Des Moines, Iowa - Rankings Intermission: Pawn Shops

Hey Des Moines!!!  Today we're gonna discuss the kings and princes of Rip-Off-Dom, Pawn shops!  And yes, DES MOINES' OWN pawn shops even.

Now, please, if you will, remember:  I do indeed have a couple of favorites here in our fair city.  More than once, these people saved my life, and what's more, they even held my stuff almost FOREVER until things improved.  They didn't, and the pawn store ended up having to sell my things...but by God they were awful swell about it.

There are two above reproach, in my opinion.  SOLAR LOAN - Ingersoll Avenue, just short of 35th Street as you head west from downtown, and POLK COUNTY PAWN, out Hubbell avenue, just outside of the city limits, as you head towards your Altoona Wally World.  I love these guys, they are princes among men, by all standards, do business with no one else, if you can.

Running a close 3rd, there is the EZ Pawn Chain, both on N.E. 14th and S.E. 14th; formerly of Mr. Money fame.  These people are fairly honest, and are, really, the best place to get...say a used computer or flat panel TV.  With the computers, they have neat deal, that when you pay 10% of the price of the PC you buy first, you can get a kind of insurance that allows you to upgrade your PC within 6 months by only paying the difference btwn. the first one you buy; and the 2nd one.  Quite a bargain.

There are, though, those I rate....not so highly.  The Pawn Store, on 30th and Douglas, has kind of a not so great owner, though his main employee, a quiet fair guy does present himself well, and is someone I like to deal with on occasion.  Should you have to deal with it's owner, however, be prepared to be low-balled.

My biggest complaint, however, lies with A to Z Pawn.  My suggestion, these days, as well as many other days, is avoid this one like your life depends on it.  Especially since it usually does.  This guy will take you to the cleaners and back again, and makes claims he has no intention of backing up...like giving the best price for gold in the city.  You'll be lucky to get half of that.  He also will never back up anything he sells to you, even if you just bought it an hour ago.

I remember this shop as being the ONLY shop I would go to.  Once, however, we had a crap load of real gold items, that were of the 24 and 18 karat variety, and a lot of it to boot.  On a whim, I took this stuff to Mr. Money, and received nearly $3000 for it on a pawn.  Wow.  I took it there often, and rarely received any less, even when the prices rose and fell.  Once, I mentioned the gold to the owner of A to Z, a guy named Ty (who still owns it).  He said "Why do you take it there?  NOBODY gives more for gold than I do!"  After discussing it a few times, he suggested I bring it to him for an appraisal of the amount he would give me for it.  Because we had gotten to be a bit chummy, I agreed to it once.

I took it to him and left it with him.  He came up with a figure of $1800 for me.  I looked him dead in the face and said "But they give me $3000."  He scoffed, and said "You're crazy.  There's no way"; and reiterated that NOBODY gave more for gold.

I then took it to Mr. Money, and called him.  Ty answered the phone, and I said "Here's a clerk at Mr. Money"...I handed him the phone and said "Tell him the amount you're about to give me, willya?"  He said $3000, and I heard him yell a bit, then the clerk said "He hung up".  I wasn't the least bit surprised, to be honest.

It would be a long time before I graced his door again...not until I got the idea to buy used computers instead of new ones.

I bought 4 laptops from him this last year, nearly 3 years after the "Gold Fiasco".  I even brought a friend of mine to buy another.  Then I bought one that had a bad battery.  The redheaded guy, who had been with Ty nearly 4 years, was nice enough to let me pick out another one.  I left the bad one, and had an issue with the new one and brought it back too, and left it there to be checked out by a friend of the redheaded clerk.  When I came back and picked it up, Ty came from the back room and said "You brought back an Acer and said it had a bad battery.  There's nothing wrong with that PC, I looked at it myself."  Shaun, the clerk, had even looked at it and said the same thing as I had, and had allowed me to change it out, since I had just bought it the day before.  "You can never come back into this store again, asshole", he said, and walked back to his office.  The clerk who had been nice to me was fired the same day.  Wow.  All because I called him out on his gold prices some 3 years prior.

