Roger Rates Recent Interwebcasts

Roger's ratings of meetings initially interwebcast in the past 63 days, with the most recent shown in green:


Corica Have Mercy:
Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, May 18, 2010

Editor's Comments:

City staff seems determined to go on and on about plans to develop Alameda Point, even though the electorate, by voting down Measure B this spring, soundly rejected the idea of ever changing anything at the former naval air station. The Alameda Daily Noose and I are amazed that the City still cannot get this fact through their skulls!


This Is an Outrage:
Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, May 10, 2010

City of Alameda Public Utilities Board, May 17, 2010

Editor's Comments:

If we can just pass proposition 16 in the election next week, this could be the last Public Utilities Board interwebcast we ever have to sit through! The Alameda Daily Noose and I can't wait to join other Right-Thinking voters in wresting control of the clean coal content of our power away from those fat cats at Alameda Muniserable Power.


So Many Things to Get Annoyed About:
Regular Transportation Commission, April 28, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, May 24, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, June 1, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council, June 15, 2010

Editor's Comments:

The City Council as good as admitted that the parking garage has turned out to be a complete failure and should be torn down. Of course, even the most Right-Thinking among them were too timid to suggest that sensible course of action, but they acknowledged that the garage hasn't brought in as much revenue as expected, which amounts to the same thing.


Run-of-the-Mill Shenanigans:
Regular Transportation Commission, May 26, 2010

Editor's Comments:

We can't decide whether the footage of boats is more boring than the meetings with people droning on about public transportation, but it's high time the City stopped holding these Transformation Committee meetings altogether.

Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council May 4, 2010

Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, June 14, 2010

Special Planning Board Meeting, June 21, 2010


Nothing Worth Complaining About:
Regular Meeting of the Planning Board, April 26, 2010

Special ARRA Meeting - AP Environmental Update, May 6, 2010

Cub Reporter Bungles Attempt to Get Alameda Mayoral Candidates to Answer Perfectly Fair Questions on Parcel Tax

Last week we received an e-mail from Alameda mayoral candidate Anthony Daysog, in which he shamelessly ducked a series of perfectly fair questions about the $659/year (residential) parcel tax recently approved by the Alameda Unified School District.

These perfectly fair questions were apparently posed by a cub reporter for some second-string news outlet we've never heard of. Although we admire his pluck... it's pretty clear that he needs a bit more practice at posing questions in a fair and balanced manner that is sure to elicit a response....

For example, instead of asking this...

Knowing that the redevelopment association is keeping money from the schools, do you endorse the parcel tax?

It would have been much more perfectly fair to ask....

Knowing that the cold-hearted cabal at the quote-unquote redevelopment association is twirling its collective mustache and laughing diabolically as it prepares to tie our sweet, innocent children to the railroad tracks of underfunding, all the time with the locomotive of fiscal catastrophe bearing down upon them, do you nevertheless still pig-headedly insist on endorsing this travesty of a farce of a charade of a so-called parcel tax?

Normally, we wouldn't embarrass a potential fellow journalist by exposing such substandard work to public criticism, but we believe it would be instructive for our readers to compare such a well-meaning but underdeveloped piece to the impeccable work that we turn out every day here at the Inaction Alameda Alameda Daily Noose by Inaction Alameda. For all of those aspiring reporters out there, we'll give you ten extra credit points if you can correct all of the stylistic and content shortcomings of the full list of questions that we received, and mail your revisions to us at: alamedadailynoose@gmail.com

Here is the e-mail we received.

From: Anthony Daysog
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 9:31 PM
To: Mowster; Michele at the Island of Alameda;
Eve at the Island of Alameda;
P Hegarty at Bay Area News Group;
D Evanosky at Alameda Sun; Sam Felsing;
C Johnson at SF Chronicle;
Carolyn Jones at SF Chronicle;
J Diaz at SF Chronicle;
C Rux at Bay Area News Group;
Daniel Aaron Jacobson;
Robert Gammon at East Bay Express;
R Gammon at East Bay Express;
SED Writer; Lauren Do; Alameda Daily Noose;
Dan at Karelia; JKW Blog;
J P Tracey at Alameda Sun; Barbara Kahn

Subject: Re: Media Inquiry:Will you endorse
AUSD Parcel Tax?

