Here's what we missed...

Sometime we get busy around here and stories fall through the cracks. Here's a couple stories that we missed (including one from today!) in a feature I'm pretty sure we call What We Missed.
Sarcasm only works in writing when the author is good at both writing and sarcasm. Don Blount isn't good at either

Bad sarcasm aside, let's move to the most important part. Where Don Blount comes from, a group of armed dudes wearing similar clothing patrolling the seedier areas of town in their cars is called the Klan. But we're not in where Don Blount comes from. We're in where Slick Diaz comes from. And where I come from, a group of armed dudes wearing similar clothing patrolling dangerous areas in their cars are called fucking GANGS.

What's that? They can't be because they're old and white? Racist!

Situations like the one surrounding the formation of the SAM are the exact same situations gangs are formed. Community members feel abandoned by the people meant to protect them so they take the law into their own hands and protect themselves and their community. Sound familiar? That's because that's exactly what the SAM is doing. And it's also how the gangs they're so hot to combat got started too.

While we can appreciate what Blount was going for, even if the entire column was borderline unreadable, likening the SAM to the Ku Klux Klan is just short sighted for multiple reasons. The biggest one being the fact that the Klan is such a lightening rod of hate that whatever argument Blount was trying to make (no matter how valid) was lost because people see the word "Klan" and go into some sort of knee jerk defense mode. Which (surprise!) is exactly what happened.

A much much much much much much (much much much ) better choice of words would have been to liken them to gangs. Or, if Blount was really set on comparing them to another group of white people, old timey gangsters. You know, the Godfather kind. Those gangs/families also formed to protect their neglected immigrant community. Sure, they're glorified now in movies and on TV, but it's still better than conjuring up images of the KKK. Doing that's almost as bad an idea as patrolling the dangerous streets of Stockton with loaded weapons and no training.

Irony alert!

While Tara Cuslidge writing about her old journalism teacher getting an award seems somewhat conflict of interesty, it's overshadowed by the hilarity of a column preaching diversity in journalism appearing in the Record. We'd outline the Record's history in diversity but if you've been reading this site (or even just the Record for that matter) you know the Record caters to one group and one group alone, rich old white people.

Ok fine, you want an example. How about the ridiculous over-coverage of minor league hockey while a popular Latino fighter spends the weekend earning a decisive victory over one of his sport's legends and only gets two paragraphs in a sports round up?

Or how about the fact that nobody's flipping out about the Cougars actually leaving town but everybody's shitting themselves over the Thunder just being put up for sale?

Or, you know, spending 2 weeks covering that Cantu case even though there was about 2 days worth of information released? Or the Record's apparent decision that the local music scene wasn't worth it and that Ian Hill was better suited standing outside a courthouse shooting video of an uninformative press conference.

And then there's always the fact that if you're a non-athlete above 17 and under 50 the only way you're getting in the paper is sending something to myRecord, while Lori Gilbert regularly writes about old people for doing shit like waiting tables and not dying (except for that one woman who actually died).

So yeah, it's ironic that the Record is writing about diversity when it's anything but. Hilarious, ain't it?

Why I hate journalism and a meandering rant about the Cantu Case

We haven't really covered much of the Sandra Cantu case here. Mostly because after about day 3 we stopped following it regularly because there was really only a handful of ways it could have ended, one of them being "found in a suitcase in an irrigation ditch". And, call me crazy, I don't want to hear/read about how a little girl was brutally raped and murdered. That's not exciting journalism for us.

We also ignored it partially because it was quite possibly the slowest developing story we've ever seen. It was frustrating to track because Tracy PD was keeping its mouth shut on fucking everything. Which resulted in multiple articles about the search continuing with no real new information aside from who's car got towed mixed in with trailer park gossip. No really, here's a list of the stories from when Cantu went missing until her body was found (roughly a week and a half):

Cantu disappears
We're searching!
Hey, did you guys do it? No? But you kissed her! On the lips! Still no? Ok, we'll keep looking.
Hey you! Let us look! Oh, still nothing. Well, we're still taking you in!
Yeah, so, we still got nothing.
But we're narrowing things down! (Note: this was 5 days before some farm workers narrowed it down for them)
We're doing a good job! Swear! But yeah, still nothing.
See! We found this t-shirt! Sure it's not Sandra's we totally wasted a day on this but it's something. Ok fine, we got nothing.
We got a helicopter! Oh, and still nothing.
Hey look! Another house searched! And another day of jack shit to report!
So still nothing, but be distracted by this creepy video of the last images of a probably dead girl in what was probably her last happy moments!
Oh my! The poor community! Oh, and still fucking nothing!
No really, poor Tracy!
Man, such a quiet search. Almost makes you think about packing it in and calling it a day.
Oh shit! They found something! Quit stalling and tellll ussssss.
OMG it was her! Quick, shoot a video of the mom's darkest hour!

That was fucking grating wasn't it? Nearly 2 weeks of bullshit. Half of those stories are "Police found jack shit". We're all for covering the search but at what point does rehashing the same story about Tracy PD not finding anything become useless? They could have skipped probably half those stories.

But Tracy PD was dicks and kept leading people on. They told us they had a handful of credible tips, they postponed press conferences with no explanation, and all of it was fucking bullshit because when it was all said and done they still had to rely on a group of farm workers who stumbled upon a suitcase in an irrigation ditch. All that shit about being close was a fucking lie. You hear about them searching the pastor's house before they found Melissa Huckaby's suitcase? I sure as hell didn't.

Of course, the Record sent a reporter out to Tracy pretty much every day for a week and a half so they had to get something back. Most of the time that reporter got nothing so he ended up having to rehash details we already knew. Which is fine once or twice. But not a week and a half of that shit.

And that's all before we got into the search for her killer and Huckaby's arrest/arraignment. The search for Sandra's killer went much more smoothly than the search for her body. Even if the avalanche of online videos increased the already borderline overkill media coverage to "contemplating suicide so I can stop hearing about this God damn story" levels.

Of course, once Huckaby was arrested, this turns into a court case so we get a whole new batch of angles to make your brain melt! Which resulted in my favorite series of stories in this entire shitstorm. The Record got ahold of deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa and found out he was going to be the prosecutor. Which would be a fine story if the other deputy DA wasn't telling the AP about the addition of rape/molestation charges! The resulting combination of those two stories was a fairly entertaining mashup (So yeah, rape and stuff. But hey look! A guy we spent half a day interviewing!)

