Quick Links for Nov. 7th

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links for Nov. 6th

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

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

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

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

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

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

We swear this is the last election post

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

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

*takes another swig*

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

*takes particularly long swig*

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

*vomits barely digested Jack Daniels all over self*

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

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

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

*vomits, passes out in puddle of own vomit*

Election quick links and why we opposed Prop 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rejected Record Headlines!

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

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

"America smells what Barack is cooking"

"All aboard the hoooooooooooooope train"

"(Black)light of hope"

"I wanna Barack! Barack!"

"Black to the Future!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Highfill's column:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Consider this a digital tumbleweed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quick Links for Monday Nov. 3rd

How 'bout dem Raiders huh? We know it's because of league territory rules, but we'd like to extend a hearty "fuck you" to CBS for cutting out from the Green Bay/Titans OT to give us a game that didn't matter in any way shape or form. And on top of that Jamarcus Russell laid yet another proverbial turd on Sunday. Thus proving once again that you should never, ever draft a QB with the number 1 over all pick. The Niners learned that lesson, and now the Raiders are. You know it's a bad idea when a year and a half into your NFL career teammates are openly pining for the team to sign a convicted felon to replace you. Also, instead of spending time practicing endzone celebrations, maybe they should have worked on how to maintain positive yardage throughout the half. Or how to get first downs. By the way, this is the more original analysis than you'll get in the Record tomorrow. Because God forbid Bob Highfill write an in-depth column devoted to a single topic. But hey, let's knock out some quick links.

Wow, that IMAX thing happened pretty quickly didn't it? Now if only they would start playing good movies on it we'd be set!

The embattled Sheraton Hotel finally instituted some changes. Unfortunately all that really changed was it's name.

I think we have a front runner for November's rube of the month. Bryan Bjork still hasn't given the city and the arena their money back for that whole rodeo thing that happened a while back. But wait, we thought he was just an honest man with a dream.

Up north in Lodi someone found a bomb just lying around. Lodi PD promptly blew it up before they could grab any identifying information on it. Because why would we want to find possible evidence as to who's laving live bombs lying around?

If you don't think we're going to have something to say about this later today, well, you'd be mistaken.

Mike Klocke gave a mini-preview of the Record's post-election coverage yesterday. Oh, and we can blame Don Blount for that annoying Halloween story contest apparently. Hannah Montana tickets as a storyline point? Are you fucking kidding me?