Content for Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Blog Entries

News & Stories

The City Was Offering Up to $70,000 at 0% Interest

On October 12, 2011, my husband and I signed two hours’ worth of paperwork and forked over a $2450 earnest-money deposit on a four-bedroom, four-bath townhome in Chula Vista. For years, we’d fantasized about escaping ...

Meth Lab Found in a Clairemont Canyon After Fire

In a letter published this month in the Clairemont Times, District 6 councilmember Lorie Zapf warned area residents to use caution when enjoying our canyons. The letter was prompted after a fire was extinguished in ...

Calavera Lake and Mountain

Mountaintop views, waterfowl, an extinct volcano, plus restoration in action

There are many ways to enter the preserve, but most lack adequate parking and currently none offer toilet facilities, except the Oak Riparian Park in Oceanside, which offers both as well as a chance to ...

Betty and the Pets

The invitation read, “black-tie optional.” David opted for black everything — a black silk tie with this black shirt and black suit. “Look, even the dogs are wearing tuxedos,” I said. “Will you hold this ...

Radiation City's Slow Burn

The website intothewoods.tv has a remarkable video of the band Radiation City performing their song “Babies” in someone’s living room. They’re packed in so tightly that one guy who wants to listen is standing outside, ...

Rock Your Dome

Classic rock blasting through the 16,000-watt surround-sound system, psychedelic eye candy filling the 76-foot dome, and Rock 101.5 KGB’s Coe Lewis guiding the cosmic voyage — this was the scene at the premiere of Rock ...

The East Coast Sports Industrial Complex was right, the West Coast sucks

By Saturday afternoon it was over. Gonzaga lost to Ohio State and there was not a single West Coast team left in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Before we go on, I should tell you ...

Dropping the August Title of Eternal Woman at the Old Globe

To combat “the brute force of public opinion,” she must out-pure the driven snow.

The views in the Old Globe’s world premiere musical, A Room with a View, are one of the show’s best features. Heidi Ettinger’s sets re-create Florence, Italy, and Surrey, England, with enlarged postcards from 1908. ...

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Norwegian Wood, Being Flynn, Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Salmon and sushi this week, also poor sex and De Niro on the skids: Sheikh Muhammed of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen must have seen Lawrence of Arabia and then never forgot the Bedouin chief ...

Golden State of Lobbyists

California Strategies, the Sacramento-based lobbying outfit run by Bob White, ex-aide to former San Diego mayor and California governor Pete Wilson, was very busy at San Diego city hall during the final quarter of 2011, ...

Two Toronados

The word Toronado carries a lot of meaning in West Coast craft-beer circles. For San Franciscans, it’s the name of a bar in the Lower Haight, where the stock has consisted of fine beer for ...

Punk-Rock Politico

For the 16 years, Dicky Demonic has been thrashing it out in North County punk bands with his in-your-face, lefty politics. Demonic has been known to go off on cops, the rich getting richer, and ...

Serious Food Here

“It’s been a rough one. I work 12 hours, seven days. My parents — and they’re in the restaurant business — said I was crazy doing this."

It’s about 9:00 at night. Wednesday. I hear a ripple of people clapping. I look in through the door of this café I’ve never noticed before. Place is filled. Can hear the thudded Ps of ...

Disposable Songs

After a year of intermittent recording between hard-drive crashes and rewrites, alt-country five-piece the Western Set released their debut LP, Country Music, on March 3 at the Tin Can Ale House. Vox/guitarist Patrick Conway calls ...

The+Grass+Heat

The rise and fall and rise again of the power trio as an art form notwithstanding, the first thing I want to know about the Grass Heat is the name. How did it come to ...

John Brizzolara’s Last Column

“Hey, brother. Can you give me a clean pee sample?”

This will be the last “TGIF” column. It has been a great 12-year run. Well, mostly. Lord knows there were some turkeys in there over the years, but you can’t hit ’em all out of ...

Little Things Add Up to Almost Nothing

Paul Kolen is a San Diego State University professor of electrical and computer engineering known for patents and scholarly papers in the field of miniaturization. But unbeknownst to him, a self-professed financial advisor who was ...

Million-Dollar Apps

San Diego County supervisor Dianne Jacob has been busy trading stock and options in high-flying Apple, Inc., according to her recently filed personal economic interest report. On January 19 of last year, the supervisor unloaded ...