And then there's the court hearing in which, well, NOTHING HAPPENED. They read off the charges that the DA already tipped everybody off on and everybody stood around trying to get video of some woman who's clearly at her wit's end crying. It was riveting stuff.

The saddest part (besides, you know, the whole little girl getting killed and raped thing), is that people are eating this bullshit up. Countless numbers of people who know I'm kind of a news junkie kept asking me if I saw the story about the court appearance I'm just sitting there thinking (and this is the part where, if you don't already hate me, you will afterwards) WHAT'S THE BIG FUCKING DEAL!? Yes, a girl died. Yes, it's sad. Yes, it happened close to home. But nothing's fucking changed. I see mom's reading these stories with a worried look on their face and I just want to grab them and shout "Nothing is different! Your kid was in just as much danger a month ago as they are now!" Maybe I'm just a sick human being who doesn't really feel a connection to people I've never met and never will meet, or maybe I just recognize media scare tactics

But scare tactics work. Now we can have countless News10 stories about how to keep your kid safe from the dangers of the world and everybody can get some sort of closure even though most people will forget about this case after the first episode of Nancy Grace after the gag order is in place. And in the end, what do we get? A few extra papers sold (a claim I hate making, but it fits here). A little rattled that something like that could happen in a little town like Tracy even though something like this always could have happened in Tracy (and still can in the future). Plus, we get to call some woman we don't know a psycho with mental problems to make ourselves feel better about the world in general. And, as a bonus, we get a false sense of security because now we're aware and informed about how to protect our kids thanks to the overcoverage by news outlets. Which is kind of ironic because a false sense of security is how this whole thing started.

God I hate journalism.

We don't want to repeat ourselves but....

State a motherfucking opinion in your motherfucking columns!

We harped on this as early as 2 weeks ago. And well, we'll continue to do so until somebody at the Record shows they got a pair. Let's run down the list again shall we?

Let's start with Fitzy who's Sunday column seems to be warning us that there are Mexican gangs in Stockton. Allow me this moment of faux indignant surprise...

Whoa whoa whoa ! When the fuck did this happen? Gangs from fucking Mexico? Who would have thought that a town where the majority of the population is Latino would have Latin gangs? Thank you Mike Fitzgerald for bringing this to the attention of the people of Stockton. Without this column people would probably just assume that drugs just magically appear out of thin air. I'm just floored that the Norteños and Sureños aren't some sort of club like the Elk's lodge! Those guys are gangs!? Feuding gangs!? Jesus tittyfucking Christ how are we going to combat this? Quick! Get Commissioner Gordon on the phone right away! We need to alert Batman as soon as fucking possible!

Ok, sorry if that was too sarcastic for you, but I was just flabbergasted when I read that column on Sunday. The whole point of the column as far as I can tell is "there's a Mexican drug war". Which is like saying "the economy's not doing so hot right now" or "the Kings aren't an elite team this year". Shit like that just doesn't need to be said, it's just fucking known. Hell, even my 12-year old sister knows about the gangs in Stockton. Anybody who even takes a cursory glance at McNair High knows there's gangs in Stockton. At the very least, if a column's not going to state an opinion, it needs to be informative. This column was neither. Stay tuned for Fitzy's next column entitled "The Earth is round and the Sun will rise tomorrow morning." Although to be fair Peter King thought that column was a fascinating read.

As useless and insulting as Fitzy's column was, at least he didn't pretend it was anything but informing the people of what they already knew. Editor in Chief Mike Klocke's column seems to just be a laundry of list of shit that sucks right now. Which would be fine if:

A. He didn't just do that 2 weeks ago.

B. Was right about half the items on that list. Like saying there's been an uptick in crime when the crime statistics for last year haven't been officially released yet and preliminary glimpses at crime statistics actually indicate a possible slight downturn in violent crimes. (Not to mention we already know that 2008 had the fewest homicides since the days of Disco)

And C. Actually came through with the opinion the headline teases.

For those too lazy, the headline is "There's really only one way to fix Stockton's huge problems". Which would be a fine headline if he actually presented that one way in the actual column. Is he trying to say we should be more like Tracy? Because we can't. Our problems are inherently different. Tracy's not in the middle of a budget crunch. They're not considering layoffs. They're actually increasing hours for cops to find Sandra Cantu. All shit we can't do.

Is he saying we should band together as a community like Tracy has? That's a nice idea but Ann Johnston's been preaching that for months now and that's not really going to fix the problem, it's just a coping mechanism for us. Which is fine, but everybody helping out their neighbor isn't going to make $31 million dollars magically appear. It isn't going to turn the job market around. It isn't going to make downtown profitable. It will just help us get through these tough times.

The only real solution he does offer is this:

"It's becoming more apparent that the only way out of the fiscal mess is through layoffs or contractual concessions with law enforcement (police and fire)."

So, in other words. They're pretty much fucked. Which we really already knew. And that's really only one solution to the growing list of problems facing Stockton and the World today. Even if PD and FD are forced to take concessions and/or layoffs the economy would still suck. Houses with shaggy lawns will still have For Sale signs in front of them. And city workers will definitely still be pissed off at the City Council. Thanks for offering up even the tiniest sliver of hope and then just reminding us that we're completely and totally fucked Mike. Because it's not depressing enough when those thoughts are in the back of my head, you have to go and bring them to the forefront twice in the span of a month.

And then, well, then we get to Don Blount. Don wants you to know that his credit card number got stolen. Why? Frankly I don't know. Why does Don do anything these days? It's becoming more and more apparent that we missed the mark when coming up with a name for Don's column. It's not "Shit Don Blount Saw" it's like we're reading his fucking diary.

No really, observe.

Dear Diary,

Ted Bestolairdes hasn't apologized to me yet. He's such a meany.

Love, Donny

Dear Diary,

I saw some of those old fashioned typewriters and thought about buying one but I didn't. I showed good self control. I think I deserve some Ben and Jerry's for showing such restraint. Americone Dream is just the best.

Love, Donny

Dear Diary,

Some scary dogs were fighting in my driveway. I scared them off though because I'm so big and strong. By the way, did you know Obama's black like me? It's amazing. I bet Obama could scare off stray dogs too. So in a way, President Obama and I are a lot alike. Kind of like we're related. But not brothers, that would be racist. Gotta go, taking the kids on a hike.

Love, Donny

And of course today's entry...

Dear Diary,

Somebody stole my credit card number! Sure I didn't incur any actual losses and my credit card company caught it really quick but if it could happen to me it could happen to anybody! The internet is a scary place.

