Intellectual Poison

or Is That a Knuckle Duster in Your Shoulder Bag or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Check out the news about the Monk brawl in Thailand. I thought part of being a Monk was being resolved to finding non-violent means to ending conflicts?

One of the now defrocked monks, Boonlert Boonpan (something tells me this isn't his given name) also said he carried a knuckle duster (brass knuckles to you and me) in his shoulder bag. Um sorry, what? You carry a dangerous weapon with you at all times and you're a Buddhist monk? How does that jibe with your beliefs?

And the last bit from the article is gold. After being defrocked by senior monks (the battling monks were between 15 and 28 years old) ....Boonlert was unrepentant.

"If senators can fight in parliament, why can't monks?" he said.

To which I would reply, but Boonlert, you weren't in parliament, you were brawling in the middle of a street like common hoodlums. In your monk robes or frocks.

Maybe this should be filed under the "Didn't you read the rules of the sect" news?
And, as an aside, am I the only one that just loves the word "defrocked", it has such lovely connotations to me. Defrocking used to be one of our past times. Unless I'm mispronouncing it and the word is actually def-rocking and it refers to shitty metal bands like Def Leppard and Quiet Riot.
Venom 0
Tags: defrocked, defrocked monks, knuckle duster, street fight

So I won something a few weeks, its not important what it was and, since the issue is still pending, I'm not going to give it away.

Anyway, I won something and was sent some papers to sign to get my winnings. The only problem is that, among those papers, is a pretty full and unconditional release with some scary verbiage included in it. Things about signing away the right to use my likeness or any images of me for any reason they choose, including derivative works, including my own pictures of me, they think they can assume and use as they see fit.

I'm not sure that its possible to even sign over such rights to someone but I know that I am for damned sure not going to give someone else that sort of power over my image and likeness. Especially for a mere thousand bucks. You want unrestricted use of my image? You're going to have to pony up at least six figures for that and even then I will be retaining final say in how my image can be used (don't want to see my pretty mug showing up in a WalMart ad or something).
Venom 0
Tags: fake win, contest

We saw this lovely Lotus in the parking lot outside the ballpark yesterday and I didn't even have to ask if I could have one. But it sure was pretty.

The Giants lost but we still had a nice time. Graydon still wasn't overly interested in the ballgame but he sure did like it when the crowd got excited. He would look around him and smile when people started clapping, it was pretty cute.

That and the parking was free because we cheated. Free parking a hundred feet from where people were paying $25 to park was a nice bonus.
Tags: lotus, sbcpark, exotic car

When the alternative is either execution or life imprisonment then yes, a 20 year sentence is a victory or sorts.

Bali court sentences Corby to 20 years in jail for smuggling in nearly 9 pounds of marijuana into a country that does not do well with drug smugglers.

If the drugs were planted then she got a really crappy raw deal but if she tried to pay for her holiday by being a mule then, sorry sweetheart, but you did get off easy. Its hard to believe that someone would be stupid enough to try and smuggle such a large quantity of drugs into a country with such draconian laws against smuggling. But people will do the damnedest things.

If you'd like to get pretty incredibly depressed at the depths of depravity that people will stoop to, check out the story of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Two people which I can honestly say deserve to be fed, feet first, into a chipper/shredder for their crimes against the universe. Begun with drugging and raping and accidental death (and videotaping) Karla's 15 year old little sister, Tammy Homolka and continuing on down the line. These people are filthy scum and they've made a movie about it. Lovely.
Venom -1
Tags: schappelle corby, corby, schappelle, drug smuggling, Indonesia, marijuana, tammy homolka, the deadly movie

Tired of waiting for the law to catch up with technology and start to shut down some of the thousands of phishing sites out on the intarnets? Tired of scams?

Well so were these guys, Vigilante hackers use Old West tactics for cyberspace justice. Basically, they hack a phishing site and deface it so that anyone succumbing to one of their stupid attempts to steal information will be met with a page declaring that the site is scam.

The article points out that vigilantism generally doesn't end well. But in this instance, I don't see how it could screw things up anymore than what's currently happening. Identity theft is rampant and the law is years and years behind technology. It will never catch up and thousands of people a day are being duped and screwed by these scams. Its a serious problem but the legal hurdles to climb over make any global system of policing these phishing assholes will never happen. There will always places for them to hide and continue to steal identities.

