Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Top 5 pieces of advice for a drunken Thanksgiving Eve

With tomorrow being Thanksgiving we kicked around some ideas to help local residents out with the holiday season. Considering we're a collection of guys in their mid-twenties, cooking tips are pretty much out of the question. As are decorating tips, although I hear Bris Isaak has some interesting ideas for centerpieces. But there is one thing we can dole out advice on. You guessed it, drinking.

Thanksgiving eve is one of the most underrated drinking holidays there is. All your friends who actually had ambition and moved away for college/actual careers come back for a couple of days. And if you're like us and didn't stray too far from home, it's your job to lie and tell them you're "considering your options" when you really just got laid off. It's also your job to help catch them up as to the local goings on. Feel free to just give them our URL to save time.

Since those visiting for a few days will probably spend the next couple of days catching up with family, tonight's usually the night dedicated to catching up with people you weren't really friends with in high school but now that you've made eye contact you have to at least acknowledge them and make awkward small talk Don't worry, they'll probably be shitfaced shortly anyway, so that'll help with the awkwardness. Being the seasoned drinkers that we are, the brain trust got together to offer up some tips for tonight's impromptu high school reunion.

Tip #1 Arrive early

Tonight, the bar's going to be packed. Noone has to work tomorrow and some people might have just finished a long drive or possibly even flight over here. If you can come up with a better excuse to drink in the middle of the week I'd like to hear it. Most bars will fill to capacity quickly so if you don't get to the ol' watering hole early you're going to be stuck in a line outside in the rain waiting for someone to come out to smoke. Then you'll have to wait as the bouncer explains to the smoker that there's no insies/outsies, even for smokers, and that no, this isn't Soviet Russia/Communist China/Nazi Germany/whatever else hipsters say to voice their displeasure with rule enforcement. It's just Thanksgiving, the bar's at capacity, and there's a cop standing right there to bust their ass the second someone sneaks behind the bouncer putting them 1 person over capacity. Which brings us to our next piece of advice.

Tip #2 Don't drive

While tonight might be an underrated drinking holiday in the eyes of the general public, most police departments tend to go in the other direction and vastly overrate it We usually choose downtown Lodi for our Thanksgiving eve festivities, Lodi is notorious for going into DEFCON 27 the night before Thanksgiving.

There will be more DUI checkpoints tonight than on Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, and Mardi Gras combined. Tonight's double shift night coupled with approved overtime across the board, regardless of whatever budgetary problems the city's been having.

There are roughly 7 bars in downtown Lodi. There will be 2 cops posted up in front of each one of them, sometimes 3. Not cop cars waiting to catch drunk drivers (although, again, they're all over the place too), actual cops standing in front of every bar keeping a mental head count and making sure the bouncer examines your ID as if it contained a mini-YouPorn clip of Natalie Portman eating out Scarlett Johannsen.

And if the cops don't think they vetted your age enough or if their mental head count is off by one, they won't hesitate to stop everything going on in the bar and pull everyone out to be recarded and recounted. We've seen it happen firsthand at Gary's Lounge. If you haven't figured it out by now, Lodi cops are complete pricks.

Tip #3 Call a cab at least 60 mins before you intend to be picked up

Now that we've successfully scared you off even buzzed driving (although if you do choose to drink and drive, the checkpoint locations should be fairly obvious), we'd be giving incomplete advice if we didn't advise you on taxis. We don't have very many. So you should probably call a cab as soon as you realize you need one.

We suggest at least an hour in advance, possibly 2 hours. Everyone will want a cab tonight because they're too drunk/tired from driving all day to get here. Hell, call a cab even if you don't plan on leaving yet, just on the off chance you look at some skinhead's girlfriend wrong and he tries to fight you. The cops posted at the door will shut down the bar for the night immediately, even if it's only 8:30, and everyone will be calling City Cab at the same time trying to get the fuck out of there. Best be ahead of the curve.

Tip #4 Don't sleep with your ex

While this is good advice to adhere too regardless of the time of year, Thanksgiving eve is a particularly tricky beast. Mostly because your cock (or vag if you're ladyfolk) is screaming at you to try and bed that prudish Christian girl you dated sophomore year who was "saving herself" only to give it up to the first drunken frat boy she saw in college all in the name of "experminetation". That cunt didn't even give you pity head when you dropped $300 on prom night but she gladly fucked that stoner fuck in Pike house for an eighth of the Devil's lawn clippings. And while there's nothing more dementedly satisfying than a vengeance fuck, you don't want to have to do the post-hookup legwork.

Sure, you said "no strings attached", and she may have even agreed that it was "just for old time's sake" but you're forgetting the fact that women usually tune out anything a guy says after the word "no". So even thought you made her repeat the phrase "no strings attached" before each time you tax that old school poontang, you're still going to get a "nice 2cu again, I enjoyed 'catching up' :-)" text message the next day. Why did you trade numbers? You dumbass, you knew you weren't planning on keeping in touch. She was planning it the whole fucking time. Sure enough she'll start calling you out of the blue "just to talk" on a random workday. Doesn't that bitch live in New York? Shouldn't she be working or something? Why the fuck is she bothering with an old flame like you?

Because my friend, you rekindled that flame on Thanksgiving eve. That flame may have died out for you the second you dumped her celibate ass for that slutty cheerleader in the summer of '01, but she kept that flame alive for years. Women are fucking crazy like that. That night that fire was down to an ember and your cock was shooting out pure gasoline. It's probably time to change your number and pray she doesn't get fired from her city job (presumably for spending all her time calling guys she fucked) and have to move back home. That would suck. So yeah, just don't fuck your ex.

Tip #5 Don't do the hotel room thing

Some people who plan on engaging in a rather debaucherous night of drinking think it's a good idea to get a hotel room for "the after party or whatever". Those people are wrong. First, you're at least 21 now, if you don't have a place to bring back chicks to fuck by now (again, not your ex) then you're a fucking loser. Second, anytime you make grandiose plans to "keep the party going" those plans will fall through 200% of the time.

Then you'll all be sitting around a hotel room with 3 handles of Jager and 2 girls, one of which who brought her boyfriend. And because you spent money on a hotel room like a fucking rube, you don't want to call it a night because then you'll have wasted $50 on a shitty motel room with stained sheets. So you start pounding Jager shots to make up for the fact that you regret not inviting your ex back to the hotel room because some jackass' blog told you not to. Next thing you know you're waking up at 4 am and your friend visiting from Long Beach is fucking the only available chick in the bed next to you and you're still too drunk to drive home so you're stuck waiting outside in the cold rain for 45 mins smoking a cigarette wondering what they put in the water down in SoCal while kid staminizer finishes up his marathon love making session. But hey, at least there's not a dick cop there making you wait in line to get back in.

Our Santa's wishlist? For Fitzy to shut the hell up

What's ol' Fitzy up to today? Looks like a list of stuff he'd like to see happen to Stockton. This should be good.

Did he get that downtown housing thing in there even though we debunked the myth that there's no affordable downtown housing yesterday? Yep, that's in there.

Did he make sweeping generalizations in which he fanatasizes about a mythical, well-run, financially-competent government that hasn't been seen in the wild...well, ever? Yep, that's there too. That wish will come true right after Bigfoot and the Chupacabra get married.

Did he...hey! Wait a minute! That's our idea jackass! That's right, apparently when he's not searching our site for his e-mail address (which actually happened BTW), he's lifting our ideas and general tone of this site. Let's compare, shall we?

On Sept. 30th, we said this:

"Book events at the Fox/Bob Hope that people under the age of 40 (but over the age of 15) want to see

"The booking of the Bob Hope Theatre has always been fucking horrible. ...If there's one complaint we have about the booking of any event downtown, it's that there's next to nothing geared towards the college-aged resident. Which is funny since there's 2 fucking colleges in town. And if there's one thing college kids cum all over themselves for, it's indie bands that don't get much mainstream radio play."

And here's Fitzy today:

"Five: exciting rock 'n' roll and other entertainment at Stockton Arena and the Bob Hope Theatre. Declare arena management in breach of contract. If that will not fly, buy them out."

Sure, ours is kind of long winded (surprised? Yeah, me neither), but the general theme is the same. Book better acts. Unfortunatly Fitzy's solution of buying out IFG's contract probably wouldn't work, and it would probably make things worse. Don't get me wrong, IFG's done a fucking horrible job, but buying them off would only piss more people off. Especially because of the budget problems. Also because, let's face it, Stockton isn't an easy sell. As Duke explained in this post, blame for the shittiness of the events booked so far should be passed around to everyfuckingbody.

Of course this couldn't be a Fitzy Wish List without a mention of his hopes and dreams for downtown as a whole, not just our struggling entertainment venues. Again, from today:

"Six: Democratize downtown revitalization. Balance high-end attractions with some down-home Delta fun: burger huts and mai tai bars on the waterfront. What regular people like.

