You gotta fight! For your right! To Parrrrtayyyy!

This is our last day at this URL. We're over at reclaimingthetitle.wordpress.com. If you come here next week we'll be updating less than usual (aka not at all). So please join us at the new digs, and enjoy this last post on the original site. Appropriately it's about racist, rich white people.


We haven't commented on this yet, let's remedy that. Maxim's is suing to stay open after a group of Brookside residents successfully lobbied to have it's permit to be pulled despite the fact that they were the only group of people to really oppose Maxim's. And when we say only group we really mean the only group. This wasn't even the official Brookside association of stuck up old white people. It was just a bunch of people who were pissy because it wasn't the upscale expensive restaurant owner Bobby Dhillon said it was going to be. Because, as we all know, someone's already got a stranglehold on the expensive, upscale restaurant market.

Since the whole restaurant thing wasn't working out, Dhillon made the savvy business decision to switch formats at night and turned the bar area into a nightclub. Because when business goes sour you make changes, instead of bitching to your friends about unfair imaginary boycotts.

So an out of town businessman opens up a business in a vacant building (in this case the old Mallard's) and finds success after some initial bumps in the road and strengthens the local entertainment scene while he's at it. It's a fairy tale story and exactly what the city wants, right? Everybody wins!

Oh wait, this is Stockton. It can't be that simple. Especially because the key to Maxim's success apparently involved playing (gasp!) hip-hop (or as a Recordnet commenter referred to it "annoying boom boom noises")! And, I don't need to tell you that hip-hop is a form music that's usually popular with (whispers) black people. Brookside's track record with minorities is well documented, so they proceeded to complaining about noise, lies, and increased crime.

That last one is interesting considering Stockton PD straight up said the restaurant hadn't caused an uptick in crime. And they should know, the highest concentration of cops in all of Stockton is in Brookside. All they had to report was a single stabbing in the parking lot in the whole year Maxim's has been doing business. They must have missed the "gun battle" Recordnet commenter PeterChu witnessed (and apparently didn't report) involving what he assumed were Maxim's patrons. Why did he assume they were from Maxim's? Unless he was directly involved in said gun battle, it just takes us to the point of this whole issue. He judged a book by its cover. Its dark-skinned, hip-hop loving cover.

Racism has been at the center of this issue since it started. Even Maxim's lawyer, David LeBeouf, straight up said it was because Brookside folk don't like black people in their neighborhood. Lawyers are supposed to dance around the issue and put things diplomatically, but hey, wild accusations of racism work too. Mostly because it's totally true. LeBeouf even offered to amend the permit to allow certain types of music, but disallow hip-hop/rap. Now, most normal people would say "Hey, isn't that kind of racist?", but not Brookside. They don't like it because it's unenforcible, not because it's totally racist. Although I would totally have joined the committee responsible for deciding what music was acceptable and what constituted hip-hop had the City Council accepted that proposal.

Of course, if they had accepted that proposal, Brookside's claim that the loud music is a nuisance would be exposed as bullshit. Loud hip-hop isn't ok but loud jazz is? That makes no sense. Loud is loud. Plus, there are plenty of house parties thrown in Brookside on a weekly basis that feature loud music (and occasionally hip-hop!). The difference between that and Maxim's? Well, Maxim's isn't a bunch of entitled white kids.

So yeah, we've debunked Brookside's claims that Maxim's attracts crime and pointed out that their noise complaints are total bullshit, so that leaves only one more problem that they have with Maxim's that doesn't involve race. The "Bobby Dhillon lied to us and said this was going to be a family restaurant!" part. To which we say, grow the fuck up! This is the real world we live in, people lie all the fucking time. And the thing is, Dhillon didn't lie. As far as I know, Maxim's is still a fancy family style restaurant during the day. It's just that occasionally at nights the bar is really hopping and it resembles a night club. You're going to fault a guy for running a business? Like we said earlier, business plans change. It happens. Sorry if you wanted an upscale family joint, but if you wanted it that bad you should have gone there. They're a business, not a fucking charity, they have to turn a profit. Trying to limit how they turn a profit by limiting the music they can play actually is a violation of their first amendment rights. Sure, it might be a very loose translation of the firt amendment, but if they want to use it to tell the world (or at least their bar area) "Awww skeet skeet!" then by all means it's their right to do so.

