Quick Links for Feb. 18th

God damn I hate being busy. And this is a busy ass week. Hopefully this week goes by fast, but I kind of doubt it. In short, moving is awesome. Quick Links time.

Just in case you needed a reminder, the City Council in the early 00's was incredibly shitty.

Did we do anything legally to redevelop downtown? We used questionable legal practices to prevent the building of new movie theaters, we overspent to get shit finished without proper approval, and now we didn't even go about obtaining the property for the part of the ballpark legally. And this is all before we get into the whole trying to find the common sense in putting all our eggs in the downtown basket. These buildings used to be an example of our impending/eternal prosperity. While doing research for this I found an LA Times article from 2006 calling us a cutting edge city largely because of our efforts to revitalize downtown (you'll never guess who they quoted in that article. Ok, you're right, it was Fitzy). What a difference a couple of years makes.

In that LA Times article they cheer the Podesto City Council as being able to cut through all the political bullshit and get shit done. They actually cast Mark Lewis in a positive light! Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and now we know that Podesto pushed all this shit through using questionable practices and we're still wading through their downtown shitstorm. That same council that was lauded by the Times was absolutely destroyed in the press by the current council. And those Thunder games that were sellouts in 2006? Yeah, notsomuch now.

We don't mean to pile on. The ironic juxtaposition was just too good to pass up. (Plus those Fitzy quotes are fucking golden now.) We just want to point out the obvious that while cutting through the bullshit is awesome and manly and all, you still actually have to wade through that shit. That's what government jobs are all about. Strapping on your highwater boots and wading through as much bullshit as you can (Note: This is why they're compensated so handsomely Senõr Fitzgerald). When you try and cheat and cut through it, you're really just fucking the future. Don't believe me? Ask these guys...

Oh no! 30 more steps and that degree from Delta will be useless! OK, well, uselesser

Oh hey, a list of what's wrong with Delta. This should be entertaining. Let's see shitty trustees, check. Lack of long-term planning, check. Shitty counseling services, check. Lack of diversity...really? Sure, all of my teachers at Delta have been white dudes with a few white women sneaking in there. But I never thought that was too big a deal. One of my teachers was South African so technically she was an African-American. Plus the students are plenty diverse. Hell, most of my minority friends are people I met at Delta. I'll give the Accrediting Commission their other points, there are plenty of issues that Delta needs to deal with. But diversity is not one of them. SJRTD deciding to bottleneck Yokuts into one lane during Christmas and the beginning of the semester is a way more pressing issue. (Seriously, what's the deal with that? They pick the time that area's the busiest to build a bus transfer station?)

With support like this, there's no wondering how she won

From the "How did we just find out about this now?" files: Ann Johnston's Mayoral Campaign MySpace! There's honestly not much to it and it was apparently ditched in July. But it is kind of interesting to see that local politicians are slowly realizing the potential of social networking in relation to campaigning. Of course an idiot could have realized how helpful places like MySpace could be after seeing how Barack Obama's net savvy campaign.

Ok, and we posted this because Ann Johnston only having 3 friends, one of which being auto-friend Tom, is hilarious. I now officially feel like less of a loser.

So Ann Johnston is an introvert then?

And when politicians have figured out social networking, that can only mean one thing. It's a trend! And no trend is complete without it's very own trend piece. Granted, social networking was a trend like 3 years ago, but this is The Record. We're pretty sure their sports staff thinks MMA is fixed like the WWE (you got a better reason as to why they don't cover it? Let us know.), so figuring out social networking is big for them.

Since Fitzy's on vacation or something, Alex Breitler and his bright red Mr. Roger's sweater are tackling this one. And I gotta say, it's a pretty decent read. Nothing particularly interesting, just a column about how social networking can help introverts stay in touch with people they otherwise wouldn't. But something seems to be missing in Breitler's column. Like an entire paragraph. The offending passage from Page 2:

"The study may well be true, seen in 15 years popped up out of the blue and announced he'd named his son after me, at least in part."

