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.

California Love?

Not too surprisingly, UC students have been protesting the 32% tuition hike UC Regents approved last week with huge demonstrations involving drums and chants about injustice. It's a tough situation undoubtedly: students who are barely scraping together the money for tuition in addition to all of the other college expenses could be overburdened by the increase, while the state of California is floudering financially and slashing spending anywhere possible, including of course, higher education.

A study my sister worked on is cited this article from UC Davis' The Aggie saying that, "Nearly 90 percent of Californians are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about student fee hikes." Yet, 56% said they would not be willing to pay higher taxes to deal with the state budget problems. So who do they want to pay for it?

Personally, I agree with this view of the situation outlined by Ian Ayres for the Freakonomics Blog - the people who should pay for it are the ones who have the money. If you can afford the higher tuition, you'll pay it and if you can't then you'll get help. The UCs are high caliber schools that still are not that expensive, relative to private institutions. The wealthier students will pay the tuition, the poorer students will get financial aid and the ones in the middle? That's where I think the burden will be placed and where some kind of assistance is needed... manna from heaven sounds like a good plan.

BeyonceBeyonceBeyonce

amazing video. I can't get enough.

Twitter is only good for finding food

So Twitter is really only good for finding food, right? Scream sorbet is my favorite to follow. They seriously have amazing sorbet that doesn't use any dairy. The best part of their sorbet though is that it actually tastes exactly like whatever they claim it to be. Hard to explain, just try it. I'm in LA right now where the Kimchi taco truck tweets their location and then everyone swarms. I want to try them while I'm here, but I don't want to have to drive really far. Maybe they will be around the corner this afternoon or something.

What else is Twitter good for? Please, tell me if you know.

Happy Halloween!

Why do people say that? It's not a particularly joyous holiday, but it's fun to say it since everyone is so excited to dress up.

It says a lot about a person what they dressed up as throughout their lives, right? Maybe not one year in particular, but all the years together do.

Here are mine(not necessarily in order... if my mom read this blog, she would correct me) :
- clown
- gypsy (i know, totally un-pc, but i didn't know better)
- witch (not too scary)
- little red riding hood
- mime
- Charlie Chaplin (full on, no talking, waddling with cane)
- Phantom of the Opera
- Princess Leia
- Marilyn Monroe
- figure skater from the 80's

and this year?

Family Thievery

I have a HUGE family, a family that I really like being around, even if they are a little insane at times. Since I moved to California, and my family is all in West Virginia and Ohio (more or less), I have been stealing families. It's a very good idea if you decide to move somewhere without any family. Luckily I moved to a city where I already knew a good deal of people from school, some of whom actually grew up here. This means they have families nearby, families you can steal. Money!

First, I stole Alex's family. Her Mom, Linda, and her sister, Sonja, are great. The beginning of my thievery was probably on Alex's birthday last year, when the four of us went to brunch, then to a 6 year-old's birthday party. There we played with other 6 year-olds and watched a live reptile show - the guy doing the show made Alex touch something since it was her birthday, too. That night I got to meet Alex's brother, Gabe, and his family for the first time (they just had their second baby!). Shortly after that, Alex and I went to Sonja's house for Thanksgiving; Sonja's partner Jim was also there and he is great fun. It was the first time that Sonja had cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner by herself and boy, did she do a good job. I also got to meet their other brother, Anthony, at that holiday.

Now I am on a crusade to steal Julia's and Kim's families. On the day that Kim, my former coworker but now friend, and I decided to put in our joint letter of resignation, I had to take care of some stuff in the East Bay that was going to be very difficult to do by bike. Kim and her Mom were so great - they picked me up at the Lafayette BART station, drove me to my appointment, then we got coffee together and Kim's Mom took us to work all the way in Berkeley. It was so nice to have a Mom to talk to before we made such a stressful career move.

I recently met Julia's parents when we had our Monday Night Dinner Club at her house. We are going to her house for happy hour on Thursday and I am going to put plan Steal-Julia's-Parents into action. Wish me luck!