Luckily, Maxim's isn't going to take this lying down. They're challeneging the City's ruling to deny them an entertainment permit (which may have already been ruled on by now, news is moving slow). So hopefully they get an injuction or whatever and get to keep on partying. Because with publicity like this, you can imagine the amount of people that are going to show up this weekend to give Brookside the proverbial middle finger by loudly partying their asses off. Brookside wanted a fight and it looks like Maxim's is prepared to fight back. They've only been here a year and they got this Stockton thing down pretty good. So fight on Maxim's. Fight for our right to party (We're pretty sure this song would not be banned due to the color of their skin).

Best Crawl Ever

So I guess I've been charged with retelling the tale of our Pub Crawl drunkedness, which would be easier if I could remember it all. Hell, it'd be easier if I could remember most of it. Luckily I have our Twitter feed, pictures, and the memories of the soberer (aka everybody else) to help jog my memory. Without that we'd be completely screwed.

Regardless, we started off the night early because we always enjoy an opportunity to drink while it's still light out. Misaki's was fairly uneventful, mostly because all of us (sans Bris, the ultimate pregamer) were soberish still. After a quick round of Sake Bombs to remedy that situation we headed towards the Miracle Mile portion of the festivities. Centrale and Alder Market didn't participate this go around, which seems strange considering the only reason I even know about either of those establishments is because of the Pub Crawl.

The bars that were there stepped their game up and embraced the Crawl for all its drunken awesomeness. Valley Brew once again changed its menu from the last time we'd been there (surprise!) and for once, I was disappointed by their deep-fried mushrooms. I'm not sure if we just got an off batch or if they intentionally made them less crispy for the free grub vouchers, but they left a lot to be desired. Luckily ranch fixed that.

Next I'm told we headed to the back of Taste of Brittany, also known as Moulin Rouge. The name brings up memories of a horrible Australian musical, but it's actually a pretty cool place that serves a nice variation of one of my favorite drinks, the screwdriver. We chatted with the owner Dan a bit, he seems pretty cool. We all make a note to come back to next morning for some crepes. None of us make it.

The Matinee earned our derision last crawl with their lackluster Jungle Juice. This time wasn't that much better, but we did get a piece of alcohol soaked fruit to go with it. They packed a decent punch.

After jumping on the trolley towards the Waterfront Warehouse, we noticed the crowd had picked up considerably. While the crowd was still of the slightly-to-considerably older variety, it was still a pretty fun group as everyone was pretty hammered by now. So it was against our better judgement to chug the slurpees masquerading as premixed maitais that they call Hula Girls at the Sunset Grill (nee Waterfront Grill, Boiler Room). Granted, they were delicious going down. But mix all that sugar with the Long Islands, Jungle Juice, sake, beer, vodka, mushrooms, and deep-fried asparagus and the results aren't going to be pretty the next day. But for that night they were fucking awesome. Sunset Grill even had Samoan dancers for some reason.

After that it gets kind of hazy. If I remember correctly we made a quick Chitivas stop and then headed to Beach Hut Deli via trolley. As usual, Beach Hut had the best deal of $1 pints of any beer. A deal which I promptly wasted on Pabst because there was no way I could handle thicker, qualitier beer with all that sweet shit in my stomach. Sadly, Bradley's drink special was also the Orange Lazarus of alcoholic drinks known as Hula Girl, so I stuck around Beach Hut and ate some of their kickass nachos. Because, fuck it, my stomach's already going to hate me, might as well throw in some chips and salsa. Eventually, a band broke out in the corner by the door, which occasionally happens at the Beach Hut.