Love, Donny

The best part is that last one was actually written like a letter to the identity thief. But god Lord, you're writing for a newspaper Don, not your fucking Twitter feed. Quit using the newspaper to update your family and the rest of the world about what's going on in your life. Noone cares. At least this column was somewhat informative. Even if it did miss simple things like "Make sure your anti-virus software and firewall are up-to-date" and "take precautions to prevent keyloggers". Although, to be fair, high-tech phrases like "firewall" and "keyloggers" probably go right over the heads of the average Record reader. I can just see some 70 year old shut in attempting to set the wall behind her computer on fire to prevent those evil hackers from getting those pictures of her grandson her daughter e-mailed to her that she can't figure out how to access. At least it'd give the Fire Department another reason to say "See! You guys need us!"

And that is how you state a motherfucking opinion.

A soft journalism piece in which we reveal the raging alcoholic within us

Generally, we hate soft features. Whether it be an article on healthy recipes with a tiny connection to New Years resolution so it doesn't seem totally random or another article about some old guy that basically says "Old people can be useful". Stories like those aren't news. They're boring filler.

But we also understand they're a necessary evil. It's not like news organizations can just make news happen. If shit don't go down then shit don't go down. We just wish the Record would print more interesting features. Especially because jack and shit went on yesterday. We would write about Fitzy's flood map column but none of us knows shit about insurance or flooding. Plus we suspect the source of his FEMA-rage is because he's probably one of the people affected by the higher insurance rates. I guess we could tackle it stylistically considering the first word in it is the letter "I" which is a big no-no. It does seem like a very bloggy column. Thing is, as much as we crack on the guy, he's actually a pretty good writer. It's his choice of topics and opinions that are in question.

Or we could write about the pending layoff delay, because Obama didn't just tell us last night we need to deal with these problems head on instead of putting them off until later.

Or we could say something about how if the past is any indicator we'll probably lose our slice of the stimulus pie before it even gets here. Completely fucking over our poor urban forest.

But instead, we're taking this opportunity to show that soft journalism can be interesting. It can be more than just reprinting recipes from some lame cookbook to fill space. It can be more than "Hey! Remember Chris Isaak!?" Features can still be *gasp!* informative! And we want to show that not all features have to appeal to fatty housewives or depressed old people. So what will our first exercise in soft news be about? Drinking of course. Namely, drinking on the cheap during the recession.

Now, we hate recession trend pieces as much as the next guys, but hopefully some of the knowledge we drop will be helpful. If not, then somebody leak a document revealing gross government misconduct so we'll have something to write about tomorrow.

Drinking on the cheap is fairly easy, especially if you're willing to part with that nagging part of your soul called dignity. Without dignity, the world is your inexpensive oyster. If you're a woman, just slap on a low cut top and you're set. Those titties are like two fleshy credit cards with no bill. Use them while they're still hovering well above your belly button.

If you're a guy, it's admittedly a little harder. Mostly because guys aren't too big on dignity to begin with. Bris Isaak will drink a dipping cup of ranch for $10, and that was before the economy cratered. So for dudes (or a flat-chested or fat chick), it comes down to being less picky. Don't like going to a bar like the Circus Room or Winchesters because they're shitholes? Well guess what? Those places are dirt cheap. If you don't give a shit about hitting on a member of the opposite sex that's still desirable when you're sober and just want to get good ol' fashioned shitfaced then dive bars give you the most bang for your buck. They're usually cover charge free and you usually aren't paying more than $3 for a beer. Plus you're not surrounded by douchebags trying to impress some hot broad by acting tough and starting a fight because there aren't any hot chicks to impress. So, bonus.

If you've got too much dignity to hit up a shithole then your other option is to pick a bar and plant your flag. Find a bar that you're comfortable in and patronize it regularly for months. This won't pay off immediately, you gotta spend money to make money after all, but eventually you'll befriend the bartenders and achieve "regular" status and you'll get all sorts of crazy drink hookups. Just remember to tip well, just because they're your friends doesn't mean you don't hook them up for hooking you up. And if you are going this route, don't show up every Friday at 10 and expect to have time to shoot the shit and befriend bartenders. They're busy serving other people. At least, if they're a good bartender they are. Nobody wants to wait 20 minutes at the bar to get a drink. That's the exact reason I don't drink at Brandenburg's/Touche, if you don't have tits or personally know the bartender it takes a half hour to get a drink.

Of course, if you really want to maximize your drunken fun then we've got one word for you. Pregaming. Why spend $20 to get a buzz going when you could down a 6-pack before heading out for a third of the price? You have to be careful though and not go overboard. Just ask Bris. You drink too much and you're the guy who's sloppy drunk at 8 hitting on sober women while trying to convince them your name is Houston Mandolph. Then everybody thinks you're a lush. My general rule of thumb is to down a tall can while you're in the shower. Kill two alcoholic birds with one stone. That way, you get just the right head change going before you head to the bar for an all out assault on your liver. Just make sure you have one of those rubber shower mats. We don't want to be responsible for MADD creating a shower drinking branch.

If none of these ideas will work for you, chances are you're way too poor to even think about heading out to the bar. We feel your pain. It's tough to decide whether you should spend your last $10 on hamster food or dollar beers. We hope Nibbles' ghost will forgive us. The solution, again, lies with your dignity. If you must stay home and drink, then hard liquor in plastic bottles is the way to go. Sure, $6 vodka tastes like pure gasoline, but you can barely taste it after your 10th shot. If you're too much of a pussy for the hard stuff, then we'd like to introduce you to your new friend Natty Light. It's ridiculously cheap, it tastes like ass watered down with ball sweat, and it gets you drunk. It's like Pabst Blue Ribbon without the lame punk/hipster stigma.

We could go on, but this thing is getting ridiculously long, and it wasn't nearly as informative as we'd have liked it to be. I guess that means we failed. So I guess that means Soft news/features really are totally useless except as a means to fill space. And we filled a lot of space today. Hopefully tomorrow this space will be filled with actual news.

Quick Links for Sexy Friday the 13th

Damn, this week went by fast and slow all at the same time. Is that even possible? Either way I'm fucking beat and can't wait to sleep in until 3 in the afternoon tomorrow, followed by drinking myself silly and trying to pick up the hottest depressed chick at the bar for some lonely, Valentines Day "I'd pretty much fuck anything" sex. God I love the holidays. You know what I also love? The Quick Links.

The generation will be shaped by the events that affected them!

Wow, I'm really glad this economist came by Stockton to tell us this important, startling information. Who know that the shit that happens to us affects what we do?

