Category: My San Francisco Chronicles

Categories
contest music My San Francisco Chronicles travel

KDFC World Tour 2008

Lately I have been listening to the local classical radio station, KDFC. This week seems to be the “World Tour 2008”, where they pay three pieces either from or about a certain country/landmark/area. The program has been fun to listen to, since they include sounds of landing at an airport or arriving by sea. It certainly does make me want to travel again….

Anyway, while they run this program during the day, there are three chances to call in and name three locations to win a dinner and enter to get a chance to win airfare to the destination of the winner’s choice–anywhere in the world. I had been trying to call in yesterday and today, but I kept getting the busy signal. I would love to win the airfare to travel wherever I want to go…I would really like to go to Brazil or Wales or Germany right now to meet some friends.

I guess there’s still a chance over the next couple of days to call in since this program lasts until Friday. How do I get through to become the twelfth caller though….

Categories
customers funny Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles observation rant

Karma’s a bitch.

Yes, karma’s a bitch. And here’s a story to teach you about this statement:

Yesterday, I worked a full day from 9:30am-7pm. I think working seven days straight with no day off finally caught up to me in the afternoon because I felt a bit cranky with some customers then. So, this guy comes along, parks his car in the spot behind me, and then proceeds to bug me for dollar bills and quarters. At that point, I was low on dollar bills and was not in the mood to have someone bugging me for quarters. He was persistent (and rather rude), but I stood my ground. Finally, he “gave in” and bought a bottle of water from me so to “force” me to give him change (what a way to phrase the situation, huh?)

He bought his water, I gave him his change rather begrudgingly, and he filled up his meter. I guess he needed more quarters afterwards (more than $1.50 worth!) and asked for more quarters. I felt really annoyed with him at this point so I shoved the quarters into his hands with no smile. Come on, give me a break, seriously. This is a BUSINESS, not a change machine, dude. No thanks or anything from him.

The guy ended up leaving to go shopping after awhile; I was so tempted to do something to his car since it looked shiny and new. But I resisted the temptation since I felt I could never be so evil to do such a thing to someone’s car. So I forgot about the guy and went on to do my usual duties.

I don’t know how much longer afterwards, but there was a bit of commotion in the area due to some guy jumping off a building nearby (I was completely oblivious to this, fortunately?). Two parking officers came by and were trying to clear the lane behind me for traffic to get through; the female officer stopped and looked at the guy’s car parked behind me. She proceeded to punch in his license plate/make into her little machine; I thought at first she was going to give the guy a ticket. But after awhile, I noticed she was not leaving right away and was sticking around for quite some time.

I was already feeling some sort of victory over the guy with the thought that he was probably getting a ticket. Then, a tow truck stopped in front of the guy’s car and the tow truck guy came out and asked if the car was mine. Well, gee sir, yes it is my car, and I am going to let you tow it away right now…..(sarcasm). Anyway, so the tow truck guy proceeds to prepare the quarter-hoarding guy’s car for towing away; meanwhile, throughout this whole ordeal, I was laughing to myself inside. I could not believe this was happening; the guy was getting his car towed, and the tow truck incident pretty much made my day 10x better.

The car was towed away after awhile, and finally I felt relaxed. The quarter guy comes back much later and looks confused. “What happened to the car that was parked here?”

“Oh, it was towed away.”

“But…they didn’t see the parking meter!”

“Well…the parking officers said no parking in general in this area.”

The guy looked confused for a few minutes more, then he walked away to call someone. In some ways, I felt a little bad for him, but in other ways, I felt like my evil laughter inside was justified. That’s what you get for harassing someone for quarters. Yes, karma’s a bitch.

I will probably be struck down for laughing about this later on, but right now, I’m still feeling amused by the situation.

Categories
Busride Observations My San Francisco Chronicles observation transportation

Woman with the bobbed hair.

Ever since last autumn, I have noticed this bobbed brownheaded elder woman taking the #10 bus with me every morning to the Financial District. I guess she amuses me every time because of how perfect her hair looks all the time: neatly bobbed and curled under, including the bangs. I noticed her all those times when I worked down in the Financial District. After I stopped working there, I did not see her again.

Well, recently, seems like we are running into each other again. One day after work last week, I took the 9x back home and she was also taking the bus. We both got off at the same stop, which made me feel a little weird since it looked like I was following her (which, I really wasn’t; it was my stop, too, after all). We even went into Safeway at the same time, which made things much more creepier for me.

This morning, we met again, taking the 9x downtown. I wonder if she lives in the same building as me? And I wonder if she also recognises me every time, too? It’s kind of strange; I feel like we should at least introduce ourselves to each other so things would not feel so awkward. Then again, I don’t want to come off as being a creepy Asian girl (is there such a thing?), so maybe I should just let her be for now.

So, I guess I will continue to amuse myself with her perfectly coifed hair when we meet again.

Categories
customers Hot Dog Days My San Francisco Chronicles question tourists

FAQs at the Carts.

Frequently Asked Questions (depends on location of the hot dog cart):

– “Where is Union Square?”

– “Where do I catch the ‘Hop on, Hop off’ tour bus?”

– “Where is the Apple Store?”

– “Can you give me change in quarters?”

– “Where is the Hilton Hotel?”

– “Where is Market Street?”

– “Where do I catch the cable car?”

– “Where is O’Farrell Street?”

As you can see, none of these questions pertain to the cart itself. Since when did the hot dog carts become information booths?

Categories
My San Francisco Chronicles reality television

The Great Urban Race in San Francisco

While I was working today, I saw a lot of people running by with race tag numbers on their shirts. A couple people actually stopped by the cart to buy something small, and I was able to read what was on their shirts: “The Great Urban Race.” The whole time during work, I kept wondering what this race was all about. San Francisco always has a ton of marathons/races going on all year round, and it’s so hard to keep track of.

Well, I just now looked up information about the Great Urban Race, and seems like it’s similar to the reality game show, The Amazing Race. The things that make it different, though, is that it’s only for one day–several races happen around the US in urban cities at different points of the year–and there are final championships in Las Vegas in November. Interesting! I guess there’s also no TV camera rolling–just fun times and for a good cause.

I wish I had known about this earlier, because I definitely would have wanted to sign up with a friend. Perhaps I will go for it next year? Something to think about, at least.