Sometimes it still amazes me what you can find on the Internet. This, for instance, is a collection of public comments from Santa Cruz city council meetings in 2008-2009.
My colleague Jennifer Pittman has a story today about the new iPhone ad that features a couple taking a road trip from the east coast to Santa Cruz. While there are undoubtedly a number of anachronisms and inaccuracies, namely the fact that the final destination that’s supposed to be SC is actually an image of Big Sure, I find myself liking this ad.
My opinion is a purely self-serving one though, because the ad reminds me a lot of my drive out here last summer. We left from upstate New York, where I had been visiting my parents and friends and where my partner was living, and had to go to Chicago first, where my apartment was, before we could head west. Traveling with a full trailer attached to your car limited our options for doing much other than driving straight, much to my great chagrin. Most of the parts of America we drove through were flat, flat and more flat, but we did manage to find some things along the way. The Bonneville Salt Flats, for instance, were amazing, and the brief detour to Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska was definitely worth it.
And much like the couple in the ad, we did run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately, our iPhones weren’t able to get service in the middle of nowhere, leaving us to rely on far less sophisticated means than Siri. On the upside, a kindly priest who’d formerly spent a number of years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea ended up driving by and he helped us with our gas station. It was one of those small little experiences that you will always remember and as great as Siri might be, I think I far prefer our version of finding gas. Still, for all of its possibly faults, this commercial continues to make me smile. Driving across country and winding up in one of the most beautiful places is definitely up there on the list of the best things I’ve ever done.
I’ve heard about this happening in other cities, but had yet to see it myself. I actually stopped my car briefly to look at this lovely yarn-covered tree on Cayuga Street this morning. How lovely!
This just arrived in my Sentinel email inbox today:
“Hello dear.
My name is Miss Maria Bernardo, I wish to ask for your true friendship ,I wil l explain more of my self as soon as i hear from you.Ihave important reasons to contact you and i will like to hear from your open mind and interest.I wish you happy day and may God bless you as i wait your positive respond.”
While I will clearly not be responding, I can’t say I’m not tempted. Let me ponder all the responses I could craft…..
Dear Maria,
I appreciate your kind offer of friendship. I look forward to many long summer days spent creating daisy chains, braiding each other’s hair and frolicking through fields. I assume that the pleasure of your company will come at a cost, though. Shall I wire you my life savings to an unidentified account in Nigeria?
I see an awful lot of painted cars ’round these parts. Unfortunately, most of the sightings occur while I am driving and therefore, I cannot snap a photograph. I have managed to catch a couple though. I’d love to do a post of all the coolest painted cars around. Got a good shot? Or are you yourself the owner of a sweet painted car? Send me a picture at jpasko@santacruzsentinel and I’ll profile them in an upcoming blog post. If it’s your car, tell me a little about the backstory. If it’s just one you’ve spotted, tell us where you spotted it. Ready, set, go!
Spotted in December outside the Surfrider Cafe
Spotted in December near River and Water streets, Santa Cruz.
There’s a good chance that if you’ve spent any substantial time on the Internet in the past few weeks, you’ve run across one of the many videos, blogs and websites inspired by the “S–t insertblank say” meme. It’s gotten pretty nuts. There seems to be one for pretty much every subgroup of people you could imagine. Some acquaintances who work for an NPR affiliate, for instance, created the spot-on “S–t Public Radio Listeners Say.” Despite the title, the actual content of the video is not explicit and is definitely safe for work in a very fitting way.
Despite having only lived in Chicago for year, I definitely found myself nodding in agreement several times while watching the “S–t Chicagoans Say” video. Note: While the content is pretty tame, there is an actual curse word in the clip’s written title on YouTube, so for the faint of heart, cover your eyes.
Surprisingly, I have not yet seen one of these for Santa Cruz. Come on readers, let’s show ‘em what we got. What would your picks be for “s–t Santa Cruzans say”?
Climate change activists perform a street theater tour of downtown Santa... (Dan Coyro/Sentinel)
Ross Clark, climate action plan coordinator for Santa Cruz, talks with one... (Dan Coyro/Sentinel)
Advocates for climate action held a special “underwater”-themed protest yesterday to call on the Santa Cruz City Council to take bigger steps toward slowing climate change. My colleague J.M. Brown has the full scoop here.
From the press release:
Please join People Power, Green Ways to School and Transition Santa Cruz tomorrow Tuesday, January 24th, as we take you on a tour of Santa Cruz 2112 without climate action.
We meet at City Hall at 4pm, and our walk leaves at 4:15. Tour guide Fred Keeley will shepherd us 100 years into the future, where sea level rise has turned downtown into a series of briny canals. Ocean animals roam the city, and too many citizens travel by Single Occupancy Boat. Along the way we will encounter an assortment of characters who will explain the loopholes that sunk the Climate Action Plan of 2012, and what we can do now, in 2012, to close them.
For best effect, come wet suit, snorkel gear, or borrow one of our sea creature costumes. Expect sail boats, giant squid, jellyfish, sea turtles and sharks. A brass band will provide the sound track to our journey. The tour will end at India Joze, who generously provide free light refreshments.
I’ve been getting a big kick out of IFC’s sketch show “Portlandia,” which lovingly mocks almost every stereotype there is about the City of Roses. I have a bunch of friends from college who now live in Portland, which makes the sketches especially funny for me.
I don’t think Portland is at all alone in this characteristic though. As I recently texted one of the aforementioned good friends, “The dream of the 90s might be alive in Portland but it’s doing pretty well here in Santa Cruz too.”
This, of course, occurred as I stood outside a 41st Street skate shop for a fundraiser for the Capitola skate park. Think plenty of flannel, lots of skateboards and a good dash of music that reminded me of my younger Warped-going days – mostly in a good way.
An e-commerce website sent out a press release today that ranks the top 25 and the bottom 5 U.S. metro areas when it comes to, wait for it, toilet-paper spending. And what do you know? The Santa Cruz-Watsonville-area ranks Number 3, just behind (hahahaha) Fayetteville, NC and Stamford-Norwalk, Conn. Sadly, Flushing, N.Y. didn’t make the list.
So apparently we’re big spenders when it comes to our toilet tissue. I’m extremely intrigued by this. What accounts for the dollars spent on our derrieres? Is it the need for the best in two-ply? DIY-mummy costumes? The plentiful amount of b.s.? Inquiring minds want to know where all this toilet paper is going! Thanks to Alice.com for providing me with the best bit of trivia I’ve heard all day.
Eds. note: This ranking is based solely on toilet paper purchased through Alice.com. I have no idea how our overall TP purchasing habits stack up. One might assume Sacramento would outweigh us…
I cover crime, courts and the Live Oak School District for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. I'm originally from New York state's capital, Albany, but was most recently living in Chicago. I'm excited to be in Santa Cruz, adjusting to life on the left coast.