Doesn't make much sense does it? How is it supposed to read?

"The study may well be true, but it doesn't have to be. An introvert can find social satisfaction, minus the angst, on social networking Web sites.

Consider my adventures over the past two months:

A high school chum I hadn't seen in 15 years popped up out of the blue and announced he'd named his son after me, at least in part."

A chunk fairly important to sentence continuity is missing. Where did it go? It's actually still there, kinda. Journalism lesson time!

Really, it all has to do with layout (Note: Layout programs can be different, we're just going off of our personal experiences). I'm not going to get into the boring specifics of column inches but, needless to say, each story has a certain amount of space they need to fill. If for whatever reason it doesn't fill that space, you fill it with ads or pictures or pretty much whatever fits that doesn't look totally awkward. In this case the picture on the right-hand side filled some space as well as Briefcase Breitler's byline/picture. The byline is where the editor got in trouble.

Breitler's head is just barely below the headline, so one would presume that when it was placed there, it displaced the headline and had to be moved down a tad. When it did so, it cut off the missing sentences. That can be easier to miss because they're not the only part in a large font. It's easier to see misplaced or missing words when they're in a 20-point font. When a picture covers just a couple of sentences in a sea of words, it's harder to catch. So the words are still there, they're just covered by Breitler's Mr. Roger's sweater.

Either that or they accidently got deleted. Either way, the real pressing issue is who brings a totebag instead of a backpack to school? He's lucky they just called it a briefcase instead of a purse. A briefcase makes you seem smart and organized. A purse makes you a chick or queer. Which one would you rather be? Hey, at least it wasn't a fanny pack.

Quick Links for Jan 22nd

Well, now we know what happens when the entire nation decides we don't need to know what else happened on Tuesday and doesn't report other news. I have to stretch to find content and fuck it all up. Well, let's check out the Record and see if anything went on toda...ahhhh! Avalanche!!!! (Thank God.)

Ladies and Gentlemen, the definition of too soon

We're notorious, emotionless dicks who will make fun of anybody, but even this seems like a bit much. Your daughter died unexpectedly in somebody's house, and your first inclination is to give the press your theories about her cause of death? No remembering the good times? No, straight into "She OD'd." Is her body even fucking cold yet? Hell, Morris Senegor (the dad) even said he didn't know of any drug history his daughter had, yet he's all ready to offer up an overdose as a scenario. Look man, just fucking grieve. Give everybody a chance to believe this was just a cruel act of God for, God forbid, half a day before you crush her image in everybody's mind with OD rumors. Yes, there's no good way to do this, but that doesn't mean you pick the worst fucking possible way to announce shit like that.

Death is never easy, take it from us. When El Duke worked in medical supplies he would have to tell families who's parent's just died that they couldn't return the $2000 scooter they had just bought for their parents 3 days earlier because the owner was a money grubbing dick. He says it made him feel like a "soulless cock" and that it still does a little bit to this day. And these are people he barely knew. Your daughter died, just say "it's sad" and let the people who's job it actually is announce that shit when they have all the tests done. It's not like we really needed to know the cause of death right away anyways. Announcing shit like that right away with no tests just makes shit seem fishy. Like you want us to believe it's one thing when there's a chance it's something else. We're not saying anything fishy went down, she was probably just huffing canned air, but preemptive cause of death speculation is unneeded and just kind of a dick move.

Of course, this could all just be a matter of quote use and placement. They put the important quotes (like probable cause of death) up front and bury all the stock grieving quotes that every story like this has (isn't journalism awesome?), but David Siders is a pretty good writer so we tend to go with the the mother's side of the family in the "Come on, now? Really?" side of the argument.

Bitches man, bitches

Of course there's too much information in that article, there's nowhere near enough in this one. Why did she slash the tires? Did she catch him in bed with his baby's mama? Did he make the fatal error of telling her she's PMSing when she was PMSing? Did he tell her those jeans made her ass look big? Or is she just a crazy, unstable bitch and that's what gets him off about her? We need to know these things! If for no other reason than to prevent the commentors from making crazy racist jokes, which as of this morning they had already made 5 of. God I love this town.

