Nick, nice to see you here. That way we can beat you senseless in person. Much better.

I want to bruise you about two things in particular:

1) Please don't blame a region for what is said about it in Red Herring and Wired. These sentences -- "But, for a brief moment, SF/SV had an idea of itself as the center of the new world. The city set ambitious goals for itself. It failed, like a startup that can't live up to its own hype." -- indicate that you bought some of that hype yourself. Never, never confuse regular city inhabitants with Willie Brown (that was one of the few things in your piece that I agreed with). There's a big difference between a real city and its boosterism. It's like me thinking New York is crime-free because Giuliani turned Times Square into a theme park.

2) "...many San Francisco old-timers like the fact that it's a village..." Ah, what charming condescension. It's not a village. It's a city. Yes, it's smaller than New York, London, or Los Angeles, three of the largest cities in the world. But this blaming SF for not being NYC, London, or LA, well, it's like blaming a California roll for not being a knish.

I mean, if you simply said, "I miss New York (or LA, or whichever)," that'd be different. Fine, lots to miss. I don't think anyone here is saying SF is the same as London. I only lived in London for a year, more than a decade ago, and I still miss it. But it's hard for me to suffer much when here I can still get option paralysis any day of the week. (Thanks for that term, Zed.)

If you're pining for the fjords, get on the boat to Norway. But don't blame San Francisco Bay for not being the fjords. It wasn't the fjords when you got here, no matter what they said in the brochure. If you'd looked outside your cage, you could have figured that out for yourself.

I'm sure you have beautiful plumage.