Tag: Is It Just Us?

Fun with labels

So it appears the “person of interest” in the Christie Wilson case had some of her hair in his car and is now being considered a “suspect” (Reader’s note: Still no word, like at all, on the missing Rio Linda foster mother).

At our last Sac Rag staff meeting we were laughing about this term “person of interest” and how it has made its way into our lexicon in recent years. I found an interesting article from 2004 that discusses it and brings up some great points.

“It’s a sloppy, irresponsible term,” said Ted Gup, journalism professor at Case Western Reserve University and a former Washington Post reporter. “Once you cast a pall of suspicion on someone, you can’t subsequently say, “I didn’t mean anything by that.’ It’s like trying to get the toothpaste back into the tube.”

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Email Rant

We have a running joke at work that involves mass emails. From time to time we’ll receive a message that is well intended and genuine, but invariably one person (to start with) will click “Reply All” when they should have just clicked “Reply.” This results in a flood of idiocy (my new band name, if I, like, had musical talent, and a band) with one reply all after the other trying to stop insanity. For example:
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All Eyes on “the Cruiser Chick”

Cruiser Bike
Cruiser sans chick

Way back when, you know, in April we did a post about The Walking Dude phenomenon. Well, today as I walked to lunch with a co-worker I cemented a new phenomenon, The Cruiser Chick. This gal or gals (you can be the judge) is seemingly everywhere in midtown at once. She has black hair and wears bangs and a ponytail. She has a piercing or two along with various tattoos, sometimes obvious, sometimes not so obvious. The bike morphs from having a basket up front to being green to having fenders and back again. Where is she going? How did she get from Alhambra and Capitol to BeachHut Deli in less than the time it took me to get there by car? And why was Locke so calm with a gun pointed at his head…oh, sorry, wrong blog…I will bring a camera with me, I promise, and photograph our two wheeled maiden of midtown. I challenge you to do the same.

Check This Out

I thought it would be fun to test out sac-eat’s “reticular indicator” theory by asking you, our loyal Rag readers, to pay attention to how many check cashing stores you come across this week. Extra credit will be given to those that take notice of how many said stores are next to convenience/liquor stores.

Please comment with your findings. Now try not to think of a banana!

Keeping Score

I thought it might be appropriate at this juncture to start keeping track of the types of places Sacramento-area people don’t want to see in their neighborhoods. If we can figure out what the common theme is among these places, maybe we’ll get more insight into what makes Sacramento tick. So, presenting these places in the order that engenders the most snark:

Hooters
Mosques
Churches
Malls

What’s next… car dealers? Well, actually, yup.

Any theories?

The Not-So-Friendly Skies

Had an opportunity to fly this weekend and discovered a few things that seemed to be sacrocentric (can we start using this new non-word? I kind of dig it). Air travel in general is a stressful experience. Between the delays, the security checks, the tight quarters, it can all wear thin on one’s temper. But at what point do people just flat out give up and start being absolute nut jobs? And do they only lose it in the 916?

My wife and I board our plane from Sacramento to Denver. Everything has gone swimmingly so far and I was actually very impressed by the ease in getting to our terminal from the parking lot. However, this ease was quickly worsened when we attempted to find our seats. Now I have to make some assumptions here. That the folks boarding this plane were from the Sacramento area and not making a connecting flight from some other town. I also have to assume that, being a Saturday morning, these folks were not traveling on business and/or were not otherwise anxious to get to where they were going. That is, I was experiencing people at their best.
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9/11 Fireworks

Driving down the I-80 last night near Truxel around 10 PMish, I and a friend of mine noticed some fireworks off in the distance. We couldn’t figure out why there’d be fireworks, other than for 9/11 commemorations. Hardly appropriate, we thought.

It turns out that the fireworks were actually coming from Raley Field, where the Tacoma Raniers just knocked off the River Cats in the PCL playoffs. The Raniers are now headed to the finals against Nashville, while the River Cats are headed to the nearest golf course.

So, fireworks? Still hardly appropriate, we think.

Ok, seriously…

Browsing the ol’ News10.net this morning when I came across these three headlines in succession:

  • Lodi Fire Captain Convicted on Child Pornography Charges
  • Placerville Man Charged with Child Sex Abuse
  • Folsom Teacher Arrested for Forcing Student into Sex Act

Granted this could be a coincidence and every city is sure to have its share of whack jobs, but whiskey tango foxtrot is going on? A fire captain, an english teacher…this is not what our fair city needs.
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