photo credit: claudia.rahanmetan

Radio 94.7 emails:

RADIO 94.7 welcomes Smashing Pumpkins in concert on Monday, September 6th at the Crest Theater.
Before the show, Billy Corgan and band will visit the RADIO 94.7 Video Lounge for an extremely intimate plugged in set that only a very few select fans will see!
RADIO 94.7 is using Sacramento’s fastest growing Facebook page to giveaway the spots in the lounge, where you’ll be so close, you’ll be able to put your drink on Billy’s amp!

Because Billy Corgan definitely seems like the kind of guy who loves when his fans get up close like that. To win this chance to see the Pumpkins, you have to do some Facebooky stuff on Facebook. Details here.

Reminder that ESPN RISE will feature Grant High vs. Folsom High tonight at 7pm on ESPN 2.

The RISE site has a nice feature on Viliami Moala, Grant’s 340-lb lineman.

The big question is whether you’ll be listening to the coverage with Slammin’ Sammy on “Panther Radio” or getting En Fuego on 1040 a.m.…

Cosplay is optional
photo credit: ajagendorf25

Saturday is the first annual “International Read Comics in Public Day.” The idea is to be caught reading comics you know, out among the public, with the hopes that somebody will ask you what you’re reading and allow you to start explaining until they and their jock buddies start wailing on you.

August 28 is coincidentally the the birthday of the late great Jack Kirby, co-creator of many of Marvel Comics famous characters including Captain America and the Incredible Hulk.

Continue reading “Read comics in public on Saturday!” »

Just read “A letter to my students,” a blog post from UC Berkeley professor of public policy Michael O’Hare. In it, prof. O’Hare apologizes to incoming freshmen for the “swindle” that has wrecked California over the last 30 years and exhorts them to start working to change it.

It’s a blog, so he gets away with a generation-sized straw man — at one point literally putting words in the mouth of millions of voters — because it’s such an impassioned piece. He places blame for our current predicament solely on tax-hating voters (even, mind-frakkingly, safe districts!?), ignoring the generation-long dearth of sanity in the Capitol building. I wouldn’t give Abel Maldonado or Darrell Steinberg an extra $1000 even if it was to get them to fight each other to the death. But everything he says about the current situation, especially as it pertains to education, is undoubtedly true and his piece is definitely worth a read.

A letter to my students, by Michael O’Hare, from The Berkeley Blog

I know this is only tangentially local, in the sense that it is local news to a bunch of different locations, but I just enjoyed reading this piece in CNN/Fortune Magazine about Trader Joe’s. Full of interesting tidbits (they sell chips made by Frito Lay! It is owned by “the Germans”! This one guy’s name is Burt P. Flickinger III!), it won’t change your mind about the famously tightlipped corporation or anything, but it is good reading and of interest to anyone who is a fan of the Joe. By the way, if they did sell secrecy on aisle five, it would it be Thai-chili-infused.

What do you think? Does the corporate secrecy enhance your love for TJs or does it put you off?

I love Funderland, so I am there all the time, and yet somehow I have always missed the awkward punctuation of this sign.

Unless of course it is not referring to the state park, but rather to another fort owned by a married couple as community property, in which case I suppose it is technically correct!

You heard about the high speed chase that ended inside the Sacramento Zoo, as a trio of car thieves drove through the back gate of the zoo. Mrs Cool and the young’uns were on the scene! They were headed toward the giraffes, when suddenly it became clear something was wrong. Then they were herded into the gift shop by very helpful and quick-acting zoo employees, and spent several tense minutes inside on lockdown, waiting for it all to play out.

No photos — even if she had been able to snap them she says she probably would have refrained, as the kids were not exactly loving this. They didn’t see the perps, but they did see police storming the place. Plenty of folks in the gift shop were crowding near the windows (the dudes were not armed, but what if they had been?) snapping photos. That would have made a great photo — folks grabbing shots for the Facebook page while their kids cried in strollers.

My kids pointed out that “it had a happy ending,” and the oldest declared it “the coolest thing that has ever happened.”

The 2010 California Standardized Testing and Reporting results were released Monday, and overall the picture continues to be grim, though there are mild improvements over last year:

Fifty-two percent of the students are proficient in English, while 48 percent are proficient in math – an increase of two percentage points in each over last year.

Results in Sac City Unified are basically flat, with 1-3% improvements over last year’s summary scores. The “Science End-of-Course” scores went up by 5%, which is a welcome sight for people concerned with the state of science education these days.

photo credit: larry&flo

If your kids are not starting school today and you’re looking for some fun activities, remember that admission to the Sacramento Zoo is free today and next Monday, courtesy of your friends at Target Brands, Inc.

And remember that if you’re there at 11:45am or 2pm you can pay $3 to feed a giraffe. I believe they reimburse you the $3 if the giraffes are not hungry.

Speaking of Target, I was inordinately excited to see the big bullseye logos up on the new super store on 65th last week. I can’t be the only one…

Ryan Rose, the 28 year old head chef at Zocalo, is one of the 15 finalists in the Food Network’s “The Next Food Network Star” YouTube contest. Guy Fieri is a previous winner of the broadcast version of the contest (Rose is a contestant in the YouTube offshoot), but let’s not hold that against Rose.

I’ve had the birria at Zocalo and that dish alone should make Rose eligible for a Nobel, much less reality competition success. Good luck, local boy!

Here is a link to Rose’s video entry, “Ryan’s Paella.” Upvote and bring home a victory for local eats!