Eventually we all chugged our beers, and decided we were going to see what was up with ol' Paragary's. You may recall that at the last Crawl we didn't receive the best treatment when attempting to drink there. We drunkenly thought that surely they had come around this time in these hard economic times and take any comer and treat them as royalty. I mean, he's supposedly hurting for customers, right?

Well, we walk in and are immediately shot a dirty look and told that they're closed. Now, mind you the bar is about a quarter full as she tells us this and that it's 10:30 at night on a weekend. An hour and a half before the Pub Crawl ends and well before when any self respecting bar attempting to turn a profit would close. Naturally we ask "Closed? It's 10:30. Why?" and are told that they are in fact, out of drinks. Of course, seeing the full stocked bar behind her, a confused look comes over our face. We reason with ourselves that she means that they're out of the free Hula Girl candy drinks and I go "No, I have money" and proceed to whip out my wallet and display my impressive $45 wad.

I feel I should break here to note that this is probably a milestone in Downtown Stockton's redevelopment that a pessimistic native Stocktonian like myself would willingly open their wallet without fear of ramapercussions in the middle of the night. I mean, this is exactly what they want right? For us to open our wallets to downtown to generate revenue. I wasn't even doing it figuratively, I was doing it literally. And what do I get? I get a "No, we're out." So my friend and I go on a drunken rant about being a paying customer and Paragary's is losing revenue for this reason, and not for any lame subsidy excuses because, well, fuck Paragary's. So the next time Mike Fitzgerald tries to lament the fact that we're petty dicks with a hard on for subsidies, and that's the reason Paragary's has to sell, you can tell him he's dead wrong. It's because shit like this happens. Twice.

After this it gets incredibly hazy as we hiked on over to the Hippo Bar, which is massive, and drown our sorrows in they're late night drink specials (which I hear they have on a weekly basis) that extended past the Crawl. Around this time our group got separated, because that's always a good idea when you're completely plastered. I ended up on a trolley back towards Bradley's that was so packed that some chick came up to me and sat on my lap and then turned to me and said "Don't get hard." Yup, it was a Stockton kind of crowd. It was pretty awesome. Frankly, if downtown concentrated on more alcohol-centric ideas like this to get people down there on the warm summer nights (because, let's face it, booze one of the few things that we can all agree on), that whole revitalization thing might actually catch on.

Quick Links for May 28th

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is the last day for this URL, we're over at WordPress now. So update your bookmarks (all 12 of you) for reclaimingthetitle.wordpress.com.

Sorry for the missed day yesterday, we've been busy with our real jobs. That's not to say we haven't been working on the site, we have, we just haven't completed anything yet. The first half of El Duke's Pub Crawl rundown is fucking gold, hopefully that'll show up later this week. But until then, let's knock out some Quick Links for this...really? It's Thursday already? Bad fucking ass. Let's do the damn thing and anticipate Sexy Friday.

Enough is enough Dino Sauro

Look, we get that people have different musical tastes than us. We get that Dave Brubeck was a fairly influential jazz musician. We get that Tony Sauro likes jazz, but for fuck's sake, the deification of Dave Brubeck has to fucking end. It's not that we don't like his music. We're not the biggest jazz fans in the world but we can appreciate what he did and "Time Out" isn't too bad of an album. But for the love of Christ quit making him out like he gave a virgin birth to Miles Davis.

We understand why it happens, people are passionate about things and tend to write about their passion. We love Stockton, sports (although, ironically, not Stockton sports), drinking, and journalism so we write about that shit. Tony's very passionate about jazz, so passionate that when you Google "Sauro Brubeck" on the Record's site you get 228 results, a alarming number of which aren't repeats.

