Spooky

For years, my apartment has had two smoke alarms right next to each other. One alarm was decades old, with a wired power connection. The other was a new battery-powered alarm. Some contractors hurriedly installed the second alarm back when the building was being sold. The old owners wanted to bring the building up to code in a hurry; the old smoke alarm were overdue for replacement. But there was no time to replace them all, so we got redundant battery alarms.

Recently, my decades-old smoke alarm has been false-alarming. I guess that's not surprising; it's long overdue for replacement. It took a few tries, but I finally begged the property manager to fix it. Well, send the handyman to fix it.

Today, the handyman showed up. He disconnected the old smoke alarm from ceiling power. He pulled its backup battery.

Then it beeped. Somehow.

He pulled down the alarm from the ceiling to be absolutely sure it wasn't in contact with the power wires.

It beeped again. Somehow.

If it were a week ago, I would have suspected a Hallowe'en haunt.

I asked the handyman if maybe the smoke alarm had a charged-up capacitor. He said no. I dunno if he was sure, or if he just didn't hear my theory over the beeps and assumed I'd guessed something silly.

Eventually, it stopped beeping. The noise was gone; only the mystery remained.

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2026-11-09T23:59:11.273844

Soft opening today in the former Parnassus Starbucks spot: a Coffee Bar.

Some nice coffee and, as before, an incredible view out around back. Like today's, uh, view of an incredibly dense wall of fog.

front of a cafe in a sort of beige-brown building. There are big steamy windows through which you can see some customers, one of whom is probably a construction worker, guessing by the hi-vis vest.

foreground: balcony with a bench-planter thingy. background: gray

#SanFrancisco

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2026-11-09T17:03:13.613015

I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to decide whether to go out for coffee, overhearing anecdotes from SFFD EMTs about patients so disoriented that they're not sure which limbs they can/can't control; or stay home, where there is nothing interesting to overhear. Lately, it's been good news! The COVID-in-wastewater number dipped below the pretty-safe level, and has stayed there for more than a week. The positive PCR test% has also dipped under the "pretty safe" line; dare we hope it will stay there?

graph charting three numbers over the past couple of months. one number, new cases, stayed low the whole time. two numbers were kinda high, but have recently gone below a threshhold. Those numbers are COVID-in-wastewater and %age of positive PCR tests

About a week ago, I got a question about COVID from a friend who socializes on Instagram: he saw an alarming post that COVID is surging across the USA. I said something like "dunno about most of the USA, but SF's doing OK around now." The alarming post said that there were outbreaks in 47 states including California. If I look at California's COVID-in-wastewater numbers I'm not too worried… Oh! but if I look at regions within California, things do look bad-not-terrible in northern-northern California, up around Eureka, Redding, Chico. So I guess that Instagram post was right about an outbreak in California; here's hoping it's a quick local spike and doesn't spread. (Not that we'd necessarily know how COVID was doing up there; I mention Eureka, Redding, Chico because they are places that measure this stuff and send their numbers up to CA Dept of Health; if you ask "How about Fort Bragg?" I'll answer: I dunno; it looks like they don't collect data there.)

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2026-11-08T16:23:40.442132

New-to-me sidewalk chalk art by Kal Zakzouk at 20th & Irving: a lady and a dragon contemplate each other.

Sidewalk chalk art invites the viewer to contrast black chalk vs a patch of chewing gum on the ground. Which is darker? The chewing gum, by a mile. Yet you will never find it in art supplies.

sidewalk chalk art: lady in a robe, dragon in the sky contemplate one another. also a Chinese symbol which I, alas, do not know

sidewalk chalk art: lady in a robe. her hair is black, rendered in black chalk. below her is a dark patch of chewing gum

sidewalk chalk art: dragon in a cloudy night sky. the night sky is rendered in black chalk. Also, there is a Chinese character which I, alas, do not know

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2026-11-07T18:43:34.880610

Happy Halloween from Kal Zakzouk

This morning at 20th and Irving, #SanFrancisco:

sidewalk chalk art: top of the artwork. you can see that one ghost has a skeleton arm but otherwise as made up of falling flower petals or something. the other ghost is more skeletal

sidewalk chalk art: zooming in next to the ghost heads to notice something subtle: there are faint spiderwebs drawn here

sidewalk chalk art: this pair of jolly jack-o-lanterns wish you a gourd evening

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2026-10-31T16:25:39.034413

San Francisco, City in Crisis: A full 23½ hours later, the Arch-Diabolo situation remains undealt with.

altered photo: that fnnch art installation Solar Arch, still with a yo-yo, ahem, I mean diabolo on top. the photo has been edited, adding a hand-drawn red circle to point out the little green diabolo

#SFHellscape

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2026-10-25T16:00:18.862528

San Francisco, City in Crisis: Somebody lost their yo-yo on top of Fnnch's Solar Arch art installation.

[Update: I have been informed that the "yo-yo" is, in fact, a diablo]

#SFHellscape

big yellow arch on paved road in a park. if you know where to look, there's a little green blob on top

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2026-10-24T23:52:59.313133

Today's sunrise was nice. sunrise with clouds colored as if by Maxfield Parrish

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2026-10-20T18:28:00.803151

I started replying to ActBlue messages mentioning political consultant James Carville by unsubscribing with a note a la "I don't want to give money to a campaign that's going to hand that money to James Carville. I think he's part of the problem." I kinda worried each time. Democrats have a "circular firing squad" reputation. Was I furthering that? Now I'm reminded: I'm just trying to take ammo away from the circular firing squad.

linked article headline: James Carville Says He’d Rather GOP Win House by 5 Seats Than Dems Win by 5: They’d Be ‘Hostage to DSA’

excerpt: “I would be disappointed if it comes in at 225 House seats,” Carville said. “That would almost be – I would rather the Republicans keep the House by five than the Democrats to win by five because if that happens, they’re hostage to the DSA. … Like Hakeem [Jeffries] cannot move. There’s no place for him to go.”

https://www.mediaite.com/online/james-carville-says-hed-rather-gop-win-house-by-5-seats-than-dems-win-by-5-theyd-be-hostage-to-dsa/

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2026-10-19T13:24:46.410083

Some pics from the SF Old Car Picnic today:

old cyan truck. I dunno, I'm not a car guy; it just reminds me of a truck in a driveway on my block when I was growing up

claims to be an electric Miata. I dunno, I'm not a car guy

says it's an Oldsmobile. I dunno, I'm not a car guy

old-timey car. Where you might expect a front license plate, it has an ad for the 1939 World's Fair on Treasure Island (near SF)

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2026-10-17T23:27:00.879556