When you decide on a pawn store in this town, just remember this:  Whatever your item is worth, you'll get approximately a quarter of its worth.  Whatever they give you for it, they intend to sell it at twice the price they gave you, about half of its worth.  If they want to give you less for it, pawn it to a friend or a relative instead, or just hold onto the damn thing.  Trust me, at 30% interest (25% at Solar Loan, by the way...and Steve, the owner, is the coolest pawn shop owner this side of the Mississip) a month, you're better off anyway.

As for buying anything at one, well, I've pretty much told you where to go.  Take my advice, and my ratings, the only ones worth going to are the ones I've told you about.  :D

Des Moines, Iowa - Part VI: The Rankings Continued

Wha?  Oh yeah....Now I remember this blog!!!!  Yeah, I'm really sorry.  I've been a bad boy.  I've been screwing around with my other blog, America's Deadly Sins again.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I'm an ass, of this there is no doubt.  It means NOTHING TO ME, I swear it!!!

But look, I just GOTTA get back to this stupid rankings list...for reallies.  Let's get back to it, shallllllll we???

#1 For Up and Coming Downtown. - Forbes Magazine.

For those of you totally lost as to the rankings I'm referring to here, these are the ones posted here on the Des Moines Partnership page, here:

https://www.desmoinesmetro.com/en/dsm_metro_info/rankings/

OMG, I believe I'm going to be kinda sick.  Of every single city in this great nation of ours, how can this possibly BE??  I mean, look, you've already heard me bitch about the homeless thing, the public transportation thing, the tech hubs (under the radar), the functions thing, then of course, there's the fire that was set ON PURPOSE to the Younker's bldg., which has been here since the beginning of time, and never caught on fire even ONCE during that time...until it was scheduled to be torn down...then it became a towering inferno, screwing up the place where my wife's been working for 13 years in the process, in order to get it down quicker, but it has, because of that fire screwed more things up in the process, as well as completely screwed up traffic on one of the biggest streets in the downtown area; as far as getting from north to south.  No one, however, is even talking about that.  What better way to get it down quickly so they can be even more "up and coming" with our new and wonderful downtown.  Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.

Believe what you wanna, but I gotta tell you kids, that whole chasing the homeless thing outta the downtown area and away from the bridges is gonna do nothing but cause you more grief in the long run.  I also noticed that slick secretive move where Hubbell realty bought up the Jefferson, the bldg. next to it, and the Elliot.  I don't believe Hubbell Realty buys anything in this town unless the plan is to tear it down and build something new and shiny, displacing ALL affordable housing in the downtown area.

Now don't get me wrong....I had ZERO love for Jim Nahaus, the man was a slum lord from hell...no one could be happier about getting him out of downtown that I am.  BUT, here's what's gonna happen now kiddies, now that the last bastion of pseudo-affordable housing is now gone forever:  Rent prices will SKYROCKET.  You like living downtown in our nice "up-and-coming" downtown?  Enjoy it while it lasts.  I'm shocked as hell that the Randolph hasn't been taken out to the woods, shot and left for dead, but I'm sure it's coming; then you might as well start looking for a nice place that you can afford on 6th Avenue, just North of downtown, because that'll be the only place you'll ever see the kind of housing prices you're enjoying now, again.  Thank GOD for the up and comingness of downtown Des Moines, though,  Who gives a flying rat's behind about the rest of it, as long as the downtown area is the s***, right?  Man, oh man.  Someday soon, mark my words, we're gonna rank as the #1 ghost town.

Homelessness In Des Moines, Iowa...and Around the World

http://www.exposingtruth.com/utahs-plan-eradicate-homelessness-actually-working

Hey Kids....sorry I blew ya off, been a b-b-b-b-bizzay boy yannow.

So let's get ourselves back to the subject of homelessness.  You folks that are paying attention, might just notice that I posted an exact duplicate of this post in my bigger blog, found here:

http://themightyswordamericas26deadlysins.blogspot.com

Just blow it off.  I decided this would be good for both blogs, and is pretty much the same, maybe with a tweak er two.

Now, it was said...more than likely in the first post on this subject, the fact that there is 5 times as many empty places as there are homeless people.  For those of you reading that fact for the first time, I'll give you a minute to let that sink in...

(Time has ticked away)....So how did you like that one, huh?  Nice.  Well, here's some things I believe that are even nicer.

