Rogue Cop

I rather enjoyed this excerpt from the Monday edition (9/15/08) of the Sacramento Bee (online breaking news alert):

A Sacramento police officer has posted bail after being arrested in Rocklin this weekend, according to records and police spokesmen. Jeffrey Wayne McKay, 34, of Rocklin, was arrested by Rocklin police late Saturday on suspicion of indecent exposure, exhibiting a deadly weapon, disorderly conduct and threatening to commit a crime resulting in death or great bodily injury, according to online Placer County Jail information.

It's no joking matter that we have this type of person representing the uniform, but really, is this anything new? Cops are human too. Hehe, I wonder if the news article may have been referring to his gun.

The New PoliSci?

(California's new fiscal year began on July 1, 2008, and we still do not have a budget. This is the longest impasse on record.)

I was never a student of political science, but there's no escaping politics either. And no escaping illogic, judged by this tidbit I found in the Sacramento Bee today:

The governor said the most important contribution he is making right now to solve the budget impasse is that he is staying in Sacramento. "Our office stays in town. I am staying in town. I said I will not leave town and I will not leave this state until there is a budget," Schwarznegger said. He said it in Burbank.

Maybe it's not the new PoliSci, but rather the same old PoliTalk.

More Sudoku

Patience and persistence and now I'm completing the more difficult Sudoku puzzles in our local newspaper! It's quite taxing on the ol' grey matter and I'm not about to win any speed contest, but it's also rewarding to be able to populate all the squares. Correctly, of course!

Give it a shot by visiting www.websudoku.com.

The New Bee

That's our local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee. Yesterday marked the first day of circulation for the transformed paper, which for the most part appeared to be a newspaper on a diet. Oh to be fair, the Tuesday and Wednesday papers are not normally the thickest of the week to begin with... let's see what's in store when Sunday rolls around. The typeface seemed to be smaller overall and harder-edged than previously used. The obits however, are in larger print as so are the puzzles (Jumble, Sudoku, Cryptoquote and the NY Times Crosswords). I look forward to these puzzles, so that would be a bonus for me (I wear reading glasses now).

The comics appear in full color every day instead of being limited to just Sundays, which leads me to ask, "have they always been created in color and we've been shortchanged all this time with B&W?".

Additional color is also introduced sparingly elsewhere, such as in the photographs of our illustrious columnists who slave away on their word processors to bring us the daily news, drivel, or what have you.

It comes down to this: content aside, IMHO the Bee comes pretty close to looking like USA Today (and perhaps even closer if I actually read the latter). Now if only the newspaper carrier would leave my paper on the doorstep near the door's latch instead of the door's hinges...