October 2008 Archives

In Sunday's column, readers sound off on two recent column topics: TV converter boxes and Santa Ana winds. Some folks can't get their TV situation worked out, and several old-timers insist the winds are called Santana.

I suggest in print that perhaps the winds are called Maria, which led to some back-and-forth with my editors over whether the spelling should be Maria or Mariah.

I wasn't much help, doing some research and informing an editor that the character in "West Side Story" is named Maria. This must have seemed like a non-sequitur, given that the song, he told me, is from "Paint Your Wagon." Fresh research was conducted. Virtually every Internet source gives the song title as "They Call the Wind Maria." Even though it's pronounced like Mariah. I'm pretty sure I've always seen the title as "...Maria," despite not knowing what musical it's from.

Anyway, it's been a while since I printed much reader response, but it's worth doing on occasion. I have responses about my St. Louis column too but couldn't squeeze everything into one column. So, those will wait for next week.

This week's restaurant: Red Devil Pizza, 1465 Foothill Blvd. (at Wheeler), La Verne.

Red Devil is in the CVS Center near the old Vons, placing it across the street from the new Vons. Red Devil is a longtime La Verne favorite.

The interior is nicer than expected, with vintage-style Italian posters and such decorating the walls. Also, a "GoodFellas" poster autographed by Henry Hill. Although there's a counter for takeout orders and paying, they have waitress service. A couple of gents near me were chowing down silently on large bowls of pasta.

Pasta dinners range from spaghetti ($9) to seafood linguine ($17); they also have sandwiches, beer and bottled wine up to $25. And, of course, pizza. I got one of the $8.50 lunch specials, a mini pizza with one topping (mushrooms) and a salad and soda or beer (iced tea, in my case).

The salad was iceberg but it was large, almost entree-sized, with cheese, olives and tomatoes. Not bad. The pizza was also large at 10 inches (2 inches larger than most mini pizzas), chewy and tasty. I took home three of the eight slices. It was a good deal for the price.

La Verne's a good pizza town. Still gotta go back to Sal's for a Sal's Special, as some of you recommended.

From indefatigable trivia buff Don J. comes word of a trio of horror movies with scenes shot in the (gaaaah!) Inland Valley.

* Says Don: "William Castle's 'Macabre' (1958) was cited by no less an authority than Stephen King as the scariest horror movie shot in Chino." I wonder how much competition there is?

(For screenings of "Macabre," incidentally, theatergoers were issued a life insurance policy, payable if they died of fright. Begging the question: Would anyone die of fright at a movie shot in Chino?)

* Elsewhere in his "Danse Macabre" essay collection, King "namechecked 'Massacre At Central High' which is top-heavy on Claremont College locations (like 'Teen Wolf Too'...)."

* Don concludes: "Oliver Stone's 1981 horror film with Michael Caine, 'The Hand,' has a few scenes where arguably the biggest star ever to shoot in Cucamonga (accompanied by D-Day from 'Animal House') drinks heavily and picks up a stripper at the lamented, notorious Cowgirl strip club."

Sounds like another Michael Caine high point. The Cowgirl was in the current Omaha Jack's location on Foothill.

Claremont has a trolley, or at least a trolley-like conveyance, which began service Thursday after a dedication ceremony. Yours truly was there. So were city officials, each of whom made remarks. Councilman Corey Calaycay kept his brief.

"To mirror the words of William Mulholland when he opened the Los Angeles Aqueduct, 'There it is. Ride it,'" Calaycay quipped.

Calaycay voted against the trolley, worried about the cost, but told me his attitude is, now that we've made the investment, Claremont should get the most of it.

In her own remarks, Councilwoman Linda Elderkin said the service's virtues are that it's both "an important economic development tool" and "incredibly cute." Not even the $700 billion bailout can make both those claims.

I talk about the "trolley" in Friday's column. Side note: Apparently the vehicle makes all four stops automatically, but there is also a bell cord, which can be pulled to indicate a stop. But it's suspended near the roof and can't be reached without standing. What's the deal with that?

