Unashamedly getting into the mushy spirit of things
for the day that's in it:
for the day that's in it:
That aside, there's a bit of an anecdote behind this one...
Close to five years ago, I spent an unforgettable summer in the marvellously mind-boggling metropolis that is San Francisco - probably the most consistently surprising and completely special place I've been lucky enough to visit. Just prior to our trip, the Sony Bravia 'Bouncy Balls' ad arrived on our collective television screens. Featuring a cascade of no fewer than 250,000 rainbow coloured balls down a San Franciscan hill, and set against the vocal stylings of a then little-known José González, it elicited wide-spread 'oohs' and 'aahs'.
In any case, after a few days of fruitlessly pottering around the city with my fellow comrade, we took the advice of some new found friends and relocated to The Green Tortoise on Broadway St., where we continued to reside happily until pesky commitments (work, a college education) forced us to return home. At some point in the interim, the penny dropped that, adjacent to our beloved hostel was the fateful hill featured in that very ad. Furthermore, some of the remaining bouncy balls were to be found within the walls of our place of residence. While this didn't seem to be of great significance to anyone there save for us, it just about made our summer. To this day I've kept my bouncy ball in a trinket box purchased in China Town. It's the closest thing I have to a 'claim to fame' .
Incidentally, this particular hill was to prove memorable in more ways than one, not least because of the night I witnessed a fellow lodger merrily thundering down it on an old office chair into oncoming traffic - but that's another story for another day...
Close to five years ago, I spent an unforgettable summer in the marvellously mind-boggling metropolis that is San Francisco - probably the most consistently surprising and completely special place I've been lucky enough to visit. Just prior to our trip, the Sony Bravia 'Bouncy Balls' ad arrived on our collective television screens. Featuring a cascade of no fewer than 250,000 rainbow coloured balls down a San Franciscan hill, and set against the vocal stylings of a then little-known José González, it elicited wide-spread 'oohs' and 'aahs'.
In any case, after a few days of fruitlessly pottering around the city with my fellow comrade, we took the advice of some new found friends and relocated to The Green Tortoise on Broadway St., where we continued to reside happily until pesky commitments (work, a college education) forced us to return home. At some point in the interim, the penny dropped that, adjacent to our beloved hostel was the fateful hill featured in that very ad. Furthermore, some of the remaining bouncy balls were to be found within the walls of our place of residence. While this didn't seem to be of great significance to anyone there save for us, it just about made our summer. To this day I've kept my bouncy ball in a trinket box purchased in China Town. It's the closest thing I have to a 'claim to fame' .
