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The Places We Go

Drinking, driving and brutal editing in SD

By Erin Chambers Smith

It never fails. As soon as we call out one place, the neighbors feel jilted. What about our neighboring place?

In response to a story posted this month on North Park, the first comment we get: “What about South Park?”

We’ve been writing a lot about the developments in Normal Heights recently. And one of the most common comments I get in response is, “Well what about University Heights and Kensington?” They’re not the same, you know? We know.

In the Beer issue, when we decide to lump “Mira Mesa-area” spots together because it looks better on paper than “Mira Mesa/Kearny Mesa/Sorrento Mesa/Sorrento Valley/Clairemont and Vicinity,” we of course get schooled in the borders of each of these ‘hoods from many residents and readers. One woman was even “offended” that we placed O’Brien’s Pub in this Mira Mesa-area category. Yikes!

And then we also had a San Marcos-area category, and the very first comment was, “What about Oceanside?” I enjoy these comments, because people usually write better and funnier when they are ranting, as opposed to the squeaky clean, cheesy writing we get when people pitch stories to us. The O’Side commenter quipped, “Either our pages got torn out or car expenses didn’t cover the drive, eh?”

Zing! But nope, not the case. We expensed beers and mileage and all kinds of things all the way up to San Marcos and down to Tijuana for this issue.

It’s not the expenses, but the paper. We get 50-70 pages in between the ads on any given month, and maybe 300-600 words on each page. And it’s usually closer to 300 because you’ve told us over the years that you like lots of photos and captions. And testing shows reader attention spans are shorter than ever, so we aim to give you short, funny, brilliant bits. Bits and bits and bits.

And “Mira Mesa/Kearny Mesa/Sorrento Mesa/Sorrento Valley/Clairemont and Vicinity” just isn’t bitsy or brilliant as a headline or category name.

It’s challenge, indeed and editing is brutal. Sorry O’Brien’s! But there’s a silver lining: For every ‘hood we do spotlight, we know we’ll get our marching orders for the following month right away.

So … We heard you on Oceanside and Kearny Mesa.

What other places in the county should we visit next and what should we see when we’re there?

The Places We Go

Mira Mesa Map

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