Happy Valentines Day!

Brini Maxwell has posted another of her video podcasts of her old cable-access show.  This time it's a V-Day flower arrangement.  Hilarity ensues.

Available on iTunes or at Brini's website.

Photo: my iPhone and my Macbook

The Toyota Venza is out, as the car that adapts to you.

Okay, does it adapt by being better looking?  By getting better than 20mpg in the city?  Or is it another one of those ham-handed "I have a family but want to project that I am secretly a hipster and willing to pay the freight" bulge-mobiles that are the automotive equivalent of "Just For Men" hair dye and Ed Hardy shirts worn by guys in their 40's?  People, it's minivan time.  Get over it.

Photo: my iPhone

Faux Greening

I watch a lot of TV.  This means I see a lot of ads.  One of the things I notice is a lot of ads for new "green" products, like some disposable wipe that's biodegradable and guaranteed to kill every germ in a 2 mile radius.

Do I need to point out that kitchen cloths can go in the washer and last for years?  Really, unless you live in a John Waters movie, how many germs do you need to worry about?

I mean. part of the embracing of the green is being aware that it comes from the brown.

Gloomy Sunday

Or, Storm Watch 2009 Part Deux

The rains continue on and off here in Los Angeles.  There is some flooding in Long Beach, but so far nothing more than some inconvenience.  God knows we need it, and in the smallish and intermittent amounts coming it will nourish the soil, clear the air and leave us snow pack that will allow us to flush our toilets come summer.  What's always amusing here is to visit someplace touristy on the weekend like Santa Monica.  Under todays brisk cloudy skies hardy natives braved the mid 60's temps with layers, boots and umbrellas at the ready.  Tourists could be identified by the shorts and flip-flops.  Because when you're here from Minnesota where the wind chill is below zero, 60 is bikini weather.

Photo: my iPhone

STORM WATCH 2009!

It rained today, just at the point where everyone was trying to get home for the evening commute.  Those of you who are not from Los Angeles will have to filter this information and adapt it to your own commutes.  Rain here would be akin to perhaps Miami getting two feet of snow, Chicago being attacked by giant man-eating clams or New York losing the effects of gravity.  Or getting Giuliani back as Mayor.  It's not pretty.  Streets flood, streets close and the general populace realise that those windshield-wiper things that should have been replaced during the Clinton Administration are sadly inadequate now.  You get people who clearly don't get the idea that the modern automobile is not water-soluble and drives pell-mell at high speed to get home and the other extreme of people in fear of hydroplaning will drive at 3.5 MPH.

I'm just glad to be home, fenders undented, listening to the rain.

Tomorrows commute?  Oy.

Photo credit: my old phone