These people are the bottom feeders of society and they should be aggressively hunted down, prosecuted and then tossed in prison for long, long stretches.
Venom +1
Tags: hacker, vigilantism, vigilante, phishing, scam, payback

In the absence of a real post this morning, I present to you, the Phallic Logo Awards (Google Cache in case the link dies). The winner definitely deserved this win for their terribly funny logo.
Venom +1
Tags: phallic, logo, phallicawards, logoawards

Have you ever had a burning need to know where your loved one is?

You may need to get them some forget-me-not panties. They've got a GPS device built in so you can track them day in and day out.
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Tags: gpspanties, panties, spypanties, gpspanty

I had this thought this morning while calling Nande back from an exploratory excursion from her regularly scheduled rock chasing this morning. The detour was a family of four that included a little girl who was very obviously terrified of dogs.

And it got me to thinking, is the blanket fear of dogs a racist perspective? I don't think so in the little girl's case because it would be simpler (and good ol' Occam's Razor says simpler is more likely to be right) to say that she's frightened of things she doesn't know and are bigger than her and have big teeth.

But what about larger kids, what about adults who fear all dogs no matter their size? I'm sure they've had a bad experience in the past with a dog that either attacked them or attacked someone they knew. And I understand that fear, I've had dogs chase me with my meaty calves in their crosshairs and it is damned scary.

But if you replace bad experience with a dog to bad experience with a black man or with a Mexican or with a Japanese girl then the picture is very clear. It is racist to take a single incident and lay it over a whole demographic. So why is it acceptable to be racist towards dogs or other creatures? Or is racism the wrong term and it should be speciesism?
Venom +1
Tags: racism, speciesism, dogs

Russian victory festivities open old wounds in Europe and I understand that this is a touchy subject but really come on now. Who doesn't like seeing monkies dressed up like Nazis? Though I think this particular monkey would have made a much better Popeye with those inflated forearms.

[Update: I actually like how this post has bled into the Paris Hilton post below. It satisfies some driving need I have to mock her and there's nothing more mocking and funny than a monkey in a Nazi uniform. Unless someone paid Paris enough to put on the uniform too and then to sexily sit and eat nits from the monkey's fur. But then, I have no idea what that would be selling. I just like the visual.]
Venom 0
Tags: nazi, nazimonkey, russia, WWII, victory

So, the Queen of Undeserved Fame, Paris Hilton, is in a commercial for Carl's Jr. where she's washing a car in an ugly (but outrageously expensive) swimsuit thing. Its a dumb commercial for a bunch of reasons, mainly though because there's no fucking way the twitqueen would ever wash her own car. She's far too highbrow to get dirty cleaning a car unless someone's filming it and paying her lots of money. And its a stupid ad in anycase, what does washing a Bentley have to do with Carl's Jr.? The ad is Too Hot for Critics though because she shows a lot of skin and then basically makes out with a big hamburger (which I'm sure she spit out and then rinsed her mouth out to keep from ingesting any icky calories, ew!).

I will refrain from yet another screed about what a fucking pathetic waste of space she is. You already know it, we know it, but she'll keep being rammed into your eye sockets at every turn because she's got "juice" right now and they are going to milk her for it for as long as they can. Oh boy, all Paris all the time. I can feel myself becoming dumber and dumber.

And here, for all the searchers mostly likely looking for the unedited version of the commercial, Spicy Paris. Thanks to J for the link.
Venom -1
Tags: parishilton, paris hilton, spicy paris, sleazemarketing, duh, carlsjr, notsexy

Among the many reasons why I love living out west is the happy circumstance of an early afternoon ballgame starting up in the east. Which means that it will be starting in my morning. And morning baseball just makes me happy.

Unless its Giants and Dodgers and the Dodgers are kicking the tar out of my Giants. Then I have a tendency to go out and have a liquid lunch.

But not after last night's game. It was nice to see Schmidty out there and kicking ass again with his live arm. And then it was even better to see Jeff Kent flail and fail at the plate all game.

Two more games for the sweep and there is truly nothing sweeter than the Giants sweeping the Dodgers. Well maybe one or two things but that's about it.
Venom +1
Tags: baseball

If you've got some time to kill and feel like some gaming action then perhaps you'd like to swing on by FreeWebArcade.Com sfand check out their pretty broad offerings of entertainment. Good stuff!
Venom +1
Tags: arcade, onlinegames, games

So, like the rest of you, I'm now getting spam that contains nothing but gibberish, random words put together or nothing at all. I don't get it. Aside from some sort of trojan buried in the email, what is the point? Is there a point? Were you, the spammer, too wasted on crack and St. Ides to know what you were doing?

