Category: Life

Posted on
by

I was looking for info on the “Haunted Hotel” sign I snapped the other day, and discovered that the Whaley House in Old Town San Diego is supposed to be the most haunted house in America.

And it was just down the street from our hotel. We walked past it every morning on our way to the trolley station and every night on the way back. I’d thought about visiting it just out of historical interest, but our days were pretty much taken up by Comic Con.

At least that explains why people were wandering around the place with flashlights and cameras at 11:30 last night.

Posted on
by

If you’re in danger of losing your religion, try…
Sign: Faith Insurance

We saw this by the side of the road in Old Town, and both of us immediately thought of cake topping. Not something you’d want to use this for.
Empty bag of Mortar and Topping Mix

There was just something inherently amusing about seeing Xena standing at Mrs. Field’s.
Xena buys a cookie

You know, ever since the new VW Bug came out, Katie’s said that the yellow ones looked like Pikachu. Well, the Pokémon people fixed one up and were raffling it off at the con.
VW Bug done up as Pikachu... with licence plate PIKA 10

This probably belongs in with the hall costumes, but the cardboard thought balloon was a nice Farscape reference.
Cardboard thought balloon: What the Frell?

One oddity we didn’t manage to catch on virtual film was mixed into the city’s graffiti. In two places (one visible from the Blue Line trolley, one on a freeway on-ramp), someone had spray-painted the word Enron on the wall.

Taste of China sign... shaped like a hot dogThe last two were actually in San Clemente, where we stopped for coffee on the way back. We picked an exit and got off, looking for a Diedrich, Starbucks, or other coffee shop. We found a Starbucks (with a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf across the street that we didn’t notice until we got back in the car), but we passed two odd signs on the way to and from the freeway. We couldn’t get decent pictures from the car, and neither of us was in the mood to find a parking space and take the photo on foot. But I did find photos on Flickr by Brian Mitchell, under a Creative Commons license that allows me to repost them here under the same license. The first: Taste of China…in the shape of a hot dog. And practically across the street was a place advertising the Pastrami Love Burger.

Pastrami Love Burger

(Continued in Volume 3.)

Posted on
by

Some more strange sights from around San Diego (continued from last year’s series).

First, a modern Stonehenge from the UC San Diego campus, all made with stone (or cement) cubes. Update: Found some info on USCD’s Stonehenge.

Modern Stonehenge

Then there was this cactus in Old Town, which looked like it was made up of feet!

Cactus feet

Vegetable Garage
Something about the phrase “Vegetable Garage” just sounds funny. (This is at Horton Plaza in downtown San Diego.) There’s also a Fruit Garage.

Samuel Adams... Smoothies

Sam Adams Smoothies? Where’s Lister from Red Dwarf? Someone needs to tell him he can get those beer milkshakes here! 😉

We weren’t entirely sure just what was supposed to be haunting this hotel, but it’s next to Hooters. Make of that what you will…

The Haunted Hotel

And finally, here’s a movie-style marquee from the Ghirardelli shop.

Ghirardelli - Now Playing!

(On a side note, I really miss having a Ghirardelli shop in South Coast Plaza. After shopping overload, I could just stop in there, get a milkshake, and be able to face another store or two. Plus I actually had a reason to go to South Coast Plaza on occasion.)

(Continued in Part 2.)

Posted on
by

On seeing an ad for the upcoming Dukes of Hazzard movie, I started thinking of other 70s and early 80s TV shows that Hollywood might remake. Then I started thinking of late 80s and 90s shows. I’m certain that, 10-20 years from now, there will be a Beverly Hills 90210 movie.

But what about the big hits of this decade—the reality shows? Will Hollywood want to release Survivor or Fear Factor movies for 2025? Or would it be like producing a Jeopardy movie?

One of the big draws for shows like Survivor or American Idol is watching the contestants’ stories unfold over time. You can’t do that in a two-hour movie as effectively as you can over a 10–20–week season. On the other hand, not every reality show is about the long haul. Assuming the public’s taste doesn’t change, I’m sure Fear Factor could be made into a movie. (Though one could argue that it already has been.)

Later in my drive I heard a story on the radio about Iraqi reality TV. Apparently the genre has become quite popular there, particularly the helpful sub-genre (like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition). There’s a show that helps people navigate government bureaucracy, a show that rebuilds homes destroyed in the war, one that gives couples dream weddings, one that takes people to foreign hospitals for medical procedures, etc.

Who knew what else we’d be exporting?

Posted on
by

OK, so according to the Los Angeles Times, “legal analysts” are saying Karl Rove is off the hook in the Valerie Plame case because he didn’t actually name her, but referred to her as “[Joseph] Wilson’s wife.”

Let’s think about this for a second. If I say, “The First Lady is going to be speaking at such-and-such an event,” I’ve identified her. I didn’t actually name Laura Bush, but it’s obvious who I’m talking about. Since marriage is a one-to-one correspondence (at a given time, anyway) and a matter of public record, identifying “Joseph Wilson’s wife” or “Hillary Clinton’s husband” is as good as identifying the person by name to anyone interested enough to look it up.

It seems to me that the legal issues for Rove should be whether the outing was intentional and whether he knew she was covert—not what your definition of “identify” is.

Not that I have any illusions that Rove will suffer any significant consequences. When a highly successful political strategist says, “go ahead, name me as your source,” you know he’s confident about his defense.

Posted on
by

Well, I finally found out the reason for the Grass Under Renovation signs. I passed a median where a road crew was setting out what I first thought was sod, but then realized was Astroturf.

Nice one. I suppose it’ll save money on water and maintenance, but then so would painting the concrete green.

Couldn’t they just put in some native plants and leave them alone?

Posted on
by

Why do some spammers insist on prefacing their junk with statements like “THIS IS NOT SPAM?”

Some idiot just posted a bit long letter offering to let me put my “products” on their online store. No, they didn’t send me an email about, say, the comic book collection I’m selling. No, they didn’t offer to sell prints or digital copies of my photography. No, they didn’t offer to publish my writing or Katie’s writing. They certainly didn’t look for contact information on any of those pages, because if they had, they would have found it and used proper channels. (Well, probably. I occasionally get comments on my Flash site via eBay’s “Question to Seller” feature because people don’t see the email address at the bottom of the page, but they do see the link to my eBay profile.)

They posted a very generic form letter—so generic that I can’t tell what they’re offering to resell—as a comment on a two-year-old blog post in which I remarked on some new comic books I had started reading.

And you know what? That’s spam. You can yell all you want that it isn’t, but when you post a completely off-topic advertisement on someone’s site, when you send someone a (supposed) business offer without checking to see whether it’s relevant—particularly when you claim to have checked them out, but clearly haven’t bothered—that’s spam.

And denying that fact won’t make me accept the offer (or leave the comment visible) any more than the “Please do not discard” statements on credit card offers will get me to fill out an application.

»All pages site-wide with this tag