I worked for a company called “waiters on wheels” in the Bay Area…essentially door dash before cell phones and the internet. We used handheld radios.
We got minimum wage + tips, and our salaries didn’t pay for gas and car upkeep so we survived or perished based on tipping. It’s hard, thankless work only to be at the whim of your customers mood for your livelihood.
Worse, you pay taxes as if you are tipped 15% on all orders, but the average tip was closer to 8% when you count non-tippers.
Back then, stoners were the worst. Usually paying at least partially in change, rarely a tip at all, maybe an offer of a bong hit for a tip at best.

If you hire a service to deliver, remember there’s an actual person between you and them, and you only hurt the person by not tipping, not the company. If the order is screwed up, it’s unlikely to be their fault, they can only take what the restaurant gives them. Keep that in mind, service people deserve to be paid for their work, and the tip is part of their pay.

It looks like we're all Bay Area refugees!

My Camaro was a shark-nose '97.

For classics, I owned a '73 Charger SE and I loved me the hell out of that car, too. It was the size of an aircraft carrier and the engine compartment was bigger than my condo. The scariest thing about that car was how easily the back end would come around in a sharp turn. The first rains of the year were a horror show when the pavement was like oiled glass. "Am I gonna beat that red? Gun it! ... uh-oh."

Now I drive a Mazda 3 and responsibly. Getting old sucks.

Nope…and if a tiny victory garden and not wasting gas is all it takes, anyone can do it.
I live in Cali, with high grocery and the highest gas, the closest real grocery store is about 15 miles (there’s a market close, but expensive) and we do just fine on under $40k. My wife works over 30 miles away, she burns near a tank a week, I burn about a tank every 2-3 months.
I can’t understand why others can’t do the same where gas and produce are cheaper. I grew peas, beans, and lettuce on my balcony in an apartment in the Bay Area. Most don’t have such only because no one told them they could, and how. Sad, I taught myself and didn’t find it difficult, only a few failures over 30+ years of growing. I had a few years here when I grew at least one veggie for every letter of the alphabet (I think I didn’t have a q).

Green privileged? I do live in Humboldt, so you could say that.

What do they mean “running out”? We’ve been out of water for decades.

As bad as this sounds, I think he’s under selling the problem big time.

Federal officials announced in February that California farmers will get no federal water this year, zero (that’s the Central Valley Project), while the state has allocated agriculture only 15% of normal from its distribution systems.
Meanwhile the state has also demanded agricultural water districts and cities stop diverting water from rivers and streams along the San Joaquin River. This includes 200 cities in and around the Bay Area, like San Francisco which gets up to 85% of its water from those rivers and streams.
Some rivers and streams in California have stopped flowing, all have reduced flow. The Mad River, just blocks from me, is usually 6-8’ deep bank to bank (75-100’) for at least 6 months out of each year, the last 3 years it never reached its banks and remained a shallow stream all winter, becoming a creek in summer. It is abnormal, most rivers are worse off.
Aquifers have already been depleted so much that the entire Central Valley is sinking rapidly. Reservoirs are WELL below 50%, despite what this clip said (Shasta is reporting at 40% today, but driving over it it looks like maybe 10-20% full with no inflow).
So far this year along, over 1000 residential wells have gone dry. This includes many entire communities losing their drinking water supplies completely. The number of agriculture wells that can no longer function is uncountable. It’s estimated we will lose 2700 drinking water wells this year state wide.

The California water problem isn’t a pressing future issue, it’s an ongoing unmitigated disaster we’ve ignored for far too long. At this point, it’s likely insurmountable, and a collapse of California agriculture will make today’s inflation seem like the good old days when average workers could afford to eat. Start a garden, it’s going to get weird.

Saw this in Houston once. I think again in the Bay Area a bit later. It was a big deal back then.

Nonsense. Utter nonsense.
"Steal whatever you want and it's no longer a crime." "Stealing is now allowed." Utter bullshit. Stealing a steak is no longer a felony, it's still a crime. Repeat offenders can be charged with felonies for petty theft. Groups can be individually charged with the entire amount the group steals. Going back repeatedly to steal more doesn't reset the amount stolen. Just so much hyper exaggeration and outright *lies in this anti-California hit piece. What this stopped was 17 year olds being charged with felonies and as adults for stealing one $1 taco, like my friend was in the 80's.

Hilarious they denounce this as causing "violence in America" when the reason it passed was non violent petty criminals were filling the prisons, causing violent criminals to get reduced or no sentences. It was passed to combat violence in America. It does not effect the penalty for any crime involving violence, and frees up space to incarcerate violent criminals.

They lied so many times in this video, in so many ways. Is there a problem, yes. Is prop 47 the main cause? Absolutely not. Is theft not a crime in California?
No, it's absolutely a crime still today.

Poverty in high cost of living areas are the main cause. Lax policing, only wanting to go after felonies because it helps their careers is another. Prison overcrowding is another. Little security in stores with expensive easily resellable small items in bad/impoverished neighborhoods is another. This is not just a California or Bay Area issue, these group store invasions have been a regular occurrence nation wide for years if not decades.

