Our friends from Austin, Texas, Misa & Rick Rojo, visited the city this weekend with their two kids, Esai and Maya. Rick was in town to run a half marathon and they took the opportinuty to visit us and hang out in the city. We had a cozy dinner at our place on Friday night, went to Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf on Saturday, and had an amazing dinner at Michael Mina last night followed by cocktails in the Starlight Room. As icing on the cake we’ll be going to see the Giants play the Washington Nationals with Misa and the kids tonight at PacBell Park. If you have the time, check out the pitures from their visit.

Now that sizeable off-shore oil and gas reserves have been found in Cuba. Economists speculate that the embargo, and ideological war, against Cuba has outlived its usefulness and may no longer make economic sense.

What a big surprise. I’ve felt that the U.S. has been hypocritical by doing business with the largest communist regime in the world, China, but claiming that they can’t do business a communist, Castro. C’mon, it’s not ideology that the U.S. cares about, it’s money plain and simple. If the U.S. can save money on energy by buying Cuba’s oil and gas you better believe that the embargo will be over.

Last month in a conference in Japan, a Dell laptop exploded on a table while onlookers panicked. Luckily, the owner of the laptop did not have it on his lap or it would have been, “Adios, amigos.” And by “amigos” I of course mean “balls.” A couple of days ago in an office in Vernon Hills, Illinois, another Dell laptop caught on fire, smoked up an entire office, and had to be put out by firefighters. After these two incidents it is clear that I just don’t have big enough balls to own a Dell laptop. Ultimately, I may have small balls, but I’d certainly like to keep ‘em.

Note: I had a Compaq laptop firmly on my lap, and close to my balls, while I posted this.

Exxon Mobil earned $10.7 billion this last quarter, which equates to $1,318.00 in profit every second of every day for the entire quarter. The company gave its outgoing CEO Lee Raymond, the fat bastard pictured here, a retirement package worth about $400 million, I guess they could afford it! I mean, what’s $400 million amongst friends, right?

This guy was the perfect oil baron. I mean, he doesn’t believe in global warming, thinks getting cozy with murderous regimes abroad is just “good business,” and on top of that he’s spoken publicly against abortion and gay rights. Plus he looks the part. I mean, look at the jowls on this bitch. This guy is real, not some caricature created by a political cartoonist.

Meanwhile, the little people are paying upwards of $3.75 per gallon to fill up. That’s just crazy.

Straight out of 1981, Galaga hits the Xbox Live for $5. I remember that I used to pump about $5 a week into that infernal machine, so paying that much now sounds reasonable. Of course, if you don’t mind playing it on your computer screen, and you already own the ROM, you can play it on Mame32 for free.

While republican-sponsored climatologists claim that there is no such thing as global warming, the current heat wave is breaking all kinds of heat records in the Bay Area and in Northern California. In the last two weeks, at least one Northern California city has hit 100 degrees every single day. This is by far the longest hot streak, beating the previous hot streak of only two days set back in 1972.

I can say that the hottest it has ever felt in San Francisco was last Saturday when it was in the mid-90s with at least 40 percent humidity. The high that day, July 23rd, was 97 degrees and I thought that we were all going to die. Having skylights on our condo increased the greenhouse effect and made it feel pretty miserable. I am glad that the fog has rolled back in since Monday cooling things off in the late afternoon. At least we’re baking and not shaking–that would be bad.

San Francisco is still in the running for 2016 Summer Olympics.

Sorry for the crude title, but I just couldn’t resist the rhyme. Lance Bass, former ‘N Sync singer and teenage heartthrob, came out of the closet today by announcing his gayness and undying love for Reichen Lehmkuhl. Reichen of course was half of the Reichen & Chip team that won the Amazing Race 4. Reichen & Chip split shortly after winning the race and supposedly are still really good friends. Whatever. Reichen is back in the news because of Lance. Now, let’s get back to our daily lives and forget about both of these guys again.

Michael Dobrich was busted out in 66th place in the WSOP Seven Card Stud High-Low 8/OB tournament and won $1,793 from a $1,000 buy-in. Not bad. I wish Mike luck in the other satellites and tournaments that he’ll be playing this week!

Check out pictures of this mouse pointer kite. Awesome. I totally want to buy this kite if only to fly it around and take pictures of it pointing at stuff in the park. Also, check out the Air-YO which is made by the same folks at WindFire Designs.

One of my coworkers, Michael Dobrich, is playing several events at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Last night, he knocked out Greg Raymer out of the Seven Card Stud High-Low tournament. This was a big enough achievement that Cardplayer.com took his picture for their stats database. The tournament started with 788 players yesterday and there are still 98 players left. The top 72 spots are in the money. Here’s hoping that Mike can pull off a victory, or at least a top 20 finish. Play resumes at 4:00PM today. Good luck to Mike!

