The valley now has swine flu.

The valley now has the nation's no. 1 unemployment rate.

The next story? Well, of course, the Fresno zoo might expand.

That's EXAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACTLY what we need!!!

What's so special about Fresno?

Oh ish, this is what I've been waiting for. I received an invitation to take a survey about what makes Fresno so special.
"So tell me, good sir, what three words describe the best things about being waterboarded?"


Here's the link (though it probably won't last long)

Among what you might like about Fresno is the choice: Limited earthquakes, floods, tornados or snow. Okay, it is pretty good in the national disaster area.

Crap, the second questions asks me to rank my top 3 choices. I only picked 2! (the other was agricultural heritage) Okay, I added "fresh produce", since that's basically agricultural heritage 2.0

Now I need to use three words to describe Fresno's personality. Let's see: Satisfied, uncreative, divided. Divided isn't quite right, it's hard to describe how the place is diverse and yet there is no diversity at all because people stick so hard to only others from their race. But um, we'll go with divided.

Next: when talking about the Fresno region, what do I brag about? Jeez, the winter is mild I guess.

Hmm, is the region's image getting better or worse? I really have no idea, but I hope that one day someone will read this blog (just a hobby BTW, not something I expect to get anything out of), so I'll say it's getting worse.

Will we overcome the negative image? Not if I can help it, ya baaastuds!

How is Fresno's esteem? I must admit, it's at least average. There is a strange pride among the locals about Fresno... I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Now they want to know if I'm a manager or business owner, I guess they want to see if my opinion ACTUALLY matters. I'm neither, so I guess it doesn't.

Aaaaaand the demographic information.

The Bee seems to have taken notice of how ludicrous the city looks to a viewer of its local stories and has started hiding the really funny ones in other areas of its web site. When I quit being so lazy I'll figure out where. In the meantime, they still couldn't hide the Bulldog gang member who tattooed his 7-year-old son against his will. Claaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassic!

Relay for Life

Saturday night I trekked it on down to Relay for Life. I'd like to say it was because of my commitment to cancer research, but it was more an attempt to relieve boredom than anything else.

TNJ, a natural at questioning authority, came up with the ingenious plan to reverse the walking direction at midnight. People had been walking counterclockwise around the track since 9 that morning. At midnight mista NJ came out and said, "All right! We're supposed to change direction at midnight!" He convinced the walkers that it was true, and many even walked their first backward lap while wagging their finger in the air in circles to indicate the switch.

Convinced of his i'm-da-shitness, TNJ spent the next 10 minutes musing about how most people blindly follow the crowd through life and don't think for themselves. It seemed a little melodramatic, especially since most people probably don't give a flying fudge which way they walk at Relay for Life. And for some reason the people we played poker with insisted on playing counterclockwise. Here, mista NJ protested, but played on anyway upon finding out that nobody else cared. A contradiction, eh?

This passes for interesting on a Saturday night here.

I'd like to congratulate Bear Pascoe and Tom Bran...stateAAh!, on getting drafted Sunday. Maybe once outside of the valley our boy Tom will blossom. He's a three-year starter, stands 6-5, weighs 230 pounds, and throws the ball on a rope when he wants to. He's a good metaphor for Fresno itself, cuz it really shouldn't suck that bad here! Anyway, if he can get over his mental tendency to completely freak at the first sign of trouble he ought to be good.

More importantly, I'm going to miss getting drunk and yelling his name like that.

Lastly, this swine flu thing is a little creepy. It just came out of nowhere! This time yesterday I'd never heard of it and now I've read four articles about the "pandemic" and it's all over Facebook and everything else. Bird flu, mad cow and SARS ended up being nothing, but I've read The Stand, and I'm still scared.

So, if you are one of the lucky survivors who made it through the swine flu pandemic that killed 99% of the population and you happen to be reading this... look man, don't rebuild Fresno.

(J/K, of course!)

More local ish

I apologize for not updating in the last few days, as I experienced the full fallout from my vacation -- i.e. I got depressed from realizing I really am stuck here for a whole nother year and I'll be another year older when I get out -- jeez, feels like a damn prison sentence.

My buddy told me there was a story in the Bee involving a kidnapping. The dude had gone to a local high school and offered some girls candy. The dude was dumb enough to believe that ish from the movies! Thinks he's in a holy cross between the Truman Show and a creepy episode of Unsolved Mysteries... probably makes a chick keep her bra on to have sex. Um, never mind, I couldn't find the link anyway.

