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Mar. 18th, 2009

  • 8:23 AM
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This morning's trivia on KOIT:

Q: The first one of these opened in North Korea this past week. What is it?

A: a pizzeria

We hope they get the pies baked and delivered before dark, 'cuz there isn't much electricity in North Korea. Need proof? Just check out
this night time satellite picture of  the two Koreas..North and South

Goodbye to Stacy's books on Market in SF. Another sad chapter in the saga of Bay Area independent booksellers.  They closed their doors forever after selling their last book yesterday afternoon...at 70 percent off. I loved Stacy's. When KOIT was located at First and Market, hardly a week passed that I didn't visit. I did much of Christmas shopping there.

Are you as burned about these AIG bonuses and I am? Hope so.  At least  I thought was, until Brian Williams broke the numbers down on the news last night. Then I really blew a gasket.  73 AIG employees will get a million each, 22 will get at LEAST 2 million, and one person, who should wear a bag over his/her head, gets 6.4 million. They should all wear bags over their heads. The aim of the bonuses was  "talent retention". Ironically, a bunch of the people getting the "retention" bonuses have already flown the coop WITH the dough.  Mad now?  AIG's chief, Edward Liddy, appears on Capitol Hill today for questioning. Pass the popcorn, please.

'Haven't yet gotten into this season of American Idol yet. How 'bout you? I don't know if I'm burned on it or not. It's still hugely popular, and that fact isn't lost on me. Apparently one of Idol's staffers is running around telling anyone who'll listen, that the team of producers and judges has already picked the final four, despite the fact that there are still eleven people competing. Upper Deck, the trading card company, is launching a line of American Idol trading cards. They'll feature Idol winners, losers, and judges -138 in all.  Trade ya a Hung for an Underwood.

Jan. 14th, 2009

  • 8:17 AM
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Today's trivia on KOIT:

Q: Last week it sold at auction for $370 a pound. What is it?

A: Tuna. Yup, bluefin to be specific

It was caught off the northern coast of Japan. The whole fish sold for over 100 grand, and was split between a Hong Kong sushi bar owner and a Japanese competitor. They say that a single piece of sushi made with this  fish will go for 35 bucks. That's ONE piece. I mean, I like sushi, but....

I know we were joking about this on the air a lot, but I really DID get around to taking down our Christmas lights last weekend. But you know what? Coming back from our son's High School "college night" last night we noticed that lots of houses still have Christmas lights, not just up, but on, as well. Fine by me.

This morning we were having fun with a specialty book store in San Francisco.....Omnivore Books on Food located in Noe Valley. Yeah, books about food, but not just cookbooks. General books about food as well. And old ones at that. "The Bartenders Guide by Trader Vic", for example came out in the 1940s.  I know you're asking "How 'bout a book about bacon?"  There's "Bacon and Hams" that came out in 1917. Omnivore's on Cesar Chavez at Church.




Dec. 1st, 2008

  • 8:03 AM
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Monday morning  trivia on KOIT:

Q: December is the biggest month for......

A:...nose jobs


Saturday I went  to our local Target to buy, what else, more Christmas lights. I had to make a couple of stops on the way, and everyone I talked to said the same thing. "Whatever you do, don't go to Target. It's a zoo right now" I went anyway. They were right. It was a zoo. Worse than a zoo, but completely tolerable and manageable. Didn't the financial soothe sayers  predict that the recession was going to keep everyone home this holiday shopping season?I was happy to see, on Saturday at least,  they turned out be wrong...again. Despite the crowd, I was able to get in and out in under ten minutes. My strategy? Enter Target through the garden center, and pay at the garden center register, where there was no line. A snap.

Answer me this. What happens to a string of Christmas lights over the course of being in a box for eleven months, that makes them not work when you take them out of storage? The very same lights that  worked when I took them off the tree last January. Saturday I took them out of the storage box, plugged them in to test before I put them on the tree, and nada! Nothing. Shook them. Nothing. Changed the fuses in them. Nothing. None of the lights lit. And half of the lights on the other string didn't work either. Whatever happened to those lights between January 10th and November 29th of this year will remain a mystery. But that's why I had to back to Target.

