Posts Tagged ‘LLC’

Dennis Herrera Throws Down: Demands Proof of Accuracy for Intelligender Pregnancy Test

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera can’t abide companies that don’t prove their claims. So today he’s going after Intelligender LLC because of its “in-home fetal gender prediction product“ that you can get at Walgreens. For the record:

“IntelliGender, the Plano, Texas, creator of the “Boy or Girl Gender Prediction Test,” says scientists isolated certain hormones that when combined with a “proprietary mix of chemicals” react differently if a woman is carrying a boy or a girl. It claims that within 10 minutes of taking the urine test, a woman will be able to tell her baby’s gender. The specimen will turn green if it’s a boy, and orange if it’s a girl.”

The question is about accuracy, primarily.

San Francisco’s Happy Warrior:

As always, follow the action on the Twitter.

Herrera demands proof of accuracy, safety claims by IntelliGender in-home test

City Attorney invokes authority under Unfair Competition Law in seeking evidence for marketing claims by gender prediction test sold in S.F.

SAN FRANCISCO (March 10, 2010) — City Attorney Dennis Herrera today invoked his legal authority under California’s Unfair Competition Law to demand substantiation for advertising claims by Intelligender LLC that its in-home fetal gender prediction product, which is sold and marketed in San Francisco, is “totally safe” and over 90 percent accurate.

“California law empowers public sector attorneys to seek proof for marketing claims for products sold to the consumers they’re responsible to protect,” said Herrera. “Intelligender is a product that came to our attention in which some of the advertised claims are dubious, and for which supporting evidence is notably unavailable to potential customers. Women and families interested in purchasing products like this are entitled to see the evidence that will enable them to be better informed consumers.”

According to Herrera’s letter to the Plano, Tex.-based manufacturer:

“The IntelliGender Test purports to accurately identify the gender of a fetus as early as 10 weeks after pregnancy, and well before ultrasound confirmation of fetal gender is available to expectant mothers. However, according to online reviews of your product, it appears that your advertising claim that the IntelliGender Test is ‘over 90% accurate’ is questionable. Additionally, as your product packaging does not identify the contents of the IntelliGender Test, there are concerns about the safety and proper means of disposal of the Test.     

“The San Francisco City Attorney hereby requests that you provide evidence of the facts supporting the advertising claims of IntelliGender listed below, pursuant to California Business and Professions Code §17508, which empowers city attorneys to request substantiation of purportedly fact-based advertising claims. For all claims listed below indicating that scientific methods were utilized, please include full reports of experiments, methods, results, and outcomes, in addition to the CVs and biographies of the clinicians retained to perform these trials and tests.”

Herrera asked that Intelligender provide documentation responsive to his request by the end of the month, noting that we would consider seeking “an immediate termination or modification of the claim,” as state law provides, if the information were not forthcoming.

All the deets after the jump.

(more…)

NBC’s Trauma is Back on TV But With the Worst Ratings Ever

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Take a look for yourself to see dude just drive off the Bay Bridge due to a moment’s inattention in last night’s episode of NBC’s Trauma serial. (Do you think you’d survive after falling so far inside a Jeep Cherokee Classic? I don’t think it’d be possible, but maybe the breast implants inside the car softened the jolt or something.)

Yesterday’s relaunch, debuting the first new ep since November 2009, earned ratings of 1.4/3, which are 22% lower than last year’s average for the show.

Shooting in North Beach as it looked last year near the top of Kearny Street, the most-filmed block on any street in Northern California:

Anyway the bad ratings add up to trouble, according to The Wrap:

“The problem started at 9 p.m., with the previously sorta-canceled “Trauma” (1.4/3) returning from the grave as a Nielsen zombie. It hit its lowest rating yet, falling 22 percent from its fall average and 13 percent from its last original. It wouldn’t be shocking if NBC decided to quickly replace “Trauma” in the timeslot. That’s because “Trauma” tainted “L&O,” which managed a third-place 1.5/4 at 10 p.m. — down 25 percent from last week, when NBC aired a double dose of the drama from 9-11 p.m. Worse, “L&O” was actually off 6 percent from what “The Jay Leno Show” had been averaging at 10 p.m. Mondays.

