Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

Well the weather has been crap around here. Yeah, yeah, I know. A couple of weeks ago I was posting pic's of sunshine and blue skies on this here blog thing, and ever since then the weather has gone straight downhill. I guess I was asking for it, but geez - rain, wind, hail, ice, snow...you name it, we've had it. It's like Mother Nature decided to cram a hundred years of weather into just two lousy weeks. So much for California Dreamin'. And in case you're wondering, the forecast for tomorrow is another storm moving in.

It's alright though. I don't mind. At least the air is clean and the hills are green and at nights you can look up and see the little stars twinkling in the heavens. Ahhhhhh....

Other than that there's been nothing happening in California. And I mean NOTHING. A couple of months ago the politicians were making speeches up in Sacramento, telling everybody that this was a new day in California, that there was a new spirit of cooperation, that the governor and the legislature were ready to roll up their sleeves and get California pointed in the right direction and all that.

Right.

Of course no one believed them, and to our credit we haven't been disappointed. I'm sure they were sincere when they said it (right), but unfortunately 2006 is an election year and both parties seem preoccupied at the moment. I guess that "getting California pointed in the right direction" stuff will have to wait.

What we have now is kind of an eerie calm, a sort of political void if you will. I don't know exactly how to describe it except to say that it's like we have two great armies camped out on either side of a river. As each side huddles around its fires and plans its strategies there is this sense of forboding hanging in the air. Oh sure, every now and then someone will make a speech and the other side will attack it and correspondents will scribble it all down, but this is mere skirmishing. There is a great battle planned for the morrow and we can only wait and watch as each side probes the other's weaknesses.

Who's gonna win? Beats me. At this early stage all the polls are showing a large undecided vote in the state. Personally, though, I think Arnold should call his agent and see if there are any movie offers for 2007. Hate to say that because I thought he had some good ideas, but in the end he proved too politcally green behind the ears to really make a go of it. In fact, his had to be the Titanic of political careers. I mean he started out so fast and strong and looked so unsinkable, and then he hit that iceberg called "the California public employees unions" and, man, I've never seen a politician take on so much water or sink so fast. Of course there are some pundits who say he can still mount a comeback but I don't see how. Not when the Democrats hate his guts and when the Republicans aren't really sure and when he's got his bow buried in 100 feet of sand at the bottom of the ocean.

Oh well, stranger things have happened.

Let's see, I've talked about the weather, I've talked a little politics, hmmm...what else is going on in the ol' Golden State. Oh yeah, the Mercury News. The San Jose Mercury News, our little local gazette, was bought by the McClatchy Group this week, whereupon they promptly put it back on the auction block to be sold again. They haven't found a buyer yet but I'm sure they're working on it. I'd suggest taking out an ad in the classifieds but then who reads the classifieds anymore. Better to post it up on Craigslist, eh?

No, no, no, I don't want to kick 'em when they're down. I've always thought it was a fine paper and certainly a hell of lot better than that pink and green thing they read up north, but these are hard times for the newspaper business. Actually it's not the "news" part that's having such a hard go of it, it's more the "paper" part. Seems like more and more people are getting their news from the internet these days and don't see much value in paying the papers 50 cents for day old news, not when they can get the up-to-the-minute stuff off the Net for free. Frankly I don't know what the newspapers can do about it. About all I can suggest is www.blogspot.com, although the pays not so good.

The real problem is advertising, of course. Advertisers want that "targeted" advertising like you can get on the internet, and they aren't real enthusiastic about newspapers anymore. Which brings up an interesting point. Namely, I see Google Adsense ads all over the place but I can't recall the last time I ever clicked on one. In fact, I don't think I've ever clicked on one except by accident. Now I know I'm not normal this way, and that all of the rest of you out there surfing the net are clicking on these things like crazy and that's why Google's stock is going up and up and it's market cap is soon going to be larger than the combined market caps of the entire S&P 500, but I just think it's strange. All you new economy analysts and Web 2.0 pundits out there - are you really sure this Adsense thing is the miracle it's been touted to be? I guess it is, but I'm not sold on the idea yet. Maybe one day I'll click on one of these ads and it will all make sense.

Adsense, that is.

Anyways, it's a tough time to be in the newspaper business. If it's any consolation to you newspaper people out there let me say that I still read the paper sometimes. Don't get me wrong, most of my news comes over the internet but I still need the paper for the state and local news. For all it's advantages that's something the internet has never been very good at. It's great if you want the time, date and weather in Bangladesh, but it's not so great if you want to know about corruption down at City Hall. Not that you can't find that information on the net, but only if you're searching for it.

So that's the business news. Anything else I left out. Oh yeah, the Sports. Hey, how about those Forty-Niners!

Come to think of it, maybe I'll just skip the sports.