It's shit like that that makes me hate rich, white people. Here we are, ground fucking zero for pretty much the whole shebang, and they need to have a seminar at the Country Club of all places to find out that people are altering their spending habits because of the recession? The worst part has top be his examples of the changes the recession has forced us to make. Like this nugget:

If they are staying somewhere less than two years, he said, they will probably just rent instead of buying a home.

Are you fucking kidding me? Besides our former mayor, who does this? If I'm buying a home I'm pretty much planting a flag and saying "I'm in this shit for the long haul". But please Mr. Economist-guy, continue. What do you think is the root cause for this economic downturn?

"Housing and credit are at the center of this cycle," he said.

Wow, you can only get that kind of sound financial analysis from any TV that gets MSNBC. Our spending habits are changing, don't buy a house if you plan on moving in 2 years, housing and credit are to blame for the recession; man, with this kind of quality advice one has to wonder how he's doing financially.

Mitchell admitted, to laughter from the audience, that this is an amazing time for an economist, who gets up every day to another major round of economic news. "It doesn't get any better than this."

No wonder his advice is so generic and obvious, he's not experiencing a recession, we're the ones experiencing a recession. Then we pay the guy to tell us so. Can we put retardation at the center of the cycle too. Fuck, I should become an economist.

Oh sweet, elevator music!

It took me a second to realize that "Time Out" wasn't a new album Brubeck was debuting, it's an album released 50 years ago. So we gotta ask, what's the big fucking deal? Dave Brubeck, again, doesn't even fucking live here. He's not a famous Stocktonian. Shit, he's not even a Stocktonian. He just went to school here, stop blowing his wrinkled, old cock for once and realize this isn't anything resembling news. If this were any other band, say, The Who deciding to perform Tommy it's entirety, it would maybe make it on the 3-Minute Record. And The Who are like infinity-times more awesome than Dave Brubeck. Way to cater to old fogeys. Hey, speaking of old fogeys...

Lori Gilbert's just making this way too easy

If she's not writing about old people, she's writing about old people movies. I thought that Dave Brubeck thing from above had questionable newsworthiness but this has absolutely none. It's pretty much "Hey, the Hope is playing old people shit like usual" with the history of the movie thrown in to make it seem like an actual article.

And don't even get us started on that bullshit "Hollywood terms" wire story that's on the front of the LENS section. Remember when Friday's usually meant there was something informative about local shit? Yeah, it was nice, wasn't it? Now? We get shit like "Musician uses Web as springboard". Holy fuck! You can use the internet to network and help bolster your image? I thought it was just there to do research and look up porn. It's not like the Record has its own website who's specific purpose is to act as a springboard for local musicians.

Can we just rename the LENS section "Bullshit features plus the comics"? It's beginning to rival the Sports section for most useless section of the Record. Which I guess isn't saying much since it's only a 3 horse race now. But still, doesn't the "E" in LENS stand for entertainment? Write about something entertaining! We know you know how because of the aforementioned 209Vibe and the fact that half the online-only stories on Recordnet's entertainment section are local show previews and reviews.

In short, fuck the Record. Thank God It's Sexy Friday.

Going Mobile

We're slowly discovering what Recordnet.com's slight redesign entails. We'll have more about it tomorrow, but if you're really jonesing for a breakdown the Online blog on Recordnet recaps some of the changes, complete with a side-by-side comparison and promises that the site will be easier to navigate. While that's not setting the bar very high, we're still skeptical.

One thing we did notice about the change was that the new dropdown menus don't translate to mobile browsers very well. We do a fair share of mobile web browsing for those times when a computer isn't readily available (i.e. Long lines at the supermarket), and the new menus tend to extend down and cut off the top parts of stories and blogs. It's pretty annoying.

But for once, the Record thought of that! Yes, in a rare instance in which the Record considered the consequences of their actions before acting them out, sometime late last week the Record rolled out a mobile version of their site.

We just found out about this yesterday but so far it seems fairly decent. Sure, some sections are empty (like myRecord), but it's still fairly new so we'll give them time to work the kinks out. They appear to have just started adding stories yesterday so it's still in its infancy. We're still shocked that the Record would do something this tech savvy. It's a step in the right direction and frankly we're flabbergasted. Young people might actually visit the Record's website now!

Although we do have to point out that it's kind of funny that the Record's website seems to be moving in the right direction towards establishing a younger readership base while the print edition seems to be heading in the opposite direction.

Now can we work on getting a mobile version of the Recordnet blogs?

Lori Gilbert: Senoir citizen fetishist

Lori Gilbert needs to be stopped. I don't know if we need to get rhino tranquilizers or if we just need to lure her into a cage with the smell of Bengay and unclipped coupons, but this has to end. Lori Gilbert's fascination with old people needs to stop.

If she wants to live out her days chronicling the stories of the county's incontinent that's fine, just go become a biographer. This shit is boring as fuck. If I wanted to read about people who smell like death I would read the obituaries. I understand the Record's readership is mostly the people Gilbert writes about, but shouldn't they be writing stories to help expand the Record's readership? I hate to be the one to break this to the Record's marketing department, but contests alone don't bring in new readers. Interesting stories about interesting shit does!

But I would like to thank Lori for only waiting 2 days to prove my point. She is officially 1 or 2 more stories away from making this a full blown fetish.

When did Lori Gilbert join the senior tour?

In slightly less miserable news (but only very slightly considering the subject matter), we have a question about Lori Gilbert. Gilbert was removed from the Sports section earlier last year in what can only be described as a mercy killing and shipped off to the obscurity of the LENS section to write soft features. Because if there's one thing the Record needed, it was another feature writer.

I haven't had much of a problem with her since the move. Her sports writing was awful. The classic example I use is the time she set feminism back 50 years by claiming Mike Gundy was being sexist for tearing into a female journalist for criticizing a college athlete. Something we did to Bob Highfill just last week. But hey, equality schmiquality. We await Gilbert's bitching diatribe about how we're biased against fat, old dudes who's facial expressions never change.

So the fact that she's gone from the sports page made her easier to ignore. Mostly because it was easy to pick her apart based on fact in her sports columns because we know an assload about sports. Notsomuch with her new beat. Which brings me to the question I have.

When did Lori Gilbert get put on the old lady beat?

It's taken me a while to notice this, because I largely ignore her work in the LENS section. But since they've been putting her on the new "Page 2" thingy, her subject matter just kind of falls and can't get up jumps out at you.