Yes, I endorse the upcoming parcel tax measure
wholeheartedly. Our schools need the funding
because of the dramatic cuts made by Sacramento
legislators.

The fact of the matter is that when prospective
residents and/or businesses look for places to
locate, the first question on their mind is, "How
good are the schools?" So, we need the best
possible school district if we hope to be the
progressive, world-class city we are striving to
be.

So, yes, I wholeheartedly endorse the parcel tax.
Thanks for asking. All the best.

- Tony Daysog : )



--- On Wed, 3/17/10, David Howard wrote:

From: David Howard
Subject: Media Inquiry:Will you endorse AUSD Parcel
Tax?
To: Frank at Frank for Mayor,
D Linney at Next Generation, Tony Daysog,
M Gilmore at Ci Alameda CA US
Cc: Mowster
Date: Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 1:59 AM
On behalf of Action Alameda News... note that I
also write occaisionally for Examiner.com on
Alameda County issues, so I might write about this
there as well, your response, or non-response as
the case may be....

This message is being sent to the three self-
declared Alameda Mayoral candidates, Frank
Matarrese, Marie Gilmore and Tony Daysog....

As you well know by now, earlier this week AUSD
passed a replacement tax, representing a 114%
increase in the combined amount of Measures A and H
for residential property owners. ($659/yr v.
$309/year)

My questions for each of you, are, given the
following:


1) California Redevelopment Association suit to
block State re-allocation of local redevelopment
funds to schools.

http://www.calredevelop.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section
=Home&CONTENTID=6365&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm
Superior Court for Sacramento County, California
Redevelopment Association et al. v. Genest et al.,
Case No. 34-2009-80000359-CU-WM-GDS (CRA v. Genest)


All of you have generally been supportive of the
redevelopment/tax increment financing mechanism in
Alameda, most uniformly around the Alameda
Cineplex/theater/Parking Garage.

Frank, on SunCal's Measure B, you raised the issue
of State taking away redevelopment money as being a
financial problem for SunCal's proposed development
plan for Alameda Point.

Tony, you lent your name to the PtP endorser's
list.

Marie, you (belatedly) spoke out against Measure B.



Given this, do you support the Redevelopment's
association lawsuit to block the re-allocation of
local redevelopment funds for schools?

Knowing that the redevelopment association is
keeping money from the schools, do you endorse the
parcel tax?


2) In a recent article, Dennis Green spoke about
the "de facto segregation" of Alameda schools -
largely White and Asian populations in East End,
Bay Farm and Gold Coast elementary schools, and
more "diversity" in the West-end schools, like
Paden, Franklin, and Ruby Bridges. The publicly
available enrollment data backs this up:
http://www.action-alameda-news.com/ausd-enrollment-
demographics/

AUSD's master plan, approved on Feb 23rd,
acknowledges the achievement gap between African-
American / Hispanic and White / Asian students and
talks about "Plan A" needing a parcel tax. However,
the parcel tax ballot language makes no committent
to allocate funds to address that gap. Indeed, the
ballot language approved earlier this week doesn't
mention the achievement gap at all.

http://www.alameda.k12.ca.us/images/stories/pdfs/bo
emtg/boe022310masterplandocument.pdf

http://www.alameda.k12.ca.us/images/stories/pdfs/bo
emtg/boemeeting_031510_parceltax.pdf



Given this, do you plan to endorse the parcel tax
as written, with no allocation specifically for
addressing the documented achievement gap?

Do you think a parcel tax should such as that
approved by the AUSD Board earlier this week set
aside funds to address this achievement gap?


Please respond by close of business this Friday,
March 19th, if you can. Or let me know when you can
respond. All responses in writing, please.


Thanks!

Dave.

Anonymous Cowards Clearly Don't Know Much about Latest Developments in Zeppelins

We here at the Inaction Alameda Alameda Daily Noose by Inaction Alameda understand that some people - let us call them "people who agree with us" for short - wish to divorce their local political activities from their professional life, for the sake of preserving their income, and still others - known for the sake of brevity as "people who don't agree with us" - are just plain cowards or cyber-bullies that won't put their name behind what they say, and it makes them feel strong to hurl anonymous epithets at others online.

