Enlightenment has its price
Rick Call of Marina del Rey chanced upon a newspaper ad promoting “a rare opportunity to be in the powerful presence of a swami (one who is considered to be liberated from material desires).”
Well, more or less liberated.
Price of admission to hear the swami speak: $35 for students, $65 for others.
But who’s counting? The remodeling of First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica took a bit longer than expected, reported photographer Loran Smith of Pacific Palisades (see photo). In this case, the workers rested on the 370th day, I think.
Food for thought: In New Zealand, Wendy Mollett of Studio City noticed an eatery that seemed to specialize in the cuisine of, well, just about every country (see photo).
And chew on this: In Myanmar, Dr. Marna Geisler of Santa Monica found a menu offering a chicken that had apparently seen another doctor before her (see photo).
Say no more -- please! “What the heck is a fully functional fly?” wrote Dr. Owen Robinson of Redondo Beach in reference to a catalog’s clothing display (see accompanying). Robinson quipped that he was “too scared to think of the options.”
That’ll teach it a lesson: My eagle-eyed colleague Yvonne Villarreal recently spotted this crime-log item in Cal State Fullerton’s Daily Titan newspaper: “In the Nutwood parking structure, a male wearing a burgundy shirt and jeans was hitting his car. He was apparently upset because he received a parking ticket for parking in the special permit section.”
Hey, when a car misbehaves like that, it deserves a spanking.
Sit! Don’t speak! Doggie interviews are the latest trend in downtown L.A., where 18% of new residents are said to own pooches. Landlords are eager to fill vacancies but still want to meet with prospective four-legged inhabitants face to face.
One Chihuahua owner described her dog Nacho’s audition this way to the L.A. Downtown News: “She was kind of freaked out, and she got really quiet. But they just wanted to make sure she was a nice dog. They picked her up and gave her a treat.”
Nacho won the landlord’s approval. And why not? A quiet Chihuahua? I didn’t know there was such a thing.
miscelLany: “This must have been UCLA’s year,” wrote Peter Lee of L.A. “UCLA beat USC in football, in men’s basketball and in baseball. UCLA won the Lexus Gauntlet Trophy,” a multi-sport competition between the two schools. “And the other night UCLA student Cliff Galiher won the 2007 Jeopardy! College Championship -- in the new USC Galen Center, of all places. He wrote, ‘Go Bruins,’ on his Final Jeopardy question.”
Bonus question: Guess where Peter Lee attended college.
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083; by fax at (213) 237-4712; by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012; and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.