K-Squared Ramblings

Irritable Liquid?

Found on the side of an AM-PM convenience store today:

That’s one cranky glass of water.

Or maybe Odo?

My best guess is that they were trying to say something like “inflammable,” decided it wouldn’t fit, and misused a thesaurus.

Campaign Camp

Now that the election is done, here are some of the campaign signs we saw that elicited some unintended laughter.

I couldn’t decide between two captions: “But I did not hunt the deputy…” and “I didn’t think they were in season.”

This isn’t funny on its own, but coming right off the Lost season finale, all I could think was, “Vote for me, brother!”

Uh… I hate to break it to you, but that’s green…

Keep Out!

OK, so they’re just storing stuff on the side of the intersection for a while, but seriously… doesn’t it look like a barricade?

Not Inspiring Confidence

Enough people associate dental work with pain already… no need to remind them of it!

(The sign normally says “Bright Now!”)

These guys are animals!

Still on Photoblog Catch-up Week.

Spotted along the freeway in Los Angeles several months ago. I wonder if their lawyers are Wolfram and Hart?

Street Guacamole

Photoblog Catch-up Week continues!

Last weekend we stopped at a nearby nursery to pick up some potting soil. We walked out with two tomatoes, one fuchsia, three herbs, a couple of pots, some bamboo… and the potting soil.

We parked in front of this sign. Yes, it was next to an avocado tree.

2-Item Combo

Drove past this place last weekend and only noticed the convenient pairing of the Karate studio with the Impact Rehabilitation Center. Came back this week to get a picture, and noticed it also seemed to advertise Red Hot Curves…

Park. Villa Park.

OK, it’s not quite as confusing as having, say, a First Street and a First Avenue in the same city, but sometimes you have to wonder what went through the mind of the city planner who approved certain street names.

Retroblogging

On Friday, Katie wanted to look for some craft supplies at a store we’d seen before, called—believe it or not—Yarn Yarn. We’d first noticed it a couple of years ago, and took a picture of the sign for blog purposes.

The store was closed, but on our way back to the car, we spotted the Puzzle Blimp flying around. So here we had two old blog posts coming together.

Except there was one problem. It turns out that when we took pictures of Yarn Yarn and the nearby Holy Computer, we never got around to posting them online. So here, delayed by two and a half years, are those photos, plus a couple of new shots.

The Puzzle Blimp Returns! (As noted last time, it’s Ameriquest’s Soaring Dreams Airship [archive.org].)

Hmm, is this what Robin says when Batman analyzes evidence using the Cray he has in the Batcave?

Maybe it’s just the fact that I see so much spam, but the first thing this name makes me think of isn’t photography.

There Goes the Hogwarts Express

Is this what he saved those mean girls from?

Her Factory

The Leather Factory sign was missing a few letters one night:

So whose factory is it, exactly? She Who Must Be Obeyed? Can guys even buy stuff there?

Finding an Inn

How often do you get to revisit an old in-joke? Six years ago, Katie and I were driving past the Inn-N-Out by UCI and noticed the sign was only half-lit. Katie exclaimed:

It’s an inn! The out is out on In-N-Out!

Last Friday we went back to UCI for a play and had dinner at the Indian restaurant across the street. As we left the parking lot, we saw this:

Ah, nostalgia!

End Construction!

Greg Dean (of the webcomic Real Life) has a strange way of looking at the world. Sometimes I share it. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I’ve seen one of these signs and deliberately misread it as a demand rather than a description. I can just imagine a group of people marching in front of some construction site, carrying orange protest signs lifted from the side of some road.

Of course, sometimes the signs don’t need to be misread to be funny.

Bon voyage, mon appetit!

One look at this, and you’ll say goodbye to your appetite! Wait, I’m sure that’s not what they’re going for…

(On another level, the reflected palm trees fit in with the travel theme.)

Which way do I go now?

This is a traffic signal on the Jeffrey off-ramp from the northbound 5 in Irvine. The ramp is 3 lanes wide, and the middle lane can go either way. It’s not often that you actually see a double arrow like this, though.

It’s times like this that make me wish I’d taken a picture of the “U-Turn Only” sign I saw a few years ago. The street it was on has since been extended, and the sign is long gone.