That is why we will defend to our heroic deaths the right of people who agree with us to post anonymous comments, and that is why we will stop at nothing to expose and condemn the cowardly anonymous cyber-bullying perpetrated by people who don't agree with us.

It didn't take long for these bottom-feeders who don't agree with us to crawl up from the ooze where they reside and sully our comment section with their vile dreck. Just listen to what one of them had to say about our story about the new BART station in Alameda:

Notice how the new Park St. BART station already has signs for the so-called Air-Train? Only a week after federal grants were pulled from the Oakland Airport to Coliseum BART John Knocks Whyte and the evil forces of Big Helium got the exclusive contract to fly people aboard "Air-Trains" from the new Park St. station. These so-called "Air-Trains" are just a euphemism for those dangerous Zeppelins. I'm sure Roger Grumble would not have left a hole in a story so big, you could drive a truck through it. Roger Grumble even covered the dangerous Zeppelin mast built atop the Giant Parking Garage That Everyone Hates.

I must say that the level of integrity and intellectual curiousity of the Alameda Daily Noose has declined markedly under the editorship of Dave Williamson and his legion of InAction Alameda members.

This coward immediately loses all credibility by spelling Roger Grumbel's name wrong, then goes on to misspell "curiosity" and write "Inaction Alameda" with incorrect capitalization. There is a Zen proverb, "The way a man does one thing is the way he does everything." For those of you who don't understand the finer points of Eastern philosophy the way we do, that means that if someone who doesn't agree with us makes even one mistake when writing something, then everything he ever writes is always wrong.

Sensing what appeared to be an opportunity, a second anonymous cyber-bully piled on with this tirade:

Yes, this is OUTRAGEOUS!!!! Where is Roger Grumbel to stop these marauding Airships?

We ALREADY had blimp traffic jams on our roads before the greedy interests of Big Helium began blocking out our sun, light and air with these monstrous behemoths.

Obviously, these two cowards haven't read Inaction Alameda's ground-breaking whitepaper, "Inflated Promises: Exposing the Rising Zeppelin Threat to Alameda." This whitepaper is the culmination of minutes upon minutes of scholarly research, including multiple citations from multiple issues of Scientific Alamedan. It goes without saying that this is an internationally respected peer-reviewed scientific journal; after all, it has the word "scientific" right there in the title.

The most recent Scientific Alamedan article cited in our whitepaper covers the whole "Air Train" issue in great detail. It is dated December 4 of '09, a mere two months ago. On the other hand, the last Zeppelin story published by Roger "Grumble," the supposed hero of these anonymous cyber-cowards, was July 7 of '09, which was seven months ago, and it didn't even mention the Air Train. Clearly, these anonymous cowards don't know much about the latest developments in Zeppelins. They would be wise to keep their mouths shut and read our whitepaper, that is - if they can read without moving their lips.

Roger Rates Recent Interwebcasts

Roger's ratings of meetings initially interwebcast in the past 28 days, with the most recent shown in green:


Corica Have Mercy:
Regular Meeting of the Alameda City Council December 15, 2009

Editor's Comments:

By even agreeing to consider Item 6-B at this meeting, the City Council crossed the line. All Right-Thinking Alamedans know that parking in front of one's own house is one of the unalienable human rights spelled out in Thomas Jefferson's eloquent preamble to the Declaration of Independence, the document that established Alameda as a sovereign state independent from her former colonial overlords across the Estuary. If the Alameda Daily Noose and I want to park an abandoned or unattended vehicle, a beat-up R.V., a leaky old boat, or a few heavy commercial vehicles in front of our own house, that is our God-given right, and none of those Tyrants on the City Council can say otherwise. If Chuck Corica were alive today, he would be spinning in his grave!