Many feel elitist redevelopment left them out. This political mistake jeopardizes revival's support."


First, we're going to ignore reccommending the democratization thing so soon after the referrendum fiasco. But God damn the rest of that sounds familiar. It's also especially hilarious coming from a guy who said this less than a month ago:

"One way to (raise income) is to offer coastal employers and high wage earners a downtown with amenities they demand."

So we should cater to the common man who's been disenfranchised by the city's blatant cashgrab attempt to pander to the elitists while at the same time continuing to pander to those elitists?

Now normally we would be stoked that we've apparently chnaged the opinion of one of downtown's biggest apologists (because that's tooootally what happened here), but Fitzy's flip-flopping reminded us of the whole reason we started ragging on him to begin with.

The word "elitist" has been thrown around a lot lately. Mostly in that damn election (and Fitzy's column today. Hooray for currently popular buzz words!), but it applies here too. The reason we rag on Fitzy is because we can't relate to him. At all. Which is sad because we have so much in common. We're both lifelong Stockton residents, we've both seen the city change significantly over the years, and we both pine for a competently run Stockton (even if we are ridiculously cynical about it). Yet with all that in common, we're both very different cats.

As Fitzy's said himself, Stockton's not a town with a very high average income. While we don't know what Fitzy's income is, one would guess it's probably a little higher than most Stockton residents. While that's not inherently a bad thing, it's helped seperate him from the common working man. Men like us, men like your neighbors, men like the guy working 3 jobs just so he can afford his mortgage. Fitzy sees a guy working three jobs and sees a story about the economy and how one man works through it. We see it as reality (because some of us here actually do work multiple jobs, not because of mortgages though).

Fitzy can't relate to us anymore because he isn't one of us. A good metro columnist should appeal to the average citizens of the city he covers. Fitz hasn't done that in a long time. Sure, if presented with this arguement he'd probably spout off a bunch of bullshit about all the e-mail he gets and the awards he's won and how we don't know anything about the average Stocktonian. But it would be just that, bullshit.

We are the average Stocktonian. Living paycheck to paycheck trying to make rent while still having something resembling a social life. Fitzy writes 3 columns a week and can't even keep which side of the downtown fence he's on straight. His blatant fellating of the downtown he said himself we're disenfranchaised with shows just how out of touch he is. By throwing his full support downtown he pretty much threw his own public image behind it. It failed, miserably. Perhaps irreparably Which is what this flipflopping really is, public image repair. And not even a very good attempt at it.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Quick Links for Nov. 25th

Sorry for the slacking yesterday. As we've said before, Mondays can be kind of a bitch for us. Although BaconBabe's drinking excuse works too. Thanks to her for her late night fill-in by the way. Low let's get some Quick Links out of the way.

We were going to give this shit it's own post, but the anger and indignation just seemed forced. Of course Stockton let Spanos out of his deal in favor of even more affordable housing downtown. Because the reason noone lives there is because there isn't any affordable housing. Just don't tell the city about the Stockton craigslist which has houses downtown with lower rents then my half of rent for my apt. But according to the commenters on that story (casual racism alert!), putting high-density housing would just bring a criminal element to thr Trinity Parkway area. Which totally isn't already there.

Plus, the complete lack of logic on the city's part is just staggering. "Ok, you can build, but not just houses, apartments too." "You want to build a Wal-Mart? Ok." "We don't want anymore Wal-Marts!" "Oh, you have no more room because of that lot you sold to the Wal-Mart we won't allow? Ok, don't worry about the apartments"

Decisons completely void of any logic? Sounds like one al of my ex-girlfriends.

Can we please, for the love of God, slow down on these chairty/food bank stories already? This is the fucking 4th one in a week. I'm not one to talk shit on crutches (expecially in the Quick Links), but my God people, we get it! There's poor people and it's the holidays. Guess what, in this economy pretty much everyone is poor. I don't think I can sit through another month of "Tiny Tim needs your help". Fuck Tiny Tim. I'm not donating juyst because the media shoves this shit down our throats every year. In fact, I'm going to cook an entire turkey, eat half a drumstick, then throw it all away after letting it soak in bleach for a day to make it completlely inedible. Just as my own special middle finger to holiday media.

For the record, this wasn't any of us...this time.

So let me get this straight, a guy was sideswiped, decides to persue the guy who hit him, then gets rammed from behind by a second car and decides the best course of action is to stop? The best course of action is to realize you're on the wrong side of town and drive away as fast as possible. Stopping to discuss matters with two people who clearly care less about their cars than you can really only result in...well, a stabing. What the fuck did he think was going to happen? They were all going to exchange insurance information? I'm going to take a guess and say the guy was from out of town.

I asked El Duke about this and he was overwhelmingly unsurprised. "You've been to Delta. Tell me what you think ASBG does besides passing out pizza and booking some shitty band every other Thursday. They go on expensive ass trips, call it a conference and do it all on Delta's dime. I knew that when I was at the Impact (now the Collegian) and I'm not at all surprised nothing changed corruptionwise."

Now that I think about it, Delta's ASBG really did't do much for us when I went there. That might have changed in the few years since I've been there, but I kind of doubt it. With all this bullshit piling up, I think it's finally time. For what? Delta President Raul Rodriguez should be fired. Delta's been one giant fiasco since he took the position. Fucking fire him already.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Our first ever guest post

We're not really used to people noticing when we slack off. So when one of our diligent readers/friends (that's right, she's a diligent friend. We can use big words too Burkin.) asked if she could fill in for our lazy asses, I was more than happy to let her shoulder some of the load. Yes, we know girls. Swear. If you'd like to contribute as well feel free to e-mail us and if it's good we'll put it up here. Don't thank us, we just like to do our part to support local writers. Without further blathering, here's the BaconBabe, who doesn't have a website to link to....yet.
-El Duké

El Duke and Slick Diaz are currently on a "day off," along with Bris Isaak. This is the Bacon Babe filling in for them, while they recover from this weekend. Plus, El Duke is still in a zombie state from some bacon babe making him watch one hour of chick shows. (ed. note: I saw things I can't unsee.)


While dancing with the stars is having their finale and as I dash across the room to change the channel, there is a Thai Major-general who rather not have anything to do with dancing. Khattiya Sawasdiphol has been reassigned to teaching aerobics, after making bombs threats against protesters. The Major-general delivers us, this classic quote about dancing, as quoted in The Record "The army chief wants me, a warrior, to dance at markets. The army chief wants me to be a presenter leading aerobics dancers. I have prepared one dance. It's called the 'throwing-a-hand-grenade' dance." I'd love to link you to the article, but apparently The Record's Three Minute Record, is still only available in print edition.

Two more things The Record can improve on…. Maybe they can send out an email of the Three Minute Record. It can be what it is now, a daily synopsis of the day's news, but in email form. Maybe they do. I never felt the need to subscribe to The Record, print or online.

The second thing. It's really sad The Record doesn't have THErecordnet.com registered. It's too confusing. A paper builds up a brand, as THE Record, but their website leaves off the "the" in its url. It's time for The Record to get the Thai Major-general, to do his "dance" on the URL Squatter's ass and put the domain name into the correct owner's hand.

Meanwhile, over in Fitzy's Fairyland, Fitzy covers the on-going court battle over Delta land given to the nonprofit Shadowbird, by the Indian givers, The Grupe Co. Fitzy starts the story off like a fable, comparing it to a poker tournament. Watching a poker tournament, is the most boring thing, second to Fitzy's column. I occasionally fall asleep during Carson Daly's Last Call and wake up, diving to turn off the TV, during Poker After Dark. Hey! I know what you saying, "this girl is whack." Well, like I said it's the Bacon Babe writing today, while the boys nurse their drinking wounds.

We all know by now, The Record doubles up on reporters, sharing sports writing duties with The Lodi News-Sentinel. Which leaves us, here at RTT, to do their jobs. Here's your sports wrap-up. Niners lost, again. Raiders won. Sometimes headlines can be misleading. Such as this one "East Union High grad gets shot as coach." It confused me, thinking I clicked on the crime section, instead of the sports section.

In other news, Stockton sees second homicide in less than a day.

