Questionable Fresno Renting

Netflix is a wonderful online movie rental business. For thirteen bucks a month, you can rent all the movies you want, three at a time. The service fee doesn’t just pay for the movie renting; you also get some cool bells and whistles on their website. My favorite is the ability to see what a city’s top rentals are. This is Fresno’s current top ten:

10. Where The Heart Is – Ashley Judd and Natalie Portman…YES!
9. Gone With The Wind – I guess I should feel stupid I’ve never seen this, apparently most of Fresno now has.
8. Kiss The Girls – Second old Ashley Judd movie…YES!
7. Pretty In Pink – Fresno loves its 80’s.
6. Carlito’s Way: Rise To Power – No Sean Penn with an epic afro? I’ll pass.
5. Pearl Harbor – Affleck will one day come to power again.
4. Never Been Kissed - I think this is a movie about me in my early twenties.
3. George Lopez: Why You Crying? – Fresno sells-out his concerts and rents a lot of his DVD’s. Latino market is big here muchachos!
2. CSI: Season 4 – I pitched to CBS an idea for a CSI Madera…no word back yet.
1. Message In A Bottle – So disappointed in Fresno. How could this be number one people? I don’t know what to say.

Fresno's Bracket Is Busted On ESPN

Ever since Tark left, ESPN has nearly forgot about the Bulldog Basketball team. But this Saturday night, Fresno State will be playing on the ESPN mother ship - College basketball fans will just have to stay up late to watch it.

The Bracket Buster game between Fresno and Creighton will be played at eleven o'clock Nebraska time. So, for once, the people of Creighton have something to do, late, on a Saturday night.

Orchard Park

Fresno is the king city of agriculture and the peasant city of parks. The central valley produces the greatest amount of food in the world and Fresno – with past developers and city officials lacking a concise towards building parks along with the track housing and strip malls – has put itself near last in city green space.

A short time ago, the city finally woke-up and signed legislation to encourage builders to think about our air pollution and create more green space. So, it’s safe to assume, there will be some new Fresno parks popping up - eventually. I have a proposal for how the next major park should be built: Place it within an orchard.

I don’t mean take an existing, working orchard, and make a park out of it. Say you’ve got the open land and you’re ready to build a park. Instead of creating a big open space of grass surrounded by some pine trees, why not have almond orchards, grape vineyards and orange groves?

There could be a mini Blossom Trail within the city limits. Mixed into these orchards there could be some paths, jungle gyms and tables. Place some signs that describe what’s growing on the trees. I’m sure some area businesses would be happy to donate the trees. The orchards could have small signs that show what person or business sponsored the trees – free advertising.

This botanical garden of fruit trees could be maintained by city workers, just like a normal park. I’m willing to bet there are some workers that know how to tend fruit or could be easily trained to. As a bonus, the fruit could be picked and sent to the Poverello House.

There’s another reason for a park full of tree food: Fresno needs to distinguish itself.

We need to create more things that are FRESNO. When you’re at Golden Gate Park you know you’re in San Francisco. If I was bopped over the head and had a potato-sack pulled over my melon, then woke-up on the shore of Mission Bay, I would immediately know I was in San Diego. We don’t live on the water so we have to use what we’ve got – “tree food”.

Orchard Park, it has a nice ring to it, Fresno. There is no other city in the world where a park, full of nuts, would fit better.

No More "Mucking It Up" Here

In an attempt to spread Fresno blogging even thinner, I've started a Fresno Falcons Blog. Half the time, I'm talking about the Falcons here anyway so might as well start a dedicated one.

So now I can focus this blog on plain gibberish instead of the hockey related kind.