Now, we're not faulting Tony for his volumes of writing about UOP's most famous graduate. Hell, if I could write 200+ columns on getting shitfaced I would. The problem we have is his glowing, almost masturbatory praise for anything the man touches. His columns are as if he pops a Viagra, flips on "Take Five", and starts punching the porpoise only, you know, in written form (apologies for any mental images derrived from that analogy).

Again, we're not saying Brubeck isn't a good jazz musician, it's just that the praise for him should only go so far. It's not like he's this big jazz titan that all hipsters (the original hipsters with the turtlenecks, berets, and fingersnapping. Not the Weezer-glasses variety) bow down to. Even the most dedicated local jazz fan has to admit that they probably wouldn't have known about Brubeck if not for the way Stockton and UOP shove him down our throats every spring.

I guess the point of this rant is that while we understand Dave Brubeck is an importantish figure in jazz and an important figure locally, but we have to keep it in perspective. Not every article/column about jazz merits a Brubeck mention. And if it does, remember he's just some dude who went to school here and not...ummm...shit, I'm out of super popular jazz musicians to liken him to. Yes, I only know one jazz musician. What of it?

How the weren't we consulted for this?

So the Record did a feature on recession drinking, which was a great idea when we did it months ago. But, being the Record, they had to take a good idea and fuck it all up. Sure, the piece was informative, but who wants to hear about the drink specials at Paragary's? I don't want to spoil Duke's Pub Crawl run down but fuck Paragary's. If you show up for happy hour there's a chance they'll run out of alcohol. And Le Bistro? Really? Did they discount drinks so it only costs you and arm instead of an arm and a leg? Fucking Applebee's!!!!???

Although my favorite featured special is the Matinee's. $4 tall cans. That's right, four bucks for a tallski (of domestic!) at what's allegedly a martini bar. Or you can buy 2 tall boys for the low low price of $7. Or if you're smart, you'll run around the corner to the Hi and Bye and grab a tall can of Coors Light for two bucks.

So, since the gauntlet has been thrown down, allow us to come back with out suggestions for the real good drink specials out there for those looking for some cheap, drunken fun. For one, if you're going to drink downtown nothing beats the dollar pints on Friday nights at Beach Hut Deli. The atmosphere is laid back and they usually have a pretty good acoustic band playing in the corner. And if you really want to throw down you have to check out Beer Pong Thursdays. Sure, the competition's a little thin with all the college kids out of town, but just consider this a training period for when they come back in the fall. Nothing damages their frail egos quite like getting schooled by a townie in a game invented by college kids.

If beer's not your thing then we highly suggest hitting up the happy hour at BWDW Fat's Bar and Grill. It runs all the way 'til 8 and you get $5 Long Islands $5 Jagerbombs and other assorted stiff drinks. But don't worry, it's not some sort of alcoholic haven, Tuesdays are actually family night and parents are encouraged to bring the kids to belt out some kid friendly karaoke tunes while Pops gets sloshed on drop shots. And, as the bonus, the family shit ends at 9 and then the hardcore drinking begins with $2 well drinks (although sadly this is only for Tuesday). Like all well drinks. Which, let's face it, is pretty bad ass. And is also why most of my sick days fall on Wednesdays.

Although if you're really intrigued by the prospect of drinking canned beer in a bar, you should head on over east of 99 to Morada landmark Koe's for their Budget Thursday specials. For only $1.50 you can enjoy a 12 oz. can of Pabst, Hamm's, or Olympia. Haven't heard of those last two beers? Go open your grandpa's garage fridge, there's a 50% chance that thing is packed with them.

So there's a couple bars that have excellent happy hours that are actually cheap. And we even included on that involves the family! Plus, we didn't even have to bust out El Torito's legendary happy hour pricing (half off appetizers and specials on margaritas from 4-8. Not to mention Tacos Tuesdays).

WTF Recordnet?