Nov. 24th, 2008

  • 9:17 PM
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Monday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: How many women have given birth in BART stations through the years?

A:  Three

And the third was was born just this last Friday morning at the San Leandro BARTstation . Jessica Bennett of Hayward gave birth to a 6-pound-2-ounce girl named Jayda.

Ever wonder about those little laser lights the kids carry around these days? I knew they'd be trouble when they became cheap enough for the corner store to carry. Geez, they've gotten to the point of being party favors. But over the last three years, pilots flying over the South Bay have reported someone shining a laser in their eyes. Serious stuff, this. It can cause temporary blindness and long-term eye damage. It happened just last week to a sherrif's chopper. Well, they finally got the guy! The sherrif's office, working with San Jose cops,  were able to pinpoint the origin of the laser beam near a shopping center close to the suspect's home. It wasn't a kid after all. 39-year-old Michael Weeker of Campbell was busted at his home last Monday, and could get eight years in the pokey on ten counts of shining a laser at an aircraft.

This past weekend I embarked on phase one (of three) of putting up our Christmas lights. I know it's early. I don't know if I'll  have a chance to do it this weekend, so I thought I'd get a jump on it. I'll wrap up the other two phases this week, but won't throw the switch until after Thanksgiving. And when I do, you'll be able to see it from space. I'm a sucker for this stuff!

Nov. 18th, 2008

  • 5:48 PM
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Tuesday’s trivia on KOIT: 

Q:  The first push button phones went into service on this date (11/18). What year was it?

A: 1963

This morning’s trivia winner, Patty Dempsey of Newark, still has an old rotary phone in her garage. 

Don’t look now, but crab season started last Friday here in the Bay Area.  And a lousy season it is for the fisherman – and we crab lovers – so far. Some crabbers are already packing up their gear and heading home. What do you expect when they’re pulling pots with only one crab inside? Marine biologists claim that the light haul is due to the cyclical nature of the crab supply, as opposed environmental damage. They expect the supply to return to normal, whatever that is, by the 2010-2011 crab season. A small crab at Alioto’s stand at Fisherman’s Wharf will set you back 14 bucks.  But who, besides the touristos, get crab at the Wharf? 

What part of “your driver’s license is suspended” did you not understand? Of the nearly 14 thousand auto accidents in Oakland every year, nearly one-third of them are hit and runs involving unlicensed and/or uninsured drivers.  The cops, and residents, are fed up. So it’s sting time! I love a good sting! The cops set up a trap outside traffic court in Oakland waiting for 18 traffic violators to enter court, receive their sentence of a suspended or revoked driver's license, then leave the courthouse. Of the 18 with suspended licenses, six left court and got right back in their cars and drove off!

 

Movie sequelmania! Get ready for follow-ups to Get Smart, Wall Street, Bull Durham, Lethal Weapon (5), Pirates, and Rambo. Want to see a more complete list? You’ll find it here. If you've been waiting for the followup to "Big Mama's House", today's your lucky day!


Nov. 12th, 2008

  • 8:24 AM
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Wed morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: Tirami Su, the Italian dessert and one of my faves, is Italian for....

A:...."pick me up"   Gee, that wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the recipe 
calls for about 40 shots of espresso, would it?

Just a couple days off,  this past Mon & Tues, and I got so much done around the house. Along with spending time with Kim & the kids, I was able to take care of some chores that I'd been putting off for a while. Cleaned the home office, fixed a toilet that would take forever to shut off, brought in the patio furniture, cleaned and put away some of our summer gear, and replaced a bum hard drive in our TiVO. You know. Real important stuff. And finally took down our Halloween lights to make room for our Christmas lights which will go up this weekend. I know it's early, but this will be the only chance I'll have to put them up.  I won't turn 'em on until after Thanksgiving, though.