“NBC — which actually did quite well last week, given the fact that it had to fill 5 hours of primetime post-Jay– does not want to see any negative Leno-to-scripted comparisons at 10 p.m. Period.”

Not saying I would or could do a better job, but maybe the whole concept of shooting this kind of old-school TV show on location on the Streets of San Francisco was a bad idea? Is that possible?

On It Goes. How much longer will this Great San Francisco Nielsen Zombie last?

Magazines to Advertise the Greatness of Magazines: “The Power of Print” Campaign

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Magazines suck these days, right kids? Oh, wait a sec, maybe not. That’s the message coming out of the ”4A’s [AAAA, the American Association of Advertising Agencies] Leadership / Media Conference that kicked off yesterday at the San Francisco Hilton Union Square. Check it:

“The leaders of five major magazine companiesCharles H. Townsend, Condé Nast; Cathie Black, Hearst Magazines; Jack Griffin, Meredith Corporation; Ann Moore, Time Inc.; and Jann Wenner, Wenner Media—today jointly announced the launch of one of the largest print advertising campaigns ever created to promote the vitality of magazines as a medium.”

O.K. then. Here’s the campaign logo – how many fonts from different mags do you recognize? Hint: “Es” is from Esquire (but even I knew that. I got the “M” and the “g” right as well, but everything else…)

Y&R NY made a clever graphic, I’ll give you that. But whenever you hear a Betty harshing on a Veronica, you start to think that the Betty is playing a losing game. For example, how bon are these mots?

“We Surf the Internet. We Swim in Magazines.”

“Will the Internet Kill Magazines? Did Instant Coffee Kill Coffee?”

Oh well. Look forward to seeing this ad in a few months:  

Click to expand

In short, magazines, magazines, magazines!

In short, Magazine Fever – Catch It.

In short, Grawwwwwwwk!!!!! goes the dinosaur.

All the deets, after the jump.

(more…)

An Apology From the Star of NBC’s Trauma, Plus New Filming at Oakland Islamic Center

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Why, it’s almost as if the people behind NBC’s Trauma serial have figured out a thing or two. Comes now Cliff Curtis, the New Zealand star who plays “cocky” helicopter pilot Rabbit, to say:

“The characters weren’t developed properly at first.

We took a lot of creative license, but learned from it.

We listened to the audience and to critics, and were able to satisfy a lot of complaints about the characters.

We improved the humor and the action on the front line.”

It’s almost like they’re shooting a whole new show! Good on you, Rabbit. Remember how excited people were when gorgeous Jennifer Siebel Newsom was in the pilot episode? Maybe we can get some of that back.

NBC/Universal

Now, while we’re remembering last autumn, wasn’t that the time when co-star Aimee Garcia was spinning this tale

 
O.K., hold on to that one. Now, try this on for size, per a recent interview with Cliff Curtis:
 
“NBC’s freshman “Trauma” series was considered such a sure-shot for early extinction that members of the crew gave up their apartments on San Francisco location.”
 
At The Length Truth Will Out. Moving on…
 
Shooting for, what shall we call it, Trauma II: This Time We Mean It moves to the East Bay tomorrow. Actually, they were looking for extras with Pakistani heritage just the other day. But keep in mind that when you’re an extra working on Treasure Island you get paid $1.79 more per hour than when you’re an extra working in Oakland. Why? It all has to do with the minimum wage. Anyway, you might be too late for this, but there could be other gigs coming up:
 
Mosque scenes will be filmed Wed. 2/17 at a temple in Oakland. Extras will appear to be praying when an older Pakistani woman has a seizure causing the cast member medics to respond.”
  
