Uh oh.

I finally made it to Monk's Kettle last night. I'd passed by it a bunch of times, and it really didn't seem like the type of place I'd like. Beer snobbery is definitely on the rise, and a trendy new Belgian bar on 16th St. certainly does not seem like the kind of place that would stymie that stereotype, but I had a really good time, despite a communication meltdown with those I was supposed to meet there.

Here's my Yelp review:

It's very rare that I get excited about all aspects of a place, and Monk's Kettle last night was one of those rare occasions.

Looking over the beer list, I was very happy to see a large range of beers available. Too often a beer bar will have tons of Belgians but little else. Belgians tend to be a bit to thick and strong for my taste, so the range of American microbrews and other options was very welcome. Our bartender was very helpful, and after I told him a bit about what I liked, he gave two recommendations that I ended up loving.

We didn't have dinner, though I did have the giant pretzel with cheddar ale sauce and house ground mustard, which were both fantastic.

The service was also excellent. The bartender was spot-on with his recommendations and was very helpful in general. He didn't know a few details about the food and admitted as much immediately, which was refreshing.

I honestly didn't expect to like this place much, but I was definitely blown away, and I eagerly look forward to returning soon.

FWIW, I got there just before 7 on a Wednesday night. when I arrived, there was one table left, and the whole back bar was empty, but half an hour later, all seats in the place were occupied. Looks like 6:30 is probably a perfect time to arrive if you have a few people in tow.

I hate Yahoo. I have for a while now. The primary reason is that they thought it would be peachy-keen to terminate my Yahoo account without reason or notice. I hadn't used any Yahoo-branded services for years, so when I noticed what they'd done, I shrugged and said, "Good Riddance." That is, until I realized that they'd also locked me out of my paid Flickr Pro account. Now, with a little finagling, I was able to get an "old school" account from Flickr (that's what they called users who'd been with Flickr before Yahoo bought them). Sure, I was still using Yahoo service, but I made do without a Yahoo account until they forced all Flickr users into Yahoo accounts (which also resulted in me getting called out on MeFi). (This little shenanigan also locked me out of my Blogger account, as for some reason I used my Y! email to sign up.)

So now I have a Yahoo account. 99% of it is used for Flickr, along with one use of Upcoming, and two very stubborn contacts who only have Y! Messenger (seriously, guys, WTF?). So while I can't stand Yahoo, Flickr make it all worthwhile.

So now that Yahoo is nearing free-fall, zyzzyva's post has got me thinking. Flickr couldn't just vanish, could it? Surely it's too valuable a commodity to just vanish into the ether alongside .Mac and Ate My Balls? I had always hoped Google would buy it, even more so after Yahoo integrated its comparably awful mapping software into Flickr. But as zyzzyva also points out, Google already has Picasa. But Picasa's interface is a bit intrusive and decidedly non-Google-like. Plus, it's unavailable for OS X (though I will admit that Flickr's Uploadr is pretty dreadful itself). And even though I know at least a dozen Google employees, I think I know three people who actually use Picasa over Flickr.

Flickr definitely seems to have emerged as the de facto photo host of the Internet Generation (sorry, MC Lars, but there's just no way). Certainly it'll rise out of Yahoo's ashes, right?

Right?

Join the Impact, San Francisco, 11/15/2008

At a Laughing Squid meetup the other night, it became very apparent that even though I read SFist and FARK and maintain a busy Flickr account, I am not actually anybody (I have an LJ, too, but that'll only dock me geek cred). So it seemed prudent to start a grown-up blog. Because really, when you're hanging out with the editor of JPG Magazine, a Current employee whose speech Al Gore read the previous day, and Felicia Day, "I watched Hamster on a Piano nine times this weekend" isn't going to cut it.

Oh, and I helped paint this, if that helps.

Ah, Yahoo. Making even Google products difficult to use.