Oh Baby!!! I love beer tastings and I love the SB Zoo… and for the first time they’re combining both in what will hopefully become the annual Zoo Brew on June 5! There will be a special food menu and beers from Sierra Nevada, Island Brewery, Shock Top, Telegraph and more. Tix are $40 and you can buy them on their site: http://www.sbzoo.com/zoobrew_10.asp.
Nobody under 21 is going to be admitted so if you love the Zoo but hate sharing it with all those noisy kids now’s your chance! =) See you there.
This Saturday, May 8, letter carriers throughout Ventura County will pick up food donations right from your home. All you have to do is leave a bag of food next to your mailbox prior to delivery and they will make sure it gets to our friends here in Ventura County who desperately need food. They especially need canned soup, canned veggies, pasta, rice and cereal.
Could this be any easier to do?? I hope you’ll participate as I will. If you prefer to send money you can mail a check made out to FOOD Share Inc. to:
Food Share
4156 Southbank Road
Oxnard, CA 93036
For more info or to verify this info call Food Share at 805-983-7100 or visit http://www.foodshare.com.
“The Taxpayers Right to Vote Act is a dagger aimed directly at a movement to enable municipalities to offer renewable green power to their residents in competition with private utilities.” – LA Times
This has to be one of the most deceptive ballot campaigns I’ve ever seen in California. This so-called “Taxpayers Right to Vote” proposition is actually a cleverly-disguised attempt by PG&E to eliminate competition and take away our choices for power. Of course PG&E doesn’t care a wit about your right to vote, so what has them scared enough to spend about $35M on this campaign?
Two words: Renewable Energy. They’re scared because municipalities that are so inclined may build windmills or solar farms in their towns and start offering energy to residents as an ALTERNATIVE to PG&E. Right now cities and counties have the right to do that if they decide that it’s in their best interest and makes fiscal sense. PG&E wants the public to have to vote on it though, and NOT WITH A SIMPLE MAJORITY! They want 2/3rds of the voters to have to say “yes” in order for cities to be able to do this. So if 65% of the town wants their city to harness the wind and offer renewable energy they still won’t get it. And whom do you think will have more money to spend on the ads leading up to the vote – PG&E or a small town?
Please VOTE NO on 16. Let PG&E compete with the cities by offering renewable energy as well and at a reasonable cost. PG&E’s profits exceeded $1 BILLION last quarter even as most people are struggling to pay their bills and 12% are unemployed. Now they want to squeeze us even tighter with this bill. Please don’t let PG&E win! For more info visit www.noprop16.org.
Are you a member of the Tea Party? If so I’m really trying to understand your anger but I’m confused about a few things. If you could answer these questions it might help my confusion. Please try hard to write logical responses with as few capital letters as possible:
1. With the plethora of tax credits and deductions available, the federal income tax on middle class families is the lowest it has ever been. Why, then, are you so angry about taxes?
2. Why now? If you really are so upset about government spending, where were you from 2001-2009 when our country was basically mortgaged to the Chinese in order for GWB to fight a personal war in Iraq? Again, why now?
3. Did you know that the FY 2011 Federal Budget kept discretionary spending flat at $1.4 billion, and actually cut Non-Security spending down to $520 billion? (source) Please reconcile that with your argument that spending is out of control.
4. From whom do you want your country back? I keep hearing people in your party yell “Give us our country back NOW!” I’m not sure where that’s directed. As far as I can tell, the leaders in Washington do have the nation’s interests at heart even if not everyone agrees with their actions.
5. Do you agree or disagree with this statement: In order for any progress to be made in a political arena there must be compromise.
6. How many hours a day do you watch Fox news? Do you think it would be more patriotic to spend that time volunteering in your community?
Thanks for helping me understand. I promise that if you respond to this I will post your answer unedited (unless you use profanity).
So your first question is probably: Why on earth would you want to move your iTunes library FROM a cool Mac TO a boring old PC? Well it’s a good question and I do feel rather like I’m going the wrong way on a one-way street. But my trusty iMac just turned 9 years old and has only a 55 GB hard drive (my ipod has 64!) and less than a GB of RAM. So it’s not much fun to use anymore and I just don’t have $1200 to shell out on a new one right now. My PC laptop that I use for work is not sexy but it’s bulked up like an East German athlete in 1984.