We said it yesterday and we'll say it again, the more things change, the more they stay the motherfucking same

The great clusterfuck continues! The Delta Trustees extended a giant middle finger to Mountain House and killed campus funding "for now". How Gerry Kamilos bought that I'll never know. Apparently he's way more trusting than we are. And really, it's always smart to trust a group of people who got where the are by campaigning against the campus the promised to get back to.

Fuck, today ended up being busier than I thought. That shit's always gotta happen on the same day news happens (or is reported at least). Tomorrow El Duke should have a Kings Kolumn up and the requisite Shit to do. If we can get the screengrabs we'll do our Top 5 revisit, if not we'll push it to next week. And if I can find time Real Stocktonian tomorrow. It's not set in stone so if you have any suggestions, please e-mail us.

Quick Links for Dec. 18th

Fuck it, let's just dive right in.

Taking a page out of the Lodi City Council's book, the new Delta Board of Trustees decided to hold a marathon meeting of their own. They held a six-hour meeting on Tuesday, the first for the newly elected board. What did they do for 6 hours? They played catch up! They spent 6 hours asking questions about stuff they probably should have already known about. Like the history of Measure L spending. Which is something I know by just driving by Delta every once in a while. Seriously, what did they say? "Well first we decided to buy this land in Mountain House. Then we got buyer's remorse. Then while dealing with that, we decided to buy fancy electric signs and flat screens that just show a lame powerpoint presentation. Oh, and a field. Yes, and an Olympic sized track. Then we realized we're out of money." There, done. That took them a hour and a half of the 6 hour meeting?

For those of you who haven't already conditioned yourself to be extra careful driving during the holidays, there's a friendly reminder in today's Record about cops stepping up drunk driving enforcement. They even tell us where they'll be and when, which is strangely informative for the Record. Although it could be just a smoke screen because the days listed seem like random ass days, and don't even include the gimmie date of the 31st.

Remember folks, south Stockton isn't dangerous enough to alone warrant owning a gun.

Not that north Stockton seems to be any safer lately. Last week a group of armed men shot and killed a guy to get to the cache of Mary Jane in the house. Why are people getting killed over pot? It's borderline fucking legal! The cops even left 8 ounces of the remaining 6 pounds of cheeva because it was technically medicinal! Aren't robberies supposed to happen with real drugs? Was one of the guys named "Sack"? And we feel bad for Christian Burkin, who presumably was the guy who had to go to the house to ask about the deceased's registered sex offender status. Which had to have been ridiculously awkward.

Speaking of ridiculously awkward, it had to be fairly awkward when the Lexington Plaza Waterfront Hotel Bar & Grill & Gas 'N Go celebrated their first year open for business. Especially when Regent owner John Thomas took to the stage to speak. But of course that cloud of awkwardness lifted when soon-to-be Mayor and possible goat Ann Johnston took to the stage and channeled her inner John Belushi. No, she didn't chug an entire bottle of Jack. She did declare the hotel and the party "fabulous". And noted that they're "all going to come down and party a lot." Sound like my kind of city council. By the way, what kind of fucking party has their own cigar roller? No really. That's a profession? Where the hell was the rolling papers section of the career fair when I was in high school?

Quick Links for Dec. 17th

Oh hey actual news. What's up? Shit actually happened yesterday so let's jump right into the Quick Links.

So Jason Anderson takes another crack at being a sports columnist today, an actual sports columnist who writes about a single subject. Last time he wrote about women's basketball, but hey, at least it was in depth analysis on a single topic. Let's see if his topic is any better this week....Jesus Tittyfucking Christ. It's original analysis of the Sacramento Kings! Let it be known that apparently the only way to get a Record writer to write about the local professional teams is if the team does their best Raider impersonation and mow through 4 coaches in 4 years. As far as the column goes, it was good but he stops just short of the obvious conclusion. The Kings need to hire Eddie Jordan. He's a Princeton offense coach and Petrie's a Princeton offense GM. And nobody should ever even hint at Flip Saunders coaching the Kings ever again. Ever.