Has anyone else noticed the lack of legitimate jobs on the Stockton Craigslist? They all appear to be scams.
"Earn Fast Money Now!"
"Work from home!"
"No Fee Required Take Survey!"
It's the old envelope stuffing scam gone high-tech. Oh hey hold up there, it says "reply to ElDuke@reclaimingthetitle." Why that…

Friday, November 21, 2008

Plea for Peace Center update

Pulled from Mr. Goodwin's Stockton Rocks MySpace bulletin:

The Plann​ing Commi​ssion​ meeti​ng has been set for Decem​ber 11, 2008,​ at 6:​00p.​m.​ in the COUNC​IL CHAMB​ERS,​ CITY HALL,​ SECON​D FLOOR​ 425 N El Dorad​o,​ Stock​ton CA 95202​

If you haven​'​t signe​d our petit​ion pleas​e do so(I have them at every​ show.​)​ If you can make it out on the 11th pleas​e show up early​ and remem​ber to be on your best behav​ior(​we will not just repre​senti​ng ourse​lves but also the music​ and art commu​nity as a whole​.​)​ Thank​s again​ to every​one for all the suppo​rt.​ If you have any quest​ions or would​ like to help out pleas​e get in touch​.​


Midda​gh Goodw​in

Shit to do for the weekend of Nov. 21st

Sexy Friday Nov. 21st

Portugal the Man, Earl Greyhound, Wintersleep, and Alitak are playing at the Blackwater tonight at 8. Portugal the Man is a band out of Wasilla, Alaska so one has to assume they're getting tired of being asked if they can see Russia from their house. Plus Alitak got their name from a town in Alaska, so it's technically a themed show. Bonus points go to anybody who shouts "What you know, eskimo?" inbetween songs. $15(!?)

Saturday Nov. 22nd

Brassai, Planet Perhaps, and Ocean Evaporate play at the Matinee at 7 on Saturday. Last time I saw Brassai was at the Matinee and I think they were the band that had a bunch of clips from Schwarzenegger movies on the movie screen. It was hilarious. Although I wasn't anything resembling sober that night...or right now. $3

Letter K and the Alphabet Asylum and Fresh Kid Q play the Beach Hut Deli at 9pm. I neglect hip hop in these posts all the time so I figured I'd throw this in here. Plus jack and shit is going on this weekend, unless of course you're into lame screamo shows. Free (the hip hop show, not weak ass screamo)

Sunday Nov. 23rd

This weekend's slate of games is underwhelming at best. The Raiders take on the Broncos in a claddic AFC West battle between a team with no offense and a team with no defense. Somehow Jamarcus Russell will throw an interception to himself. This also might be the game Darren McFadden's foot finally falls off.

Speaking of things falling off, Tony Romo's dreaded pinkie will probably fall off when the Cowboys play the Niners this weekend. And Wade Phillips will probably waddle over, mistake it for a chicken fry, and eat it. But not until Charles Haley tries to jack off on it (or jack off the actual pinkie).

Quick Links for Nov. 21st

We've done one every day this week so might as well keep it going. It's Quick Links time!

Fitzy's column about the Stockton Library's overdue fee discrepency is about as exciting as it sounds, no matter what the headline tells you. Were you aware that there can be tension when a place gets a new boss from out of town that tries to institute change?

The end of the column kind of comes out of left field too. He asks library Director Natalie Rencher about some fundraiser she brought in and she immediately clams up. Which makes no sense. Why? Because Fitzy doesn't say what the fuck is up with the fundraiser broad. "Why?" is one of the 5W's of journalism right? Why does the fundraiser matter Fitzy? You ask her, and there seems to be a story there. Even though you spend most of the column bitching about being lied to about the overdue fee figures, you leave the only semi-interesting question in the entire story unanswered? Why does Cathy Klady matter? You're inferring that she actually runs the library while Renceher kicks it with her fam in SoCal. Either outright say it, or don't include it at all. It's not nearly an important enough scandal to just kind of tease. I'm getting bored just writing about it. Let's move on.

This was a top contender for Rube of the Month before we finally decided getting hoodwinked by the idiots who run Delta is worse than getting hoodwinked by someone in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Note to everybody: If someone walks up to you in a parking lot and offers you anything, you say no. I don't care if it's the girl scouts selling cookies, you tell those bitches to take a hike. It's that simple. Feel free to shit in the Salvation Army bucket for good measure too. God I hate solicitors in big box parking lots.

I will not make a joke about black people in move theaters. I will not make a joke about black people in movie theaters. I will not make a joke about black people in movie theaters.

Speaking of racism, what is it called when someones racist towards a certain breed of dog? Breedist? And what the fuck does Ripon have against pitbulls anyways? If a policy is unwritten then guess what? It's not a fucking policy. Especially if the perspective adopter passes the test, and the pitbull passes the behavioral test. If both potential owner and dog are cool, what's the big deal? And since when did Modesto and Manteca start letting Ripon make its own policies anyways? Gotta keep your pimp hand strong guys.

And finally, does Joe Goldeen just have a template of this story and reprint it every Friday with a new price filled in? We fucking get it, gas is affordable again. Notice I said "affordable" and not "cheap". We understand this is your baby Joe, but for Wally's sake let if go already.

The rare time an audit is actually a good thing

We've made our views on Delta's spending of bond dollars fairly clear over the past few months. Mostly because we all were attending Delta when Measure L passed. If you listened to anybody working for the college back then they'd tell you that Measure L was going to solve all of Delta's problems.

Obviously that hasn't been the case. And the State Controller's Office's audit of Delta's spending (actual audit can be found here. No, we don't know why the Record couldn't have just provided this link directly either) provides an awesome summary of their fuckups. Including many things that sounds vaguely familiar.

The key fuckup (technical term) has to be this part:

“This audit shows the (Delta College) Board of Trustees disregarded the priority projects reflected in Measure L and the college’s master plan and instead diverted bonds proceeds to build an Olympic-quality track and other athletic facilities."

That's right, instead of spending money on shit Delta actually needed, they spent $11.4 million on state of the art athletic facilities (and fancy electric signs!)....for a community college. Why the fuck does Delta need an Olympic-quality track? They didn't even need a Special Olympic-quality track. State of the art field? For what? Did they add fucking luxury boxes? A third tier of seats?

Even their excuse is bullshit:

"Old fields were uneven and full of potholes, Delta officials wrote in their response to the draft audit."

You know how you fix an old, uneven field full of potholes? You drive down March Lane to Home Depot and buy some sod and a shovel. Total cost? Maybe $100. The only way spending just $1 million makes sense is if Delta's field resembled Heinz Field. Wasn't there some sort of committee to oversee and stop this sort of ridiculous spending?

"Members of a citizen's oversight committee "worked diligently ... to protect the taxpayers," the college said. Auditors found members of this committee made just one site visit more than three years ago."

Wow. Our tax dollars were protected about a much a Ben Rothlisberger is from the blitz (Can you tell we watched the Steelers game yesterday?). And the Delta Trustees rushed through those gaping holes in our offensive line to sack our tax dollars on every fucking play. They duped us. And now they won't even let us discuss possible changes. Which brings us to our last point...

November's Rube(s) of the Month!

What does the Rube of the Month club have to do with Delta's ludicrious misspending of our bond dollars? We had to approve it! Which means that this month's Rube of the Month is anybody who voted "yes" on Measure L! Sorry, but you got duped by the entire Board of Trustees. And, as documented here over the past couple months, they're not even very smart!

Don't worry, being a rube's not that bad. It happens to the best of us. I once bought a cell phone that retailed for $150 for $50 from a kiosk in the front of the Super King. Being the dumbass I am I didn't turn on the phone before buying it. When I got home the screen was so fucked up it looked like I was looking at a negative of the screen. Of course there were no refunds. I promised myself right then and there to never trust an Asian again. And that's what you rubes will probably do. Never trust any bond measure ever again. Sad thing is, the auditors know that too.

"I am concerned the example set by Delta College could endanger voter-approved bond funding for future public works projects."

You fooled us once Detla, shame on fuck you. We kinda doubt you're going to get a chance to fool us twice.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Kings Kolumn: Slow your role Joe Maloof

When I heard Joe Maloof's comments about Reggie Theus on the Rise Guys radio show last week, one thought popped into my head. Welcome to being a Kings fan Joe.

The Maloofs bought the Kings at the tail end of the 90s and got insanely lucky when the '99 lockout ended. In the years before the lockout, and coincidently before the Maloofs owned the team, the Kings flat out sucked. They couldn't rebound, they blew games in the 4th quarter, they turned the ball over constantly and they barely played anything resembling defense. Sound familiar? You think Brad Miller's bad defensivly? You've obviously forgotten a time when Olden Polynice patrolled the paint.

As most people know, the post-lockout team differed vastly from the Kings of the 90s. We drafted White Chocolate, traded Mitch Richmond for Chris Webber, finally lured Peja over from the Greek league, and signed walking chimney Vlade Divac. I was at the first post-lockout game at Arco. I recognized one player from the 90s (Corliss Willamson), if there was one thing I took away from that game it was that change might finally have come to Sacramento.

Fast forward 9 years or so and change is once again arriving in Sactown. One of the big offseason storylines was the impending youth movement. The last few people holding onto the glory years of the early '00s finally realized that it's over. I get the feeling one of those people was Joe Maloof.

Now I don't fault Joe Maloof for saying what he said. It's his team and he can say whatever the fuck he wants. I just wish he didn't think what he thought. But I understand why he thinks so. He's not used to his team reeking of sucktitue.

Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a die-hard vs. bandwagon debate. I'm just pointing out that Joe Maloof is pissed because this is pretty much the bottom of the barrel for him. Sure, the team sucked when he bought it, even if not for very long, but at least he could always count on a sold out Arco bringing in revenue. Now? Notsomuch.

The result? A Maloof freakout of epic proportions. They gave us what we wanted! Ron's gone, Bobby Jackson's back, no more playoff delusions, double the amount of $10 tickets. What more could we posisbly want? Why aren't we showing up to games? This is Reggie's fault! Fans would show up if we could defend better from behing the arc! Quick! Someone call up the Kevin Nash so we can do a basketball version of Fuse's "Redemption Song"! (Unfortunately "Rebuilding the Kingdom" will probably be hosted by Angela Tsai.)

Well, I'm here to offer Joe and the rest of the Maloof family some advice from a lifelong Kings fan. Calm the fuck down. For one, I don't know if you've been paying attention but the team's actually not that bad. Sure things started out kind of ugly, but we're a young team. We still have to find our rhythm. Plus, we're injured. El Flacco hasn't played a game this season and Kevin Martin's been out. We've played pretty well considering our best player and our best 6th man have been out most of this short season.

Why be negative? Reggie didn't sprain Kev's ankle. He didn't take a golf club to Cisco. The only thing Reg is guilty of this season is denying us his glorious lip warmer (and posisbly leaving Mikki Moore in the starting lineup way too long).

Attendence will pick up too once people see the exciting brand of basketball the team can play when at full strength. You saw that New Orleans game last night right? That was fucking awesome. Remember the game before that? Yeah, it blew. That's how this entire season is going to be. Highs as high as Brad Miller and then lows as low as Kenny Thomas' self-esteem with a bit of Shock and Hawes interspersed throughout. Yes, it's frustrating. Consider it your right of passage. You want to be accepted instead of regarded as the outsider billionaire from the Carl's Jr. ad? Take your lumps like I had to in the 90s and you'll be fine. Trust me, the past couple years have been a cakewalk compared to the 90s. The 90s had the youthful frontcourt combo of Brian Grant, Yogi Stewart, and Mike "The Animial" Smith. The 00s has Jason "Shock" Thompson and Spencer Hawes. Your lumps aren't that bad. But still, welcome to being a Kings fan.

Ok, so maybe Delta post tomorrow

Due to circumstances beyond our control...just kidding, totally in our control. Bris Isaak talked us into going to Fats to join the official Stockton Steelers fan club for tonights NFL Netwrok game. Delta audit post will go up tomorrow pending hangover.

Letters to the Editor that are so ridiculous that I can't even respond.

I don't know how Slick missed this earlier, but have you checked out the letters to the editor today? Fuck, someone over at the Record really decided to bust out the crazy today.

What do you think the combined ages of Cece Cardinalli and Bill Magladry is? 160? 210? Either way I got a good laugh out of both letters. And in the end, it's all about whether or not I was entertained. Oh, and of course not letting poor people vote.

Quick Links for Nov. 20th

It's an audit-palooza today! We'll be getting to the awesomeness that is the State Controller's audit of Delta College's Measure L spending a little later today. But in the meantime, here's some quick links to tide you over.

I guess this means we're no longer a town full of illiterates. Unless somebody checked out $3 million worth of picture books and couldn't read the due date. There's also a strong possibility that in concentrating on literacy, we neglected our math skills and got the fees wrong.

It's stories like this that make me wonder if a website centering around the goings-on in Stockton was a good idea. I guess we're less tech savvy than we thought. Although we can't blame the kid, have you seen some of the pictures women post on MySpace? I'd try and meet those broads under dubious circumstances too.

Two struggling charities stories in one week? Must be holiday season.

This is bullshit, and we're not even smokers. Who benefits from taking away the smoking areas? Nobody, that's who. Smokers now have to go to the sidewalk to smoke? What was wrong with their designated smoking areas? Fuck setting an example, this is just discrimintion. Welcome to California, where the law will protect any wacky right you want, unless you're a smoker or a monogamous gay.

We've been wondering what the deal with Jason Anderson is for a while. He's billed as the sports reporter on the UOP beat, but lately Jagdip Dhillon has been doing the UOP stories. That leaves Anderson somewhat beatless. Today we opened up the Record and see a fancy new pic of him in a suit. Which begs the question, is Jason Anderson the new columnist for the Record's sports page? If he is, a column about women's basketball probably isn't the best way to start. Although it does make El Duke's line yesterday about noone caring about women's basketball somewhat prophetic. Although Duke was on quite a roll yesterday anyways.

We've mentioned UOP's campaign against fun before, but now people who actually go to UOP are getting tired of it. We're just glad John Belushi isn't alive to see the death of a system he made famous.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Quick Links for Nov. 19th

After a few squeezibly soft slow news days, we're finally settling into some decent post-election news. Thank fucking God.

Ok, there is one bit of election-related news. Do you live in north Stockton? Do you want to be held responsible for driving the city further into debt? Will you ignore the pleas of anybody younger than 35 that doesn't have kids? Then the Stockton City Council has a job for you! Unfortunately your competition will be distinguished candidates like Arnold Chin. How is he qualified? He runs a photo stuido! Which is just like running a city. Don't you remember how nice he was to you when you had your senior yearbook photo taken? And don't you remember how he offered to take your other senior pictures only to have your parents laugh in his face when he revealed the prices? Man, I think district 1's going to be all right without my application.

Ok, so actual news time. You know how Spanos is building 1,500 homes in north Stockton? The Grupe Co. sees your 1,500 and raises you another 5,500. That's right, they want to build 7,000 more houses on a Delta island and as the 3MR so succinctly put it, the city council pretty much said "Sure, go for it." But don't worry, construction won't start until the housing market rebounds. Judging by the amount of for sale signs I see just on my way to work, that'll be a while.

Speaking of stuff that'll take a while, 2 months ago I said this in the Quick Links:
"Words can't express how disappointed we are that the audit of Delta's spending of bond dollars isn't going to be public until the end of the month. Can't we sue to vote on this too?"

First, am I the only one who misses referrendum jokes? Second, that audit was completed over a month ago. Why the hell are we just hearing about it now? Either way, the Record threw up a teaser for tomorrow's paper and it looks fucking glorious. It also echos a lot of the criticism we levied against Delta's gross mismanagement of our bond dollars. We'll have a lot more on this tomorrow when the actual article comes out.

We're not sure why we find this guide to deep frying a turkey funny, but we do. Maybe it's the fact that Ian Hill somehow found a way to sneak in a 209Vibe shirt for some free advertising, maybe it's the fact that his apron has Dom DeLuise on the front of it, maybe it's because he's a welder's mask away from looking like a steel worker, but it's definitely because the Record urges you to go to their website to watch video of him deep frying a turkey. Oh the excitement! Who missed holiday themed puff pieces? I know I did. Can't wait for next week's video of Lori Gilbert eating an entire Honeybaked ham without chewing.

Oh and remember the time El Duke said people underestimated the size advantage of Brock Lesnar. Randy Couture underestimated it too. The Record wishes they had our sports analysis.

In which we finally say "fuck it" and write the sports column the Record should have

Since the Record's apparently ditched the concept of a sports column, I've decided to pick up the slack. Feel free to print this up and glue it over whatever bullshit they put on the front of the sports section this week. Noone cares about women's basketball anyways. And yes, I purposely picked a subject the Record all but completely ignores to point out how shitty their overall sports coverage is. So here goes...

UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar, good or bad for MMA?

Being a fan of both Mixed Martial Arts and pro wrestling, a lot of my MMA fan friends would ask me what I thought Brock Lesnar's chances against Randy Couture were. Most people I talked to thought Couture was going to pick Lesnar apart and expose him as the fake wrestling fraud they thought he was. I wasn't so confident.

While Couture is superior to Lesnar in pretty much every facet of MMA, people seem to forget just how big, strong, and fast Lesnar is. That may not completely make up for his still-developing fighting skills, but the discrepancy between Lesnar's size, strength, and speed and Couture's is almost a big as the new heavyweight champ himself. Plus, having fists the size of a Thanksgiving turkey helps.

As most people know by now, Lesnar caught Couture in the second round right on the temple with one of those turkey-sized fists and became the first man to become both WWE champion and UFC champion. And as with all sports the negative Nancys came out almost immediately, calling his title reign a disgrace to the sport MMA. The guy did fake wrestling for fuck's sake. Now people will discredit UFC because they have a former fake wrestler champion.

If you haven't figured it out by now, I disagree with those claims. For one, people tend to forget (or ignore) the fact that before he was WWE champ, he was an NCAA Champion in wrestling. Most MMA experts agree that wrestling is the best base skillset a fighter can have when getting into the sport.

