Super Frat

Hey Bros:

I’m still a little fried from Wonder Con (those red eye flights will do that to you).  Don’t worry, we’ll have a strip for Wednesday and Thursday.  In the meantime, let me take you on a brief tour of San Fran.  First off, a big thank you to Brother Hollywood for hooking me up with the shared roomed at the Hotel Palomar.  (Also on hand was Brother Lettering Samurai, Thomas Mauer.)   My new nickname these days is “Tony Deeb”, thus the new column name.

It’s not every day you get to stay in a 4 star hotel and believe me, you see the difference!  I got snowed in, thanks to the East Coast storm, but fortunately, Hollywood and LS were staying til Monday anyway.  (They had driven up from L.A.)  We had an awesome weekend and inducted new bros.  But after the guys hit the road, I had nothing to do for eight hours, so I decided to see the sites.

One sight in the hotel room was the fucking bathrobe they give you.  $210 if you take it in your suitcase “by mistake”.

But hey, it’s a nice room right?  Even the extra bed we got was comfy.

And the view, awesome.

I decided to hit the streets and the fine people at Palomar made sure I had an umbrella in case it rained!

Of course, you also need a snack if you’re doing all that walking, so Palomar also gave me some California almonds.  Yum!

After walking a few blocks, I decided the snack wasn’t enough.  I had seen the sign for John’s Grill earlier and said to myself, “Any restaurant that’s been open 100 years has to be doing something right.”  So I went.

Now most food in San Francisco is pretty pricey.   The thing to eat is garlic fries, which we had been introduced to by Dave Wilbur from Minions of Ka the night before.  (Hey, Dave.)  John’s didn’t have that, but the place looked pretty ritzy.  Seafood, being a little cheaper and good in San Fran, is a must.  So I ordered me a Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail.  Only $9.95!

Not only were they some big-ass shrimp, the horseradish sauce was fresh.

So fresh, in fact, it brought tears to my eyes.

It’s a good kind of hurt when you’re sinuses are burning from quality shrimp cocktail.  The hamburger was just as delicious.

I’m getting hungry just seeing the pictures.  John’s Grill also had a replica of the Maltese Falcon.  The original used to be there, but it was stolen in 2007, sadly.  Dashiel Hammett and Sam Spade used to eat there.  One day, bros, we shall return the fabled bird to its roost!  I swear it!

After that, I walked around looking for something to buy the missus.  Then I wanted to see some of the sights and then I saw it…

There it was!  What San Francisco is famous for, Game Stops!  Great selection, right near Chinatown.  More used games than you can shake a stick at.  I resisted though, bros.  I should finish GTA4 before buying new stuff.  Next, I passed the chocolate place.

But already being the fat fuck that I am, I decided against this.  Later, at the airport, I stumbled upon another link in this sweet chain store and got a bunch of samples.   Damn you Ghirardelli!  At this point, I only had about 4 or 5 hours to go before my shuttle.  I didn’t want to go too crazy running around.  Then I remembered…

There was a Virgin Megastore near the hotel.  I figured at the least I could check out some books or comics.  But when I got inside, I was sorely disappointed…

The Virgin comic book section look like it was devastated by the Hulk.  Plus there was no bathroom.  And to the right…

This sort of closed room that looked like it once had books and comics.  Virgin, you disappoint me.  No place to sit, no bathroom, no cafe.  I heard your airlines are cool, but if you’re going to treat comics like this, you might as well not carry them.  Not wanting to spend money on a cab, I decided to explore the Hotel Palomar more.

Since I was checked out of the room, I was forced to use the “public” bathroom.  I put it in quotes because the bathroom was on the 5th floor, far down a hall.  No homeless guy was ever gonna find it!  It was class all the way.  No paper towels, just real towels.

Ah, the Palomar lounge.  Free Internet, an honor wine bar and comfortable furniture.  Now this was a place to read my comics!  Sadly, most of the comics didn’t live up to the hype.  A few did, including The Two Percent Solution.  You can read my regular comics review column in Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine.

I walked around some more and realized that we were closer to Chinatown than I thought.

Sadly, I wasted too much time reading comics (story of my life).  With an hour to go, I hit a little cafe we visited earlier in the trip and got a sweet crock of onion soup!

Aw, yeah!  With Sourdough bread on the side!  It was a French place.  Cafe dela Presse or something.   Good shit.  With my time running out, I ran to Walgreens to get some gum for the plane ride.  Now the homeless people in San Fran are everywhere.  They don’t make no bones about being homeless, so some can get kinda of aggressive, even if they’re more polite than the ones on the East Coast.  But this guy, cracked me up.  I gave him a buck.

If you’re in the San Fran area, please help out a bro!  The homeless need to get laid too!  Well, that’s all from San Fran and Wonder Con.  A great trip, awesome hotel and a awesome town.  Can’t wait to go back next year.  Look for a strip tomorrow, bros.  Peace.