Author Archives: admin

Study: $90 wine tastes better than the same wine at $10

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(C|net)

Winos – sheesh. At least they are happy when the fork over $90 for a bottle of cheap wine at a P.G. eatery.

Wino Wisdom

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford’s business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that’s true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it’s exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.

Specifically, the researchers found that with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure. Brain scanning using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) showed evidence for the researchers’ hypothesis that “changes in the price of a product can influence neural computations associated with experienced pleasantness,” they said.

Study: $90 wine tastes better than the same wine at $10

Wake Of The Storm

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After it’s over and the streets are opened, the electricity is back on, the news catches up with last week’s story.

1/13/08
Residents learn emergency preparedness the hard way

“People have got to be prepared at least a bit on their own,” said Dave Leist, an emergency services management planner for Monterey County.

“This isn’t anything new,” Leist said, adding that the recent storm “was predicted well in advance. (People) think there’s a fire truck with their address on it to respond in an emergency, and that’s just not the case. In metropolitan areas — Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, for example — you get these folks who are unaccustomed to power outages and think there’s a big response out there.”

Too many people, Leist said, mistakenly rely on government response in a catastrophe, large or small.

Must explain the high concentration of government dependent Democrats around here.

1/9/08
Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach residents critical of PG&E

Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove residents who have been without power for five days say their frustration is growing with what they perceive as a lack of communication and services after Friday’s walloping storm.

“This is serious after five days,” said Kathie McAweeney of Pebble Beach.

As of late Tuesday, 3,855 Pacific Gas & Electric customers were without power on the Monterey Peninsula.

McAweeney said that five days without power — or heat — is taking its toll on residents, particularly her older neighbors. She said she accompanied an 85-year-old neighbor to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula on Monday. The neighbor was admitted with pneumonia, she said.

“Planning is everything for events like this,” said Dave Leist, an emergency services management planner. “In today’s society, everybody is hooked to power — e-mail, ATM, phone — and they just demand it be up and running right away and it just can’t happen.”

Learn how to use those trophy kitchens, folks. You’ll be prepared the next time. Oh, what’s that? You eat at Whole Foods 5 times a week and go to happy hour for snacks? Might as well face it – you are hopeless.

John and Jennifer Johnson had been hunkered down in their home for five days. Both were dressed in knit sweaters and caps. “We stayed in bed,” said 82-year-old John Johnson.

He said they are preparing to pack their car and head to the Carmel Mission Inn.

Ah! there’s hope!

1/08/08

7,200 customers still out; PG&E drawing criticism

Some customers, dealing with lanterns for night lights and throwing away food from powerless freezers and refrigerators, expressed raw anger at the utility company.

They accused PG&E of not being prepared for winter, of putting the Peninsula on the bottom of the repair list and of relying on a painfully inadequate customer-service system to provide information updates on outages.

“I’ve been furious the whole time,” said Maureen Girard of Carmel, whose home was without electricity since Friday. “I’ve been here 34 years, and the trouble is always ‘A tree fell on the power lines.’

I believe it, but in all these years you’d think PG&E would have figured it out how to maintain the trees around the lines more effectively.”

Primo Waldsmith of Pebble Beach said: “One night that’s tolerable, but not four of five days. It’s ridiculous.”

Waldsmith – you live in Pebble Beach for cryin out loud. You have no sense of living this close to the nature’s beauty and Earth’s power. Buy a generator. Or move to LA.

Wake Of The Storm

Letters From The Editor

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Elin Kelsey Writes:

Traffic is the price I pay for living with popular tourist events. The only problem is, unlike Carmel and Monterey, Pacific Grove enjoys all the traffic and almost none of the sales tax and tourist dollars. Outdated liquor restrictions and curfews keep our restaurants and other businesses empty while our neighboring cities rake in the tourism dollars.

If I am sitting in traffic anyway, I would rather be doing it reading a library book.

Elin, please put the book down and drive.

Letters From The Editor

Winter Might Not The Best Time To Take Up Sailing

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Especially in a ten foot boat.

An amateur sailor trying out a new hobby needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard Saturday afternoon after he capsized his 10-foot sailboat off Lovers Point.

Coast Guard Boatswain’s Mate Russell Howard said the sailor, whom he didn’t identify, apparently misjudged the strength of a stiff breeze and flipped the boat over.

Though he managed to flip the boat right-side up, the sailor couldn’t bail the water out fast enough and needed a tow back to the Breakwater Cove Marina.

Winter Might Not The Best Time To Take Up Sailing

Pacific Grove Is Going To The Dogs

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Professor Toro, Monterey’s original blogger writes:

On a recent Sunday, Conover retrieved her Labrador, Tuly, from her father’s house when a couple of German shepherds attacked and mauled them.

Conover jumped on her dog and tried to protect it from the dogs and, said her father, Kelley, “screamed bloody murder.”

Given a recent high-profile dog incident, the brutal attack of KION-TV news anchor Olga Ospina’s 2-year-old Maltese in front of the Pacific Grove post office, it appears that sleepy little P.G. might have a dog problem.

More like P.G. has a dog owner problem. Where oh where is Prof’s companion Pilon? Has Pilon been replaced by a dog?

Dogd Adam Ah

Pacific Grove Is Going To The dogs

Coastal Commission Busters!

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By the end of the day, the cleanup operation over a 300-foot cliff just south of Hurricane Point hauled off the car’s transmission, part of the frame and a few parts from the beach on Blain Deaton’s property.

