This parrot ploy won’t fly

The website www.parrot is attempting to unseat the California valley quail in favor of the Polly-want-a-cracker creature as the official state bird. Yes, there really is a state bird. Legislators with evidently nothing better to do have also voted over the years to create such titles as state fossil (the saber-toothed cat), state rock (serpentine) and state insect (the dog-face butterfly). (With its looks, the dog-face deserves a little positive reinforcement, I guess.)

Anyway, the website says the quail “has misrepresented California, making us look lazy, easily distracted and desperate for worms. Now more than ever we need a state bird we can believe in. Not a bird that takes dust baths.”

Well, it turns out this campaign is actually a PR stunt for a hands-free phone device company. Anyway, I could never support parrots in a state bird competition, having been awakened countless mornings by Long Beach’s notorious gang of green squawkers.

In fact, if a change is needed in that category, I think the state should take the lead of Redondo Beach, which some years ago voted to adopt a quiet creature as city bird: the Goodyear Blimp.

Not to be confused with the Blue 2Th

Boby Austin found a computer-repair sign with a spelling problem that deserves a second look (see photo).

You scream. . . .

In the Galapagos Islands, Ron and Michele Pennington saw a billboard that should appeal to people with bad sunburns (see photo). And to those who prefer really cold ice cream.

Could be some long lines

Imozelle McVeigh of Chula Vista says she did not venture inside a restroom at Kansas City (Mo.) International Airport “for fear of getting lost” (see photo).

No two ways about it

Anne Whitacre was in a Marina del Rey shop when two customers asked the clerk for directions to Shanghai Red’s restaurant.

“It’s at Fisherman’s Village -- about half a mile down the road,” the clerk said.

“Um, we don’t have a car,” one of the customers said. “How far is it if we walk?”

Deadpan, the clerk replied, “It’s still a half mile.”

Westside woes

Life is far from perfect in affluent Pacific Palisades. A few years ago, the neighborhood had to ban Silly String from its Fourth of July parade. Now a resident has written to the Palisadian-Post to complain that at this year’s parade “vendors were selling a device that shoots confetti from a long cardboard tube. These devices should be banned from future parades.”

If it’s not one thing. . . .

miscelLAny

When then-Assemblyman Alan Sieroty (D-Beverly Hills) sponsored a bill to designate the saber-toothed cat as the state fossil years ago, a constituent responded by writing: “Next will you introduce a bill to make the empty beer can the official state piece of litter?”

Let’s think green. How about official state recyclable item?

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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.