Or, bluntly, why are you fuckers continuing to waste my fuckin' time?

And why does Yahoo's filtration system blow such massive chunks of uselessness?

Venom 0
Tags: spam

So, you thought things were under control, that hackers were more or less being held in check. Not so, check out the newest hack in which an application gets into your system, grabs some files and locks them. The virus or trojan will encrypt them and then send you a ransom note to make an online payment to unlock the files.

Its clever and its underhanded and I would imagine that they will be successful enough to evolve it to the next level.
Venom 0
Tags: hack, hackers, newhack

Let this be a lesson to you all, you all chomping at the bit for the newest Adobe InDesign or Photoshop. You don't need it, you can produce absolutely stunning works of art with MSPaint, yep, that old hunk of crap.

Check out powerdraw by ~Diamonster. This is 500 hours of work and it is pretty amazing.
Venom +1
Tags: mspaint, deviantart, 500hours

Holy shit!

No really, holy shit. Go and take a look at the seriously pathetic screams for attention the bling-blingers can incorporate into their ensemble for maximum ridiculosity.

Tooth Cap Spinners, yes, tooth cap spinners. To showcase the bling within, why not put those diamond caps on a spinners IN YOUR MOUTH so that people can laugh themselves to death everytime you smile?

Holy shit.
Venom 0
Tags: spinners, blingbling, beyondstupid

Nande gets some beat down action on the beach with her best friend this weekend. She had a great time and was so tired on the way home that she barely looked around.

I love her expression in this shot because she looks tough but you can also, if you look closely, see her smiling as well. She had a good weekend too, lots of playtime, lots of exercise and then lots of flopped out cold sleep.

And that's a good way to spend the weekend.
Venom +1
Tags: beach, becahdogs, teeth

I don't normally post email forwards but this one, from Mark, is well worth a little rule bending.
Your wife decides to go out with her friends drinking and dancing......
Your okay with it, because you get to watch football.
You hear her stumble into bed around 3am.
You wake up next morning and go outside to check the family car, which
she used last night. Knowing she was drunk, you are happy to see it all in one piece.

But .....
Wait a minute............

Uh honey?
Venom +1
Tags: joke, jokeemail, forward, uhhoney

Yeah, yeah, the movie was out like a couple of years ago and pretty much the entire universe has seen it already. We are NetFlix's favorite kind of customer. We get our movies and then forget to watch them for at least a week or two.

But we popped in Dodgeball last night and settled in.

Vince Vaughn is money, the guy's old school cool with a laugh with me while I laugh at myself sweet and goofiness to him. Ben Stiller, while I feel his star's way to high in the sky, was excellent as the wanker White Goodman, he can play the smarmy asshole to a tee. Christine Taylor was, well, she was lovely eye candy.

And the cameos were superb. Chuck Norris being the final judge was great even if Chuck kind of irritates me. Lance Armstrong's pep speech in the airport to Vince was about the funniest thing I think he has ever done and I'm sure he's said the same thing in his mind hundreds of times. Classic, funny and quirky.

Yes, the storyline is a bit forced and is mostly a vehicle for the jokes but the jokes are good, the jokes are genuinely funny and some of them are really very subtle and clever. Its the kind of movie I'd watch again just to see what else I could catch in it. Good stuff and I really enjoyed the laugh.
Venom +1
Tags: dodgeball, vincevaughn, benstiller, christinetaylor

The office next to ours was unoccupied for many months after we first moved in. Then, a watermain got broken and the mortgage office downstairs got flooded (again) and decided they wanted to move to higher ground.

And that's fine except every single interaction I've had with anyone from the office has been from negative to downright fucking rude.

The main case in point is, I'm guessing, the manager of the office, who's an older guy with a look like he takes fashion tips from Art Garfunkel. For some reason, this guy glares at me everytime our paths cross. Today, as I was walking to Trader Joe's to get some lunch, he was walking up and he stared and glared at me the whole way. Its fucking bizarre. Its a passive anger and is pretty well the epitome of what assholery is.

So, the next time he pulls this shit. I'm going to stop, take my sunglasses off, look him squarely in the eye and ask him what his problem is. I haven't done anything to him and I'm sick of feeling like he's got some beef. If he just glares naturally then he should fucking learn another expression. If he's got some real issue with me then perhaps he should be a man about it and confront me directly.

