Three Events and a Grocery Store

[shannon_a]

Oakland LIncolns. Got to Endgame on Wednesday and they were lighting up all the trees on the street for Christmas. Kinda early? Sorta.

Turns out that Lincoln was filming another commercial there, like they did last year. So they had a two block by two block cruciform blocked off with bright Christmas decorations throughout and cops or guards on all the edges.

Sadly, the spectacle wasn't as great as it was last year, when they had huge LEDs showing Christmas kitsch, but it was good to see Oakland successfully interacting with someone bringing it money.

---

Berkeley Day. While Kimberly & I were bustling around this morning, getting ready to go to our various places, we saw large numbers of kids out on the street doing yard work. T-shirts which said "The Berkeley Project" revealed what was going on. It was a day of the college students giving back to the community. I can certainly stand behind that, as the college's presence is constantly felt in this town, and it does have some real cost. So, cool for whomever came up with that.

I'm not convinced of the value of doing very ephemeral yard work, though the kids definitely made improvements, such as cleaning all the edges of our sidewalk where the yard was definitely encroaching, so I am nonetheless grateful. But painting and making flower planters and such at other locations seem to me to offer a more long-lasting change.

Oh, they put some signs up on our street that said "Slow Down", which is surely more long-lasting too, but I don't really know what's up with that. 

---

Occupying Oakland. While gaming at Endgame today I started hearing helicopters toward the later afternoon. When I finished with my gaming I could tell they were over the city center, so I biked around that direction to see what was going on. About two blocks away the stench of marijuana hit me, and by then I'd figured out it was "Occupy Oakland" as part of the big worldwide "occupy" day. Sure enough, which I got to the city center I found a whole field of tents set up.

I really agree with the beliefs of the "occupy" groups, that the rich had really benefited in America in the years since Reagan, at the detriment of everyone else in the country, and that it needs to change. Statistics pretty clearly show the gap between the rich and the poor at the worst since the Great Depression and it only seems to be getting worse. However, I'm not convinced that what they're doing is going to make a difference. Camping out at city centers and smoking pot makes them look sort of disreputable, and I'm not convinced they're going to change politicians' minds that way.

I'd love to be proven wrong.

---

Andronico's. K. wasn't feeling up to biking tonight, so we went to nearby grocery story Andronico's ... which I'm somewhat disappointed was saved from bankruptcy last week. In any case, they were as always overpriced, often shockingly so due to the almost total lack of meaningful sales. However, I was more shocked by how terrible their selection has gotten. It was particularly ironic because there were signs all over saying how they had put our favorites back on the shelves. I feel like they had 50--66% of the selection* that we used to see at Andronico's. If it was worse until recently ... well, that makes it even more clear why they ended up in Bankruptcy.

* There was one exception: cookie selection was almost 0, unless you liked expensive European cookies.