In addition to tweaking the design, SacMix.com founder Tim White has added hundreds of new listings in outlying areas from Davis to Rocklin, and added additional sorting on the food and drink specials. Other updates will be coming soon, including improved navigation and more specific content on the locations and deals. It’s a great site for quick listings of all the hot spots, and it’s now extremely useful for those off the grid. Cheers!

The show will take place at the Memorial Auditorium. Let’s show Team Coco how wonderful Sacramento can be! Tickets can be purchased here.

I’m planning take a look at the candidates for the 5th district (my district) in more detail in the next few weeks, in a humorous but fair and balanced manner. So, you know, stay tuned for that.

And chances are, if you give a Pesci a gambling license... (read on, it makes sense)

• Sunday, March 7: Family Concert with the Camellia Symphony Orchestra. On Sunday the Camellia Symphony Orchestra holds a free concert in the Library Galleria at 2 pm. But the coolest part happens before the concert, when the orchestra will present an “instrument petting zoo” to allow the kiddies to get up close to different instruments. I’m not sure how much actually petting they will allow but there will definitely be a chance to get up close and personal and “see how the instruments are played.”
• Friday, March 12: Meet Children’s Author Laura Numeroff. I’m sure that the author of “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is not well-known outside the world of parents of little ones, but inside that world this is basically like an appearance by Martin Scorcese, if you replace Italian-American history with feeding snacks to various wildlife. She’ll be reading from her new book “The Jellybeans and the Big Book Bonanza” and fielding questions from the kids(!)
• Thursday, March 18: The Voetberg Family Band. If you dig on bluegrass music, and aren’t creeped out by immense families, you might want to check out the Voetberg Family Band. This is a gaggle of 8 siblings who do some mean fiddlin’ (20 regional fiddling championships and one National Young Adult Fiddle Championship between them!) and perform a sweet mix of bluegrass and Celtic. I’m no Jello Biafra but I like to think of myself as musical, and what parent who is slightly musically inclined doesn’t daydream of forming a family band and touring around in a camper from one folk music festival appearance to the next over the course of one crazy summer?

For more information:

• Sacramento Public Library Programs & Events

A new player entered the crowded field of crappy music on the radio dial today as RADIO 94.7 launched at noon on the air and online.

RADIO 94.7 features music from artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, Green Day, U2, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, Sublime, Nirvana, Linkin Park, Weezer and Stone Temple Pilots along with music from new bands like Muse, The Killers, Train, Kings of Leon and many, many others.

Many others, you say?

Radio947.net

Apropos of nothing save the topic of it being Friday, I liked this lone and rather shapely evergreen (redwood, I believe?) standing strong in the rear of a business complex, competing with a satellite dish. Kicking its non-coniferous ass, I would say. Okay, this was also apropos of endowing non-bipedal things with the ability to “kick ass” twice this week.

(Forgive the crappy cellphone camera.)

Local band Ganglians have a session up today on Datrotter.com, one of my favorite sources for discovering new bands. The sessions on Daytrotter come with cool artwork (which shows up on your i-Whatever) and a spacey/poetic writeup.

The Ganglians, who rocked last year’s SXSW, have an intriguing and unique garage pop sound. The heavily reverbed vocals and hard, sometimes darker, psychedelic sounds will kick your ears’ ass. The ass of your ears. “Hair,” which I wrote about previously, is an amazing track from their self-titled debut, which is available for purchase…somehow…from Woodsist.

Ganglians: Heads Spinning Into Loops on Daytrotter.com

Our own Stickie was interviewed for this week’s News & Review. Stickie and fellow beer lovers Chadd “The Chadd” McNicholas and Kassandra “The Kassandra” Sutherland talk about Sacramento Beer Week, which takes place next week starting Monday night at The Colonial Theater in the beautiful Tahoe/Oak Park area.

A Salute to Sacramento Beer History
6-9pm
$10, 21+ of course
Colonial Theater
3522 Stockton Boulevard

It looks like Kevin Martin will be traded to Houston today for two Rockets: Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey. Both are 6-8 “power forwards” and the Kings will also be giving up 3 other players. It seems like Tracy McGrady will probably end up with the Knicks, although there is an outside chance he’ll be coming here. I suppose if T-Mac ends up here it might be with another player from New York, but even Knicks fans don’t want Knicks on their team.

At some point this morning I am hoping I’ll wake up and this will all have been a terrible, terrible dream. As usual I have no idea what I’m talking about, and this Carl Landry fellow seems like he could end up being a great player, although he is the same age as Martin and Martin is already a star. But things must be pretty bad that the Kings couldn’t give K-Mart/#RekeROY even 30 games together. What do you all think (besides you, TS)?

UPDATE: McGrady is definitely heading to New York, Kenny Thomas is staying put, and we get Larry Hughes. Over at Fanhouse, ex-Ragger Tom Ziller analyzes the deal. I am trying to see the silver lining here and I guess Landry and some expiring contracts are that silver lining.

