The hardworking staff is in San Francisco for the National Communication Association convention (don’t ask), and so we immediately picked up Monday’s edition of the San Francisco Chronicle.

You know how Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, “There’s no there there”?

Well, Oakland has come to Frisco.

There’s no Chronicle there.

The A section featured 16 pages, which is fine for a Monday, but the Bay Area metro section was four – count ’em, four – pages, with one eighth-page ad and some obits.

The Business section wasn’t much better – two small ads and some legal notices.

But I did get to read my Left Coast doppelgänger, Jon Carroll, who by his own admission was not having his best day.

In Fact, he wanted to call in “doesn’t have a clue today” or “is stupid today.”

But file he did, about, well, places he’s lived, including his current home – wait for it – Oakland.

“Now, in Oakland, we don’t get many tourists. When I see people fumbling with a map in Jack London Square, I figure they must be really lost. My first instinct is to show them the way to the ferry terminal. We don’t have that many sights in Oakland. Lots of great restaurants, very nice lake, a rose garden, Fairyland – what am I missing? We’re not a tourist town.”

In other words, not much of a there there.

(Sorry for no links or graphics. It’s the iPad. The hardworking staff will work it out over winter break.)