Earlier today I was working on a post about Don Blount's latest offering (which will probably be up tomorrow, sorry for the slacking) about riding the late night bus and came across something curious. The column can be found here, but occasionally, links older than a day do not show up on the main news page (if at all) so I have to use the Google Advanced Search options and just enter an exceprt of the article I'm looking for. Yes, even with the improvements the Record's site is a bear to navigate. Not the animal kind, the big gay hairy dude kind.

Anyways, out of habit I did that with this column. I entered a passage from his column and Google spit back this. Now, one should note I'm using site search, so the only website that should show up should be Recordnet.com. Yet Google kicks back that site and only that site. Other stories show up fine, but Blount's continues to show up only on this TMCnews site. It appears to be a word for word reproduction, and the column is also on Recordnet.com so theoretically it should show up under the Record's site on Google, but it don't.

So does this mean Google is trying to deny the rest of the world the musings of Don Blount? I sure hope not, that would be mean. Almost as mean as not loaning out your cell phone. But, as usual with these things, it leaves us asking the age old quesiton, what the fuck Recordnet?

That big announcement thing

Sorry we disapeared the last couple of days. We've been having internet problems. But hey, I promised a big announcement, so here it is.

For various reasons (mostly boring technical shit), we're swtiching over to Wordpress. It's still a move in progress but I've imported all of these posts over to reclaimingthetitle.wordpress.com so go check it out. The template is different and not as customizable as Blogger is, but in general my short experience with Wordpress has been better than with Blogger which can be annoying at times to say the least.

So consider this the soft launch of our move. As you can see not all the posts on here on on Wordpress (including this post), all of Bris Isaak's posts say they're authored by me because he hasn't accepted the author invite yet. and I personally think the wording is too small. But let us know what you think while we work out the kinks. We'll probably post both here and there for about a week before completely abandoning this site for the new one. So update your bookmarks.

Also, to make up for our sudden absence, we'll be covering tonight's Hula Pub Crawl live. How? Via our new Twitter. You can follow us on Twitter and our updates will show up on the sidebar of the WordPress site too.

Now, I gotta go pre-game.

An open letter to the Miracle Mile

Dear Miracle Mile,

First of all, sorry for your loss. Losing See's Candies must have been hard on you. I'd suggest medicating yourself with excessive amounts of chocolate but, well, you know.

That being said, fuck you in the goat ass with a red hot fire poker. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to close off half the side streets for repaving at the same fucking time!? Driving the Mile is already about as enjoyable as a Lori Gilbert column, taking away the escape streets is like taking her column and printing it on the front page every day of the week. I mean Jesus, was my drive down Pacific Ave not slow enough for you? Can't you just be happy with the old people who patronize the Mile driving 3 miles per hour and stopping at the light if they even get a premonition that it might soon turn yellow? Were you not pleased with the roughly 246 crosswalks that fucking stretch of road has slowing my commute down? You just had to seal off all my escape routes so I'm stuck behind Gladys for a half hour while she waits for there to be absolutely zero cars in sight (including mine) before she makes that left turn?

There's no point, just fuck the Miracle Mile. I hope Maxim's moves there so they can complain about all the darkies that aren't actually committing crimes.

Sincerely,

Reclaiming the Title

Quick Links for May 19th

Sorry if we seem a bit distracted today. It's a somewhat extremely important day. It's the day some old Jew opens a bunch of envelopes containing the results of a marathon ping-pong ball selection session. Yup, it's NBA Draft Lottery day and our beloved Kings have the best chance (25%) of getting the first pick. Which means we're probably getting the 4th pick. Hell, I wouldn't be shocked if we somehow got the 5th pick. So to say our minds are elsewhere would be an understatement. Text messages between all of us were exchanged before 7:30, which is incredibly early for all of us.

What does all of this mean for you? Well, if the Kings don't get a top 2 pick and you see a depressed Kings fan sulking in his Kings jersey, Kings, hat, and purple shoes, don't make fun of them. There's a very good chance they will stab you in the neck with the nearest sharp object. So, you know, Raider game rules.

But until then Quick Links!

