Speaking as a (former) Bostonian, I gotta say I appreciate this - most of the time I don't want to be bothered. Which is to say, most of the time when strangers interact with me I appreciate it. But that's because it happens infrequently. If it happened all the time I would get tired of it. You wanna talk to me about my hat/bag/shirt/hair/book/knitting-project? Cool. You wanna talk about the weather for the sake of making conversation? Go away - I probably disagree with you anyway.

I think I must have brought my Boston vibe with me to the bay area too. 'Cause I am told that people out here are much friendlier but I don't see it - strangers here talk to me with about the same frequency that strangers in Boston did.