for Heads only

There's a toilet in my local work bathroom that shoots out water and today I got some in my mouth, if you want to know what's up with me today.

I have created two Grateful Dead tumblrs in honor of Jerry Day.  One is of shitty fan art and one is of Grateful Dead/other stuff lame mashups.

http://heckasac.tumblr.com/

http://shittygratefuldeadart.tumblr.com/

pep talk?

You guys I'm really bummed out and I need a pep talk.  I am so depressed about what's going on in Sac right now.  I should focus on the positive because I'm sure some good things will come out of it but I feel like we're right back to pre-recession luxury loft lounge living and big money trying to make the city a douchebag haven.  Reading Sactown depresses me most of all, with their farm to fork this and their build condos for "well-heeled" residents that.  Farm to Fork is driving me nuts, partially because it seems to be a successful venture for our creepy sex offender corrupt as fuck mayor.  Nobody cares about his shell game financial dealings? No one remembers the behavior with the underage girls? And believe me I'm not one to judge about stuff like tweeting dick pics or whatever stupid thing, but taking advantage of multiple teenage girls should be enough to end a political career. 

I know some older suburban people who got incensed when I was against an arena and started to tell me how great it would be for downtown.  I would like to teleport these people to Midtown on a second Saturday at 2 am.  And again, I'm not against people raging but I'm against people driving home especially when many of them are so wasted they are leaning and puking, etc. 

Speaking of farm to fork I counted that phrase 37 times in this latest issue.  It is not even the farm to fork issue, which was the last one.  The Bee had it like 12 times on Friday.

Speaking of the Bee I was happy to read BAR's review of Kru.  Well-deserved accolades. It's not flashy, but Billy Ngo just keeps chugging along churning out excellent sushi and salads (like his seaweed salad). I have never tried the uni panna cotta or the tea duck, which BAR wrote about, but I will now.  I tend to just get chef's choice nigiri.

Also CM wrote a good, solid profile of Noah Zonca and avoided breathless hype.  Very enjoyable and informative without being fawning or posturing.

ettore's?

So I learned after a few trips that yelp is not that helpful in picking good places to eat when you're traveling. The top rated places can be weird.  To illustrate this point I present to you the Sacramento top ten:

1) Rolle - is really good, true
2) La Bonne Soupe - presumably this was from before Daniel Pont sold it so this account should have really started over when it changed hands
3) The Kitchen - sure, I don't really know
4) Magpie - agree (the part of the one review that you can see popping out on this list is "every bite I take of a carrot cake cookie; I have a mouthgasm" ewwwwwww)
5) Heat Shabu Baru - totally meh, see my review from a long time ago
6) Mulvaney's B&L - yeah sure
7) Ettore's - ?????
8) Burgers and Brew - noooooo for their food and their brew.

wait, if you click on it it reformulates whatever you get the idea. I don't really read yelp but maybe I'll start again. I'm only doing one review a month so I'm not on the lookout for ideas all the time

good vibe beehive

 More fair report! I got not much else right now, but tomorrow there is a MOM/Vasas show at Press and I'll be doing a dj set. Hope I don't fuck it up too bad! It's been years. Luckily Scott has a setup where I can actually record from Spotify.

This is the sac county display. uh, sucks. more after the jump!

Happy birthday to me!

Tomorrow is the 9th birthday of heckasac! A time before facebook, smartphones, tablets, streaming tv, before youtube, what else am I missing? Jesus Christ things are moving fast.  There can't be that many blogs that have been around for 9 years and are still going. I started blogging pretty early in the game. And what a coincidence that my triplets were born two days before the blog turned nine. I think they are probably at least nine so I may have unknowingly been pregnant with them on the day I started it!

Here's the first post, and MH was the first commenter!

setting up...

