The Entroporium

A recent Clay Shirky post, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” says that the newspaper as a business model is dead, killed by its reliance on industrial printing technology. The future, he tells us, will be based on experiments in journalistic form and not any particular form of media, new or old. Meanwhile, as I talked [...]

With all the fuss over the empty luxury seats at the new Yankee Stadium, I was mildly surprised to find something similar happening in my own backyard.  At Sunday’s A’s-Rays game at the Oakland Coliseum, all the ingredients for a great day at the ballyard were in place: sunny April weather, last year’s AL champions [...]

We got a little surprise Tuesday night when we let Ruby out back to do her evening business. For those of who have never been lucky enough to feel the full fury of fresh skunk, let me give you some quick wisdom. Fresh skunk does not smell anything like the mildly unpleasant musk you occasionally [...]

Over a month ago, Amanda Stokes went missing about three blocks from my house.� Posters are up all over the neighborhood. SFGate: Homicide police join search for Oakland woman missing since Nov. 25

This is the Christmas window display at my old neighborhood toy store, Sweet Dreams.� It’s incredible that this store has survived 35+ years in the face of toy retailer consolidation, but this is a credit both to the store’s inventory policies (plastic franchise toys held to a minimum, lots of personality in displays and a [...]

The Trappist, open about three weeks now, is a surprisingly beautiful tavern in downtown Oakland specializing in hard-to-find Belgian beers and nothing else.� Its proprietors have gone wonderfully overboard, importing a brand new tap system from Belgium and decorating the narrow space with a beautiful dark wood bar, handsome shiny taps and tasteful wall decor.� [...]

Last night I was taken to task for not blogging in God knows how long. Rumor has it that I’m a good writer, though you’d never actually know it from my output, or lack thereof. Luckily, 3+ months off may (should?) lead to a queue of interesting things to write about. As usual, the baseball [...]

On a week when my home state has signed into law one of the world’s most sweeping environmental policies, it’s fitting to take a brief look at one of San Francisco’s other major contributions to the greening of America. This one, though, took place over 50 years ago. In the early 1950s, the California Division [...]

Yes, I really am still writing about the World Cup. And, no, that does not mean that all four of you Entroporium fans are going to need to wait another four years before I start posting regularly again. Sunday, June 18th was a glorious San Francisco summer day with nary a wisp of fog in [...]