That’s why I made the move, and my hat’s off to Apple because it was simple and straightforward. The only real danger here is that you may think too much and over-complicate it. If you want to know the logic behind why you’re doing all these things you can read a very informative article here… I’m basically just showing you the Cliff’s Notes version of how to do it.
Also, unless you know how to network a PC and Mac together, you will need a Portable Hard Drive to make this happen. I used an 80GB Iomega drive that I’ve had forever… you can get these very cheaply now.
Here’s how to move your iTunes library from your Mac to your PC
STEP ONE: Open iTunes on your Mac. Go to iTunes > Preferences. When the pop-up window appears click the Advanced option in the top menu. Then you should see this screen:
Now if your “Keep iTunes Media folder organized” box is already checked, then you need to UNCHECK it and select OK. Then go back to the same screen and check that same box and click OK. There will be a short progress bar and then you can continue.
STEP TWO: Still on your Mac, go to File > Library > Organize Library
Now select “Consolidate Files” and click OK as seen below.
It will let you know that it cannot be undone which is fine, so just click Continue.
STEP THREE: Now it’s time to move those songs. Plug your portable hard drive into your Mac. Go to your Mac Hard Drive menu and confirm that it’s there. Now click on your Mac hard drive and you should see a foldeer called “Music” under that will be a folder called “iTunes”. Double click the iTunes folder and you will find two things we need to move: a folder called “iTunes Music” and a file called “iTunes Library”. Drag both the file and the folder to your portable hard drive.
Depending on the speed of your USB connection and size of your library you may now have time to take in a movie. Or in my case with my 9-year-old Mac, the entire Wagner Ring Cycle.
STEP FOUR: Now we move over to the PC. If you don’t already have the latest version of iTunes on your PC you’ll need to download that now. Eject your portable drive from the Mac, then disconnect it and plug it into your PC. Go to “Computer” in the Start menu and confirm the drive is there. Now open your “Music” folder on your PC and you should see an “iTunes” folder. Drag both the iTunes Library file and the iTunes Music folder from the portable drive to this folder. Again, this may take a while to transfer.
STEP FIVE: This is where I got stuck but the solution is very simple. I was able to see the music files in the folder and play them directly, but iTunes wasn’t seeing them and listing them out for me. That’s because the file that we moved called “iTunes Library” needs a different extension for the PC to recognize it. So right click on that file on your PC and add “.itl” to the end of it. Now close iTunes if you have it open, and re-open it while holding down the SHIFT key on your PC. You’ll get a window that says Choose iTunes Library. Click “choose library” and then double click on the iTunes Library file (which should now have the little iTunes logo next to it instead of a blank page).
iTunes will now index all your songs and display them along with all your playlists. I hope this worked as well for you as it did for me, but if not I refer you to the much more complex and detailed article here: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive/.
Cheers!
Have you noticed all the CHP officers sitting along the 101 on either side of Ventura? Have your or someone you know received a ticket in the mail because you didn’t come to a complete stop when you made a right turn on a red light? Have you noticed more people getting pulled over by the motorcycle cops around downtown? (They like to sit on California Street across from Cafe Fiore and look for people driving by talking on their phone).
Of course it’s obvious what the motivation for this increased activity is: revenue generation. Our local governments are broke because they don’t know how to budget, so their solution is to squeeze more money out of us for relatively minor violations. More traffic fines are a great way to boost revenue because if they’re left unpaid they don’t get passed to collection agents – they turn into warrants for your arrest. That’s effective tax collection! Imagine if the IRS issued a federal warrant for your arrest if you didn’t pay your tax bill on April 15.
Of course I realize the difference between income tax and a fine for a traffic violation. But why aren’t these violations important when the economy is good? Why are they now suddenly cracking down on people going 4 miles over the speed limit? It’s like they’re kicking us while we’re down.
The USA Today reported recently that across the country officers have been instructed to give less warnings and write more tickets. They’re also writing tickets for speeders who traditionally aren’t worth stopping, i.e. people going 39 in a 35.
This is all just more proof that we are revenue-generating cogs in a great machine. You must protect your money and well being from all directions for there are vultures everywhere. Be extra vigilant. Don’t let the tax man take more from you because you thought there was no harm in going with the flow of traffic.