Biscotti is an Oakland clothing design company  that specializes in girls clothing. Bernadette Reiss, Biscotti's owner and design director, was watching TV on election night with her husband Bob, and noticed the dress that ten-year-old Maila Obama was wearing during her dad's victory speech.  "Isn't that our dress?" Reiss asked Bob. It was, indeed, a dress designed at Biscotti, and sold at Nordstrom in Chicago for about a hundred dollars. As you might guess the phone at Biscotti is ringing off the hook. Reiss said that she'd like to design more clothes for the little Obamas. I'll be she would!

Nov. 6th, 2008

  • 10:13 AM
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Thursday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: It was on this date (11/6) in 1904  that Ed Cook became the first man to.......

A:....swim for a touchdown

Here's how the story shakes out: Oklahoma blocked a Kansas punt, and the ball bounced across the Kansas end zone into a river. Oklahoma halfback Ed Cook dove into the river, recovered the ball and it was ruled a touchdown. Too bad..no instant replay back then.

Before we put the election numbers to bed for good, here are a few more figures regarding the historic balloting that took place on Tuesday. The 2008 campaign was the most expensive in our history. 5,3 billion dollars. That's the tab when you count the presidential race, all political parties, interest groups, and all House and Senate races. The bill was 4.2 billion for the 2004 race. And 71 million of us watched the returns on the tube.

I leave the house way too early for home delivery of the Chronicle to do me any good, so it's become my routine to pick one up on the way to work. That's exactly what I did Wednesday morning after the election. I also picked up a copy of the NY Times, which I do a couple times a week. I'm so glad I did. Wednesday mornings'  papers,  with the historic election results on the front pages, became collectors items by Wednesday afternoon. At Fog City News on Market Street in San Francisco, people were lined up before the newsstand opened at 8a Wed. Inside a half hour all copies of the Chron & NYT were gone. In fact, by mid-morning you couldn't   find a Chronicle anywhere. In an extremely rare move, the Chronicle actually re-started the presses to crank out an additional 35 thousand copies. You can bet I'll hang on to my Chron and the New York Times. A  commemorative copy of the Times is selling on eBay for 400 dollars.

Oct. 31st, 2008

  • 8:27 AM
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Friday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: What percentage of parents admit to sneaking candy from their kids'  trick-or-treat stash?

A: about 90 percent., meaning about 10 percent are liars. I do it every year, but  always tell them that, if they're missing a  Reese's, it was me. I bought our candy yesterday - a bag of Reese's and a bag of "fun size" Snickers. What's "fun" about a Snickers the size of a sugar cube anyway?

Other Halloween stuff: Candy sales average about 2 billion for Halloween alone - by far the biggest candy purchasing holiday. Even bigger than Christmas, Easter, and Valentine's Day.

More than 10 percent of pet owners dress their pets up Halloween costumes. Half of all adults dress up.

This is the weekend that we change our clocks...back an hour before you go to bed Saturday night. It seems like every year there are more and more clocks to change, and and at least one gets left behind for a while. So, enjoy the extra hour of sleep, and have a fab weekend.

Oct. 27th, 2008

  • 8:04 AM
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Monday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: On average, how many unspent gift cards do we each carry?

A: Four.  That's probably about what I have stashed away. The good news is that in California, gift cards can't expire now. Bank gift cards would be the exception to that rule, though. The bankcards might also have some hidden fees attached. 
The California Department of Consumer Affairs has the skinny on gift card info for CA.

Sherry noticed that one-of-a-kind Cabbage Patch Kids in the likeness of both Presidential Candidates and their veeps will be up for auction on
eBay starting this Thursday. The dolls wear outfits inspired by what the real candidates wear, including the Sarah Palin, complete with the Palin trademark rimless glasses, red suit, and heels. The auction will last until Election Day, November 4th, and benefit the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation.

This morning's Chronicle ran an article about the demise of the school bake sale. Kind of sad, really.  Back in '05, the State Legislature passed  nutrition guidelines that have all but trashed the traditional school fundraiser, and the effect is being felt all over the Bay Area. And not just baked goods either. In the East Bay for example, Montclair Elementary must now hold their weekly pizza sales 30 minutes AFTER the end of the school day which has greatly reduced their weekly take to the point where parents and school staff now cover the loss to pay for field trips.  During intermissions at ou kid'sschool talent shows I was always good for a couple sugar cookes and a bottle of water for a buck. But  I'd give 'em a couple bucks more.