Stockton PD continued their "Here's why we totally deserve a raise" tour yesterday by somehow colliding with a Manteca school bus. Which of course begs the question, does anybody in the Stockton Police Department know how to fucking drive? Are they taking driving lessons from my sister (who infamously got into 7 accidents during her first 6 months as a licensed driver)? Way to prove your worth guys.

Alright everybody, all together now. Na na na na , na na na na , hey hey hey , goooooodbye!

Nice to see people who campaigned with the promise of better management of the remainder of the Measure L funds are already looking to break that promise. We've said it before and we'll say it again, building the campus in Mountain House was retarded beyond retarded. But we've kind of passed the point of no return now. Killing the Mountain House campus wouldn't just piss everybody over there off, but it'll only result in an assload of lawsuits. Lawsuits that the plaintiffs would win and then drain even more funds. Funds that I'm guessing they don't have since it was probably already spent on designer luggage that someone was triple reimbursed for. Look Delta, we get it. Now that the changeover was happen you have to show how different you are from the previous board by finally acknowledging how shitty of an idea Mountain House was. Here's an idea, how about you differentiate yourselves from the previous board by being honest, open, and by being fiscally responsible? That shit will do a lot more for Delta's badly damaged public image than any showy public condemnation will ever do.

Don't forget! You're invited to a performance of the Nutcracker today at MLK Elementary. Unfortunately it's not Black Nutcracker like Tracy's Black Nativity from last month. Ok, we'll ask. How is this news? Did I magically get transferred to the SUSD parent newsletter?

And finally, yes we saw Fitzy's column today. We'll have a whole lot more to say about it later on. But for now we'll just question the intelligence of writing an anti-gun column in what is still pretty much a Republican county. I'd hate to be the guy who has to wade through the Letters to the Editor right about now (which may very well be Ian Hill now).

Quick Links for Dec 3rd

So that whole teenage slave story is in it's second day, and new information continues to slowly surface. Nothing really juicy so far, the AP apparently found Kelly Lau's MySpace which revealed she was a Raider fan (which gives more credibility to our meth assumption. Sorry, too easy) and, more shockingly, a Girl Scout leader. SFGate does provide some conflicting information though. While the Record's articles say he escaped from a possibly moving car after picking up a dropped key, the SF Chronicle says he escaped through the backyard by "vaulting" (their word, not ours) over the 8-foot wall separating the house from the gym that he escaped to.

They also caught his abusive aunt this morning in Berkeley near the Telegraph area (another drug indicator!). That Chronicle article also provides more information that the Record's article/website post says wasn't immediately available. The Chronicle was able to interview Lau's mother who asks the same questions we do about how this could have gone on for so long. Like how a 9-year old didn't question why there was a guy chained up in the garage, or at least mention it in passing to Grams. Lau's mom also gives the fishy explanation her daughter gave her as to why they had an extra kid and what the deal with the old black lady who looked like a dude was. The Chronicle article also mentions that Lau's husband, Michael Schumacher had repeatedly asked InShape to make the 8-foot wall the boy escaped over taller over the past year. So there, that's what we know now, with little thanks to the Record and many thanks to the BaconBabe for pointing us to the Chronicle's more informative stories.

Not that we can completely blame the Record, they're short staffed right now as everyone tries to sneak in some vacation time before the end of the year. Including crime reporter and Police Chief Robocop supporter Christian Burkin who expressed fears that someone might steal his desk while he's gone in a blog post. All we ask for is photographic proof of whatever prank the rest of the Record staff pulls (which can be e-mailed here). We suggest moving the entire desk into the bathroom.

