CHINESE PORK BUNS

Dunk them in coffee like donuts? Confucius says: "Dee-ricious!"


LISTENING
 Can't Stand Modern Music
 THE CUTE LEPERS
 2008 1-2-3-4 GO!

BAY AREA APARTMENT TO REQUIRE DOG POO DNA SAMPLES?

SFist: News Andrew Dalton - Friday, July 08, 2011

A Redwood City apartment complex stands to be the first in the Bay Area to track lazy dog owners who don't pick up after their pets using a DNA database. A database of dog turd samples, that is. Apparently fed up with all of the messes left for her to step in, apartment manager Mary Michaels plans to require residents to submit their pet's stool samples to create "poop-prints". Any fresh steamers left around the grounds will then be checked against the, uh... prints and the offending owner gets dinged a $60 fee to pay for the cost of the test.

PoopPrints.com, the Tennessee-based company that provides fecal DNA testing services says that last year Consumer Reports put dog poop as number 6 on the list of America's Top Gripes.

For her part, Michaels told KTVU, "I can hardly wait to get this thing going," presumably while scratching at the door and holding a leash in her mouth.

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LISTENING
 Sleep Talk
 SHANNON AND THE CLAMS
 2011 1-2-3-4 GO!

PUNK! SEX! BOOZE! MANIMALS!

LISTENING
 The Shit Split (Blatz side)
 BLATZ/FILTH
 1991 Lookout

BLACK '6OS FURY - CAR AND MURAL

Photo: Neocles California Street, Berkeley

LISTENING
 Serious Times
 HORACE ANDY
 2010 Minor7 Flat5

HUNDREDS OF JOBS SPARED, SACRIFICED IN NEW OAKLAND BUDGET

Oakland Tribune Sean Maher - Wednesday, July 01, 2011

"OAKLAND -- With the city's six-month struggle to close a projected $58 million budget deficit temporarily settled Thursday night, residents can finally parse through which jobs and services were cut and which, for the time being, were saved.

All the city's major labor unions have announced tentative contracts that would help the city with concessions such as furlough days and pension contributions.

Adding to that are numerous cuts and new revenue sources spread out across most city departments, including:

• Installation of 269 new parking meters, including 100 in the Eastlake area and 169 in an Interstate 580 underpass parking lot.
  

• Elimination of misdemeanor prosecutions by the Oakland City Attorney's office, which will likely slow or halt enforcement of recent city laws against prostitution and illegal dumping and leave those cases in the hands of the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.
  

• Sale of the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center.
  

• Planned police officer attrition -- losing officers to retirement or resignation -- at the rate of four officers a month, up almost one full officer position from Mayor Jean Quan's projections. Police officials say that number has been higher, five or six officers per month, for most of this year, but that may change with San Jose and San Francisco laying off officers and reducing pay, giving Oakland officers less attractive reasons for leaving.

It's a murkier picture looking at what was spared, because additional cuts may be necessary in the coming months as the effects of state and federal budget changes trickle down."

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LISTENING
 Dead Broke in the USA
 HARRINGTON SAINTS
 2009 Longshot Music/Contra

BURGER RENEWAL

Oakland's Kwik Way Drive-In survived the wrecking ball. Can it survive expectations?
East Bay Express: Food & Drink John Birdsall - Wednesday, June 22, 2011

"Somebody wanted to open a McDonald's here, then Fatburger made a play, then a developer offered to tear it all down and build condos. But Kwik Way found an unlikely savior, someone who'd forged a connection to Oakland amid the leafy comforts of College Avenue, up where the jogging strollers of Rockridge give way to the double-wides of Elmwood - Somerset's Gary Rizzo.

It was exactly two years ago that Rizzo pulled the trigger on the Kwik Way, which had been dark for a half-decade by then. "It's amazing that it survived, but it's an architectural icon," Rizzo said. "People had so many good memories here; it puzzled me that it sat empty for so long. I saw it as potential - every time I drove by it I thought, 'This should be reopened.'"

Little did he know he'd clock many more drive-bys as he found his way through the permitting obstacles. Councilwoman Pat Kernighan helped - she showed up for the victory-lap grand opening last month, after Kwik Way's unofficial launch in April, and a renovation Rizzo describes as "phased."

The city said he couldn't do drive-through, and had to put in outdoor tables (there are five). The ghost of Kwik Way's old menu still hovers around the place, in the shadow of letters up on the metal arch: Pies Shakes Bar-B-Q. ... They give mute expression to Rizzo's challenge: How to rehab a menu that bears such heavy finger stains of Oakland nostalgia, overwritten with expectations of urban renewal."

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LISTENING
 Self-Titled
 KWIK WAY
 1986 Golden Star

AC TRANS(M)IT

I'm no doctor, but I think the bus I took to work this morning had hepititus.


LISTENING
 Give War a Chance
 WARKRIME
 2006 No Way

A MODEST PROPOSAL: FOR A "SAFE AND SANE" 4TH IN RICHMOND

LISTENING
 Back from Samoa
 ANGRY SAMOANS
 1982 Bad Trip