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A few months ago I discovered that medications containing pseudoephedrine were labeled “restricted quantity items” at the local Sav-On because it can be used to make meth. Today I found that the shelf space that used to hold both brand-name Sudafed and the store brand now holds cards which direct you to the pharmacy. The boxes aren’t actually in the pharmacy in this store, they’re in a case up front, but the cards are pre-printed, and they say to go to the pharmacy.

Meanwhile, Sudafed has come out with a new formulation that isn’t based on pseudoephedrine. Yes, I know. I mentioned it to Katie and she asked whether they called it “…” We started trying to come up with names like “Sudasudafed” or “Quasifed” or “Notfed.”

They’ve got too much invested in the name, of course, so it’s the less-creative “Sudafed PE.” The store brands have caught up already, but it’s new enough that I could not find any reference to it on Pfizer’s website [archive.org: July 12, 2005]. A quick trip to Google turned up the Sudafed FAQ [archive.org: Dec. 10, 2005], though, which is currently all about the new medication.

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With luck the people complaining about the “unseasonable” morning cloud cover have all realized we get the same thing every year. Although I don’t think it usually lasts this far into July. We were standing at the America Plaza transfer station on Thursday morning, watching the fog roll in past the buildings at the south end, but by the time we hit the Gaslamp district for lunch, it was all cleared away.

We noticed an interesting coastal climate zone, though. On the trip down Wednesday afternoon, the clouds came in somewhere around Mission Viejo or San Juan Capistrano and stayed locked in all the way through La Jolla. It finally started clearing up just as we were reaching San Diego. Then on the trip back, a bit later in the afternoon on Sunday, the clouds rolled in as we reached La Jolla and didn’t break up until we reached Mission Viejo. We stopped in San Clemente for coffee (it was a long weekend with lots of walking and not much sleep), and the barista asked us if we’d been to Oceanfest, adding that it wasn’t really a good day for it. We explained we were on our way back from San Diego, he asked whether it was better down there, and we told him that it was warm and clear—but only south of La Jolla.

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Years ago, I put the Niven/Pournelle novel Footfall in my to-read box. I finally started reading it today. After a prologue that takes place mostly at the press conference for the 1980 Voyager 1 encounter with Saturn, the first chapter opens (years later) with a drive up Hawaii’s Kona coast and inland to the observatories at Mauna Kea.

Now there’s timing. If I’d read it when I first picked it up, I could only imagine that sequence. Now I know exactly what it looks like. Well, aside from the fact that there are twice as many observatories now as there were when the book was written.

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Late lunch today (there’s a news flash). Heard the last bit of an interview with Rob Zombie about The Devil’s Rejects, which was all over Comic-Con. Interesting perspective on the MPAA rating process, where he actually had to contact the MPAA directly to negotiate down to an R. Apparently after going back and forth on cuts with the studio as a mediator, he got to the point where toning down the villains made them seem less evil. Instead of making a film with violent villains, it was heading toward becoming a violent action film. After another round of calls directly with the ratings people, he apparently managed to get them to agree with him.

Also interesting: The MPAA will let filmmakers show much more graphic violence with a known celebrity than a B-list, cult, or unknown actor. With any commercial film, you know intellectually that the actor isn’t really being killed. But with someone you recognize, you have the added sense that there is no way that (for example) Brad Pitt’s skull is really being ripped open. With an actor you don’t know, your brain doesn’t have that extra disconnect layer and (in theory) takes it closer to face value.

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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.

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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.)