Here's a sampling of just the past 2 months. There's the 80-year old Denny's waitress from today's Record which has no discernable point beyond that fact that old people apparently can hold jobs. Then a column about quilting which pretty much speaks for itself. Then there's the time she caught up with a member of the old Stockton chapter of the Mickey Mouse Club. And that time she talked to a 100-year old lady.

She's averaging two columns about old fogeys a month. And these are just the columns I pulled from her Lifestyle columnist page. I didn't even attempt to look at the actual articles she wrote. I'm glad she's gone from the sports page and all, but come on. This is a bit much.

We haven't seen a game that exciting since the Kansas City Kings took on the San Diego Rockets.

Well shit, that was more exciting than it had any right to be. I still don't know how Santino Holmes was able to get a foot and the tip of his cock to touch in bounds for the touchdown. And the penalties. Fuck, the endless penalties.

Of course for me, the lasting legacy might be this. Why is a story in our city's podunk paper the lasting legacy of this game for me? I'm glad you asked. From the story by Record Sports writer Scott Linesburgh that appears on the front page of the Record today:

"The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Phoenix Cardinals while playing for the National Football League's ultimate prize Sunday..." (emphasis ours)

Either we've been magically transported to the early 90s in some weird Groundhog's Day twist (side note: FUCK!) or the Record's Sports staff sucks! We're (surprise!) leaning towards the latter. Especially considering the Sports copy editor is a Cards fan

We still can't believe the Oilers didn't beat the Baltimore Colts. Next year the L.A. Raiders are totally making a comeback.

FUCK!

I had the Record redesign review allllll fucking ready to go and like that it fucking disappeared. I'm way too pissed to spend another 45 minutes rewriting it. Fuck. God fucking dammit.

We think it sucks and there's no emphasis on Local news, there's just less news. I'd put it more eloquently but I'm 3 seconds away from chucking my computer out a window. This site's taken away too much of my free time today. I'll see you next week.

Quick Links for Jan. 12th

Fuck, Monday already? Let's power through these Quick Links and see what happened this weekend (you know, besides the massive redesign).

Prepare for overkill!

Generally I just skim through Mike Klocke's Sunday columns. They never really have a set theme. One week he'll announce a major website change like myRecord (which we hear officially launched today), and then the next he's doing a bulletpointed week in review. This week he brings us a warning from the future! That's right, Mike Klocke decided he needed some preemptive damage control because the Record's going all out next week (well, as all out as a 3-section paper can) to celebrate commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Cleveland Elementary School shooting.

Now, don't get us wrong, the shooting deserves to be commemorated. But when you're defending the coverage before it even starts, that's usually not a good sign. And look, one of the stories is going to be "We'll let readers inside Cleveland School for a 'day in the life' look at how the school is prospering." Oh wow! The inner workings of an elementary school 20 years after a shooting that barely half the town remembers? How do they go on? Every day there must be some grizzly reminder about past events!

Luckily for you, the Reclaiming the Title reader, we have an exclusive fake preview of that article. Here's day 1:
"8 am: Class starts
8:15: Pledge of Allegiance
8:30: Silent Sustained Reading! Shit!
9:30: Arts and crafts, eat paste
0:00: Recess
0:05: Throw up paste after taking a gut shot (bad wording choice?) during dodgeball, go see nurse
10:15: Stare at nurse's cleavage while she leans over to take your temperature, get first boner
10:17: Get called a gay by classmates for having boner
10:20: Recess over
10:30: Math
Noon: Lunch, Salisbury steak again? Fuck!"

Exciting ain't it? Of course that was a (partial) day in the life of a student. The Record's going so in depth that we're getting a day in the life of the actual school! Which we also have a preview of:

"Midnight-11:59: Exist
11:59: Softly cry self to sleep."

Needless to say we're looking forward to Sunday.

Maybe we can at least take Oakland the distance

According to that half an article (since, you know, recordnet.com doesn't have this article on it's website. Even when you Google search recordnet.com for the lede you get this. We would have done a broader search but you try typing "criminal homicides Stockton" into google and see what you get), homicides in Stockton dropped for the 3rd straight year. So shit, looks like our violent crime rate title hopes are further away than we thought. Granted, all of this really depends on how Oakland's doing. Wait, what? They're rioting? Well fuck me. There's always next year I guess.

Ann Johnston and the City Council are for smart spending downtown...right after Kathy Miller gets rid of this Paragary's stock

Remember that whole election thing? Ann Johnston and a few other candidates made Paragary's a lightening rod of sorts. It was a symbol of the city council's monetary mismanagement in regards to downtown. Remember those $10 burger ads? Those were Ann Johnston's. Fitzy even lamented the fact that people, in his opinion, were essentially campaigning against downtown (We predictably disagreed). So it makes total sense that she appointed the wife of a part-owner of Paragary's Vice Mayor. Who knows, maybe she was just going by the Record's graphic and thought she was appointing Leslie Martin.

Well, that's a bit disconcerting

As former high school journalists ourselves, we have to express surprise that this wasn't already law. But we have to express even more surprise that Lodi High's advisor Jerry Pike didn't know it wasn't already a law considering it's his job to teach journalism, which includes journalism law. And he's been there for NINE years. Oh, and the side story of Tokay High not owning the image it uses for it's mascot is fucking hilarious. Leave it to Lodi.

That should be it from us for today. Yes, we saw this. Give us a day or two and we'll get back to it. Feel free to send us your thoughts about what comes to mind when you think Stockton. I guarandamntee it isn't theater, symphony, or opera. We're not entirely sure which Stockton Don Blount is living in, but it apparently isn't this one.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

So wow, today's kind of a big day. First, all those fucking college students are back. Second, by my count it's the 12th which means we should finally have a clear picture as to what the fuck myRecord is supposed to be. Everybody turn to B4 now to follow al...hey, wait a minute. The LENS section isn't the B secti...OMG! It's Record redesign day!

That's right, following in the tradition of last year's reorg that banished Lori Gilbert to the LENS pages and caused Mike Fitzgerald to lament the death of journalism at the hands of the pesky internet and all it's newfangled Web 2.0 features (and the redesign the year before that which brought us the 3MR and LENS section), the Record has once again freaked out at the budget numbers (Damn you El Guapo!) and made a radical change. Don't you just love journalism?

We're going to reserve judgement for later in the week. Our knee-jerk reaction is that the Record now looks more like the Lodi News-Sentinel or the Manteca Bulletin than an actual newspaper. What's the next step? Going alternating days Tracy Press style?

