I was recently reminded that Kevin Smith’s daughter is named Harley Quinn Smith. At the time I thought it was crazy (though really, who am I to talk about people naming their kids after fictional characters?), but compared to Nicholas Cage naming his son Kal-El, it seems positively ordinary.
Category: Strange World
Renovated Grass
Yes, they’ve actually replaced some of the grass with more grass, instead of astroturf. Here’s the same median where I took the original Grass Under Renovation picture.
I still have no idea why they bothered letting it die, putting up signs to warn people, and seeding all new grass. Not that I paid much attention to it before, but it doesn’t look particularly different.
Zombie Attack!
Finally, something light-hearted in the news: A bunch of people decked out as zombies crashed the American Idol auditions in Austin, Texas last week, groaning things like “Television rots your braaaaaains!”
Reportedly the contestants didn’t get it.
Ironically, the event organizers had read about the protest in advance on Craigslist, and quickly got the “zombies” to sign release forms to appear on the show.
(via Cognitive Dissonance)
Natural Turf
It turns out not all of the medians with Grass Under Renovation signs are being replaced with Astroturf. I drove past one at lunch today where the sprinklers were running.
Not that an August afternoon is the best time to run sprinklers, but it seems clear that they’re expecting something to grow there. Maybe they planted a different variety of grass?
Cellular Palm Tree
The drawback of cellular phone technology is that you need to have transmitters everywhere. In a big city you can probably mount them on buildings, but in the suburbs, you just have to put up towers like you do for power lines and land-line phones. Every once in a while, someone decides to pretty things up a bit.
I’ve been meaning to catch a picture of this one for weeks, but I’ve just never been on the right stretch of freeway with a camera before. Katie almost caught it last week on the way back from San Diego, but the lighting conditions were poor and the picture came out way too grainy.
It’s not a bad approximation of a palm tree, but it’s too straight and the fronds are too regular. Still, if most people are only going to see it from their cars, it’s enough to blend in.
Missed Haunting
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.
Plastic Revolution
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?