Monday, October 26, 2009

Want Delicious Pizza? Head to Roma's!

Taking that first bite of pizza from Roma's Pizzeria II must not be too different from entering the gates of heaven.

The cheese is tasty, the toppings are fresh, the sauce is neither sparse nor overpowering, and the crust is crispy but still delightfully fluffy. When it all mixes together on your tongue, it practically tickles your taste buds with pure joy before filling you with deliciousness. Indeed, the pizza is great. Now if only the rest of the experience measured up to what is some of the best pizza available in Sacramento.

This particular experience at Roma's II took place on a Wednesday, around 5 pm. The restaurant was not particularly busy; there were maybe fifteen patrons. When I walked in I was greeted by a waitress, and I escorted myself to the table where my companion Kyle sat. Sadia joined us within a few minutes, and we were ready to enjoy some tasty food.

The menus were simple and easy to understand, and the group decided on a pizza, with half pesto and half olives and pepperoni. Side salads were ordered for each person. It was a painless process, and the waitress was nice and accommodating, smiling at us as we ordered.

While waiting for the food to arrive, the atmosphere made its impression. The Italian music playing throughout was nice and audible over the large group of young girls who had just finished a soccer game, and the windows had green and red curtains. There wasn't much decoration, or really much to the restaurant besides the open kitchen, enough tables to sit perhaps 50 or so people, and a television hanging in the corner with nothing on it. I was told that football games are generally aired when available.

In all, there was nothing strange of off-putting about the restaurant, but a native Italian would not feel like they were back home if they stepped into Roma's.

After about five to ten minutes, the side salads arrived. Consisting of green lettuce topped with tomatoes and salami, the salad was a nice beginner, although it was a tad small and slightly watery. The salami helped make up for the size, and the blue cheese dressing was nice. Overall, a good starting salad, but not enough for salad lovers to go crazy for, especially for the price of around $3.50.

Roughly fifteen minutes after the salads were served, the pizza came.

It was incredible.

The pizza was warm and had an incredibly fresh feel to it. The cheese stretched when you pulled it off the tray in a most satisfying way. The pesto pizza had a pesto sauce/spread instead of the typical tomato sauce. The quantity was just about perfect. The pesto added enough flavor to the pizza to give it a great taste, and the cheese still made its lovely impression. As a pesto fan, I could not have been more pleased.

The olive and pepperoni side was just as delicious. The tomato sauce was not too light or too thick. It was simply full, providing the right amount of heft and taste sauce should have. It provided a great base for the plentiful cheese and toppings. The olives were as good as olives could be, not too big, not too small, not too soft, not too firm. The pepperoni was evenly placed, and not overly greasy as many pepperoni pizzas tend to be. The olive and pepperoni pizza provided near perfection, with every element having just the right amount of consistency and taste that makes a great pizza great.

While the pizza was already delicious, it was the crust that turned the pizza from amazing to downright heavenly.

The crust was crispy on the outside, but soft, warm and fluffy on the inside. Like a freshly baked roll of bread, right out of the oven. It was a full and thick crust, the best possible on a pizza. It truly completed the taste of the pizza, making for one of the best pizzas available in the area.

As good as the food is, the service, at least this particular night, was somewhat lacking. The only time the waitress visited our table was to take our orders, and once or twice to fill our water. I didn't even know the name of the waitress.

Perhaps the lack of real service had to do with the huge group of soccer players, but either way it wasn't too impressive. Ultimately though, the lack of service didn't affect the experience too much, as the experience really centers around the food. If you go expecting to be treated like a king, you're going to the wrong place. If you go to have some good food, you will not be disappointed.

In the end, Roma's offers some absolutely delicious food. In addition to the pizzas, Roma's also offers different types of pasta. A large pizza costs around $20, but it is so thick and full that you can get full on two slices, making it possible for a large to feed four to six people. A small group could eat a large pizza and split the cost to about five dollars a person, not including drinks or salads.

Roma's offers great food for relatively cheap costs. The pizza is absolutely amazing, and for a group of college students out for a bite to eat, there isn't a place better than Roma's Pizzeria II.



Roma's Pizzeria II is close to Sac State, at 8491 Folsom Blvd, Sacramento, CA.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Xbox 360 Games for the Fall

The rain is here, it's getting colder, and the increasing intensity of the weather will soon give many people more reasons to stay inside their homes and entertain themselves by watching movies or playing video games. With the Christmas shopping season around a month away, the rush of games releasing in time to sell big for Christmas has started.

If you only have enough money for one game this season, figuring out which game to get can be difficult. The Green Hill Zone is here to help! In this column you will find a handy layout of game suggestions from the horde of releases coming out in the next two months, based on your game references. The focus will be exclusively on Xbox 360 games, although there are cool games being released for the Wii and PS3, such as New Super Mario Bros. Wii or Uncharted 2 for the PS3.

The Shooter Fan

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Nov. 10, also on PS3)

Everyone in the gaming world knows about the first Modern Warfare. It was filled, front to back, with intense gunfights, awesome graphics, and memorable moments. The multiplayer mode is still played consistently, two years after its release. Infinity Ward, the developer of Modern Warfare, is back with the sequel, and it looks even better.

