New Sac City

After almost five weeks, I finally made my first visit to Sacramento today. It's not that I haven't left Davis yet; I have been down to Visalia to visit Jen, and gone to the coast with her and her parents... and I guess I've driven through Sacramento on several occasions. But never actually stopped in to check it out. Never had much of a reason to, frankly... but today I had to go pick up some new camping supplies at REI that I'd ordered online (free shipping if you have stuff sent to the store instead of to your home), so I figured I'd use the opportunity to check out the city. Or, in this case, "the shitty."

No really. Now I know why its nickname is "The Sac."

Okay, it wasn't that bad, not totally. The Midtown part is actually fine. Here's my dilemma: I'd really like to stay in Davis, but the cost of one-bedroom apartments here is exorbitant. Not SF exorbitant, but way overpriced none-the-less. The thing is, they've got UC Davis students by the balls, because they have to live here; there's really no choice. So they can jack up the price of housing all they want, and nobody can say boo.

I, on the other hand, do have a choice. Since I don't go to school at UCD, I don't technically have to live here. And so, I say 'boo.' 'Boo,' I say... 'BOOOOO'... So the foray into Sac was also an opportunity to check out where I would (and, more importantly, where I would no way in hell) live.

As I said, Midtown Sac is alright. It has that generic downtown feel; lots of restaurants, cafes, lots of green... seemed pretty clean... all in all, I could live there, and there are much more affordable options there than here.

The next step was to check out some non-Midtown areas. I had been told by everyone I talked to (literally: EVERYONE) that, were I to live in Sac, I would only want to live in Midtown and nowhere else. But I'd found an interesting ad on Craig's List, so I figured I'd drive by and see what it was like.

Oh my.

The way I guess I'd explain it is that, if Midtown is something like downtown Ballard or the Wallingford/Fremont corridor, than the place I ended up was like some of the skeevier parts of Rainier Valley or Lake Shitty. You know, that part just north of Northgate? Yeah, like that. Dirty and rundown. Car farms. No frickin' way.

So, now I know. It narrows down the options quite a bit; now I'm looking at either 1) Midtown Sac, or 2) living with people I don't know in Davis. Both come with their own pros and cons, of course. But, all in all, both are fine options.

New resolution: I'm going to try to include at least one Boros-related anecdote in every blog entry. I'm sure most of you are almost as interested in his antics as mine and, as they say, I aims to please. So, in that vein...

I figured it out. Boros doesn't move like a cat; this we all know. Here's the kicker: he moves like a bear. He's a mini-bear. Sort of like a mini-bar, but with only the appearance of being full of alcohol.

What else... oh yeah, I wanted to talk about my neighbors for a minute. For the most part fine; I've certainly had worse. But recently it appears the kids directly upstairs from me have adopted a Clydesdale. Seriously, something's running around up there that shakes my cabinets. And they pick the weirdest times for carpentry projects; they'll be pounding on shit at like 3am. I can only assume that they get really stoned and then decide they're gonna make a walk-in hookah or something. You know, like me and my friends used to do in college...

-cough-

And the neighbors to one side... again, good kids... they had a party the other weekend and came over to tell me about it during the week, said to let them know if it got too loud, to come over for a margarita if I wanted, etc. Nice guys. But... they like to play music. Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, right? Left. Every time they get going, I just want to walk over there, knock on the door, and yell, "YOU CAN'T SING!" It's sad, really. And honestly, I of all people would have NO PROBLEM with it... except they insist on amplifying themselves. So they can't sing, and they're doing it through microphones. In a huge apartment complex with paper-thin walls. Seriously, doesn't that just invite critique? Why else would you do that if you didn't want feedback? And my feedback is, "you sound like my retarded cat's poop smells. Cover that voice with some sand and try something else."

It wouldn't be so bad if the one kid didn't constantly switch into a falsetto. No really. And they try to harmonize... but all they're doing is singing the same note, one or more octaves apart. Hence the falsetto... god I'm an asshole. But I'm at my wit's end here, people! I mean, jesus god, I haven't even mentioned the hand drum yet...

Please keep in mind that this rant on the patheticness of somebody else is coming from somebody sitting at home alone on a Friday night ranting about his neighbors and blogging about his cat. The proverbial grain of salt.