Oh yeah, something else is going on today

It's Special Election day! Which means we get to recall Governor Schwa...wait, what? It's just a bunch of budgetary ballot measures? Fuck that. I'm not voting and getting my hopes up for the future of my favorite sports team. That's just too much in one day. And the voting would get in the way of my pre-draft lottery drinking.

But for you non-alcoholics, check out that link from the Tahoe paper about the ballot measures. And then I'll laugh at you tomorrow for wasting your time voting for measures that have no chance of passing because they're not a charismatic black man. You know, assuming I'm not already in prison for stabbing a Laker fan after we get the 4th pick.

"Now, what do you mean when you say 'We'd have to lay off more city workers'?"

We understand the budget situation can get a bit contentious, but does Dale Fritchen really need to ask what the backup plan is if we don't get the aid that Gordon Palmer's proposed budget is dependant on? David Siders said it himself, Plan B is no secret. It's fucking layoffs. But when you're in negotiation with labor unions, like Palmer is with the city's firefighters union (and presumably the SPOA if they weren't such dumbasses), you try and avoid saying the word "layoffs" at all costs. Kind of like how if you're trying to sell some bonds you don't even think the word "bankruptcy", let alone say it. If anybody should have learned that lesson it's Dale freaking Fritchen. Political grandstanding to gain favor with city employees is fine and all, only those city employees probably won't be employed the next (and first) time Fritchen's up for reelection. So it really just makes him look like even more of a dumbass. Which I didn't know was possible.

And now for a dose of sacrelige

We're not too big on furthering David Stern's God complex by actually praying to him, but we could probably use all the help we could get. Sure, we could pray to that Jesus guy. But he never comes through for me (although I still hold out hope that one day one of my roommates will magically transform into Katie Morgan). Plus, David Stern has a much better track record with influencing draft lottery results.

(Plays "Taps" on kazoo)

It's a sad day folks. It's the last day for Craigslist's Erotic Sevices ads before they switch over to the totally prostituteless "Adult Services" section for good (by the way, did I see the Royal Day Spa in there?). Many drunken nights have been spent trolling the Erotic section of Stockton's Craigslist after one of us sombody shouts "Fuck it! Let's get a whore!" Only to quickly realize we're all you're pussies and don't feel like catching HPV. Plus who can find 100 roses on such short notice?

So we bid you adieu Erotic Services, trying to decipher the sluts from the hookers (You're a hooker!) on the Casual Encounters page will never be the same again. And neither will my cock after that happy ending. I wonder if there's a novena for genital warts.

Ok, that's it from us today. El Duke promised me he'd be around tomorrow with a lottery result reaction which should be epic either way. Our big announcement is coming soon, we're just working out a few more kinks and we'll be good.

Quick Links for May 18th

Jesus tapdancing Christ it's hot. Welcome back summer. Luckily summer also brings us women wearing little-to-no clothing so I say bring it on sun! Sorry we're so late today, things have been busy behind the scenes here. We're on the verge of a fairly big announcement but I don't want to tip my hand quite yet. Just know it'll happen sometime this week. But until then Quick Links!

So much for the government harshing our mellow

Last week Mike Fitzgerald was in the middle of getting his Peter Tosh on, he blogged a reader's e-mail about worries that the government's weed would totally suck. Fitzy's argument was that it was better than the alternative, Mexican Tony Soprano weed. And he was right, government weed would be a great alternative to Mexican ganj. Not because of violence, but because Mexican weed sucks, and the feds a hoarding some straight up kill. So yeah, even when he's right, Fitz is still hilariously wrong.

Hey, speaking of The Man, fuck you Steve Moore

Before we get started we'd like to note that this never would have happened if Baxter Dunn were still alive (note: that's a joke, I'm pretty sure he's still with us). That being said, my bulshit detector went off so violently while reading this I thought it was on the fritz. Specifically this line:

"If I were trying to close down Lost Isle, I'd go straight after their liquor license," Moore said.

