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.
By now you’ve heard of the “Sacramento’s American River Gone Fockin’ Crazy” video, an amateur “Girls Gone Wild” shot in the lawless American river by a creepy young would be video entrepreneur. CBS13 promoted the crap out of their story about the video last night during the broadcast of the (shudder) People’s Choice Awards, or as I like to call them the Yay For Everything Awards!! They cut in every commercial break, and displayed “Girls gone wild on the river” on the screen. Their angle was that County officials are worried that this will lead to more out of control partying on the river. Aren’t County officials also worried that CBS13 is showing us a reporter holding the DVD, showing the YouTube clips, and telling us that it is available in stores for $10?
If you’re a weather geek, you gotta bookmark the Web site of Tom Loffman, an honest-to-heavens meteorologist — as opposed to the Ken or Barbie pointing to a blue screen that’s the pretty much the rule these days. Loffman, of course, spent years on the air in this market, first at the mighty KCRA and then at … KOVR? Am I remembering right? And he’s fondly remembered in some circles for his too-true comment on how TV stations were more interested in having their weather types kiss dolphins than work the weather beat.
Good on you, Tom. Good on you.
The sleepy little town of Roseville announced plans to expand it’s quaint little shopping area recently. The “Galleria” as it is known to the locals will grow from a modest 1.1 million square feet to 1.5 million square feet when all is said and done.
To expand, the Galleria needs the Roseville Planning Commission to OK a modification to its major project permit; a separate permit for the architecture of the new buildings; and the City Council to agree to amend the city’s lease agreement with the mall.
What about consulting local business owners?
At any rate, perhaps now the city will finally get a few of those “chain” restaurants we’ve been hearing so much about. Oh, and for you sports lovers out there, Roseville was also recently named the home of the Sacramento Capitals and will play seven out of fourteen games at The Galleria. This, of course, means they won’t be playing at the wonderfully accommodating Sunrise Mall any longer. Sigh.
Last week, two swipes at Sacramento from the teetering L.A. Times. Today, another. In Bill Dwyre’s column about Florida’s routing of THE Ohio State University last night for the ridiculous no-playoff championship, he manages to mock our admittedly pathetic local Hornets in defending Boise State’s claim on No. 1:
[…] There ought to be a Sacramento State Rule in college football, as in, no team that plays Sacramento State can end up No. 1.
Hmmm. Maybe that rule makes some sense. Boise State didn’t even have to break a sweat, kicking Hornet tail 45-0 in the season opener for both teams. The Hornets lost six more, but I don’t think you can quite call them the closest thing to a gimme in Division I football. After all, they did beat perennial power houses Eastern Washington, Weber State, Northern Colorado and Idaho State. So there.
Last year at about this time, the rivers were challenging the strength of our levees and across the community you could feel that “Honey, did we pay the flood insurance?” vibe. The American River, normally invisible from the levee top in Glenn Hall park, was suddenly right there, mere steps away, and on theHighway 80 route into downtown Sacramento appeared to be an island at the edge of the vast inland sea that was the Yolo Bypass.
This year? Bupkus.
You could ride a mountain bike across parts of the Yolo Bypass basin today, the Sacramento is content to sit in its channel and the American remains its normal lurking presence off-stage at Glenn Hall park. Up in the Sierra, the reservoirs are nowhere near capacity, with the experts suggesting the rest of the water season will be “either above average or below average.”
Gee, thanks.
With Chicken Ranch Slough meandering right behind my house, I’m perhaps more aware of flood risk than anyone outside River Park or the Pocket. After all, in the floods of the ’80s and ’90s, it was the creeks and sloughs that caused much of the problems, backing up like toilets when they couldn’t dump their run-off into the rampaging rivers. Needless to say, I sent off my flood insurance check to State Farm, although after Katrina I don’t have a lot of faith that insurance will help much after the 100-year flood we all know is coming So like many Sacramentans, I watch the rivers, pray for the levees, am ready to run and hope for the best.
And in the dry years, I wish for just a little more of the wet stuff, aware that too little for too long is almost as big a problem as too much for a few days. But seems the wet stuff — or even a little of the white stuff — is on the way.
Introducing Placeblogger, the hottest new thing in blogs dedicated to specific cities. FauxPaws pointed this out to me a few months ago but now it has launched, complete with major financial backing.
Placeblogs are sometimes called “hyperlocal sites” because some of them focus on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail — and in particular, places that might be too physically small or sparsely populated to attract much traditional media coverage.
Sounds right up our alley. Here are the Sacramento placeblogs. Now with 33% McClatchy meat!! (Ours is in the queue.) Continue reading “Placeblogger, putting the L in URL”
There has been an awful lot of chain-bashing going on lately here on the Rag. Most authors here at Rag HQ support local businesses and encourage others to do the same. Heck, why start the Sac Rag in the first place if you don’t appreciate all things local. If we wanted to enjoy the sameness of corporate chains we’d probably write for facelessamericancityrag.com.
But let’s not shy away from the obvious, chains are not going anywhere in the near future unless there happens to be some type of extra terrestrial invasion that wipes out society as we know it. So, let’s learn to live with the chains, appreciate them for what they offer and use them as we need to, not forgetting our local roots and affinities, but not ignoring a piece of the socio-economic puzzle that, in the end, can compliment, rather than undermine, the local scene. (I heart commas.)
So, I give you the following roadmap to navigating the world of restaurant chains and big box eateries: Continue reading “Chain Reaction”
From the L.A. Times:
The love affair between Phil Jackson and the state capital continued Thursday.
“It’s a beautiful place,” he said, opening his arms figuratively with an apparent compliment for Arco Arena. […] “It’s just one of the very few places where you have to walk across the court to get to a locker room that’s a dungeon.”
There’s more, and the LAT seems to like it just a little too much. In fact, they took a dig in another section, too:
Sacramento is a suburb of Los Angeles. Nothing drives home that point more than a walk through Terminal A at Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport at the start of the workweek, where you can see a host of L.A. lawmakers  and lobbyists, political lawyers, labor leaders and corporate executives  waiting for their short hops to the Capitol. […]
California’s capital city may be where all the state’s movers and shakers mingle, but L.A. still rules.
Yeah, just ask ’em. Here’s the rest.
Turned to the back of my Entertainment book to find a page of great money-saving coupons … for Tower. Choked up a little, what am I, made of wood here? Also how sad is it that I have tagged this post to the “Nostalgia” category.
The Sac Rag 