K-Squared Ramblings

Only in LA

It seems fitting that I’d eventually write a post with this title, seeing as how the regular LA Times column is where I got the name for the Only in San Diego series.

We were up in Los Angeles for a wedding on Wednesday and Thursday. Since we were both involved, we stayed in a hotel instead of driving up and back two days in a row. (I’ve made that drive in 40 minutes. It took us nearly two hours on Wednesday.)

First up: the hotel. You may recall we found an interesting combination in the nightstand drawer the last time we stayed in Las Vegas. Here we found another combination, somehow appropriate for LA:

The Bible, of course, had been provided by the Gideons. The name plate on The Teaching of Buddha indicated it had been placed there by the Society for Buddhist Understanding.

Then, of course, there’s this place. We’ve been told that “Happy cows come from California,” but they never tell you where they go…

I had a few hours free the morning of the wedding (the bridesmaids had an earlier call time), so I walked around downtown Los Angeles a bit. The Disney Concert Hall is weird, of course, but it’s well-known weird.

Now, to a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the name “Angelus” has a somewhat sinister connotation:

Finally, you may think you’ve seen truckloads of FUD coming from places like Microsoft, but we actually saw a literal truckful of FUD.

It turns out to be a Mexican company that sells meats, playing on the pronunciation (“fud” in Spanish would sound like “food” in English). They’ve recently licensed the brand in the US, focusing on “areas of heavy Mexican immigration where the brand name is already well known”—in other words, areas like Southern California.

That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll post some of my sightseeing photos next year (i.e. tomorrow).

Quantum Home

The only problem is, you can’t be absolutely certain of where the home is and what direction it’s going at the same time.

Flip-Floppers, all of ’em!

Spotted on a school marquee:

Gee, I hope none of them ever runs for office. Some opposing PAC group will dig this up as evidence of constant flip-flopping!

Genuine Muppet Fur Pillow!

I forget where we found this—I think it might have been Linens and Things. Katie (shown here with the pillow) took one look at it and said, “Made of genuine Muppet hide!” It reminded her of a certain sketch from The State.

The Call of the Wild Noodle

The name of this restaurant reminds me of two things:

1. A “Get Fuzzy” comic strip in which Bucky Katt proclaims that tofu tastes better in the wild. (Rob had to tell him it was an animal to get him to eat it, and of course Bucky had to boast about his hunting prowess.)
2. The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest April Fool’s broadcast.

Get used to “disapointment”

Found written on a stairway tile:

Someone’s teacher might be disappointed in the spelling…

Pumpkin Patch Day

Well, it’s the second Tuesday of the month. With Microsoft’s regular update cycle, that makes it Patch Tuesday.

It’s also October, the month leading up to Halloween.

I hereby declare today to be Pumpkin Patch Tuesday.

Update: Mozilla’s Josh Aas has carved the perfect pumpkin to go with this declaration.

In Your Office

A long row of furniture stores sits in the city of Lake Forest, on a frontage road alongside the 5 freeway. Among them is this:

I can just see the exchange at the workplace:

“Nice chair! Where’d you get it?”
“In your office.”
“Hey! What’s the big idea!”

I Voted for Kodos

No comment on the candidate, since I don’t live in the city, just… is anyone else reminded of these guys?

Image from The Duff Brewery. Incidentally, while looking for a page on “Citizen Kang,” I discovered that “I Voted for Kodos” is also the name of a band.

Pirates ’n’ Prada

Wow, they’ll take anyone in that crew!

Somehow, I’m not convinced!

The following movies were not harmed in the making of this blog post: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Beerfest, The Devil Wears Prada, and Barnyard.

Eye Gouging

Here’s another example of randomly-generated spam somehow being appropriate:

This morning I received an image-based stock spam. The sender’s name was listed as “eye gouging.” Yes, spam does sometimes make you want to gouge out your eyes (or perhaps the spammer’s). May I recommend the Grammar Spork™ (NSFW: language) for such cases?

Yarrr!

It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Ye might be findin one o’ these blasts from the past to yer likin’:

• Pirate Ships o’ San Diego
• Voyage o’ th’FyreFawkes
• Pumpkin Arrt
• Pirates Dinner Adventure
• Parrrty Weapon

Thar be more pirate postings if ye wants them.

Piratify yer blog!

Swimming in Christmas Trees

The Macy’s in the Laguna Hills Mall has a small storefront for seasonal products. In the lead-up to Christmas it’s full of decorations, ornaments, wrapping paper, and such. During the summer, it was swimwear. (I’m not sure what they use it for in winter.)

I walked by today, and they seem to be in transition:

The mismatch was so odd that it didn’t even hit me until several minutes later that this was the earliest example of holiday creep I’ve ever seen.

Joke Spam

I’ve noticed a new subset of blog spam over the past few months: Jokes. Instead of just filling the comment with links to the spamvertized site, it’ll either leave the the link in the author URL field, or toss a couple links in at the end, but the bulk of the comment will actually be a joke.

Generally they tend to be story-type jokes, the kind you’ll find on, say, Jumbo Joke. This is probably an effort to build up enough comedic content to overwhelm the presence of links to a porn or pillz site. A similar technique had a brief heyday maybe a year ago in email spam, though I haven’t seem many of them lately.

It’s still spam—there’s no way I’m letting those comments and links onto the site—and Spam Karma still catches them. Still, it at least makes the spamtraps a little more interesting than the endless morass of links and keywords.

On another note, I’ve been seeing a lot more email spam targeting the abuse contacts lately. I don’t know what they think they’re accomplishing, since the people reading abuse@wherever are most likely to report them and least likely to buy from them. I mean, “Greetings Abuse!!!” doesn’t seem an effective way to begin a sales pitch.

Centenarian Sweeps

I’ve been frequenting a couple of nearby smoothie shops this summer, including Jamba Juice. Lately they’ve got an interesting contest:

OK, it’s a sweepstakes promoting a book on “Hundreds of ways to live to be 100,” but the way the promo is phrased makes me think of a different kind of contest entirely. I mean, it seems pretty clear who wins: anyone who enters, then lives to be 100, wins.

So what do you give the lucky 100-year-olds as prizes? A lifetime supply of smoothies?