady shuffling down the street can be safely classified as bizarre when its 3:30 am. Sitting on the bench can also provide the residents of Fulton (this mystery is really starting to unravel quickly) with visual confirmations of what they’ve only heard outside their windows: the resolution of disagreements between residents of the park. They don’t adhere to Robert’s Rules but the debate is robust and while not often decisive or productive, it is entertaining.

So, if you are ever looking for a quiet place to observe the city’s residents in a way they cannot detect, I cannot stress this highly enough: find somewhere other than the bench behind the bus stop at Arguello and Fulton to do so (ah, crap, I said it).

For the most part, I haven’t taken to the beaches here in the Bay Area.  I’m not entirely sure if its the standard issue cold and gray weather, or the distinct lack of gaudiness that I’ve come to expect from years of exposure to Jersey Shore culture, but as a destination, the beach almost always is an also-ran.  Just about the lone exception to this is Ocean Beach at night, but that is another blog entry for another day.

Following the winding roads through the hills of Marin County to find Stinson Beach was a slightly nauseating experience, but glimpses of the shoreline as we made our descent let anticipation take over as we neared our destination.

Walking around the beach, the one thing I did find in common with the Jersey Shore was a healthy distrust of interlopers.  As such, nobody I talked to would give me their last name.  Whatever.  Annie, a San Francisco resident also visiting the beach that day gave me some idea of what could have been had the weather cooperated.  “On a clear day, unlike today, you can see the [San Francisco] skyline from the beach,” she said.  When asked where that would be, she waved her leg around indiscriminately and attempted to point south with her foot.  Glad we cleared that up.  I would have, at this point, taken a picture of the wall of gray that stood between me and my blog-entry-making shot, but minutes earlier I dropped my camera (a Kodak EasyShare v550 for anyone wondering what camera NOT to buy) into some sand and that was it.  Camera busted.  As an aside, I absolutely cannot believe that 21st century technology was done in by what wasn’t more than a pinch of sand.  It got in there and just wrecked everything.  My camera was the Death Star and the sand was Luke Skywalker.  I am outraged.

Be that as it may, my trip to Stinson Beach was memorable for positive reasons.  Late in the afternoon, the clouds broke and with the exception of San Francisco to the south, you could look out into the vastness of the ocean, watch people throwing a frisbee, see the gulls, feel the sun and wind, and with a cold beer grape soda in hand, remind yourself: If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

Alright, here’s a great how-to on the best way to view blogs right now. From Common Craft via usfblogtastic.

Well, the camera angle is about as phenomenal as the fact Stephen Marley stopped playing as soon as I started capturing video.

However!

This has been a valuable exercise in video embedding.

Alright, I’ve been lazy so far.

The updates will come in waves.