Every day, more and more apartments are going up in my hometown.  Lofts, mostly.  Meant to be attractive to white collar young folks just looking at Des Moines for the first time.  Now, if you go back and forth between the Des Moines blog and this one, you'll note that the focus of this town, which is pretending to be massively bigger than it really is, is to attract people to the city itself, as well as rejuvenate the downtown area.  The problem is, as they do this, there are things that they're doing at the same time that absolutely make me ill.  I'm pretty much certain that they're doing this in every metro area over 100,000 folks, or my name isn't...uh...isn't....oh, never mind.

The only really efficient homeless shelter in this city is right smack downtown...has been for ages.  CISS (Central Iowa Shelter and Services) started out here in the old Trailways bus station.  I remember driving by it in the 80's wondering why it was that 50 or so people were asleep on mats on the floor.  They then relocated a little bit south and west of downtown, to a much bigger building.  Later on, that one would be deserted due to bedbugs, and the obviously growing homeless problem, forcing them to build up a new shelter, one that wouldn't take any more females, but would house 2x the male population.  It didn't do a lot of good.  Why, is obvious.

1.  There are 3x as many people that are homeless in this country than there was 10 years ago.  I'm afraid you're gonna have to get a much bigger shelter.

2.  The people that were homeless to begin with...are still homeless.  I used to work at this shelter back in the day...and because I've been homeless a few times since then, I've had to utilize this place's services for myself a few various eras in my life.  The thing I loved about is was, the same damn people that had been there 10 years prior to that were still coming there to stay!!!  The same men, women and vets are still utilizing the system.  That's really helping.

3.  In an attempt to attract more professionals to the city, you're just going to attract the attention of the more undesirable types as well.  The homeless, allowed to reside indefinitely at CISS, call their homeless friends and homeless relatives.  "Come on down you guys!!  This city'll take care of you!"  Then when the days they're allowed to stay (90 days, but longer with special circumstances) run out, well, guess where they're gonna camp?  As close to downtown as they can, til they're allowed back in, 90 days later.  This is, of course, where all the free meals are served too.

Worse yet, they bring all of these events downtown to get in the way of everyone going everywhere in the city, and they put them up around the same area...as well as build the majority of the lofts there; and build a whopping block-long sculpture park just 3 or so blocks away from it...then call the police, hire security, and physically patrol all areas around it in an attempt to get them away from it all; all the while wondering why it is they have people passed out drunk in the sculpture park, hiding out in the parking garages close by, and camping under the bridge of MLK Pkway (East/West) and caught stealing things at the events.  Geeeeee........I wunder why??? errrrrrrrr........

What you don't seem to get, America, is that the problem is growing, and will continue to grow.  Not because you're not chasing them off well enough, but because MORE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE HOMELESS EVERY YEAR.  Because the problem isn't how we help people out, which by the way is a problem too, but because of a lot of different things that we didn't have before.

1.  A much higher population.

2.  The highest unemployment rate...well, EVER!!

3.  Affordable housing...

I really don't think I have to rehash every single reason again, do I???  Just See "Homelessness" in this blog, if you're really and truly lost.

One problem I did mention just a couple of paragraphs ago, and want to and didn''t cover in the first blog post, is not only our attitudes towards the homeless, but the most obvious problem of social disconnection we have today.  Gone forever, I'm sure, are the days when we helped each other in times of trouble.  You people are, quite simply, ASSHOLES when it comes to people who need your help.

Think I'm joking? Try a little experiment in your spare time.  Call all of your best friends.  Tell them you just lost your job, and it looks as though you might not make your next house payment.  Oh, you'll get all the sympathy you could ever want...but call them a week later, and tell them you lost your home, and you have nowhere for you, your wife/husband and two kids to stay...and watch how quickly they scatter.  You'll be amazed how little help you're offered or actually receive.

Selfish, immature, close-minded, and closed doored.  As long as everything is going swimmingly, you're my best friend, but when times are hard, and I really need your help?  You couldn't run far enough.  I'm lucky to get you on the phone, at least not until my troubles are fixed again.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't need friends like that in my life.  That's probably why I don't have but one or two anymore.  :D

P.S. - By the way, Utah has a plan to eradicate homelessness entirely....that's WORKING.  You guys might wanna check it out, HUH???

http://www.exposingtruth.com/utahs-plan-eradicate-homelessness-actually-working/

Des Moines, Iowa - Events and Transportation Part C

http://www.iowanazarene.org/2013/08/09/deep-fried-ministry/

Hey kids!!!  It's the first weekend of the state fair, and I'm PISSED!!

