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Monthly Archives: June 2009

The 9th Avenue Terminal

The 9th Avenue Terminal is one of my favorite buildings along the Oakland waterfront, so I often end up taking pictures of it from different vantage points as I find them. The building has been underutilized for most of its existence, because it was built just before shipping containers revolutionized the industry half a century […]

This Headline Contains No Puns

Here is the beginning of the New York Times stylebook’s entry for “puns.” puns have a place in the newspaper, but as a trace element rather than a staple. A pun should be a surprise encounter, evoking a sly smile rather than a groan and flattering the intelligence of a reader who gets the joke. […]

Eyes on the Skies

I often walk my dog over to a neighborhood called Haddon Hill, which looms over Lake Merritt from the East. It’s a nice neighborhood, with a lot of pretty streets, well-kept properties, and a bit of local history (Henry J. Kaiser, for example, had a large home built for himself which still stands at the […]

Spank Salon

This place in Alameda gives new meaning to the phrase “kinky hair.”

Shepherd, Shepard, Sheperd

It’s impressive, in a way, that Google Maps manages to spell this Oakland locale three different ways in about one square inch of map. Of course, some ‘Shephard Canyon’ partisans might argue that all three are incorrect. (Yahoo Maps follows general convention, and official City of Oakland terminology, by going with ‘Shepherd Canyon’ for all […]

Pavement to Parkland

More of this, please:

Happiness on Two Wheels

It’s been a while since I waxed rhapsodic about riding a bike, and now that summer is upon us, this is probably as good a time as ever to sing the praises of the two-wheeled commute. We cycling evangelists are sometimes considered strident and holier-than-thou about our choice of transportation. I suppose that’s unavoidable, since […]

Liar’s Paradox

I question the wisdom of distracting other drivers with logic puzzles like this one:

Eyes on the Waterfront

I had hoped to have one or two more substantive posts up by tonight, but it looks like they’ll have to wait for some other time. Meanwhile, you can look at yet another photo taken along Oakland’s waterfront on my way home from work.

An Editorial on a Local TV Newscast?

I was surprised to see an editorial at the very end of the local NBC affiliate’s 11 o’clock newscast last night. I’m not saying that they did a story that was so opinionated that it should be considered an editorial rather than a news story (that wouldn’t have been so surprising). It wasn’t even a […]