I also disagree with the notion that his percieved inexperience is a bad thing. What happens if Couture wins? He beats the winner of next month's Nogueira/Mir fight and then the slow burn towards Fedor/Couture would have continued. He's already pretty much mowed through all the viable heavyweights so the only real money fight he had left was the fight with Fedor.

With Brock winning the title, the UFC has multiple fresh matchups they can build PPVs around. Some of the more intriguing matchups would be a rematch with the only guy to beat Lesnar, Frank Mir. Especially if he beats Nogueira to make it a title unification fight. Chuck Liddell's flirted with moving up a weight class, which would make for a great battle of punching power. And you can't tell me a potential Lesnar/Gonzaga fight doesn't get your dick a little hard.

Perhaps the biggest reason Lesnar winning the title is good for MMA is it could mark the return of the legitimate heavyweight. Don't get me wrong, I think Couture is a tremendous fighter, but he doesn't look like a heavyweight. Lesnar out weighed him by 40 pounds (officially, legitimately it was more like 60) in their fight. Couture is a heavy light-heavyweight. Lesnar has to cut weight to make heavyweight. I don't have any stats to back this up, but having a dude who looks as imposing as Lesnar does can only be good for the UFC. Hell, EliteXC only survived for as long as it did because of the imposing-looking Kimbo Slice. If there's one thing casual fight fans want to see, it's two big dudes beating the shit out of each other. Sure the lower weight classes provide entertaining fights, but the heavyweight division has been the money division going back to the days of boxing.

Look, I understand the arguement against Lesnar's quick rise in the UFC. Lesnar himself said before the fight that he probably didn't deserve a title shot this early in his career. But at the end of the day, anything that increases the exposure of MMA (Ok, anything that doesn't involve a hit-and-run in an SUV with your likeness plastered on the side) is a good thing for the sport.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Quick Links for Nov. 18th

Before we get to the Quick Links, I'd like to extend a hearty "fuck you" to our ISP. You let me do all the link mining for this post, and then promptly shit the bed as I headed over to blogspot to finish up. It's just barely up now and I'm posting this incomplete Quick Links just to get something up in case the network goes down again. How dare you deny the readers another joke at Delta's expense? I'm wrapping this rant up now out of fear the network will go down again. Enjoy the Quick Links.

So the Waterfront is now the Lexington Plaza Waterfront Hotel Feed and Fuel (or something like that), thus giving David Siders another chance to recap the hilarious Sheraton saga. The highlight of course being that someone thought that somebody with $700,000 to throw around was going to voluntarily live in downtown Stockton. Man, that one makes us laugh every damn time.

We booed this before, but we'll throw it out there again. We're all for safety, but the only people hurt by not wearing a seatbelt are the people not wearing seatbelts. How many people does that make? According to state Director of Traffic Safety Chris Murphy, seatlbelt usage surpasses 95%. Which means this is really all just bullshit because it's not like that number's ever going to be 100%. Hooray for excuses to racially profile under the guise of a seatbelt check!

The crazy cat ladies of Lodi called a meeting Monday to let people know they're not crazy. How did they do so? By refuting claims levied at them from former commission members and animal shelter folk. And by remaining civil for an entire meeting! Oh man, we had it all wrong. These people are tooootally sane. Especially when they spout off lines like "(The Monday meeting) will clear a lot up" when the Monday meeting cleared up pretty much nothing. Of course Commissioner Gina Mendes (presumably) said that while visibly trembling because the other commissioners forced her to leave her cat ear headband and costume tail at home this week. They did allow her to keep the face paint whiskers though.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Soft News Mondays not nearly as fun as Sexy Fridays, Quick Links for Nov. 17th

Ok, we're back on track this week I think. Slow news weeks suck, don't they. How is the Record combatting this post-election news wasteland? By God, it's a soft-newsapalooza!!

Addiction programs are unable to pay their licensing fees! They're struggling! But they're also managing!

Guess what? Charities are also struggling! Less people can afford to donate and more people need their services. Prepare to read this story 50 more times before the end of the year.

If charities are struggling, that must also mean that communities are struggling! Old people die and have strokes and now noone can make pies for fundraising! How will West Point survive without their bake sale stars?

And if communities are strugling, kids are struggling! With what? Math! 4-year old preschoolers are being taught math in Valley Springs, cutting into nap times all across the foothills!

Not only that, elementary school children in Lincoln Unified are struggling with how to pronounce their newest trustee's name! Even with the explanation is the article, I still can't figure out how to pronounce it. I'm not even sure it matters because there's absolutely no news in that story. Yay soft journalism!

And finally, newspapers are struggling! Nobody wants to hear their post-election stories. And for some reason Mike Klocke seems surprised. Even after telling us statistics show they readers don't want post-election news, he proceeds to give us post-election stats.

They're also struggling to stay under budget! In that same column Klocke announces the closure of the Record's Lodi branch. The writers are still staying on, home base for them has just moved to Market St. instead of downtown Lodi. We also find out they trade local sports stories with the News-Sentinel. They can't even do original reporting on local sports. Plus, this kind of eliminates the whole concentrating on local teams instead of the localish pro teams excuse doesn't it?

Friday, November 14, 2008

Shit to do for the weekend of 11/14

Sexy Friday 11/14

Hey Manna!, French Cassettes, Lanterns, and Weatherbox are playing the Blackwater at 8 tonight. This is easily the best show of the weekend. That is not a subjective statement. $6

Saturday 11/15

If you thought we weren't going to be watching the biggest fight in MMA history, you'd be wrong. Granted, the biggest fight in MMA history has happened like 8 times in recent years (or in the case of ShamrockPetruzelli/Slice wasn't big in the way they intended it to be), but the Lesnar/Couture fight has to be the biggest. At least until Couture fights Fedor. Elbow Room, Free!

Sunday 11/16

On Sunday the Niners face the Rams and the Raiders face the Dolphins making this Sunday the least watchable sports weekend since the WNBA season ended. I'm also including the Kings/Spurs game because the Spurs are never watchable (refering to style of play, not quality) and the Kings have only been half-watchable this season.

Probably no "Week in Review" post this week since we barely did anything. Sorry again for the suckage this week. And for the suckage of this post.

Tiny explanation

Sorry for the complete lack of decent posts this week. Just know that evaluation week sucks when you spend most of your spare time at work reading/writing for blogs.

The shit to do post with be coming shortly, promise. (Spoiler Alert! Go see Hey Manna at the Blackwater tonight.)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Quick Links for Nov. 13th

The forgetful terrorist is back! (Note: We have no real reason to believe all the explosives being left around are by the same person.) Actually police just found a grenade casing and gun parts in a burning bag behind a Lathrop supermarket, but it does bring us two bits of good news.

A. He's moved further south to Lathrop so Stockton has nothing to fear anymore.

And B. He's apparently run out of explosives so he's just throwing in menacing looking parts.

Whatever happened to the good ol' shit in a burning bag joke? Gun parts and empty grenades are wayyyy easier to wipe off your shoes than some old fashioned dog shit. At least throw some copies of Fitzy's latest columns.

While we're on the subject of weapons that look more dangerous than they actually are, police released a picture of the "replica" gun (via the Record's Crime Blog) used by the stupid kid who was shot by police. Christian Burkin correctly identified it as a pellet gun. The commentors on his blog post think he's being a bit nit picky, and he is but not for the reasons they state. He's not questioning whether or not the officer should have fired upon the kid, he's questioning the SPD's wording. You don't misidentify a weapon to a former military man. That's like asking an MLB fan why they don't use aluminum bats. Or trying to convey an actual non-cynical opinion to a hipster. It's just annoying.

Oh shit! Quick! Marta, Jose, Pepe! Hide! Lupe, whip out those titties and attach them to the milker so they think you're a cow! And where's that 6-year old Panamanian boy that just came in this morning? Of all the fucking days the inspectors come on shower day. Shut off the hose Rodrigo! We'll finish later!

So Delta's teaching kids how to read the want ads now? I know the classes there are easy and all, but really? I was lucky enough to grow up with both parents in my life, but I don't credit them with sitting me down and deciphering such cryptic messages as "Dishwasher needed, BJ's Resturant, flexible hours". Filling out a job application? Quick, mommy help! Why are they asking for my last name first? I understand these are important life skills to know, but it's not like my daddy sat me down and explained how to balance a checkbook to me. It's fucking math. I had $800. I spent $50. How much money do I have now? Fuck, if only Pops were here to help me. Linking college to future income? Man, I wish I had a dad to do that for me, since they don't start hammering the degree/non-degree income thing into your head until the 8th grade!

Also, they couldn't have picked a more stereotypical student to feature. Oh man, he has the same Hendrix poster 80% of college students have, he plays guitar, and he's a music major! He's overcome so much adversity in his life to become just like every other douchebag toiling away at Delta until their late-20s. Plus, music degree? What? Was journalism full? What other degrees that become useless and outdated the second you graduate are there? I hear the pottery major has an open spot.

