• Update LinkedIn profile.
• Send a bunch of emails.
• Finalize that TellPeoria pitch for new publishers.
• Work on those Freedom of Information Act Requests I’ve been threatening to do for weeks.

Date: February 9, 2010
Released by: Alma Brown, Communications Manager
Subject: CITY CREW UPDATE

City crews continue to plow primary streets and maintain primary hills with salt. The same type of maintenance is expected to continue during the day today with additional snow in the forecast. Residential plowing will begin once snow fall has diminished and primary streets are good for travel. Please use caution while traveling, streets are snow covered due to blowing and steady snow fall. Primary streets will likely stay covered during the day and overnight hours. A Parking Ban is automatically in effect at (2) inches of accumulation.

The City will begin to ticket vehicles parked on designated snow routes beginning at 9:00 a.m. today.

It’s giving free publicity to corporations rich enough to afford air time during the Super Bowl. It’s a stupid news media cliche, like articles about Krispy Kreme grand openings and Black Friday sales at Wal-Mart.

Besides, anyone who watches the Super Bowl “for the commercials” is a cultural moron, and needs to be hidden away from public view.

The commercials are NOT the best part of the Super Bowl. This is a myth perpetrated by the corporations that benefit.

The excessive hype and marketting does NOT enhance the Super Bowl experience. The commercials were intrusive. Any break in the action was filled with a paid message. This was the greatest contest the Super Bowl has seen in decades, and everytime I looked up, they were hawking something.

Excessive greed is ruining sports, and the Super Bowl is the prime example.  Was anyone there who was not a reporter, a celebrity or someone with a ton of money to throw away? Normal people cannot afford tickets to regular season games, let along a big event like the Super Bowl.

Next year, I’m boycotting any product or service that buys an ad during the Super Bowl.

[/rant]

An Army sergeant who served in Iraq for 15 months has been restricted to his Washington military base after being accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she refused to recite her ABCs.

Remember folks, the Bush administration says this is NOT torture. So don’t get upset. It’s just enhanced interrogation. It’s not a crime.

We have the right to do it to THEM, and therefore, they have a right to do it to US.

Yeah, this is going to p*** off a lot fo readers. But I’m trying to get people to realize how defending torture is never justified.

Date: February 8, 2010
Released by: Alma Brown, Communications Manager, 494-8554
Subject: CITY CREW UPDATE

City crews are maintaining primary intersections with a sand/salt mix, and primary hills with straight salt. Plowing operations will begin with accumulations over (2) inches. Expect a slow morning rush with snow covered streets and reduced viability from blowing snow. Motorists should use caution while traveling during the next (36) hours.

it won’t be hynes, quinn only surrounds himself with people he trusts. To balance the ticket with a downstater, to pick someone who the democratic base will find appealing, to pick someone he likes, I think he should pick our own Dave Koehler. The two are close, good on social issues except for guns with the base, articulate attack dog, all about job creation….. Name me someone better.

I met Pat Quinn once. It was at some event ont he Riverfront. Dave Koehler introduced us.

(UPDATED) I’ve chatted with a few political animals. There’s no big minuses to Quinn picking Koehler, except that the Dems would have to find someone to run for his seat in the Illinois Senate and Koehler favors allowing gay marriage, while Quinn supports civil unions. A plus is that no one sees him as a viable successor to Quinn, and Speaker Mike Madigan wants to keep that path clear for daughter Lisa Madigan, the current state attorney general.

But, one person pointed out that due to success in the Chicago burbs, there is no real big need for them to cater much to downstate any more. And there was a mention about getting a woman on the ticket.

Instead of Koehler, I’m hearing the names from collar county/suburbs like Sen. Terry Link or Sen. Susan Garrett, both from Lake County. One person suggested Colleen Callahan, who has ties to agriculture and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin.

Thank you in advance.

I do believe the owner has passed away, but his family kept it going. I’m not even sure it’s still running (due to the fact I spend far, far, far less time in bars that I used to).

But I remember thinking: What a racket. The guy just taked pictures of people boozing it up, sells some ads and makes a living at it.

When that lesson wasn’t lost on ex-Peorian Marty Wombacher, who started a Website called A Guy Walks into 365 Bars. Basically, his business plan is to to visit one bar ever day in New York City. He takes pictures or the bartenders and patrons and writes a review. Then he tosses it onto his site.

Right now, he has a PayPal button on his site, and some Google ads. But he’s hoping for some publicity about the site that will lead to more revenue for him. And if I know Marty, he’s try to turn it into a book.

Go look at the site. Some of the lady bartenders are kinda hot.

Full disclosure: Wombacher is an advertiser on Peoria Pundit.