TIme to rant

VSP responded to my sharp criticism today -- with a story about a high school girls track star. Dayum!

Fresno isn't the kind of place that would let an era of worldwide business fraud go by without getting a hand in. Turns out we had our very own Bernie Madoff or Ivar Kreuger right here in the pit. I mention Kreuger because our guy had the good sense to kill himself before he got caught.

"In this case, Mr. Otto is essentially the California Madoff," Jabagchourian said Tuesday. "He decimated several hundred people in the Valley."

People around here complain that the valley gets lost in the hype around the areas to the north and south. But see here, they didn't call him the valley Madoff, he won the whole state! There's some local pride for ya.

I guess I should say something about the Surpreme Court ruling about gay marriage. I do feel badly about it and wish the gay folks well. The more I read, the more it amazes me that this qualifies as an issue. How a single person can convince themself that two gay people they will never meet getting married will affect their life... I wish we had better things to debate.

Ex. The story about the investment fraud, the one that swindled local residents out of about 138 million dollars, has no comments. The one about gay marriage has 14. Let's find a few...

Go fight a battle that is truly more equal. Go fight global warming, go fight hunger, killings, poverty. Make a difference in something that is going to help the world. This is like the civil war all over again.

WHAT!?!? The CIVIL WAR!?!? Guess which side of the issue this guys in on, just guess.

Like donuts, I grew up in Fresno and moved to LA and never looked back. It's people like you Joe that make Fresno unpleasant and forces good people to look elsewhere to live.

Oh wow, this entire blog is summed up in that statement.

Get with it, please. Your hedgemony in CA is over.

He spelled hegemony wrong and severely bastardized its meaning. Guess which side this guy is on?

Next we could have people wanting to marry children or animals.

Conservatives and the slippery slope, a match made in heaven. Get it? Heaven!?!? Ahahahahah!!

"I plead insanity." "pssst. No, you idiot! The LAWYER is pleading insanity!!"

Leading off, a truly crazy story. A local lawyer is pleading insanity. As noted earlier, they usually tell their clients to do that right? Say it with me boys...

"IT'S FRENOOOOO!!"

So the dude swindled a ton of clients out of money between '02 and '04. And he's pleading insanity because of a tragic plane crash -- in 1992. Apparently it took him 10 years to realize he was insane.

More importantly, his mental insanity just happened to make him a lot of money! And now that they caught him, the insanity is gone (suppressed by meds anyway). Interesting case. Surely the jury won't buy a 10-year delay for post-traumatic stress disorder. Eh.

-------------------------------------

I went to Wal-Mart today:

I'm not gonna go there again for a while.

---------------------------------------------------

On a serious note, there's some big Hmong trial going on in Sacramento.

I read the article but am still fuzzy on the details, especially where the guy on trial stands historically. However, I can still point to this as a chief example of Valley mentality.

An ocean of Hmong went to Sacramento to say the trial should be dismissed.
"It's a fact cuz we say it is!"

Plainly, obviously, these people were not making calls based on evidence. It's not even possible 8,000 Hmong all came to the same conclusion dialectically while almost everyone from the other races evaluated the situation and came to the opposite one.

Excerpt:

...a defining moment, comparable to marches led by Martin Luther King Jr...

That would be accurate if there were currently Jim Crow laws against Hmong.

Here's a gem:

Sacramento shaman Wang Her Vang burned symbolic paper money as a sacrifice to the ancestral spirits, asking them to release the case.

This is retarded by itself. But really, you couldn't even burn some ones? Cheap ass...

And so it goes. The Hmong know they're getting screwed. So do the Armenians. So do the Filipinos, the Koreans, the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Indians, Hell even the Whites for cyin' out loud!

I saw a shirt the other day that said, "Not Latino, not Hispanic, Mexican!"

I know a guy and a girl who are both Indian, both Gujarati Indian at that, but their parents won't let them date because they are from different classes within their race within a race.