Take heart, extras - I can recall a time when the minimum wage was a lot less than $64/8-hour day. Oh well.
 
And of course the TV addicts are, once again, talking about how, once again, Trauma is a “goner”.
 
No matter, re-re-newed filming should continue ’til March or April, and then we’ll just have to wait and see, huh?

CitiApartments Pwned by City Attorney Dennis Herrera – $50K in Penalties for Obfuscation, Delay

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Our three-term City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera has just released the news about how San Francisco recently won a little compensation to pay for all the extra work it’s doing to bring poorly-rated CitiApartments / Skyline Realty* to justice. Keep in mind that these penalties are not to punish (’cause that part will come later). No, no, this $50K is just to pay us back for the extra expenses we recently incurred due to relentless foot-dragging from the infamous Lembi Family et alia.

Poor Judge Munter had to spend half of the hearing deciding how to divvy up the penalties among all the interrelated defendants. Oh well.

Read all about it here, or below.

San Francisco’s Happy Warrior: His middle name is Jose, his son speaks Mandarin Chinese and he’s been working on gay legal issues for donkey’s years, at least since the 1990’s - do you think all that might help him if he decides to run for Mayor in 2011?

Pwned:

Herrera wins Court sanctions against CitiApartments for “obfuscation, delay.” Landlords’ defiance in the face of City Attorney’s ‘Herculean efforts’ triggers order to cooperate with discovery, pay $50K sanction

SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 2, 2010) — City Attorney Dennis Herrera has won Court-ordered sanctions against a labyrinthine web of defendants involved in the operation of CitiApartments and Skyline Realty, the residential property management and investment behemoth Herrera first sued in 2006 for its stunning array of unlawful business practices.  The order, which was signed by San Francisco Superior Court Judge John E. Munter last month and obtained this morning, compels each of the two-dozen corporate, trust and individual defendants currently named in the suit to respond to discovery requests in compliance with rules of civil procedure, and to pay sanctions to the City totaling $50,129.50, which reflects San Francisco’s fees and costs to pursue its motion to compel.  Munter’s order requires all of the defendants to comply with the order by Feb. 19, 2010.

“CitiApartments deserved to be sanctioned for its continued defiance in this case, and I’m gratified to Judge Munter for calling these tactics exactly what they are — ‘obfuscation, delay and meritless objections,’” said Herrera.  “I hope this sanction sends a message to Frank Lembi, Walter Lembi and all of the defendants responsible for CitiApartments’ lawless conduct that there is a limit to judicial patience, and they’ve reached it.  This has been a long, difficult case to address what is perhaps the most egregious corruption of San Francisco’s residential housing market in modern history.  We remain committed to pursuing this case aggressively, and I hope these sanctions are a tipping point that hastens our progress toward a just outcome.”

All the gritty nitty, after the jump.

*Let me tell you something here, whenever you’re paying your monthly rent to “LSL Property Holdings II DE LLC” or something, don’t be surprised when you have trouble getting your deposit back. This case is a morass. Anywho, your defendants:

“Skyline Realty Inc., Citiapartments Inc., Citi Funding Group Inc., Citisuites LLC, Lembi Group Inc., Lembi Group Partners LLC, Urban Property Management, Inc., Citiwide Rentals, Inc., Frank Lembi, Walter Lembi, David Raynal, Taylor Lembi, Frank Lembi As Trustee Of The Frank E. Lembi Survivor’s Trust Dated February 17, 1984, As Restated On June 2, 1999, Frank Lembi, As Trustee Of The Olga Lembi Residual Trust Created Under The Provisions Of Part Three Of The Lembi Family Trust Dated February 17, 1984, Walter Lembi, As Trustee Of The Walter And Linda Lembi Family Trust Dated June 30, 2004, David Raynal, As Trustee Of The David M. Raynal Revocable Trust Dated May 9, 2002, 737 Pine DE LLC, 737 Pine B10 DE LLC, 737 Pine B10 Mezz DE LLC, 1155 LLC, Gaylord Hotel LLC, LSL Properties B14 DE LLC, LSL Property Holdings II DE LLC, LSL Property Holdings II Mezz LLC, Nob Hill Tower DE LLC, Nob Hill Tower Mezz DE LLC, Prime Apartment Properties LLC, Prime Apartment Properties B10 DE LLC, Prime Apartment Properties B10 Mezz DE LLC, Trophy Properties B10 DE LLC, Trophy Properties IV DE LLC, Trophy Properties IV B8A LLC, Trophy Properties IV Mezz DE LLC, Trophy Properties V LLC, Trophy Properties V DE LLC, Trophy Properties VI LLC, Trophy Properties IV B8A Manager LLC.”