At my doctor's office in Upland, the door leading from the waiting room to the inner sanctum is decorated with Halloween-themed caution tape that reads: "Caution: Enter at Your Own Risk."

As if going to the doctor weren't scary enough!

Passing by the Levi's store at Victoria Gardens recently, I couldn't help but notice the provocative window display, of which the four or so mannikins were the least interesting part.

At their feet, in two piles, were bundles of a single issue of the LA Times from Oct. 4. Its six-column, two-deck A1 headline:

On the temporary wall behind the mannikins was a map of the United States with one word across it: "Vote."

Whoa.

The message isn't necessarily partisan (but may be). I would interpret it like this: These are tough times. Elections matter. So does your vote.

Speaking of the economy, the display must have given the LAT a (brief) shot in the arm, since it includes 120 copies of the Sunday paper, at $1.50 each..

When I was growing up in Olney, Ill. (population 9,000), in the 1970s, there were a half-dozen places you could buy comic books: three or four grocery stores, a convenience store and a newsstand, plus a used bookstore and a five-and-dime that had some pre-bagged comics. I don't think you could buy a new comic within Olney's city limits today. You certainly can't in many Inland Valley cities. What kind of a world is this??

Chris Peterson, owner of Claremont's Comic Bookie, started reading comics in 1972 while growing up in Claremont. He rode his bike to the 7-Eleven in La Verne to get his comics and often stopped at the Mount Baldy Drive-In's swap meet next door (now a Target) where vendors sometimes sold older comics. He had an allowance of $2 per week, which would net him 10 new 20-cent comics.

He also patronized two stores in Claremont.

R.U.R. was a used bookstore on Yale run by two hippies in the space that became Claremont Books and Prints, and it sold new comics and some older issues. ("R.U.R." was a sci-fi play from 1921 that introduced the word "robots." Shades of Android's Dungeon!)

There was also a newsstand at Indian Hill and Arrow whose name Peterson never knew. The sign's biggest word was Paperback, except the B was missing. Peterson and his friends would routinely say, "Let's go to Paper Ack."

In the 1980s, there were comic shops. Pomona had Funny Business (and still does) and also Fun Time Comics on Antique Row, run by an older couple who, surprisingly, kept up on Watchmen and Wolverine. Upland had The Comic Room downtown; the store later had a satellite store in the Claremont arcade near today's Viva Madrid. Claremont's packinghouse had a small vendor space named Packinghouse Books, a used bookstore with old comics run by Dwain Kaiser (of today's Magic Door Books in Pomona).

Comic shops popped up in every valley city during the 1990s but virtually all of them are gone. Er, the shops, not the cities.

The current generation has pretty much given up on comics, if they even know comics exist. But for older generations -- anyone over 30 or 40 -- comics were part of childhood. Even if you didn't read them regularly, you probably got one as a treat at some point.

Young or old -- where did you buy your comics?

Tried eating lunch today at Pei Wei Asian Diner in Rancho Cucamonga (Foothill and Haven, in the Rancho Cucamonga Town Square) and found all the tables bunched together. A couple of workmen dismantling the place told me it's closed for good.

Nooooo!

Signs on the door direct customers to P.F. Chang's, Pei Wei's parent chain, or to the Pei Wei opening soon in Chino Hills. Another sign suggests that if you walk a few paces to Daphne's Greek and tell them you had intended to eat at Pei Wei, you'll get 10 percent off. Which I did.

I liked Pei Wei, even if they did drop scallops as one of the items (leaving chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or tofu) that you could order in various presentations. The beginning of the end?

City Manager Jack Lam was quite the fan. So was Bulletin sportswriter Clay Fowler, who lives in the adjacent apartments and professed to be "devastated."

Rather than intrude on Fowler during his grief, I asked Lam for his thoughts. He ate at Pei Wei frequently and even celebrated Chinese New Year there.

"I will miss the restaurant. It was a favorite haunt for those working at City Hall nearby. I liked several dishes but my favorite was the lemon pepper pork!" Lam said via e-mail. "Apparently the lunch crowd was good but the dinner crowd had thinned because of the economy."

Lam also forwarded a news story about P.F. Chang's troubles, which you can read by clicking below.

