People support prep sports?

Today is the big day, the battle to settle bad blood between the white private school with lots of money and the white public school with lots of money. Lincoln and St. Marys continue their epic battle of cash, I mean football, tonight.

Bad blood seems to rise, with battles at In N Out burger and damaged statues. Now the losing school has to run the winning schools flag up its flagpole.

That's not the big story. I wanted in on this game. I call Lincoln. Sold out. I call St. Marys. Dicks. I go to the box office to get tickets. Assholes.

I wanted to go to the game, but not pop my man cherry bad.

I hope it ends 3-2.

Just tell us your idea and we'll vote for it

When we first saw this story about how a high-speed rail system could boost the Valley's economy, we thought it sounded familiar. We couldn't quite put our finger on it until all of the sudden it was clear as day...

(Apologies for the still photos, apparently this is the only video not on YouTube)

About fucking time

I've been fairly critical about the lack of marketing done for the upcoming Kings/Clippers preseason game at the Spanos Center. I placed blame on pretty much everybody (including you! Yes, you. And the person behind you.). I had hope change would occur but let's face it, if something were to change somebody would sue to put that change to a public vote.

But wait a second, what's this on the back page of the sports secti...Holy Barack Obama Batman! Motherfucking change! That right, the Record apparently has heard the plea to get their asses in gear. Sure, it's placed on the back page of what is almost assuredly their worst section. And yeah, I almost missed the ad myself because like most readers I've trained my eyes to skip ads in favor of actual articles. But it's something, which is really all I was asking for in the first place.

Bonus points for thinking outside the box and going with the special correspondent contest. (Wow, the Record's really contest happy this month, aren't they?) I might actually even take a shot at entering. Let's see if that month I spent in Delta's photojournalism class before I dropped it will pay off.

Quick links for Oct. 3rd

The untrustworthy hooker strikes again? Maybe we're just not very trusting, but if some broad approached us out of the blue for some good ol' fashioned stranger fucking, we'd probably be a bit apprehensive. Women don't just invite random dudes off the street back up to their hotel rooms. And if they do, the Sheraton's missing out on an awesome marketing opportunity.

This has to be one of the worst attempts at defending a client ever. When your public defender starts making your case sound like a bad methed out version of Smokey and the Bandit, you should probably just take the plea deal.

So it's probably going to rain this weekend. Which of course means stay off the road because the retarded drivers who somehow forget how to drive in the rain every year will be out seeing if they can out-accident drivers talking on cell phones.

Shit to do for the weekend of 10/3-10/5

Sexy Friday Oct. 3rd

Apparently jack shit is going on tonight. Thus continuing the trend of lopsided weekends. Want shit to do? It's all on Saturday. I guess last week really was the final final Friday. Yes, it blows. But I think I have a way to make it up to you. One of the blogs I frequent on an hourly basis is NFL blog Kissing Suzy Kolber. They invented the concept I've been teasing for the past couple weeks called Sexy Friday. KSK's Drew Magary (Buy his book) explains the concept best here. Now let's get in the sexy spirit of things. (Oh, probably NSFW by the way)

Former TNA Wrestling announcer Leticia Cline:

That's more like it. Thank God It's Sexy Friday.

Saturday Oct. 4th

One of the things I left out of my crotchety old man post was the news that Daniel of Filbert and hey manna! is back in town. Which means 2 of Stockton's better bands are back in business. Filbert (solo), Reggie Ginn, Andrew Hemans, Drew Blum, and A Street Named Hell are playing the Blackwater at 8pm. Let's hope none of those bands wear gay pleather pants. $5

Also on Saturday, Pacific Bowl is celebrating it's 50th anniversary in the best way imaginable. LEBOWSKIFEST!!!!! No weak ass high school kids because it's 21+, $2 White Russians, and the awesome Ed and the Educators; let's face it, this is going to kick ass. 9pm, $5

Sunday Oct. 5th

Again, jack shit. But like I've said before, Sundays are for football. The Raiders have a bye this week so go watch the Al Davis press conference and see if he dies at the end of it this time. The Niners are playing the Pats this week and actually have a shot at winning. Which just a month and a half ago would be considered fucking ridiculous. They're also retiring Steve Young's jersey during halftime. No word on what Charles Haley and his penis think about it. (I'm done with the KSK links now.)

Free relationship advice from Reclaiming the Title

When Steve Pinkerton broke up with Stockton in favor of our methed out cousin Manteca (using the same pickup lines no less. You said downtown revitalization was our song!), there were mixed emotions. The city decided to get wasted. The Record was wistful. Mike Fitzgerald was presumably holed up in his bedroom clutching a pint of Americone Dream in one hand and a copy of "He's Just Not That Into You" in the other with an empty bottle of Jack at the foot of his bed. We saw his departure for what it was, a guy who realized that the market was headed for a downturn and that he was going to be totally fucked if he didn't get the hell out with the quickness. How would we ever recover from being tossed aside so callously by this visionary? (We still can't believe Fitzy called him that.)

