San Francisco - Day 10

I decided today was “a day of action”, but didn’t wake up until 11:00. The head wasn’t very delicate and so I pressed on!

I visited Cafe Roma for my usual large latte – this and two cigarettes = breakfast! Having returned to the hostel I then set up workstation in the ballroom. I got a nice corner spot out of the direct sunshine. (This makes one hot and you can’t see the screen half the time due to the glare – and superior strength - of the Sun!)

First to come and chat was John. He was waxing lyrical about our fun last night, we both agreed it was good to exchange a bit of English irony (like plastic, but made out of iron for the Yanks) and wet ourselves laughing waiting for the “locals” to get the joke – they usually had to work it out “out loud” before the quarter dropped! John is here for the next eight months working in the hostel, so it has literally become his home.

John disappeared to tend to some chores and Stephanie & Jolie came into the ballroom. They came over and had a chat. They had been shopping in fine girlie fashion and with the Canadian $ outstripping the US$ it was cheap shopping for them. They leave the same day as I – Saturday – but they know where they are going. All I have is a car rented and nowhere specific to drive it to! I attempted to make some progress.

Eleanor came in then and so I stopped to have a chat with her. She is leaving Saturday, by Greyhound to LA where she then flies back to Leeds. We waxed lyrical about Death Valley and the geological formations on show, and she admitted that it had fired her interest in knowing more about the way the valley was formed. She left to meet a guy she met travelling in China two years ago. He has since married and is in San Francisco with his wife, so they were all going to get together for a few drinks and a chat.

Marcos came in next. He came and asked if I had seen his “Constructing the Universe” book. “No” I said, “I gave them back to you after taking all the details.” “I know,” he said, “I remember you put them in my hand”. He had loaned it to an American guy who was about when we were discussing them after I had returned the books. We formulated a suitable punishment for all book thieves; they were all excruciatingly painful and resulted in death, and then he went off in search of this American guy. I know how he feels – books are precious things! (Both in the “Local Shop” and the Gollum sense.)

I eventually gave up on getting anywhere as:
1. The wireless network seem to be incapable of connecting to the Internet
2. I had finished my coffee
3. I was hungry and it was 15:00

I packed up my laptop, took it up to my locker, and went out for something to eat. I decided to take JD’s recommendation and went to Yii’s (a Chinese restaurant) for duck over rice. This was a superb recommendation as the meal was delicious and cost less than $5. I headed back to the hostel feeling quite stuffed.

Having re-established office back in the ballroom I set about trying to get some things booked up for Humbug. (Humbug is the great commercial fest and book-balancing exercise which used to be the winter solstice before religions ruined it and corporations made shit loads of money out of it convincing idiots and morons that they must take out loans, or get new credit cards, for in order to buy overpriced crap they wouldn’t normally buy. It is also an excuse for restaurants, pubs, clubs, diners, etc. to serve up warmed up plastic, cardboard or reprocessed food with a sprig of holly on top and charge ten times the price for. Call me cynical but that is exactly what this time of year is – a cynical rip-off and exploitation of the gullible!)

My success was rather thwarted by a small procession of people who kept stopping by to chat to me: John, Neil, JD, Eleanor, Marcos, and “the Canadian girls” were all guilty (well as much as one can call people guilty for being friendly) of delaying my plans.

After a few hours of this I gave up, packed up and just settled for sitting in the ballroom and chatting to everyone who wanted to.

Later on – after dark – it was suggested we go out for pizza so a bunch of us took a stroll up the road to a pizza place and indulged in some very fine pizza.
After this we went back to the hostel, collecting some beers as we went, and proceeded to drink the beers and chat about many things.

When all the beers were gone I decided it would be a very good idea to go to bed, especially as it was now tomorrow! I returned to my dorm and succeeded in getting to bed without waking any of my roommates up and was instantly asleep!
I will do some serious planning later today...