The Comic Bookie in Claremont is closing Friday after 18 years, a fact noted on this blog a while back. The store is also the subject of Wednesday's column.

Owner Chris Peterson and I had a long chat Monday afternoon about the genesis of his store, its evolution and the factors forcing him to close. It surprised me to learn just how precarious his finances had been for a number of years. He's a relaxed guy and hid his stress well.

I also learned that he had retail experience as a Music Plus manager, mostly in the La Verne store, during the 1980s. That's why he was so good at customer service.

He takes some of the blame for the Bookie's demise, referring to the point when he stopped carrying new comics. That cut his expenses, but not surprisingly, he also lost customers, some of whom never came back even when he did carry new issues again.

In retrospect, he wishes he'd sold the store at its height. He'd hoped to sell in recent months but was unable to find a buyer: "A lot of people want to own a comic shop. Not too many people have the money to buy a comic shop."

Some of the factors that did him in are afflicting all comic shops.

"The comic shop as a paradigm worked because it was so unique," Peterson explained. Unsold stock could be sold at a markup as "back issues." That was stores' lifeblood. But few fans today collect back issues, many opting for paperback reprints, which are sold at chain bookstores, or online, at a discount.

In a business climate like that, greeting customers by name, as Peterson did, can only take you so far.

Peterson isn't sure of his next move but may go into teaching. This was a relief to me. After hearing that he'd been involved in records and comics, two dying industries, I was worried he'd go into newspapers.

Comic Bookie is at 1420 N. Claremont Blvd., Suite 203 B, Claremont -- but only through Friday.

Passing by the former Tony Roma's on Montclair's Monte Vista Avenue, I noticed a banner up on the building promising a new restaurant named Rockin' Baja. It gives a web address, www.rockinbaja.com. Another banner says "Now Hiring."

According to its website, Rockin' Baja Coastal Cantina specializes in buckets of shellfish, especially lobster tail, crab and shrimp, prepared "baja style." (I hope this doesn't mean there's sand in it.) There are seven California locations: San Diego (2), Newport Beach pier, Oceanside, Burbank, La Quinta and San Jose.

Sounds more promising than Tony Roma's, "a place for ribs" where I ate a total of one time.

Based on my recent drives, I can offer these cautionary notes:

* At least as of Oct. 15, South Euclid Avenue in Ontario from a street I can't remember to Riverside Drive is a hell ride. That was the day I had a lunch date at Taylor's Cafe and found traffic slowed to a standstill, three lanes funneled into one, for massive reconstruction and installation of a new traffic signal. Maybe it's cleared up now -- I don't dare drive back down there to check.

* In Montclair, Central Avenue is in pieces from the northern city limits to the 10 Freeway, near Montclair Plaza. Better they're doing this work now than during Christmas shopping, but that doesn't make me want to drive it.

* Similarly, Monte Vista Avenue near Montclair Plaza also has lanes narrowed and pavement torn out, although not as drastically.

Better to just avoid Montclair until further notice. Will you miss it? If you live in Montclair, or you really need new clothes at the mall, use your best judgment.

* East Holt Boulevard at Euclid Avenue in Ontario remains a pit of despair, five lanes squeezed into two. Avoid at all costs.

This traffic advisory has been brought to you by the forces of change.

Any other torn-up streets to avoid, readers?

After speaking Thursday at the Ebell Museum in Pomona about her role as Scout in the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird," actress Mary Badham remarked in the presence of several attendees that "Mockingbird" was among the library books Sarah Palin allegedly tried to ban when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

As one attendee told me later: "Suddenly a gaggle of middle-aged women who overheard the statement huddled together and hissed, 'We've got to tell David Allen!'"

And bless one for doing so. This correspondent offered me the "stunning revelation" about Palin's alleged action. "Wow!!!" she concluded her tale.

An Internet search, however, proves the tale to be false. The short version is, there is a generic list of books perpetually questioned in the United States, and "Mockingbird" is on the list. But Palin's "what if" comments to the local librarian apparently mentioned no titles specifically.