In painfully obvious news, who the hell thought appointing a bunch of cat ladies to the Animal Advisory Council was a good idea. The only way that could end is with somebody trying to abuse power that they don't technically have. And guess what? That's exactly what happened. Unless the AAC is going to pony up the money for a second animal shelter, then animals are going to get euthanized. Obviously the city of Lodi created the council to try an placate these people, but they forgot one thing. Cat ladies are fucking crazy. They're lonely and they treat their cats like the kids that either left as soon as they got emancipated from crazyville or were never able to have because God blessed us by punishing their wombs. Either way, the solution is simple. Pair these old biddies up with the foster kids from the previous link. Or bribe them with Winnie the Pooh crap.

And finally, while we're still in obviousland, clean air apparently has health benefits. In other news, drinking can impair your judgement, the sun will rise tomorrow morning, the Raiders suck, and we also hear the sky is blue.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Quick Links for Nov. 12th

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Busy week at that pesky actual job-type thing. Hopefully things will pick up around here as the week progresses. No promises though. But let's knock out some quick links while we got some free time.

I know we just spent the last couple months (unsuccessfully) stumping against segregation, but this plan to desgregate prisons has "bad idea" written all over it. Of course this is coming from a guy who's extent of prison experience is watching "American History X" and "Shawshank". But not "Oz". Good lord not "Oz".

Speaking of prisons, Fitzy's column about the prison medical facility that will eventually be built nearby was a fucking chore to get through. The things we do for you guys. Just don't read it. It's fucking boring and he never comes to a viable conclusion. You know what his conclusion is? We're fucked. That's what it is. We're getting that prison hospital or whatever it is whether we like it or not. Which is something we knew before we wasted 5 minutes our lives reading his dogshit column. This guy's won awards? Really?

In future news, can a campus made of mostly portable buildings be foreclosed on? Probably. So consider this us calling our shot.

Quick! Who wants to help us put together a holiday float for Tracy's tree lighting parade? We're thinking of doing a float dedicated to our favorite holiday movies, Die Hard 1 and 2. Who wants to be Fred Thompson?

This kid has to be the most retarded kid ever. Who the fuck points a fake gun at the fucking SWAT team? When they show up, that's when you set the gun down and say "just kidding guys" and hope they won't pretend to not hear your cries for help as you get gangraped in your holding cell. But I guess pretending like you've got big balls while holding a cheap plastic gun works too.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Quick Links for the post-election news wasteland that is Nov. 10th

So after all that talk about needed to find a qualified big city replacment, the backpedaling has already begun. Our new police chief may be promoted from within. Because that's worked so well in the past. They should still at least give Robocop an interview. Also, thanks for letting us know we're not an attractive city. We already knew that, but saying we're less attractive than Tracy? That's just mean and uncalled for.

Speaking of mean and uncalled for, are you fucking kidding us San Joaquin County Superior Court? You really can't make one little concession for a little basic religious freedom? This is really the first time something like this has come up? If Hulk Hogan can get away with wearing his trademark bandana at his son's trial (which did happen btw) then this guy should be able to wear his turban. We've heard of prisoners hanging themselves with their underwear, does that mean prisoners have to freeball it?

I tried to read Fitzy's column yesterday and it literally put me to sleep. Oh man! A pivotal part of WWII miiiiiight have been affected by something local. Fuck, I almost fell asleep just typing that. In a related note, anybody know what gets newspaper ink off the side of your face?

We're linking to this just out of principle. And no, it was not El Duke in an angry drunken rage. Deja Vu is a happy place.

And finally, boooooooo!

Friday, November 7, 2008

Week in Review for Nov. 3rd-Nov. 7th

Fitzy wrote that we shouldn't abandondivert funds away from downtown, we disagreed. Then he did as well.

We heard for mayor-elect Ann Johnston on Election Day. Then got her former opponent's response the following day.

We provided more original Raider analysis in one paragraph than the Record did all week.

And everybody's favorite feature made it's triumphant return! (and only a month or two after promised!)

See you next week.

Shit to do for the weekend of 11/7

Sexy Friday 11/7

Dun Bin Had, Rule 22, Banda Nonsense, and 9:00 News play the Blackwater tonight at 8. If 9:00 News doesn't play at 9 I'm going to be very disappointed. If ever a band had a built in hook, that would be it. $8

The Highway 61 Blues Band plays the Matinee tonight at 9. I've actually seen these guys in action and their a fairly decent blues band. They're popular with the older crowd though, so if you plan on going there be prepared for the place to be filled with a bunch of "way too old to be at the bar this late" guys eyeing women like they were still in their mid-twenties. $10

Saturday 11/8

We don't really include many Modesto shows in these posts, but it's not every weekend that pioneers in both rap and vulgarity come by. Saturday night at the Fat Cat, most of 2 Live Crew (sans Luke) will dazzle the crowd lyrically at 9:30. Opening for them will be local DJs Suga Shane, Bobby Sanchez, and Liquid. Let's see if 2LC can mirror the comeback success of fellow 80s band AC/DC. Something tells me they can't, but it should be a fun show anyways.

Sunday 11/9

So there's good news and bad news for Raider fans this weekend. The good news is that they can't possibly play any worse, and there's rumors floating around that there's somebody out there crazy enough to want to coach them (Stanford's Jim Harbaugh). The bad news? They're playing the 6-2 Panther who come in to Oakland fresh off their bye week. If they gain a single yard in the first half, it has to be considered a moral victory for the silver and black.

Speaking of teams fresh off their bye week, the Niners play the Cardinals on...whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute. Does that say Monday Night Football? The Monday Night Football? You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Monday 11/10

For some unknown reason MNF features a week 10 battle between two NFC West teams. Shaun Hill gets the start against the Buzzsaw as everybody now realizes that NFL Europe MVP and "less than mediocre NFL player" are the exact same thing.

The return of Bars We're Down With!

After months of delays, everybody's favorite feature returns. That's right....

Bars! We're! Down! With!

I wrestled with the decision of which bar to induct next for a long time. After months of deep personal inflection, we all finally decided on inducting another recently deceased bar. Next one will be a bar you can actually go to, promise. In the meantime, feel free to patronize the original BWDW, Fat's Grill and Bar. They've added 6 HDTVs since we inducted them and even revived their Happy Hour.

But I'm not here to talk about Fat's. I'm here to talk about a place that came and went within the past year. After a controversial opening this bar overcame stereotypes to actually become a decent drinking establishment. Technically it's still open, but has been rebranded as a country-western bar. Which means I'll probably never set foot in it again. I'm, of course, referring to:

On The Beach

On the Beach was a personal favorite because it incorporated something I've been telling other bar owner friends of mine they should be doing for a long time, girls dancing in bikinis. It's opening in Lockeford was fairly controversial as live entertainment requires a special permit, and the county was apprehensive to give it to them. I'd always wondered why, right up until the first time I went there.

When I heard the words "bikini bar" I naturally assumed it was going to be something along the lines of scantily clad women serving you drinks and mini-burgers. You know, like Hooters or Maxim's (Tracy Maxim's, not old Mallard's Maxim's). And it was kind of like that. Only if those establishments also had a stage, stripper pole, and VIP room. That's right, One the Beach was SJ County's second strip club. And I couldn't have been happier.

Don't get me wrong, Deja Vu's is nice and all. It's just that they're the only game in town. Which sometimes led to them not trying that hard. With some competition in town, perhaps it would light a fire under their asses and force Deja Vu raise the quality bar (and it may have, Deja Vu remodeled their VIP room during the time On the Beach was open).

And On the Beach brought it too. Cover charge? While Deja Vu's charges $10, On the Beach let you in for the low, low price of showing them your ID. And in what had to be the smartest move ever, drinking there didn't cost you an arm and a leg. I'm not sure of the exact price of a Coors Light at Deja Vu's (I think it's around $6), On the Beach gave you Rocky Mountain refreshment for $3. Just like most other area bars, except your server not only expected you to be staring at her tits, he job probably depended on it.

One of the bigger knocks against On the Beach was it's location. People heard "Lockeford strip club" and immediatly cringed. They assumed the dancers would be made up of the populous of Lockeford, which any regular strip club visitor like myself can tell you is never the case. Strippers don't dance at the strip club closest to where they live because nothing's more awesomely awkward than getting about 10 minutes into a lap dance and then realizing you went to middle school with the gyrating body on your lap. The last thing you want to hear after tipping extra to relax the "no touching" rule is "Say hi to your sister for me".

So On the Beach wasn't filled with a bunch of Lockeford's finest, it was filled with women from all over Northern California. Including some girls I recognized from Deja Vu's. (And including one girl who spoke with an accent and claimed to be both French and Canadian, but not French-Canadian. I would have asked why, but my question was muffled by her massive cans.)

