No shit, all golden.

Ok, so first off, I apologize for the last posts Mac bashing, and to those I may have offended.
You love your Mac babies, and I will grow to love this one some day as well.
It’s probably more of the internet connection I’m using having no balls, than it is the computer. For what these things cost, they oughta have a 3rd ball.

SF continues to be great, and so does my daily dose of Mexican food.
Although we haven’t been eating ONLY Mexican.

On Bens recommendation we hit up the Squat and Gobble, we sat in chairs like westerners though, no Nammer squatting.
Shit was delicious, I think Nutella should be an integral part of every restaurant menu.

Stanley Steamers rank pretty highly, and I gotta thank Nick, and Jeremy for reviving my love of hot dogs before this trip.
If it were a month ago, I wouldn’t have eaten a hot dog on a dare, but I’m back in the game, and the tubesteak is king.

One of the best things about eating food here is how much other free shit they give you with it.
Taquiera spots always give free chips, Chinese spots give you free rice, soup, AND spring rolls, which I gotta say, are fucking amazing, the ones we got today were crispy rolls with curried cabbage in em…..mmmmmm.

Also in the category of delicious, resting at the very top of the heap, is Tartine Bakery.
I don’t even know how they can make baked goods that good.
I’d bring home a huge box of stuff for everybody to try, but you all know how long baked goods last around me.
They don’t even last long enough to spell the word LONG.

I finally got to go check out Blue Bottle Coffee as well, located on a small side street, tucked behind a garage door, with just enough space to make coffee, and send you on your way.
I was lucky enough to catch JoEllen kicking it around the shop, even though it was her day off, and also lucky enough to have a pretty decent shot, and the legendary San Francisco “Gibraltar”.
Everybody there was really nice, and asked tons of questions about coffee in Toronto.
I gotta say though, Ritual still takes the cake when it comes to espresso.

So with that said, we headed back down to the Mission, for another shot at Ritual, and another Gibraltar.
My shot this time wasn’t as good, not as fruity or floral, and I shook a little in my shoes when I caught the barista giving the portafilter a Mike Tyson strength “smack” with the tamper.
The cool thing about this visit was that they were doing a bit of inhouse roasting, so I finally got to see some roasting go down.
I didn’t lurk though, as I didn’t recognize anybody from my last visit, and I just wasn’t in the mood for breaking more ice.

Just up the street from Ritual is 826 Valencia Pirate Supply, which we missed out on last time, due to inventory, but boy oh boy, we made ‘er today.
Fuck, what a cool store.
We were lucky enough to be in the store while they had a childrens writing workshop going on, and a group of kids were constructing a story about Pirates, Ninjas, and Teddybears.
I read some of the books the kids had all made, and there were some cute stories about how Peter Pan killed Captain Hook, and the “cursed booty”.
It’s a lot cuter in their words though, because nothing is spelled correctly, and some words are even backwards.
There was also a drawer full of beard trimmings, and a poster of 10 good uses for lard on a ship.
My favourite use was “ #6. Little lard boy sculptures”

SF is really weird.
Good weird.

Yesterday was a good day too.
It was Independence day here, and there was a giant skateboard critical mass type thing that went all the way from Pier 7, to 3rd and Army, which is a fucking hell of a skate, but I participated, because why not.
The cops even motorcaded the whole thing, and I’m sure a lot of people cursed skateboarding forever as they waited at green lights while a parade of hundreds of skateboarders blocked their way.

After all that, Annie and I went to a little 4th of July house party with our bud Terry, where we watched the fireworks, drank some beers, and finally got to smoke some weed.
Not just any weed either, we got to smoke weed from a Volcano vaporizer.
I’ve never used one before, but after last night, I am convinced that $700 is a small price to pay for what you gain in a higher form of weed smoking.
I think I took like 5 hits from that fucker, and I was baked, like REALLY baked.
I was gonna buy a new bike when I came back from SF, but forget that, I can really go for a ride with the Volcano! WHOOOO!

The house party was full of great company as well, a whole list of skateboard, arts, and musical talents.
A bit unexpected, but really cool to smoke weed and drink beers with Dan Wolfe, Satva Leung, Aesop Rock, Jeremy Fish, Eric Norin, Matt Irving and his wife Lindsey, among many other fecal face dudes and dudettes who I wasn’t familiar with, but pleased to meet either way.
I’m really glad we got to meet Matt and Lindsey, they were a beacon of red and white light, sporting maple leaf pins on July 4th, and quite literally 2 of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
It seemed as though almost all of them have some connection to Toronto as well.
Satva and I talked about my good buddy Yasushi for a while, and the hilarious faces he makes when he lands tricks, like he’s surprised that he can even ride a skateboard.

Oh and we went to the HUF store, and the first thing we saw, front and centre was 2 shirts Dennis did for Mishka.
Big ups buddy!

Ok, bye friends, miss you all.