Perfect for Garden Lover or Fire Chief
La Nina has rendered everything so dry that you can’t rely on rainfall to water your yard. But Bradford Broyles of Glendale found a solution--an estate that has “potential for hoses,” according to an ad in a weekly (see accompanying). And lest you doubt that boast, take note of the ad’s heading.
A WAY WITH WORDS: During KABC’s 11 p.m. newscast Sunday, the station broadcast a graphic with the following weather prediction for L.A.:
“Fog, Moistie.”
*
E-MAIL HORRORS: Contributing to our file of misdirected computer messages, Ken Brock of Upland recalled the time he was taking an e-mail training class. His company had just announced that a high-level executive was leaving.
“When it came time to practice sending a message to a group, I composed a press release stating that the executive would be replaced by a platypus,” Brock said.
“I chose the group containing my 15 computer lab classmates and clicked ‘Send.’ ” Little did Brock know that the lab computers were connected to the company network and he had sent it to 5,000 employees.
Fortunately, Brock added, “My message had the computer lab I.D. on it, so except for a few confidants, no one knew I was the culprit.”
Still, it was an experience that would make anybody’s hands moistie.
*
HE KNOWS HIS TAX TABLES: Stephen Holzberg snapped a shot of a merchant who, from the sound of his business, knows how to construct a comfortable tax shelter (see photo).
*
SIGALERT DU JOUR: Traffic was slowed down Sunday by a spillage of wine before its time near the junction of the Golden State and and Antelope Valley freeways. I hope it was red. I think that goes best with exhaust fumes.
*
LET IT SNOW (EVERY HALF-CENTURY): Shame on the New L.A. Marketing Partnership, says Bob Baines of West Covina, for its ads that show a Zamboni accompanied by this caption: “The world’s finest ice resurfacing machine is made in a town that hasn’t seen snow in 100 years.”
The ad must have been written before Cecilia Rasmussen’s recent piece in the Times, which noted that Jan. 10 marked the 50th anniversary of the last snowfall at the Civic Center.
I checked a bit further back and found that white stuff also fell in the L.A. area on Jan. 15, 1932. You didn’t need to be Einstein to figure out what it was. As a matter of fact, Albert Einstein was then teaching at Caltech in Pasadena and grumbled that he had come to Southern California for sunshine, not snow.
The flurries also sparked “a snow battle” among 500 Pasadena City College youths that was quelled “by 30 police officers armed with nightsticks and tear bombs,” The Times said. The students were pelting passing cars on Colorado Boulevard.
*
THEY DON’T LOVE L.A.: A while back, I received a note from Preben Sorensen, who wrote, “She is back--the attractive blond in the black BMW . . . I saw her driving south on Fairfax.” How did Sorensen know she had been away? She had a Utah plate, which said, “LEFT LA.”
The question is: Does the BMW owner know the driver that Walt Costa saw recently? The one with the California plate that said, “AH UTAH.”
Maybe they traded cars.
miscelLAny:
The menu listing of “romance salad” here prompted Dennis Levin of Larchmont Village to say, “That sounds like honeymoon salad--’Lettuce Alone’ ”!
*
Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.