In the end, On the Beach failed. If I had to guess, the main contribution to it's downfall was probably the fact that it was in Lockeford. Nobody was really keen on making the 15 minute drive out to a place that was cryptically called a bikini bar instead of a gentleman's club. I'm sure the county didn't help either. For a place that overwhemingly approved heterosexual only marriage, they for some reason thought that a guy wanting some titties rubbed in his face wasn't a good thing either. This county needs to make up it's fucking mind.

In the meantime, at least we still got the old Richard's Place.

Quick Links for Nov. 7th

If you see Joe Goldeen walking around with a extra skip in his step today, now you know why. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Goldeen and those maverick renegades over on March and 1-5, gas is now below $2 for the first time in over 3 years (not counting that one place that did it for like 2 hours) at a gas station in east Stockton on Waterloo. Sure it's only 20 cents cheaper than most Stockton gas stations, but by God it's a deal. And all it took was the economy going to shit to the point where more people started taking public transit thus buying less gas and sending the price of oil plummeting. Oh, and that "hard-hitting" series the Record did. Totally helped.

First they find a bomb lying around in Lodi, now they find one in Oak Park. The message is clear, some forgetful terrorist is forgetting his bombs after sparking up a doobie on park benches all over the county! And he's migrating south into Stockton! At least the county bomb squad attempted to get some idnetifying information before taking care of the bomb.

The city council finally got around to approving those budget cuts. And we don't even have to lose a fire truck. Although city hall will now rival my bank for shittest operating hours for the rest of the year.

Well, there goes our top entry for the "Top 5 weekly columns the Record should start". If there's one think we think while sitting down to read the Sunday Record it's "This is nice and all, but how else can they cater to people over the age of 65?" And for the record the other 4 items in that hypothetical top 5 are sports related. I know, surprising.

We wish we could link to it, but we see you taunting us with your headlines 3MR. I don't care if that dog bit Pres. Bush himself in the balls and had to be surgically removed, no more political news. Just give us one day for fuck's sake.

It's funny how quickly views can change when the majority of the city voices their opinion. It only took 6 days! Of course Fitzy was primed to flipflop as soon as he realized less money for downtown means the city could pump it into his true love, trees. Fitzy's love affair with trees started when our fair city was mentioned in his favorite publication, Sunset Magazine. They called us the best tree city in the western US and he never looked back. The lesson? He has incredibly malleable opinions.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Quick Links for Nov. 6th

Apologies for the poltical takeover over here the past couple days. But hey, our 2 days of coverage is better than the 2 years of national coverage we've had to endure. And it's finally over. Finally we can turn on our TVs and not be subjected to roughly 800 ads on Prop 8 or that annoying Kathy Miller commercial. Let's see what quick links we can bang out this morning. Fuck, still a lot of political shit. When will it end!?

The front page of the Record today asks if Obama winning SJ county means that the county as a whole is moving towards the left. While it's an interesting arguement, we'd have to say the answer is a resounding "fuck no". If our county's support for Prop 8 showed us anything, it's the fact is that this will always be a Republican county. Voting for Obama doesn't mean we magically turned into a bunch of pot smoking, vegetarian, gun controlling douchebags. It just means John McCain ran an absolute dog shit campaign. But hey, at least they got ahold of the Hope diamond.

The new Delta Board of Trustees is considering possibly ditching the Mountain House campus. We've never been real big fans of building in Mountain House, but moving this late in the game would waste even more bond money than they've already wasted. Yes, that's somehow possible. But our personal favorite part is the following:

"Critics of Mountain House say it's too far from most of Delta's students, and too close to Las Positas Community College on the west side of the Altamont Pass."

Why is that our favorite? Those critics sound eerily like us from a couple of months ago. We still believe the Mountain House campus is way too close to Las Positas, but changing it's location now would be like the Oklahoma City Thunder deciding the whole move from Seattle wasn't worth the negative vibes and heading back to the Pacific Northwest. While having the Sonics back would be awesome, the damage has already been done. Same goes for Mountain House. While picking a better site sounds like a great idea, the damage has already been done. Moving now would only cause more damage.

What's up with the Saurout in the Record today? LENS columnist Tony "Dino" Sauro wrote not one, not two, but three articles for the paper today, including the entire front page of the LENS section (the aforementioned Saurout). Sauro did more original articles (three) than the entire Sports section had (One. Well, two if you count the Local Roundup) If he keeps working at this pace at his age he's going to have a heart attack. Although I guess that's why Highfill puts forth the effort that he does with the Sports section. Judging by his picture, his heart's got enough stress on it as it is.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

We swear this is the last election post

Yesterday we gave some time to now Mayor-elect Ann Johnston to state her case. Now, to be fair, we're giving the man she defeated, Clem Lee, a timely rebuttal. (Again, of course, totally fake)

So, ya wanna negative campaign do ya? *hiccup* I'll give you a fucking negative campaign! *takes swig from flask* Ann Johnston...*burp* she's...she's a fucking bitch! You know that area behind Super Wal-Mart? All her fucking idea! 

*takes another swig*

I can't believe that bitch tried to blame that budget thing on me! What the fuck you think she's going to do? She's going to blow the whole budget on shoes! And...and *hiccup* I don't even like those fucking burgers! Ten fucking dollars? I had to loan myself 50 grand just to keep my campaign afloat! You think I can afford a $10 burger? Those cocksuckers didn't pass on any of that subsidy money to the people. That's not my fault, it's the asshole who runs the place's fault!

*takes particularly long swig*

And I can't fucking believe she brought up that goat thing! Yeah, so what if I fucked a goat? Have you seen me? No human would fuck me! But if Ann Johnston wants a negative campaign, I'll give that rusty fucking cunt a negative campaign!

*vomits barely digested Jack Daniels all over self*

I'll give you a God damn negative campaign. That goat's name was ANN FUCKING JOHNSTON! That's right! Ann Johnston is a fucking goat! She even let me take a naked picture of her:



Now you know why she looks like the bastard child of Skeletor and a llama! *wrings out shirt into shot glass, downs regurgitated JD* I fucked that goat and I fucked her good, and she loved every second of it. She even borrowed my razor the next day to shave off her goatee. That bitch didn't even ask! You know how disgusting goat hair is? *hiccup*

So, in conclusion, Ann Johnston's a bitch! And a shaved goat.

*vomits, passes out in puddle of own vomit*

Election quick links and why we opposed Prop 8

Fuck, it's been a weird, long day on our end. Don't really feel like getting into particulars, just know we'll be drinking heavily tonight.

So there was an election yesterday, right? Noted hat lover Jerry Mac beat ol' Beakface Andal.

Underage sluts women can still get abortions without telling mommy and daddy, which probably makes new Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson happy.

Skeletor overcame a massive negative campaign to beat Clem Lee to become our mayor.

Lathrop Mayor Kristy Sayles discovered that nobody actually takes what they read on one website run by some annonymous douche seriously (hey, wait a minute...).

And while half the city took to the streets (or at least the Miracle Mile) to celebrate the end of racism, discrimination still found a way to show it's ugly pimply face.

Now that the election is over, we should probably explain why we so vehemently opposed Prop. 8. Prop 8 doesn't affect us in the way it probably affects most Californians. As a bunch of straight guys, we just wanted to see our gay friends have the same rights we enjoy. Ironically they now only enjoy separate but "equal" rights. But it goes beyond segregation. El Duke will take it from here.

Last week I let you guys in on one of the things about my life that I'm not particularly proud of. The fact that I spent 19 years of my life as a Mormon. The story of why I eventually left is a somewhat long story, but it began back then Prop 22 started. Prop 22 was the original gay marriage ban and the LDS fought hard for it's victory. Even then at 16 or 17 I knew it was wrong. I didn't like politics and religion mixing. Separation of church and state, right?

A few years later, upon quitting, my Bishop asked if he could talk to me about it. He'd always been a nice guy to me so I agreed, even though I knew nothing he could say would change my mind. I gave him the laundry list of reasons for my departure from the church, ranging from money for blessings (tithing) to Prop 22. When Prop 22 came up, he admitted to me that they were probably a bit too earnest in campaigning for it and that it wouldn't happen again. I was skeptical.

Being the nice guy that I am, I assured him I wasn't going to go all anti-Mormon on him. Partially because the rest of my family is still Mormon and that would be awkward, and paritally because the main reason I quit was I didn't think I should have to force my religion on others by going door-to-door on a bike soliciting my religion like some holy door-to-door salesman.

When I found out about Prop 8, my immediate reaction was disappointment. Right there in the article about it were quotes from people who me and my family consider friends. It may not have been that specific Bishop, but the promise was still broken. I was lied to by a man of God, and that's why I pushed to campaign against it on this site. You may have noticed that it's the only real endorsement we gave on this site (aside from our Robocop endorsement of course).

It's sad that a day that should be marked as a huge victory against discrimination will be slightly marred by the addition of discrimination to our state's constitution. While we're pretty sure this proposition will be contested in courts for years to come like Prop 22 before it, it's still a large personal disappointment to me. While my Bishop didn't keep his promise (or made a promise he couldn't keep), I'll continue to try my hardest to keep the promise I made to him. Even if I really really realllly want to go egg the church right now.