I've been toying with the idea of a blog for a while now. Some of my friends set them up and I find them to be supremely amusing time-wasters. I didn't want to start a blog where I complain about my job (although maybe sometimes I will). So my primary idea for my blog is to interview some of my friends. Cuz my friends are funny and smart. And also because I'm not that good at asking people about themselves (probably because I'm always blathering on about myself), so sometimes I've known people awhile and don't know some of their background information. I hope to include pictures if I can figure it out. That's it. First interview coming soon if the subject agrees...

suck it and see you at the fair

This is what I like to call just plain dumb. For one thing it's a pet peeve of mine for people to joke about food poisoning in this way. I highly doubt the writer has actually gotten food poisoning at the fair or knows of anyone who has.  For second, of course they are regulated same as food trucks are.  It wouldn't be good pr to have a food poisoning outbreak, similar to the one at Mulvaney's recently (see it's not just cheap places). Three the food is of no lower quality than similarly junk-y food and there are quite a few family-owned places, even stuff like Thai, Mexican, and Middle Eastern.  You can eat healthy if you want, there's corn, poultry, falafel, and a really good giant baked potato with lots of fixin's.  I know it's fashionable to bag on the fair, but it is a real melting pot of all races and socioeconomic classes, all having fun.  So suck it! See you at the fair tonight!

I really don't think I have a chance in h-e-double-hockey=sticks of winning, but did you see I got a nomination in SNR? I'm not saying I'm the best local media "personality" (I like to think of myself as more of a "person" than a "personality" but hey) to have a beer with but I'm not not saying that I'm not the best person to have a beer with.  I feel like this category should have something to do with beer nerdery so do with that what you will Dan Barnes should be on the list as well.

Best local media personality to have a beer with

Nick Brunner, Capital Public Radio

Bethany Crouch, Fox 40

Isaac Gonzalez, Ransackedmedia.com

Walt Gray, 96.9 The Eagle

Heckasac

Edie Lambert, KCRA 3

Kurtis Ming, CBS 13

Grant Napear, Sports 1140 The Fan

Blair Anthony Robertson, The Sacramento Bee

Dale Schornack, News 10

good one, UC

Many I really hope the UC governing board votes down Janet Napolitano as the new UC president. It really sends a bad message. Head of homeland security during a time of ever increasing surveillance?  Governor of Arizona, a super fucked up state?  Not involved in academia in any way ever?  The UC is pretty fucked in countless ways and this is just the icing on the cake.  It strays further and further from its original mission every day and it's very sad to be on the inside of it.  My job is fine I just feel bad for the students, especially the poorer students who live in California who can't afford tuition or who are close to the grade and test cutoff but are being pushed out by out-of-state or foreign students.  There is nothing wrong with the latter type of students except that it's a pure money grab that pushes aside CA high school students.  Meanwhile the number of bureaucrats (vice chancellors, etc.) has doubled in the last 20 years, all highly paid positions, while key staff has been cut and buildings are crumbling around us.

vids

Couple quick videos for now:

Maria Bamford show, really really funny and poignant. The stuff about the nervous breakdown is for real. Her WTF is a must-listen

This song is so good

it's mayo goddamnit

 Last of the NY pictures.  This is a fried green tomato dish from Diner in W'burg.  The Diner meal was one of the best I had.  It has tarragon mayo, which is also how Shady Lady serves it. Restaurants need to stop saying aioli when they mean mayo.

picture post

Sometimes it gets really tiresome being not very technologically intelligent. Like right now. I had to go through a big rigamarole to get these photos and then they all uploaded willy nilly.  That's why it's so much easier to just post them to face book. Oh well. Photos after the jump!

It just doesn't matter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7pHBZmtpYg

I am very happy that this is captured for all time on video. I'm also very happy that my screening of Meatballs inspired the chanting.

sonny

I can't believe I didn't gloat about Gunther's trouncing of the competition in the Bee's tasting panel.  I usually don't forget to gloat about anything. I guess gloating implies that I had something to do with it.  Corti was on the tasting panel!

Verge/Crocker thing tonight! Very cool. 

I fell asleep at 630 last night! I think I was finally catching up on the sleep from NY.  I stayed up for 45 hours the night I flew in. I had to power through the jet lag to pack as much in as I could.