You can read a longer explanation at the rumor-debunking site Snopes.com.

Not that there aren't plenty of other reasons to oppose Palin (wink, wink), but the book-banning thing has been overblown.

That aside, my source says Badham "was wonderfully received. A large and very appreciative audience included many high school students from throughout Pomona. Ms. Badham did an excellent job of relating old issues of prejudice and segregation to current events and contemporary political relevance."

Four years ago, a man named Sunit Gupta, a psychic and astrologer in Pomona (www.sunitgupta.com), phoned me offering his prediction of the 2004 presidential election. What the heck, I bit. Gupta picked Bush and was, of course, correct.

He phoned again in late September to give me the worldwide exclusive on the 2008 election. What with one thing or another, we didn't speak until Oct. 14, but he chose a candidate and offered some post-election insight. Can you stand the suspense until Sunday? I predict that you can.

Not only that, but we'll have news of close shaves on the Ontario City Council, a correction to my recent mention of the International Bowling Hall of Fame and a gloomy piece of economic news from Ontario. All this in only (sob!) 16 column inches. How do we do it? Volume!

This week's restaurant: Yatai Sushi Express, 8956 Foothill Blvd. (at Vineyard), Rancho Cucamonga.

Yatai is in the winery center on the northeast corner, in a building between Souplantation and Bobby Baja's. The interior is small, clean and colorful. Even though it's "express," the tables have waitress service.

This is far from a high-end sushi palace and, expectations adjusted downward, I opted for the Yakisoba Chicken ($6.95). This began with a small lettuce salad. The main course had noodles, teriyaki chicken and cabbage. I ate every bit.

Meanwhile, my friend had one of the lunch specials, the Alaskan Roll ($6.99) -- salmon atop a California roll, baked -- and thought it was quite good. I sampled it and agreed. Who knew? It came with a choice of two other items, the proverbial one from column B and one from column C; she got two pieces of salmon sushi and a Coke.

Yatai has a large array of sushi and sashimi, plus bento boxes, $6.99 three-item lunch specials and meals no pricier than $12.95.

Not fine dining, but a pleasant surprise.

I got a phone call Tuesday about the opening of Fontana Park -- that's its name -- from Amy Colbrunn, the assistant to the city manager. City Hall is very excited about the park and, like the library and the theater that opened earlier in the year, they invited me for a tour.

In fact, Mayor Mark Nuaimi had liked my column on the library so much, his entire speech at the ribbon-cutting consisted of reading my column. (Except for a lame joke of mine about how the chimes in the clocktower, which can play 200 songs, ought to include "Louie Louie.")

An e-mail from Colbrunn followed later Tuesday with a personal message from Nuaimi.

"I invite you to tour Fontana Park prior to our grand opening celebration. I was really hoping you would write another column touting the amazing amenities included in the facility -- I need a speech for the grand opening celebration. Hope you have an opportunity to make it out there. We are really proud of our accomplishments."

Well, a tour of the park was arranged, and a column will appear Friday. At 39 acres, the park is quite impressive, and because of its location -- north of the 210 and east of the 15 -- and I imagine a lot of Rancho Cucamonga residents will make use of it too.

One detail among many that I had to cut for space is the leaf motif. It can be found indoors in carpet patterns, wall friezes and wallpaper and outdoors on the base of light poles and stamped in the concrete walkways. If you find them all, I wonder if you get a prize?

The gymnasium, at 13,000 square feet, has six basketball backboards and bleachers. It's Fontana's first city gymnasium. It still has that "new gym" smell. Which is far preferable to that "old gym" smell.

And there's an aquatics center, skate and BMX park, playground, dog park, grand fountain, promenade and other features. The community center even has a juice bar.

Will the mayor do a public reading of this column? I tried to ignore that possibility as I wrote, making sure to include as many jabs as possible, including mocking the park's bland name. If he reads it, I hope he leaves out the lamer jokes.

There's a tip-a-cop fund-raiser at the Ontario Applebee's, 1051 N. Milliken Ave., tonight from 5 to 10 p.m.