This Is an Outrage:
Regular Transportation Commission December 23, 2009

Editor's Comments:

As outraged as the Alameda Daily Noose and I were about the nautical propaganda being promulgated by Alameda's Traffic Board, we were pleased to discover that we have not exhausted the font of outrage just yet. This month's five-hour broadcast leads off with a propaganda puff piece touting the hideous parking garage attached to Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates, but that was just the beginning. It is followed by a horrifying depiction of a giant tree, glowing with some kind of unearthly energy; after that come scenes of hideous mutant Tree People cavorting on the streets, followed by a stage performance of some bizarre tree ritual, all undoubtedly bankrolled with taxpayer dollars. Somebody needs to rein in this Transit Committee before they and their Big Arborist friends try to shove any more of this pine-scented propaganda down our throats.


So Many Things to Get Annoyed About:


Run-of-the-Mill Shenanigans:
Regular Meeting of the Planning Board December 14, 2009


Nothing Worth Complaining About:

John Knocks Whyte Promoting Blimp Rapid Transit

Roger,

I just read a newspaper story in the McAfee Stadium Office Park Tribune that exposes the machinations of a certain John Knocks Whyte who is demanding Hydrogen powered "Rapid Blimp Transit" from the Coliseum BART Station to the Oakland Municipal Airfield:

"You can provide the same public benefit for far less money with blimp rapid transit," said John Knocks Whyte, the travel choice program director for TransFormers, a nonprofit public transit advocate. "BART has never really looked at blimp rapid transit as an alternative, yet here they are two weeks away from deciding whether to commit half a billion dollars in tax dollars to a rail extension.

Under TransFormers' vision for express blimp service, sleek, quiet vehicles 60 to 80 feet long could unload passengers quickly through four slides. The blimps would run a clean alternative fuel, possibly hydrogen, Knocks Whyte said.

I am absolutely outraged. This is nothing more than a sham of a travesty of a sham. We already have enough Zeppelins destroying our quality of life in Alameda. We don't need any more Nazi Gasbags fouling our skies. John Knocks Whyte is a mere errand boy, advancing this zany nefarious proposal at behest of our Robot Mayor and her rich developer cronies. Plus, that mooring mast will be the biggest eyesore since the construction of that Giant Parking Garage That Everybody Hates. If constructed, it will further shade our glorious Twin Towers Church. InAction Alameda will not rest until this obvious crooked scheme is stopped. Furthermore, I have uncovered a secret City Attorney opinion from 1975 regarding an interpretation of Measure Acorn that clearly forbids the conveyance of more than a duplex full of persons or goods via airships, blimps or zeppelins.

Yours in Outrage,
Howard David

Editor's Comments:

The Alameda Daily Noose and I were taken aback by this missive from a source we did not immediately recognize, but once we calmed down, we realized that the author must be one of the thousands of Right-Thinking members of Inaction Alameda who toil in anonymity under our good friend Dave Williamson, the tireless Editor-in-Chief, Ace Reporter, President, Vice-President, Chairman, and Publisher of Inaction Alameda News.

The Alameda Daily Noose and I still don't know who this John Knocks Whyte fellow is, but we don't like the sound of his name. Much like our hard-hitting stories on cygnine cleanup, ancient Alamedan cuisine, and hapless visitors to English isles, it reminds us of someone…someone evil.

Furthermore, this "TransFormers" organization certainly sounds like trouble. The Alameda Daily Noose and I aren't sure, but we think that they might well be More Than Meets the Eyes. In fact, we've long suspected that they are Robots in Disguise.

Hard-Boiled Cop Drama Heads Schedule of Movies Showing at Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates

Movie schedule at the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates, 2317 Central Avenue:

Paul Blart: Mail Cop (PG) 11:20, 1:30, 4:20, 7:10, 9:30
He's Just Not That Into You (PG-13) Fri-Tues 12:30, 4:00, 7:00, 10:00
Coraline (PG) Dolby Digital 3D, 12:00, 2:20, 4:40, 7:15, 9:35
Paul Blart: Male Cop (PG) 11:20, 1:30, 4:20, 7:10, 9:30
Slumdog Millionaire (R) 11:00, 1:50, 4:50, 7:40, 10:20
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (PG-13) 8:00
Gran Torino (R) Fri – Tues: 11:30, 2:00, 4:45, 7:20, 10:15
Paul Blart: Maul Cop (PG) 11:20, 1:30, 4:20, 7:10, 9:30
Hotel For Dogs (PG) 11:10, 1:35, 4:10

Ticket prices are reasonable, but the parking costs are outrageous! If you go to any movies, be sure to complain afterwards about the lack of free parking in the parking garage that nobody uses because it's too full.