For all the men in Fresno who wish they could get some gender lawsuit action, it just happened! They gave some old man $348,000 because it turns out he didn't assault somebody. Now there's an accomplishment worthy of Fresno.

Lastly, there's a story about local thieves who drop a string with glue on the end into mailboxes to steal the mail. So they're replacing the public mailboxes with something else. Crimes that don't even exist in other places are a problem here!

Wish me luck as I try to numb myself today.

Movie night

Q: What do these 5 seeeeeemingly unrelated things have in common?

A: They all make fun of Fresno!!!


I found out yesterday that the new computer-animated movie Monsters vs. Aliens has a scene involving da 'No. The scene is, the main guy in the film is marrying the main girl. They are supposed to move to Paris, but at the last second he tells her they are moving to Fresno instead, and that it is "better".

She responds, "In what universe is Fresno better than Paris?"

Funny huh?

Don't worry though, Seth Rogen and Reese Witherspoon offered a half-assed apology for the unbecoming joke on the city, saying that they didn't destroy it in the movie like they did San Francisco.

Turns out they didn't destroy any OTHER cities either, but who's counting?

Researching a bit more, I found out there are Fresno jokes in Con Air, Thelma & Louise, and EDtv, as well as many on the Johnny Carson show. I got lazy before I started searching for links on those, but dude, seriously!?!?

Consider all of this, and then add to it the fact that millions of people in America, and billions the world over, have never even heard of the place. This reduces the value of the jokes a ton...



THEY COULDN'T RESIST! IT'S THAT FREAKING LAME!!!

And now the weather...

I'm sweatin' my ass off!!

Vintage days!? More like Vintage Fresno...

So I got up the courage to head down to Vintage days at Fresno State. Surely this won't suck, I thought. I have no idea why the event even happens or why it's called Vintage Days. Maybe they'll be giving away some free kuzies (sp?) or something, maybe a step show or a singer or a band.

Sorry, no pikchas. Soon! Soon!

Anyway, WRONG! No kuzies, no music, no entertainment. It was a bunch of booths -- and every single one was trying to sell you something. Fresno mentality, me me me! So many of them were selling food that it was virtually impossible any of them would make a profit. I went to my buddy's booth and bought a hot dog to be nice. It was three bucks. He asked if I wanted green peppers and onions, I said sure and handed him a twenty. He handed back 16. I asked for my other dollar.

Green peppers and onions cost a dollar extra. Oh, em, gee.

Preview!

So Fresno State has something called "Vintage Days". I attended the first of these today and found out that the first day technically isn't part of Vintage Days. There were a bunch of useless arts and crafts (you know, like lawn windmills that are painted like ducks and the moving part makes it look like the duck is running when the wind blows). It reminded me of fairs my mother would take me to when I was little. Maybe tomorrow will have a little more of a youthful flair eh?

One of the booths had carved wooden signs. I had the Fresnikon this time and even took pictures... but I forgot that I let someone borrow the USB cable for it. Anyway, one of the sets of signs had couples, and, surprisingly enough, one of those read "Obama and Michelle." Wow! A redneck shoutout to the new prez!

Then again, his first name isn't Obama. Correctly it would be "Barack and Michelle". Or, I guess, "Obama and Obama", which would be kind of like "Gumble to Gumble".

Tomorrow should prove to be much more "vintage". It's been a rough week.

Success!

I did it. knowing it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I ran down to the tea party.

Unfortunately, I literally ran there and thus didn't have my cell phone (a.k.a. "the fresnikon") to take pictures. But my, oh my! No tea, no Indian costumes, what took place resembled the county fair much more than it did a political rally. The Save Mart Center had overpriced sodas and popcorn for sale, there were guys walking around on stilts, old white folks galore, skits, church groups, a blue-collar heaven.

I've heard before that Fresno is really a Midwestern town. Never has it been shown more clearly than it was today. The people stood around, politely, and held their signs. I saw a girl with an "I only date Republicans" T-shirt. No wonder I'm still single! Nah, she was one of maybe five twenty-somethings I encountered the whole damn time.

Picked up some of the stuff they were handing out. One guy gave me a million-dollar bill, I couldn't wait to read what it said about Obama's craaaaaaaaaazy tax policy... then turned it over and saw that it was a Christian tract. Dammit! It was appropriate though. Fear of the new and the different permeated just like dusty clothes and bales of hay did (yes, there was a semi pulling a moving stage with a bunch of hay on it). If I didn't know any better I'd think I really was at a church event.