Everything in the sequel is being amped up from the original (if that was even possible), and there is already talk of Modern Warfare 2 getting Game of the Year status before it's even released. There will be many "sick" students and employees on November 10. If you like shooter games at all, look no further. You've found your perfect match this season.

Halo 3: ODST (currently available)

ODST is a full-priced expansion to Halo 3, and many will purchase it because of that. It is a new and interesting take on the Halo world, but it is still Halo. If you're sick of the Halo franchise, this isn't going to help much. If you love Halo, this will satisfy your needs. If you're on the fence between this and Modern Warfare 2, go with MW2. It is a more complete and new package, as half of ODST is Halo 3's multiplayer, but simply put on a new disc. It's still worth playing, but think of it as a companion to MW2 rather than a replacement.

The Sports Fan

Madden NFL 10 (currently available, also on PS3, Wii)

If you're a fan of football, this is the only game in town. Fortunately, it's a good game. The gameplay and presentation in Madden has only gotten better, and if football is your thing, the new Madden is worth picking up. However, if football is your thing, you probably already have this monster title anyway.




NBA 2K10 (currently available, also on PS3, Wii)

While NBA Live stepped up its game this year, NBA 2K is still the game to beat. With fluid on court motion and the new My Player mode to complement the deep feature set already present, NBA 2K10 is the winner for those who like their basketball done right. If you do pick up NBA 2K10, do the Sacramento area a favor and give the Kings a few wins. Please.



The Family Game

Band Hero (Nov. 3, also on PS3, Wii)

Band Hero is a lot like Guitar Hero except that the focus is on families and reaching out to the crowd that doesn't care for two-minute guitar solos and double-kick pedals. A look at the just-released track listing confirms this focus. Taylor Swift. Maroon 5. The Turtles. No Doubt. Jackson 5. These are not shredding tracks, but Top 40 hits, something the whole family could get into. If you have a Xbox 360, you probably already have those plastic instruments hanging around. If you've got a family to entertain, toss in Band Hero and watch the good times roll.


The Adventure Gamer

Assassin's Creed 2 (Nov. 17, also on PS3)

Assassin's Creed 2 looks to improve on the original by tightening up the actual assassinations, the best part of the original. AC2 also takes place in a new location and time; Renaissance era Venice, which should breathe some new life into the game. It's not out yet, and the original was either loved or hated, so it's hard to tell if the game will live up to expectations, but if you're at all interested, at least give this one a rental when it releases later in November.


Honorable Mention

Borderlands was just released to generally good reviews, however it seems to cater towards the hardcore gamer. It's a shooter, but the main gameplay mechanic is based on loot, like Diablo. If that sentence did not make sense to you, you should probably stay away. If that sounds like heaven, by all means pick up this unique title.

Another option for gamers who aren't impressed by this season's releases would be to simply wait. Many high profile games were delayed and will be releasing this spring, including Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and more. Saving money is always good, and each one of those games looks to be high quality. Plus, it will give you good gaming during those typically dry spring months.

If you can't wait, however, check out any of the picks mentioned above, and when your outdoors plans are ruined by rain, you'll have a new game inside your home, just waiting to be played.

Monday, October 12, 2009

My Name Is Stephen, and I am a Hornet-Phoenix


I am a hornet, and proud of it. However, with California in financial hell, Professor William Tierney of USC has suggested in a recent article that California sell off its California State University and University of California systems to a private organization, specifically the University of Phoenix. It's definitely a good idea.

The CSUs have had to bear much of the pain inflicted by California's budget shortfall, with students paying over 30% more in fees this year, with fees almost certain to rise next year. Instructors are also required to take a 10% pay cut, resulting in students paying more and receiving less.

The state is in a bind, and as Professor Tierney suggests, selling off the CSUs would have a positive fiscal impact on the state, as the state would no longer be responsible for running 23 campuses and helping to fund 400,000 students' educations. For the CSU, it would mean that instead of relying on the unreliable state every year, the CSU system would find its backing from The Apollo Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix, which has billions in private funding and is not susceptible to the public to determine its spending.

This would almost surely result in stabilized education fees and instructor salaries. For teachers, they would no longer have to waste their days furloughing away. And for students, there would be no random campus email letting you know you have two weeks to pay a new $300 fine before you're dropped from all your classes.

The UoP could also lower operating costs throughout the CSU system, because as a for-profit, they wouldn't want any money wasted. It would be very possible that under the UoP, Chancellor Reed wouldn't need to exist. Campus presidents probably wouldn't be making $400,000. Excessive workers and staff would be fired to keep costs down. UoP could turn the CSU system into something the state could never achieve: an efficient organization. All of this would help with fee stabilization and longterm financial issues.

The quality and variety of the education at the CSU could increase as well, given the UoP's experience with online coursework.

