Author: CoolDMZ

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

“A bit of ‘Wow'” coming to K Street

'But God is like, holding a guitar'

Via Heckasac (now with image banners! but still no hyperlinks) enjoy this Sac Press article on the choice monuments to douchebaggery coming soon to Midtown:

Pizza Rock, with its red neon sign and laser-cut metal flames, seems to burst from between its two sister venues. Filigreed flowers, hearts, stars and butterflies – designed to look like tattoo art – soften the sign, inspired by tattoos worn by Pizza Rock co-owner Tony Gemignani’s wife. LED backlights will be added to give the flame a shadow.

Continue reading ““A bit of ‘Wow’” coming to K Street”

Open thread: What to do about these Kings?

Is regicide the only answer?

Well, that sucked. There were some bright spots, most notably getting ‘Reke back, but otherwise not good. So, open thread especially for us mostly out-of-the-loop-don’t-really-care types to suggest what can be done to salvage this season. I’ll start off the discussion: More jazz bass. RIP Wayman

P.S. Sac Bee, what is the deal with the URLs lately? That one literally has “asdf” repeated about a dozen times. Is this a thing I don’t know about? Does purposely trying not to have SEO lead to greater SEO?

A very Midtown Christmas!

Swanberg’s, via Yelp

If the rain lets up in the middle of the day this weekend, and you need to head out to fill your stockings this holiday season by patronizing some local shops, the nexus of 24th-26th and Jay Street is your best bet. With shops like University Art, Fleet Feet, Dragatomi, Book Collector, Mixed Bag, and Swanberg’s, there’s bound to be something for everybody. The family and I strolled it over the weekend and it’s a fun time even for the little ones.

As a counterpoint to my own post, I’d like to get something off my chest. I do love University Art but I have to say that shopping there the last few years hasn’t been the same experience as it once was. I can’t quite pin it down but something about their offerings for kids is not doing it for me anymore. All the art supplies for kids lean toward the Crayola/Rose Art side of things — stuff you can get for much, much cheaper at Target. There are lots of kitschy/retro toy items but for some reason it seems disjointed. It seems like what originally made it such a great shop was the odd crafty kits for kids and that seems to be lacking from the current product lineup. Has anyone else had this feeling?

Continue reading “A very Midtown Christmas!”

RT to add electronic message signs

DSC08859
Creative Commons License photo credit: freya.gefn

Regional Transit announced via their “Next Stop News” brochure that they have begun installing electronic billboards at “key light rail stations.”

Initially, scheduled train arrival times will be displayed on the signs, as well as service disruption information and other RT news. Real-time train arrival times will be displayed starting in spring 2011 using GPS to track the movements of RT vehicles.

This is a pretty nice addition to the light rail commute. If the trains could only serve more people it would make up for the thrice annual cuts to bus service. Continue reading “RT to add electronic message signs”

Open thread: Local holiday shopping

I was inspired by Stickie’s post about giftable local eats, so I’m starting an open thread for ideas, tips, rants/raves, reviews on local holiday gift shopping. I know that this is sort of a strange topic since we’re an online blog (as opposed to an offline blog which is just standing on a corner and shouting) but we’re also all about local, and there is a certain charm to picking out gifts in person.

We’re a bit behind on ours this year but we love TrailMix.net, University Art, and Gifted Gardener.

I’m a victim!

Where's my bike
Creative Commons License photo credit: Craig A Rodway

I had to leave my commuter bike locked but unattended at the 59th Street Light Rail Station on Tuesday during working hours. I did remember to remove my front wheel and lock it together with my back wheel, and I remembered to remove my headlamp and computer (odometer, speedometer, etc). However, when I returned to my trusty steed at 5:00 or so, my bike was still there but pretty much everything that was not locked down was gone.

Continue reading “I’m a victim!”

Not creepy at all!

DSCF8635
Creative Commons License photo credit: Kingfox

An enterprising and holiday-spirited local person wants your childs (sic) name and address, for holiday purposes of course:

So here is how this will work send me two dollars per letter you want sent out (per kid) cash or money order (Just because of the stamps and paper).
Also include the childs name what letter you want sent out and the information you want in the letter. Childs name(s)

I think you might also want to send a recent photo of your child. For Santa.

Joel McHale at Mem. Auditorium Dec. 11

Joel McHale
Creative Commons License photo credit: Alan Light

Joel McHale, star of E!’s “The Soup” and NBC’s “Community” is coming to the Memorial Auditorium on December 11th. Unfortunately the ticket prices are heinous, or not, depending on your internal heinousness gauge.

I love Joel’s schtick on both shows and I’m glad he is a famous dude. There are very few performances I would pay a lot to see, but there are also very few things I would go out at night to do in the first place.

Free parking!

The City of Sacramento will be continuing its popular free parking program this year starting with Black Friday. Metered parking is free after 4:30 p.m. weekdays and all day on Saturdays and Sundays from Friday, November 26, through Friday, December 24. There is also free parking at the East End Garage for the first 90 minutes and $1 per hour thereafter, up to a maximum of $5. Free parking at East End is weeknights 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. and all day on weekends.

The metered parking is bounded by L and I Streets and Front St. and 29th.

Free parking map (PDF)

Sac Bee reports Sac Bee to change comments

The Sac Bee reports today that the Sac Bee will switch over to using Disqus for its commenting system on December 1.

Disqus offers many new options to watch, follow and share comments – and promotes greater accountability among contributors to boost the overall quality of comments.

If we’ve learned anything it’s that technology can always improve human discourse. There will be more integration with Facebook, which is an Internet Website, but it looks like the biggest change is that the Bee will purge its site of all the old comments. Which means that commenters like “derphmm” will need to create new gems of wisdom, like this one on the upcoming comments changes (posted to The State Worker blog)

Boy this is a GREAT IDEA! (NOT!!) Now if any state employee comments on anything those wacked out state employee haters can hunt you down and beat or kill you! Oh boy what a joy to look forward to!!!! And you can’t tell me that there are not enough state employee haters to cause this concern, and you can’t tell me that they aren’t that crazy either, look at so many of the anti worker comments!
Another way for the BEE to Stiffle any reasonable discourse and make it a more hostile place to express any opinion that is not in line with the Ghestapo!
You go and let the lunitics rule!!!