The Black Angus Steakhouse in Rancho Mirage is closing. Not that I’m really torn up about it, as I have not been there in probably ten years or so, but we used to go there a lot when I was a kid. I think my grandma really liked that place. Anyways, during one of our family excursions to Black Angus, the waiter asked me (at the time I was probably in kindergarten or thereabouts) what I wanted for dinner.

Well, I wanted one of my favorite meals, and something I always ordered at Black Angus.
“Bones!” I replied.
The waiter, of course, was absolutely puzzled. “Bones?”
“I want bones!”

Finally, my mom interpreted my order for the poor guy: “She’ll have the baby back ribs.”

BONES

And yes, I still get teased about that.

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I can hardly believe it myself. It’s been almost ten years since we graduated from high school. Ten years since we “acquired” several orange traffic cones.

Godspeed, orange traffic cone. Enjoy your freedom.

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Via the Desert Sun:

Supporters of the voter-approved gay marriage ban are suing the secretary of state’s office and various state and local offices across California in federal court, alleging that the state’s campaign disclosure law violates their rights to privacy.

The suit contends that many on either side of the gay marriage debate have received significant “harassment and threats” as a result of the state’s Political Reform Act, which requires political donors who contributed $100 or more to a political campaign to give their names and addresses.

That personal information is then included in public documents filed with the California Secretary of State’s Office.

WAAAAA! Welcome to politics, newbs. I’m guessing that for many of the Yes on Prop 8 donors, this was their first time making a contribution to a political campaign and they were unaware that their donations would be public record. So now they are upset that people are boycotting their businesses. Sorry, but I’ve got no sympathy for them losing business because of this.

If you want to find out which of your neighbors donated to Yes on Prop 8, check out this Google map (thanks, Ryan). There are actually a few people I know on there who donated. Lame.

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- Ate In-N-Out
- Ate a TON of Mexican food. Seriously. A ton.
- Saw a bunch of friends
- Took the Mosin M91/30 out to the desert to shoot a few rounds
- Toured the “wind farm” in the San Gorgonio Pass
- Completely ignored this blog and most e-mails
- Etc, etc.

It was good to be home for an entire week, but it’s back to the grind tomorrow.

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This ad came up while I was reading an article on The Guardian:

Wow, “life = fun”? Amazing. I think a third grader designed this.

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Have I ever told you how my parents love to talk about polar bears? Oh, yeah, I have. Almost every time I talk to them on the phone, they are bringing up some story about polar bears swimming 60 miles to find food, or polar bears cannibalizing each other, or whatever.

Anyways, when I arrived home on Thursday morning, I was greeted with this:

As I stared in disbelief at my polar bear Christmas decoration, now floating in our pool on several pieces of styrofoam, my mom remarked, “Gee, Lindsay, I hope the poor polar bear doesn’t start to eat himself.”
(Despite all this, they claim to be very proud that I work for “Big Oil.” Really, I think they are just glad I managed to find a job despite spending five years studying a country that no longer exists.)

But the real question is, what to do with a hungry polar bear that is roaming around your backyard? Well, shoot it, of course, and have it promptly turned into a rug to be placed in front of your fireplace.

(This photo was actually taken several years ago, and there is a story behind it that I’ve just been too lazy to write about. I will eventually, I guess.)

Kidding, of course. The polar bear is safely ensconced in front of our house, opposite the penguin decoration. Yes, our front yard resembles a real life Coca-Cola ad.

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I couldn’t go to California for Thanksgiving and not have In-N-Out, could I?

For Saturday’s dinner, we went to Las Casuelas Nuevas with a dozen or so friends and family members. I had a gigantic margarita, freshly made guacamole, my usual beef taco and cheese enchilada dish, and deep-fried ice cream for dessert. Whenever I leave California I feel like I need to go to detox for overdosing on food.

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Post Gidget invasion, and Dora’s nightmare.

(Allan Grant, 1961)

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Worse than Detroit:

The most recent federal statistics for the nation’s 49 metropolitan areas with 1 million or more residents showed the Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario area worst in unemployment at 9.1%.
The figure — which is based on reports up to September — is eight-tenths of a point higher than the second-worst region, the Detroit metropolitan area.

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Thanks to Jackie for pointing me to “The Californiacs” by Inez Haynes Irwin. I think this describes how I and a lot of my fellow Californians feel, and likewise how our friends from other states are forced to put up with us and our annoying California patriotism. Also, keep in mind that this was written in 1916. Yes, even back then Californians viewed their state as superior to all others.

California, I repeat, is populated mainly with Californiacs; but the Californiacs are by no means confined to California. They have, indeed, wandered far afield. New York, for instance, has a colony so large that the average New Yorker is well acquainted with the symptoms of California. The Californiac is unable to talk about anything but California, except when he interrupts himself to knock every other place on the face of the earth. He looks with pity on anybody born outside of California and he believes that no one who has ever seen California willingly lives elsewhere. He himself often lives elsewhere, but he never admits that it is from choice. He refers to California always as “God’s country”, and if you permit him to start his God’s country line of talk, it is all up with intelligent conversation for the rest of the day. He will discourse on California scenery, climate, crops, athletes, women, art-sense, etc., ad libitum, ad infinitum and ad nauseum. He is a walking compendium of those Who’s Whosers who were born in California. He can reel off statistics which flatter California, not by the yard, but by the mile. And although he is proud enough of the ease and abundance with which things grow in California, he is even more proud of the size to which they attain. Gibes do not stop the Californiac, nor jeers give him pause. He believes that he was appointed to talk about California. And Heaven knows, he does. He has plenty of sense of humor otherwise, but mention California and it is as though he were conducting a revival meeting.

[...]

If you mention the eastern winter to a Californiac, he tells you with great particularity of the dreadful storms he encountered there. Nothing whatever about the beauty of the snow. To a Californiac, snow and ice are more to be dreaded than hell-fire and brimstone. If you mention the eastern summer, he refers in scathing terms to the puny trees we produce, the inadequate fruits and vegetables. Nothing at all about their delicious flavor. To a Californiac, beauty is measured only by size. Nothing that England or France has to offer makes any impression on the Californiac because it’s different from California. As for the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome, he simply never sees it. The Netherlands are dismissed with one adjective – flat. For a country to be flat is, in the opinion of the Californiac, to relinquish its final claim to beauty. A Californiac once made the statement to me that Californians considered themselves a little better than the rest of the country. I considered that the prize Californiacism until I heard the following from a woman-Californiac in Europe: “I saw nothing in all Italy,” she said, “to compare with the Italian quarter of San Francisco.”

[...]

You must not tell a Californiac that you love any place but California or that you have found beauty elsewhere. It’s like breaking an engagement of marriage with a girl. It’s like telling a child that there’s no such person as Santa Claus. There’s no tactful way of wording it. It simply can’t be done. And I am very glad that I told the Californiacs all the time how much I love California, how much I love San Francisco. For beauty, California is like the fresh, glowing, golden crescent moon; it is waxing steadily to a noble fullness of development; and San Francisco is like the glittering evening-star; it fills the Pacific night with the happy radiance of its light and life.

I think of California always – with its unabated fighting strength – as a champion among States. It takes the stranger – that champion State – under its mighty protection and gives him of its strength and happiness. It is more fun to be sick in California than to be well anywhere else.

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