Reader Floats Theory on Rising Traffic

Editor,

I looked out my window yesterday to make sure no-one was parking in front of my house, and what did I see but a Zeppelin off in the distance! I called the authorities, and found out that it came here all the way from Germany. I told you this would happen! That darned theater is attracting Zeppelins from all over the world. The skies will be thick with them.

Back in the 1930's, when the Alameda Theater first opened, the economy was in the dumps, and the Zeppelin traffic was horrible. Now that the theater is open again, it's dragging us all back down that same path. What curse from the 30's is next: all those young whipper-snappers doing the jitterbug in the automat, disturbing us Right-Thinking Alamedans as we try to enjoy our 5¢ pieces of pie?

I hope the City Council is happy that their approval of the theater renovation, and the accompanying garage with its Zeppelin mooring masts, has caused a national economic crisis and local Zeppelin traffic problems. And it's only going to get worse.

Lon Geddoff

Real Alameda Can Still Be Found in Parts of Our Treasured Island

Editor,

What is this town coming too? I mean parts of it are still okay, the parts that I call "real Alameda," but there's a lot of un-Alamedan stuff going on, too. There are all of these shoppers in the business districts, going to restaurants, parking in that huge garage without even complaining about it, and somebody recently tore out my favorite trash-strewn weed lot to put in who-knows-what. I'm sure I won't like it, whatever it turns out to be.

There are people out there who don't see our Treasured Island the same way that you and I do. Why, some of them think this town is imperfect enough to pal around with developers!

I'm for closing Alameda's borders right now, so that no more of these un-Alamedans can get in. It's bad enough already, what with people like that Roy Avery spewing vitriol all the time in your Noosepaper and I guess probably everywhere else. I've read about him, I think in some gee-mail that my cousin sent, that someone else sent her, and so I know that Roy Avery is a housing planner. That scares me to death.

Betsy Baker

Editor's Comments:

Miss Baker is mistaken. Roy Avery is a decent person who just happens to disagree with the Alameda Daily Noose and me on energy subsidies, Bagpipe density, Tartan-oriented development, and every other issue that matters. Unlike those despicable housing planners, Mr. Avery actually loves his family, and he is only heck-bent on destroying Alameda.

Scoop! Of Self-Congratulation For Our Previous Scoop

It's been over three months since the Alameda Daily Noose and I first broke the story that the multi-million dollar parking garage on Oak Street had reached capacity, and it's only now that anyone else in the media is catching on to this enormous problem. Right from the start, before the ink on the plans was even dry, the Alameda Daily Noose and I were pointing out that the garage would be the wrong size for Alameda, but the City went ahead with it anyway. Clearly, our City Council had no idea that when there are big events on Park Street, the garage would be full!

Of course, the inadequate capacity of the garage is only one reason why no Right-Thinking Alamedan would ever want to park there. Another problem is that those darn payment machines are impossible to figure out, and if you don't pay to park there during the daytime, you get a ticket! Also, it's too hard to walk from your car to the elevator when you are forced to park on one of the upper levels, but parking all the way on the top is the only way to get the good views of Alameda. Um, not that the Alameda Daily Noose and I know any of this from personal experience, because we naturally stay as far away as we can from the whole Super-Mega-Monster-Plex and garage that everyone hates. But we've heard about how bad it is. Besides, we knew it would be bad, and our predictions are never wrong.

Alameda to Ban Throwing of Balls in City Parks

The Alameda City Council will be meeting this Tuesday to ratify a complete ban on ball-throwing in city parks.

Two weeks ago, the city council, not paying attention due to their uncontainable excitement to discuss the annual budget, gleefully crafted an outright ban on ball-throwing in Alameda parks unless there was signage specifically allowing it.

"We're worried that somebody might hurt somebody else by throwing a ball at them," said Mayor Beverly Johnson, leader of the ball ban. "Even if somebody is throwing a ball directly to somebody else, they might get hurt if the ball isn't thrown just so. So we think it's better to just prohibit ball-throwing entirely."