See, that's the natural reaction for everybody. But if some of the spin Klocke and the Cooze threw out there in their announcement on the front page today (but nowhere on Recordnet.com. The more things change, the more they stay the same) (Update! (1:30): I was working on the Quick Links and saw they finally posted the announcement. It's dated 1:12 pm. Just an hour after this post. Hi guys!) is true, then it can't be all bad. The Record's badly needed a focus on Local news instead of the AP stories they've been printing for a while now. Although I am disappointed that the section in most need of eliminating (the Sports pages, natch) somehow survived relatively unchanged.

One last thing before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming. What kind of taskmasters run the Record? We make fun of them for their lack of original reporting but we weren't joking when we said today was busy. First there's this redesign. Then Mike Klocke warns us in his Sunday column that the Record's going to have an insane amount of coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Cleveland School shootings. On top of that myRecord officially launches today. All of this within a month of the Record sustaining staffing losses that they apparently don't intend on refilling. (What? You don't read the copy editor's blog?)

Wow, way to stagger this shit out guys. At this rate Frankie Bozem's head is going to explode in April. If you see an exhausted Record staffer, now you know why. Buy them a beer or something. And then tell them the new redesign sucks.

Quick Links for Jan. 7th

I'm not sure what it is about this week, but fuck (hahaha, I said "but fuck"), I'm ready for the weekend. I'm also ready for the Quick Links. News! Asseeemmmblllle!

And now, the starting lineup for your Stockton City Council!

Remember that election thing from last year? Well, the results of that take effect this month! While the big change is coming in just under 2 weeks, the largely new city council is already in session and making passive aggressive remarks about each other. For a largely freshman council they sure are learning quickly. Outside of my specific district I didn't pay much attention to the local election. And even in my district I paid very little attention. So it's nice to get some basic info on the new council. Like I didn't know Ann Johnston owned the Baloonery. Or that Diana Lowery was Sally Save Water. Granted, I only barely remember what a Sally Save Water is, but knowing Stockton she probably got elected on that issue alone. By the way, is it just me or do the pictures on the front page make it look like Susan Eggman is giving Kathy Miller the look of lust? If I were Miller I wouldn't leave my drink unattended around her. Oh God, I just threw up a little in my mouth after that mental image. Let's move on.

What? Goldberg isn't available?

This is pretty old, but I just heard about it and it's pretty funny. Former WCW announcer, United States Champion, and member of the 4 Horseman Steve "Mongo" McMichael claims that fellow '85 Bear and current Niner coach Mike Singletary promised him a job as D-Line coach if he ever got a head coaching job. And you know what? I'm fine with that. While we're at it, why not just bring Ditka in? Hell, I wasn't terribly impressed with Shaun Hill, let's bring in Jim McMahon too! By this time next year we'll be in the middle of the newest dance craze "the First Round Blowout Shuffle".

Gambling's of the Devil I say! The Devil! Slot machines still under the jurisdiction of Robot Devil

Before we go any further I have to disclose that I'm a tad bit really biased in favor of this card room. Before they moved to the old Gary's Uptown location they used to be Axtion Jackson Cardroom, which was owned and operated by Jack Morgan. The same Jack from BWDW Jack's Back. Needless to say we're big fans of his. But ignoring all that, we still can't see how anybody could successfully oppose this expansion attempt. The religious group (and trust us, they're a religious group) that opposed the opening of the casino pretty much put all their eggs in the "unsavory character" basket. A year later and it doesn't look like southern Lodi's gotten any more dangerous. But opening it for another 2 hours would! Oh wait, no it wouldn't. This is just some religious group trying to push their views on the community as a whole. Look, if you don't like it, don't go over there. It's not like there's anything else on that section of Cherokee anyways. Quit being difficult and let honest businessmen run their business. If hookers start hanging out in front, you might have something. But until then, you're just bitching for the sake of bitching.

What's next? A tour of the campus so they know where everything is?

Maybe we're just naive, but we assumed when people ran for the Delta Board of Trustees using the platform of smarter spending of the Measure L bond money that they actually knew shit about the Mountain House campus and how other funds had been spent. I mean, we know that stuff. And we're just some assholes with a website. But no, the Delta trustees had to hold their second marathon meeting getting a history lesson about the bond measure and what we're now going to call the "Campus to Nowhere" (I know, timely joke). God forbid they actually be educated about shit they campaigned about. Are they going to go over this again for when Maria Serna's replacement comes in? Or are they all going to write up a term paper and each give a presentation to the newbie as if they were in English 1A? Needless to say, we shouldn't know more about Mountain House than the people who get to decide it's fate. Oh, and Ted Simas? That would be the most boring book of all time.

OK, so maybe Bob Highfill should just stick to bulletpoint columns

Ol' Bulletpoint is back today (two columns in 2 days? Did somebody switch his decaf with regular?) to participate in the yearly call for the BCS to turn to a playoff. Of course that'll never happen because college presidents are greedy sons of bitches who don't want to share bowl revenue with the NCAA, but Highfill knows somebody who came up with a novel idea! Stockton native Kevin Arbet thinks we should take the top 8 teams and put them in a seeded tournament made up of the 4 BCS bowl games. Sound familiar? That's because it's the definition of playoffs. And it's also because every College Football analyst/fan/player/coach has been pitching this idea for the past decade. But no, really, Kevin Arbet thought it up all by himself. It's an original idea and he copywrote so anybody who mentions having a playoff in college football has to credit this kid from Stockton. By the way, and maybe we're just nitpicking here, but if you're going to decry the current BCS system shouldn't you explain how it works? You know, like what stats they use to make up the computer ranking? We know what they are, does he? Yeah, we don't know how they still let Highfill write about sports either.

myRecord could use myFactchecker

No link for this one, since the Record doesn't post their corrections online. Or if they do there's no way in hell I'm wading through the search to find it. If you really want a link to a correction, here's David Siders pointing out that they flipflopped Diana Lowery and Leslie Martin. Which is pretty funny considering Martin is actually a returning council member. But back to myRecord. The soft launch started this week, less than a month after it's announcement and we already have a correction! Feel free to flip to A4 and see that the writers of the autism press release got their own phone number wrong. For those keeping count we're only 2 days into myRecord's existance. This should turn out splendidly.

(Slow clap)

We really have nothing else to add to this. Except for A-fucking-men. Oh, and there's no justice in a world where Bob Highfill can mail in columns on the easiest subject ever (sports) while Ian Hill has his taken away.