Either way, the office seems to be populated by assholes and I would go a long way out of my way to never do business with them.
Venom -1
Tags: grumpyoldman, angryoldman, assholery

That Darth, he's all tough and mean on the big screen but you can almost see him chuckling at the latest from Boondocks (which by the way, was damned funny last week during the Black Culture Immersion series).



Venom +1
Tags: darthvader, easilyamused

I learned something new this morning. Its the multi-burst mode on my new camera, the Sony DSC-P200 (full review is in process). It snaps sixteen shots in very rapid succession to give a great sequence of events (sometimes). I cut out the first four here but the rest are pretty cool.

This is Nande charging after rocks again this morning down in the slough. I keep expecting her to get tired of the game but she is always ready for more and whines a little bit when it comes time to walk back up the house even if she's wheezing from exertion.

My girl's got game!

An IM chat with Rick evolved into me taking on the reviewing of some of the music that he and his crew are either not all that interested in or its so far down their list that it would never get the attention it thinks it deserves. [Update: Rick forgot he asked me to do it and farmed it out to someone else who could turn it around faster.]

So here's my first official music review. And I got to start out with the musical equivalent of low-hanging fruit.

Reel Big Fish, for those that didn't get to hear one of the roughly eight hundred million trillion replays their "hit" got on the radio waves, made their mark with the tongue-in-cheek "Sellout", a song about a ska band that makes it big by selling out. Strange the parallels between the song and the band, eh?

I've had the song in my playlists for a few weeks now and really the only conclusion I can come to on the music that this band produces is that it instincually makes me reach for the "Next" button on my iPod.

This is a band that makes a reasonably good song, gets some reasonable fame from it and then rides that song into the sunset. Most every song on this album is all about lamenting their fame or how it sucks to be rich and famous or how your life sucks because you're not Reel Big Fish or something to that effect. Maybe they're a really great live show, maybe they're the funniest interview of all time but, when push comes to shove, their music is tired, blah and the whole self deprecation stuff gets old after after five seconds.

The Fire - starts out with some decent toe tapping beats and then quickly settles into their tired formulaic ska song, complete with screeches and accelerating scales, hooting and the like.

Revolution - hey, here's an idea, let's take a good song and sing it like we're far too cool for this universe and suck the life out of a good song. Have I mentioned that this album's only saving grace is that I can skip it when it comes up?

Story of my Life - This actually isn't a terrible song. It could be decent filler on a mix tape without messing it up too badly. It still smacks of "Poor me"ism on Reel Big Fish's part but its muted somewhat here and it actually sounds like they may have enjoyed playing this song.

Last Show - If they'd named this the Last Song then it might have been something to look forward to but instead its just more "Poor me" crap wrapped in what's gotta be labelled as "Ska" beat on their keyboards. Nothing new to hear here.

One Hit Wonderful - wow, another tongue in cheek, we hate being famous anthem that's tired from the first note. Apparently the worst that could have happened to Reel Big Fish was that people started listening to them, they got some radio time and their freakin' heads swelled up to the size of Zeppelins. Seriously, aside from one mildly decent song about 8 years ago, have they done ANYTHING noteworthy? No, I didn't think so either.

Drinkin' - a catchy melody overlayed with yet another anthem to what a bummer some modicum of fame is. I feel awful for these guys, the world has done them so wrong that all they can do is write songs about what a crappy deal they've gotten.

Don't Start a Band - you know, at this point, I'm beginning to wonder if they think they are the wittiest and funniest musicians that ever lived. Or, I wonder if they're playing a big old joke and intentionally producing tripe in the hopes of making more money off it. Either way, this song sucks too. And I think I know why, the lead singer has virtually no range, his voice goes to crap quickly. In fact, it starts out pretty bad and gets worse quickly. There's no inspiration, no nothing, just a dude wailing away and imagining all the money he's making. Bleh.

I could continue on and shred each song on this really bad album but I think you get the point. This band had one hit and has been lamenting (and trying to capitalize) on the hardships of their "fame" ever since. This album would be best used as a drink coaster since listening to it invariably puts me in a bad mood.
Venom -1
Tags: reelbigfish, reelbigfishreview, music review, crappyska, badmusic, poormeism, posers, poserband

GeoBloggers is the natural extension of Google and Flickr so that personalized maps are created of geotagged photos. Add "geo:lat=xx.xxxx", "geo:lon=xx.xxxx" and "geotagged" to your Flickr tags and they go into the system. The possibilities are pretty wide open.

