Hello Wheels, Gail Reid's book and other (new and old) discoveries

New exciting things:

• John Shaw's band in Austin, Hello Wheels
• Gail Reid (my friend Rose's mom) came out with the book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Low-Cost Startups this past month. You can find her blog here.

Old things that I've rekindled my affections for:

• Google Reader. Some of my more intellectual friends were singing its praises this past week and it reminded me of the days B and I would share articles and links with each other in the most efficient way possible. It's pretty awesome. If you also use it, let me know so I can follow you if you share interesting bits, or avoid you if you don't.
• Comforts' Chinese Chicken Salad
• The polenta recipe in B's New Basics cookbook. I made this recipe this week and the leftovers never seemed to get old. Polenta is delicious.
• Four Tet. I was never a huge fan, but this song makes me like him again.
  

hurts so good

I've been waiting for She and Him to put out more... por fin!

Other places you can review on Yelp

- Churches
- Golden Gate Park
- The tennis courts at my high school

Funny

Can you really review a prison on yelp? check it out here.

Also, Julia's YouTube debut

Overheard in my favorite café

Man to his friend: I really like my neighborhood, but it's getting a little too bro-ed out, so we're thinking about moving.

His friend: Do people say douchbag anymore or has bro taken its place?

Man: I've been saying bro since I was a kid.

Overheard in the Mission

Girl to her friend: You know how on Jersey Shore they talk about how in groups of hot girls there's always one girl who's kind of gross and not hot at all? They call her the grenade. I'm really afraid that I'm the grenade.

Her friend: No, like I think that poncho just isn't very form fitting so you can't really see that you're hot.

M.J. at Summer Jam, Obama on the text

For those of you who may not have quite the love affair I have with hip-hop, the title of this post is a line in Jay-Z's song, "On To The Next One" on his newest album, The Blueprint 3.

As I was walking around in D.C. last weekend with my dear friend Scott, I asked him if he thought President Obama and Jay-Z really exchange text messages. After all, Scott did work for the Obama campaign. From there, we opined on possible texts between the two. This begins a (hopefully) weekly post on President Obama's text messages to Jay-Z.

• "Man Jay, Scott Brown sure is giving Kanye a run for his money when it comes to putting foot in mouth."
• "I know everyone thinks I'm being a wimp lately. People need to realize that I'm not a countryman, I'm the country, man." (courtesy of AP)
• "Hey, is Beyonce available this weekend? I'd love it if she could teach Michelle some of her dance moves."

Overheard - Obie dinner edition

you're such a speciesist.

Gawker is better than facebook

I started reading Gawker pretty regularly. It's so great it makes Facebook seem very boring, if it wasn't already. Hearing about how everyone is super excited that finals are almost over this year made me realize that it's really time to give up.

I like to read Gawker at work, especially. Normally I just check NY Times for the news updates, but whenever I mentioned some piece of news, like unemployment rate changes or the healthcare bill, no one would acknowledge my comment. So many things are off limits for discussion, I think that people just like to talk about celebrity gossip and sports. Luckily, Gawker is great for both. I broke the news on every Tiger update there was a couple of weeks ago. The only problem was when they asked me where I read it. Then I would wait for NY Times to update their "sports" blog and send the link around. They respect my news if it comes from there or SF Gate even. Except that no one respects SF Gate. Not even SF Gate.

Feliz día de Acción de Gracias

Here is an email from my Spanish host mom. I wanted to share it because she's so sweet - she emailed me on a holiday she doesn't even celebrate because it's one that means a lot to me and my family.

Feliz día de Acción de Gracias., En estas fechas tan familiares me acuerdo mucho de mi hija americana. Un fuerte abrazo y recuerdos a todos los tuyos. Que disfrutes este día y seas muy feliz en todo lo que emprendas. Con muchísimo cariño. Tu madre española.