After a couple of months it appears that we're finally ready to go see what's out there and start dating again. That's right, Fitzy's on the rebound. So who is this new guy? Stephan Grossman is the new booking consultant for IFG. (Hooray consultants!) He's the new guy responsible for drawing concerts to Stockton. Sounds dreamy doesn't he? What's his credentials?

- Over course of 25+ year career, have booked, created and promoted over 2,000 events, attended by over 10million people, grossing $400million. Managed media campaigns with overall value of $100million

Damn, that's fairly impressive.

-Extensive experience opening new sports/entertainment arenas, including NHL Phoenix Coyotes' Jobing.com Arena (Phoenix) and NBA San Antonio Spurs' AT&T Center (San Antonio) as well as Rosemont Theater (Chicago)

Oh, fuck. Umm, so all those successful arenas had successful tenants already?

Great, we're skeptical already. Come on Fitzy, you're smarter than this. You don't want to rush into a new relationship so soon. We know you love the silver foxes, but you can't give it up right away. Sure he has experience booking around sporting events, but those sports teams were already profitable. Plus he hasn't given us any details as to how he plans to get acts that play in the Bay Area to consider us over Sac, Bakersfield, and Fresno. He just says we're in that pool. Until he shows us real commitment (he's left us before apparently) with real ideas, he should only get boob. Deal? Hey, why is your shirt on inside out? Fuck.

Oakland's Own Queen Emily Places 5th on America's Got Talent

So the America's Got Talent season finale was on last night. Guess who didn't win? That's right Houston's Oakland's Stockton's "own" Queen Emily. Now the Record will have to find some other local angle to pound into the ground for the next couple months.

Oh hey, they found him already. So now you'll write about pro sports.

Recordnet.com only wants to make it easy for you to find out about Steve PInkerton

So we were doing research (finding links for) for a post later today (This picture should be a decent enough teaser) and noticed something a little different from all the other articles. And we think it's different from when this story was originally written/posted online. It was the first thing listed in our Top 5 things recordnet.com needs to do to actually be eligible for an award post. It's links back to relevant stories! While we're skeptical that it only appears on this series of 3 month old articles, it's change people.

Of course it could have been there before, we weren't that observant back then. But hey, at least it shows that they have the ability to linkback. Why do you choose to suppress that ability?

Old man angrily shakes fist at kids to get of his lawn

(Quick self-synopsis of this post: Kids don't respect their elders. I don't get kids these days. But it's funny so I'm posting it anyways.)

I don't go to as many local shows as I used to. The main reason is because I always feel like old man river when I go. Case in point, last Saturday's Novacain show.

The opening band (Jikoyokusei Shoukogun) was a bunch of high school kids clad in mesh and pleather. They played songs that they thought were dark and brooding but they were really just whiney. One song was actually called "Comfort Cyanide", a name that screams stereotype so loudly they might as well have called it "Cutty McCutmyself". The lead singer also felt the need to wear a black (obviously) skin tight shirt even though he had the biggest titties in a band where he was the only guy. He had some sort of Michael Jackson post-rhinoplasty thing on his face and was also the pleather offender. (I'd feel bad about making fun of a kid, but he probably doesn't care about my "conformist" views anyways. That and I'm a dick.)

Like with a lot of local shows without an age limit, the Blackwater was full of that band's friends who were all probably dropped off in their mom's minivan. They proceeded to cheer some of the most generic songs I've heard since I was in high school and thought Luxt was cool. Mostly they seemed amazed that the female drummer could passably work a double bass. (Even though it broke twice during the show.)

After apologizing to my own eardrums after that set, the solo version of Alitak (the band/person I came to see) took the stage. And he was talked over the entire time by the high school kids (No doubt they were talking about how cool their assumed Japanese names were). We sat through their entire set and I even stifled a groan when they decided to "treat" us to a replaying of their first song (I know, I'm a saint.), but apparently nobody told them that respect is a two-way street (cliché alert!) as Alitak actually got to the point where he stopped mid-song and pretty much told them to shut the fuck up. In actuality he channeled his inner high school teacher and lectured them about respecting the artists....twice during a 20 minute set.

God I fear for the future. But for reals, get off my lawn.

The Record loves having gas

If there's one compliment we can give The Record, it's that they have an eerily dedicated gas price beat. It all started this summer when they flipped cookies over the 76 by March Lane and I-5 lowering their prices below $4. Then there was the story about the gas station in Lathrop that offered sub-$2 gas for a grand total of 2 hours. And then we get to today. That Shell station off the Crosstown (oops) by Charter and I-5 is slashing prices by 40 cents(!)...for the first 10 gallons...if you also buy a car wash. Ummm, what? That's news?

We may not be the best at math, but 40 cents multiplied by 10 gallons is $4. Car washes at that gas station range from $4-$9, did we miss the part where there's a deal? Because we sure as hell missed the part where a gas station offering free car washes was news. What's next? Man rides bus to work?

The Morada Raley's offers a car wash comparable to Shell's $9 car wash for $5. They saved us $4! Quick! Send Joe Goldeen over, fast!