While normally TV shows wouldn’t count as city [county] based posts, I really want people to tune into the show. And seeing as 3 of the top 20 dancers are from Orange County, I’m using that as my excuse for posting.

If you don’t already watch this show, you’re missing out. My wife and I are dancers, so I know we’re more inclined to like this type of show than non-dancers. However, more and more of my non-dancing co-workers are watching the show and telling me how much they love it. Let’s meet our local dancers shall we?
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The headline screams “California braces for same-sex marriage gold rush”!

[insert tongue in cheek]

So this begs the question: Are you prepared? Do you have your gay-marriage preparedness kit? Do you have a supply of water, extra food and flashlights in case you encounter a gay marriage today? Do you know what to do if you or your (who pray who will protect the) children should unwittingly stumble into a gay marriage ceremony? No? Insert your favorite purple Miata joke here.

“Brace” yourself. This one is gonna be a big shaker the likes of which you have never seen! Prepare for the end is near! Orange County may lie in ruins before week’s end. The gay marriages are upon us and the county’s infrastructure may fail, water will be scarce and emergency services will be stretched to the breaking point. Look out for your basic end-times stuff: Flood, famine and rioting at the local Pottery Barn gift registry desk. Everyone’s coming to stake their big gay claim - just think of how this will negatively affect our economy.

You may want to steer clear of gay hot spots like Crate & Barrel, The County Clerk’s office and the local courthouses. For God’s sake don’t look these people people directly in the eyes. We wouldn’t want you to glean a bit of understanding or humanity from them. It’s safer if you just blindly hate. It’s what’s best for the stability of our local communities. Not unlike Raiders of the Lost Ark your face may melt if you don’t keep your eyeballs tightly ensconced behind your eyelids.

[remove tongue from cheek]

Yay! Today’s the big day. I’d like to wish all the best to LGBT residents of Orange County who are going to get their marriage licenses today. It’s been a long time coming and you deserve all the same rights as the rest of us, including the California community property laws (50/50 baby). Salut!

Listen, I get it. I get that the OC Register is a newspaper, and in these times, the newspaper as we know it is going the way of the dodo.

I also get that they are trying to expand the paper with different offerings.

But it seems to me that the paper is beginning to move in a very “opinion” oriented direction via all the new “blogs” that are appearing there. Now tell me why I should look to the Register for a blog when anyone and their mother can write their own blog? I mean, look at me!

I look to a newspaper for reporting, for facts, for news. Not opinion.

And really, as if we didn’t already have a bad enough reputation as the shallow end of the pool, they give us this.

Is the Register’s move toward more lifestyle and opinion pieces a wrong move, or is it what everyone else but me wants? I have a really tortured relationship with the Register. I go to the site because I am looking for local news reporting, and they are pretty much my only option. If I had another one, I probably wouldn’t patronize the site.

Is journalism dead?

Only time will tell.

Recently I’ve been watching the Tony Bourdain show “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel.  If you aren’t already familiar with this fantastic show, Tony goes around the world seeking out the best local/ethnic/indigenous foods in a certain region or city.  They are almost never chain restaurants, and are usually locally owned.

He visited LA not too long ago, and wound up tasting some Mexican, Thai, Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, and Philippe’s.

If he came here to Orange County, where would he go?  Is there any restaurant that is considered an “iconic” OC restaurant?   

Spent all weekend crying because Avril Lavigne canceled her concert in Anaheim? Turn your thoughts to something else. We’ll work through this together. [Insert gagging sound here] Try this on for size:

I know we discussed this when they first opened, but I thought I’d give and small update on the first 100 days. You see, there seems to be a sort-of “Go back to England” sentiment among commenters (from both trolls and casual commenters alike) about Fresh and Easy’s rethinking of their rollout schedule. I suppose it makes sense that people inherently don’t trust the British – our country was founded on not trusting the British. Still, I don’t really get the whole reactionary glee with which people seem to want this particular venture to fail.

Who’s behind the negative sentiment? My wife thinks it’s the union because F&E has non-union employees. Likewise who’s behind the seemingly endless media delight in trying to reduce Pinkberry to pile of rubble? I think it’s TCBY. Ok, I’m getting off track…

I have grown rather fond of F&E and have become a frequent shopper. Honestly it has to do with the low prices and the proximity to my home. If there was a Trader Joes in the neighborhood (which there isn’t) I might split my visits. Still, I think once you understand the concept of the small-format grocer, not unlike the kind I grew up with, the place takes on a sort-of convenient charm.

So what do you think?

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Be sure and leave your thoughts in the comments…

Here are my favorite quotes from The OC Register’s article about the newly released grand jury transcripts regarding the brutal murder of John Derek Chamberlain.  There’s nothing quite like institutionalized homicide to brighten up your Monday:

 “Guards in charge of the barracks where Chamberlain was housed had not checked on the inmates for six hours before the slaying, although they recorded in the official log that they had made checks every 30 minutes. Sometimes the logs were prepared in advance of the shift. On the day Chamberlain died, the log was changed to reflect that he was not concerned for his safety.”

