Pacifica Pizza Breadsticks -Don't Fuck With The Classics Part VII -

They're supposed to look like this but much greasier and
wrapped in tin foil. 

There's a pizza place back in my hometown of Martinez CA, Pacifica Pizza. I grew up on this place. I've known many people who've worked there over the years. It was never really great but a good pizza that was consistent.  About 6 years ago (2008) I moved to Pittsburg CA and had to find a new local pizza spot.  Every time I was back in town every so often we'd at least get some of the famous Pacifica breadsticks.  If you've been around Martinez for a while you know the ones. The foil brick of garlic parmesan sticks you could only get from Pacifica.  Side note tho, a couple times we DID get pizza and sometimes it was really good, and sometimes it was really undercooked and doughy. But this review is about bread sticks. 

About a year and half ago I moved to Eureka Ca. and had almost forgotten all about Pacifica and their bread sticks.  Recently I was back home in Martinez and thought he bread sticks!  So I called down the street and ordered a large breadstick order.  

While delicious, they were NOT supposed to
 look like this. 

15 minutes later I go down there to pick them up and they give me a pizza box.  I was like WTF is this?  There's two pimply teenagers working there and they say this is what I ordered.. cheesy bread sticks.  

I went on to explain to him what they're supposed to be. Little sticks of dough coated in garlic butter and sprinkled with parmesan cheese then wrapped in big bundle in foil.  He didn't know what the fuck I was talking about but the other kid was like "Oh yea Chucky or whoever (who is an older employee that remembers the old bread sticks. I made up the name Chucky) made them once"  Apparently this place has changed owners a bazillion times since I went there last and some moron thought that making bread sticks like every other pizza place in the world would be better than actually having a good and unique product. The kid was like "these are good I promise" and I replied "I'm sure they are, that's why every other pizza place makes them this way"  and left disappointed.  They were good, but totally not what I wanted. Every bite tasted like lack of nostalgia. 

Maybe Marty O's Pizzeria can put them on their "Martinez Classics" menu with the empanadas. If anyone knows why they decided to change this I'm curious to know. 

Nothing Lasts Forever, Even Cold November Rain

By Cold November Rain, I mean Axl Rose. 

I was flipping channels today and landed on something I didn't know existed called The Golden God Awards. I caught it at the tail end but from what I could tell it's some VH1 Classic awards show for burnout metal heads from the 70's and 80's. Like a low budget Grammy's for Butt Rock.  I caught it just as Axl Rose was accepting the Ronnie James Dio Lifetime Achievement Award.  Presented to him by none other than Nicolas Cage who went into a heartfelt obviously read-from-a-teleprompter [because he fucked up and pronounced the word passion; "paSSun"]  dedication saying how he's been inspired by the honorable Mr. Rose over the years. The award presentation was followed by a performance by the "new" G&R. They did Sweet Child 'O Mine and Paradise City.  It was pretty painful to watch.

Axl was fat, old and out of breath halfway through the song.  He was very out of key and his voice is ruined from drugs, cigarettes, booze and scream-singing improperly for so many years. It reminded me of the voice of that 70 year old lady in front of you in line at the gas station ordering a pack of Camel non-filters.

 The band, which is now essentially a Guns N' Roses cover band consisting of professional musicians, was clearly struggling to follow Axl's forgetting how the songs go. Being a drummer myself I was noticing the drummer's closed-eyed focus. That's the focused look you get when you're trying to stay on tempo while you have a click track (metronome) in your in-ear monitors, that's fighting against a band member who's playing the song wrong.  It's as if they all rehearsed the songs thoroughly, and Axl just showed up the night-of and was like "I'm fucking Axl fucking Rose. I've been singing these songs for 30 fucking years I don't need to fucking practice"

At least he didn't have corn rows.

STRAINing to watch any more of The Strain

So I've watched the first two episodes of The Strain on FX.  The previews for this show looked awesome and to be honest some of the themes and visuals are paying off but the show is just totally stupid. Here's a short list of stuff that is so dumb I just cant continue to care about this show.

1. Why quarantine the survivors, lock down the plane but put the cargo in some random warehouse. Even after you saw the glowing mystery substance all over the cargo hold where it seemed to emanate from. And then see a giant mystery death coffin thing and not use any kind of protective suit or anything.

2. The bodies.  see #1.  No one knows wtf the sickness is but they're all dead so they're not able to spread the sickness. No worries just take them to the normal morgue down town with the rest of the stiffs. no security, no concern about contagens.  blah.

3a. The bureaucracy and overtly careless and inefficient management of the CDC and Health and Human Services.  It makes them look like idiots.

3b. The part when the lawyer somehow gets the head of whatever government agency to take the case away from the CDC because of a story about carbon monoxide or something.  SHOW THEM THE FUCKING WORMS! omg why dont you just show them the creepy worms you found.  not one mention of it.

