Train fire this morning!

Zombie commuter 2
I’ll stop using this photo when it stops being completely accurate.
Creative Commons License photo credit: Digital Sextant

You know, most days my bike-light rail-bike commute is uneventful. (Most days.) When I have complained about the variable length of trains being an inconvenience that I have been complaining somewhat, though not completely, facetiously. If anything it is a compliment to RT that as a daily LRT commuter this is my chief frustration. (At least, if we don’t get started on the fact that I keep buying monthly passes and yet I haven’t been asked for proof of fare payment in over a year.)

So today I was actually thrilled to have been slightly inconvenienced by the light rail train fire at the Starfire station. I had to disembark Watt/Manlove and catch a shuttle to my usual stop. RT was able to scramble shuttles to meet us there instantaneously.

Continue reading “Train fire this morning!”

McDonald’s sued for marketing to children

Jackie Chiles - Attorney at Law

I am not sure what to make of this article about a Sacramento mother who, along with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is part of a lawsuit against McDonald’s to get them stop using toys to market meals to young children.

Monet Parham said she is upset that her children request McDonald’s food after seeing the company’s ads.

My son requested an Apple iPad for Christmas, should I sue Apple for making them so darn handy? I mean, 9.7 inches of Bejeweled goodness. I am not made of wood you know.

They claim McDonald’s decision to markets its meals directly to young children violates several consumer protection laws because it exploits a child’s vulnerability.

A child’s vulnerability? To play with toys and crave French fries? How about the cereal aisle at the supermarket? The positioning of those sugary-sweet-teeth-rotters exploits a child’s vulnerability to not see anything above 4 feet, right?

Continue reading “McDonald’s sued for marketing to children”

Hallelujah panic! UPDATE

RonTopofIt just alerted me to this situation at the Roseville Galleria:

Evacuations were ordered at the Westfield Galleria at Roseville Monday night because a “flash mob” by the Sacramento Choral Society brought an overcrowding concern.

The Galleria has had some scary moments recently so I don’t want to make light of that. But a “flash mob by a chorale society” has me thinking Onion article right off the bat. I’m so glad KCRA was on the scene to capture 54 seconds of video of people standing and walking and a voice on the overhead that you can’t hear.

On the other hand, was this really a “flash mob” at all? I’m open to the fact that it can still be a flash mob if it is a group of people only singing and not a group of people doing the dance from “Teenwolf,” but as far as I can tell it was just open to SCSO members so there was really no mob. Don’t mean to split hairs here.

UPDATE: The Bee’s Ed Fletcher is picking up what I am laying down.

Use Your Noodle or The Great Ramen Debate of 2011

There are, when it comes to ramen, three types of people that I can cull from the general public. They are, in no particular order, 1) those whose only ramen experience has been to eat it from a plastic pouch when money was tight or time was short, 2) those who like a bowl of soup whether it be Japanese noodle or Chinese sizzling rice, and 3) those who travel the Earth questing for that perfect bowl of ethereal goodness, that unreachable pinnacle of noodley satisfaction, that extraterrestrial chalice of brothy harmony.

I’m in group 2. I’m neither a ramen freak nor a noodle geek. Give me a bowl of soup, any soup, and I’m pretty damned happy. Whether matzoth ball or minestrone, fagioli or pho, I’m a contented beast. I’m looking for a salty, spicy, steamy, stewy bowl that burns my tongue a bit on the first slurp, and bathes my face in a micro-film of sweat. I want to drain the dregs at the bottom of the bowl or sop them up with a crust of day-old bread. This is where I’m coming from. Continue reading “Use Your Noodle or The Great Ramen Debate of 2011”

Early flooding at Discovery Park?

Trail Closed SignsThese were not up in the morning

I was surprised to encounter flooding at the 2.5 mile marker along the American River Parkway this morning on my way to work. So much so I had to turn back and navigate my way to the Arden Garden Connector toward Truxel.

Discovery Park itself is quite flooded, too. Is it normal to flood out so far along the Parkway? My guess is the overflow area is actually the source of the, well, overflow.

UPDATE: Here are some photos I took on my home this afternoon… Continue reading “Early flooding at Discovery Park?”