Do you see how this place drives me insane?

(Don't even try calling me racist, I'm not. And if you do, I'll just pull a Fresno and plead insanity... my dog died when I was 10.)

Lame-azz wannabees......

First off, I'd like to congratulate Fresno for becoming California's 5th largest city. Yay.

Elsewhere, the city dropped Mayor Swearengin's plan to use GPS devices to track sex offenders even after they have been released. It's a great idea, but, um, oh ish, it's not legal. I tell you what though, if she had ran on making weed cheaper in Fresno I'd have voted for her anyway.

Speaking of sex offenders, a famous one is about to move back here!! Sherman Polk is apparently famous around these parts and has been in jail since 1985. But he still knows where the action is baby; Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeef Naw.

And on a personal note, I had a very "special" trip planned for this weekend to San Francisco. Me and two friends had planned on it since January and by Tuesday night had worked out most of the details. On Thursday, they both suddenly had different plans. One wanted to "go to Vegas!" on a whim (Las Vegas is overrated BS from lame movies BTW) and the other, more bizarrely, wanted to go to San Luis Obispo.

The Vegas guy went, the SLO guy didn't. And I'm still going to San Fran dammit!... albeit with people I barely know. I won't blame my friends' erratic behavior on Fresno because they are not from here and I'd thought before yesterday that they were above the lameness of the city. Rather, they have engaged in some sort of pathetic alpha male stunt. San Francisco wouldn't work because it was my idea and they couldn't be so shamed.

Pardon my French, but Fresno 'em.

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!

"This is Fresno people, everyone here is recycled!"

"Yea, the world-famous Fresno Sanitary Landfill!"


No, you idiot, not THAT kind of recycled. I asked a few friends for help with "The List" and the lovely Ms. Summitt came up with a good one. She said she heard a radio call-in show ask the question, "How does a person's past affect relationships? Should people ditch someone because of their past?"

And the best response was, "Come on now people. You know if your man use to sleep with tons of people in his past that he's probably got something now. This is Fresno people, everyone here is recycled!"

Not quite as terrifying as the last time I heard "This is Fresno" (see The List #18), but probably even more disgusting.

What are our boys at VSP up to? Oh, must be a slow news day, and by slow I mean tectonic-plate-action-flattening-the-rocky-mountains. It's a profile on our boy O'Neal! David Carr is in town, there's spring football, baseball is going strong, and there was an article last week half-dedicated to him, but whatevs. Actually, this is great, because it provides more hilarity. Check out the quote from Paul George:

“We learned so much from Dwight,” said freshman forward Paul George. “He talks about his past and things that he’s done. He tells us the do’s and the don’ts... it’s kind of good to have kind of an extra coach."

I can just see him calling up the Frosh's the day after his arrest in February; "Hey guys, I got a new "don't" for ya; Driving with a suspended license."..."Thanks man, you're like an extra coach!"

I still can't figure out how to get the actual front-page news from The Bee from their web site. It just runs a continuous stream of local stories straight out of Jackass 3: Uncut Fresno Edition. Just check out this headline: "Boys unharmed in dumpster fire set while playing with a lighter."

No Comment.

Looking for Fresno's craziness is so easy, it's kind of enjoyable. Funny, but just running this blog has made me like the place a little more. It's freaking unique!

Definitely not a whodunit

I almost forgot this gem of a trial which began today. Unfortunately, the story is so nutty that it doesn't need any spin from smart-ass bloggers like me to make it sound absurd. My favorite line comes from the prosecutor:

"The case is not a whodunit"

Where'd they get this guy, the Andy Griffith show!? Hate to break it to ya guys but, (psssst, Matlock wasn't real).

Okay, I'll resist the very strong urge to go on.

Believe me, I don't mean to take the death of the guy lightly or make fun of innocent victims or anything like that... but the utter stupidity of everyone involved is mind boggling.

Sorry Fresnofamous.com, THIS is Fresno famous.