Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com I just read there's going to be an Oakland DUI (driving under the influence) checkpoint tonight at "an undisclosed location in Oakland" . Great. But why? Everyone knows there are only a few areas where cool and safe (can one be cool and not safe?) bars and restaurants are in Oakland: 1) Downtown at Broadway and Grand where its "First Friday" Art Murmur night. 2) Downtown along Telegraph from 16th to 20th Street. 3) Grand Avenue and Lakeshore Avenue where Lake Park serves as the connecting street 4) North Oakland along College Avenue 5) Piedmont Avenue from Monte Vista to 51st and Pleasant Valley. First, it's not good to drink and drive, but this quasi-militaristic, secret agent style approach is really too much with this "undisclosed location" stuff. I'd prefer the Oakland Police think creatively and actually provide alternat...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com YouTube , Yahoo , MySpace , DailyMotion , Blip.tv , StupidVideos , Sclipo and Viddler College Football's back and ESPN's Lou Holtz thinks The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame will be in the BCS National Championship Game. He's wrong. But the Cal Golden Bears will beat the USC Trojans October 3rd in Berkeley, 20 to 14. Notre Dame lacks team speed At 29 wins, 21 losses this is Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis ' make-or-break year. If he wins seven games or more, he's in the clear and gives Irish fans and boosters a reason to expect better years ahead. But if he losses 7 games or more, he's in trouble. My prediction is for another six win season. Why? Notre Dame's chronic lack of team speed. The Fighting Irish have a problem drawing the fastest players at all positions. The states that generally produce the fastest talent - Florida, Cal...

I just got this message at my Facebook page: I'm sure you've been following the awful story about the disappearance of Hasanni Campbell. His foster mother is a very dear friend of mine, Jennifer Campbell. She is expecting a child, while desperately searching for Hasanni, and had to go back to work at "Shuz" in Rockridge today, the site of Hasanni's disappearance. She will probably only be able to work a short while but as she is paid mostly on commission, she needs to sell a lot of shoes. The media coverage of this whole tragic situation hasn't made it any easier. I am beseeching you to please visit "Shuz" on College Ave. in Rockridge. Ask for Jennifer Campbell. Buy some shoes. Please. Where's "Shuz" exactly? It's at 6012 College Avenue (map below) and has great reviews on Yelp! Jennifer's had a rough time; give her your support! Buy some shoes! Here's the map for Shuz in Oakland within the Rockridge District! ...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com The blog Eater via SFGate's Scoop reports that the famous sky high restaurant The Carnelian Room at the top of the Bank of America building at 555 California Street is scheduled to close but not until Christmas. If you've never experienced the view of San Francisco and the Bay Area from that space I encourage you to do so. It's been too long for me but given how breath-taking it is, I can't understand why it's not doing well. You may respond that it's too high, but I disagree because of the terrific interior that awaits patrons. Curious, I Googled "Carnelian Room rating", clicked on " Carnelian Room User Reviews " at San Francisco Citysearch and got my answer: it's the service. This is one of many negative reviews placed there: This place is criminally bad. Lets cover the one good thing first; the view. Nothing else is goo...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! | Visit YouTube | Visit UShow.com Two weeks after a string of protests, a Grand Lake Theater meeting, and much noise about the Oakland Parking fee increase and extended enforcement hours and we still have the problem of the $80 ticket. Grand Lake Theater's parking protest has zero impact But what we have in addition are reports of Oakland parking enforcement officials plainly treating Oaklanders terribly, with nasty remarks and plain abuses of power. Michael Caton has a story that is worth reposting over and over again. The owner of the blog An Oakland Citizen and guest blogger at Oakland Focus has posted a stemwinder of a story at Oakland Focus and reposted with an explanation at my blog seat at SFGate.com Read it with a click here: Michael Caton's fed up with Oakland

I have a note to add to the farewell-to-Oakland parking post I left on my own blog some time ago. To the merchants who feel like the City of Oakland is hell-bent on destroying local businesses with draconian parking policies, I can add a personal experience that has removed me from the Oakland economy permanently. I moved to San Diego last week to start medical school. For one day, I had the U-Haul trailer I'd rented parked in front of our building - the three story one at the corner of Broadway and Oceanview. There is a stretch of red curb there that is a) out of the way of traffic and b) always, always used by everyone moving into or out of the building. You already know where this is going. I was riding the elevator back up to my floor, and, tired and sweating from dragging furniture out to the truck, I happened to glance down to the street out through the clear wall to see the parking enforcement vehicle pull up in front of my worldly possessions. I got off and hurtl...

Lake chalet Oakland , originally uploaded by jimmyjaymz78 . I saw this cool photo by Jimmyjaymz78 on Flickr.com and had to post it. It was taken at The Lake Chalet which opened two weeks ago.