Over the next few months, two film series will be highlighting the 4-color world of comic books. First up, on Saturday night (February 21) “Movies On a Big Screen” has Independents: A Guide for the Creative Spirit, a documentary about independent comic artists by filmmaker Chris Brandt. Brandt is “scheduled to appear” to answer questions after the film, and he will be joined by local artists and comics creators Skinner, Ben Schwartz, Paul Allen, Anthony Leano, Stephen R. Buell and Mike Hampton. Most of these guys were written up by the SN&R’s Nick Miller a few months back: I [heart] comics.

And then March and April, the Mondavi Center’s Focus on Film series highlights 3 Oscar-nominated movies based on graphic novels. Movies like these should give hope to anyone who saw “Superman Returns” or the Wolverine movie. American Splendor, the 2004 film starring Paul Giammati, based on Harvey Pekar’s long running comic; Ghost World, which features the only good acting done by Scarlett Johansson that has been captured on film; and finishing with 2007’s Persepolis, an animated feature based on Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran before and after the revolution. Three great films based on three great literary works (though I haven’t actually read American Splendor or seen Persepolis).

Movies On a Big Screen: Independents: A Guide for the Creative Spirit
Sunday, Feb 21
7:30 PM
Admission: $5.00
The Guild Theatre
2828 35th St, Sacramento, CA

Mondavi Center Focus On Film Series: American Splendor, Mon, Mar 8; Ghost World, Mon, Apr 5; Persepolis, Mon, Apr 19
6:00 PM
Admission: $10 each ($5 for students) or $27 for all three
Vanderhoef Studio Theatre
UC Davis Campus

They’ll be here all week!

photo credit: smysnbrg

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Marquel Dawson, the Fairfield teenager who attacked a mountain lion with a samurai sword (Video clip) to protect the family dog. Or at least he thought it was a mountain lion: Fish and Game officials now believe the animal was actually a raccoon.

You may chuckle, and I’m sure that Dawson’s rep has taken a hit back home. He’s probably lucky he’s not in high school anymore. But I would like to point out that when Dawson armed himself with a sword he thought he was attacking a mountain lion. He thought, “Should I attack a mountain lion? Yes, this is a great idea, this cannot possibly be a bad idea.” The guy held a samurai sword over his head and swung it at what he thought was a mountain lion.

Even if at the time he kinda sort realized it might have been a raccoon and only changed its genus and species (and Family — they are both of the Order Carnivora) for publication, I’m not sure I would have decided against a samurai sword if I had one at my disposal — those things are wily, and this one was tussling with a 65-pound pit bull. I think Dawson’s lucky the raccoon didn’t have its own sword.

ORIGINAL POST:
Today is the last day to take two surveys prepared by Sac City Unified School District, who is facing a $30 million budget deficit. One survey intends to find respondent’s views toward the overall strategic plan for the district, and the other focuses on specific areas that could be targeted for cuts.

The surveys are linked off the SCUSD Website.

And as always, remember the district’s motto: Success For Every Student By Name. That still gets me every time. Did I have a mini stroke at some point and am I completely missing the meaning of that phrase?

photo credit: prayitno

Don’t forget, tomorrow is Free Museum Day in Sacramento, where 26 area museums and historical facilities open their doors for free. Perfect day for it with the rain we’re expecting. Will rain make it more or less crowded? I know it’s nice to get some indoor fun, but it can also be a pain getting mobilized when it is raining.

Free Museum Day
Proudly supported by Umpqua Bank
Saturday, February 6, 2010
10 a.m. to 4 p.m
26 participating locations

Looking for something fun to do indoors for a birthday the other week, I bit the bullet (to overcome three things: my hatred of spending money, my aversion to dealing with other people, and my gag reflex at the smell of heat lamp-warmed pizza) and took the family to Sky High Sports in Rancho Cordova. But the results were quite satisfactory!

As it turns out, jumping on giant trampolines for an hour is extremely fun. We opted for a 10-visit punch card, which works out to $6 per person per visit. And if you just want to try it once there is a coupon in the Entertainment book. I’m not the kind of person who would ever want to host a birthday party at a place that sets itself up as a location for hosting birthday parties, but I would definitely take a 10 kids to Sky High for some jumping action on or around a child’s birthday. Another great idea for Sky High would be to get a group of guys together for some trampoline dodge ball, which I am looking forward to doing soon.

I can’t wait to use the rest of the punch card but my lumbar region insists on waiting at least 3-4 weeks.

Sky High Sports
11327 Folsom Blvd. #160
Rancho Cordova
916-853-JUMP (5867)

“But seriously. What is the deal with these armed robberies? It’s like, don’t you even have money to buy video games yourselves? The ladies know what I’m talkin about. Don’t even get me started.”

