Driving up Folsom Blvd just now I noticed two East Sacramento establishments in some sort of flux… the Hospice Thrift store seems to be closing up shop or moving, or perhaps just the awning is out for cleaning. Seems like if they were moving there would be a “We’re Moving” sign. The second storefront with something strange afoot is the Hilltop bar, which kind of looked like there might have been water damage inside. Anybody have any gossip?
I likey the new by-line
Whoa – I see some of those promised 2006 upgrades are starting to show up. Did anyone else notice the fancy new by-lines set up here on the Rag? I’m impressed.
Rest in peace Jimmy, we hardly knew thee
Jimmy, the Sac Zoo’s rare and endangered golden-bellied mangabey, has died.
But, who was Jimmy? Even the Zoo isn’t entirely sure:
According to the zoo, golden-bellied mangabeys are considered endangered. There are only 19 golden-bellied mangabeys in North American zoos. Little is known from the wild about these primates. They believe the primates only live naturally in a small area in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Not to make little of the loss to the Zoo, but CBS13’s online write-up of the story sounds too much like a Seinfeld bit.
Every body knows (our) name
The E. K. McClatchy branch of the Sacramento Public Library might be one of my favorite places in town. Located in a former (I want to say Georgian?) mansion in the Poverty Ridge neighborhood, it is a drafty old house full of books. It’s small, so you can’t do research there like you can at the Central branch or anything, and chances are they Won’t Have It, but if you’re down for browsing or you need a dozen books for your 3 year old every week it’s top notch.
Well, it got better yesterday when we got a call from the branch librarian, Joanne, to inform us that said 3 year old had left behind an important piece of plastic jewelry. We’ve become noted regulars!
Origins of “snark”
I’m not claiming to be the foremost Internet researcher, but via Literature.org, via Google, via Websnark.com, via Rachel Leibrock… “The Hunting of the Snark” by Lewis Carroll.
When I started using it here I had gotten it from Television Without Pity, but the specifics of the reference are lost now. I think it was on a t-shirt.
Speaking of Driving
Speaking of driving, I’ve had a fascination with people’s license plate frames recently after finding out, with a well placed inquiry, that the license plate frames with “KA 4993†on them are not flashing CB call letters nor some secret Mormon code as I had previously deduced, but instead indicate that the driver is a family member of a CHP officer.
This got me thinking of other area specific car adornments, and, by far, I find the most annoying to be the “Harrold Ford since 1911†license plate frame. Why, you ask? Because, Harrold Ford, if you’ve been around since 1911 then you have had time to fix the stupid license plate frame you have where the numbers 1-9-1-1 run up into the corner of the frame like it was designed by some 6 year old who started with letters that were too big and still tried to cram everything in at the end of the line. Have some pride for Chrissakes. If your logo doesn’t fit on your advertising medium then maybe it’s time to find a new logo or a new medium, not to fit your oh so catchy logo on the back of a Focus that’s cluttered with “Mystery Spot†and “Keep Tahoe Blue†stickers. For the love of God, just put your name on the frame and leave it at that. Is that so hard? Maybe I should start taking the Light Rail.
Ho’s on the Light Rail
There hasn’t been much news on the Light Rail beat – just the usuall guys smoking huge fatties right in front of the police, etc. – but last night I witnessed a totally rad fight. A middle-aged business woman was getting on the train while a teeny-bopper Hallaback girl was getting off. They bumped into each other in the aisle. This prompted said Hallaback girl to go OFF, yo. She started screaming immediately (and now I will curse in the manner of Buster from Arrested Development) “F YOU, YOU B” to which the other woman simply and elegantly flipped the bird. The girl had to get off the train – it was her stop after all – but she continued yelling through the open doors, “I F-ed YOUR HUSBAND LAST NIGHT, B, AND HE PAID ME FOR IT TOO, HO!” This was repeated numerous times, louder and louder. I spent the next three stops trying to solve the riddle of whether being paid to have sex with someone’s husband wouldn’t in fact make you the “ho.” Light rail is SO much better than driving.
This one’s for all the parents
If you live or work in midtown, around the [ahem] Sutter General Hospital, you have undoubtedbly seen what my three year old daughter calls the “Mommy Bus,” the blue shuttle that makes a stop near the corner of the hospital and is emblazoned with a marketing image of a mom and baby.
Yesterday my daughter saw two of them, and here was her reaction, verbatim:
Two of them? They’re gonna fight, that’s what Daddy would say.
She knows me so well. That is exactly what I would say. But so far it hasn’t happened.
Piling on (sort of)
As DMZ mentioned here earlier this week, the News & Review published Robert Berry’s Top 10 list of annoying things about Sacramento. Topping the list was Mark S. Allen. Now who doesn’t love them some MSA bashing? Count me in, that’s for sure, but my frame of reference for my insults are still based on the Scratch days. So to get up to speed I checked in on the Good Morning Sacramento Today show on UPN 31 for the first time in months and, man alive, what has happened to that guy?
So they toss it to MSA and Nick chimes in with a great flat ironing joke which MSA uncomfortably accepts (see photo, come on, man, take your age like a man). He proceeds to interview each of the hourly producers on the show who were discussing what each segment was going to be about. He then makes a crack about his run in with Peter Jackson oh so long ago and how one of them made the right career choice, or something. If you check out his bio you’ll notice he loves the self deprecation. But he does it in that way that makes you a little uneasy, you know? He does hold the record for the most jalapenos eaten in one minute, however. So he’s got that going for him. And, to his credit, he has a listing on IMDB, which I clearly do not have.
Bottom line is (for when I undoubtedly run into him at Trader Joe’s…people in San Francisco don’t have to worry about this stuff, huh?) that he has made a living in this business we call show for a long time now so, unless he’s holding pictures of high powered people in uncompromising positions, he must be doing something right.
Be kind, don’t malign our fine bovine
You know, something’s been smelling lately around the offices of the Sac Rag, but it ain’t the cows.
The Central Valley’s uddered citizens get a bad rap, since it’s commonly believed that the emissions from bovine tootification significantly contribute to the poor air quality in the area. However, a recent study done at UC Davis has exonerated our four-legged milk-shaking friends. Against conventional wisdom, the researchers believe that plants contribute more to smog-forming gases than cows. Moreover:
The valley’s air pollution problems are more related to geography than internal pollution sources like cows, surmised the UC scientist. The valley is rimmed by mountains which prevent smog from escaping once it is blown in via prevailing winds from the West.
So, leave our cows alone. They’re just trying to make it – like any one of us – in this world.
The Sac Rag 