I hope this isn’t true because that dog park one of my favorite things about living in Ventura. Especially now that the old man from Oxnard with the two mean poodles has stopped coming! Hopefully he died in his house and the poodles ate him before being rescued to a home that rehabs mean poodles.
Anyway…. I took my lab there this week and saw the sign that’s pictured here. Hopefully it’s only an alarmist message. I truly think that if they stopped allowing off-leash dogs between 6-9am it would have NO IMPACT on the amount of poop left around the park. That’s because the people there between 6-9am are the most conscientious dog owners I’ve ever seen. They not only pick up after their own pets, they announce when a dog is taking care of business so that owner doesn’t miss it. It’s not unusual to hear “Big Yellow Lab Pooping!” shouted out while there.
So please, Ventura, don’t stop allowing off-leash dogs at Arroyo Verde! You’re punishing the wrong people and I promise you it won’t solve anything except making Ventura less livable.
Tags: dog park, ventura parks
I stumbled onto Chi Massage a few weeks ago and I’ve been singing their praises ever since. They’re a small massage store in the Oaks Mall in Thousand Oaks and they give the best reflexology foot massages I’ve found outside LA. They don’t seem really busy most of the time and their rent can’t be cheap so I’m concerned about them. I hope if you read this you’ll go spend $20 and get the best chair massage around. Then you’ll be hooked like I am.
This is TOTALLY different than the guys at the Ventura Mall who beat the hell out of you for $20 and call it massage. What are their credentials anyway? I still think most of those Chinese chair massage kiosks are a front for human traffickers who smuggle people in from China and then make them work in a mall massage for a few years to pay off their debt. And the more they see ugly Americans eating at CPK and wasting money at Old Navy the harder they hit us during the “massage”. But I digress…
The lady that runs Chi is a doctor from China and she really seems to know what she’s doing. If you have any pain during the foot massage she’ll tell you what that means… stomach problem, ear ache, etc. Very cool. They do table massages, foot massages and reflexology and the prices are pretty good. The reflexology package is $35 and comes with a 10 minute chair massage, 30 minute foot massage, foot bath and tea.
That may not be a hard thing to do in, say, Raleigh-Durham North Carolina. But finding a smoking, handicap-accessible hotel room in San Francisco is like searching 
for subtlety at a Tea Party rally. I needed to find one this week because my mother is visiting and wanted to take a trip up to SF to see it for the first time. Sadly she is now in a wheelchair due to fatigue from chemotherapy, but refuses to give up smoking. Hence the specific room request. So here’s the winner: The Holiday Inn at Fisherman’s Wharf. But they only have ONE so if you book it online be sure to call and confirm it. It’s actually not a bad hotel and the rooms were only $99. But parking is $40/night! Ouch!
I want so badly to like the singer Bjork. Her music is tantalizing, I love her costumes and her stage shows are very creative . But then she opens her mouth and it’s over for me. I just can’t enjoy the shrill sounds that come from her head in most of her songs.
I feel the same way about My Florist Cafe in Ventura. I love the ambiance: the lighting is perfect, the have a fantastic patio with a big-screen projector, and it’s the only restaurant here where you’ll hear Thievery Corp while you dine (when the piano player takes a break). The half priced wine special isn’t bad either… they actually don’t mark it up 4x to give you half off. I compared the prices to other outlets and they’re very reasonable. But then the food comes, and on one occasion it all came out at once (cheese plate, salads and entrees together). The food isn’t terrible so it may sound like I’m making too much out of it, but it doesn’t live up to the expectation that the atmosphere builds. The only thing I’ve had there that I would completely avoid is the chicken and dumplings, which come out as a very watery broth with some small dumplings and chicken at the bottom. My favorite entree so far has been the meatloaf, which is quite tasty especially when you pair it with the Firestone IPA they have on tap. My friend had the lasagna which garnered an “ehh” response, as did the other entrees ordered at the table.
Such a pity because the potential is there to be so much more. The wait staff is unpolished (except for the bartender) but they’re friendly enough to make up for it. I do hope it’s still a work in progress… Ventura needs a restaurant like this where the food matches the style.
Tags: Ventura Restaurants