The Best Sandwich in San Francisco

Could even be the best one in the world….

at Avedano’s Butcher Shop and Market, in Bernal Heights, at 235 Cortland Avenue.

Smokey Moe, a panini: smoked chicken, swiss, mayo, jalapeno jelly, bacon, pepperoncini

415-285-MEAT

Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple

Blood Simple (1984):

John getz

This is a comedic film noir about people who can’t do anything right and are mostly confused. It’s an early low-budget Coen Brothers flick, set in sweaty, insect-infested Texas, starring a young Frances McDormand (Joel Coen’s wife). Perpetual hateful loser Dan Hedaya plays her cockolded husband, and perpetual country boy John Getz plays the befuddled country boy boyfriend (look for his deviated nasal septum while he’s sleeping, as McDorman joins him in bed about a quarter of the way in to the film). Perpetual fat slob M. Emmet Walsh plays a fat sweaty private eye who plays both ends against the middle. McDorman gets in a good kick to hubby’s balls when he invades the love nest, that prompts hubby to put a contract out on the two, with the sweaty Walsh as the contractor. Oh and there are some dead fish, and shots in the dark. If you think you see a dead person’s chest move, you may be right. Not exactly my cup of tea, but not a bad flick.

The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film festival.

Texas oilsters frack themselves

Fracking takes your basic livable boring hometown and creates some real interesting water, air and moving earth. More or less permanently. Why would the flipping oil millionaires do that to themselves? oh, wait, it’s the poor part of town:

“Fort Worth has been fracked to capacity,” resident Don Young told DeSmog Blog. “There is no turning back. Some days the air is so bad you can’t see downtown.”

Chesapeake Energy began offering $300 and a pizza party for owners of mineral rights in predominantly poor and working class African American neighborhoods in 2003 and encountered little resistance, DeSmog Blog reported. Now Fort Worth has around 2,000 wells.

Residents have been sickened by vapors from drilling operations, found their neighborhoods suddenly ruined by noise and fumes, and had their water sucked up by drilling operations in the middle of severe drought. Five sites were found in 2011 to be emitting pollution above state limits, according to a study commissioned by the Fort Worth City Council, and most of the 388 sites studied released visible emissions.

Right next door to Fort Worth, the Dallas city council is considering letting fracking start up in town with a vote likely to come next week, capping a three-year fight over the future of fracking in the city. Until recently, Dallas had rejected attempts to frack in town, but that stance seems to be over. Current debate is over the distance required between wells and homes or wells and other wells: 1,500 feet or 1,000.

Book review: Target Tirpitz. A great read

Target Tirpitz: X-Craft, Agents and Dambusters – The Epic Quest to Destroy Hitler’s Mightiest Warship, by Patrick Bishop

A story of war, espionage, sabotage, battleships, Churchill, naval fights, crazy schemes, heroism, resistance, German naval tactics, confusion, stiff upper lip, and yes, death. First class story of the British obsession with the sister ship of the Bismarck.  Interesting details  about the Allied efforts to supply Russia via the Arctic Ocean, and German efforts to interdict the convoys there. Plus, learn about remote corners of Norway.

Get this book.