The first Quick Links of 2009

Yeah, I know. We disappeared off the face of the Earth. I assure you we all survived into 2009. I won't bore you with excuses. We're back. We're still not entirely sure who should be Real Stocktonian of 2008. Suggestions are welcomed. Based on the Record's year end lists we should just make it old white people since apparently that's who most of their year-end stories where geared towards. (If I have to hear about Dave Brubeck one more time I'm fighting someone. He's not even from here, he's from fucking Concord. He just went to school here for fuck's sake.)

Luckily one of the benefits of taking a break like that is it gives us time to let some links pile up for the Quick Links. The slow news cycle kind of killed the crutch that is the Quick Links, but now it's 2009 and we've got a decent amount, so let's dive in shall we? We'll be messing around with the format for a bit, mostly out of boredom. Luckily I doubt it'll be too jarring.

Layoffs!? You want to talk about layoffs!?

This is probably the easiest example of how slow news has been. We've known for a while that Stockton PD was going to have to layoff trainees, but then it actually happened. How is this an example of slow news? Because really it's just another way of saying "Hey, the economy sucks." One would think that without a police chief to pay we'd be able to keep one or two of the new recruits. But instead the city just paid for their training so they can go off and shoot innocent men in Lodi or something. I wonder if we can write off their training expenses as a charitable donation. Can't we at least put them in dispatch until the hiring freeze ends?

Of course the best part of this story is that we're now actually less safe than we were in 2006 when a consultant said we had too few police officers. In 2006 there were 1.46 officers per 1000 residents, now there's 1.43 per 1000. I'm pretty sure the goal is at least 3. But remember, Stockton is totally safe and living in the southern portion isn't enough of a reason to take precautions to protect your family. If you hear shit going down in your backyard just roll over and go back to sleep, it'll blow over. If we all do that we'll probably only need. 1.2 officers per 1000 residents. Think of the savings!

But who will hand low end celebrities chickens at awkward parties now?

Another reason we kind of slacked off near the end of the year was we were getting really tired of end of the year/political term stories. The Record did two stories on Mike Machado, which was two too many and could have been summed up with the sentence "Politicians have term limits and disagree sometimes" (shocking revelations, I know). Victor Mow was the latest to get the termed out interview treatment and as expected it was unremarkable at best. Hooray filler! And if the article wasn't exciting enough, there's exciting video too!

We bring this up only because we fondly remember Mow from his star turn on Kathy Griffin's My Life on the D-List. What's that you say? You don't remember that? Well, for those who don't know, one of Kathy Griffin's assistants (her assistant's assistant to be exact) is from Tracy. And in one of the episodes of her Bravo reality show she heads to her assistants' respective hometowns where everybody promptly treated them like they had "made it" in Hollywood when really all they do is the bitch work for someone who's claim to fame is being on "Suddenly Susan".

I'm not a regular watcher of this show but it's not too often one channel surfs and sees the Tracy water tower featured prominently. I usually hate reality TV, mostly due to oversaturation and the fact that most are completely devoid of reality, but after watching the Tracy episode I have to say that was the most accurate depiction of anything on a reality show of all time, ever. The highlight being a "Hollywood-style" party thrown by, you guessed it, rich old white people. A party that was so Tracy I'm surprised there wasn't a kid chained to the fireplace (too soon?). Apparently parties have a gift ceremony where Kathy's assistant's assistant Tiffany was presented with two high school boys with roses. Then Victor Mow walks in (at least I'm pretty sure it was Mow, I didn't get the chance to DVR it and you couldn't pay me enough to go to Bravo's website to double check) and hands Kathy a handbag with a chicken in it. Not Kentucky Fried Chicken mind you, but a live chicken. Griffin, of course, freaks out and everybody has a good laugh at the expense of the city girl. Like I said, it was very very Tracy-like. And yes, they also went to the Great Plate in that episode. Because really, what the hell else is there to do in Tracy? And that's how we'll always remember Victor Mow. A guy always fighting the notion that we're just some bumfuck cowtown, or setting the fight back 15 years. One or the other.

Nuclear waste in going through Stockton?

Now that we've fixed the Record's headline for that story, we've really got nothing more to say on the subject. Other than anybody who opposes this plan is a dirty commie. We can't think of anything more American than shipping nuclear waste off to France. Let those fuckers deal with our dangerous radioactive waste. Plus if those cheese eating surrender monkeys spill any of it there's a good chance we could just waltz in and take over after they cede control to the leaky barrels. Although we do have to wonder what Fitzy's column would be like if that foghorn he hears is glowing green.

We can't wait for Paul Blartt 2, Movie Security

This story confuses us. Who in their right mind listens to the rent-a-cop over the boys in blue? And even if the two were giving contradicting information, how does "charge and attack the police" even enter the realm of possibility? I don't care if you're a looky loo or just in line to see the Arrested Development movie. If I'm told to disperse, I'll peace the fuck out. It's just a movie, it's not that important. Even if the AD movie is going to rule. And frankly, I don't like to be in the same place as police anyway. They just make me uncomfortable. Mostly because I'm afraid they'll shoot me. Hey speaking of...

CHP is so good at conspiracies they can force people to run from them

Remember this story? Yeah, I almost forgot about it too. This was like 4 police shootings ago. While we agree the CHP could probably be a little more forthright with the information they've gathered, Pinasco's family really has to stop painting their son as completely innocent. Any way you paint it, he was running from the police. Maybe I'm just a goody two shoes, but once I see those lights go on I pull over to the side of the road. I've got nothing to hide. You know who usually does have something to hide? People who run from the cops when they try and pull them over. And the "He was probably just heading home" excuse doesn't work at all. I've gotten pulled over on my street about a half-mile from my place on suspicion of DUI. I was stone cold sober and pulled over. I didn't lead them on a chase to my house because that's not what innocent people do. I answered their patronizing questions (like being asked, while they're looking at my ID which bore the name of the street we were on no less, "Where you headed?"), blew into the tube, and then headed home. But no, it's obviously all the CHP's fault and not Pinasco's, who would probably still be alive today if he just pulled the fuck over. No really, innocent people run from the cops and the spin out in front of their house all the time.

OMG! A new coach! This is the biggest thing to happen to Stockton sports! The Thunder are championship-bound now! Tickets still available!