Oct. 21st, 2008

  • 7:53 AM
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Tuesday morning trivia on KOIT: 

Q: What San Francisco street is named after a minister, a doctor, and a pharmacist?

A: (Thad) Leavenworth. He was also a San Francisco magistrate when he had time to kill.


Yesterday, after we played "Stayin' Alive" from the Bee Gees, I mentioned that the song's "beats per minute" closely mimics the number of chest compressions per minute the American Heart Association recommends while performing CPR. The song moves at about 103 beats per minute, and doctors recommend 100 chest compressions per minute during CPR. That's a pretty cool thing to remember.


Can you imagine anyone taking bacon more seriously than we do on the morning show? I guess
these folks do.  Just do search for "bacon" when you get there. I mean, bacon toothpicks? My thanks to our General Sales Manager Scotty B for tipping me off to that one. Though I'm surprised I didn't smell it myself.


I had to do some dumpster diving yesterday for 80 bucks worth car wash tickets our son was selling for his water polo team. They were tacked to our kitchen bulletin board, but yesterday they were nowhere to be found. My last resort was to check our regular trash. Didn't  find them there, though I was alarmed at how much coffee Kim and I drink.  Then I moved on to the recycle container, and found the tickets at the bottom. How did they get there? No clue. Kim once took a dip in the elementary school dumpster looking for Andrew's retainer years ago, and was successful. Maybe her luck rubbed off.


I think every debate should be like this. Three guys running for the Ninth Congressional District in Indiana will be hooked up to lie detectors while they debate tonight. I can't add anything to that, other than make sure they're plugged in. The lie detectors, I mean.


For me, the challenge in using reusable shopping bags is remembering to get them out of the trunk of my car and into the store. It took a couple of months, but I'm up to about a 90 percent success rate now. I know people who are so self-conscious, that they refuse to take a Safeway bag into Trader Joe's, for example, worried that Trader Joe might think of them as traitors or something. Please! Sheryl Crow  (a fave) is getting together with Whole Foods to launch a designer line of reusable shopping bags made from 80 percent post-consumer plastic bottles.  Not only is Sheryl Crow generous with her time and money for so many great causes, she's probably one of the few people who can afford to shop regularly at Whole Foods. Maybe she gets a discount because of the shopping bag thing.

Oct. 16th, 2008

  • 8:24 AM
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Thursday morning trivia on KOIT

Q:  What do you call a baby tiger?

A:  a  whelp. I'm serious. And a baby turkey is called a poult, and a baby salmon is known as a smolt. I'm not kidding. Who comes up with this stuff, anyway?

Have you noticed MORE people behind the wheel holding cell phones since the passage of the "hands free" law in California? Sure seems like it to me. Now comes a Canadian software company that's come up with a way to block cell phone calls if detects that your cell phone is traveling at "driving speed", and holds calls and texts until the drive is over. Callers will hear a massage saying the person they're calling is probably driving, then they can hit a button to leave an emergency message. I'm not so sure about this idea. What if you're on a bus or a train?

More tech news...I'm feeling kinda geeky today. Look for HD TV's to really drop in price after Thanksgiving.  Big time.  According to the industry it's because of weak consumer spending and a big spike in manufacturing capacity. Remember that 32-inch LCD that cost  about 3 grand a few years ago? Look for the price to possibly drop below 400. Now, if we could get the cost of food, gas, and tuition to drop like that, maybe a new TV might move up a few notches on the priority scale.

Oct. 13th, 2008

  • 9:01 AM
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Monday morning trivia on KOIT

Q: "tinny" is Australian slang for.....

A:  a can of beer. A tinny can also be a small aluminum, boat. We love Australian slang. Much of it we could never say on the radio.
Here's a listing of some of our favorites.

