I was waiting for Bus #31 this morning when I heard some music blaring from a car sitting at the stop light of Eddy and Van Ness. I looked at who the driver was, and saw this big, African-American woman busting away in the driver’s seat as if she were completely oblivious to the outside world. Her whole car was shaking with the music and she looked like she was enjoying herself, despite drawing in an audience from outside.
It was just an amusing part of my morning. Oh, San Francisco.
Just was notified of the new driving law in effect in California: drivers are now only allowed to use hands-free devices when talking on the cell phone, while drivers under the age of 18 are not allowed to even have hands-free devices while driving. If a driver violates the law, they are fined up to $50 for each offense after the first one.
Weirdly enough, though, the driving law does NOT prohibit text-messaging, eating, applying makeup, and other things that drivers usually do in the car. I would think that these other activities may be more dangerous than talking on the phone, right?
I guess they’re going to make a new law later on for those activities, if they even think about making a new law.
I had noticed the advertisements for “hint” water for the past few months, since their ad is plastered on the back of the double decker bus in Union Square. Only recently, I took the time to look up product information online and to search for where I could buy the drinks.
Lo and behold, hint is sold at Whole Foods, so I took the liberty to buy the four available flavors. From first taste, all I can say is: they certainly live up to their name. I had the Pomegranate Tangerine flavor, and yes indeed, the fruit flavors were just a hint; just right if you ask me. The drink itself is still plain water, but has that added hint of flavor. Haha, I bet the hint staff must have a party every day with their puns upon their product name.
As stated before, hint is available at Whole Foods, and also at Stop & Shops, Sprout’s, Wild Oats, Big Bear, Earth Fare, Ralph’s, Giant, Dierbergs, Mrs. Greens & HEB. If none of those stores are available near you, look into ordering the drink online at hint‘s own website (www.drinkhint.com)! So far, I feel pretty satisfied with the drink since there’s no added preservatives/sugar/etc. It’s probably the only drink out there right now that definitely lives up to its standards. Kudos!
Ever since I started working at the hot dog carts, I feel my sense of health/sanitation has been heightened–not that I was not cautious of germs/being clean and sanitized before the job. Still, especially in food service, I believe the most important thing about the job(s) is to be very clean and reduce the risk of germ-contamination as much as possible. Some ways to do so is:
– Never touch the food with bare hands, even if hands are clean. Handle with a cooking utensil or with plastic gloves over hands.
– Never let food touch a public surface (countertop, etc.) or else it is contaminated.
– Never pick up trash/things off the ground with bare hands and then use hands to handle food–even if handling food is with a cooking utensil! Germs could transfer through the utensil.
There are many other ways to reduce germ contamination, but these are a few starters.
I bring up this topic mainly because of an incident my boss had at a “dive” burger joint he went to earlier in the weekend. He said he watched (with sheer horror) as the cook behind the counter took out UNREFRIGERATED, raw chicken breasts, throw the meat onto the grill with his bare hands, and then, without washing his hands, proceed to arrange the garnish setup (tomato, lettuce, etc.).
Unfortunately for my boss, he got food poisoning from such an incident; fortunately, he’s okay now.
Just goes to show–if possible, watch how the cook handles your food next time you eat out!
Have you ever noticed how people tend to butcher foreign words? It’s probably not just an American thing, but a worldwide thing.
My friends and I got into an interesting conversation today about how a lot of Americans tend to incorrectly pronounce certain Japanese words, such as sake (it’s supposed to be “sa-kei” NOT “saKI”), karaoke (“ka-ra-o-kei”, NOT “carryoki”), and Kyoto (“Kyo-to-“, not “Key-oto”).
It’s not just Japanese/Asian words though–we even butcher European words. One thing that I never realized until last year was that we Americans say “IKEA” wrong. Americans say “EYE-key-A”; the correct way to say the Swedish store’s name is “E-kei-a”.
How did we come about with butchering foreign words? Is it because we just don’t notice the letters in the words, or we just assume the pronunciation? It’s just an amusing topic to me, really; a lot of times I try to say certain familiar Japanese words the “correct Japanese way”, but then nobody really understands what I’m trying to say if they’re not familiar with the language. Then, in turn, these same people will assume I’m just being a snob for pronouncing the word correctly.
Go figure…