(more…)

25 Percent More Trauma for San Francisco – NBC Approves Another Four Eps of Horrible TV Show

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Conan O’Brien’s trauma, that whole deal where he’s losing his Tonight Show gig, is helping to keep NBC’s horrible Trauma serial a few paces ahead of the grim reaper. News just came out about how NBC is ordering four more shows to help fill the prime-time hole left by Jay Leno moving from 10:00 PM back to 11:35 PM

That means that Season One will end up with 20 episodes at the very least.

Will there be a Season Two for Trauma? Only Time Will Tell.

Rest assured, twirlypopper pilot / couch potato Aimee Garcia will still maintain her official website regardless of when Trauma gets cancelled.

header_sm copy copy

Click to expand

Look for more filming around town soon. You’ll have ten fresh episodes available on your idiot panel after the 2010 Olympics end.

Just bide your time until 9:00 PM on Monday, March 8. 2010

The Thing About Nate Ballard, Former Director of Communications for Gavin Newsom

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Here’s the thing about Nathan Ballard – he was almost always in this damn-the-facts-Gavin-Newsom-is-always-right mode. That’s just the way the bulk of his profession does it these days.* Oh well, he won’t be in that mode much longer, see the news release below.

But what if the roles had been reversed? What if the smarter one were Mayor and the more charismatic one were Director of Communications?

Wouldn’t that arrangement have worked out better? For them, and for us? Just asking…

NB on the job, an impossible job, really, when you get down to it. Here he is documenting the goings-on around on Polk Street:

img_5818-copy

Check Nate’s Earned Media website: ”Good Press. It isn’t free…” True that.

Anyway, here’s the news of the day:

Nathan Ballard to Leave Newsom Administration

Today Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that Nathan Ballard, his director of communications, will be leaving the Newsom administration.

Newsom praised Ballard’s skills.

“Nathan Ballard is unflappable, smart and a fierce advocate,” said Newsom. “He is a talented communicator and a consummate professional, and we will miss him.”

Ballard praised Newsom for his leadership.

“Mayor Newsom is a gifted leader who fearlessly tackles significant issues such as health care, the environment, education, and equal rights,” said Ballard. “It has been a privilege to serve this administration.”

Ballard took the helm of Newsom’s communications operation in February, 2007. He will be leaving the administration in February, 2010. He said he plans to spend more time with his family and to relaunch the business he founded in 2004, Earned Media, LLC.

Ballard, 40, has served as a spokesman for two presidential candidates, Senator John Kerry and General Wesley Clark. He has also been a communications director for the Democratic National Committee, the California Democratic Party, and California’s largest labor organization, the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO.

Good luck Mr. Ballard. Bon courage.

*Speaking of charismatic leaders, even Mussolini would occasionally admit he lost a battle or made a mistake. Those by-gone days of frankness are long-gone, it would seem.

Trauma Dies Today: It was Bad for NBC But Was it Good for San Francisco?

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Word comes today from Anna Bloom of the NewYork TimesesesBay Area Blog about how production of NBC’s horrible Trauma TV series will shut down tonight.

