The article is a good idea but I wish it had been more comprehensive. You skip right past the adventure of trying all the fries from various venues and jump right to the conclusion. We have no idea how you reached this conclusion, how large was your sample, how long this process took, etc. This degrades the article for me quite a lot. What I expected was the adventure - riding along on the quest for the perfect fry. The flat tire you got outside of one neighborhood and the hole-in-the-wall diner you found while waiting for the tow truck driver. The attempt to make the perfect fry at home, a survey of respondents about what is, in fact, the generally accepted ideal fry - that sort of thing.

I suppose that's the sort of disassociation required if you're to do commission work to which you thereafter hold no claim. I envy his ability to let it go. Also, I don't know whether it was his legal responsibility to determine who owned the wall - it would seem that it would have fallen to him - but the shop owner next door should not have paid him to do it before asking... law or otherwise. She knew it was not her wall so that should have wrapped it up.

You've lost me. I don't see how having a modicum of carry-on accessories can prevent one's eating of sold-out-halfway-through-the-day, drving-from-Rio-Linda-to-get-some cupcakes. Cupcakes are, after all, superior to cake in that their proportions are delicately balanced and personalized. You must have another reason you're not stating - which is fine, understand... but don't feed me this line about the camera bag. It doesn't even make any sense. We want to eat this cupcake vicariously and you've left us on the side of the bed, crying. (At anonymous thumbs down: obviously this was humor)

Love that liberal tolerance of Christians. Don't bother saying you only mean "right-wing religious crackpots" since we all know that's just your word for Christians. I think the AZ law was fine, but that's totally irrelevant. Our city government should stick to city issues... as if we didn't have enough of those to keep them busy. I couldn't force myself to agree more with Ahsan Awan's point above.

Toughenup makes a point I hadn't considered with regard to CPS, shrouded as my judgement is by the fact that I hate them, a lot. This is the same problem I have with "hate crimes" legislation - there is no need to reclassify crimes into boutique, tendy new crimes. Simply prosecute the actual crime and make the punishment stick.

Of course I understand, technically, that anecdotal evidence is just that - and I would not, as you say your former commenter did, rely merely on my personal experience. What I said was said in anger, and though I mean it (that no PR campaign of CPS would sway me) if you say the data trends well for them, I'm glad to hear it. The things that went on during that time (yes our case was early nineties) was an outrage.

Excellent, quick story. Great photos. This is why I visit the site.

On a related note, my bias against child protective services will cause me to believe any horrific thing said about them. No public relations campaign they may wage will ever change that. My grandmother ran a childcare service in Midtown Sacramento for so long that children she had once watched were then bringing their own new children to her for care. Of a set of twins, one (who had been to some regressive psycho therapy) believed my grandfather had molested her. Though her twin and her Mother both said it was impossible - and all earthly evidence proved otherwise (there was no such room in the house as she described, my grandfather was out of the country during the time she described) the CPS still pre-emptively shut down her business and ruined them financially over the course of 4 years of ridiculous deliberation.

If I'm not mistaken, don't they eat mosquitos? For that reason alone I have always smiled every time I see a big group of them flying near the bridges over the river, heading down I-5 on my way home.

Fine, go to a place in a park where there is a public picnic and pee in the mashed potatoes.

Agreed x10. This is precisely what I meant.

I don't have any problem with the Tea Party Patriots (I'm a conservative and I frankly support their movement as I support all individual freedom and political movements), nor do I believe (as the other commenters are insinuating) that it is a 'white' group. However, this is a poorly written article. Thumbs down, sorry.

If I may, I can't be the only user who stopped reading or commenting based on that one user alone disrupting the civility of the posts. I believe you could call him notorious even... for such a young site he was nearly as well known as the site itself. A fixture. I am able to return knowing he is gone, after all his personal attacks on me.

Your question seems to be "how can I gloss over these 2 things - pride of ownership and long term sustainability (since those will never happen) and what more icing can be put on to make it work, regardless?" but I just don't think it will. As I say - I'm not trying to doom it by my skepticism and I wish it would work. I wish you could instill values into people but some don't want to learn how to fish. On the edges this project seems to have dreamt new icing I hadn't considered... icing which might make this one edible regardless of the cake and I applaud that.

I am the reader, that's who in the world I am. That's why I want citations. I want to know if it's true, so I can be appaled at that and not merely the terrible article.

"They quarrel, who cannot argue" -GK Chesterton

oh, I see that now. A D40 even. I'm not sure they all had it at the top there - I was sure I had tried it before. Thanks Kati.

It's the foppery of the lords - their white wigs to hide their bias. You recognize, do you not, that reporters are a different breed of people - able to discern so much more, to probe so much deeper than a mere human. To do this requires the concentration and silence of the press box. If they were to enjoy the game, well.... isn't that bias? Despite all their preparation we see that their new clothes are not clothes at all.

Am I the only one who wants meta data on these photos? I'm always curious what camera was used, aperature, iso and shutter speed. I love good photography (and nerdy details)

Someone once responded to one of your posts that you were an unalterable hatemonger with nothing better to do that crap on every single comment you find. I thought then that they were exaggerating and should have apologized but now I see they had probably read more of your posts than I had at the time. You are every bit as small as they insinuated. Try reading my post again to see if you can actually find a reason to accuse me of the thinking you've ascribed to me. Better yet, stop commenting on every single thread in the entire site or at least try responding to the content rather than slinging generic sarcasm.