The ball-throwing ban came out of a discussion on banning cars from the parking garage next to the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates. Mayor Johnson decided that it made sense to include balls as well as (or instead of) cars. She may have gotten confused between the term "park" and "parking lot," perhaps attributable to her excitement over staying up late to talk about the city's finances.

The decision did not come without considerable debate. "What if somebody needs to walk through the park, and they are transporting a ball?" asked one council member (who shall remain unnamed) during the meeting. Mayor Johnson's response: "That's fine, as long as they hold it with both hands and do not toss it up in the air or bounce it on the ground."

The council passed the ban after three minutes' discussion.

Due to the structure of the City Charter, the ban must be voted upon twice. The council has been issued transcripts of their previous meeting so they can re-enact the entire discussion, word-for-word, this Tuesday.

Many community leaders are expected to attend the Council meeting to protest the decision, not that this would amount to anything. Representatives of the Alameda Little League, the Alameda Girls' Softball Association, the Alameda Ball-Throwing Club, and many others have pledged to use up their entire 30-seconds' allotted public speaking time to speak up on behalf of balls and ball-throwers. "Where else are my children expected to throw balls? We've had too many broken windows in our neighborhood to allow the children to play baseball in the street, and those ubiquitous basketball hoops are no longer allowed," said Geoff Mitchell-Davies, executive director of Let's Play Ball Alameda. "What does the City Council want our parks to be used for, if not playing?"

The mayor's office declined to comment.

Street Containers Will Solve the City's Budget Crises

Rog,

I was cleaning out my garage, because it has become so clogged with stuff that I can’t use it to collect more stuff. Has anyone in this city considered raising revenue for the city by renting out street parking to be used by small container units. The self-storage place in Oakland charges $125 a month, imagine how much money the city could raise if they started allowing people to put containers in the street to store their old record collections and things they bought off EBay. I know many people who have maxed out their garages and I’m sure they’d pay handsomely for the convenience of storage on the street.

Just a thought.

Denim Todd, Alamedan

Parking Garage a Proven Hazard to Environment and Public Safety

The Alameda Daily Noose and I got a hot tip recently regarding the new, unusable parking garage. We were told that the builders failed to install any kind of fence along the top, where there is a narrow gap between the roof of the garage and the roof of the new Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates, and also gave no thought to any kind of drainage system for the structure.

Our thorough investigation of both these allegations revealed that, shockingly, they are both almost true! As the exclusive Alameda Daily Noose photos above show, what little fence exists on top of the garage is woefully inadequate. A determined child, especially one equipped with rock-climbing gear, could no doubt get over the top easily, fall off, and become wedged between the outer walls of the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex and the garage.

Similarly, the one small drain located on the roof couldn't possibly have enough capacity to keep up with the scorn that will be dripping plentifully from Right-Thinking Alamedans. With the opening of the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex only days away, the scorn will soon back up the drain and start flowing down the levels of the garage until it roars out into Oak Street, washing away any innocent churchgoers, high school students, or Longs shoppers who might be in its path.

It is doubtful that either of these nightmare scenarios was considered in the environmental impact report for the so-called project. By the time a thick layer of children has accumulated in the gap, and a thicker layer of scorn on the street, it will be too late to turn back. There will be nothing left but for the Alameda Daily Noose and me to say we told you so.

Throngs of Shoppers Drive Business Away from Park Street

Roger,

As fans of parking in front of one's house, you and I share a desire for easy and quick parking no matter where we are. Imagine my shock and dismay this past weekend as I made my way to Gym's Coffee Clutch for my usual Saturday 4-egg omelet with ham steak and black coffee (2 Equals), only to find the entirety of Park Street closed! Closed! Closed, I said!

Apparently, some hippie freaks had convinced those nitwits on the city council to hold some sort of "festival" dedicated to selling hemp clothing and oversized novelty hot dogs. The roads were swarming with non-Alamedans and their cars! It got so bad, I had to park in the garage no one uses, and even that was full of people not using it, and for free!

