River Cats, get excited yeah!!!

#1 FAN!!!
I can't believe I have used this photo twice.

As the soon-to-be only game in town, this is the perfect week for the River Cats to open their 2011 campaign. This week also has the advantage of being the week that every other team is starting their season.

The Bee’s Appetizers blog has a roundup of new food items at Raley Field, including a “baked potato dog.”

The roster will feature several players from last year’s division title winning team.

The home opener is Thursday against the hated Tacoma Rainiers, and will feature $2 Miller beers!

Let’s hear from you, River Cats fans: What are you most looking forward to about the River Cats season?

Comedy Spot Seeks Funds for Signage

Anybody who knows anything knows that the Sacramento Comedy Spot kicks ass. I’ve been seeing shows there since their humble beginnings on Broadway and love their theater at the MARSS building, but it is pretty easy to walk by them and not even know that there is a professional theater troupe there. Why? No marquee.

This is why SCS is holding an online fundraiser to try and grab some attention. There are a variety of ridiculously generous offers in exchange for your support. A lifetime pass for $500? Six months of advertising for your business for $200? Awesome.

I’ll gladly be ponying up the $20 to help in the effort and I hope you will, too.

Voetbergs swing the crowd at Library Galleria

The rain finally broke Sunday and this was almost as welcome a sight as the Voetberg Family Band filling the stage in the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria. And when I say filling the stage, I mean it literally. As promised, the Voetbergs put on a high energy show full of traditional music to a standing room only audience on Sunday. The crowd seemed bigger to me than last year’s show in the same space, but my wife pointed out this was mostly due to it being a Sunday afternoon and not probably due to the overwhelming popularity of my music journalism. Also, having been to the Camellia Symphony concert the previous weekend I saw almost all of the same people. It’s a really diverse crowd that comes out to these library events, from young hippie couples to old hippie couples and everyone in between.

The next time you get an opportunity definitely come check out the awesome Voetberg Family Band!

(l to r) Annie, Elisha, Vance, Tucker (on drums), Deter, Liddy, Rudy, Lilja. All bass players should be required to be named Deter.

Kitchen Nightmares in Sac- Nominate Your Least Favorite Restaurant

Gordon Ramsay is coming to our fair city. The temperamental Scottish chef, known for his pugnacious attitude and glistening, golden-haired barrel-chest will be dropping f-bombs on some of your (least) favorite area restaurants as part of his Fox show Kitchen Nightmares.

This is where you come in. The producers are looking for readers to submit their nominations for the most nightmarish kitchen in town. I’m nominating a few myself — specifically Sweetwater and The Corner — as I think neither of them has a clear culinary vision, tasty food, or skills in the kitchen. And my friends the Crushers saw multiple rodents at Sweetwater. What more do you need?  Continue reading “Kitchen Nightmares in Sac- Nominate Your Least Favorite Restaurant”

Voetberg Family Band concert on Sunday!

The wonderful Voetberg Family Band, from Centralia, WA, is making a return trip to the Central Library this weekend. Last year’s show was well attended and surely won scores of fans here in Sacramento, and I expect to see a massive crowd at the show on Sunday.

This outrageously cute octet is recommended for fans of all sub-genres of Americana music, from bluegrass to gospel. (“Both kinds: country AND western!”) Bring some cash, because you’ll want to bring home one of the family’s CDs, or the debut solo CD of eldest band member Liddy Voetberg, a beautiful collection of religious songs and other traditional tunes titled “He Leadeth Me.”

The Voetberg Family Band
Sunday, March 27 at 2:00PM
Tsakopoulos Library Galleria
Central Library, 828 I Street

Sacramento is the biggest loser

When not social networking, apparently Sacramento enjoys cutting jobs.

The Sacramento region topped job losses in the nation for the last year, according to new figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ninety-three metros suffered declines, and 13 were unchanged. The Sacramento-Arden Arcade-Roseville metro area lost 14,500 nonfarm jobs from January 2010 to January 2011. Atlanta and Las Vegas came next, with respective declines of 12,300 and 9,500.

Nonfarm? Why the face? Man, how can Stockton do us like this?

Morning Commute

I knew that the flood concerns were at their highest level yet in Northern California this winter, with two dozen major river segments now at “monitor” stage, but I had to see it to really believe it. Wow. I was not prepared to walk my bike, waist-high, over and under and through the woods and am paying for it today with no dry socks. The Del Paso Boulevard floodgate was a real sight, too.

Here’s a slideshow of some photos I took this morning on my way in. Starting around mile 3 of the American River Parkway.

Sactown is highly social

2009 Amgen Tour of California Prologue
Creative Commons License photo credit: richardmasoner

According to a survey by Men’s Health, Sacramento is the 18th most socially networked city in the States, beating such larger areas as San Jose and New York City (??). Since this blog is basically my only connection to the social network, as it were, I’m not sure what to make of it. But I guess we’re pretty savvy!

Twitter Towns (Men’s Health)

To tent, or not to tent

There is quite a comment thread going on over at sacbee.com about this article on the tent city situation in Seattle. It’s off-topic already, of course. A lot of Loaves and Fishes bashing.

The tent cities around Seattle run on a system of self-governance, where residents elect leadership councils and vote weekly on matters such as whether to require hand sanitizer in the kitchen tent and who should take charge of cleaning blankets. There is zero tolerance toward drug and alcohol use; profanity and spitting are discouraged. No more than 100 campers are allowed at each site. The encampments are managed by nonprofit organizations, and nearly all financial support comes through fundraising. Residents work security shifts, screening visitors for arrest warrants and patrolling the cramped aisles between tents.

Yowza, no spitting? What is this, Russia? This is some idea though. Kevin Johnson is on board, too.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said last week that he is frustrated that a plan has not materialized. He said a tent city could provide a place for the homeless to transition into permanent housing and “integrate back into mainstream society.”

Well, I wouldn’t go that far… Continue reading “To tent, or not to tent”

La Favorita name change?

Ahora es más machista.

The La Favorita near my home was recently re-christened, and today I noticed that the La Favorita near my workplace has undergone gender reassignment surgery to become El Favorito. They still have the same font on the signs but perhaps that’s just because that font just really says taco. (Can’t think of the font name. Who’s that one commenter who is a typog nerd?)

I haven’t been to either location in a while… does anybody know what is going on? Are they just trying some different names? Did they have to sell off some of those stores?