Thursday, October 23, 2008

Preliminary breakdown of the Record's ad space awards

The Record decided to blitzkreig us with an assload of importanish news today. But all of that stuff we'll have to break down later. Why? Because the Record's end of the year push to increase ad sales Best of San Joaquin 2008 came out today, and as usual it was a complete and utter farce. We'll throw out the highlights/lowlights before we head off to roundly heckle Grant "Peaches" Napear at tonight's Kings/Rockets game.

Most useless category: (tie) Local Pro Sports Team and Cable/Internet/Satellite Provider

There are only 4 fucking local teams and the options are even more limited when it comes to Cable/Internet/Satellite Providers. You want cable? Congradufuckinglations you're getting Comcast. Want satellite? DirectTV or Dish Network? That's fucking it. They have these painfully limited categories but no "Best Local Website"? (An award we most assuredly would walk away with, if not for that whole criticizing everything they do like we're their Bubbe thing. And the fact that they'd probably choose Google because they have more money to buy ad space with someone in the county visited that site.)

Most Random category: Fuel-Efficient Car

We were unaware hybrids were made in SJ County. What kind of random fucking category is this? They don't make Toyotas or Hondas in Stockton, it only seems like it because every other person here is driving one (coincidently they're also some of the more frequently stolen cars, gotta keep those title hopes alive). Which still shouldn't be enough to warrant this category. If a Prius can win a category for being a car people use in SJ County then the Kings should have won best local sports team. Hey, they came through Stockton once. Which apparently is enough to be eligible for a category.

Section that made our heads explode with confusion: Spirits

If our Bars We're Down With series (returning tomorrow, honest injun) wasn't enough to clue you in, we know a thing or two about area drinking establishments. Which is why this entire section is so mind boggling. And by "mind boggling" we mean "so skewed towards the Lincoln Village area that it makes us want to puke." 856 has the best cocktails? Are you fucking kidding me? Chili's getting the third place nod for best margaritas!? BJ's(!?) gets 2nd best happy hour? My left nut has a better happy hour than BJ's. (We fully admit El Torito has a kick ass happy hour though) Fuck, this is getting too frustrating, let's move on to the last one for today. I'll let El Duke take this one.

Least deserving of their award: (tie) Mike Torres Band (2nd place Best Local Band), Best Buy (1st place Best Computer Store), Ehler's Health Supply (Only place Home Healthcare Supplies)

I used to work in medical supplies (like I said, I've worked everywhere in Stockton) and not a single day went by where some septuagenarian didn't walk in all flustered. Being the good salesman that I was I would ask how their day was and at least once a day the response would be "Mark Ehler is a money grubbing asshole". When I say every day, I'm not exaggerating. At least once a day I would either hear about how he didn't bill Medicare correctly, or how he bought the wrong part, or how our Rascals were hundreds of dollars less than his, or how he promised to hold something for a customer over the phone only to sell it to someone else 15 mins later. Ehler's Health Supply is by far not the best Healthcare Supply store. For fuck's sake it's not even an actual store anymore, it's a section off to the side in Arthur's Party World. Long story shot, Apria Healthcare is way better.

I also used to work next to a venue the Mike Torres Band played on what seemed to be an hourly basis. For about a year I would be "treated" to the entirety of the Mike Torres Band experience, from sounds check to accidently hitting the cymbal while dismantling the drum set. The Mike Torres Band isn't really bad, they're just not the second best band in the area. Not in any way, shape, or form. They are, at best, a generic bar band. Second String Quintet are fucking tits though.

And Best Buy, oh how I loathe Best Buy. I don't mind seeing them ranked so high in other categories, although being the third best music store on a list that doesn't even include Replay Records is a traveshamockery, but it's placement among best computer stores is the worst fucking decision possible. As with most chain stores their employees know jack shit (outside of the music and dvd section, but everybody knows about music and movies). While trying to set up a hardline network with my roommate I went to Best Buy to buy a router. I saw an actual router for about $50 and something that looked suspiciously like a router called a "hub switch" that was about $20. Now, I'm no computer expert, so as far as I was concerned the only difference between the two was $30. But being the thorough shopper that I am, I decided I should probably get confirmation from someone in the computer section. 20 minutes later I was finally "helped" and I held up the router in one hand and the box in the other and asked a super complicated question. "Does this do the same thing as this?" Sorry to confuse you with such technical jargon. The Best Buy employee assured me that the hub would be fine and I headed home. Well guess fucking what? They're not the same and I had to make another frustrating trip to Best Buy. I should have learned my lesson the first time when I took my computer in to the Geek Squad for reformatting and it took them a month and a half...and they never actually reformatted the computer. Fuck Best Buy.

See ya tomorrow guys.

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