Well, since the Niners and the Raiders both let us down this weekend, we had to rely on San Jose's Joey Chestnut. And he sure came through for us yesterday. The competitive eating champion won the Famiglia World Pizza Eating Championship in New York, slamming down 45 slices in ten minutes. That's not a typo. Joey edged out Patrick "Deep Dish" Bertoletti by two slices. Deep Dish is,of course, from Chicago. Did you know that pizza can be "fast" or "slow" in the world of competitive eating? Fast would be pizza that's warm and not too dry - a combination that's more conducive to pie sliding down the gullet quicker.  Mr.Chestnut picked up 5 grand for his victory, and also holds eating records in hot dogs, fried asparagus, jalapeno poppers, among other things. And there really is an
International Federation of Competitive Eating.

Another Bay Area weekend hero. Lafayette's Hans Florine, and Japan's Yuji Hirayama broke their own speed record for climbing
El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. They made it in 2 hours, 37 minutes and 5 seconds. It usually takes three days plus. They finished with quite a flair, by doing what's called a "King Swing"  - a 360 degree spin on a 90 foot rope pendulum. That makes me queasier than Joey Chestnut's pizza escapades. The trip back down the mountain takes about 40 minutes. Faster if you're not careful.

Oct. 9th, 2008

  • 8:32 AM
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Thursday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: Before he became famous, he was an elementary school teacher in Harlem. His name is....

A:.....Gene Simmons. The guy from Kiss with the big tongue . He speaks five languages too.  Not to give away my secrets,  but
this is a great place to read up on what celebs did before they hit the big time.

Johnny Depp sold stuff over the phone before he made it big...big to the tune nearly 60 million for his next movie, which will be #4 in the  "Pirates" series. 60 million is merely a drop in Disney's bucket, as the Pirates franchise has earned almost 3 billion worldwide. So Depp's haul for his part in the next Pirates film appears to be a record, edging out the nearly 54 million that Tom Hanks'll pull down for the Da Vinci Code follow-up in the works.

Wow. Lisa paid 3.38 for a gallon of gas in El Sobrante yesterday. Yes, it was real gas. We got a call from someone in Buffalo, listening to KOIT on the Internets, who recently paid 2.80 for a gallon at a gas station on an Indian reservation near Buffalo.  I was driving in part of  unincorporated Novato a few weeks ago and stopped at this little deli off of route 37. Rossi's Deli had some gas pumps out front that had obviously stopped pumping gasoline long ago. How long ago? The price on the pumps for a gallon of gas was 24 cents. So, I did some checking, and
this spot notes that 24 cents would have been the price for a gallon of gas in 1957. Can you believe that we're  jaded enough to think that 3.38 is a great deal now? Is it Friday yet?

Oct. 7th, 2008

  • 8:29 AM
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Tuesday morning trivia on KOIT


Q: How many tickets has the CHP written for driving while using a hand held cell phone?

A: about 20 thousand in the three months the law has been in effect. I figure it was a lot, but not that many, so I was amazed to read that stat in the Mercury News this AM. I think I see more drivers on cell phones now than before the law was passed.

Newsflash: At a buffet, obese people sit closer to the food. That's according to a recent Cornell University study. What other pearls did they come up with?  A  larger  percentage of "normal"  weight people, whatever that is these days, faced away from the buffet table while eating. Larger people tended to face the buffet. Oh, and if you want a more favorable body mass index, use chopsticks. Can't eat ice cream with those.

The Blue Angels blew into town this week. Today they start practices for their Fleet Week air shows this weekend. Last year I discovered the best place to watch them practice is Marina Green.
Here's a list of Fleet Week goings on.

Oct. 6th, 2008

  • 8:02 AM
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Monday morning trivia on KOIT for tix to see Santana at Sleeptrain Pavilion this Sunday:

Q: What instrument did Carlos Santana first take up as a child?

A: the violin when he was 5.  His dad was a violinist in a mariachi band, and Carlos would perform with the band from time to time. He took an interest in the guitar when he turned nine. His family moved to San Francisco when he was thirteen and graduated from Mission High. He became immersed in all that San Francisco offered musically, occasionally sneaking into Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium.

