Get your huntin’ gear here

Get wet! SplashDogs at Cal ExpoAs one of a really small subset of political animal — an urban liberal with guns, an account at Cabela’s and a freezer full of ducks — I find myself both delighted and appalled by the International Sportsmen’s Expo, which wraps up today at CalExpo.

Delighted because I love my huntin’ retrievers, and I love being outdoors with my huntin’ retrievers. And I love looking at gear for huntin’ retrievers. The ISE is a great place to do that, better than the biggest Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shop combined. For me it’s all about the dogs, the celebration of the bond between a working dog and handler, and a retriever doing what he was bred to do, with enthusiasm and style. I have come to accept rather grudgingly that what my dogs do involves the occasional demise of some very pretty waterfowl. Sacramento, by the way, is smack dab in the middle of some of the best waterfowl huntin’ areas in the nation.

Continue reading “Get your huntin’ gear here”

The 411 on the CRV

For those of you not up on your recycling news, as of January 01, 2007 the California Refund Value (CRV) paid to consumers when they recycle containers at recycling centers is 5¢ for each beverage container less than 24 ounces and 10¢ for each container 24 ounces or greater.

Folks looking for a place to recycle their goods can search here. From the FAQ page:

Customers will continue to pay the current 4¢ for beverage containers under 24 oz. and 8¢ for containers 24 oz. and greater through June 30, 2007. Beginning July 1, 2007, if an overall recycling rate of 75% has not been achieved for calendar year 2006, consumers will pay 5¢ for beverage containers under 24 oz. and 10¢ for containers 24 oz. and greater that they purchase in California.

Hear that, Sacramento? There’s money to be made out there. Sure, you could enter a radio contest and sue when things don’t go your way or mingle online with registered sex offenders, but those of you with that “can do” spirit know what I’m talking about. Don’t let the homeless and less fortunate have all the fun, get out there and collect those bottles and cans. They won’t recycle themselves you know! Or wait, maybe they will…

Continue reading “The 411 on the CRV”

MySpace & personal responsibility

While we are on the topic, I wanted to mention this story about a lawsuit that has been filed against News Corp. (the owners of the popular social networking site MySpace.)

Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday.

I know, shocking right? Nevertheless, the debate rolls on whether society should hold organizations like MySpace or 107.9 The End accountable for incidents like this. The site provides the forum for chaos and mayhem, but people themselves actually provide the chaos and the mayhem, right?

“In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,” said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer.

Ah, interesting. But, shouldn’t the underage girls know better than to visit the site and chat it up with older dudes? I mean, no one puts a gun to these girl’s heads (if you read the story you’ll find that comes later) and forces them to log on.

Continue reading “MySpace & personal responsibility”

Throw The Book at The End

My heart goes out to the family of Jennifer Strange, who apparently died of water intoxication during a radio contest on “Morning Rave,” the morning show on “The End.” Ten people were fired today, and I have to assume that includes whoever was “in charge” at the time. Admittedly, water intoxication is probably not something everybody knows about, and I don’t know how many people are actually working during an FM radio morning show, or how the vetting process works for the contests (that process must not contain a humor component, as this whole tragic effed-up mess was aimed at making a pee joke about the Nintendo Wii). But somebody should have said something. Well, somebody like nurse practitioner Judith Linder did say something:

She and two co-workers called the radio station on a speaker phone, and their comments that water intoxication can be dangerous were part of the broadcast.

A DJ retorted, asking them why they didn’t join the contest. Linder said they replied: We don’t want to die.

I say criminal negligence. Throw the book at ’em.

Trans-fat bill exempts junk food in schools?

Don’t even get me started about the new Statewide trans-fat ban bill. There are circles of Snark Hell reserved for the nanny-state sillyness in the California Assembly. At least with this round, you say, the nannies are protecting the children:

Oils that contain less than 0.5 grams per serving would be OK, as would pre-packaged foods sold in schools

D’oh. Well, at least they banned smokable cancer sticks, right? Double d’oh!!

R.E. off to a Bee-less future

R.E. GraswichI really ought to turn in my cub reporter press pass. Last week I heard from no fewer than three reputable sources that R.E. Graswich was to be among those people taking the buyout offer at Fort McClatchy. But I never got around to posting about it.

Bob himself beat me to it, reporting the news at the end of his column yesterday.

He goes a long way back in this town’s inky history, starting at the Rancho Cordova Grapevine (where he got some notice as a teenager for covering tough news stories). At the Bee, he covered prep sports, ran the prep sports coverage, covered the Kings for a few years and finally ended up turning his bar-cruising and Hawaiian shirt-wearing ways into a career as the short item talk-of-the-town writer.

Continue reading “R.E. off to a Bee-less future”

What would you change?

It’s been a while since we’ve discussed the pros and cons of the current queue system at the Lyon Village Peet’s Coffee.  Since then, a few of us (namely, Sac-Eats and RonTopOfIt, and I) have conjured up our ideas for improving the process flow at Peet’s, including sketching out how we’d change up the store to make it more customer friendly during the very busy parts of the day. Continue reading “What would you change?”

Soup’s On

With the weather dipping below the Fahrenheit equivalent of the Maginot line, my cravings for salad and sandwiches and light fare have disappeared faster than a couple of lesbians at dinner when it’s time to split the check.  So, I’ve traveled the greater downtown and adjoining areas to sample the soups of the realm and with a little help from my friends at the Sacramento Food Forum found a few winners amongst the offerings. Continue reading “Soup’s On”

Copper is all craze!

Has anyone else noticed that on cbs13.com (other local sites, too, I’ve just noticed it more here lately) they “write” their online stories by sort of transcribing their video reports? For example, I’m reading today’s story about recent copper thefts on construction sites. I start to read the first few sentences and I notice that there a several errors. So I watch the corresponding video from the newscast. Ron Jones tells me that there is a rash of copper burglaries in Sacramento. The text in the story is more or less the text from the video report. Except that key words are removed:

The owners of a construction supply company in West Sacramento tell us a guy driving a nice tan or gold colored Chevy Suburban is copper thief…Copper is all craze among legitimate customers and recycling thieves…The suspected thieve is accused of stealing about 2,000 pounds worth…

I can go on and on. It seems like lazy journalism. As with most local online news stories (not just cbs13.com) I wonder if anyone ever reads them after they go live. Perhaps it’s an automated system that converts the spoken word to print. If so, does anyone know how this works? I wish we knew people at local news stations that could shed some light on this!