Name Funderland’s new swing ride, win a party at Funderland

Captioned "Friends forever," courtesy of Funderland's Facebook page
Captioned “Friends forever,” courtesy of Funderland’s Facebook page

Beloved Land Park family amusement park Funderland is adding its first new ride in 25 years, and they are crowdsourcing the ride’s name. If your name is chosen, you win a party at Funderland for yourself and 19 of your closest friends:

We’re so excited about our 1st new ride in 25 years! The new swing ride will be opening soon, but we’re asking for your help. We need a great new name for the ride! Enter our latest giveaway and tell us your best name idea for the swing ride. Just for participating, you’ll be entered to win our Exclusive VIP Party Package for 20! That’s a prize package worth over $1000 – just in time for a Summer Bday Bash!

Personally I’d hold out for naming rights, but that’s OK. I’ll still allow the public to ride on CoolDMZ’s Monsanto PepsiCo Swing Ride presented by Chevrolet (trademark pending).

Funderland – Name our new ride giveaway

City of Trees festival lineup to include “listener choice”

The City of Trees music festival tickets went on sale this morning. The event, to be held August 15 at Gibson Ranch in Elverta, features as a headliner a little local band called “Cake” whose work has been featured in such things as “TV” and “the movies.” In addition to Cake and some other hot acts like Of Monsters and Men and BORNS, the lineup will include a “listener choice” option:

We’re letting YOU, the listener, help us pick the rest of the line-up. Just TEXT the name of your favorite band that you want to see play on stage!

So I’d like to use my social media presence and this bully pulpit that is thesac rag dot com to ask you a favor. Please vote for Buddy Holly and the Crickets. I think Radio 94.7 can pull this off. Text “BAND Buddy Holly and the Crickets” to 31858. Let’s make this happen Sacramento!

City of Trees – Tickets $50-$100 on sale now

Kings submit formal plan for arena development

According to the Biz Journal, the Sacramento Kings submitted formal paperwork to support their development plans for the area surrounding the downtown arena.

A rendering submitted with the application shows the hotel, including a pool deck on an upper floor, immediately north of the arena’s main entrance, and a reconfigured Downtown Plaza facing east, onto the main plaza and the arena.

I think it’s fitting that the 16 story building will all but block the view from the new arena of the Railyard.

Motivations become clearer in tearing down of “world’s nicest projects”

Nice projects, right?
Nice projects, right?

Remember this story from January about a seemingly unmotivated push by developers to knock down a huge swath of public housing in a sleepy part of town and replace it with “mixed-use” buildings? If you don’t, check out the link first, I’ll wait.

Well, it looks like the incentives for completely transforming this rather calm and park-like housing development are coming into focus.  According to the Sacramento Business Journal, a proposed bridge between Sac and West Sac just got a boost in funding:

A much-discussed bridge between Broadway in Sacramento and the Pioneer Bluff area in West Sacramento got a federal funding boost Wednesday — $1.5 million to help start planning the project.

It becomes clear that if the bridge project progresses, land values along the west end of Broadway will shoot up significantly in value, especially as commercial space. And, as is so often the case, if land values are slated to go up, better get the poor folks off the land before they know what’s going on.

I’m perfectly happy with the idea of the bridge going up, as it will help revitalize the Broadway area, which has always been a land of potential. But displacing people from their homes and not being honest about it seems like the worst, old-fashioned, robber-baron behavior.

Mr. Pickles to star in Cartoon Network show

But not the one you’re thinking of. A new “Adult Swim” animated series called “Mr. Pickles” will debut later this fall on Cartoon Network. From the press release:

Mr. Pickles is an original animated series set in the small, old-fashioned world of Old Town that is slowly being taken over by the modern world. The series centers on the lives of the Goodman family and their innocent six-year-old son Tommy, whose best friend is the family’s lovable Border Collie, Mr. Pickles. The two roam around Old Town together getting into classic adventures.

Aww, cute, right?

Unbeknownst to Tommy and everyone else, except Tommy’s Grandpa, Mr. Pickles has an evil streak and frequently wanders off to kill, mutilate and hump his deserving victims.

There’s that Adult Swim angle. No word on whether the horrifying human-pickle hybrid mascot from the Sacramento area sandwich chain will be used in the marketing effort, though he would fit right in.

Sacramentans sought for Stanford speech sampling

Researchers from Stanford University will be in Sacramento from Sept 3-13 for Voices of California, a long term linguistic research project to study regional differences in English as spoken across California. Sacramento probably does have a unique linguistic flavor but those of us who’ve been here long might be hella immune to its nuances. From the press release:

The great environmental diversity of California results in vastly different ways of life across the state. And the diversity of the state’s population brings a variety of linguistic influences to the dialects of California. The Stanford team will be conducting interviews with lifelong Sacramento residents are members of all ethnic communities that have been in Sacramento for several generations.

If you have some time to help with this really interesting study you’re encouraged to call 916-806-6732 or email vocSacramento -at- gmail.com for more info.

Voices of California

Local Redditor has #1 submission

When Redditor “Ransacked,” who you might know as Sac Rag writer “Ransacked,” had a watermelon grow into and through a light fixture in his booming garden, he posted it to Imgur and sent the link to the “MildlyInteresing” forum on Reddit. And then it hit the #1 spot on the entire site. Pic, because it happened:

10339256_10203134259532002_9196110034787573751_o

I’m actually not sure how rare it is for a Sacramentan to have the #1 post on Reddit, but this is where 275 people in a comment thread should tell me all the times it happened.

Gold Rush Days not worth it without the dirt?


“Because of the drought” is becoming the new
“because of the budget.”

Today came the news that Gold Rush Days are being cancelled due to the drought. Specifically because of the 3000 gallons of water used daily to dampen the dust from the dirt spread on the road during the event, normally held Labor Day weekend by Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau.

So you can drive your car down the freeway and park next to a mall and when you’re done you can eat at Joe’s Crab Shack, but it’s out of the question to just do away with the dusty roads? This is the major draw? If that was my decision I might have gambled that Gold Rush Days without the dusty streets is better than no event at all.

Maybe it would have felt too much like just any old day in Old Sac? What do folks who usually attend Gold Rush Days think? Would paved roads not suit the occasion?

Update: No so fast, Visitors Bureau.

Roseville’s Susac called up to SF Giants

qmBoSNosFormer Jesuit High School star Andrew Susac, who was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in 2011, got the call to the big leagues today. This news is so fresh the kid hasn’t even had time to Tweet it yet, but he’ll be in uniform for tonight’s game against the Dodgers.

Susac unfortunately owes his call up to an injury to Hector Sanchez who took a ball off his grill last night in an 8-1 loss to the Dodgers which was kind of like a “ball off the grill” to the whole team. Sanchez has a mild concussion.

Local in the running for potato chip flavor contest

DUAF_Lay's Wavy Mango SalsaYou can’t make this stuff up. Julia Stanley-Metz from right here in Sacramento dreamed up “Wavy Mango and Salsa Potato Chips” and is subsequently one of just 4 finalists for a $1 million grand prize from Lay’s.

On Tuesday, July 29, Julia Stanley-Metz will be joined by the Mayor of the City of Sacramento Kevin Johnson at World Peace Rose Garden to officially proclaim the date, “Lay’s Wavy Mango Salsa Potato Chip Day in Sacramento.”

Continue reading “Local in the running for potato chip flavor contest”