What did I see when I finally made my way through the throng? Strangers wandering the streets as willful as you please, buying costume jewelry and French Fries topped with garlic! (What will those crazy French think of next?) Is this why I pay my property taxes - so non-Alamedans can shop right in the middle of the street? Is this what things will be like when the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates opens? Woe is us! Woe is indeed us!

Booh Gradley

Editor's Comments:

Loyal readers will no doubt notice that the Alameda Daily Noose and I refrained from pointing out the obvious connection between lack of parking and that Tool of the Squirrels called "street trees". Again, this is definitive proof that we are not obsessed with Squirrels.

More on "State-of-the-Art" Equipment at Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates

Editor,

I read with great interest outraged Alamedan Donald Kirkland's report on the projection equipment that the Evil Developer plans to install in the new Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates. He is right that nothing in that monstrosity is going to be "state of the art," but we'll be lucky if they install one of those fine Keystone Moviegraph projectors I remember so fondly from my youth.

In fact, we'll be lucky to get any kind of projector at all. My unnamed sources tell me that on opening day, each movie patron will be handed an individual plastic movie viewer doohickey like the one in the picture I enclosed in this letter. And, instead of a screen, there will be a big table lamp up in front for you to point you doohickey at. Good luck cranking that thing and eating your stale popcorn at the same time!

Of course, there aren't actually going to be any people buying tickets on that day, because no-one wants to bother fighting for a space in that overcrowded parking garage. Even the thrill of watching Idaho Smith—or whatever that paleontologist guy's name is—run backwards when you crank the blue plastic doohickey in reverse isn't enough to lure Right-Thinking Alamedans into this new municipal temple of traffic doom!

Lon Geddoff

Scoop! Of Inadequate Parking

Remember, you read it here first! The prediction that the new multi-million dollar parking garage on Oak Street would be too small appeared months ago in these very pages. And as you can clearly see from the exclusive Alameda Daily Noose photo above, the prediction was dead on; there is scarcely a space to be found on an average day, even on the second level. Sure, a person could go all the way to the third or fourth level, and face an interminable delay at the one, inadequate elevator, but who has the patience to look that hard for a parking space? And if you think the garage is crowded now, just wait until the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates opens! Clearly, the City of Alameda has no idea how to plan for parking that will be useful for Right-Thinking citizens.

Ridiculously Over-Ambitious Sign Announces Opening of Huge, Unusable Parking Garage

The City of Alameda just spent millions of dollars on a new parking garage. You can't tell the Alameda Daily Noose and me that they still have money to throw around on two-story neon signs, just to advertise to their under-utilized mistake. We all know that the garage is in Alameda, so we don't know why they felt the need to include that information so prominently on the sign. How stupid do they think we are?

Clearly this move was in response to our earlier exposé on the shameful lack of advertising for the new parking garage, but the City gave us too much, too late. By this time, everyone is aware that the garage is open, and has been pointedly not parking in it as a protest. If our City Council can't tell the difference between deliberately driving past with our noses in the air, and just not noticing that the garage is open, then it's time we replaced them with someone more perceptive.

Completely Inadequate Sign Announces Opening of Huge, Unusable Parking Garage

The City of Alameda just spent millions of dollars for a new garage that nobody wanted, and yet they couldn't afford a better sign than the pathetic sandwich-board shown in the exclusive Alameda Daily Noose photo above. Come on! Don't the people of Alameda deserve better notification than that?

The letters on the sign are so small that it took over a week for the Alameda Daily Noose and me to even realize that it was anything other than another annoying warning of the street closures that have plagued that section of Oak Street since the start of garage construction.

It's obvious that everyone else has been ignoring the new sign, too. Our Alameda Daily Noose photo clearly shows that the good, honest parking lot is full, whereas the evil, developer-driven garage is empty. Not only is the garage clearly badly built, and in danger of falling down in the slightest earthquake, but you have to pay to park there, too. Get real!

ROGER KORNBLUTH Proves PARKING GARAGE Was Designed by a Drunkard

DEAR EDITOR,

I CAN TELL YOU EXACTLY WHY NOBODY IS PARKING IN THE PARKING GARAGE. NO, NOT BECAUSE IT'S NEXT TO THE SUPER-MEGA-MONSTER-PLEX THAT EVERYONE HATES. IT'S BECAUSE THE GARAGE WAS DESIGNED SO POORLY THAT IT DANGEOROUSLY SAGS.