Rejected Record Headlines!

You may have heard sometime throughout the night that Barack Obama was elected President. Whether you watched it on CNN, the Daily Show special, or heard the excited cries of joy from your upstairs neighbor at 8pm like I did; chances are you'll remember the moment you heard he won for a long time.

Like most papers, the Record had their post-election front page planned well in advance. They went the historical route with their headline and even splashed a "YES WE CAN" across the top. But we got our grubby little hands on a list of rejected headlines that the Record considered going with before they settled on what eventually made it to print. (Note: If you think these are real, you're a moron.)

"America smells what Barack is cooking"

"All aboard the hoooooooooooooope train"

"(Black)light of hope"

"I wanna Barack! Barack!"

"Black to the Future!"

There's also about 90% of the lines from "Blazing Saddles" reworked in hilarious fashion. But we'll leave that for you to come up with on your own.

In all seriousness, this was a historic election. Not that fake kind of history like ESPN tried to claim the last Superbowl was. This is actual history, and we'll all remember this election for a long time. Mostly because is encompassed two years of our lives that we'll never ever get back. Fuck we're glad this election is over.

We'll probably have more on this later, but for now we can't stress enough how disappointed we are that we live in discriminatory state. Fucking Mormons.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Bob Highfill vs. Slick Diaz, who provides better Raider analysis?

Yesterday in the Quick Links we took a couple of shots at the Raiders because, let's face it, that entire situation is hilarious. Even if you're a Raider fan you have to step back and objectivly watch the Al Davis press conference and just laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Bob Highfill also decided to poke fun at the Raiders in his shittastic weekly bullets column (a style of column writing that's ok every once in a while, but loathesome when done over and over again. Unless it's the quick links of course.). But we couldn't help but notice that his Raider swipe seemed eerily familiar...

From Highfill's column:

"OK, I lied about not taking a shot at the Raiders: The Sacramento Bee reported last week that Raiders coach Tom Cable had his players practice their touchddown celebrations to visualize success. What a waste of time, considering they were shut out by the Falcons on Sunday and have scored only nine TDs at the midway point."

And, for comparison's sake, the words of a young man named Slick Diaz:

"...Jamarcus Russell laid yet another proverbial turd on Sunday. Thus proving once again that you should never, ever draft a QB with the number 1 over all pick. The Niners learned that lesson, and now the Raiders are. You know it's a bad idea when a year and a half into your NFL career teammates are openly pining for the team to sign a convicted felon to replace you. Also, instead of spending time practicing endzone celebrations, maybe they should have worked on how to maintain positive yardage throughout the half. Or how to get first downs."

Now, let's face it, the TD celebration thing was an easy target. But we still find it hilarious that a guy in his 40s who's the editor of an entire sports section for an actual newspaper, somehow managed to hone in on the same thing as a college dropout in his mid-twenties who runs a blog.

Not only that, that handsome devil of a blogger actually provided more original analysis in what was intended to be a throwaway paragraph, than a guy who allegedly writes sports columns for a living! Look, we live in a Raider town. We don't like it, we're Niner fans, but even we can provide more analysis on a team we can't stand, than a guy who's job it is to write his opinions about sports. The world isn't fair.

And now a (fake) Election Day message from one of Stockton's Mayoral candidates

(DISCLAIMER: Even though it should be obvious to anybody with a brain, the following is NOT the actual words of Mayoral candidate Ann Johnston. It's satire. Got that? SAT-I-RE. A fucking joke. So please don't get your panties in a wad. Also, that last accusation obviously isn't true. So, hope you have a sense of humor Clem.)


Hi, this is Ann Johnston, democratic candidate for Mayor of Stockton. And I have a messgae for all the good people of this fine city. My opponent, Clem Lee, is going to run a negative campaign. He's said it himself, and it's going to start any day now. Possibly tomorrow. Negative campaigning is the worst, most tasteless action a candidate can take. I can't believe he would stoop so low. I assure you I would never dream of doing such a thing.

I'd also like to remind you that he's the one who messed up our budget. Not the economy, not the destruction of the housing market. CLEM LEE is solely responsible for the budget crisis. He's also going to run a negative campiagn. And we really don't need negativity in a time like this.

Hey, remember downtown? I helped revitalize it during my tenure on Stockton's City Council, but the Clem Lee fucked it all up. That's right, Clem Lee is responsible for downtown failing to attract pretty much anybody. All those subsidies? Classic Clem. He also personally booked Neil Diamond. They "do lunch" every other Sunday. Swear. Those $10 burgers at Paragary's? His idea. It's all Clem's fault. I also here he's very close to running a negative campaign. One that will grow increasingly negative as we move closer to the election.

I also heard he once fucked a goat. Not just any goat, a goat from Stockton. He took one of our city's goats across county lines and anally violated it in Tuolumne County. Their beastiality laws aren't as stringent apparently. He's also going to run a negative campaign. And I would never dream of doing such a thing.

So remember people of Stockton, when you go to vote, remember to vote for the person who would never ever use negative campaigning tactics. Tactics which, if you haven't been paying attention, Clem Lee has said he will eventually employ. That's right, Clem Lee eventual negative campaigner....and alleged goat fucker.

Consider this a digital tumbleweed

Today's probably gonna be kind of slow around these parts. Partially because apparently everything journalistic has been dedicated to the election the past couple of days. No really, nothing happened yesterday. We have it on good authority something might happen today. Call it a hunch. So at least we'll have shit to post about tomorrow.

Get out and vote today. If you don't, you're relinquishing your right to bitch about anything government-related for the next couple years. Which, since that's a lot of what we do on here, means we've already voted. It's almost over people! Woo!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Wait, so downtown isn't the only problem? You don't say...

Yesterday Mike Fitzgerald wrote a fairly interesting column about various local candidates using the public's general disdain towards the city's recentish downtown spending in their campaign literature. Fitzy, being a unabashed downtown supporter, was dismayed that candidates would be campaigning against downtown and said, "to blame downtown alone betrays a disturbing ignorance of city financials." To which we reply, no shit Sherlock.

Of course Stockton's budget problems can't solely be blamed on downtown subsidies. Anybody who believes that is a fucking moron. Downtown is just the most visibile/popular problem. Partially because the only people who really wanted downtown revitalized in the first place were politicians (and, of course, Fitzy), and partially because they've been doing so at ludicrious speed. Especially ludicrious because it involves a government of some sort, and anybody who's been to the DMV lately knows speed isn't their strong suit.

But ignoring all of that, Fitzy ignores the one thing that everybody should be conditioned to know by now in this seemingly endless election season (one more day!). He's ignoring the fact that campaigns that say the problems with the budget are because we're a city of low income familes and old parks that don't have self-taxation districts would be insinuating that the solution is taxes.

We're not saying that part of the solution isn't higher taxes (because unfortunately it probably is, the rich aren't coming downtown so we can tax them), but tell us, who the fuck is the last candidate who won an election by saying we're not paying enough taxes? And even if they did say it, they definitely wouldn't put it on their campaign mailers.

Of course Fitzy sees these mailers and thinks those candidates are just going to abandon downtown, which is a huge stretch of logic. Instead, and we know this is a novel fucking concept, how about just stopping putting as much money downtown as we are (the other possible, non-taxation solution)? You know, slow the fuck down and let downtown build a decent crowd before building a huge, fancy hotel for our non-existant tourists complete with another expensive resturant?

That part might be the most depressingly hilarious part of Fitzy's entire column. He says part of the solution is "okaying only subdivisions that are 'revenue neutral' and reducing city expenditures below revenues." Which apparently shouldn't apply to downtown because another solution to fix Stockton's bugetary problems is to "offer coastal employers and high wage earners a downtown with amenities they demand." A. Isn't that what we've allegedly been doing? And B. High wage earners? I thought the problem was that we didn't earn enough God damn money. You said it yourfuckingself just 12 paragraphs ago!

Which of course brings us to the last problem, The fact that the city spent too much time catering to out-of-towners and the few high wage earners that we do have. Instead of, you know, the people who actually live here. And that's what those campaign mailers are really about.

Hell, that's what this entire election, local and national, has been about. Government has spent too much time catering to those with money, while those of us who don't have any feel like we've been left out in the cold. A $10 burger, the Sheraton, Neil Diamond, and overused political buzzwords like "hope" and "change" are just easily recognizable symbols of our city's...hell our nation's disaffection with the government right now.

We're not saying we have the solutions. Shit, we're not even saying we're right. Even if the city didn't subsidize anything we'd still have a huge gaping hole in the budget. What we're saying is that they're very clearly subsidizing the wrong things. If they were the right things they'd be generating that revenue they're supposed to be and not getting forclosed on.