Togo’s must feel your pain…

Flash Back to the 70s when students of San Jose State would pay out a whopping $1.99 for a 6″ Togo’s classic sandwich.

Did you know that in 1968, the very first Togo’s opened on East William Street near 7th St in downtown San Jose?

To cheer us up, Togo’s on Wednesdays anyway, will return us to those thrilling days of yesteryear and once again ask for that same 70s price.

This thoughtfulness started on Wednesday October 1st and will run for seven more weeks (including today).

What a deal details.

While out making the political rounds, I found myself at the Vote No On Prop 8 HQ here in San Jose.

I am one conservative who urges a No Vote On Prop 8.

Same-sex couples should not be treated differently under the law.

Yes Rosanne, now you are famous! Thanks for holding up the sign.

The Vote No On 8 site.

At 43 East Gish I found volunteers manning the front desk of the new Obama HQ. - (408) 453-4021

Event Watch Party - Oct. 7th
5:00pm
Debate: 6:00pm
RSVP: (408) 453-2135
(You may want to call first)

OBAMA

I stopped by the San Jose Republican Headquarters at 522 Monroe Street - Near Valley Fair Mall‎.

Kimberlee invites Metblog readers to visit the Party site for information.

Event: Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley
Date: October 7, 2008
Time: 7PM
Location: The American Legion Hall, 958 Homestead Road, Santa Clara, CA 95050

Gary’s excellent post reminded all of you to register before Oct. 20. Go do that. Now. You should also be informed about what you’re voting for, so here’s where to go for information. (If this list is too overwhelming, I would stick with smartvoter.org, easyvoter.org and politifact.com.)

LOCAL

Smart Voter
Enter your address and see everything that will be on the ballot in your neighborhood — every person running for your district, every measure that applies to your area. If you did not already get your voters’ guide in the mail, this is the perfect place to start.

County election offices
Since this blog covers much of the South Bay, you may be located in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Mateo or Alameda counties. Here is where you can register to vote, check if you’re registered and download information on local elections.

San Jose Mercury News Elections section
You can make an argument about bias one way or the other, but never mind that — it does have good information that could help you decide on local issues.

STATE

California Voter Information Guide
The official voter guide from the Secretary of State. This is the online version of what you should have received in your snail-mail box.

Easy Voter
A plain-English site that spells out nicely who is running, what the California propositions mean, and who is opposed to what and why.

Secretary of State elections
This site outlines how to get ON the ballot, whether as a candidate or introducing an initiative. It’s too late for this election, naturally, but a good resource nonetheless.

NATIONAL

Politifact
If you’re tired of trying to figure out which national candidate to believe, this is a great resource to see quickly who just lied about what.

Factcheck
Another great fact-checking resource From the Annenberg Public Policy Center. This goes more in-depth than Politifact.

Open Secrets
Follow the money: see who is donating to candidates and elected officials.

EDITED TO ADD:

Project Vote Smart
Look up your candidates and current office-holders by zip code, then easily find their voting record, public statements, speeches and videos. This site excels with the lesser-known local and state representatives. An invaluable resource.

Glassbooth
Still not sure who you’re voting for in the presidential race? This site will quiz you on your core values and match you with a candidate.

This morning I stopped by my local Safeway to pick up a container of raspberries. Near the front of the store I noticed a display for a free DVD. All I would have to do was to buy $40 in home care products in a single transaction then Iron Man would be mine. They were specific products like Bounty paper towels, Duracell, Kleenex Reynolds foil and others. Pushing the cart down each aisle I saw that the products for the promotion had special price tags indicating that they were participating items. I carefully selected the products worth $40, and then some, the raspberries, other groceries, and the DVD.

The man at the checkout told me that my plastic bags of stuff did not qualify for a free movie. Why not? I had followed all of the rules and surely I had well over the specified $40. He could only direct me to the customer service desk.

Resolving the problem with Tiffany, at the desk, should have been easy. She asked me which of the items would get me the movie. Shouldn’t she have known this? I told her that it would be all that was non-eatable. Using an oh-so bothered tone of voice she asked me to follow her back to a checkout.