Certainly, Trauma has been traumatic for NBC, but what about San Francisco? Would we have been better off without subsidizing this inchoate production? Did we really pay SFPD officers to just hang out around the set for the filming of twelve episodes instead of having the cops do their regular jobs? 

Duboce Park as seen by Troy McClure SF. Click to expand:

3870588443_9255b35575_b copy

How does the Scene in San Francisco scheme work? The TV people pay for the cops but then we turn around and give the TV people all the money back?

“What costs are eligible for refund?

  • Fees paid to City Departments for the use or rental of City property, equipment or employees including: Port, MUNI, SPFD [SFPD?], SFFD, DPT, DPW, Treasure Island, Recreation and Parks, and all City buildings
  • All daily use fees paid to the San Francisco Film Commission
  • All payroll taxes paid to the City and County of San Francisco.”

So after Unfortunate, Innocent-Looking Whore In Tube Top and Flip Flops #5 cashes her minimum-wage paycheck for two days of temping (no benefits obviously) and we pay the cops full salary (or full salary plus?) to not do their jobs, what are we left with?

Certainly, Trauma was good for certain people in San Francisco, but was it good for San Francisco and San Franciscans overall? Is this the kind of thing we want to do again? Are there any Lessons to be Learned here?

Mmmmm….

There are Only Eight More Episodes of NBC’s Trauma Left – Let’s Savor Each One.

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Now, I’m not up to speed here – is Glenn the gay guy that just came out? Anyway, find out tonight on Channel 3.

Glenn’s attempt to follow his heart puts his career — and safety — on the line. Meanwhile, Marisa gets a surprise visit from an old friend. Elsewhere, Rabbit helps a patient deal with his devastating loss.”

And guess what? Ratings are up a bit lately. If only certain judgmental people hadn’t been so negative, and if it didn’t cost millions and millions to film old-school, episodic, Hill Street Blues-style television in pricey San Francisco, well who knows, maybe Trauma could have gone a full season.

See this “delicious young lady doctor” tonight:

wu5e6a copy

Click to expand

And see Aimee Garcia whenever you want, right here. (You know, some people were able to walk off the Hindenburg without a scratch - maybe A.G. will similarly escape Trauma without injury) 

Read about the five reasons Trauma got axed here before you tune in tonight.

Set your Tivo for 9:00 PM.

Trauma is as Good as Cancelled – NBC Picks Up All Its Other New Series for Full Seasons

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Leave us travel back in time to October 21st, 2009, when we last heard from NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin and NBC Entertainment chief Angela Bromstad:

Gaspin and Bromstad are expected to make their next key moves to boost NBC’s fortunes within the next few days, when the network will decide the short-term fates of newcomers such as ‘Mercy,’ ‘Community,’ ‘Parks and Recreation’ and ‘Trauma.’”

Trauma? Don’t they film that in our little town, (the fourth-largest in the whole state, I’m proud to say)? Yes they do! Maybe NBC could commit to nine more episodes (the “back nine”) so we could have a full season of on-location shoots?

Well, here’s the news from last Saturday (the Day Without Wind, incidentally):

“NBC has picked up full seasons of Thursday night comedies “Community” and “Parks and Recreation,” as well as its Wednesday night medical drama “‘Mercy.’”

Well, what about Trauma? Hello-oooo, NBC? Hello-ooooooooo?

Uh oh.

No matter, twirlypopper pilot Aimee Garcia will still maintain her official website regardless of when Trauma gets cancelled. (You all seem to just love her.)

header_sm copy copy

Click to expand

In light of recent developments, the unofficial NBC Trauma Deathwatch™ over-under date has been officially moved up to: November 30, 2009.

Adjust your wagers accordingly.

Enjoy it while it lasts – a new show (the Halloween one?) is on tonight at 9:00 PM.

[UPDATE: News tonight from the Hollywood Reporter is that Trauma is history as of today, October 28th, 2009. Oh well.]