4. The main character's family, and alcoholism.. unless it plays a very integral part of the plot line, I dont give a shit.

I'm sure there's more ... I'm over this stupid show. It insults my intelligence.  I wanted it to be something more I guess but it's turning out to be a badly written outbreak zombie vampire nazi show.

8th Grade Metal Band Gets Sony Record Deal

You know what? I call bullshit and fuck Sony for signing them.  They're alright but I had a metal band that was this good when I was close to these guys' age and no one gave a fuck.

There's been a billion teenagers in really good bands all over the world that no one gave a shit about. I honestly don't think musically they deserve a major million dollar record deal at this point.  I've seen their videos, they're ok but really still far away from being at the level of other signed bands.

So here's what I think is going on and I'll say what no one else will. It's because they're cute, uncharacteristically black kids playing metal,  a predominantly white genre.  I'm not saying they shouldn't be playing metal, that's rad, I don't see race and I dont care that they are black but I see Sony taking advantage of a unique potential in sales.  Sony doesn't give a shit about them.  They don't even have a singer.  How much has sony cared about instrumental metal bands in the past? ZERO. They're out v, bands like Isis and Pelican have found success on indie labels and Sony couldnt give a fuck.  I'm guessing Sony will find a sleazy manager and a hot shot producer to find the perfect 16 yr old black kid singer and make a slick record that will have a hooky single you wont be able to avoid for a whole summer.

Enjoy your 15 mins guys.  I hope all the best for them. I hope they can retain their integrity and be a honest to goodness metal band and have a lasting career that allows them to do what they love for a living for a long time.  But I just dont think it will go down like that. I hope they have a good lawyer at least.

Prove me wrong world.

Oh Yes. I'm Messing With Texas

Whenever I hear people from Texas getting all high and mighty about their state and utter the famous saying "Don't Mess With Texas" I'm always reminded of what it actually means. One of my 7th grade teachers, who was from the Lone Star State filled us in on the origins of the phrase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas


It was an anti-littering campaign from the 80's. Most people from California, like me that hadn't been to or hadn't known people from Texas probably thought it is some Texas pride thing emanating from a sports team or state historical event.  But it was created by an advertising agency to be a catchy way for people to stop throwing trash on the ground.  Akin to "Click it or ticket" for seatbelt use reminders it's no more than some shit to remind people of shit they should just do anyway.

nothing to do with litter. unless
 you're talking about white trash

Oh the irony of some redneck tweaker in Abilene throwing beer cans and cigarette buts out of the car window with a DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS bumper sticker. Completely missing the point.  Texas isn't awful, I've been there, I saw the Alamo, I went to the mall next door.  But I just think it's funny that the people who embrace the phrase might not even know it's origins.  Or that it's a copyrighted trademark of the Texas Department of Transportation.

Maybe it is totally understood in Texas. Maybe  people there have had it drilled down their throats since 86. From an outsider, hearing people misuse the phrase makes the eternal pessimist in me angry. I just assume everyone from the South are stupid mouth breathers who could care less about the origins of a phrase they're using, missing the point and carelessly throwing garbage on the ground on a regular basis.

Yelp's Review Filter Pt 2

A while ago I posted about Yelp and it's way of sorting reviews.  

Like these here - http://kirknoggins.blogspot.com/search?q=+yelp

Well, I just noticed that Yelp's reviews aren't "Filtered" anymore.. lol they're just recommending them or not.

This is basically the same exact video but they changed the word "filter" to "recommendation" 

 I just flagged a review they let slip through for a business. It was blatantly obvious it was a fake review. Someone ripped a company I was looking at a new one. Even called out an employee by name. A few days later a 5 star review by a yelp user with no profile pic, one review, no friends and from the same city as the business put up a post that somehow got to stay up and it almost directly referred to complaints in the bad post even saying how the employee mentioned before was SOOO GOOOD.  Coincidence? I think not. 

I hate yelp. but damnit, I still keep going back. 

Air Mail

There's a large, old Victorian house down the street from me that has been purchased and renovated in the time I've lived here. They finished several months ago and it looks really good but they did something weird that I didn't notice right away.  Recently I was driving home and something odd caught my eye as I turned the corner.  Something strange on top of a tree. As I got closer I noticed it was A: in front of the newly redone victorian and B: it was a mailbox.  I had to drive around the block and look again. It was in fact, an old fashioned style,yet oversized mailbox.  They seem to have cut off the top 10 feet of the tip if this massive conifer and placed the box right on the remaining stump at least 50 feet high.



I looked on the Google but couldn't find anything. Is this a thing? Is it just a gag?

This is the view of it from my house. 

Is this some kind of tradition that means something?  If anyone has ever heard of placing mailboxes on the top of very tall trees I'd like to know. It's sort of driving me crazy. Every time I go passed that house I look up and wonder what it's for.