And in one final taste as to how slow news was during the holiday week, the news that we said didn't matter a couple of weeks ago still doesn't matter. But don't tell the Record's sports staff that. They're treating it as if the Thunder signed Wayne fucking Gretzky. No really, in addition to the above-linked story they also have four other stories about Matt Thomas' hiring. And that's not even including the initial story in which Cichocki was fired. They didn't even give this much coverage to Reggie Theus' firing, and he coached an actual pro team! Hell, they didn't even give this much coverage to the Ports and they won the fucking title! Quit pandering to Dan Chapman and report news we actually want to read. And when I say "we" I'm not referring to just those of us who write for this site. We have yet to find anybody who will defend the Record's sports pages when we remark that the section is completely useless, which is something we do a lot. Common response? "Yeah, totally fucking useless."

That's it for now. Duke told me he's working on something, so that means he'll have a post up by Friday. Happy New Year and Happy 6 months to us as of Jan 2nd. Who knew we'd last this long?

Quick Links for Dec 30th

What the fuck is up with this town and trees? And why the fuck do we care about something that eats up less than 1% of the budget? Is it really that hard? Tree grow, now we're responsible for trimming them. If something serious happens like heavy winds or lightening cracking a rather large branch that may or may not cause damage the city gets involved. Is it really that fucking tough? All Clem wants is a tree he can trim and can relax with various livestock under.

Remember folks, Mike Fitzgerald thinks living in south Stockton isn't enough of a reason to own a gun.

Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this story the same basic story as number 7 of this? Of course they're not exactly the same but one is so closely related to the other that you can't really mention one without the other. Which in our minds at least, makes them one big story. One that should have been number one.

Oh, and nobody cares.

Breaking News: The Record to eliminate 209Vibe, castrate Ian Hill

(Update and bump to the top because fuck it, this is end of the day news: If you didn't believe us before, Ian Hill made the official announcement on 209Vibe.com about an hour ago.)

We don't get to much actual news to break to you guys but when we do, it's usually a doozie. And this is one hell of a doozie.

Effective after next month 209Vibe is no more. Everything. 209Vibe.com, the print edition, even Ian Hill is being moved from LENS to the newsroom.

We should probably note that this isn't based on rumor, it's been confirmed by a couple of sources. The Record is blaming that wonderful catchall the economy. Which is kind of hard to swallow considering we know from personal experience it costs jack shit to maintain a website.

We'll try and get more information when we can, but we can't state enough how much of a blow this is to the local arts scene that just caught a huge break with the Plea for Peace Center.

Leave it to the Record to eliminate their best feature. Fuck.

Quick Links for Dec. 16th

We'll get to your irregularly scheduled Quick Links, but first we have to get today's "Called it!" moment out of the way. In yesterday's Kings Kolumn, El Duke called his shot:
"What should be the topic of his entire column will be a bullet point so he can make a joke about St. Mary's that roughly 15 people will get. If they're feeling frisky they might reprint Amick's column."

Wow, that's a fairly specific prediction, let's turn to page C1 and see what we got. Let's see, well lookee here, there's Sam Amick and that article we've already read on that fancy internet thing we've heard so much about. And what's this? Why Ol' Bulletpoint didn't just dedicate only a single bullet point to the Theus firing, he dedicated two bullet points to St. Mary's. Fuck, we hit that dead on. So allow us this moment of gloating. The Record's sport pages are so bad that El Duke predicted the content (and, just for us in the RTT offices, the exact page layout) of the front page of the sport section. What do they pay Bob Highfill for again? Can we take his paycheck and use it to help fund 209Vibe? In conclusion...CALLED IT!

The Teen Slave story has apparently gotten so big that the Record can outsource it to the wire services now. Considering they weren't exactly leading the pack in digging up information on the story despite being the closest daily newspaper we can't say we're surprised. The Record's motto has always been "We report the news, unless someone else can cover it for us" after all. The wire story does throw out a decent amount of new information though. Of course because the Record has this weird theory that you can't even fucking link to wire stories, it took me forfuckingever to find the specific story. But since I love you guys, here it is. It gives a fairly interesting backstory as to how the kid got hooked up with his non-aunt (apparently she was neighbors with his real mom, who's been suspiciously silent through this whole ordeal) and his life pre-Teen Slave.

Back in Stockton, the family of that guy who got shot and killed by the police for wondering what the commotion going on in his south Stockton backyard was is planning on bringing wrongful death charges against Stockton PD. They seem to have a strong case too if you're to believe their lawyer. SPD shot the guy through his screen door which means he didn't even have to leave the fucking house to get gunned down. Then they allegedly trashed the garage/house, presumably to try and find something to justify the shooting. And they didn't. They shot a guy with a legally acquired gun while he was standing inside his house looking to see who was trespassing onto his property. If they spent half the time fighting crime that they use trying to cover up their fuckups our crime rate might actually lower to 3rd in the state. Of course that still doesn't mean they deserve a 9% raise. I feel like I should re-note that all these accusations are just that, accusations. But when the police start stonewalling the media, it's a pretty good indication as to who's story you should believe.

In lighter news, William Choyce was sentenced to death yesterday. Which would be a more vindicating verdict if California wasn't a bunch of pussies and actually executed death row inmates. Instead George Clinton's doppelganger will probably just ride out the rest of his life in prison where they'll assure him the most painless natural death possible. You know, the kind of death his victims weren't afforded.

In actual lighter news, former State Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi is enjoying life in the private sector. After terming out as an assemblyman Nakanishi returned to his hohum life as a doctor where he no longer shoulders the burden of having to do stuff for his constituents. Don't worry, the transition should be easy, he didn't do anything for his constituents when he was in office either! When looking for stuff that Nakanishi actually did for SJ County, the biggest thing found apparently was the transfer of Oak Grove Regional Park from the county to the city of Stockton. Because if there's one thing the city needed, it was another park to take care of. This of course happened after the Asparagus Festival was moved downtown. So ummm, thanks Alan. He blamed his lack of legislative results on the Democratically controlled State Assembly to which we reply, bullshit. Being in the minority party doesn't automatically absolve you of not getting shit done. It's called politics, go out there and fucking shake hands, scratch some backs, make backhanded deals, get your Blagojevich on for fuck's sake. Do anything but fucking sit there and go "but I'm a republican." It just makes you look like a lazy jackass.

Hey wait, this was our idea! Anybody who doesn't vote the Stockton Rodeo number one is a dirty liar...and a communist.

Hey, remember earlier when we called the sports page? Yeah, that was just a few paragraphs ago. Well now we're putting on a different hat because, quess what? We scooped it! Last week we brought you the news that the AFL was considering suspending 2009 operations and may even be folding. Well, they suspended their season on Sunday. Unfortunately it doesn't affect the afl2 league and we'll be "blessed" with another season of Lightening football.

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…

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.