For a few weeks after the crash, Deaton said he heard unusual sounds that a psychic acquaintance ascribed to the dead man’s spirit expressing thanks for his help that day.

One day while working his way down the cliff, Deaton said, he heard the crystal-clear sound of a car horn and then the sound of a hood or trunk being slammed shut. A few days later, he and his brother approached the wreckage and heard the sound of wind chimes.

“He said, ‘What is that?’ and I said, ‘You tell me,'” Deaton said.

After that, there were no more eerie sounds, just the long effort to get the wreckage removed, he said. Half of the car, which split in two during the crash, washed into the ocean during the long wait.

“I’m happy to see it taken care of … but half of that car is in the Pacific,” he said.

Half of it is still down there. . stay tuned for the sequel.

Ghostbusters2

Who Ya Gonna Call? Coastal Commission Busters!

Sam The Sham’s Staff

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* Addis, Reed
* Allen, Amber
* Arago, Alec J
* Ayala, Claudia
* Barry, Pamela Ann
* Bellavia, Frank S
* Butler, Lyndsay M
* Chacon, Julian S
* Chavez, Carina
* Crockwell, Geoffrey Glyn
* Dann, Rachel
* DeSerpa, Nancy H
* Dominguez, Gabriel
* Dornatt, Rochelle Suzanne
* Epstein, Justin L
* Fields, Amy L
* Godinez, Julie
* Goold, J William
* Gressel, Gal
* Hanson, Marc B
* Henderson, Brian G
* Hess, Moira C
* Hotelwala, Mufaddal
* Keller-Likins, Sarah C
* Lara, Cesar
* Le, Ricky Xuan
* Leavandosky, Stacey E
* Lipsky, Joshua S
* Lordan, Elizabeth F
* Maher, Jessica A
* Mentzer, Thomas
* Merrill, Deborah J
* Miller, Jessica K
* Munoz-Hernandez, Bertha
* Norris, Lauren Ashley
* O’Donnell, Craig Hall
* Phillips, Troy S
* Pinto, Mildred
* Plymale, Anna L
* Powers, Eric B
* Riley, Kathryn R
* Robles, Daisy
* Romanski, Kelly Shannon
* Rosen, Sarah
* Sandman, Dana M
* Schafer, Jessica
* Slaby, Kimberly K
* Smith, David A
* Soto, Marcos A
* Steiner, Edward
* Stencel, Kara L
* Tucker, Tom
* Uribe, Marie J
* Van Hise, Bonnie J
* Vaughan, Ann
* Violante, Allyson M

Sam The Sham’s Staff

More Phone Scams Hit P.G.

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Last Month P.G. residents were getting calls saying they had won a sweepstakes and to send “processing fees”. This month they are getting calls again, now from a phony government agent that is again asking for processing fees. Why is it that P.G. is always the target? Do the thieves go out and look for areas of rich white Democrats?

Pacific Grove Police are warning resident to beware of a telephone scam that has already hit some residents of the Central Coast. Pacific Grove Police commander, Tom Uretsky, says the call starts with a caller clamming to be an agent with the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security. The “Agent” then tells the victim that they have received cash funds from the arrest of seven people who were attempting to defraud others.

The “Agent” then explains that they would like to send out a certified cashiers check to the victim that was recovered in his/her name for 8.5 million dollars. The scammer then informs the victim that he/she needs to pay a recovery fee of $1,450.00 made payable to the Merchant Bank of Jamaica. The scammer tells the victim that they need to wire or send a money gram to an address overseas to Jamaica.

More Phone Scams Hit P.G.

Meters To Feat

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Moe – you can drive the shoppers away, but the owners and employees will still be there, taking up all the choice parking. Get busy and woo some commerce to the town that people will flock to meters or no meters.

1/8/08, Town Hall meeting agenda

James Becklenberg, city director of management and budget, said the budget needs to be pared by $2.6 million to keep the city solvent. Its financial reserves in December were down to $800,000, and the city should maintain a reserve of $2.6 million to cover emergencies.

Becklenberg has proposed expanding parking meters on Central Avenue, Ocean View Boulevard, Lovers Point and city parking lots in the downtown area, reaping an estimated $495,000 in extra revenue, and discontinuing the annual card rate at the golf course, which Becklenberg said would add $40,000 this fiscal year and $190,000 during the 2008-09 fiscal year. He also suggested increasing permit and planning fees.

But the Chamber-Of_Moe begs:

At 6 p.m. on Jan. 23, the Pacific Grove City Council will consider installation of parking meters or pay stations downtown and on Central Avenue. Meters increase the cost of doing business, create an inconvenience to shoppers and drive customers to free parking destinations. More important, meters affect adjacent residential neighborhoods and change the character of the town. Small businesses have to compete with the big-box operations, corporate shopping centers and the Internet, where there are no obstacles such as meters.

No Meters

Meters To Feat

Show Kristin Hughes Some Potential Pain

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On the day the U.S. Supreme Court heard lawyers argue over the potential pain caused by the drug cocktail used in lethal injections, McMahan was thinking about the way her daughter died.

On Sept. 7, 1989, 31-year-old Kim Hickman was moving out of her Pacific Grove apartment when she was attacked and sexually assaulted by Kristin William Hughes, then 28.

At Hughes’ trial the next year, McMahan suffered through evidence showing that her “absolutely vibrant, beautiful daughter” survived 11 stabs to the chest and neck and died only after Hughes strangled her with his hands and suspenders.

Nineteen years – too long.

Show Kristin Hughes Some Potential Pain