Not only is the entrance to the fair up $2 once again (it's $12 just to get past the friggin' gate now.  One full hour of my pay)....well, a couple of things have happened already this morning that have me fired up.

First, my phone is dead.  And I'm a public transport guy, as you well know.  So, a friend of mine wanted to go to the fair today, and per his wont, he parks at the park and ride of 7th Street, miles from the Central Dart Station.  He gets on the bus that comes by there (of which I saw at least 3 more headed there as I was headed away from there.  Why didn't I take the same bus he did?  And why did I have to go to Dart Central?  Well that would be because I have a bus pass that I pay monthly for....somewhere around $48.  Does someone wanna tell me why it is that I had to walk nearly a mile to get to bus central, because the state fair buses won't allow its dedicated riders to take the fair buses that go to the park and ride station?  I have to pay $2 to ride that bus, or wait 45 minutes and walk to Dart Central to get a bus out there, severely inconveniencing me, the guy who probably owns half of Dart Central by this time, considering I've been riding these stupid buses for nearly 37 years.

Now, why did I mention that my phone was dead you ask?  Well, this would probably be because, upon entering Dart Central and noticing that my phone was dead, I immediately began looking for an outlet...and found nary a one.  Upon thinking of Java Joe's, the coffee shop they had built to go along with DC?  They had....count 'em with me....40.  FORTY OUTLETS!!!!!  The deal with that though, is that I have to buy something at JJ's ridiculous prices to use them.

Dart Central was built just in the last year.  You would imagine, with ALL of the devices there are in the world today, that this place, that is SO much in bad need of ridership would be just a little accommodating to their clientele.  Oh sure, they have wi-fi...but if you have to pay the coffee shop to charge your devices, then why bother with their wi-fi?  Dart, you are SO WRONG FOR THAT.  Makes me want to continue using your service more everyday.  Unbelievable.  Oh yeah.  The Iowa State Fair.  Nothing compares.  Nothing compares to the bullcrappy way Des Moines' own citizens are treated maybe.

Des Moines, Iowa - Part V, Events and Public Trasportation (Part B)

http://www.metro-magazine.com/news/story/2009/08/iowa-unveils-first-hybrid-bus.aspx

So, I suppose you were wondering what happened to the public transportation thingy?  Oh c'mon, have a li'l patience, willyaalready?  Here it is!!

So whaddya say we move right along to the bus system.  Now, I've been riding the MTA/DART since I was a wee guy...or at least as wee as 15 yr. old teens get, that is...and there's quite a bit that I've had to complain about, of this you can be certain.  One of things that always seems to irritate me the most is that we can always afford hybrid 3 busses with all the bells and whistles, but we can't ever seem to afford to update to the quality service that we should have with said new busses.

I moved away a few times to the wonderful little capital city of Madison, WI on a few occassions...and the thing I always noticed was how phenomenal and way ahead of us the bus system was there.  Granted, one of the biggest colleges in the midwest is located in the city, UW.  With over 10,000 students there at any one given time; most without cars; they had best have a great bus system, no question.  There's oh so much we could learn about the bus system from these people, however, and if we were to ever implement any of it, we might just boast the same numbers in our ridership as well.

Let's take a look at all the glaringly noticeable differences in the two systems (remember, this was the last time I was there, in 2009...I'm sure they've already improved it massively by now).