Which is a fine excuse except that you can't bleed somebody dry by just pulling their liquor license. Pulling the liquor license is an instant kill. If this were Mortal Kombat Steve "Smokey" Moore's fatality would be pulling the liquor license. But he's not going for the fatality, he's going for the green. No, not the green from the previous item, I'm talking about the root of all evil. The county can't get any money out of Lost Isle if they just shut them down. But if they make them jump through hoops to get those extra special permits that always pop up at the last second, fine them, and make them hire extra security (who, spoiler alert!, are often off-duty cops) then they can make some bank. Sure, not as much bank as they would make selling legalized pot and pot accessories, but still enough to make it worth their while. Plus, they'll get them to throw in a special dock just for making them drive out there to do (guh) their jobs.

Look, drunk people are going to fight. Don't punish Lost Isle because there's stupid people. Any bar on any given night can have that one retarded guy with the slutty friendly girlfriend and if she does the wrong thing while dude's got one too many drinks in him, shit's going down. If there's a UFC PPV on, the chances of this happening increases roughly 8000%. Sure, a guy died last year. But hey, Bogey's is still open. I guess what I'm saying is that while security proportionate to the crowd is important, don't ruin everybody's fun because some people are dicks and you're pissed you have to actually work and feel like applying a little political pressure.

And now let's see what Don Blount sa...aww, man. (Still cool though)

Words can't express how disappointed we were when we opened today's paper and saw Michael McCollum's column on photography lighting. Don't get me wrong, ever since I got that digital camera for my birthday I've been taking pictures like I'm some sort of teenage girl going through that artsy phtograpjhy stage (no picture of myself in the morror, yet) , so the lighting lesson was pretty interesting. But, I hate to admit it, but I've grown to anticipate the musings of noted wordsmith Don Blount every week. Sure, sometimes it's boring but sometimes he gives us gems like this:

"However, let's put some other words to Stockton.

Words like: theater, symphony and opera."

I could go on but lists are really more Mike Klocke's thing. But with lofty writing like that, you can't help but anticipate the prose that graces the A2 section only once a week. But hey, cool pictures work too.

Quick Links for May 15th

Sexy Friday is here, and I'm feeling a little Quick Linky today Quick Links!

RIP Wayman Tisdale 1964-2009

Some days just start off shitty. Today is one of those days. Former King, successful jazz musician, 3-time All-American with Oklahoma, bad motherfucker, one of my favorite NBA players, and all-around good great guy Wayman Tisdale lost his battle with cancer this morning at the age of 44. Tis discovered he had cancer 2 years ago when a cyst was found under his right knee after he broke his leg. They ended up having to amputate (!) that leg in August but the cancer returned and we're less one awesome dude.

I'm not sure what more I can add to this but Sactown Royalty's Tom Ziller said it best. Fuck you cancer. Fuck you.

Technology is awesome (via Digg)

Want to go see an IMAX movie on a big fucking screen? Well, make sure to double check whether or not the alleged IMAX movie theater you're planning to go to has one. Someone has complied a Google Map of which theaters have the actual huge IMAX screens and which ones just have slightly better digital quality. And if you missed yesterday's post, Stockton has a LIEMAX.

Congratulations UOP class of 2009. You're officially fucked, just like the rest of us (NSFW Porky's clip at the end)

UOP's graduation is this weekend and I was planning on offering advice to the outgoing seniors entering the real world, but Drew Magary beat me to it on Deadspin. My favorite (and the most accurate) passage:

"Guess what, fuckos? Party's over. You're out of college now, and your parents are now too poor to nurse you through grad school. No more fantasy life for you. No more ice luges. No more intellectual discourse. No more ripe teenage pussy. That's all over now. YOU ARE FUCKED. Your days will now consist of searching for a job in a marketplace where no available job of any sort fucking exists. Your commencement speaker will probably tell you your class "faces enormous challenges," or some bullshit euphemism like that. This is a lie. A challenge is something you can overcome. You, on the other hand, are completely, unavoidably fucked. You're not going to cure cancer. You're not going to stop wars. You're not going to save the planet. If you're lucky, you may stumble upon a $2 coupon for Honey Nut Cheerios one day. That will be about it."