In fact, currently the UoP is in the process of trying to create a nationwide online public high school, called Insight Schools. Insight Schools already has a school in eight states, with two in California. Each one of these schools uses public education money to give out laptops to students for a year, and the majority of the high school is done online (students usually meet once a week in person). However, it's publically funded and it's a public school, but because there aren't as many costs for a physical campus, the extra funds can go to hire part-time teachers to teach classes that most high schools can't offer, such as Mandarin Chinese or Video Game Development. It's able to fill out these classes by pulling from students across the entire state.

It's not too hard to see how the vision for something like Insight Schools could be applied to the CSU system to make education more diverse and give it a higher quality. The CSU system, when owned by UoP, could be given access to a network of online classes that could be taught throughout the whole system.

This would greatly benefit students! If there was a class a student needed for their major, but couldn't take it at the time offered because of other commitments or other required classes, an online version could be offered. If there's not enough students at Sac State interested, that would be ok. A Sac State professor could teach the online class to not just Sac State students, but students from Cal Poly, Sonoma State, and CSU Long Beach at the same time.

Cancelled classes could be a thing of the past, and more odd and obscure topics could be covered without fear of budgetary concerns forcing departments to drop popular, but unnecessary classes. Students would no longer have to worry about classes not being available or watch the schedule of available classes grow smaller and smaller. Graduation times could be decreased, overall educational efficiency would increase. A stark contrast to how the CSU system is currently being run.

As for campus life, there is nothing to suggest that if the UoP were to buy CSU, that the CSU system would automatically turn into a 23-branch version of the current UoP system. It's very possible that campus life could remain almost unaffected by the transfer, or even become better as the UoP would almost certainly not turn anyone down, and enrollment would continue to increase. It would still be the same CSU system, but simply in different hands.

Of course, there are downsides to this possibility. Fees would most likely raise. There probably wouldn't be too much oversight. Some programs and departments would surely get a short stick and not get too much support. UoP is a business, and elements of the school that bleed money would most likely be cut, even if they were popular, especially if they weren't.

But aren't CSU students already dealing with higher fees? Aren't they already dealing with a lack of transparency? Aren't programs and classes already getting cut? Is the devil they know really any better than the devil they don't?

Truthfully, a deal like this would almost certainly never happen in the real world. These speculations are as relevant as a fantasy football team.

Despite that, however, it's good to bring up creative alternatives to the current system. Continuing to tax the people and business of California more and more to fund this mess of an educational system is an unsustainable model. Why do you think we're in this wreck in the first place?

Professor William Tierney has received a bunch of criticism for his idea, and much of that criticism is valid. But it has got the people talking, and they're talking about something that's different from the status quo. That's a great start to solving the problem that is the CSU system.

A much better start than a vague reference to a march on the capital this coming spring, which is the best our current campus leadership can come up with.

Aren't the students of the system sick of how messed up it is? After being continually screwed over by the stooges in Sacramento who only care about getting reelected, it only seems like a matter of time before students demand a change.

Students, I know we're all proud hornets.

But would being a phoenix really be all that bad?

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Sex Trafficking is a Real Problem in America

Many people know that sex trafficking, the forced prostitution of persons, mostly women, is a problem worldwide, but many don't know that it is also a problem right here in the United States.

Sex trafficking, at least in America, generally involves girls being either deceived by false promises or straight-up kidnapped before being forced into prostitution.

The issue in the United States is serious. Project Rescue, an international organization that fights sex trafficking and tries to rehabilitate young girls, claims that around 18,500 people are trafficked into America each year. According to a 2006 story by ABC News, over 100,000 women and children are currently being trafficked in the U.S. alone. The average age of those being trafficked is only 11 years old.

The process can often be brutal. The ABC News story (which is well worth reading on your own), tells the story of "Debbie," a girl from the Phoenix area who was forcefully kidnapped on her own driveway at the age of 15. She was kidnapped at gunpoint, and was taken to a place 25 miles from her home, where she was gang raped and put into a dog kennel. Her captors even tried to feed her dog biscuits.

Ads on craigslist brought over 5o men to the place she was kept, all of them using her as a prostitute, with all the profits going to the pimps.

Debbie was kept there for over 40 days before police found her alive, stuffed in a drawer. She never tried to escape due to threats on her family.

This kind of activity happens on a daily basis in America, and it's made all the more horrific because of how young the girls are. My sister is 17 years old, and I can't even begin to imagine her being treated like that. However, it is a daily reality for thousands of girls around the country, and for families who have daughters, sisters, cousins, or nieces who are subjected to this type of abuse and slavery.

The best thing we can do is inform our friends and family, and educate those who can be at risk. The Department of Justice says that about 293,000 youth in America are at risk of becoming victims of sexual trafficking. This includes girls as young as 9 years old.

With more informed and educated people out there, change is more apt to happen.

This problem, of course, is also an international issue, and there are things you can do to help there as well. Project Rescue has many projects and bases throughout India, Nepal, and Moldova, and you can go to these locations and help Project Rescue help rescue and rehabilitate the girls. A friend of mine recently went to Moldova for a month, and called her experience life-changing.

Either way, sex trafficking is a serious and prevalent issue that demands our attention and action. Right now, the best action is to inform those you know and love. Spread awareness, and let our officials know that we demand some serious action. Only then can this problem begin to get better.