Out of nowhere: "Ah -- long distance! Use your cell phone."

Their list:

1. Coffee Bar
2. Caffe Trieste
3. Café Que Tal
4. Tazza D'Amore
5. Java Beach Café
6. Sugar Café
7. Café Muran

Now, I'm not normally one to nitpick, but this list is terrible. San Francisco is one of the best cities in the country for café hopping, but if you only read 7x7, you'd never know it.

I just spent the last three years as a law student. Preferring the bustle of cafés to the staid law library, I studied at cafés all over town and have been to almost all of them.* Malcom Gladwell might argue that I've had a rare opportunity which, when combined with hours and hours spent at cafés, allows me a rare level of expertise and makes me uniquely qualified to weigh in on quality of 7x7's reporting.**

While the list is better than nothing, that distinction is only marginal. One gets the feeling that an editor had a page to fill, but was too lazy to actually do any research. Instead of, say, checking Yelp or hitting up Google, the editor yelled out for her interns to volunteer their favorite SF cafés, and these were the first seven to reach her ear. What is this -- amateur hour?

Lack of diligence notwithstanding, the list has fundamental problems. More specifically...

Finally, how about taking some responsibility for what you print, eh 7x7? How about throwing in a caveat -- we're in the middle of a recession, and businesses can't survive if people take up seats all day, use outlets and wi-fi, and only buy a single cup o' joe. Coffee Bar, for example, is a great space, and no one wants to see it go the way of the Canvas Gallery. (Run out of business by less-than-stellar management, high rent, and broke UCSF grad students who sat all day but hardly purchased anything.)

So 7x7's list sucks. Now what? I guess I'll need to write up my own set of reviews. Check back soon for updates!

* Before law school, I spent two years working from home (read: at cafés) in Boston. I've been to almost every café in Boston and SF, as well as most of the cafés in Portland, Seattle and the entire state of Connecticut.

** Of course, Malcom Gladwell would certainly never be asked, and would never weigh in. Really, this was just an excuse to recommend Outliers. Definitely worth your time.

*** C and I have been going to Coffee Bar since the week it opened. An immense improvement over Arc Café, the prior occupant, Coffee Bar quickly became an important space in that half of SF. People meet, hang out, work, socialize, hold events. I'm really happy that Coffee Bar is such a hit; word of mouth alone quickly made it difficult to get a seat, despite the dozens of available spots in the enormous space. And then this article came out. I went last weekend and, wondering why I had to stand and wait for a seat, I overheard a young law student say to a friend "Like, yeah, like, it was totally in, like, 7x7 and everything. We can stay here all day!" Ungh. Getting a seat there is now silly difficult. Still worth a visit when the mood strikes, but wow -- so crowded.

We also explored a bit, and developed a circuit of favorite places to eat. Generally speaking, we don't like to spend a lot when we eat out, and have tasty food as our primary objective. What follows is a compilation of recommendations that we've sent to friends over the last couple of years, as they've traveled to the east coast for weddings or to visit friends.  Enjoy!

Start by heading to the South End for breakfast. If you find cheap
parking for the day, feel free to take it. If not, park at the meters
and park at the Boston Common lot in the middle of the park.

Either way, walk down Newbury St. and stroll around Boston Common. The
'real' Cheers is on Boston Common, and there's a cemetary and some
Revolution sites nearby to boot. Mostly, Boston Common is just a great
park. A block towards the river off of Newbury St. is a great
park-like area to walk. Ritzy brownstones.

Charles St. is also nice, with some good little coffee shops, if you
have the time, though I'd definitely say its third on that list.
Charles St. is in the Beacon Hill part of town, where John Kerry
lives.

Whether you start in the South End and walk to Boston Common or park
in Boston Common and walk away from the park to Newbury Street, you
should lunch in the North End.

If you've walked to the park, its a moderate/long hike to the north
end, worth doing if you're not too tired. Just get to see more of the
town. If you don't feel like walking, or if you are on the opposite
end of Newbury St., definitely take the T.

From The Plantation To The Penitentiary

I've generally been in an internally beastly mood while prepping for the Bar Exam. I find it's helpful. If I'm too at peace, I get complacent while studying. Though relaxation allows for Brawny-like absorption of rules and elements, over time that relaxation also draws in anxiety, which builds and festers till it paralyzes. I'd guess that a mongoose experiences the same euphoric calm before it realizes it's been ended.

So instead, I've chosen snarling aggression as my study mode. To keep me in the mood, I've been listening to a lot of angry music: conscious rap, beats by The Rza, passion-imbued compositions. It also follows that I've been avoiding jazz - normally effective study music as so much is sans lyrics - like the plague.

This morning, while studying at SF's Best Neighborhood Cafe, I turned on some tunes to escape the enraptured yells from a trio of preschoolers, at once shouting for Tour cyclists to "go faster!" while marveling that they could ride so close together and, not understanding what they wanted, shouting for the riders to "crash and break their necks".*

Headphones on, my thumb spins through options on my iPod. Let's see... Genre will quickly filter for mood. Hrm. Jazz? Well then. Who's here? No, no, no, no, Ah. Wait... Wynton Marsalis? I'd forgotten. Haven't listened in a long time. Sure, why not. Give it a go. Perfect. Exactly what I wanted. Which disc is this? Tap to illuminate screen, and... Of course: From The Plantation To The Penitentiary

And what have I been studying all morning? Criminal law. I guess Wynton hit his mark.

[* Have the little tikes already seen Michael Bay's "work". Did they think a bike would burst into a giant fireball if it crashed? If only Hollywood would think of the kids when letting guys like Bay make movies...]

First of all, they were studying out loud. OK generally, but in this case one girl was...

1. Not using her indoor voice,
2. Facing me instead of her study partner, meaning that she might as well have been using a megaphone on top of her already-too-loud voice,
3. Absolutely dominating the conversation, Shaquille-style - I mean her study partner barely got a word in edgewise in an hour and a half, and
4. Speaking with that most annoying of accents, the snobby San Franciscan, where everything? sounds like? a question?.

Second, they had no idea what they were talking about. They weren't stupid, just too intent on hearing themselves speak to stop and think for a minute.

What's that? You'd like some examples? Thanks for asking...

• They decided to "skip that, um... partnership stuff? because, um...there's like, no way? he can test us? on that like right?"
• Could NOT get their heads around insider trading. I mean, is the difference between Chessman (where the family phone trees news and someone winds up trading on the info) and the inside-trading printer really that tough to suss out? (At this point, I almost interrupted to explain because they were getting it all *wrong*. Only reasons I didn't explain were that I was really, really annoyed, and because there was a slim chance they would be competing for grades with some friends.) "But, like, what's the duty? um... how are we supposed to know what the duty is?! like, how does the um fiduciary duty? fit in here?"
• "Like, I'll like never understand how people only study? you know? for like the last week of the semmmmmmmester. in law school?"
• "What's like, the deal with reliance investor reliance? Does that put the burden on the company?"
• "I'm going to ignore this policy stuff?"

OK. Done venting. To my friends still studying and busting their behinds for their last-ever law school exam, I say best of luck on Corps. No, better yet... I want to see your impersonation of Ghandi. Well, you know... if Ghandi was really pissed off.

Kill that thing.