An update to the bat story from Friday's blog below. Good news/bad news. The good news is that the health department called us at home Friday night to let us know that the bat was "rabies negative".  The bad news is, and we knew this needed to happen, the bat had to be euthanized  for the rabies test to be performed.  They're creepy, I know. But
bats are amazing critters. I' sure that bat consumed any and every bug we might have had in the house for the 90 minutes he/she was our guest.

A real slap in the face in this morning's Contra Costa Times. They figure that 11 thousand Contra Costa families will have lost their homes to foreclosure by the time election day rolls around. That's CoCo County alone.  The Contra Costa County Registrar of Voters wants to remind everyone that, if you've been relocated for any reason, you must re-register to vote with your new address . And the deadline to do so is coming up. Oct 20. You can click
here to download a registration form, or to ask to have one mailed to you. If you live in or know someone who lives in any other county in CA,  same thing.

Planning on tuna salad in the brown-bag today? This one had us turning green this AM. In Pennsylvania, restaurant workers at  a well known hotel chain hit a crisis when the food storage refrigeration system in the kitchen headed south. So, they found a vacant room in the hotel, moved all the perishables from the fridge to the vacant room and cranked up the air conditioner in the room. The health department said no can do. Big fine.  I think it'll be PB&J for me today.

Oct. 3rd, 2008

  • 7:55 AM
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Friday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: According to a recent survey of travelers, what's the number one irritant to most fliers?

A:  a child kicking your seat back. People talking on cell phones before and/or after takeoff is up there too. The good news is that a whopping 80 percent think that cell phones should continue to be banned in flight.


So, I open the Chronicle this morning, and there's an article about how we're in the midst of bat season. No, not the baseball playoffs (go Phillies), but the flying variety. While it's not time to panic (you can if you'd like), health officials are advising everyone to be on the lookout, and use a little common sense when you do encounter a bat....advice we were able to put to the test last night. I'll get to that in a sec.

With bats, rabies is the obvious concern. The bad news is that about five rabid bats are found in the City of San Francisco every year. The good news is that in the 60  years that rabies cases have been tracked in SF, the number of deaths resulting from the always-fatal-if-not-treated disease is exactly zero. So what to do if a bat gets into your house? I know it sounds kind of counter-intuitive,  but health experts urge us to close all exits, so the bat stays IN the house. Then call Animal Control, or the Humane Society. See, they'll have to pick up the bat, dead or alive, and have it tested for rabies. Do not, under any circumstances try to trap the bat yourself.

So what happened at our house last night? One of our cats, Ollie (the devil cat), caught a bat, and brought it into the house. It was about 7:30, and the bat was pretty active, flying in circles in our dining room for about an hour. Kim had the presence of mind to follow the advice that appeared in the paper this AM. She's psychic that way. She closed off all the exits to keep the bat inside, then called the Humane Society. The HS showed about an hour later, caught the critter, and hauled it off for rabies testing. We'll get the results in a few days. If they come back positive, Ollie will have to be quarantined for a while despite having been vaccinated against rabies. So, vaccinations for all your critters at home.

Oct. 1st, 2008

  • 8:33 AM
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Today's morning trivia on KOIT

Q: How much grain does it take to produce one pound of beef?

A: eight pounds On average, every American consumes about 110 pounds of beef a year.

Don't forget to flip your calendar to October. Yes, October.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was quite the busy Governator yesterday, trying to deal with at least 300 pieces of legislation before the annual  deadline.  One bill approved by the Governor will require large chain restaurants to disclose the nutritional contents of it's menu items, and California will be the first state to pass such a requirement. Chains with at least 20 restaurant locations will have to publish brochures with the amount of calories, saturated fat, carbs, and sodium, and all the other dreck, by next July. By 2011, restaurants will have to post calories on menus and indoor menu boards. Will this affect the way you dine out? Probably won't affect my, or my family's dining out patterns. I rarely eat fast food. But when I do, it's because I'm really craving it at the time. So a calorie count next to the picture of a Big Mac at Mickey Dee's won't stand between me and secret sauce nirvana. Besides, I think the mess that we like to call our economy is impacting dining patters more than anything else.

Now that the Giants and the A's are out of the picture, I guess I can now come out of the closet with my loyalty to the Philadelphia (my hometown) Phillies. The playoffs start today with the Phils playing Milwaukee.