Ahh! That’s the smell of sweet fog in the air baby! After the near death from heat exhaustion experience that we suffered during the last two days, fog finally returned to the city of San Francisco to save us all from certain doom. Statewide there was a risk that there would be rolling power blackouts but they were averted when power demands were less than officials expected. I can’t speak for the rest of the state, but San Francisco is happy to be chillin’ in the fog by the bay again.

Richard Hatch starts serving a 51-month prison sentence today. What a loser.

Miss Puerto Rico Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza was crowned Miss Universe tonight. Tonight’s win is Puerto Rico’s fifth crown in this prestigious event. Miss Japan Kurara Chibana, was first runner-up, followed by Miss Switzerland Lauriane Gillieron, Miss Paraguay Lourdes Arevalos, and Miss U.S.A. Tara Conner.

Amazingly, Miss Japan grew up in the city of Naha, on the island of Okinawa, very close to where Melissa’s mom currently lives, and Miss Puerto Rico is from Salinas, which is only a couple of miles from where my mom was born in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. Of course, my mom sees the first and second place finish as some omen for us having a baby. But then again the wind blowing is an omen for us having a baby lately.

But I digress. Big ups to Miss Puerto Rico on her win and to Miss Japan for the runner-up. Also, if you can read Japanese you may want to check out Miss Japan’s blog for some cool commentary on the Miss Universe Pageant experience. If you can’t read Japanese, just check out the pictures. That’s what I did.

The movie poster for the upcoming Star Trek XI film (pictured here) was released yesterday to much fanfare, from fanboys like myself. For those of you that don’t know, J.J. Abrams, of Alias and Mission Impossible III fame, will be producing this next edition of the Star Trek series. The film will be scheduled for release in 2008.

Rumor has it that the next film will focus on the lives of a young Kirk and Spock at Star Fleet Academy as they head out on their first mission. This has many fans worried that the film could devolve into “Star Trek 90210,” but that is less likely with someone like Abrams at the helm. The cast for the film has not been finalized as of this writing and many fans are carefully watching the industry press to see who they cast for these iconic young Kirk, Spock, and McCoy roles.

There’s a high degree of difficulty in making a prequel to the original series. Still, the idea of a prequel is very exciting. Stay tuned.

Omagah! It’s already 76 degrees inside our place. Who the hell knows how hot it is outside right now. The heat is expected to be just as bad today as it was yesterday before it starts to cool off on Monday. If this beatdown continues we are going to have to go to the movie theatre just to find air conditioning. Who cares what movie is playing? We’re going.

It’s too hot to even go out and shop for a fan. The high today is supposed to be 86 degrees (with 70% humidity), which incidentally would make it hotter than yesterday, and the low tonight is to be 66 degrees. I am sure that the Florida contingent is hearing these temperatures and thinking that it doesn’t sound that bad and people in Vegas are laughing because it’s 20 or more degrees warmer there. But all those places have air conditioning. Not here.

Again pray for fog, find air conditioning, and try not to kill anyone in this crazy heat.

I am officially a San Franciscan and not an Angelino. It’s 84 degrees in the city right now and it feels like I am melting and about to burst into flames. Apartments and condos in the city don’t come equipped with air conditioning units because it’s never supposed to be this damn hot! This is by far the hottest summer we’ve seen in the city and proof positive that global warming is real. Pray for fog.

A man struck by a Caltrain this morning survived with only a broken arm. The engineer of the train said he was blaring his horn profusely at this guy, but the he was wearing earphones while walking on the tracks. Doesn’t everybody do that? You know, grab your iPod, crank up the jams, and walk on the train tracks during your walk to wherever the hell it is you go in the morning? No? Does a guy this dumb deserve to live to pass on his dumb-as-a-stump but lucky-as-all-shit genes to his offspring? Life just isn’t fair.

As prices keep inching up, many more can’t afford to buy a home. This in turn is making the demand for rentals and rents surge upward. Good news for people that already own, bad news for those that didn’t get in the market a few years ago.

I’ve always hated AOL, and apparently my hate for the company was well-founded. Last month, there was a recording of a call made by a guy named Vincent Ferrari trying to cancel his AOL account that was nothing short of appalling. Yesterday, the Consumerist revealed the icky AOL Retention Manual used by the douche bags answering the phone there as well as a breakdown of the Vincent Ferrari phone call. Apparently, AOL doesn’t realize that today business is about being crazy customer-focused, not focused on making the customers crazy.