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More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com According to a number of postings there was a small earthquake near Pleasanton, CA , not far from here as the crow flies. What's interesting is the "Bay Area Earthquake" isn't showing up on the news pages of the mainstream media press in the area but the blog sites have it on Google Trends . Reportedly it was 3.7 on the Richter scale. I didn't feel the damn thing. And from what I've read it happened while I was working on my Phil Matier video blog . I know it's long at 21 minutes, but wow!

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com San Francisco Chronicle Columnist Phil Matier is a friend and one-half of the well-known reporting team of Matier and Ross . I've known Phil since 1993 when I started as a columnist for the Oakland-based Montclarion and he and his professional sidekick Andy Ross were working under the same "Matier and Ross" title. Over the years Phil has always lent an ear and advice. Now, since I blog on the SF Chronicle's website SFGste.com, I figured I'd take time to do something that was always in the back of my mind: make a vlog featuring an interview with Phil. The result is this 21 minutes long video . Frankly, it also a way of paying back those at the SF Chronicle who've given me the freedom to express myself and bring light to some issues that ordinarily would be ignored. Phil and I met at Merritt Station. A local cafe near Lake Merritt in Oakla...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I just read the Oakland Tribune's editorial (Monday, October 12th) on the City of Oakland's parking enforcement policies and the word that immediately came to mind when I was done was this one: irresponsible. Somewhere along the way the Oakland Tribune forgot that it was supposed to represent the needs, hopes, and wants of the people of the City of Oakland, not the City of Oakland. The Tribune editors wrote: Some of the most irrational parking opponents still aren't satisfied. They're demanding — which is utterly absurd — that the council set parking rates at 50 cents per hour, end aggressive ticketing, forgive all tickets issued since July 1 and issue an apology for instituting the parking changes in the first place. Irrational? Under the Tribune's twisted logic, the "Shop Oakland" program of free parking on Christmas holidays is just plain i...

Youth at What Now America (WNA) express their views on Oakland through pictures.

The Blog Michael d's Buzz Report features Oakland's Lake Chalet Restaurant in full palm tree mode! My favorite place, for which now after all my self-starting advocacy I'm a spokesperson of sorts, is still drawing great crowds especially for Taco Tuesday's. Here's one of my videos - more to come - on the great new place to eat and hang:

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I watched as much of the NY Giants' mugging of the Oakland Raiders 44 to 7 as I could stand, even as the CBS Sports NFL group was apologizing for the game! CBS Football Analyst and NFL great Boomer Esiason said it looked like the Washington Generals versus the Harlem Globetrotters, and one had to assume the Raiders were the Generals, which were always beaten by the Globetrotters. Seeing them actually do that was a low point in Oakland Raiders football history, and now we must call into question everything the Raiders are doing on the field. Especially on offense with the Oakland Raiders passing game. I've said and written it before, and I'll do it again. The Raiders passing offense lacks the basic practices used by organizations that install timed passing games. The lack of use of hashmarks as landmarks is just the start of the problem. It's the overall...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I've received a lot of comments, calls, and texts since I revealed the City of Oakland's parking tow sting operation on Saturday. Working backward and reading some of them, a friend told me just a few minutes ago that just last, on College Avenue and Kasel, she saw an Oakland parking enforcement person - she used the term "meter maid" but that implies a level of civility of behavior I've not yet seen in the staffers - actually measuring the distance of a car's wheel to the curb and a red zone before giving them a ticket! Now, to say that's beyond the pale is an understatement but it shows just how much the City of Oakland's trying to squeeze money out of Oaklanders where they feel it the most (other than housing): transportation. The other story comes from a reader who explains: Not only is the city selectively issuing parking tickets...