Dust off your pop-culture, literary, or costumed-hero themed costumes and let your freak flag fly tomorrow in Midtown:

On Saturday, October 25 from 11a.m. to 3p.m., the MBA and many local Midtown businesses will participate in a community Safe Halloween Walk along the J Street corridor from 16th to 29th and the surrounding streets.

Get your costumes and candy bags ready for this fun, safe, and FREE daytime event– visit the participating businesses to trick-or-treat for candy and share in the local Halloween spirit!

Meet up at the Relles Florist parking lot on J and 24th. On-street parking will be free on J Street between 16th and 26th, and on 16th Street to 29th Street between J and K.

As a follow up to my recent pieces about the battle over tree cutting in University Park, that neighborhood’s homeowners association board has a scheduled meeting tonight. The tree controversy will be discussed at the meeting, but no voting will take place. In fact, California civil code prevents the board from discussing or taking actions on items not on the published agenda, which puts the previous vote to remove the trees (cited in my Sept. 29th post) onto shaky legal ground as it was not on the agenda for that meeting:

• PDF: University Park Homes Board of Directors Meeting Agenda, September 24, 2008

Continue reading “University Park HOA agrees to delay tree cutting” »

Some well-played investigative work by Kel Munger turns up different text on the English-language and Russian-language versions of an information card being passed out to ARC students urging them to vote No on the proposed recall of 9 ARC Student Association officers. The board passed a resolution in support of Proposition 8 on the November ballot, which inserts a hetero-only marriage definition into the California Constitution. Kel has some great posts up about the scandal.

My initial reaction was that a recall was a bit of an anti-democratic play from a group advocating for treating people with fairness, as no rule-breaking or misdeeds are alleged on the part of the officers as far as I know. But these officers are probably elected to terms of less than a year, and letting democracy do its thing and voting them out after their term would be pointless. Who would have ever thought that American River College would become a hotbed of democracy in action?

KCRA reports that mayoral candidate Kevin Johnson will appear on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” … on November 13, more than a week after the election. Very interesting!

Dinger by Jachdeja on Flickr

Coaches and players from the AAA Champion River Cats will be making some public appearances this weekend to sign autographs and share the love.

Members of the 2008 Triple-A and Pacific Coast League Champion Sacramento River Cats will say “thank you” to the Sacramento community for their passionate support during the team’s championship run with the River Cats Championship Caravan, Oct. 16-18. River Cats players and coaches, including manager Todd Steverson, team MVP Casey Rogowski and team home run leader Brooks Conrad, and Voice of the River Cats Johnny Doskow, will visit River Cats fans throughout the community and will be available to all media outlets for interview throughout the three days.

The first event is this evening from 5:30-6:30 pm at Raley’s in Natomas (4650 Natomas Blvd.) Autographs, raffle and free cupcakes! Then tonight at 7 pm join players and coaches at Palm Street Pub & Grill in Carmichael (6416 Fair Oaks Blvd) to watch the Red Sox take on the Rays in game 5 of the ALCS.

Continue reading “River Cats Championship Caravan coming” »

Yesterday I saw the Official Gmail Blog post about a new “Mail Goggles” feature, designed to prevent Gmailers from sending that drunken “late night Friday email.” I chuckled, assuming that the jokesters at Google couldn’t wait until April 1 to launch another yuk-fest of a fake feature. I did notice a few news stories about the feature, but I didn’t think much of it.

And then just now on the KCRA morning news I saw Walt Gray report on it. Ha! I thought, just wait until I blog the heck out of this hilarious small town bumble from the gullible yoyos at the local news station. Before I did that, however, I searched again for news stories. Hmm, doesn’t seem like Information Week would fall that easily. Much less Wired. More importantly, the feature does appear in my Gmail settings. It was not a joke at all.

What? This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Sure, I suppose it qualifies as “useful,” but it’s just so damn silly–geared for the intoxicated, set to be enabled on weekends only. I’m definitely not saying that because I was duped. Duped into thinking it was a hoax. Oh Google, you have bested me this time.

Joe Sacramento (didn’t you move? :)) has a great roundup of the Docks project on the riverfront near Miller Park and the I-80 bridge, including his discussion of what would happen to the Pioneer Reservoir, which I’m not sure I was entirely aware existed–it is apparently a massive sewage treatment plant across the street from the city animal shelter. Anyway it reminded me of when Marshall and Lily buy a house in the chic up-and-coming NY neighborhood of DoWiSiTrePla, only to find out it is a realtor nickname for “Downwind of the Sewage Treatment Plant” on How I Met Your Mother.

Joe claims Heather Fargo has advocated placing a Ferris wheel atop the plant, but I can’t tell if that’s a joke on his part. And that’s more a sad comment on Fargo and this city than it is a dig at Joe’s wry humor…

Got this in the inbox this morning:

Can anyone refer me to a certified arborist who doesn’t make their living cutting down or pruning trees? I live in University Park Homes, a gated community of 150 or so homes that is set in an urban forest. It is near the American River, between campus commons and sierra oaks. The area is known for its tall colorful trees. Without notification, the homeowners association voted (three people) to remove 22 trees, 10 of which are directly in my view. An arborist has recommended the removal of 144 trees over two years replacing large shady greenery with a shorter variety of trees that don’t provide shade. It appears they are going for the Southwest look?

If this was my hood I’d be pretty darn upset. Everybody knows Sacramento is all about the trees.

Continue reading “Help needed: University Park trees endangered UPDATED” »

My geek credentials are seriously lacking, but even I can tell that this weekend is pretty much a star-loving geek’s dream right here in River City. With a capital T, and that rhymes with W, and that stands for Wheaton.

Friday and Saturday it’s From the Land Beyond, Sacramento’s horror and sci-fi show. Meet Wil Wheaton and Doug Jones, and (for your Battlestar geeks out there) not only THE Richard Hatch, but also Chief (and Final Fiver) Galen Tyrol himself Aaron Douglas!

Continue reading “A geek’s dream weekend” »

We are pretty much the
Michael Phelps of Sacramento blogging

SN&R Best of Sacramento 2008:
Best blog
1. The Sac Rag
Best blogger
2. Sac-Eats
T3. CoolDMZ
Best Sacramento Web site
2. The Sac Rag

Congratulations to sac-eats, who for my money is the best blogger this town has seen or will ever see. (I may be a tad bit biased.)

As in previous years, we must extend a hearty Thank You to all of our readers. Without your participation this site would not be what it is today!