East Bay Insomniac was an online search engine and review portal for restaurants and services open until midnight or later in the cities east of San Francisco. I started the project in the early 2000s after “waking up” to the surprising fact that, for a college town, most businesses locked their doors around 10PM. I  began driving around the East Bay looking for neon signs and other signs of activity. I’d hand-coded the first iteration of the website in blocky HTML, but in 2008, I taught myself WordPress and gave the whole thing a much-needed makeover. Now, night owls could search by desired city, closing time (from midnight to 4AM to 24-hours) or by what they were FEELING. This was (in my opinion) the crowning achievement of East Bay Insomniac. From a drop-down menu labeled HUNGRY, you could sink your teeth into 18 different types of late-night cuisine. BORED proffered 18 boredom-busting sub-menus, including late-night billiards, bowling and books. FILTHY was fleshed out with precisely two late-night laundromats and two late-night adult stores.

I let the domain expire a couple years ago after evolving into a person who actually enjoys sleeping. But I’ve still got all the content, and it’s been fun looking back through it. If any East Bay insomniac out there sees this and wants to continue the research, drop me a line! I’m working on getting a couple readable samples online, but in the meantime, click and squint or right-click and download.

Project Details

Year 2003-2008
Role Blogger