So yeah, congrats. You wasted 4 years of your life on a worthless degree class of 2009. No, our educational system isn't broken at all, why do you ask?

Hopefully you still remember how to bullshit from all those papers you had to write, that's the only skill you use in the real world. And don't bother applying for that bartender job on craigslist to make ends meet. That Asian kid who always ruined the curve in your statistics class just took it. He was really good at bullshitting.

Noone was really fooled by Tony Amato's grandstanding...until Fitzy came along

Fitz took a break from his latest attempt to relate to the common man to praise Tony Amato for fixing what was mostly a clerical error and for pushing more students towards earning almost completely useless degrees. Naturally he ignores simple things, like the fact that Tony Amato wasn't even around for the 2007 Record story that they blew up and then dramatically ripped in half.

Of course the other question Fitzy doesn't even bother to ask is should we be pushing these kids towards college. Is that putting too much pressure on their parents to afford it? Hell, do they even need college? Yeah, yeah, kids are our future, whatever. But there are some kids who just aren't built for that shit. And frankly, I don't want the kid who decided he'd rather hang out with his friends in Oakland than go to school studying to be a doctor. That kid better not be our future. Unless his future is being a janitor.

But on top of all of that, don't we need to fix our increasingly expensive and increasingly useless educational system first before we start shipping kids off to places that don't properly teach them how to bullshit? Why Fitzy, who just last week was predicting a watershed change in the American way of life, doesn't question whether or not this system even works is beyond me. He's too busy praising a guy who just said "Hey, let's enforce the dropout guidelines." Presumably while crying.

For once Stockton's not the only one getting the shaft

So late last year the downtown movie theater remodeled one of their screens into an IMAX screen. If you've plunked down the $15 to actually see an IMAX movie then you know that Stockton, as usual, didn't exactly get the full IMAX experience. Don't get me wrong, the picture quality is fantastic and the sound system is awesome, but when people think IMAX they think of a huge fucking screen. Stockton did not get a huge fucking screen. To be specific, we got hosed. The screen is just the size of the wall the projector happens to be facing. Sacramento gets a 6-story screen put up on the side of a parking garage specifically built to house a huge digital movie screen on the side. We get something retro-fitted after the fact that's passed off as an IMAX experience. Basically it's a mini-Max without the mini-price.

But for once the problem wasn't totally Stockton's fault! Sure, the movie theater manager claims it was because the city wouldn't give them the permits to tear off the roof and make that shit huge, but the real answer is that IMAX is giving everybody the shaft by spouting off the oft-repeated lie that size doesn't matter.

Aziz Ansari is apparently a comedic actor of some sort who went to go see the Star Trek IMAX experience at a movie theater in LA. He wasn't too pleased to find out that instead of a huge fucking screen plastered to the side of a parking garage, the particular IMAX venue that he had chosen was of the Stockton variety. Yes, the Mini-Max. And while others just kind of make a mental note of it and don't get duped by IMAX again. Not Ansari. He wants he $5 back! It's the principle of the matter!

Well, after he made a big enough deal the IMAX CEO responded by basically saying "I still make money off that shit so fuck you". And just for fun he threw in a shot about Ansari's commenters. Because if there's any group of people known for their measured discourse, it's internet commenters.

Ansari responds with a tongue-in-cheek televised debate challenge and then explains to the soulless trolls of the internet that his original post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Because the fact that he's a comedian didn't tip any of them off that he might be going over the top with his outrage for the sake of a joke.

What's the lesson learned here? That Stockton isn't the only place getting shafted by IMAX. And that the internet is a horrible horrible place.