That Delta meeting happened yesterday, and while the trustees didn't declare themselves trustees for life they did chastise the current Student Government while not really revealing too much new information. They did try and place the blame on previous ASBG administrations and their old advisor, who also may have helped fix an ASBG presidential election to keep a muckraker out if I remember what the loser that year said correctly. There is a pretty interesting list of thinly veiled perks given to student senators, including possibly the worst tradition ever in embroidered luggage for incoming senators. They also were allegedly allowed a ludicrously expensive coat budget. That's right, flea market money went to buying ASBG senators coats and even t-shirts. We were funding their fucking wardrobe, which means they at least have a future as rogue Vice-Presidential candidates. The lesson is painfully obvious, go to Delta and learn how to mismanage money. The trustees can't stay within their Measure L budget. The ASBG allotted way too high a percentage of the budget to themselves. Hell, I was a Delta student and I'm horrible at budgeting out my money. This doesn't bode well for those lifeskill classes we heard about last month.

The City of Stockton showed it has the decisiveness of pretty much all of my ex-girlfriends by approving a scaled down Wal-Mart for Weston Ranch. We understand that the whole point of the big box ban was to force it to keep people supporting local businesses, but is forcing them to be under 100,000 square feet (and the blueprints call for it to be 4 square feet smaller than the limit) really going to make that much of a difference? Apparently not as it'll still have a grocery section, just a smaller one. Which will totally encourage people to continue patronizing local supermarkets. Or it'll just be really cramped because it's less than half it's original size and Wal-Mart will still try and cram in as much shit as possible. Doesn't anybody remember the old Wal-Mart? It was a cramped shithole and that was in a decent area, imagine how quickly things will go to shit in Weston Ranch.

We've grown to accept the Record's practice of posting quick snippets of breaking news and then teasing us by saying to read more about it in tomorrow's Record. News happens throughout the day and their increasingly understaffed writers need time to do their due diligence and get quotes and such. But now they've gone and posted the Worst. Teaser. Ever. First of all, you don't tease lame holiday features. Especially when you then post another one 2 fucking minutes later. Lame holiday features suck and there's absolutely no way you can get people excited about them in advance. They're filler. You don't tease filler. You're basically saying "It's going to be a slow news day tomorrow!" And while we appreciate the warning, Recordnet should probably stick with actual breaking news. Like all the information the Chronicle provided about slave boy that the Record neglected to relay.

Quick Links for Dec. 4th 2nd (oops)

We can really only start off this edition of the quick links with one article. What the fuck Tracy? Slave boy from Sac? Really? We're a site that chronicles the ridiculous things that happen in San Joaquin County, but that's a bit much. They had him shackled in their home for what appears to be a while and nobody noticed? I was skeptical of this story when I first read it but it looks like it's true as they're now looking for the kid's aunt and his captors are being held on $1.2 mil bail. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say meth was somehow involved.

The next chapter in the Delta flea market/ASBG scandal plays out live tonight! Actually it'll probably be a bunch of bitching by ASBG that everyone's out to get them (just like real government! Shouldn't have ran for office if you couldn't stand the unending media scrutiny kids.), then trustees will say "tough shit" because...wait, that makes too much sense considering we're talking about a group that collectively has the common sense of Al Davis. So in response the trustees will probably agree and hand the ASBG President a cashier's check for the remaining amount of the Measure L funds while declaring themselves the kings and queens of Delta until the end of time while Raul Rodriguez laughs maniacally. By the way, the fact that the Delta cops handled this whole investigation is just adorable. Look at them getting their investigation on as if they were real cops. We're not at all surprised it took them 5 years since we knew about ASBG's monetary abuses to finally figure it out themselves.

