THANKS EVERYONE WHO e'd me suggestions on farmpartments for rent. My personal favorites were in Pacifica and Oakland, but Crawdad really wanted to be in the city, and who can blame her, considering she's got an internship and a job to get to every day ... whereas I just have to go out to eat once in a while and, you know, keep an eye on the chickens.

Keeping an eye on the chickens is going to be real easy at our new place. They have about 10 square feet of "yard" (broken bricks and lead-based dirt) to roam around, as opposed to acres of verdant, buggy poultry paradise with vineyard views – oh god, I'm going to cry.

No. You know what? I can't do it. Chickens have a hell of a time of it as it is, not to mention tasting as good as they taste to so many different species, myself included ... I can't hit them with such a dramatic demotion. No, I think I'm going to punt the chickens.

Not literally. Maybe I'll give them up for adoption/gumbo, then rescue a couple of new nothing-to-losers from the feed store. Hell, compared to the fate of your average chick, Noe Valley's not so bad.

You heard me right: Noe Valley. Land of babies and dogs and everything else I love about life. Shops ...

I'm psyched, seriously, because now I'll have this to hang over Crawdad's head for years and years, and years, to come.

"Danny, my dearest, would you mind please picking up my arthritis medication on your way between the game and the bar and cards and bingo and the strip club and that interview and the other game, please?"

"Two words, Craw: Noe and Valley."

Just kidding. I'm as excited about our new place as she is. It has my favorite of all possible amenities: a claw-foot tub, which will of course double as my office. And which, in and of itself, will warrant the forfeiture of all of our arms and legs in rent.

Cheap Eats is about to get even cheaper, but first ...

Fallon's Cafe, Harrison between Fifth and Sixth Streets. Best thing I'm going to be able to say about this place is that it stays open all night Fridays and Saturdays, which is saying something. Worst thing I'm going to say is that it sucks.

Yeah, I'm pissed. I ordered a burger like I always order burgers: rare, no mayo, no mustard. "This is very important," I believe were my exact words. "No mayonnaise. No mustard." I thought about adding bacon and cheese, but I was already paying seven bucks and extras are 75¢ each, which would've flirted me toward the 10-dollar mark, which ain't cheap eats, even for a half-pounder, fries included.

Great fries, by the way. But the burger comes with blue cheese, bacon, and grilled onions all over the place. Did the waitressperson misread my mind? No, that's the way the menu calls it, she claims. But: she's wrong. The menu menu, maybe, but this is Sunday brunch, and the Sunday brunch menus, the ones we ordered from, say lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard. Blue cheese is my least favorite cheese, but at least it's not mayonnaise. 'Course there's mayonnaise on there too.

So it has to go back, and maybe the cook was mad about that because my next burger comes cooked to kingdom come. I mean this was the wellest done burger I've ever chiseled my teeth into. It was Lindsay and Wallied to death, utterly juiceless, so bad it was funny. And I love a laugh, so I laughed. I couldn't send it back again. I'm not like that; I mean, mayonnaise is one thing, but Lindsay and Wally are my friends, no matter how hard they cook their burgers.

Another thing: if this weighed half a pound, after the life had dripped all out of it, then I weigh about 255, 260. It wasn't the worst burger I ever ate. It wasn't even the most maddening thing on our table. Poor Deevee ordered pancakes with fresh berries, and it was like something off a kiddies menu.

No kidding: three little skinny powder-sugared lightweights laid side by side by side on the plate, presumably to approximate the size of one normal pancake. And if they would have stacked them up they might have roughly resembled one average everyday pancake in thickness, too! They did taste pretty damn good, and they were loaded with berries, but for six bucks, pancakes had better not only taste good but fill you up. Deevee eats like a bird, and she was already done eating and hungry again by the time my second burger came.

The wife and the sister had better luck with an ahi tuna salad ($8.75) and mushroom burger ($8.50), respectively. So they can go back, if they want.

Fallon's Cafe. 937 Harrison (at Fifth St.), S.F. (415) 278-0480. Mon.-Thurs., 6:30 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 24 hours; Sun., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible.