FOODIE CALL

first up:
Organic Spinach and Humboldt Fog Cheese Salad

50/50 Burger - 50% beef, 50% bacon -
100% decadence

I'm in a serious food detox today, courtesy of the Forbes Mill Steakhouse, in Danville.

A SERIOUS detox.

SAY WHAT?

Hunter S. Thompson

I just haven't learned to write like me yet.

-- Hunter S. Thompson

I love this quote.

MY OZ

Oh New York, you sexy bitch!

PEANUTS AND CRACKER JACK

Candlestick Park, as it appeared on opening day in April of 1960

So it was recently announced that when the 49ers play their final game in 2013 (or possibly 2014), the rundown Candlestick Park will be imploded, and replaced with exactly what San Francisco needs:

another shopping mall.

(sigh)

Anyway, SFGate ran a little piece this morning about the long-shot possibility of having the San Francisco Giants play one more game at The 'Stick, for old time's sake.

As an unashamed sentimental old fool, let me just say this is an idea that I'm totally down with. After all, the stadium was originally built for them, and having seen a few games there back in the day, it might be fun to spend of few more hours out there with a couple of hot dogs, a couple of beers, and say goodbye to a stadium that people just loved to hate.

RUNNING SCARED

So because a few democrats recently suggested that actress Ashley Judd run as a candidate against Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell when he comes up for re-election in 2015, bed-wetting conservative and douche bag Karl Rove's Super PAC, American Crossroads, released an ad as a preemptive strike against her undeclared candidacy.

It would be easy to say that as a resident of Tennessee, Ms. Judd would be ineligible to run for that particular office. However, former New York Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton wasn't even a resident of   The Empire State when she became an unofficial candidate for the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's senatorial seat, and she eventually won that race, so I guess I can understand why Rove and McConnell are already pissing on themselves about the 2015 race.

What I don't understand is the fear of Ms. Judd and her undeclared candidacy. I mean, what are they so scared of? Is there a possibility, at least in their minds, that she could actually win?

Gee, maybe there's some truth to the old political saying that goes You run unopposed or you run scared.

Also, you have to admit the ad is pretty laughable.

MY OZ

When Manhattan's grand tribute to railroad travel, Pennsylvania Station was torn down in 1963, architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote:

We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.

Touché.

So even though Manhattanites continued to mourn the loss of such an architectural gem, I was surprised to read many years ago that a little over 10 years after Penn Station was razed, Grand Central Terminal almost suffered the same fate. A half-hearted attempt to save the aging and decaying structure was begun, but it wasn't until Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis got involved that Grand Central was eventually saved.

Grand Central Terminal turned 100 this past weekend and having walked through it hundreds of times during the 10 years I lived there, I can't even imagine what New York City would be like without it.

Happy Birthday, GCT.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY

I wouldn't normally post anything on the overly-hyped Super Bowl commercials, but there were a few that amused me, and here they are:

Clearly, this was the funniest commercial of the bunch. I have no plans to visit a Taco Bell anytime soon, but still.

Maybe you thought the same thing I did when this dandy little diddy popped up: What. The. Fuck?

Buy an Audi, and you'll grow a set.

SOLANGE

I was first introduced to singer Solange, via the song T.O.N.Y., which appeared on her 2008 album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams.

Seriously, listening to this song is like getting a warm hug from 1975.

Her latest effort, True, which dropped in November of 2012, proves her previous effort was no fluke. I'm just sorry I waited so long to post the first single released from that album, because Losing You is also a damn good song.

Enjoy.

DIG IF YOU WILL THE PICTURE

Glen Canyon Park, as I saw it during an urban hike earlier this afternoon.

HIZZONER

Few people love New York City as much as I do.

Former New York mayor Ed Koch, who passed away earlier today at age 88, was one of those few people. A native New Yorker, Koch loved the city I call My Oz so much that he spent nearly $20,000 on one of the last available cemetery plots located within the borough of Manhattan.

I have to admit I became a little jealous when I read that little bit of trivia, but seriously, if that ain't love, then I don't know what is.

So long, Ed.