Quick Links for Jan 16th

At last, Sexy Friday is here. This Sexy Friday is extra sexy because of the 3-day weekend and the last weekend of good football before the sports media crushes our will to live with soft news stories about shit various NFL players have had to overcome to get to the Superbowl. Pretty much this Friday is super sexy because with Super Bowl media week coming up and the nation is preparing to collectively blow Barack Obama on Tuesday and this it's the last time we'll wake up and not briefly consider throwing our TVs out the window until sometime after Valentine's Day. In short, fuck the media for the next couple weeks (us included. No really, I could use the slump buster). On to the Quick Links.

Note to self: Never get drunk and pass out around Susan Eggman

Out of all the blogs Recordnet has, we probably visit David Siders' with the most frequency (outside of feverishly reloading Joe Goldeen's gas blog every 5 mins to see if Costco still has the cheapest gas). Sure, Fitzy posts more, but his shit is usually self-serving and boring as fuck. Plus it's where he stashes all those updates on the Delta Queen that only he cares about. Siders on the other hand gives us hilarious window into the "exciting" world of city government. What can we see through that window? That the city council is apparently run with the organizational skills of a summer camp.

Yes, they actually went around the room and had everyone introduce themselves and tell the room something nobody in the room knows about you. Susan Eggman was a self-described pecker-checker in the military, known for her vasectomies and circumcisions. Which explains, well, a lot. The most shocking revelation was that somebody there admitted to being a Cardinal fan (a season ticket holder at that!). And of course, it wouldn't be the city if somebody didn't take what's supposed to be something silly and fun and bring the room down. Enter HR Director and lover of dark chocolate Dianna Garcia! She acknowledged that she's somewhat unpopular amongst certain labor circles (specifically with the ex-mayor's wife. But who gives a shit what she thinks? She's gone).

Ann Johnston also returned to form. After spending the better part of 2008 slinging as much mud as she could get her hooves on, she started off (well, you know, after the whole introduction thing) the goal-setting meeting with "There will be no finger pointing or blame or looking back." She also may or may not have noted that Clem Lee was going to start that negative campaign any day now.

Really? No really, Really!?

We're going to preface this by saying we understand the Cleveland school shootings affected Stockton more than we could comprehend at the time. We were all just starting school around then (not Cleveland though) so I can only guess what my parents thought sending their first born off to school only to have another elementary school get shot up 6 months later. But, and I'm trying to be as measured and tactful as possible, that was 20 fucking years ago.

If you've lived in Stockton for the better part of 2 decades, there's a good chance someone's pulled a gun on you. Ignoring that, in 20 years there's a good chance you've experienced something mentally scarring like a near-death experience, the untimely death of a loved one, or catching your roommate masturbating in the living room after you took an impromptu sick day (we've since burned that couch cushion). Shit just happens, then you deal with it.

Which is why the story of Sarah Garcia perplexes us. She wasn't even actually shot at. She wasn't even on the fucking playground. She was safe, under her desk, in a classroom. Yet, just the thought of being present at a place where a shooting occurred apparently caused 20 years worth of mental damage. Get the fuck over it.

Now, I know people are going to think we're being callous, but hear me out. This lady's problem isn't some shooting that she happened to be present for but didn't witness. If it's taken her 20 years to muster up the courage to just drive by her old school, she's not exactly the strongest-minded person in the world. She thinks nobody will be at the school on the anniversary of the biggest thing that happened to it. She claims she didn't care that the kids laughed at her for jumping under her desk at the first sign of a loud noise, but then decided on home schooling for the rest of her academic career.
Let's face it, she's not the sharpest tool in the shed. Chances are, if that shooting doesn't happen, something else would have happened later on in her life and taken the same effect. Like the Baskin Robbins robbery. Or the death threat phoned in to the medical facility. Or someone telling her that those jeans make her ass look fat (which isn't a good idea regardless of the woman's mental strength).

And to think, we still have a whole weekend of this shit. Including a 12-page special about it on Sunday. 12-pages!? That's just 2 less than the A-section had today.

Maybe we're just dicks, but then again, we're not the one's still hung up on shit that happened during the first Bush administration.

So how was that for measured and tactful?

El Guapo brings you great deals on mp3 players!

After procrastinating until the last possible second to check out what kind of sales they had at Mervyns, you can bet I'll be one of the first people in line when Circuit City starts liquidating it's inventory. Hopefully the nerds coming to get a discount on computer software and video games will be more civil than the last day at Mervyns. 90% off everything plus women plus the economy equaled martial law. I'm surprised I got out of there with the clothes I was wearing. Luckily, when you dress like a borderline homeless man like I do, nobody mistakes you for a mannequin.

Next up, local boy goes to state finals of POG tournament

We hate to make fun of myRecord because it's just wayyyy too easy. It'd be like making fun of the kids on the short bus. But today's was particularly funny if for no other reason than we didn't know they still had Pokemon turnaments. Hell, we didn't even know they still made Pokemon cards. This makes El Duke happy because it keeps his hopes of entering an NES-tournament and school kids with his Power Glove Wizard-style alive. And he's always really wanted to take a cross country trip with Jenny Lewis.

Also, that cat photo was adorable.

Actual good ideas on recordnet? Excuse me while I got salt down the icy spots from where Hell just froze over

We'e had our fair share of fun at the expense of Recordnet.com over the past 6 months. Hell, we'll be having some more next week when we post a revised top 5 things needed to improve recordnet.com. But there are rare times when they have a good idea without our help.

One of the issues we had in the original Recordnet Top 5 was the fact that some stories that appear in the Record don't appear on the website. Unfortunately we used like the worst example possible. Plus we've pretty much grown used to the whole "stay tuned tomorrow" thing. We get it, peeps is busy and they need time to do actual research. Being the stoned test monkeys that we are, we neglected to think about the opposite. Web exclusive articles that don't appear in the Record.

Now, we'll touch on this a little bit later when we talk about the Record's redesign, but judging by the subjects of the web exclusive content (from here on out referred to as "websclusive". We're not totally sure how that s snuck in their either) it appears that the Record's slowly gearing it's website towards the local young people. You know, building a web readership for when the Record print edition downgrades itself to a pamphlet. Which is kind of a smart idea. Which scares me. All smart ideas at the Record are supposed to be swatted down by management because they would cost too much or they just don't like change (or don't know how to enact it).

We're also pretty sure Record management treats the internet like my grandma did after I set up her computer for it. Can't you just imagine The Coozer pointing the mouse at the computer and clicking it like a remote and asking the webmaster how to check "the MySpace"?

We'll be back a little later today to discuss the redesign. Duke should be by shortly to give us some Shit to do and then we'll all hunker down for a 3-day weekend of binge drinking and video games. I know, you're jealous of our glamorous lifestyles.