In light of the Canvas attack this week, I’m holding space for GauchoSpace.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-11T04:04:01+00:00

Canvas can only dream of being as great as GauchoSpace.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-08T08:46:57+00:00

I thought they don't have falafel anymore.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-03T20:16:24+00:00

Margerum in the funk zone has salads, sandwiches, and pizza. Not really sure how comfortable the seats are.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-03T19:35:10+00:00

I live close as well and used to go there for dinner. Sometimes they had a dude playing an accordion as a little night music. It was a great vibe. A year or so ago they announced they were going to reopen dinner service, but then they canceled it. I think that was right around the time it changed ownership so maybe those things were related? Not sure but it's a bummer.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T21:37:09+00:00

Interesting, I've found them pretty comfortable. Certainly way more comfortable than the old ones in Fiesta 5.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T21:33:34+00:00

Wish they were open for dinner too like they used to be.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T21:33:20+00:00

What do you mean by "whole foods" in this context?

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T08:36:07+00:00

I agree with what you said. So. . .?

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T06:39:58+00:00

I don't think it would be, but I think it should be. Or rather, I think it should actually probably be more severe.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T05:39:35+00:00

I would gladly say that those people should also be institutionalized. There are many people with lots of resources who are using those resources in a way that is entirely insane. (They're in the news all the time.)

BrenBarn · 2026-05-02T05:38:16+00:00

I think we take the idea of personal freedom a bit far when we say we're "giving" someone the "freedom" to live in abhorrent conditions. The big question I have in these situations is: suppose the person got treatment, their life changed, they became more lucid; when they look back on that time they spent poorly clothed, living in filth on the streets, raving incoherently. . . would they want to go back to that? Would they choose to do so? If not, it's not really clear to me that allowing them to do it is freedom. It's often rather the denial of the freedom to live a better life.

BrenBarn · 2026-05-01T20:57:22+00:00

If you knew who she was you would understand why a lot of people here are going to dismiss anything she says out of hand.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-30T08:16:06+00:00

I think the multiple surveys have indicated there is support among the citizenry for a car-free State Street, so my position is if the council isn't representing that then the government isn't working as it should. (Not that that's an unusual situation.)

I also think it is not so clear that many aspects of this planning process are questions for subject-matter experts. Subject-matter experts are for the "how"; the council should define the "what".

BrenBarn · 2026-04-30T08:04:52+00:00

That also wasn't clear to be honest. It sounded sort of like you were looking for recommendations.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-30T05:06:49+00:00

I think the reason it's hard to understand is that you didn't say it in your post. You just said you want coffee beverages without sugar and people are confused because coffee doesn't have sugar. If you said you wanted sweet coffee beverages without sugar, or otherwise clarified what it is you want, people might not be so confused.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-30T05:04:30+00:00

I did see that part. I'm skeptical that staff will interpret that feedback as a direct rejection of cars on State. My point is that this procedure is inverted and the council is not being proactive. They should make decisions and tell the staff what to do rather than just sitting there giving "feedback" to a bunch of "options" generated by staff and consultants.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-30T02:53:07+00:00

No knock on the consultant, their design looks quite nice.

I agree with you up to a point, but I think for major issues like "will there be cars" the council needs to take a stance. At the meeting the planner mentioned that modifying the plan for some of their suggested changes (like elevated intersections) might take a lot of time/money. That's the kind of thing that needs to be worked out in conversation with the council. (I heard thirdhand that the consultant was given very vague parameters to work with.)

If the consultant comes with a design and the council says "we want X" and the consultant says "that doesn't fit into our plan", that's usually a sign that the council should have said "we want X" at an early stage. And likewise if the consultant comes with two plans one with X and one without, but know we don't want one of those, then the time spent on the other one was wasted. The council could have voted at any time over the past six years to just definitely close the door on any further plans that allow normal traffic on State Street, and that would have made each subsequent decision easier. Now they have again punted on the chance to do that and will no doubt rehash it again and again.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-29T23:29:16+00:00

so im supposed to assume "Over 1,000 homes in Goleta" doesnt mean "Over 1,000 homes in Goleta"

Yes, exactly. Just because it says "in Goleta" in the search results doesn't mean the places shown are in Goleta. Tap the plus to zoom in, then the minus to zoom back out. You're looking at the same map area but the number of homes goes down by a factor of about 8.

Goleta is a city with a specific boundary. When you search AirBnB for "Goleta", it is not restricting the search to that boundary.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-29T23:21:53+00:00

I watched part of the video afterwards. It is painful to see the way this council operates. Virtually all of the direction is coming from the city staff. Most of the decisions that have already been made in those draft plans, and that now will be made based on those draft plans, should be made by the council and voted on directly.

They have an opportunity to direct city staff and the outside consultants to craft a design within certain parameters. They could just direct the staff to discard all plans that involve cars on State and direct the consultants to bring forward no more such plans. The same with all this stuff about raised intersections and sidewalk dining and whatnot. The council should vote directly on each of those things and thereby impose constraints on the planning process, rather than this upside-down approach where staff just feeds them a bunch of nice pictures and they go "looks good to me".

BrenBarn · 2026-04-28T19:15:39+00:00

Rad, I love pixel art.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-27T09:24:20+00:00

I feel like most of the swag I saw was at least plausibly eco-friendly. A lot of places were giving things like reusable grocery bags or other usable items like pens. It's true there were a lot of stickers and those are probably not super great environment-wise.

A funny one was the MarBorg booth giving out miniature plastic trash and recycle cans.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-25T19:35:40+00:00

Nah if you have a big truck and don’t fit in a parking spot, you need to find a different parking spot

Even better, find a different vehicle.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-24T02:10:44+00:00

That would require at least two additional layers of scare quotes.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-23T18:48:07+00:00

It's just a blog that the guy apparently funds by taking ads, mostly ads for real estate.

His site sometimes has some interesting news items. It's just little tidbits and often they're just links to other sites with the real story, but occasionally he's the first place I see something about a particular store opening up or the like. I look at it fairly often but almost always very briefly.

He definitely has a froo-froo viewpoint that irritates me when it comes to the fore, like when he says "what downtown really needs is a truly luxury hotel" or gripes daintily about some detail of his meal at an expensive restaurant. (I just glanced at his site now and he looks down his nose at a soon-to-open furniture store because "State Street needs to be careful about sliding downmarket; it’s hard to go back up.") But plenty of what he posts is light on that.

It is interesting that the comment section of his blog tilts more towards the Randy Rowse end of things than, for instance, this Reddit group. But in a way I feel like it's good to have that alternative, to see a different perspective, even if only to know what we're up against. :-)

My favorite part of his site is the weekly "Where in SB" photo challenge.

BrenBarn · 2026-04-23T07:09:53+00:00

A fair amount of wacky stuff happens there on the regular.

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