If we can't trust drug dealers named "Sack", then who the hell can we trust? I feel bad for the victim, all the guy wants to do is smoke a little herb and he gets shot. Then he's gotta go tell the cops he got shot buying weed, and then he's gotta go to the hospital to get his wounds treated. You know how long that guy probably had to wait to get his burn on? Forfuckingever. This is why I have the rule of only purchasing shit from people with real names and not somebody who says "Call me Snoopy, and this is my associate Woodstock." I know, I'm being nitpicky, but this is California. Californians shouldn't be getting shot at during pot deals. That's what coke and meth are for. (Oh wait, we've already penciled in meth as the illegal teenage slave trade drug) People should not be getting shot at for something they have special stores for. Even if the nearest store is an hour away (coughhintathowtosolveproblemcough).

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.

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.

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.

Meanwhile in Lodi...

Meanwhile in... is an idea we just thought up where we take the focus off of Stockton and take a look at the stories coming out of other cities in San Joaquin county. Like the quick links only focused on one city. Today's city? Lodi.

It seems like we've been hearing about downtown revitalization since the dawn of time. Before Stockton got the itch to reclaim the youthful memories of the 60s when one could roam the streets of downtown, laugh, drink and smoke a joint while crime stayed the court ordered 30 miles away in Modesto; another city decided they needed to put more money in their dilapidated downtown district.

It's hard to believe it's been so long since Lodi started it's downtown revitalization. First came a brand spanking new movie theater, then a parking garage. Then came businesses who successfully flourished in the vacant space made available around the theater and parking garage. Or not.

While the businesses surrounding the movie theater have been an impressive revolving door of failed franchise attempts (we blinked and missed Slices' tenure in the current Starbucks spot), the parking garage's available space has been surprisingly consistant. Unfortunatly that's consistantly empty save for a "World of Wonders: Coming Soon" sign. Looks like "soon" actually means "about 8 years".

The lesson? While downtown Lodi has improved drastically, it's still just barely getting it's shit together and following through with it's downtown plans. Stockton's should take a little bit longer, like forever.

Oh hey, that Grape Festival thing happened. The Grape festival is one of those events you look forward to because, as we've stated before, there's absolutly nothing to do in this area. Which we assume is why so many people buy into the whole wine thing. It's like heavy drinking for classy people. But for those of us who didn't watch Sideways, it gets kinda boring pretty fast. We were supposed to go see Foghat but Bris got distracted by Ohio State's sucking and Duke opted to go to Deja Vu's. Presumably to also be distracted by some sort of sucking.

Speaking of sucking, you may have forgotten that Delta College sucks at spending money. Lodi's pissed that Delta's pretty much completly scratched the proposed Lodi satellite campus. They're calling it a "huge miscarriage of justice" which is probably overselling it just a little bit.

Everybody's known this bond measure has been on shaky legs for a while, so it's kind of a stretch to hear Lodi squawk shit like "it would be a very long time before another bond measure would be passed in Lodi if we were passed over." Guess what? The rest of SJ County reached that point at least a year ago. Catch up with the times and quit acting like the Canada to Stockton's America. Delta has spent all but $66 million of the $250 million they were given. Mountain House is going to cost $90 million just to complete. Yet you still held out hope for a Lodi campus? Come on, nobody's that fucking gulliable.

The Mountain House campus is/was their baby and they don't even have enough money to finish that. We get it, you feel fucked over. Welcome to the club. But crying about future approval of bond dollars isn't going to make much of a difference when us real cities have already decided that Delta's not getting nay bond money unto 2025. And President Rodriguez's "We're still looking at all of our options" is just a nice way of saying "Fuck you Lodi, we only picked you for the abundance of farm land that Spanos has yet to pave over."

San Joaquin Delta College, Consult it!

I'm outskis after this. See you guys next week. Hope Duke doesn't get too sentimental with tomorrows BWDW Special Edition
This Delta College shit will not go away. This week the venerable Delta Board of Trustees approved handing a quarter of a million dollars to a consultant to tell them how to spend their bond money. Kathy Roach is said consultant and her job is to fix a mess that the college has blamed on past consultants. In other words, they hired a consultant to consult them on how to fix problems caused by a consultant.

