Queen-size burial? Jack Catholic of Culver City...
Queen-size burial? Jack Catholic of Culver City earned second place at the International Inventors and Entrepreneurs Expo with this brainstorm: a stand-up coffin. Catholic says he got the idea from studying a cigar humidor. But what really captured our attention was that the competition was held at the financially ailing Queen Mary. We wonder whether Catholic’s first customer will be the bereaved owner of a deceased ocean-liner attraction.
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A hurting industry: We’re aware that a newly purchased house can contain unpleasant surprises but seldom do you see a flyer as frank about a property’s dangers as the one Jim Gefre of L.A. came across in Lakewood (see photo).
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As if things aren’t bad enough in this state: Paul Robinson of North Hollywood passed along an announcement from the California Chamber of Commerce, which ticks off several new state labor laws, including: “Optional new nine-day, 80-hour workweek.”
It wouldn’t be such a bad idea for a two-week period.
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Stung by the Bee: A while back, we published the Sacramento Bee’s list of suggested symbols for Southern California in the event of the state splitting in half (i.e. state fish: Hollywood barracuda). Well, Jim and John Sanchez of Long Beach feel Sacramento itself should be made a state, adding that they know just what its official fish would be: flounder.
When it comes to criticism of our representatives in the Capitol, though, it’s difficult to top (if that’s the right word) author Ambrose Bierce’s description of more than a century ago:
“If nonsense were black, Sacramento would need gas lamps at noonday. So scurvy a crew I do not remember to have discovered in vermiculose conspiracy outside the carcass of a dead horse.”
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The Michelangelo Virus made us do it: We ran the wrong date for the L.A. Computer Society’s free virus-testing program at Culver City High School. The correct date is Sept. 8.
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Urban folk tale of the week: An agent was showing a potential buyer a vacant house in the San Gabriel Valley when the two noticed, to their horror, a body floating face down in the back-yard pool. They yelled. The body didn’t move. They contacted police. When the officers approached the pool, they saw the body’s hand suddenly reach out and grip the railing.
The man in the pool apologized for not hearing anyone--he had been relaxing in what is known as the dead man’s float. He identified himself as a rival agent. He had been at the park when his beeper sounded, he explained; a client wanted him to check out the house. (Hence, the bathing suit.) Then, after inspecting the interior, the agent visited the pool area. And, well, with this weather. . . .
Sure, it may be a tall tale. Our source couldn’t give us any names. But we thought any mention of a swimming pool would be refreshing.
miscelLAny:
Christopher Drake of El Segundo points out that Gore Graphics in L.A. is just a few blocks from Clinton Avenue.