The signs were a-plenty. Many read "I'll keep my (guns, money, freedom, God, old white friends, etc.) you can keep your change." Others said things about socialism. One fairly creative guy was dressed as a disheveled-looking Obama with a sign that said, "Anybody seen my teleprompter!?" There was a production going on, the announcer kept yelling, "Don't taze me, bro!" Later a govanaata impersonator came up and made up a new city that he could tax (I don't know, and he is a Republican right? ). W-I-L-D

To be quite honest, it was sad, for a number of reasons.

Again, what I saw and observed in the people there, more than anything, was fear. The right latched itself onto moral panic and the mystical (nonexistent) America of yesteryear in the 1980s and is now feeling the effects. These people see minorities, they see gay people, they see young people, and it scares them to death. Only now those groups represent well over half the population. Slate noted the intense irony of conservatives- who embody the mainstream- staging a protest at all. And they suck at it. Seriously, there wasn't even any real tea!

Moreover, these were obviously working-class people. I didn't see but one or two people I could even imagine making over $200,000 a year. It kept popping into my head, "These people should be Democrats!" That they were actually out there of their own free will lobbying in vain to try and get more money for rich people. How a single one of them could blindly buy that "socialism" tag obviously without doing a bit of research into it. It's sad.

At the same time, the stuff they pull is so nutty that it never fails to be entertaining. I mean it, their nuts.

# Police: Man stabs beagle, claims self-defense 11:27 am Wed

"Them's fangs! She's goin' the way of Old Yeller."


"Officers determined the beagle merely wanted to be held."

Love it!

Okay, enough Bee. And no, I won't be attending the Tea party. Work I didn't know existed came up (really I shouldn't even be updating this, but that's commitment baby!)

Valleysportspulse, I love ya, but it's gettin' a little TOO local. There's a story today about the Fresno City College baseball coach and about four more about high school baseball... c'mon George, why don't you just write about the pick-up baseball game your kid played in the back yard yesterday! Remember the controversy over who tagged third base (A.K.A. "a tree") first? What about the dispute over whether Mom yelling "dinner's ready" constituted an interruption in play? Then again, maybe people really do care about NAIA baseball... it's Fresno after all.

Fresnofamous.com gets updated less than Fresnomore, yay!... except that means there's nothing to comment on there either...

And lastly, the Fresno Beehive is covering where you can get cheap food today and has a review of Amerian idol.

I don't mean to be so critical of other web sites... they're all certainly better than this one. And I would love, really LOVE to generate some original content, but I have no life out here.

It didn't used to be be like this!!!

The Olde Fresno Dust Bowl Revolution of 2009

In today's news, we have an impending dust storm... Really?

What's next, swarms of locusts eating the crops? I mean, I read about these things in text books and stuff when I was a kid, but this still happens here? Apparently my mental image was a little off, as a huge cloud of dust never engulfed my house. But jeez, isn't the air here bad enough already?

And, as if the economy here isn't bad enough already, the city is putting a new plan before Obama and the Govanaata. They couldn't get the coveted "economic disaster area" label based on unemployment rates, so now they're taking the drought angle. And they didn't even throw in the dust bowl part. Come on guys, use it or lose it!

They should too, the dust bowl thing that is. Obama got desperate enough to not come here that he went on the freaking Leno show. Just tell him it's a dust bowl. He probably won't even look into it and we'll get some extra stimulus money! (I mean ish, if you told me ANYTHING happened here I'd be inclined to believe you.)

With any luck, I'll be able to attend Fresno's tea party tomorrow and report on it, maybe even confiscate some of the tea for my fridge! But this is Fresno, so I probably won't have any luck.

Store bought just ain't the same...

After reading today about the ridiculous tea parties going on across America, I should have known that there would be one here.
(What passes for clever to old white people)

How these are supposed to relate to the original Boston tea party I don't even know. The slogan, "Taxed Enough Already" is such a sham that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. Anybody else wanna bet that the idiots pouring out Arizona brand iced tea across America don't make 200,000 dollars a year or more? Hmm, I'm sure I could find some Fresno idiot to take me up, maybe even the guy who said this:

"We're being taxed without being heard. We're hoping to get enough people involved, and have a loud enough voice, to force the politicians to listen to us."