Isn’t it nice to know that if you ever enter the justice system that you are being so well cared for? Oh and then there’s the part where you know, there was a guard watching TV sixty-eight feet away while John was being beaten and kicked to death.  Oh and the part where the Sheriff’s Department did every thing in their power to slow-down, stop and hinder the grand jury’s investigation:

“Also, jurors found high-ranking sheriff’s officials were untruthful in their testimony, and offered forged documentation or no documents at all.”

Heartwarming no? This next one’s my favorite:

“Sheriff’s officials routinely disclosed inmate charges to the public at the time Chamberlain was assaulted. In fact, before his death, Chamberlain’s information had been given to as many as 10 anonymous callers.”

If you want the press and the public to go away, then just let it leak TEN TIMES that he was charged with possession of child pornography.  Because, you know, as far as the public is concerned, the death of pedophile is not really a death at all.  Whatever.

Kudos to TOCR for its excellent reporting.  You can read the full article here.

If you head down to the Anaheim Resort on Harbor Blvd at 2 PM today (Monday 04/07/2008) you can catch the ceremony to unveil Anaheim’s newest $15,000.00 sidewalk slab honoring the legendary Gene Autry.

Gene’s wife Jackie will be on hand to commemorate the event celebrating his success as a baseball pioneer and entertainer in Orange County. America’s favorite singing cowboy already has 5 (count them five) stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.  This will be Autry’s sixth (and most meaningless) star in Southern California.

Curt Pringle will be on hand to wow all the spectators with his general ineptitude and patented cheap stupidity, so have your cameras ready to capture all the breathtaking suspense and action.  Pringle always gives good face.

In all seriousness Gene Autry is cool and this is the first Anaheim Walk of Stars dedication that I’m sorry I can’t see.  It should be well attended so you might want to get there a few minutes early.  For more information please visit www.anaheimwalkofstars.com.

The Liberal OC is all in a dither about homophobia the right to privacy and/or anonymity on blogs.  In case you missed it – and who could blame you if you did – here’s the scoop:

Some Tool anonymously posted some revolting homophobic comments in response to a post in support of same-sex marriage over on TLOC’s web site.  In a follow-up post by Sean Hill, a blogger for the left leaning site whose posts can often be described as incendiary, he “outed” the anonymous commenter as a fellow named Mike Tardif.  Sean revealed Mike’s name, business name and phone number to his readers.

More posts followed. Insults were tossed back and forth and the whole thing degenerated from discourse to flame war.  After a while I just stopped reading the comments because in addition to being tiresome, they were pointless.

Trying to figure out the reasons people post these idiotic juvenile hate-filled comments can almost always be explained by renowned Internetologist Jonathan Gabriel’s Greater Internet Dickwad Theory which sates: Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Dickwad.  Conversely, the response from TLOC can be explained by the Little Bit of Power Douche Bag Theory which states: Normal Person + Little Bit of Power + Subordinates = Douche Bag.  This is especially true with fast food managers.  

We have seen our share of nasty comments here on the OC Metroblog, but we never went as far as The Liberal OC did.  We too can see the IP address of “anonymous” comments but where do we draw the line?  Which side is right?  I’m as liberal as a guy can get, but should I be condemned for feeling they’re both wrong?  My message to Mike and Sean: Grow up and stop pissing in the pool the rest of us are swimming in!

Seems like Gina is getting her groove on with the new site. Good for her. It’s been a while since I last posted. Ever since the upgrade, the computer I normally use to post has not been getting along with the new interface. I blame Windows XP. For the record, the shiny new Metroblog GUI looks and works quite snazzily on the Mac OS. XP however, seems to have unrecoverable issues. Just sayin’…

On to grander and more obnoxious things, such as my own Orange County Register gripe. Why, pray tell, does this paper constantly shoot itself in the foot?

So here’s the deal. I wanted the Sunday paper only. So I signed up for it. Honestly I can’t commit to the daily paper – it’ll just go to waste. So why isn’t The Register (and the God damn annoying telemarketing firm they have hired) content to let me just have the Sunday paper? Why must they send me mail, call me and literally show up at my frigging door begging me to upgrade my services? For the love of Dakota Fanning, make these people stop.

No matter how many calls I made, no matter how many opt-out marketing exclusions I sent in, no matter what I said or what I did, the Register would not stop. So now instead up cross selling-me on more products they have lost my business altogether.

Dumbasses. They could have retained me as a customer if they had just left me alone. In an age where the newspaper as we know it is dying a slow painful death, they’re going to have to try harder to compete with digital media that doesn’t show up at my front door and harass me. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

So the OC Register decided way late to jump on the mommyblogging bandwagon and start their own “Mom Blog” section.

And so where was my invitation to join? It must have gotten lost in the mail.

But I’ve always wondered why newspapers feel the need to have blogs when by their very nature, blogs are almost the exact opposite of what a newspaper should be.

However, some of the mommybloggers on the Register need to find their unique voice and soon, because there are a ton of unpaid bloggers out there who are more compelling and interesting.    Not to say that there aren’t kernels of talent there, but only a few are really standing out from the pack.

I will give the Register kudos for including dads into the mix.

PS I am totally loving this new platform, and it makes doing this ever so much easier!  Thanks, Metroblogging HQ!