Here now I'll gloat about something I did do, which is interview Sonny Smith from Sonny and the Sunsets. He is a hero of mine.

Inty?

the movie night went well last night. I now think that Meatballs might be the funniest movie of all time all because of one guy named Mr. Bill Murray.  Meatballs really wipes its ass with Wet Hot American Summer when you watch them side by side.  Next movie night I want to do Half Baked and Friday. And I'm going to start it at 7.

Tonight is the open mic comedy at Bows.  Officiall voted best comedy night in the SNR summer issue.

I'm going to be djing at Mike C.s night on july 24th, all dirty south. I'm listening to a lot of it.  Ya know a lot of the Cash Money stuff doesn't hold up that well (and of course that goes double for No Limit). I just discovered that Master P has kids named: Lil Romeo, Cymphonique, Veno, Young V, Tytyana, Italy, Hercy, Inty and Mercy.

hack restaurant

I still can't mail my phone pictures to myself (meaning I have barely tried to figure it out besides messaging Rafter) so none of the eagerly anticipated NY pictures yet. It's annoying that I could just post them to fb but I will hold out. Course I could do that and then save them and then, nah.

So I will now review the new restaurant from the hack crew who brought you burgers and brew and crepeville: el toro bravo, a "mexican" restaurant in downtown davis, which means there are three of these places in a one-block radius. To sum it up: terrible. Fishy dry fish tacos, supposed Niman Ranch steak which was also super dry. Tasteless salsa, beans, and rice. I guess the veggie taco (with eggplant and peppers and stuff) was OK but I wouldn't order it again.

Saw Dave Attell in NY, saw him in Sac too, where he bombed. He phoned it in at the Comedy Cellar. He even kept a NY Post tucked under his arm the whole time. Not as an affectation but just because he was I don't know, putting in a quick ten minutes before he went to take a dump? SPeaking of comedy, does anyone out there love Todd Barry? I love him.

You should follow him on twitter. His website has this funny page: http://www.toddbarry.com/receipt_museum.html

omg, seriously read it and this is good too

http://www.toddbarry.com/quotes.html

this is blowing my mind, how did I not hear that Nic got in the Onion AV Club?

http://www.avclub.com/articles/s-nic-offer-hates-the-house-of-the-rising-sun,97304/

Tonight! Movie night at Bows!

something went wrong

uh, something is wrong where I can't send any of my pictures from my phone to my gmail so no New York pictures yet. And after I spent a while sending them. How annoying.

Tomorrow! Movie night at Bows! I am showing Meatballs at 6 and Wet Hot American Summer at 8.  Also, Mario is djing at Le Twist at Lowbrau. It sucks that whenever someone I like djs there it is so late (like midnight) that I don't go but I think tomorrow I will make an exception. 

share a brew

A couple of days ago in the sweltering evening Scott brought up the idea of Akebono. It was packed because I'm sure cooling sushi sounded good to everyone.  I got this sake which comes in a cute little can that you pour it out of.  It was delicious as all hell.  Also got the classic cold soba dish hiyashi chuka. Very refreshing.

DJ smiller is gonna be at Lowbrau tonight. They have moved the speakers and it now sounds great and is audible at a pleasant level inside.  Come share a beer.

video of the day

I linked Cody's new blog at right. Check it out.

brilliant!

I have my best ideas on the way to work (no, not on the can) because it's 25 minutes and I'm highly caffeinated and I listen to music and space out.  Many of these ideas are lost to the ether as I walk from my car to my office. Who knows how many cool things I could have done.  Anyway, the idea I had this morning is to review Jimboy's for my next review!! I am so smart.  It is a legit review because the ONLY thing I have ever eaten from there is french fries, bean tacos and veggie burritos.  I think I started going there when I was still vegetarian and then never branched out.

 

There's a sweet rope swing at Sutter's Landing if you walk to the right for a bit.  Try it out before the rangers cut it down.  I can't believe I wasn't too chicken to do it. The Blue Dream helped.