Badass Fish

“I’ve been wanting to play this music since I learned how to play guitar and was listening to my uncle Jarrod’s punk bands. I was only 13,” says former Atoms/Watusis bassist Branden Parish, whose new ...

Tokin’ and Chillin’, with Guns

Ruby likes the color red. On her day in court, she wore a red sweater and her hair was dyed a reddish color. Ruby (not her real name) is hiding from her former lover Robert ...

Carl Hilliard Goes Off to the Races

Lawyer and Del Mar mayor Carl Hilliard, now running for third district county supervisor in a crowded field that includes Steve Danon, aide to GOP congressman Brian Bilbray, and Democratic Solana Beach deputy mayor Dave ...

From the Babys to Waite at Anthology

The sold-out house at Anthology was treated to the musical feast of John Waite's "Rough and Tumble" tour. The English singer-songwriter’s array of material and showmanship spanned 30 years. Not only did he perform the ...

Here's Some Must-See TV, Punky

Thursday 22She-punk four-piece the Coathangers hit Tin Can Ale House with last year’s v. recommendable Larceny & Old Lace, the Atlanta band’s second on Seattle-based label Suicide Squeeze and first recorded in an actual, factual ...

Le Voyage Dans La Lune, by Air

Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) was inspired by the 1902 film of the same name by Georges Méliès. The sound has a haunting, hypnotic effect, much like the soundtrack Air ...

One Less Inch

Title: onelessinch Address: onelessinch.com Author: smartsypantsy From: La Jolla Blogging since: 2002 Post Title: One Less Inch. Final Draft. Post Date: March 13, 2012 [Chapter] 16. hit by a truck so this one time i ...

Pitching Machines: Best Buys

Every park I see these days is swarming with kids throwing baseballs. My ten-year-old is pushing hard to join a team. But while he’s had years of catch with his dad, he hasn’t done much ...

Unforgettable: A Great Escape, Part Three

Long-Ago In San Diego

The Best Made Plans Toward the end of World War I, the Germans boasted that their prisoner-of-war camp on the western outskirts of Villingen was tight as a sealed tomb. A ten-foot-tall, barbed-wire fence surrounded ...

Folding Mr. Lincoln at Rebecca’s

When married-duo Harry and Nancy Mestyanek launched Folding Mr. Lincoln in 2006, the plan was a gentle country-roots ensemble. “Though we continue to evolve as a band and to develop musically,” says Harry, “I feel ...

Mesa View Baptist Church

Membership: 300 Pastor: Darrow Perkins Age: 46 Born: Baton Rouge, La Formation: Andersonville Theological Seminary, Camilla, Ga.; U.S. Marine Corps (1983–2003) Years Ordained: 19 San Diego Reader: What is your favorite subject on which to ...

Letters

Cover Kudos Reading your March 15 Reader. Excellent article by Siobhan Braun on the cover, “The Recruiter Loved Me.” Franco AlbueroLa Jolla Elitist Bumper Stickers Re “The Recruiter Loved Me” (Cover Story, March 15). In ...

The Past

A poem by Michael Ryan

It shows up one summer in a greatcoat, storms through the house confiscating, says it must be paid and quickly, says it must take everything. Your children stare into their cornflakes, your wife whispers only ...

March 15 Sudoku Contenders

Evil Cindy Fisher, San Clemente, 4. Hiroshi Miyazaki, Normal Heights, 4. Michael Rewa, Allied Gardens, 4. Susan Avery, Escondido, 3. Carl Baltrunas, Milpitas, 3. Joseph Ciprian, Little Italy, 3. Larry Clark, Clairemont, 3. * Paula ...

March 15 Brainstorm Contenders

Martha Awdziewicz, Clairemont, 3. * Conway Redding, La Mesa, 3. The road to help is paved with good intentions. * Joseph Ciprian, Little Italy, 2. I know the look of dissatisfaction and disappointment- I have ...

March 15 Crossword Contenders

Cindy Fisher, San Clemente, 4. Flo Abena, Rancho Penasquitos, 3. Mary Arana, Encinitas, 3. Martha Awdziewicz, Clairemont, 3. L. Barling, El Cajon, 3. Evelyn Bowser, Hillcrest, 3. Bob Carlson, Serra Mesa, 3. Leslie Chase, Campo, ...