Library cash story brings out good comments on SacBee

cold hard cashI expend a lot of hot air trashing the Bee’s comment feature, but today I have to eat my words. (It appears I must also attend mixed metaphor college.) From today’s Bee story about two library branches no longer accepting cash after the branches have experienced thefts.

Commenter “kevinakin1950” smartly questions the legality of refusing to accept American currency, and goes on to point out that a no-cash policy would discriminate against the poor, who presumably don’t have credit cards. (Let’s not get started on all the people out there who are poor because of their credit cards…)

Continue reading “Library cash story brings out good comments on SacBee”

Don’t worry, your ice cream is safe

Jack GallagherYou should have seen my face when I read the headline on CBS13.com, “Famous Crystal Company Goes Bust.” Don’t worry, it’s just about the Waterford company, based in London. I’m not accustomed to getting my U.K. financial news from the home page of my local news website.

Crystal milk products are of course now produced by Foster Farms, and you may continue to enjoy their delicious and affordable milk products at your local greengrocer.

Watts out at KCRA

Local news is a fickle game. We’ve always tried to follow the action along the way and provide you with our observations and updates. In fact, these observations and updates have been one of the main reasons people find themselves on this here web log.

In this tradition we must begin our paper trail for Julie Watts who was recently “laid off” from KCRA (btw, I’ve always thought the term “laid off” was for seasonal workers like lumberjacks or carpenters…)

While I am on the subject of annoying terms and euphemisms, here’s a blurb from the Sacramento Business Journal article:

“We’ve had some staff reductions,” said KCRA general manager Elliott Troshinsky. “These are challenging economic times and we needed to scale our business accordingly.”

“Staff reductions” eh? “Challenging economic times”? Why didn’t you say so. Well, who is going to pick up the weather reporting slack in Julie’s absence? You know, cause times is tough all over in case you haven’t heard.

Wait, what’s this? Hello, Byron Miranda, what’s going on? What are you doing here? Oh, you were recently hired to forecast the weather at KCRA? How odd. They just recently reduced staff, you know…I did catch him on his first day when he made a joking reference to his ex-wife. Make yourself at home, BM.

Good luck, Julie. Hope the blogging thing works out for you. Let us know if you need any help.

Sac Brew Oasis Closes

Sadly, Sacramento Brewing Company closed its second location, The Oasis. This is the second brewpub we have lost in the past year, so let’s hope this trend stops. Thankfully, their super-awesome beers (and better-than-average brewpub cuisine) are both still available at the original Sac Brew location at Fulton and Marconi in the Country Club Town and Country Shopping Center. When I last visited them two weeks ago, they had 15 homemade beers on tap that ranged the gambit, from a pilsner to a bourbon barrel aged wheat wine.

Support your local brewery! You never know when you are going to lose it!

Board in Sacto?

The Game Guy isn’t just some modern, fly-by-night nerd who focuses only on video games and fancy gaming systems.  No sir: The Game Guy has classic nerd running through his body that been transfused by years of comic books, TSR role play gaming, and Magic: The Gathering.  Despite the satisfaction video games can bring when that competitive itch comes up, there’s something sophisticated and classy about gathering friends together around a board or card game with some brews for a night of gaming.

It dawned me after a hard-fought night of Risk with friends, that Sacramento really needs a game-friendly pub where booths can be occupied by pints and players, without the need to fight against the tools trolling to get a piece at the bar- a place where I could gather at a metaphorical hearth and smoke my metaphorical pipe with other friends (who may or may not be metaphorical).

So I ask you, dear Raggers, do you know of any game-friendly environments at the established drinkeries in our town? I don’t mean the team trivia nights, but the kind where a guy and his five friends can show up with a copy of Zombies! in tow, pint-up, and get their nerd on?

Punching the Bee’s Ticket: Sacramento Comedy Spot Featured

Sure, we all know that Sac hates hip-hop, but the Bee sure loves improv.  Resisting the urge to feature another poorly reviewed movie on the cover of the Friday Ticket, the Bee went with the local angle and featured performers from the Sacramento Comedy Spot.  Stepping away from his usual theater and dance reviews, Bee critic Marcus Crowder does a nice writeup of the shows being offered at the ‘Spot every Friday night.  

Hats off to the small group of folks who work hard at the ‘Spot every week to put on creative, entertaining shows, not least of which director Brian Crall, who busts his ass to keep the place running like a wildly uncontrollable ship without a rudder.  Improv at the Comedy Spot runs every Friday night at 9pm, tickets are $10, presale tix can be purchased on the ‘Spot’s website.

Berkeley woman fights off armed carjacker

Harmony Bates
from CBS13.com

With a small pair of scissors and the jacker’s own gun, threatening to “shoot his balls off” if he didn’t walk away.

“I grabbed [the scissors] and I started stabbing him in the shoulder, I started stabbing him in the neck,” Harmony said, unimpressed by his fighting ability. “I thought, ‘That’s all he has for a punch?'”

Right AWN, Harmony Bates!

Only happy when it rains

Please to allow me to continue the rant I started before Christmas.

So the results of a survey about the employment outlook for 2009 in Sacramento were released on Wednesday. Check out the headlines from the Google News feed:

Super…Great…Grand. Did I mention that we get it? No one is saying that these are the days, but come on. Report different.

Continue reading “Only happy when it rains”

Stayin’ classy in the New Year

KCRA’s report on a shooting death early in the New Year includes one of those “can’t be serious” quotes:

“I was just chillin’ at the party and then all of a sudden I hear that my friend’s been like shot down pretty much.”

“Pretty much” in this case being 100%. Every element of that sentence is classic! This guy reminds me of the Upright Citizens Brigade character “Bong Boy” who smokes so much pot he can’t tell reality from reality television–when he’s being arrested he thinks he is watching “COPS,” etc. It’s possible that’s what’s going on here…