“A bit of ‘Wow'” coming to K Street

'But God is like, holding a guitar'

Via Heckasac (now with image banners! but still no hyperlinks) enjoy this Sac Press article on the choice monuments to douchebaggery coming soon to Midtown:

Pizza Rock, with its red neon sign and laser-cut metal flames, seems to burst from between its two sister venues. Filigreed flowers, hearts, stars and butterflies – designed to look like tattoo art – soften the sign, inspired by tattoos worn by Pizza Rock co-owner Tony Gemignani’s wife. LED backlights will be added to give the flame a shadow.

Continue reading ““A bit of ‘Wow’” coming to K Street”

2010 Holiday Services Schedule (City & County)

I had to look up my local garbage collection schedule recently and came across the holiday schedule for the City of Sacramento.

Be sure to put out your cans as usual and follow collection day parking guidelines. For loose-in-the-street collection for yard waste, please see Residential Garden Refuse & Street Sweeping.

This includes when parking meters take a holiday (Christmas Eve is on the 23rd and Christmas Day is on the 24th to the City). And read the fine print, “No” means “yes, they are enforced.” Here is a detailed PDF of the free, on-street parking locations (previously mentioned by CoolDMZ on November 17th).

I still wish the County offered the “Loose-in-the-Street” program. Or does it just seem more appealing?

For County folks, you’ll have to use the “e-Map-It” service which continues to be a great resource.

Downtown IMAX gets a CLU

This guy. That's all I can come up with.

Fans of Jeff Bridges, Daft Punk, and neon rejoice! The release of Tron: Legacy is upon us. If you are as ridiculously excited about the long-awaited sequel (it’s been 20 28 years). You can celebrate at the Esquire Imax tonight.

This tweet, just in:

Thursday, December 16, the Esquire IMAX Theatre will be attempting to break a Guinness Book World Record™ for the Longest Glow Stick (at least in Sacramento’s history) in honor of the opening of TRON: Legacy in IMAX 3D!

The event will take place at 9 p.m. on K Street between the Esquire IMAX Theatre at 1211 K
Street and (hopefully) the Downtown Ice Rink at 7th and K Streets.

All participants will receive a $3 off coupon to see TRON: Legacy in IMAX 3D at the Esquire IMAX Theare after it opens at Midnight that night

So put down your game of Space Paranoids, tell your User you’ll be out of the house tonight, hop on your lightcycle, and drop by the Esquire IMAX to hold a glow stick for a while. It’ll be the most conservative rave you’ve ever been to.

End of Line.

Open thread: What to do about these Kings?

Is regicide the only answer?

Well, that sucked. There were some bright spots, most notably getting ‘Reke back, but otherwise not good. So, open thread especially for us mostly out-of-the-loop-don’t-really-care types to suggest what can be done to salvage this season. I’ll start off the discussion: More jazz bass. RIP Wayman

P.S. Sac Bee, what is the deal with the URLs lately? That one literally has “asdf” repeated about a dozen times. Is this a thing I don’t know about? Does purposely trying not to have SEO lead to greater SEO?

A very Midtown Christmas!

Swanberg’s, via Yelp

If the rain lets up in the middle of the day this weekend, and you need to head out to fill your stockings this holiday season by patronizing some local shops, the nexus of 24th-26th and Jay Street is your best bet. With shops like University Art, Fleet Feet, Dragatomi, Book Collector, Mixed Bag, and Swanberg’s, there’s bound to be something for everybody. The family and I strolled it over the weekend and it’s a fun time even for the little ones.

As a counterpoint to my own post, I’d like to get something off my chest. I do love University Art but I have to say that shopping there the last few years hasn’t been the same experience as it once was. I can’t quite pin it down but something about their offerings for kids is not doing it for me anymore. All the art supplies for kids lean toward the Crayola/Rose Art side of things — stuff you can get for much, much cheaper at Target. There are lots of kitschy/retro toy items but for some reason it seems disjointed. It seems like what originally made it such a great shop was the odd crafty kits for kids and that seems to be lacking from the current product lineup. Has anyone else had this feeling?

Continue reading “A very Midtown Christmas!”