"So, you didn't get to vote last November? Oh, you did!? And, hey, aren't you about to have your words quoted in the local newspaper? Oh, you are!?!? Well, in that case you sound kind of like a whiny only child!"

Aren't tea parties an English thing? I thought y'all hated foreign countries. And hey, you could drink the tea you know! Save some money since you're so conservative! To recap, they're raising Hell in support of rich folks who screw them over every day, and whining about getting taxed less!

As I get older, it saddens me to find that the right really exists like this. I keep waking up thinking, "There has got to me more to these people than this. They really believe this childish bullshit!?!?"

Speaking of which, the govanaata was in Fresno today!

Reading the article, the state of California becomes even more baffling. Apparently, he's here in order to support a program which will train health care workers because there aren't enough here already. Aren't we in a recession? Isn't the unemployment rate skyrocketing in this "economic disaster area?" And people still aren't trying to get into this field? Then there's the fact that government money will pay to train people. Aren't conservatives against that sort of thing? I thought the free market was supposed to fix the problem. And aren't there millions of "illegals" who would die for a job like that and fix the problem that way?

As the scientists say, these proposals are not even wrong. Refuting them gets us no closer to an actual solution. You ask if these are good ideas, and I respond, "F-No!"

Back to the Frind...

Alas, my lovely vacation from the 'No is 'No more. However, this did give me an update of the airport. Whereas I have made fun of the FAT in the past for it's high praise of Yosemite Park at the expense of the city of Fresno, it has really outdone itself this time:

(Fresnomore sincerely apologizes for the insanely low quality of the pictures)

They now have life-sized replicas of the redwood trees to give off the impression that you are actually inside the park! It's gone from "Don't pay attention to the Fresno part" to "Don't worry, you're not really even in Fresno." Both baggage claim conveyors also have big pictures of the dome thingy now.

Another Fresno First happened today. Heading down to Target on Blackstone I noticed something peculiar; the Target was closed!

"Not our fault! If you're in Fresno, you've obviously missed the target anyway."

No idea why this Target is closed. Also, I didn't know the entire storefront can be covered a la the garage at your house. Cool! Except that I can't buy a dress shirt for 3 dollars now...

Lastly, while the Easter picnic shooting and the apparently-heated Bullard pool controversy are tempting, I'll leave you this Sunday with a more personal take on the weirdness in Fresno. You see, while my good buddy and fellow non-Fresnan Abazu was away, his cramped fridge became even more crowded:

This is yet another ongoing problem for him, as he gets less and less room for his own things. And I know what you're thinking; "Really? You're that biased that you're complaining about your friend's refrigerator? As if that one fridge represents every single fridge in Fresno?"

Yes, I am, but that's just it. There isn't one thing that makes this city weird, nothing you can definitively put your finger on. It's a multitude of small things that make no sense which eventually build into a cacophony that pushes you ever so slightly closer to insanity every day you spend here. Of which, this is a good example.

Abazu has a few grapes and a loaf of bread in the bottom shelf. Among the things you will find in this veritable Where's Waldo or Who's Who of Fresno Refrigerator Items are at least 3 bottles of liquor and an energy drink which all have been there since at least September (not sure why the liquor bottles need to be refrigerated), three separate loaves of bread (all open), at least two 2-liter soft drink bottles (in place since January), eggs, oranges which were placed squarely in the middle of the thing instead of a drawer (you know, where you'd expect to find them) and, as you can see, TONS and TONS of Tupperware (who knows if any of the food contained therein is any good at this point).

I once got bold and drank one of the energy drinks which lingered in the murky depths of the back right-hand corner of the fridge. Abazu received a complaint soon thereafter about how that drink would have been used for studying that night. Not only is this negligible on its own terms seeing as how old the drink was, there was another months-old energy drink in the back left-hand corner of the fridge that, apparently, neither party knew about.

If not yet convinced that this is a true Fresnism, remember two more things:

1. The people who push this fridge to its limits with bacteria-laden leftovers simultaneously refuse to use (or let anyone else use) the dishwasher because they view it as unsanitary.

2. Believe it or not, there is also a mini fridge on the other side of the room, itself packed with unused liquor bottles and a 5-gallon jug of spring water.

I'd drink from the liquor bottles in order to forget where I was, but then it would inevitably be the one night they were going to use them... Only

I deserve to apologize...

Just want to let my faithful readers know (that means you Heroinhead) that the blog is on hiatus because I'm on a week-long vacation. More fresno ridiculousness should be around by this Sunday. Peece!