Author: CoolDMZ

"X-ray vision to see in between / Where's my kimono and my time machine?"

Sylva on Loft Livin’

Bob Sylva’s feature in today’s Bee on the current loft craze did not disappoint. It’s an entertaining look at 3 loft dwellers–a rich bachelor, a “Oscar Madison type” (the messy one in the Odd Couple) and a downsized couple with baby (which, of course, represents an anomaly. But the cute family comes out as the most normal-seeming; I guess they don’t turn on you until you turn out more than a baker’s dozen.)

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Double-plus ungood security at Raley’s

Tonight my family and I found ourselves at Raley’s on Folsom Blvd (in the “famous colleges” part of town–Raley’s is actually between Notre Dame Dr and Julliard Dr). After a very successful weekly shopping trip with our two young ladies, we finally made it to the checkout stand, where we found ourselves second in line. And that’s when I noticed that the customer ahead of us was purchasing about a dozen of a certain item, and that said item was being kept by Raley’s in a plastic security device (like they used to use for CDs) which had to be unlocked by the cashier using a specialized tool. This was going to take some time, time that I no longer had. Now, there are a lot of dangerous and/or highly stealable items in your average supermarket–gallons and gallons of liquor, mens magazines, prophylactics, duct tape–so it’s no surprise Raleys would need to take some precautions. This particular item? Infant formula.

The only thing I could think is that, like every single food item in the entire store, infant formula lends itself to being opened and secreted out of the store using all manner of cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, like putting some of it in a bottle to feed your baby because you’re broke and desperate. Is it common to use security protections on infant formula that are not used on any other food item in the store? Is this Raley’s corporate policy, or was it borne of the genius of this particular store?

(And if you’re wondering: no, I’ve never even cracked the cover of 1984. But I think that’s pretty obvious since I think I’m mangling the reference.)

Local boy makes ape

Budding hometown movie star Colin Hanks stars in “King Kong,” a movie about a torrid love affair between a young blonde actress and a monstrous gorilla. I caught Colin on Conan the other night and he gave a great interview–great energy, good stories. Not unlike a certain other world class actor. And no, I am not such a Sac homer that young master Hanks’ screen time is enough to make me want to see this enormous piece of Hollywood poop. Or haven’t you seen the commercial with the Coldplay song? Oh Peter Jackson, you had me at “no-one tosses a dwarf,” but you lost me when King Kong fought a frickin T-Rex. Remake my 24-foot tall arse.

A Christmas (tree) miracle

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Got a great deal on this puppy at the Home Depot, my local branch at Folsom & Howe/Power Inn. It was tagged as a 6-7′ Doug fir, which tree afficionados will know is the cheaper kind. But as you can see, this one has a kind of sparse quality to it that gives it the air of the more expensiver Noble fir. Plus, as you can kinda tell from the photo, this tree is Yao Ming on a bad day (the star basically touches the ceiling, which is 8’2″, and yes, the extra 2″ makes all the difference). Before the Depot crew trimmed the bottom of this beast (they trim and bag them, free of charge) it was probably closer to 9′ than 7′. But the damage was only $23, and that’s one heck of a tree.

And yes, that blue book up on top of the bookshelf is my blackmail archive. Wouldn’t you like to know if you’re in it?