Metreon Sign Overly Optimistic

Considering it's July, it seems unlikely that the Metreon relaunch is going to happen in "early 2010."



The idea is to revive the retail complex with lots of new restaurants and shops (and possibly a Target). I guess the delay shouldn't be a big surprise — there were reports as long ago as November that the plan was behind schedule. An easy fix would be to add an "s" to the sign: "early 2010s." They should be able to meet that goal.

I wonder if the idea of putting Target in the Metreon is no longer in play — now that the chain is in talks to open its first San Francisco location on Geary in the Richmond. (There also were discussions about a Target in the proposed CityPlace complex in the mid-Market area.)

In the meantime, the Metreon food court is pretty quiet. The upside: It's a great place for toddlers to run around.



Compare that with the jam-packed Westfield San Francisco Centre food court. The last time we went there, Elliot bumped into countless people, shrieked at diners and startled a service dog.

(Name) Tagging

Using stickers as graffiti is nothing new (the artist known as "BNE" got famous that way).

But I've noticed more and more SoMa taggers using "Hello, my name is..." stickers lately.

Here's one on a bicycle rack on Fourth Street near Folsom.



I also spotted a cluster of them at our neighborhood playground...





...and on our well-decorated (if defunct) ATM around the corner.



Whether you think this is art or vandalism, at least they're fairly easy to peel off.

The Rise of 'Chuman Lit'?

We may still be years away from creating a chuman, but the amount of literature devoted to the topic appears to be growing. Three years ago, I reviewed a Michael Crichton book called "Next," which depicts a young humanzee boy trying to adapt to life with an American family. Now a new book called "Lucy" tells the tale of a humanzee girl doing the same thing.

In this case, the child is created by a Dr. Frankenstein-type character named Stone. He pulls off the feat by artificially inseminating a genetically altered female bonobo (a bonobo is a type of chimp famous for its propensity to get freaky).

The book, written by Laurence Gonzales, got a pretty tepid review in the New York Times. The reviewer compares "Lucy" unfavorably with another Crichton work:

Mr. Gonzales, who is best known for such nonfiction books as “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why,” has done a lot of research into bonobo culture and the nonverbal communication of animals, but he doesn’t manage to lend Lucy’s back story even the veneer of plausibility. In comparison, Michael Crichton’s account in “Jurassic Park” (another Frankenstein-ian novel about the wages of scientific hubris) of how dinosaurs were recreated through the use of recovered DNA reads like a report from a respected scientific journal. Not only does Mr. Gonzales fail to explain how Stone might have managed the unprecedented feat of cross-species breeding in the middle of the jungle without any real laboratory or medical facilities, but he also sidesteps the question of why Lucy’s looks are so utterly human and why her bonobo genes are evident mainly in traits like her unusual physical strength and highly acute hearing.

I'm glad to see that the New York Times, like me, was looking for more of a how-to guide.

Escape from 'Heatpocalypse'

We had a great time spending Fourth of July in the Atlanta area, but it sounds like we left the East Coast at just the right time. Atlanta was bracing for what the news radio station was calling a "scorcher" (and when the locals say that, you really have to be afraid). Meanwhile, the Northeast is slogging through the so-called Heatpocalypse, with temperatures climbing into the triple digits.

When it gets that hot, you're better off in Atlanta than New York. At least Atlanta is set up in a way that lets you avoid having to go outside.

In New York, the whole point is to walk everywhere. And even if the subway trains are air-conditioned, the platforms aren't. It basically destroys everything that makes New York such a wonderful place.

It's perhaps a shame that the greatest city in the United States is located in an often-miserable habitat (both summer and winter). But what can you do — it's an accident of history that the country was colonized East to West. And maybe it helps New Yorkers keep their edge.

Mixed Messages

Life Isn't Fair

Hang on, you're telling me that I can't make an Internet meme to save my life. And yet, other people are creating them by accident?

You may have seen this thing about how July 5, 2010, was the date that Marty McFly and Doc Brown visit in "Back to the Future." The "fact" spread quickly via Twitter, with people ruminating on how we haven't progressed as far as expected in the 25 years since the movie came out (to wit, we don't have banana-peel-powered flying cars).

It turns out the date isn't in the movie. The people at the British website TotalFilm got confused and started the online sensation because they didn't adequately fact-check.

From the Telegraph:

...the celebrations were muted after the claim was unmasked as a hoax and aficionados pointed out that they had got the wrong date.

In the 1989 sequel Back to the Future Part II, McFly – played by Michael J Fox – travels forward in time in the hope of altering events to save his son from being jailed.

With his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) at the wheel of their DeLorean time machine, they set the vehicle’s time circuits to October 21, 2015.

So I guess we can still have this whole thing happen again in about five years. In any case, why won't the good people of the Internet embrace one of BuboBlog's many available memes? "I declare him an outlaw"? Cutie Bagel? C'mon!

Maybe Avoid Flying This Month

Elliot only has two months and three days left before he's 2 years old. When that happens, he can no longer fly for free.

So of course we're taking two cross-country flights this month. I apologize in advance to the third person sitting in a three-seat row with us, because Elliot is getting WAY too big to be a "lap baby."

Even though I'm benefiting financially from Elliot flying for free, I wonder if airlines shouldn't cut off this perk at 18 months...or maybe earlier.

Having Elliot fly as a lap baby is like giving piggyback rides to Andre the Giant.