Odd how these people love to bemoan all the anti business laws in California, but don't want to recognize that California is the biggest, most robust economy in America, the fifth largest in the world if it were a country, with the second largest growth in the world if it were a country, only beaten by China in growth. Also hilarious that, when compared with TOTAL taxation, average residents of Texas ($60-$80k per year) pay MORE in taxes than the same earning level in California.
Also hilarious that, while many if not most states are sliding deeper in debt, California has a $70-$80BILLION dollar surplus. ...but by all means, right wingers, move out, it's a failed state. 🤦‍♂️

Yep. I live in Humboldt. Moved up here from the bay area, a completely different culture. They are also totally different from Southern California, which itself is a completely different animal from Central Valley California. There was a time when splitting the state into two, north and south, was considered, but no one wanted the bay area in their half, and Sacramento didn't belong in either half either. If we split, it should be into at least 4 distinct states, north, central, south, and Bay area California, and even then there would be many communities in the wrong states.

No Bob, they're the ones backing QAnon, the Boogaloos and right-wing terrorists like the guy who killed those cops in the Bay Area in an attempt to start a race war.

That's the side you're backing.

*promote the first responders protecting property and lives during this current bout of wildfires ravaging much of the area surrounding the bay area.

For those interested:
Current fires in California https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/
Wildfire cams http://www.alertwildfire.org/
Current air pollution due to the fires https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/i/mAQI/a10/cC0#6.37/37.725/-121.332

Screw that!
As a true NorCaler, in Humboldt, we don't want Sacramento and the bay area. We are a completely different animal up here from those central Californians.
Split it at Big Sur, and again at Ukiah. They can keep the big port, pollution, and traffic, we'll keep the forests and unspoiled rivers.

Whenever I return back to America from visiting Europe, I'm always depressed by how badly things have turned out here. Our buses suck; our trains are a joke -- there's no high-speed rail; our roads can barely support traffic moving at 70mph (look at Highway 280 in the California Bay Area someday to get a taste of how good roads could have been).

It's a good thing we blew all that money on our multi-trillion dollar military while the rest of the civilized world invested in education and infrastructure, because that shit's paying nothing but high dividends, right?

Interesting...I googled it spelled that way before commenting and that didn't show up, only bands and restaurants and suggestions I misspelled. I guess I should have wikied.

I would swallow my own tongue before riding a train that crowded. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's panic inspiring just thinking about it. I left the San Francisco bay area because it was far too crowded, but by comparison it's completely unpopulated.

Arcata, being our college town, is the most expensive town here. I would consider other nearby towns if being cheap is important. Try Blue Lake, where I am (I'm outside town), it's more rural but under 10 miles from Arcata.
We moved here 25 years ago....back then, a 1000 square ft house with an acre cost us $800a month. I've owned my home since then, so I'm out of the rent loop, but poking on craigslist looks like around $1500-$2000 for a decent house, with some more, some less depending on what you get. Nice 2-3 bedroom homes seem to be about $500000 now with some property.

Our gas is the most expensive in the country consistently, over $4.

Beyond that, it's pretty cheap. Property tax is 1%, food is reasonable, entertainment is mostly nature and community, fishing, hunting, hiking, boating, surfing, diving, even back country skiing 1/2 hour up hill, so free, although there are paid events too, we even had GWAR play a few times in Eureka, but no opera or ballet.

My wife and I live on $30k....we have 4 cars, pets, vacations, a large pond, hot tub, etc. Because I have room, I grow a lot of our produce and we have around 40 fruit trees. We aren't putting any extra in the bank, but aren't depleting our savings either.

We are the marijuana capital of America, if you know the right people, it's maybe $100 an oz for A grade, $10-20 a gram for wax/oil.

All in all, it depends on your lifestyle. It would be easy to spend all you save living here on gas, or easy to not have a car at all if you're in town and will ride a bike in the rain. While there are certainly cheaper places to live, I'm not sure there's better. Our forests are gorgeous with skyscraper redwoods, the ocean is cold but clean here, the rivers unspoilt and full of fish, our air is some of the cleanest in the lower 48, water is too, and our summer daytime temperature is mostly 70-75 F, winter is low 50's- freezing, but we have very few freezing days.

Mckinleyville, just above Arcata, was (still is?) the largest town in California with no police, only highway patrol. They got a multiplex before police!

We have a ton of immigration from the bay area, but more often than not they move back because they miss the fast pace and abundant services and entertainment....I didn't.

Hope that helps. We love it here, but we're slow paced and super cheap bastards. If you are too, come check it out.

I sold my black knight a few years back.
The guy who bought it played it non stop for weeks, then it died.
The only repair shop in our area no longer services pinballs at all, so just to have it inspected he's going to have to go all the way to Portland or the Bay Area, 3-400 miles. It's been sitting dead in his living room ever since. It sucks. I hope there's a resurgence and they start working on them up here again.