Picking off of master list, she would call out the products not found on it. This is where it got ugly. When I told her that she was wrong because I had noted the special price tag for each item purchased, she said that she would attempt to explain it to me. Attempt!!! I let Tiffany know that I did not appreciate her inferring that I was too stupid to shop at Safeway. I followed with, “I might be better off getting a refund”. She was all ready for that, but I wasn’t about to let her win the war! I stood my ground until she marched off to the manager’s office. She returned asking a co-worker to put the stuff back into the cart, for she was letting me have it all. I asked if that meant that the things I bought were actually correct. Not admitting to the mistake she said that she had customers waiting, mumbling something about getting me out of the store. I wasn’t a customer? She obviously found out that some of the products had not been entered into the store computer correctly. No apology for me, and I had to remind her that she still owed me the almost $20 for the so-called free DVD.

File under: Customer Service From Hell.

There are a couple of guys wandering around the country offering magic potions, each magic potion having its own ingredients to cure all of your grievances. They want to be your best friend. Well, they want to be your friend at least until early November.

If you are planning to vote in the November 4 Presidential General Election and you have never registered before or you need to re-register you must do so by October 20.

You will need to re-register if you have moved, changed your name or wish to change the political party from your previous registration.

You can download and print a form from the Registrar of Voters Website here. Look for the Register to Vote link on the left.

You can also pick up the registration forms at post offices, libraries, and most local government offices and at the registrar’s office, 1555 Berger Drive, Building 2, San Jose.

Mailed registration forms that are postmarked no later than October 20 will be accepted. Voters may also return the forms to the registrar’s office no later than October 20.

If you are uncertain that you are registered to vote, check here.

More voter information on the Secretary of State Website here.

Registrar of Voter’s Office: 408-299-8683

We at Metroblogging San José write about what’s happening in the greater South Bay area. If you take a look at our blogroll - bottom of the page - you will notice that we link to several local neighborhood and community sites. A visit to them will take you back to the days of chit-chat over the garden fence.

Northside Neighborhood Association 

Willow Glen Extra

Willow Glen 2.0 is proclaiming: Help Your Neighbor Day.

Do you have a local neighborhood-community site or blog?

The September (Autumnal) Equinox occurred this morning at 8:44am, the time when the sun crosses the equator.

Equinox derives from the Latin words meaning “equal night” is either of the two times during the year that the sun crosses the celestial equator and appears directly above the equator that divides the earth into the northern and southern hemispheres. When this occurs, the length of the day and the night are approximately equal at every place on earth. Day and night during the September equinox is not exactly equal length. There is anywhere from six to more than ten minutes additional daylight. The sun appears south of the equator in the time between the September equinox and the March equinox.

At an equinox, neither Earth’s north pole nor its south pole is tilting away from or toward the sun. Both poles are more or less evenly illuminated. The September equinox marks the beginning of northern hemisphere autumn and southern hemisphere spring.

At least we usually have agreeable weather through October. A rainy winter would be nice to help do away with those drought concerns. Then, back to spring and summer!

Yesterday word got out about San Jose State’s foray into the digital world, of which they’re supposed to be located smack dab in the middle but still find creative ways to be behind.

A bit of that is changing now. I am talking about SJSU’s entry into iTunesU, a section of iTunes that offers podcasts and videocasts from over 100 institutions of higher learning, from Stanford to Yale to Berkeley. Professors can choose whether to publish their podcasts to the knowledge-thirsty public, or distribute their lectures to too-lazy-to-go-to-class students. And although I lovingly chide SJSU about its ironic techno-lag, credit must be given to SJSU for being the first in the California State University system to partner up with iTunesU.

Right now, SJSU doesn’t have many full lectures per se, although a physics teacher has been getting busy with the lecture podcasting. But most downloads available are more like short snippets of audio information, ranging mostly from 3-20 minutes long. Still, much of it is interesting, from the economics professor to the library grad students to counseling, recreation and career center services.

SJSU is also unique in that it is one of two universities on the iTunesU network to be fully accessible by those with disabilities. Namely, PDF transcripts are posted alongside the podcasts if you’re hearing-impaired. (Read more about it here.)

Not only can you read what’s being said, but professors can also post additional material, flyers and handouts in their virtual classrooms.

Exciting stuff. I’ve been a fan of iTunesU even before I was officially a student. I already downloaded several fantastic podcasts from the Stanford iTunes U site, so it’s great to see SJSU joining the bandwagon. Its offerings are a bit meager at first, compared to Stanford’s at least, but no one here is comparing SJSU to Stanford. I’m just excited to see the huge potential for the public who want to learn but don’t have the time or the funds.

Click here to see everything iTunesU has to offer, or click on the button below to see SJSU’s offerings for yourself. (Note: Both links will open your iTunes.)