When you’re a TV weathercaster in this...

When you’re a TV weathercaster in this town, it seems as though there’s always a seventh-grader out there gunning for your job.

This year, it’s James Buxbaum of Whittier Christian Junior High. James, age 12, has entered the California State Science Fair with an exhibit titled, “Who Can Predict Weather Better--James Buxbaum or Fritz Coleman?”

It could be close.

Last year, Jennifer Strona, a Riverside seventh-grader, went one-on-one against the KNBC weatherman with a similar project at the state Museum of Science and Industry.

Over a two-week period, according to her figures, Jennifer came closer to predicting the correct barometric pressure, temperature and air quality on five days. Coleman won on six. Fritz and the 12-year-old tied on three other occasions.

Of course, while Coleman was stuck with KNBC’s existing equipment, Jennifer went out and bought her own--a $25, do-it-yourself, meteorological kit.

You don’t find many bargains in Westwood. In fact, drivers entering one parking lot in the Village must fork over 85 cents if they change their minds and decide they want to leave.

“No free turnaround,” growls the sign at the Le Conte Avenue lot.

The least the proprietor could do would be to offer an early-bird rate of 50 cents for drivers who want to execute a turnaround before 9 a.m.

Talk about realtors making extreme pitches for clients in the fiercely competitive Southern California market:

Valley mogul Mike Glickman was speaking at a home-buyers consumer fair when he interrupted himself and said:

“I just gotta ask--does anyone have a tape of last week’s ‘Twin Peaks’? I just gotta have it. If someone will loan it to me, I’ll negotiate your next house purchase and I guarantee I’ll save you 10%.”

He got his tape of the TV mystery show--and a client.

As for the 10%, time will tell.

Kay Cammer of Santa Barbara, recent winner of our Malathion Poem of the Week contest, points out that we inadvertently listed her first name as Kam. Sorry about that. And we promise to get the name right in our “Golden Treasury of Malathion Poems,” once Random House quits stalling in the negotiations.

The Tucumcari Literary Review (which is in L.A., not New Mexico, but that’s another story) reports that an L.A. graffiti writer fashioned this parody of Longfellow:

I shot an arrow into the air,

And it stuck.

miscelLAny:

The other Gold Rush: The first discovery of the glittery stuff in commercial quantities in California was made in Placerita Canyon, near Newhall, in 1842. Surely you remember the ‘42ers.