New Facebook Messaging System

Palo Alto based Facebook held a news conference in San Francisco today to announce its new messaging system. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the new system is designed to combine chat, e-mail, SMS, and Facebook messaging services to produce a less formal and more seamless form of communication.

The new system will allow users to have a Facebook.com e-mail address and will use information from your Facebook friends list to filter messages. Users will be able to read and save threads of important conversations from chat, text messages, e-mail, and Facebook messages all in one place.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says “this is not an e-mail killer. In fact, e-mail is one component of the new service.“ He expects e-mail to become a less popular as new, easier, and more immediate ways to communicate with friends and family online are developed.

SF Supervisors order Happy Meals to go for good

On Tuesday the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to place new nutritional standards on food that comes with free toys, like Happy Meals. The ordinance would, outlaw Happy Meals and other fast food kids meals in their current form, within San Francisco limits. Mayor Gavin Newsom has promised to veto the measure, but Supervisors have enough votes to override the veto.

The measure is drawing fire from all over the country from people who don't like to be told what they can eat, or feed their kids. An opinion piece for the Philadelphia Libertarian Examiner has an interesting take. The author went as far as to call the people in charge of the Democratic Party "food fascists". McDonald's website says it serves "food to feel good about".

So what's the big deal? Supervisor and ordinance proposer Eric Mar wrote an op-ed piece for the U-S-A Today. The piece talks about the extreme calorie count found in fast food kids meals. It also says some of the "healthier options" aren't really healthy. He points to high sodium and sugar content as adding to the larger problem of this country's obesity epidemic.

Could the country's growing problem with fat kids be solely placed on the shoulders of Happy Meals? How much responsibility and control do parents have when it comes to controlling their kid's diets? Should the government focus on making healthy food more affordable and available to low income families? Will the new ordinance have any effect on what people feed their kids?

The Raiders: Commitment to a crazed fanbase

The roommates and I rolled out to Oakland this past Sunday to check out a Raiders game. The tickets were cheap and we all thought the level of entertainment would match the face value. I was pleasantly surprised. Before we entered the stadium we saw police officers dragging away 2 Raiders fans in hand cuffs. Security staff at the Coliseum turned away a woman because she was so drunk, her friends had to literally carry her back to the parking lot. After making our way through security we saw people dressed in skeleton masks, some had hard hats with what looked like knife blades attached to the top in a crazy mohawk, and others wore shirts that exclaimed disdain for the day's opponent they read F-U K-C. The negative energy inside that stadium was palpable. You could cut through it with one of the shanks that I'm sure 80% of fans somehow snuck past security. The Raiders booted the winning field goal in OT to beat the Chiefs 23-20, I've actually have never been happier to get on a BART train than following that game.

Game Stats...(what we saw)

Arrests: 2
Drunk people being dragged by friends: 1
Drunk people: 60-thousand out of 65-thousand fans
Skeleton Masks: 100 (under estimate)
Skeletor (the evil character from He-man): 2
Family friendly "Fuck K-C" chants: 5
Entertainment value > $30 < The life of my future children.

One GIANT Parade

Where else on earth can you see a bearded M&M? I'm willing to bet nowhere! The Giants brought the city of San Francisco its first world baseball championship ever on Monday and on Wednesday more than a million people flooded the parade route from Montgomery and Market to the Civic Center. Manager Bruce Bochy got to ride the parade route in a convertible while hoisting the World Series trophy. While players, including Brian Wilson and The Machine got to ride in fake cable cars.

During his congratulatory speech lame duck Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said "I thought I was the only machine as Terminator." On a side note Lt. Governor-elect Gavin Newsom actually took his seat in the mayoral drop top. The first time I've seen him in a parade since I moved to San Francisco.

Giants win! Giants win!

It almost feels like old hat to say that the 2010 San Francisco Giants are Major League Baseball World Champions even though they earned that title fewer than 12 hours ago. I got to hand it to them they won it the same way they've been winning games all season with dominant pitching and timely hits sprinkled in. Perhaps what shocked me the most about the game winning 3-run homer besides the fact that it was Edgar Renteria that hit it was how the ball carried and carried out of left field. No other home runs had been hit to left field in Arlington during the entire World Series, yet this aging, oft-injured short stop who is not exactly known for crushing the ball did with the ball something that no media proclaimed "big bopper" could do all series.

The best part about last night's win was the partying in the streets going on city-wide. Candace and I walked up to Fillmore and Haight where several bar patrons emptied out onto the streets to shout "Let's Go Giants!", they were singing, dancing and clapping. Cars on every major road were honking their horns and people spilled out of their homes to sit on their stoops and watch the action unfold. The revelers stood on the bike racks of Muni busses trying to pass through, but the driver was just as excited as some of the partiers. Someone finally cleared a path for the busses to get through. In the Mission District fans seized a fire truck where they danced and shouted. Folks in the Castro tolite papered Muni wires. Others gathered at 5th & Market then headed down to the old US Mint to celebrate on the steps. So many people gathered in and around AT&T Park that the California Highway Patrol had to shut down the highway off ramp at the end of 280. There were a few problems with rioting, but overall nothing too serious and my car is just fine!

I'm definitely planning on joining in on the Championship Parade and Celebrations at Civic Center on Wednesday. I'm very excited to see Brian Wilson's Beard in person!