DES MOINES:  Dart Central, a brand new station in the lower downtown area.  Here, you can buy your bus passes, complain a lot, and pick up schedules.  As soon as you walk outside the building, you may just notice a security officer running towards you, because you chose to take the quickest route to the bus you want, because it looks like it might be on it's way out of the station.  After the security officer (or the bus driver, or the supervisor, or anybody with any kind of a helpful nature) diverts you to a central strip of walk that you have to go clear out of your way to get to, because you had to catch the bus that's directly parallel to the one you got off of, you have to go half way west, then back to the east side of the station again, because you can't walk anyplace off of that walk, unless you go back inside.  When you just about get there, the bus begins to pull off, because it's time he gets going.  You wave frantically at the driver to get him to hold up for you, but he totally ignores you and drives straight ahead in order to get away from you.  You see, once a bus begins to pull away, it doesn't matter if you lay in front of it, he'll wait til you get up and move away, then he'll leave you again, because once they pull away from the ramp, it's too late, and you have to wait for the next one.  Also, when the busses get here, don't always expect to get right on it, because this is now where the bus drivers take their breaks.  If you run out in the cold to catch him from leaving you, you end up waiting, because actually, this is his break time, and he just got off...and now you have to stand out in the cold til he gets back - in five minutes, or right up to the time he has to leave, you never know.  Since you're now starting to get cold, you might turn to go back inside, and then the driver comes back, pulls two inches away from the curb, and now you're stuck waiting for the next one.

MADISON:  They have a central station as well.  The only time the busses go there is if the drivers are coming on or getting off.  The routes all come downtown, just like in Des Moines, but they go all the way around the square in Madison, making sure that you don't have much of a chance to miss it.  If you slap the bus, they'll stop for you.

DES MOINES:  Bus passes are $48 for a month.  If you buy one on June 1, then you lose it June 2nd, and you were smart enough to know that if you wrote down all the numbers that identify it, they can stop whoever found the pass from using it, then when they've done this, they'll issue you another.  Of course, this could be a week or so later, forcing you to buy a weekly one to tide you over at $16.  If you're not much into this course of action, then you could be forced to buy another $48 bus pass, now good for only 29 days instead of the original 30 or 31 days.

MADISON:  They sell you a 31 day bus pass.  There, they have a printer on each bus.  You can keep the pass in your wallet for the whole year if you want, and when you decide to pull it out, you stick it in the printer, then it prints the date that you first used the pass on it, then it's good for exactly 31 days after this.  If you lose your pass, the next one is full price of course, but it's still good for 31 days from when you use it the first time.

DES MOINES:  The fare is $1.75.  When you get on, you get a free paper transfer which allows you to ride the bus again...as long as you're getting on a different route altogether, or are going in the original direction of travel on the same route.  If you go to the local grocery store, then take a bus back to your home; because it's going the opposite direction, you have to pay another $1.75.

MADISON:  The fare *was* $2.00.  When you get on, you can ask for a transfer, which is a printed card that you can use for 2 hours to go anywhere, any direction.

DES MOINES:  Your choices for passes are monthy and weekly.

MADISON:  You can buy the yearly passes, monthly passes, weekly passes and daily all-day passes.

DES MOINES:  Got GPS a couple years ago.

MADISON:  Has had verbal GPS for at least 8 years.

DES MOINES:  Takes every holiday off, whether you have to work on the holiday or not.  A third of the routes only run at peak times, morning and afternoon.  Another third stops running at around 6 p.m.  The major and busiest routes, approximately 4 of them, run til 10:45 p.m.  On Sunday, all the busses only run til 6 p.m.  On the weekend they only run about once an hour, with the more busy routes running every half hour, approximately 3 of them.

MADISON:  Every route, with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 of them, run from 6 a.m. to midnight.  They run every day, even holidays.  They don't slow down much for the weekend, although they finally slow to once an hour on the holidays.  They hit just about every street anywhere in the city, especially where all their business is.  They have four transfer points with each one having a bus that runs to a corresponding one elsewhere in the city (i.e., the north one has 3 busses that only run to other transfer points).  Their main and busiest routes change to every 15 minutes during peak times, and every single bus in Madison is full...to standing up even.

This is probably the thing I hate the most though.  If they start a new route, they run it for a season (usually til the next change), then cut it if it doesn't work out.  Now come on guys.  You gotta give people a while to realize the damn thing is running by their house, don't you???

No, no, I'm sorry...the thing I hate the MOST is the fact that every business in Des Moines has, at one time or another, moved way out West, where just about every business has gone.  Dart runs people that way maybe 2 times a day...in the morning and at night.  If you want a decent job, this is where the work is.  You can't get there, but that's where they are.  Nice.

OK.  Enough bitching for the day.  Enjoy your lunch.  :D

Des Moines, Iowa - Part V, Events and Public Trasportation (Part A)

http://iowagirlonthego.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/img_5073.jpg

Yeah, Yeah...I know.  Start something, then WHAM!!  Shiny object!!  Well, here I am again.  We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!

