Negative Space: San Diego
- 1994 San Diego Comic-Con Reports
- Reports from the 1994 San Diego Comic-Con.
- Automobile or Bus
- Over six million people; four entrances. What was that saying about Eden and four gates? If you ever need to leave in a hurry, you might try swimming.
- Aztechnology
- Quite a bit of Aztechnology is tested ”here”. And by “here”, they mean “throughout the frontier and everywhere else we can bribe the local security.”
- Aztlan
- The buffer zone? This whole area is a buffer zone, not to mention a staging ground for exporting violence to the gringos of the North.
- Balboa Park
- Balboa Park looks like a South American banana republic… and the security patrols help maintain the illusion.
- Boat
- One of the most surprising aspects of Aztlan’s naked greed is the lack of any mechanism for taking inspection bribes in the busy San Diego port. Why does no one—not even Aztlan—trust people leaving the San Diego Free Trade Zone? Because there are no inspections of vessels coming into the port.
- Chula Vista and National City
- The rest of San Diego calls this the “jungle”. Nothing racist there, right?
- The City
- Anyone who wants to spend money is welcome to come to downtown. Anybody who wants to leave with money, well… you know the song. You can check out any time you like.
- Coronado
- Call it Corp-onado now. Take out Coronado and you’ve taken out the R&D for three very large tech presences.
- Crime and Punishment in the FTZ
- When the guidebook says that those who don’t “fit in” will be made to feel “uncomfortable” by the local chamber of commerce, law enforcement, and organized crime, they usually mean the discomfort of finding inventory stolen, family members dead, and storefronts turned into barbecues.
- Del Mar
- The center of the “Beach Communities” of the north, Del Mar acts like Leucadia’s responsible older brother and La Jolla’s downscale mistress.
- El Cajon and Santee
- Don’t make waves. This is a world of independent locals who will work together for only one reason: to beat the shit out of you when you cause trouble in their town.
- Fear and Loathing
- Don’t hate the convention; become the convention. “Her license said Massachusetts. Her eyes said addict. She’d blasted every red light between here and Boston, and the toad was by her side.”
- The Frontier
- Most of entertainment San Diego lives in La Jolla and the beaches, or in the malls and middle-class zones. Most of real San Diego lives in the no man’s land of the frontier.
- Getting Around the FTZ
- There are four major surface routes into the FTZ. It has one of the most poorly designed airports in the entire world. Its transit system is frustratingly inaccurate. Free trade doesn’t have to include letting people easily move about.
- Hunsakker
- Hunsakker holds several patents. Too bad no one pays attention to patents any more.
- Imperial Beach
- To the rest of the world, Imperial Beach is the cool, counter-cultural bohemian heart of San Diego. To the rest of the Frontier, they’re a bunch of Uncle Toms still living by the sufferance of Good San Diego.
- Just Say Yes
- Grant Morrison: “I didn’t know there was so much Satan worship going on. Satan gets around.”
- La Jolla
- Very little organized crime here, because this is where organized crime lives. La Jolla exports a good portion of the violence in not just the Free Trade Zone but all the way up into Southern California and the West.
- Late night dining PDA file
- This tab-delimited file is designed to be imported into a database or PDA.
- Late Night Dining PDF
- Three-fold printout of all known late-night restaurants in San Diego. These restaurants are open after midnight and allow sit-down meals.
- Lemon Grove and La Mesa
- Spirits of the city don’t kill people. Shamans of the spirits of the city kill people.
- Linda Vista, Clairemont, and University City
- “Unlikely to risk a direct confrontation” but not unwilling to incite one with someone else. The middle-class zones are protected as much by the yakuza and seolpa as by the San Diego Police Department.
- Mission Bay
- Thousands of acres of beautiful parks and beaches… too bad you can’t swim in the water.
- Point Loma and Ocean Beach
- Not to say that the area lacks charm, but that charm costs money and won’t last the warranty.
- Politics in the FTZ
- San Diego is beautiful. Too bad you can’t swim in the water.
- Rail Transit
- Bullet trains, trains, and trolleys all operate on one principle: the best passenger is a docile passenger, and any trouble is met with indiscriminate armed force. As a deterrent, it works well—unless you happen to be in the car when trouble occurs.
- San Diego 24-Hour Dining
- If you want to be able to eat out in San Diego no matter how late or early it happens to be, or if you just can’t tell time and don’t want to have to worry, this is the list for you.
- San Diego After Midnight
- There is nothing quite like the hunger you get at three in the morning when everyone else has gone to sleep. If you’re hanging with the late crowd in San Diego, come and see where you can time out for a bite after midnight!
- San Diego After-Midnight Diners
- When the play or movie lets out, when the Dungeons & Dragons game is over, when the dance floor empties, most of San Diego has long since closed up shop. But there are a few places left to go when everyone else is sleeping.
- The San Diego Airport
- At one point, the landing gear of the aircraft are less than 100 feet above the roof tops and one commercial building is less than 50 feet below the flight path.
- San Diego at a Glance
- Because that’s the best way to look at it.
- San Diego Comic Convention
- The San Diego Comic-Con has a rich history, and there were some fascinating reports out of San Diego during the last century.
- The San Diego Free Trade Zone
- The moment Aztlan military units moved north into Camp Pendleton, Aztlan negotiators were already meeting with local interests to ensure a peaceful change of command. In what must be one of the great economic skin jobs of all time, San Diego was wrested from the CFS and turned into the California Free Trade Zone.
- San Diego Shooting Ranges
- Information about firing ranges in the San Diego area for handgun, rifle, shotgun, and some archery.
- Shooting San Diego
- Shooting events and organizations in San Diego.
- Solana Beach, Cardiff, Leucadia, Carlsbad, and Oceanside
- Sand in your shoes, bums in the streets and, worst of all, working class tourists from the East.
- The Valley
- No self-respecting runner would be caught dead here… is there such a thing as a self-respecting runner?