One of these is not like the other

People, jealous petty people, are fond of saying Los Angeles doesn't have seasons like real cities do. As someone born and raised here, I can tell you we most certainly do have seasons.

We have two. Construction, and Girl Scout Cookies.

If you've been to a market, home improvement store, mall or gentrified shopping district, you already know right now we're in the thick of Girl Scout Cookie season. And the cuteness is definitely in full bloom.

Tonight the wife and I had a dinner date. The kids were out at a rehearsal for a school show, so we took advantage of the alone time and went to a local place called the Deli News, which is neither a deli or a newsstand.

Anyway, in front of the restaurant was a GSC table being manned (womanned?) by two parents. In front of them, close to the curb so cars could see her, was one of their daughters - about eight years old - jumping up and down with the energy of a cheerleader on Red Bull and holding a stop-sign shaped sign that read "Please buy cookies!"

The wife and I exchanged a look, and we walked up to her. I said, "Excuse me, you know where I can get some thin mints around here?" She thought for a moment, then a big smile came over her face and, pointing at the table, she said, "Right over there!"

The wife and I went up to the table, and made the purchase you see in the picture. Now, I was willing to stop at the two boxes of Thin Mints. My needs are few, and two boxes meet them just fine. However, the wife had a hankerin' for something in the peanut butter family. And since Mr. Peanut wasn't available, she opted for the do-si-dos.

Here's something you don't know about me: I'm not a peanut butter guy. Never liked it, never will. For me, the only reason peanut butter exists is to get my dogs to take their pills. But if it makes the wife happy, I'm glad to pony up the fin.

Besides, you know what they say - happy wife, happy you won't get killed in your sleep over something you said three years ago.

The problem with Girl Scout Cookie season is once you buy from one cookie pusher, you're pretty much stocked up and have to say no to all the other ones. As they learn all to quickly, it's a first-come-first-sold world out there. But I hope they all sell out their entire cookie inventories, and get all the badges their little hearts desire. They've earned it.

I also hope they do it before construction season starts and makes it harder to get to those tables.

Why yes, that is a new tagline

Years ago, Volvo decided to take the bold step of not having a tagline in their ads. At the time it was considered revolutionary by most, and heresy by some, including their agency who didn't get to charge development time against new taglines.

And yet, Volvo continued to do just fine.

The print ads were cleaner and more focused. The TV and radio spots were less "addy." And despite the fact they didn't try to sum up everything they stood for in a few words, people somehow managed to either remember or glean from them that Volvo was synonymous with safety.

You may have noticed by the plethora of lousy taglines out there that coming up with the perfect one is a challenging thing to do (this isn't the first time I've posted about this).

Especially if you're trying to come up with one for a blog. I've often thought of following Volvo's example and just not having one, which would be fine if anyone including me already knew what this blog stood for.

I've had two taglines since I started it. The first was "No meaning. From a tire store sign. Stop trying."

Rolls right off the tongue doesn't it? That was one problem. The other was it spoke more to the blog title than the actual content.

The second one I used for a short while, without any fanfare or any notice was "With a great blog comes great responsibility. Or so I hear."

I liked it, but as a friend told me, I'm not Spiderman.

I keep forgetting.

Although you'd think falling off the sides of buildings all the time would be a good reminder.

So it was time for a new tagline. This time I decided to go with something more descriptive of posts that appear here. Hence the new line:

We didn't invent random. We just perfected it.

It works because random is the central theme of this blog. I almost went with "Mindless ramblings whenever I God damn feel like it."

But for some reason the random thing seems friendlier.

Sign of stupidity

Now how are we going to thin the herd?

Can't government just stay out of our lives? Apparently they just don't care about the small percentage of people who want to walk in front of moving cars. They've taken away that right. Now those people can't say no one told them not to.

This is obviously a bigger problem than I thought. Or that I would have thought if I thought there were people stupid enough to need a warning about waiting for cars to stop before they cross the street.

At some point, I think local government just has to roll the dice and realize they can't protect people from everything.

Especially themselves.

Taking the high road

Here's something I don't tell a lot of people: occasionally - very occasionally - I watch the Weather Channel.

Fine. Use it against me. But I know more about tornadoes and typhoons than you ever will. And I'm sure that and the algebra I had to take four times will eventually come in very handy.

When I'm watching and see all the hurricane footage they show, I always think the same thing: I'll take our earthquakes over their hurricanes any day (although I'd like that day to be a Monday, because why ruin a perfectly good weekend).

With a hurricane, everything it touches is blown to smithereens. Houses become splinters. Cars become airborne as if they were the same size and weight as Hot Wheels. Everyone's life resets to zero and they have to start over.

I'm born and raised in L.A. I've been through a lot of earthquakes. And as a rule, about 98% of everything is still standing afterwards. Cosmetic damage, sure. But this is L.A. We have lots of people who know how to take something that's fallen apart on the outside and make it look better.

When it comes to earthquakes, the news is a cruel tease. Whether it's L.A. or Japan, the coverage would make you believe that entire cities or countries have been destroyed. Simply not true.

All of this brings me to Hermosa Beach.

I was down there walking around with my son last Tuesday, and we saw the sign you see above. Truthfully, tsunamis, or tidal waves, had never really been on my radar (that would be my Doppler radar). Unless the Weather Channel was doing a special on them. This sign immediately brought back images of the footage from Thailand in '04, and the tsunami in Japan after the most recent earthquake.

And as I looked at the sign, I just had one thought. Say goodbye to Hermosa Beach.

If you look just to the right of the sign, that's where the ocean is. Close isn't it?

And Hermosa is the quintessential sleepy beach town with all that implies: narrow streets, too little parking and too many cars, and a beachy little attitude that just screams, "Why the rush?"

They're goners.

So, as I sit in my house three miles inland on a small hill, I'd like to take a minute to say goodbye to Hermosa Beach, and let them know how sorry I am they spent good money on tsunami evacuation signs that aren't going to do jack when surf's up - way up.

I hope they at least made them waterproof.