I HAVE ENCLOSED A PHOTOGRAPH THAT DEPICTS THIS ATROCITY. NOTICE HOW THE FLOORS SAG TO THE LEFT. ACCORDING TO MY CALCULATIONS, THE OAK STREET SIDE OF THE GARAGE IS A FULL STORY TALLER THAN THE BACK OF THE LOT. IN THIS EARTHQUAKE-PRONE AREA WE CAN'T AFFORD TO RISK OUR LIVES BY ENTERING A STRUCTURE THAT WAS CLEARLY DESIGNED BY AN INTOXICATED (OR WORSE) ARCHITECT.

IT'S HIGH TIME WE DEMOLISH THE GARAGE BEFORE SOMEBODY GETS HURT. IT SHOULDN'T BE TOO HARD, PERHAPS IF A FEW OF US GIVE IT A SHOVE.

ADMIRINGLY,

ROGER KORNBLUTH

P.S. PLEASE EXCUSE THE IMPROPER CAPITALIZATION OF MY LETTER. MY PC'S "CAPS LOCK" KEY HAS BEEN STUCK IN THE "ON" POSITION.

Scoop! of Nothing: New Garage Is Empty, As Predicted in Alameda Daily Noose

Remember, you read it here first! The prediction that the new multi-million dollar parking garage on Oak Street would be too big appeared over a month ago in these very pages. And as you can clearly see from the exclusive Alameda Daily Noose photo above, the prediction was dead on; no-one is parking in the garage, and no-one ever will. The City might as well board it up, or knock it down. It would have made much more sense to create ten new free parking spaces right in front of each business in the neighborhood, because no-one wants to walk a block just to get coffee and a sandwich, or buy furniture, and no-one wants to pay for parking.

Now the nattering nabobs of negativism will be quick to point out that there isn't room to put in all those parking spaces right in front of each business, but the great minds here at the Alameda Daily Noose city planning think tank have the answer: We simply tear down all the buildings and rebuild them far enough back from the street to allow convenient free parking right in front, just like at the Seven-Eleven.

Of course, if there are houses or other buildings behind the first row of buildings, we may have to tear them down and move them back a bit, too, repeating the process until we reach the shoreline, where we can simply reconstruct the final row of houses on sturdy piers standing in the water. Problem solved!

Although this plan might sound just a bit extreme at first blush, all Right-Thinking Alamedans know that a business without plenty of free parking right in front of the door is not a business worth patronizing. Sometimes you have to destroy a downtown in order to save it!

5:11 a.m.: Scoop! Lee Harvey Oswald Framed by Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates

There have been a lot of shocking photos of the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates in the major news media lately, but none as shocking as the exclusive Alameda Daily Noose photo we bring you today. The Alameda Daily Noose and I had invited our neighbors, Mildred Bolus and her husband, what's-his-name, over to watch some slides of our vacation in Dallas back in November 1963. We shot many pictures of the terrible traffic jam we saw there, which reminded us of something from a "Looney Tunes" short.

Right in the middle of our slide show, Mildred's husband jumped up and shouted, "Look! You've solved the mystery of who really shot J.F.K.! This photo is the proof everyone's been looking for!" He whipped out a red marker and started writing on the screen. "You see, here, on the grassy knoll stands the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates, which I've marked 'A.' This arrow shows that there is a clear shot from this position to the presidential motorcade, 'B.' And, as if you needed any more proof, there's the lamp post, which I've marked 'C.' Does it look familiar, Rog?"

I was dumbstruck. The lamp Midred's husband had circled was the exact type of lamp post that was recently installed in front of the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates. What's-his-name was right: It all falls into place! Now, this is not the first time that the Super-Mega-Monster-Plex That Everyone Hates has been implicated in a murder, but up until now, the proof has been elusive. Our vacation snapshot, however, proves once and for all that this parking garage has not only killed before, but also framed an innocent man, Lee Harvey Oswald, for the crime. Clearly this is the work of an evil structure whose elevator does not go all the way to the top floor!