Hmm....where were we again?  Oh yeah...that stupid list again.  Aww screw it...there's a few things I wanna address first, hokay?

You know, I just gotta say this, there's nothing more embarrasing than living in a city that tries to be two times (or better) bigger than it really is.  What's more, there's REALLY nothing more embarrasing than a city that thinks it has great events and happenings around town...and they got diddly.  And what couldn't possibly more shameful is the fact that its citizens really buy into it.  Such is our capitol city.  We have a definate monopoly on false and unfounded pride...for truly.  In abundance.

We're gonna talk about the happenings in Des Moines, which, right along with everything I just mentioned, not only happen a lot, but also have to all happen in pretty much the same damn place.  Right smack in the middle of downtown, where everything else happens.  There are many BS reasons for this.  Amongst these are (in no particular order):

1.  To promote the downtown area.  Bring more business to downtown.  I don't know about the rest of my city, but I just gotta say that there's really no need.  Not only has pretty much every building already been replaced with big business already since I moved here in 1975, there's more than enough that already happens, without these stupid little happenings that we feel all have to be here as well, right smack dab in everyone's way.  This wouldn't be quite so bad, were it not for these two things.  A.) There's nothing I hate more than to find that I have to completely detour around the entire downtown area because there's a marathon running today...the farmer's market is today (I'm so used to this one now, it really doesn't bother me at all anymore), or the Italian or the Art festival is in full swing.  These events usually are located dead center, and block off as many as 5-10 square blocks of prime "Getting the hell out of downtown Des Moines for real, though!" real estate.  See, if you're going North or South, you're almost FORCED to go through at least SOME, if not MOST of this prime driveway, so be prepared to take a rather poorly planned detour, which I've notice goes pretty much ALL THE WAY outta the way to wherever it is that you're going.

The other thing, that pretty much goes hand in hand with this last paragraph, mind you, is the fact that a lot of the streets are one way.  Any detour that you should run across, due to these li'l happenings, is gonna be guaranteed to either a.) a minimum of 20 blocks of twists and turns, mostly out of your way by tons of quarters of miles, or b.  Get you a ticket.  It's stupid.

2.  To bring back business and businesses to the downtown areas.  WHY?  Everything that involved big money, or is to yet involve big money is now west.  Waukee, Urbandale, West Des Moines, Clive, and Windsor Heights.  We citizens gave up on the Downtown area already, eons ago, and now theyre thinking how to bring it back?  Those people aren't stupid, they've thought this through.  It's US that needs to change OUR way of thinking here...Downtown Des Moines has seen it's day, and should be kept as it is, with everything going primarily west, because I think that it's really not only our best side of town, but the only one that hasn't been screwed over by natural disasters like immigration and drug use.

There's plenty of area in our city, move some of this stuff over to those areas.  Everybody gets very confused and massively inconvenienced (as well as morally detoured) when the happenings happen.  Let's move it outwards and give it up already!!

We'll continue this in a part B.

Des Moines, Iowa - Part IV, Intermission - CityView Magazine

logo courtesy of http://www.dmcityview.com/

Well, I did promise Darren Tromblay I'd do something for him, ....on we go, eh?

I have to admit, I was rather waiting for the perfect issue.  Something I could really go on about.  See, I've always loved CityView...its quirky views, wordy writers and, of course, everyone's favorites...the RapSheet, Crimestoppers, the Des Moines Blotter...News of the Weird, etc.  Oh, and I kinda like the option to try and think up something funny for the caption of a weekly picture. I did recently notice the absence of the usual fare of criminal faces to match up with their crimes.  Also obviously missing was probably the most entertaining thing in CityView, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.  I suppose that could have either had something to do with a suggestion by Mr. Darren Tromblay, CityView's newest editor...or maybe they managed to pick on the wrong criminal; one that had a slew of cash behind him looking to pounce on the first person to take his story public, to put his/her business out there for the world to see and laugh at...and CV just happened to be the lucky recipient of that vengeance opportunity.  I guess we'll see, eh?

