“Whale Watch” is getting out of hand. The entire KCRA 6 PM newscast last night was dedicated to “Whale Watch.” At about 10:15 last night Edie Lambert was talking to Toby Ross, the City Manager of West Sacramento, who cautioned would-be whale watchers to stay off of levees that are not meant for car traffic. Would it be cruel to suggest that drivers too stupid to stay off of non-roads in order to watch whales too stupid to stay out of fresh water rivers are a match made in heaven?

However, it does reflect well on the kind of news that KCRA likes to present. Flipping over to CBS13 at 11 is like watching the Great Britain PR spot on “Children of Men.” War. Famine. Dead horses. Only CBS 13 still soldiers on…

Nothing shows our Sacramento like whales accidentally swimming upriver. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is about this occurrence and the news it generates that amuses me so. I think it has much to do with the fact that it is a completely random natural anomaly — like a hermaphroditic sheep or Lindsey Lohan — but since we live on the river and have the news 24/7 we have kind of come to expect it. It is given the sort of seasonal reverence that the cicadas get back east. But it’s really more akin to sap on a maple tree in the shape of a Saint, if you think about it. Anyway it amuses me. I hope these gentle giant idiots get the technical assistance they need to find their way back into the ocean.

(By the way, I kid the whales. I do really hope they’re not in danger and I think I probably would go see them in Rio Vista.)

Update: Plumwin called it: put a fork in Musselman.

The word on the street is not so good for Kings Coach Eric Musselman. The Bee adds up a meeting between Geoff Petrie and Musselman today and Petrie going on a scouting trip Sunday night and suggests that the hammer will come down today. What do you think?

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We’ve banned lead paint. Lead dishes. Lead cookware. Lead pencils. Lead candy. Lead medicine (it’s a traditional Mexican cure for diarrhea).

But we still have lead bullets.

It appears that California might be moving towards a ban on the use of lead in bullets due to some new studies on the effects of lead on endangered species, especially the California Condor, the largest terrestrial bird in the United States.

Continue reading “California considers banning lead bullets” »

CBS-13 reported today on a meteorite found ten miles west of Stockton on Victoria Island. The crater is estimated to be three miles wide, several times larger than the really cool Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona. Scientists think that the impact was 50 million years ago and will begin excavating the blast site that lies underneath more than a mile of soil.

Could this be the magical tourist attraction that will change Stockton from a mediocre backwater shithole to… a less mediocre backwater shithole? If not, I hope that they can dig up enough of the fragments to put an exhibit on this in the Haggin Museum.

I shouldn’t have to post this, but Sacramento never ceases to amaze me. From News10.net:

Sacramento Metro Fire spokesman Christian Pebbles said the fire spread rapidly, stretching across the length of a football field within minutes. Fire officials said they have not determined how the fire started, but the creosote-soaked trestle fueled intense black smoke that could be seen from more than 50 miles away.

The fire brought rush-hour traffic to a halt on the Capital City Freeway bordering the state fairgrounds as commuters stopped to look at the blaze. Some even got out of their cars and began walking towards the flames, forcing officials to use megaphones to warn spectators away.

As if the blazing heat wasn’t enough to keep folks from stopping? Gadzooks:

Brief direct contact with large amounts of coal tar creosote may result in a rash or severe irritation of the skin, chemical burns of the surfaces of the eyes, convulsions and mental confusion, kidney or liver problems, unconsciousness, and even death. Longer direct skin contact with low levels of creosote mixtures or their vapors can result in increased light sensitivity, damage to the cornea, and skin damage. Longer exposure to creosote vapors can cause irritation of the respiratory tract.

As always, stay classy Sacramento…

You might not know this, but it makes sense that Sacramento is officially “Camellia City of the World”. You also might not have known that today is Camellia Day. One thing is for sure. You can’t miss the fact that there are probably a million of these brightly hued flowers blooming across the city, as the always do in the waning days of winter.

Camellias are native to Southeast Asia and first came here, like many other things, during the Gold Rush. Colonel James Lloyd Lafayette Franklin Warren came out West from Boston in 1851 to open, among other retail establishments, a seed shop. A year later, he imported the first batch of Camellia seeds into Sacramento and they quickly took root as one of the favorite local blooms.

Continue reading “Camellia Day” »

When I was a young, strapping, college-going lad, a wise fellow took me under his wing.  He taught me how to dress, how to dance, and how to pick up chicks.

I remember one night at a club, when a limousine pulled up in front.  My mentor grabbed me by the arm, and took me aside.  I excused myself from the honey whose first four phone number digits I had just procured. He took me to the window and pointed to the car.  A door opened, and about nine middle aged women, wearing clothes that their bodies could not cash, came flying out in a drunken hysteria, and piled into the club.

Continue reading “Beware the cougs” »

This was taken earlier today by my soon-to-be 4 year old daughter, who has become something of a shutterbug. Her eye for composition and humor is actually kinda freaky-good. Look forward to more Sacramento shots by the second-youngest of the CoolDMZ household.

Knocked off early at the widget factory yesterday and took the family (or they took me) to Ancil Hoffman for some non-lethal turkey hunting (using our minds). The deers are so thick there that you start to wonder if they aren’t over populated. Also you start to wonder if maybe they aren’t supposed to be more standoffish toward us humans. We saw two young bucks banging heads and had to hightail it. Turkeys were out in force as well, as were giant salmon in the river. We saw a massive salmon head/skull on the riverbank that had teeth the size of a dog’s. As usual the only wildlife thankfully not present were rattlers and mountain lions.

Maybe it was the company, or the early widget dismissal, but if you’ll permit a timely hiatus from the snark, this was one of those days where I counted myself among the luckiest people on earth to be living in Northern California.