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Sushi Girl is a "grindhouse" style movie best, which this blogger is dying to see, and is best described as a dinner over a naked chic that ends badly. My objective at the Sushi Girl Red Carpet held at Comic Con 2011, was to find out how badly the movie ends! Getting an answer out of Jeff Fahey, Tony Todd, and Mark Hamill was as hard as the abs on its lady star, Cortney Palm. But I did learn that, according to Mark Hamill, Sushi Girl will make Tony Todd a "really big star." Todd plays the lead role, a guy named Duke, who he says has the kind of "switch" in his head such that if you say the wrong thing, he will "just snap," but who, Todd says, is "charming." In other words, Tony Todd plays a lovable sociopath. Unlike the epic, must-see Bellflower movie meetup , this was a standard Red Carpet, which was fine, but the problem was once you got into a talk with, say, Mark Hamill, a PR rep would come by winding her hand as if...

There's a lot going on in Oakland, but I'm figuring out that, frankly, this city of mine isn't as socially connected as it likes to think it is.  There are only a handful of bloggers, a small group of people who read them, and few, considering the total population, who use Twitter to tweet or any camcorder to vlog. In short, a lot of information about what happens in Oakland goes without matching content.   Just saying - though I'll say more about this later. One small Facebook Page group of people is growing organically. Called " Terrorized by CEDA Oakland, CA ," it has about 198 "likes" and it's not going to reach massive proportions unless someone connects Oakland's Economic Development boss, Walter Cohen to a sex scandal; I'm just kidding, of course, but you get the idea, given media today, and my opening paragraph. A problem at the Community And Economic Development Agency CEDA, first reported here and at Oakland Focus by Gwilly...

Spanatix.com , simply described, "is a social platform for sports fans to engage and connect online" and that's actually the "25 words or less" pitch line used by its co-founder, Marlon Sullivan. In the video above, I talked with Mr. Sullivan and he gave a demonstration of how Spanatix.com work. Let's just say that if you play it, you'd better know your sports info stuff. Spanatix.com consists of two parts in its online space: a social network designed such that if you pick your favorite team or player, you can see what has been written and add to the conversation, and a unique fanometer that's coolly addictive. With the fanometer, you can gain points for what you know about your team. You can pick a game and if you guess the correct winner you gain points. You can challenge friends in "one-on-one" competition, or go into what's called a "pool" challenge. It's a really great social network game, that makes a...

On July 1st, The Port of Oakland quietly issued a long press release announcing its 2011-2012 Budget. The release reports that "revenue from the Port’s aviation, commercial real estate, and maritime businesses has been recovering modestly," but that tenants remained concerned about the overall economy. The Port also explains that it brought $462 million in taxes to the City of Oakland over the last fiscal year, and that it has a $40 million "pipeline" of new projects that will come under the consideration of the Port Of Oakland Board Of Directors. Here's the full press release: For Immediate Release July 1, 2011 Port Of Oakland Adopts 2011-2012 Budget $296.6 Million Budget Represents Port's Aggressive Focus on Business, Competitiveness, Positive Economic Impact, and Environmental Stewardship Oakland, Calif. - July 1, 2011 - The Oakland Board of Port Commissioners just adopted a 2011-2012 fiscal year (FY) operating budget of $296.6 million. This ...

If anyone had a doubt that the City of Oakland was in financial trouble, one look at tonight's Oakland City Council meeting should change their mind. Watching via live stream from Georgia, this blogger has never seen so many Oakland workers come before the City and beg to have their jobs maintained. And these are good, long-serving, proud Oakland workers, like Brenda Franzel. Really sad.   Brenda Franzel,a revenue officer with the City of Oakland, just took the unusual step of coming to the Oakland City Council tonight and having her daughter speak before the Council first, and then and asking for "justice." This as the Oakland City Council considers various budget options placed before it. "I refused to participate in the slurs about who brings in revenue for the City, and by that, I mean money," Franzel said. "I blame the culture in which we serve for even considering cutting people who raise revenue for the city. It creates a hostile envir...

Just got an interesting email from Don Macleay, last year's Oakland Mayoral Candidate, who is urging Oaklanders to come to Tuesday night's Oakland City Council Meeting. But before we get to his, and the Oakland Greens, issues, a comment. The City of Oakland must agree on a budget plan by July 1st, and that day is this Friday. There has been a lot of focus on and discussion over a process that, long ago, this blogger knew was insular, and because the public doesn't have all of the past budget information, and because the arguments about the budget are within the margins and not about how to extend the margins . What do I mean by extend the margins ? One problem is that of each property tax dollar collected, the City of Oakland gets to keep just 26 percent of it. The other problem is much of Oakland's revenue-producing land is controlled by the Redevelopment Agency, which is a good thing, because that's the only way Oakland itself can collect 100 perce...