cheesebikini?

I’ve got to respect a business whose motto and mission statement is:
“Everything should taste like bacon.”

And it’s kosher.

baconsalt.com

Within five minutes I learned two astounding things:

Separated at Birth?

Rocket Dog Shoes (founded 1997):

…and my neighborhood coffee house,
Duboce Park Cafe (founded 2006):

UPDATE: Quick, look: www.duboceparkcafe.com

The good news: Seattle’s Lighthouse Roasters is opening up a place in San Francisco. They make fantastic espresso drinks.

The bad news: their cafe will far away, in the Marina District.

The worse news: Canvas Gallery & Cafe is closing.

When I lived nearby, Canvas was a favorite hangout. Alas, they’ll close at the end of April.

It’s a unique space in San Francisco, big, bright and cheery, well-designed, on a busy corner across the street from Golden Gate Park. An ever-changing collection of local art covers the walls and hangs from the high ceilings. The space attracts an eclectic collection of students, artists, musicians and creative types; you can often overhear people brainstorming or collaborating on film and music projects here. They host lots of concerts and poetry readings and the monthly “Ask a Scientist” event. It’s one of those great urban spaces, a hothouse for local culture and community.

And now it will be replaced by a frigging seafood restaurant. Hey, better than a Starbuck’s.

Drop by and soak up Canvas while you still can.

“Customer service needed in the antacids department. Customer service needed in the antacids department.”

My friends want to make you smarter. Have a look at their new startup, Lumosity. They design video games to boost your brainpower.

Sounds like new-age California hot air I know. But after a peek at the studies behind the curtain (and after reading Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life) I think they could be onto something.

This just in from one of our embedded correspondents on the front lines of the San Francisco Coffee Wars: a sketch of the new Ritual Roasters site, a lush green semi-outdoor space somewhere in San Francisco. Sources say the new cafe will open in May.

UPDATE: It’s open now. It’s south of Cesar Chavez, off 3rd Street, at 1634 Jerrold Ave. (map).

[tags]cafe coffee “ritual roasters” ritro[/tags]

Note to self:

To avoid looking like a suburban dentist or lawyer, never get:
    – a tattoo
    – a shaved head
    – anything made by Harley Davidson

I returned from holidays on the East Coast to find this postcard in my mailbox. It’s the guys from Meetro (a startup here in San Francisco) done up like Bill Gates and the first Microsoft team back in the 70s.

Bravo, Paul & co. Details here.

Crackers broke into Earthlink Web servers this morning and replaced the front pages of many (all?) of their customers’ Web sites with this message:

One of my clients is hosted by Earthlink and was compromised. I’ve got everything back up and running, but the tech support folks at Earthlink seem completely confused and can’t tell me what’s happened, beyond the fact that many customers were affected, so I’m not confident the breach has been fixed.

If you know anyone hosted at Earthlink, tell them to check their Web site to be sure they’ve not been owned. And hails out to the W32-Gen crew for pointing out those security holes.