Every once in a while, there might even be something slightly interesting to read...story wise, and/or a good opinion or two.  Granted, there's usually more than one, in most cases.  I most certainly prefer it nine times out of ten concerning the DM Register, and 12 times out of ten, when it comes to Juice.  Juice to me is a barely past pubescent rag that sports rock shows and pub appearances more than it does usable content, and, in this writer's opinion, barely holds a candle to CivyView.  Now that my opine is starting to fall off for CV as well, I'm starting to scout around for newer options...hell, I even gave a thought towards starting my own underground rag to compete and put up at HyVee locations as well, just so they'd have another choice for the mix..

The perfect issue has by no means come along, like I previously stated, but this may be the closest I'm gonna get this year.  We'll be, of course, covering the most recent issue this time, July 24-30, Year of our Lord 2014.

Let's start with the fact that a lot of what used to be radical and different is starting to look a lot like more popular offerings.  What used to be more trendy and interesting is becoming a lot more blase.  What used to be something is becoming more run-of-the-mill with every issue.  This is pretty much the danger of anything underground, alternative or unique; as it becomes more the thing to look for in the stands, the more the consumer of such products gets catered to, and the less interesting it tends to be.

One of the things I pride myself on is that my blog, "Americas Deadly Sins" (http://themightyswordamericas26deadlysins.blogspot.com) is not advertised on, nor is traffic diverted or driven there.  Every reader is real, and every follower gained from sweat and content; they came...they saw...they followed.  I simply post it on Twitter as a tweet, share it on my google+ page, and post it on Facebook.  No one is bothered to read it, no one is made to indulge in its obvious disparity, and no one is required to comment.  It's only OUT THERE...whether you choose to go there, or read it, is entirely up to you.

I once approached CityView to become a possible contributor.  Open Source?  Came to me to contribute to them...though I haven't had much time of late to do so.  I don't know if it's my writing style, my propensity to make it personal...or my occasional swear words...who would know.  Maybe I use too many triple dots, who can say?  Maybe my content is too controversial.  Maybe I'm just too out there for most.  All I know is, I'm evidently too much, or maybe they just aren't ready for someone who opens their mouth and says it like it is.

I would have toned it down.  Heck, I even asked the editor for some help in improving my style...he said he'd be happy to at a little later time..ok, I understand, quite possibly you're under the gun...or whatever the case.  He managed to ignore my requests entirely, after a time, and yah, I'm a bit miffed....which is probably why I decided to write about them.

So what happened to my ripping them a new orifice?  Oh yeah...all righty then, let's get to it.

Help me Obi-Wan?  Surely with a new editor and smart employees, one of which was more than likely hired because he thought of more than one caption for the weekly funny pictures they feature.  So why the great picture...with a lame 34 yr. old caption?  Movin' right along...

Snake Oil?  (I didn't read it because it said that by the way...I just read it because I'm going in order trying to find things to rag about the rag...lol).  The Jody Ernst thing...that shoulda been the snake oil here.  I would have been less likely to read that story.

I cannot STAND the "Paid for by the taxpayers in..." portion of this paper.  Who cares?  We all know the city, county, state and federal governments rip us off on a daily basis, why do we need this rubbed in our faces weekly??

Oh, and I bet they were truly proud to have landed Duffy in their paper...but be careful Darren...there's an awful lot of people out there that believe in the "Send 'em packin" policy that spits in the face of a very unpopular President right now...running Duffy's latest offering makes Terry look bad, granted...and no one despises the Mustache as much as I do, believe it.  I was sick of him the first time around within months of his taking office.  But I believe, like most Americans, that the Mustache's policy here is well-founded.  Good luck recovering from this cartoon.

Last but certainly not least, with the exception of Tech Talk, a much needed section of any publication these days, the reviews (not that great) of movies, books, etc. are pretty cliche, as are the obvious attempts to print bar pics in an effort to be more Juice-like.  You're becoming way too yawn-inducing, for sure, and I think bringing you down a few pegs shouldn't take long, with the arrival of, perhaps, a more progressive paper; edited and produced by a more forward thinking in-charge type.

Sure, I still prefer them over most of the rest of the garbage in Des Moines, news or other, but I think it's time we had something that was just a bit more "alternative"...and means it.  I wont be guaranteeing anything just yet as far as a timeline for production, but let it be known that a more interesting paper for Des Moines is on it's way.