UPDATE: This press release was also cross-posted at The Sacramento Press. In other words, the cops themselves are part of the “citizen journalism” experiment over there at the Press. Hmmm.

Note that it is much cheaper to request a death certificate, which adds insult to injury for us unlucky folks who are requesting birth certificates. Also note that this is in no way intended as a political argument. It is however intended as a call to rent Brazil and contemplate what might happen if you check the wrong box!

All kidding aside, Khasigian and Schubert were early members of a Jesuit Rugby program which won national championships in 2003 and 2004. I’m sure they had more than adequate hookers on those squads. Congratulations dudes!

The impending closure of a Sam’s Club in Natomas is less heart breaking than Saturday’s closing of Wishing Well. (Though it should probably freak us out more, since Walmart (parent company of Sam’s Club) was cited as the reason Wishing Well can’t compete.) Only the coldest market capitalist robot isn’t sad to see his or her favorite local business go under. Wishing Well was one of my favorite local establishments and I’m actually saddened to see it go.

So what I want to know is, what business, if it were to go under tomorrow, would cause you to run screaming down the street in your underclothes? What is the absolute most you are willing to take? What’s sad about this question is that a few years ago I would have said Tower. From an emotional standpoint I’d have to say Jimboy’s, and from a rational standpoint Raley’s/Bel Air.

Shallit also mentions the store’s former “no kids” policy. The way I remember it as a kid (mid ’80s) was that you could enter the store, but they had a way of making you feel like they were watching you. Of course this made it an even more attractive spot. It was as if they really did sell M-80s and butterfly knives instead of paper hats and wedding decor.

The Sacramento FIRST Task Force is reviewing seven new proposals for an Entertainment & Sports Complex. The Task Force is also looking at the current Cal Expo proposal and the option of renovating Arco Arena.

The Task Force is forming an Advisory Committee of interested citizens that will supplement the task force. If you are interested in volunteering to serve on this advisory committee, please let me know by sending an email message to my District Director, Sue Brown, at sbrown@cityofsacramento.org by Friday, January 8, 2010. Our understanding is that the commitment of time is approximately one meeting per month for about 3 months.

I don’t think anyone would disagree that this city needs the Sac Rag readership’s input in this project…

Obviously Chick is just a straight shooter with upper management written all over her. I’m sure it took Schwarzenegger a while to respond to this suggestion after he literally (not literally) picked his jaw up off the floor.

Other applications of the Laura Chick approach offer some very interesting possibilities for solving many problems that plague our state. Problem: Congestion on the freeways. Solution: Build more freeways! Problem: Gas is too expensive. Solution: Lower the price of gas! In fact, there are almost no problems that can’t be solved with this approach, including the problem of watchdog groups spending time making recommendations on the proceedings of other watchdog groups: Commission a third watchdog group!

Of course I don’t mean to make light of the situation this state is in with furloughs, and the wider problems that have put us there. It’s a predicament, all right: our one government tells us to stimulate the economy by creating jobs, but our other government says to stimulate the economy by cutting jobs. But we can’t just decide which government we like better, because that might make Daddy cry. I smell a Chick Solution coming on: Commission a third government!

OK, I guess making light of situations is what it is that I do here.

photo credit: mrpbody33

One of The Bee’s latest database features, published on 12/18/2009, offers aggregated site-specific data on the results of the state’s last physical fitness test for public school students. I don’t know what it is about these databases that rub me the wrong way, since I understand that they are simply making neat ways of displaying data that is already publicly available. But as I attempted to argue 18 months ago when the Bee published County workers’ salaries, it’s not about the data being public. It’s about the intent behind publishing it as a news story (beyond getting traffic for the site despite less and less good content every month).

We’re talking about children here, so if the intent behind this is to highlight that more work needs to be done to make sure kids are healthy — a proposition that nobody with eyeballs really needs help accepting — then that is an important message for parents that would be sufficiently backed up by the aggregate data alone. On the other hand: is 31% unhealthy and “just” 34% passing all portions of the test really all that skewed of a statistic? Maybe the test data merely points out that kids basically fall evenly into 3 categories of healthy, unhealthy, and neutral. According to statehealthfacts.org, a full 61% of California adults are overweight or obese. I can’t imagine that 89% of California adults would pass 3 of 6 comparable fitness measures, which 89% of students did according to the CDE data.

Most of all I don’t think this is a good thing to publish because the data is for 5th-, 7th- and 9th-graders, which means for the most part it singles out just one grade level at each school in the dataset. So even though you can’t identify individual children, it’s can’t feel great to be one of the kids at any given school who look the most unhealthy to have this fact called out in the local paper. Take the example of Camellia Basic, where the published data shows there are just 8 kids who scored as unhealthy.

Maybe I’m taking this too seriously. After all, I don’t think it takes a government study to tell you that these kids today are not as healthy as they should be. But something about this whole database thing really chaps my hide!

UPDATE: Looks like the site was updated after I posted this.