Ain't technology grand?
Thanks to All Guinness for the heads up on this coolness.
Venom +1
Tags: geotagged, geobloggers, flickr, google

Keep hyping, keep pushing, keep forcing the latest Star Wars into my face and you know what will happen? The opposite of what you want. I will strangle off any interest in the movie, I will boycott businesses that are helping to push, push, push the schlock, the figures, the marketing tie-ins, the over hyped monetariness of the whole goddamned spectacle.

I'm tired of movies being nothing more than marketing vehicles for merchandise sales and for promotions at Taco Bell.

Lucas is a sellout who can sellout because he's got legions of fans who wouldn't give a damn if he made three more Star Wars movies about nothing but Chewie's flea issues.

I'm unlikely to go and see the movie in the theatre so I'm sure they could give two shits about my boycott. But it would be nice to get a large group of people together to tell Hollywood and George Lucas that enough is fucking enough. Ease back on the megahype, ease back on the marketing and ease back on the plot development being dictated by the ability to sell more goddamned plastic teddy bears.
Venom -1
Tags: starwars, starwarshype, overmarketing, georgelucas, merchandising, merch-vertising

Nah, this isn't a major new snark offensive, just an observation from the ride in this morning.

I saw a lady driving a hybrid gas/electric Honda this morning and smoking a cigarette while doing it. Just seemed a little backward. But then, anytime I see someone smoking in their car I generally scratch my head.

Venom 0
Tags: smokers, somethingaintright

Which is to say, they used alot of bad canned humor, cliches and were pretty well about the least funny show they could possibly be. Aim high!

But the end is near, until syndication, Oh God! Make the suffering stop!

Have I mentioned how much I hate this stupid show?
Venom 0
notfunny, rayromanoisnotfunny, sitcoms, deadgenre, badtv

There were a couple of stories like this one, about a series of pictures taken in hotel rooms of a child thought to have been abducted and suffering abuse at the hands of her abductors. This is one of those stories and the best part is that the Girl In Disney Abuse Photos Safe.

They caught the guy, he's behind bars (and odds aren't good on him living all that long, at least once his crime is known) and now the girl has a long road through therapy to excise the demons the bastard forced upon her.

But she is alive and that's a win.
Venom +1
Tags: kidnapping, abduction, abuse, disneyhotelpictures, justice

This almost slipped my mind but is well worth a little post.

We went to one of the cool fruit stands near the house and stocked up on fruit and veggies for the week so P can juice and cleanse herself some as well as make some yummy foods for the little guy. By the way, I'll have to post a pic or two of the flat of strawberries we got, fresh, local and HUGE! Gotta love living in the cradle of strawberry production for the nation!

Anyway, we're shopping and there's a couple that's, um, being overly friendly with each other. Like stopping people from shopping so they can makeout some more. And these aren't young folks, these are adults, older than us by a good ten years at least.

I couldn't help but notice that the lady had a nice figure, hard to miss in the Daisy Dukes and pushup bra she had on. But, of course, that was the whole point. When I first heard her speak, a bell rang in my head as I knew that I knew the voice from somewhere.

Turns out, she's our ex-neighbor out on the town with her new guy, the one she committed adultery with in her, now, ex-husband's bed with. Nice. And she's behaving like a stupid little high school girl, fawning, giggling and carrying on. This is a woman with two (maybe three kids) in their teens.

P wouldn't speak to her because of what an utter bitch she was about the car ages ago now. I had no choice because she cornered us and we had to exchange pleasantries. And it was hard to not ask her really inappropriate questions, like "How did you divorce go?" and "So, did you want to get caught cheating on your husband or are you just impenetrably stupid and self-centered?" But I didn't. And only partially because her new guy is a cop.

And I left with the realization that, if you're going to cheat on your husband, cheat on him with a cop because there's not a damned thing he can do about it. Unless he's completely insane and would assault a cop, in which case, you were not long for this existence anyway. But still, strange, unseemly and really just kind of left me feeling mildly dirty and a little sad.
Venom 0
Tags: adultery, adulterer, cheating, skank

Just put up a new post on Sarcasm Inc. and wanted to note it here, its called Stupid is the New Hot but just as easily be called: The Parassification of Stupidity.
Venom -1
Tags: stupid, falsecelebrity, vacuous, twit

I am man enough to admit when I have a problem and I have a problem with Wasabi & Soy Sauce Almonds from Blue Diamond. They are too damned spicy and tasty for their own good. Seriously, you'll eat one and be like "DAMN! That was good, gimme some more!"
You could make the most wicked Chex Mix ever with these tossed in there. Or just eat them straight out of the can like I do. And I cannot stop.
Venom +1
Tags: foodfetish, almonds

Nande and I finally got a chance to get back out to the beach this weekend. We were going to have a whole family outing but the timing didn't work out well with Graydon's afternoon nap on Saturday.

