Sunday, November 29, 2009

Stopped using Carbon Copy Cloner for backups for Patrick's computer. The defer-skip screen would frequently come up because the wireless network connection to the backup drive would not always work. Most of the time it was okay, but I realized that Patrick's backup could be handled by one of our smaller external hard drives, so I moved it to his computer and set Time Machine up. Carbon Copy Cloner, like Time Machine, probably works great on a drive connected directly to the computer. The defer-skip screen is not very clear for laypersons to understand how to resolve the problem. Woke late. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Shopping at Stonestown with Patrick. Late lunch at Papalote with Patrick: breakfast burrito for me, tofu mole burrito for Patrick. This restaurant has good food, but I didn't have a great experience. The seating was confusing because it's not full table service and there's a sign that says, "Wait to be seated," but it seems you're supposed to order before you attempt to take a seat. Also, one register has a sign that says it's for takeout orders only, but we did not order takeout but were still served at that register. Essentially, the signs in this place might or might not apply—I don't know what the rules are. The woman at the register wasn't very friendly or clear in her speaking. I like the large windows in the dining area. Home. Nap with Patrick. Ice cream at Humphry Slocombe. Patrick got a single with ancho chocolate and guinness gingerbread. I got a single with Blue Bottle Vietnamese coffee and secret breakfast. The ancho chocolate was not noticably spicy upon eating even to me, but later Patrick said that it made his tongue numb! The Guinness gingerbread reminded me of Chinese five spice chicken. Secret breakfast is bourbon with cornflakes, and the bourbon flavor was not particularly strong. I received only one clump of cornflakes, and that was the best part of that flavor to me. I think they should add more cornflakes. The Blue Bottle Vietnamese coffee flavor was my favorite of the four. We couldn't finish all of the ice cream—for us 2 we should have shared one single, but it was nice to try 4 flavors at our leisure. Humphry Slocombe has 3 things going for it: (a) rich, delicious ice cream, (b) unusual and creative flavors, and (c) almost no lines probably because they chose a location in a rougher-looking part of the Mission. (I think it's mostly safe during the day; pay more attention to your surroundings after dusk.) They could improve their website a great deal by making their flavor page plain text instead of images. (They used plain text for the Products page—why couldn't they do the same for the Flavors page which is arguably more important to be discoverable by search engines because of their unique flavors?) It's also not easy to find the hours, which they put on the Contact page—the hours should also appear on the Directions page (or every page). Dinner at home: organic salad with alba clamshell and brown clamshell organic mushrooms, hot water, leftover breakfast burrito. For years I have preferred taking silverware from home to work to use for lunch. It's nicer to use silverware than plasticware, and it's easy enough to throw it in the backpack and it gets taken home and cleaned. For the past few months I have been doing the same with the plasticware I end up using at work. We have no kitchen sink at work, and it's uncomfortable to do kitchenware cleaning in the bathroom sink, so I wrap used plasticware with a paper napkin (usually the paper napkin I was using while eating) and throw it in my backpack. When I get home it gets cleaned and is ready for reuse. We have quite a collection of plasticware now, and I find it amazing how much plasticware we encounter in our daily lives. Discovered hawkstersf's photostream on Flickr—how did I not know about this until now? Looked at every one of the 399 items. Started using Google Wave today. Eric D and Travis W are my only wave buddies so far. Are you using Google Wave? Let me know. Enjoyed waving briefly with Travis W, then again with Bill K and Glenn C who added me not long after I posted updates to Twitter and Facebook.