Not too bad so far right? Except for that part near the end of the article where they pay the consulting firm that fucked up twice as much for only 6 months work. Can we get some one to consult the consultant on how to consult the Trustees on paying the consultants?

Delta College Board of Trustes apparently run by Captain Obvious

A couple weeks ago I tore apart Delta College (not literally, although I understand if you think so by looking at the place.) for mismanagement of voter approved bond money.

It continues to baffle me how the Delta trustees could be so short sighted to not realize that contruction estimates are notoriously lowballed all the fucking time (just ask city leaders about the Arena's estimate). Not to mention that their dedication to buiding the campus in Mountain House was borderline stalkerish. To be honest, I've lived here my entire life and I'd never even heard of Mountain House until Delta decided to buy up a plot of land there for the Mountain House campus.

Whenever voter approved dollars are misused, we of course have to waste more tax dollars to find out who fucked up. And the San Joaquin County civil grand jury found that the Delta College trustees "made decisions which have caused serious problems and wasted millions of dollars in Measure L funds." Pretty much echoing what anybody who's been paying attention knew.

What did those of us paying attention know? The grand jury put it best, "The district needs capable trustees who are able to meet the task of bringing Delta College into the 21st century." Ouch. Take that Anthony Bugarin.

But that's all old news. That grand jury report isn't anything knew. What is new is that the trustees themselves finally admitted that they know they fucked up big time too, making them the last people in the entire county to find out that they're shitty at their jobs. Better late than never I guess.

That bond measure was an assload of help

I've lived my entire life in Stockton. Since I've spent a portion of my post high school years here, there's a 115% chance I went to Delta for at least semester. One of my biggest beefs during my time in the 13th grade was the parking situation. Anybody who went to Delta knows what I'm talking about. If you get there anytime after 7, you're parking in west bumfuck nowhere (Also known as Shima 2). Being, you know, a college student, I didn't even wake up until 7. And I was one of the early birds. All of this is before we even begin to discuss trying to leave Delta immediatly after class. One time I was happy I was able to get out of there under a half hour. In short, Delta's fucked up.

I've since stopped attending "High School: The Sequel". Probably the smartest thing I ever did. One of the big things that went down before I left was the passing of venerable bond Measure L. At the time all of my teachers were telling their classes how awesome this bill would make the school and how it would help out the Tracy students with that awesome Mountain House campus. Even though the "School of Lost Potential" is right on the other side of the Altamont.

Needless to say, that hasn't been the case. The Mountain House campus remains one of the most controversial items in Delta Trustee meetings. The only (completed) visible results of the bond measure have been the fancy new electric signs on both the Pershing and Pacific entrances to the campus. Oh, and those flat screen TVs they put up in Danner Hall that are toooootally helpful and needed. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, they completly fucked up the parking situation even more.

For Delta's 20,000 students, there's normally 5,000 parking spaces. So they do the logical thing, knock out 1,000 of those spots, lowering the total to 4,000. With 5 times as many students as parking spots, Delta must be working towards some sort of solution. The parking situation was hairy before they knocked out a thousand spots and fucked up access to two more parking lots. So obviously they're building a parking garage or something to alleviate the problem once and for all.

Oh wait. They're building a fucking soccer field? Are you serious? They're permamently killing a parking lot to promote the most useless of activities that is JuCo sports? Where the fuck do they expect students to park? What's that? They spent how much on renting out spaces at Weberstown? 10 fucking grand? They were parking there anyways, for fucking free! Why rent out spaces that were already being used? To make sure they were available? A bulk of Delta's students are doneski by noon. Go to the mall at noon, it's a god damned ghost town. I'm pretty sure the spaces will be there.

Thanks for wasting my money Delta. Your mismanagement of funds has resulted in making the entire area sour towards the idea of ever letting you jackasses even utter the words "bond measure" again. And guess who's stuck paying off this fuck up of a bond measure? Me and my kids. Thanks assholes.