So it was just Nande and me on the way to the beach. You'd think the beaches out here would be pretty well packed on a gorgeous (and I mean GORGEOUS!) Saturday afternoon. And I was momentarily worried that there might not be any parking for us. But nope, there were two little spots left on either side of a behemoth SUV and we were able to slip into one and get ourselves in the sand.

One quick side note, our neighbor's kid borrowed our leash and collar last week and hasn't gotten around to returning them yet. Who borrows a collar? Its not like they have a puppy, their dog is like 16 years old or something. I walk Nande everyday and not having the right equipment makes things more difficult than they have to be. I think his borrowing privileges may be suspended for a little while after this.

Hidden Beach in Aptos is a really wonderful place to take Nande. I've only met one or two people who had a problem with her being off her leash and running free. The vast majority of people are very cool, they let their dogs play with Nande and I have met some interesting and very nice people.

On Saturday there were a couple of factors in our favor. The first was that it was beautiful out, warm, sunny, a light breeze. The second was that the water was warm, quite a bit warmer than I can remember it being. Which made being out in the water easy and fun. The third nice factor was that the tide was low so there was a long wide flat area where the waves were coming in slowly and breaking. This made it easy to get Nande out a ways from shore and not be too deep in the water.

The best thing about that was that, when another dog would come by, she would slog her way to shore, sniff the other dog and then come slogging back out to me. It helped tire her out alot more quickly.

The only downside to it being just me and Nande is that I don't really have much of an opportunity to take many pictures. I did snap a couple but I wasn't able to really concentrate on them. Maybe next time when P and Graydon come along too.

The only bummer thing about the beach day was when we were leaving (oh wait, I forgot about the big old dooper she dropped the second we got down on the sand and I'd forgotten some scooper bags, that was fun but luckily I found a used tupperware container to scoop it up and dispose of it). We were heading off the beach and Nande had, apparently, gotten some extra liquid in her somehow because it came out. And I will not go into further details because its making my stomach queasy just thinking about it. It was a strange ending to a really wonderful day at the beach with my pup.

I am looking forward to moving back closer to the beach in the next year or so. That and moving back closer to the neighborhood and our friends will be really nice. Upgrading our privacy will be just a huge bonus on top! Which reminds me, I need to get my feelers out on some land options. While P, at the same time, is out looking for a small patch of commercial space to open up shop but more on that later.
Venom +1
Tags: beach, dog, surf, beachday

Some days I'm alot more tired than others, it looks like this might be one of them. I try to sleep, I try to get my recommended daily allowance, I try to get to bed early so I can face each day with as balanced a perspective as possible.

But I don't get enough sleep. I haven't for a long time now and it makes me a cranky asshole. Which sucks. I don't like having a short fuse, I don't like starting off my days with telling the dog to get her damned sauna breath out of my face and to quit whining because she wants to go on her walk. I don't like starting my day having to defend what I say or how I say it.

Basically, this week's starting off like a fresh steaming pile. It had better start improving soon.
Tags: anger management

This was stop number three on the hotel tour yesterday. The 35th floor at the Argent looking out towards the bay and SBC Park. This is one of those pics that are really and truly best appreciated as big as possible.

Other stops yesterday included W, which I liked quite a bit but was a bit too "mod" for our needs. The Ramada Plaza which was interesting but the conference facilities were sorely lacking (columns in conference rooms are not useful). The Westin St. Francis which got picketed by protesters while we there and didn't have enough space. And then the Sheraton out on the Fisherman's Wharf which was interesting but also not quite big enough.

The Argent won the straw poll vote. The rooms are excellent with superb floor to ceiling windows that give a sense of vertigo when you first approach them. The meeting space was nice, close together and there was plenty of it for our purposes.

The one thing about W that stands out clearly above the others is they have a pool on the fourth floor (or was it the tenth?) with a large terrace capable of seating a couple of hundred people for an awesome lunch or dinner reception. And they had very attractive employees.

And dude from the Sheraton, you were a really nice guy and we appreciated the time you took with us but dude, breath check. 'Nuff said.
Venom +1
Tags: hotel tour, conference, SBCPark, argent, sanfrancisco