The Sacramento Bee has added to its Databases section the salaries of our Sacramento Kings professional basketball team.

Wow, it’s good to be the Kings.

Update: The Bee has updated their page to finalize the “down-to-the-dollar reality of the team’s payroll”

In case you weren’t feeling old enough, Shareef Abdur-Rahim announced his retirement on Monday after 12 seasons in the NBA. Did you read that? Twelve seasons. Man, I think I lost a decade in there somewhere. When did 1996 become 12 years ago?

At any rate, it appears he’ll land a job with the Kings in some capacity. Good luck, Shareef.

Perhaps all of you legal eagles out there can help me with something. The Sacramento Bee reports that a man was shot in the abdomen yesterday in downtown Sacramento. The story has a headline that reads, “Sacramento panhandler accused of shooting disabled man.” The first sentence of the story reads, “A woman panhandling in downtown Sacramento Monday pulled out a gun and shot a disabled man who refused to give her money, scattering a terrified crowd gathered at a busy bus stop, police said.”

Is there a difference between *accused* and *police said*? Throw in a photo of the “accused” and you got yourself an open and shut case…

I did enjoy this quote though:

“Why would someone ask money from someone who is obviously disabled?” asked his younger brother, Adrian Perez. “This is really outrageous.”

Do disabled people have a history of not carrying spare change? Just sayin’

Update: Bad example as the suspect has basically confessed to the crime. I do still wonder what terms the media can use, quote, etc. with regard to criminal activities.

When times get tough and the future seems in doubt, always remember two things:

1. Things are never as bad as they seem nor are they ever as good as they seem.
2. The daily limit of squirrels during squirrel season is FOUR, hear that? FOUR.

You may now return to your watching of the Palin/Clinton video…

Via the Bee’s Sacto 9-1-1 program I discovered an interesting feature called the Crime Q & A by Ryan Lillis. Ryan tracks down information related to area crimes in response to reader queries. No question is too small either:

Coming home last night in the Tahoe Park area, 65th street between 14th and 21st was blocked by cop cars. This morning nothing in the paper or other news. Do you know what happened? Where can a neighbor find information about incidents area quickly after the fact?

Give it a read, it’s not as fun as learning how much money your neighbor makes, but it’s informative just the same.

With the Fair underway, the Sacramento Bee reminds us that there will be a sobriety checkpoint in Elk Grove tonight. Wait, the Fair is in Sacramento, right? Where lots of folks will be drinking? Ok, cool, Elk Grove it is.

The enforcement is part of the statewide “Avoid” campaign funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Interesting slogan. At any rate, if you follow the link on the Bee story (oh, wait, it’s broken, posted on the 13th, too) you will learn more about the program.

The overall goal of the awareness campaign is to let drivers know about the countywide increased enforcement periods and warn drivers that the only way to “AVOID” the county’s law enforcement officers is to drive sober.

Ah, there it is. I get it now. A press release reminds us that party hosts and families must limit drinks to their guests, and to not serve more than one or two over several hours. Stickie, can you hear me?

Be safe out there.

So I finally caught wind that rapper Kanye West made the classic concert no-no in calling out the wrong city during his show at Arco Arena on Friday.

Kanye quickly apologized on his blog:

PLEASE FORGIVE ME SAC-TOWN
04.19.2008

I can’t believe I bust a spinal tap! It’s no excuse for this I wish I could sink in a black whole. When I said Seattle and there was no crowd response I was up on my spaceship platform thinking damn… I think I just said the wrong city!!!!! I kind of muffled the words so I was praying nobody really caught it. I guess all those hours that me and Phill spent making my mic clear as possible back fired on me! We had alot of problems with the video servers on the first 3 songs and that completely threw me off! Hey, I’m not perfect. Hope everybody had a good time. I’m a man, I can say it… I’m sorry.

Maybe Kanye heard that Sacramento hates hip hop?

Note: A few commenters on this blog picked up on the “Sac Town” reference. People are funny.

This article from the Sacramento Business Journal reminded me of an idea I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. I’d would like for our readers to comment on this post with locations in Sacramento that they know for certain offer free wireless internet service. I know there are tons of sites out there that claim to index these *hotspots* for you, but they are rarely up to date.

I’ll start. I know that Panera Bread offers free Internet service to its customers. I’ve used the one on Howe Avenue many times without fail.

So there you have it, Sacramento. Get out there and find some wifi and report back with your findings. I’ll add a category for this topic (*Free WiFi*) for easy reference later.

UPDATE: Thanks for all of your comments. I think our list is turning out quite nicely. Here’s our Google map.

So I am having lunch the other day at Togo’s. I order the sandwich and am asked if it would be “For here, or to go?” (To go, Togo’s…hey, wait a minute!) which I reply, “To go.” The sandwich maker asks for a “ring” and the cashier then tells me the price. It’s the price on the board, $5.49. I then realize my lunch partner ordered his sandwich “for here.” So I tell the sandwichista that it’s for dine in and she then tells the cashier who then charges me sales tax and we get into this whole thing. The cashier tells me that they have to charge sales tax if you eat the food on the premises. This got me thinking. What’s the deal with dine in sales tax? I’ve heard over the years that it was related to hot food, but that is not always the case.

I went home and jumped on the Interweb and discovered that the rules regarding sales tax and food are, shocker, I know, sketchy at best. I thought I would break it down for you just in case you have nothing better to do than learn about sales tax.

(Warning the content after the jump is dry and, er, taxing. Proceed at your own risk.)

Update: see comment below.

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