Sep. 29th, 2008

  • 8:13 AM
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Monday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: It was on this date (9/29) that Bell Labs introduced the first practical telephone answering machine.  What was the year?

A:  1950. Actually, the answering machine was invented  twelve years earlier by Willy Muller. But "practical"?  Not by a long shot. It stood 3 feet tall. In 1971 PhoneMate came out with a model that weighed 10 pounds and held 20 messages on a reel of tape.


At the movies this weekend Eagle Eye with Shia LaBeouf was tops with a  take of almost 30 million. I have a feeling that'll change this weekend as word spreads about how truly awful this film is. When in doubt, crash a car. We saw it Friday night, and even our 15 year-old said it was, I think his word was "empty". The crashes were so loud, so up close, so in-your-face, and so frequent, I actually had to cover my eyes because I started to get dizzy. And that's not why I like to go to the movies, much less pay $10.50 to do so.


Too bad nobody showed up for the opening of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park this past weekend. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. By early Saturday morning, the line to get in the door was a mile long by some estimates. They let in 500 visitors every half hour. By the end of the day 17 thousand people saw he spectacular new building and exhibits. Thousands more were turned away. The next free admission day the California Academy of Sciences is October.

Hey, Happy New Year to our Jewish friends. Rosh Hashanah begins tonight at sundown, ushering in the year 5769. 5768 just flew by didn't it?


Sep. 26th, 2008

  • 10:48 AM
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Friday morning trivia on KOIT:

Q: What do you call a group of turtles lawfully assembled?

A: a bale of turtles


This is the big weekend for the opening of the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Saturday's the big day. Traffic and parking might be a hassle, so your best bet will be public transit. Click
here  for transit info. I visited there a couple of weeks ago, and it is awesome!  Much of what you remember from the old Academy, plus lots of new features and a new environment will make your visit a completely new experience.

Across the bay Berkeley will strut its stuff. The tree sitters are gone, but there's still plenty things to be Berkeley about, so enjoy the 13th annual "How Berkeley Can You Be?" parade and festival on Sunday. Last year 90 organizations participated. The parade starts at 11 at California and University. The festival starts at noon at Civic Center Park. Click
here for info, and have a wonderful weekend!

Sep. 24th, 2008

  • 8:16 AM
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Wednesday Morning Food Trivia on KOIT

Q: How much bread does the average American consume in a year?

A: 53 pounds. Christina Hong of South SF was our winner this AM, and claims she does her part to contribute to that consumption, as do I.  I could never do the Atkins thing. Not in a million years. Why a bread question this morning?  I was inspired by an article in this morning's Chronicle food section...a huge bread spread, as it were. A handful of Bay Area Foodie Pros were asked to taste and rank some of our local sweet baguettes - thirteen in all.  The loaf I love came up the clear winner... Berkeley's Acme Bread scored 99 points out of a possible 100. I can't look at an Acme TRUCK without slobbering. Pete from Los Gatos called to tell us not to overlook Beckman's bread out of Santa Cruz. Thanks Pete. Sherry thinks Beckman's may be available at TJ's.

Clowns. Have you noticed that people either love them, or are frightened to death by them? The San Francisco Clown Conservatory Class of 2008 is engaged in a PR blitz that they hope will make clown lovers of us all. First of all, yes, there IS a San Francisco Clown Conservatory. I think that's the group that broke a record recently by stuffing 121 clowns into a BART car. Well the SFCC wanted to raise some dough (bread again) for charity. Here's their idea: A 2009 Naked Clown Calendar. Before you run away screaming, please know that the,um, sensitive parts will be covered up by things like pies and top hats, so rated G this calendar will be. Proceeds will benefit the Judy Finelli Fund. Judy's a life long clown, a co-founder of the San Francisco School for Circus Arts. In 1989 she was diagnosed with MS, and is now quadriplegic. The Judy Finelli Fund works with the MS Foundation, and provides scholarships to people with MS who want to five circus arts a try. Go
here if you'd like to buy. I think i's a great idea.