kitty burrito

Just in time for this week’s News & Review, I’d like to react to last week’s cover piece on burritos written by Ben Russell. Russell really seems to know how to turn a phrase, and the piece is actually incredibly informative. For example it confirmed my preference for Guerrero’s tortillas as the best tortillas at your local supermarket (or your massive soulless food chain, whatever your preference), and it taught me that the word for people from the state of Jalisco in Mexico is Jaliscenes.

Continue reading “SN&R “on” best burritos” »

…better than all the rest, as they say. Specifically this here web log, which once again won the News & Review’s Reader’s Choice award for Best Local Blog. MarkTalk.com and Heckasac round out the top three. For those of you playing along at home those are the top three finishers from last year’s voting.

We couldn’t have done it without you readers, of whom at least 7 or 8 must have voted for us. As we’ve said time and again we have a ton of fun doing this and most of that fun is caused by the reactions we get. We’re hoping you’ll stay with us in the coming year.

And we’ll try not to be offended by Heckasac’s obvious ploy to steal our thunder regarding the impending award by announcing again last week that she is quitting again. (We kid the beckler of course.)

Also congrats to my father who repeats as Best Local Doctor. DMZs FTW!!!

UPDATE @ 2:00PM: Because I didn’t think to look in the Luxuries & Necessities category, I failed to notice that we also were voted #3 in the Best local Web site category. Fabulous. Thanks to sac-eats for pointing it out.

May I turn your attention to the latest anti-war protest coverage from SN&R. This is the kind of thing that makes me feel SN&R is often just a half-step up from a zine I got from some kid at the show my mom didn’t know I went to. Oh wait, it’s 2007 and I’m in my 30’s? Never mind. Anyway it’s kind of a non-story, but the only people who showed up at a recent anti-war protest were old hippies romanticizing the 60’s, and the effect was neither as far out nor as radical as hoped for. Some but not all obvious conclusions include a) lots of people who oppose the war recognize the issue is a lot more complex than a bumpersticker can address or b) lots of people support the U.S. action in Iraq or c) anti-war protest groups need some help in the organizational department.  I’d be interested in hearing a report about these or any other curious aspects of the paltry attendance at an anti-war rally held in state portrayed as being wildly opposed to the war.  Instead SN&R chose the approach of assuming that there exists a massive body of folks who believe violence has suddenly been popping up in the Middle East with no genesis but “U.S. Policy” but we don’t see them at protests because the great spirit of passionate outrage and protesting has been suppressed by evil oil companies and corporate-backed politicians or the Patriot Act or something like that. I’m bored of my own post just thinking about this type of cliched analysis of the political landscape.  The end.

I’m getting a little behind here, working on launching a new website called BLUE MAG, an entertainment wing to my online mansion. Enjoy…

So a completely new look for the News & Review website. I think aspects of it are very attractive but it seems to me to be way too busy.

A great railyard story in last week’s issue as well. Mayor Fargo thinks that Thomas Enterprises didn’t bargain hard enough to get Union Pacific to move the tracks to accomodate the new infrastructure.

“Union Pacific should have moved their tracks. They could have done it. It would have been easy. … It’s a little bit of a sore subject, because we had hoped that our partners in all of this would be stepping up a little more, but the reality is, we wanted to get this done badly.”

So had we, Heather.

Chuck Rosenthal,
one of my heroes

I know what you’re thinking, he can’t even write about local crime statistics without getting hated on, and now he thinks he’s a literary critic? Well naysayer, I’ll have you know I studied writing under Chuck Rosenthal, whose short short story “The Nicest Kid in the Universe” was anthologized in the eponymous anthology “Flash Fiction.” Anywhoo, this year’s stories are lame, and again I know what you’re thinking, no I don’t mean lame in an over-the-top shocking and offensive way. I mean lame fiction in the traditional sense. Continue reading “SNR flash fiction offerings fail to impress” »

Best of Sacramento 2006 people’s choice voting is up at newsreview.com. I don’t think there is a “best illegal tax deal” category but I suppose you could not vote for Biba in the “best place to blow an extra quarter on your $100 meal.” Sorry, I just can’t turn it off. HULK ANGRY!

Perusing the newly released Best of Sacramento list over at the Snooze and Review (get it?) I am not surprised to see that The Sac Rag’s acquisition of the top spot in the hearts and minds of Sacramento’s online set is going to have to continue to work the grassroots approach. Lots of press for Heckasac as Best entertainment blog and readers-choice Best Blog (beating out frickin Weintraub, wow). Two of the award-winning sites hit us up with semi-frequent linkage (Heckasac and Uneasy Rhetoric) so maybe this well deserved attention for those bloggers will give the Rag crew a little indirect lovin’.

At least, that’s how I was thinking until I found the results of Reader’s Choice best local Web site:

NapkinNights
http://sac.napkinnights.com
2. Suckramento.com
www.suckramento.com
3. Sacramento Midtown.com
www.sacramentomidtown.com

Well, zero out of 3 ain’t bad. Do not click the first two, but click the third for a nice laugh (unless you designed that site, in which case, nice work. Great job.)

On an unrelated note, though, thank you Chrisanne Beckner for giving me the answer to a riddle by exposing A&A Imports as the source of the strong and enticing donut smell at McKinley Park.