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The new Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe finishes a buildout of the front store spaces of The Fox Theater in Oakland, and is enjoying its first week of operation, this week. The deal to get Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe at the Fox Theater started just over two years ago, and while it was delayed in fits and starts of deal-making, the end result was well worth the wait. This blogger walked in on just plain impulse and, possessing a craving for breakfast at night, changed mind and ordered the Monday Blue Plate Special: The Meatloaf. A full, hearty meal of the kind not seen during the whole California Cuisine craze (which I'm somewhat happy has been altered to encourage larger portions), the meatloaf was almost as good as my Mom's at home, and overall I'd give it a B. The atmosphere at Rudy's was incredible. Bright and airy, it's a great place to hang out and talk or people watch over a great meal. The added plus is a kind of dining car in the rear of t...

In this tech news, the first annual (hopefully) Code For Oakland hackathon is history. The event drew 102 people, complete with Oakland and San Francisco geeks, and notable non-geeks like AC Transit Board Member and long-time Oakland Piedmont Avenue Activist Chris Peeples, resulted in a number of fascinating and promising applications, all designed with the needs of Oakland's low-income residents and those who aren't well "connected" in mind. The Saturday, June 4th meetup at Kaiser Center was sparked via the efforts of Oakland Local Founder and Editor Susan Mernitt, and "about 20 people," as Susan explained in the video, who contributed to getting Code For Oakland off the ground. What's Code For Oakland? Code For Oakland's mission was simply to have a "one day workshop to build an awesome mobile app." As one of the judges involved in the selection of the winning teams, I can share the criteria we were given to work under, a...

View Larger Map The loss of my T-Mobile Samgung Galaxy Variant in a taxi cab has led to bad service encounters at T-Mobile's Oakland, California store at 3201 Lakeshore Avenue. The obvious point aside, which is specifically to watch what pocket you place your phone in, that's no reason this blogger should get the minimum level of service at a T-Mobile story. Three visits to the T-Mobile Oakland Lakeshore store this week have resulted in being told that the store did not have a hotspot-capable (even with a file download) 3G phone, when I knew damn well it did. And who told me that? A T-Mobile sales person by the name of Grace. And that was just the highlight of a period of bad treatment.  Grace simply did not want to help me. She basically told me that the 4G phone I wanted to buy was $500, but in a way that implied I could not afford it because I didn't want to pay that amount all at once. Then, she failed to even try to call T-Mobile and arrange for a di...

Last night this vlogger trekked down over to the Uptown District in Oakland to just check out how the scene was changing. The result? The video you see above. It started with a walk over to the Fox Theater, with a look at how the much-anticipated Oakland version of Emeryville's Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe was coming along. As it turns out the owners were hosting what California Capital Group's Mark McClure called a "soft launch," but considering the tweets we've exchanged, like this one ... @RudyCantFailCaf Rudy'sCan'tFailCafe @zennie62 not quite yet...a couple more weeks...we'll keep you posted! Check out the RCFC-Oakland FB page for the deets!!! You figure they'd have invited me to the damn thing, right? Oh well. Maybe they will have this kid dancing at the opening: But that aside, the Oakland Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe, which occupies a space that was once an adult book store, officially opens this coming Monday from...

On May 17th, this blogger interviewed now former Oakland City Attorney John Russo on video, as you can see. There have been three blog post written in this space, referring to that 38-minute interview. But even with that, comes the usual San Francisco Bay Area journalist that has to tell you they got an "exclusive" with Mr. Russo, and after the interview. Enter the website Oakland North this week. So, the initial plan was to run this new blog post next week, but considering Oakland North's hubris or error in claiming they had an "exclusive" interview, I figured "Why not today," so here it is. John Russo Recaps Sports In Oakland When John Russo gave his video interview for this blogger, he talked about how proud he was that he settled a number of legal issues with Oakland's sports teams, the Oakland A's, Golden State Warriors, and the Oakland Raiders. But, as John leaves for Alameda to become its new city manager, he says there are ...

Unless you've had some doubt, let this blog post put to rest the idea that the Oakland Sideshow is dead. It's not. It's alive and well on International Boulevard, as this video, made during the East Bay Dragons event, and uploaded today on YouTube by wbr510 , shows: The East Bay Dragons are the same group linked to sideshow activity, and were the focus of the murder of a San Leandro man on Sunday night. But But Phil Baker, the East Bay Dragons vice president, told the San Jose Mercury News that "the clubhouse was closed early in the evening and all their members had gone home or elsewhere." That would seem to exonerate the Dragons from the Sunday night shooting, but the video above points to the Dragons as the producer of this sideshow.  And care must be taken not to associate that video with that incident simply because the SJ Mercury News account points to a night-time sideshow - the one captured in this video below. Second Video Shows Dragons Sid...

In a Sunday evening interview with Lawrence Scott of KNTV NBC Bay Area Channel 11, San Francisco, Golden State (Oakland) Warriors new "executive board member," NBA Legend Jerry West, said the one set of words this blogger has wanted to hear for years: the Warriors "need to get bigger." The Golden State (Oakland) Warriors of owner Chris Cohan and Team President Robert Rowell were known as a small, fast team without the "towers" necessary to compete in tough games down the stretch. And in much of their history since the late 80s, the Warriors were never known for that 'big guy in the middle.' The last person with the ability required to wear that tag was "The Chief," Center Robert Parish, who left in what was described as a trade that cemented Celtics President, the legendary Red Auerbach's " reputation for thievery ," at the expense of The Warriors. Auerbach dealt the first and 13th picks in the 1980 NBA Draft to The...