The Wrong Kind of White Christmas

Bemoaning the trend toward icicle Christmas lights, traffic pilot-reporter Mike Nolan wrote the media Web site https://www.ronfineman.com:

“I have been privileged to see many wonderful sights from the air, and the color of Christmas was in that category. But, no more. Nothing is more boring and plain than the sight of house after house, block after block of only white lights. It looks like a mall parking lot.”

Of course, with the way the power crisis is worsening, there may be no Christmas lights next year.

ELECTRICITY SCROOGE: Nolan’s note reminded me of another complaint--that many residents leave their Christmas lights up weeks or months after the holidays.

A guest on the talk show of Phil Hendrie of KFI-AM (640) once announced she was making a list of any addresses where the lights were still up after Dec. 27. Then she was going to notify the local power company, which had agreed to plunge the lazy homeowners into total darkness.

Several outraged listeners called to argue this was a violation of civil rights and what was America becoming--a dictatorship?

The listeners didn’t know that it was all a spoof by the mischievous Hendrie, who impersonates outrageous guests to stir up things.

I took my lights down anyway.

HOPEFULLY THEY HAVE A POOL: Just the other day, a photo of a sign announcing a yard “sail” appeared here. Now Erik Hoffmann of Studio City has found another sign with a water angle (see photo).

FLY BY NIGHT: In his roundup of strange doings in 2000 in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen noted that Air Canada inaugurated flights between Ontario, Canada, and that city’s namesake in Southern California in June. “Shattering those bonds in September, the airline pulled out,” wrote Allen. His reaction: “O Canada!”

It may be the biggest snub of the local Ontario since the time the Weather Channel had technical problems (to put it mildly) a couple of years ago and printed an unintentionally insulting graphic (see accompanying).

MORE ON THE DAZE OF 2000: The Los Alamitos News-Enterprise culled these unusual calls to police:

* March 19: “A man reported a psychic was hacking into his computer.”

* March 20: A motorist reported his parked car had been stolen from a gas station when, actually, “he had left it in neutral and it rolled into the street.”

* April 3: “A resident complained that someone was making bird-type noises” for 15 minutes. The source was determined to be a “bird in a tree.”

* May 25: “A man was trying to use his deceased father’s prescription for Viagra.”

* June 24: “A man who wanted to leave his wife complained that she refused to give him any money.”

* Aug. 31: “A boy reported a small girl, who was purple, was in the backyard.”

* Sept. 15: “A woman reported her boyfriend was spooking her while they were watching the movie ‘The Exorcist.’ ”

miscelLAny:

Jack Levine of North Hollywood noticed an ad that mentions a university I haven’t heard of (see accompanying). But with a name like that you know the school’s team has heart.