Councilwoman Sheila Mautz announced the event -- in which police officers act as food servers, with the tips going to various nonprofit organizations -- at Tuesday's council meeting, urging people "to tip a cop, and tip a cop well."

"Is that anything like tip a cow?" Mayor Paul Leon quipped.

"Jeff," Leon said, indicating a police employee in the room, "would you like to come up and demonstrate cop tipping?" Apparently he didn't.

Cow tipping is a prank based on the notion that, since cows sleep standing up, it's possible to approach them in the dark of night and tip them over.

Ontario police are, of course, harder to tip because even in their sleep, they are on the alert 24/7. Right? Better to just give them money at Applebee's.

Remember how the previously unknown Repertory Opera Company was going to perform "Don Pasquale" in Pomona?

Well, apparently the Sept. 14 show went off fairly well -- so much so that there's an encore.

The company will again perform "Don Pasquale" at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 242 E. Alvarado St., Pomona, one show only, this Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25 and reservations are recommended to (323) 969-4602. The website is www.repertoryoperacompany.org.

If you go, let me know if the fat lady sings.

Mary Badham, the actress who played the little girl, Scout, in "To Kill a Mockingbird," will speak from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Ebell Museum, 585 E. Holt Ave., Pomona, as part of the Big Read program. She'll talk about the role and the impact it had on her life. Admission is free.

Some of us saw Badham in Rancho Cucamonga in 2007 for that city's Big Read. She's a good speaker and if you've seen the movie, this will be worth your time.

(Incidentally, the Pomona Public Library will screen the movie at 1 p.m. Saturday, followed by a discussion contrasting the book and the movie.)

One thing you'll notice during Badham's talk is that she doesn't have many specific memories of the film shoot. I think that's something we tend to forget about child actors: They don't have the memories an adult might. Most childhood memories are fragmentary and hers are no exception.

Most of what Badham will relate, and she said so herself in Rancho, is second-hand information, even though it involves her. (It's still interesting, as are her stories about her lifelong friendship with Gregory Peck.)

I witnessed the same situation in Studio City in April when Jon Provost, who grew up in Pomona, talked about his role as Timmy in the "Lassie" TV show.

Provost had acted in movies as young as infancy. People in the audience eagerly asked him about his pre-"Lassie" work and didn't quite grasp that he was a baby, toddler or very young boy at the time and, hence, doesn't remember a thing. I suppose because he, and Badham, are preserved on film, their childhood seems more "present" than ours.

First off, while this won't matter to anyone who reads my columns online, my column has moved again, this time back to Page A3.

One aspect of the move will affect everyone, even if it's not obvious: Because my columns will no longer "jump" to another page, they have to be shorter.

At this point they'll all be around 550 words. Previously they ranged from 600 to 700 or even 800. Last Friday's column on used bookstores was on the high end and starting now I could print only about two-thirds of it.

So if you always thought I nattered on too much, this is good news. If not, well, I'll adapt and you will too. (Or, I could answer one of those spam e-mails promising more "length.")

As for the content, Monday's Pomona council meeting was quiet, but there was a funny angle for those of us who follow Ontario council meetings. Elliott Rothman was absent, which left a motion to pass the consent calendar and adjourn the meeting in the hands of amateurs. And Mayor Norma Torres gave me a candid interview after the meeting that will be of high interest to Pomona voters.

And before I knew it, I was out of space. Upside: I already have plenty of leftover material for Friday!

Steve's column is back as a blog, as noted in a recent column of mine. Here's last week's post, which includes a quote from yours truly, about Claremont's drunken skateboarder. Forget Steve's 82 mentions of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin; we're now up to 83!

Reader Eric Scherer forwarded an eBay listing (ending Oct. 26!) for a postcard of the fondly recalled Kapu-Kai bowling alley, coffee shop and Tiki bar in Rancho Cucamonga. View the auction and the postcard here.

Scherer drew my attention to wording on the reverse side (shown on the eBay listing): the area code -- 714 -- and the motto "foremost among Tahitian-Type Entertainment Restaurants - in food - service - exotic surroundings - modest pricing."

The Kapu-Kai stood at Foothill and Vineyard, where Albertsons is now, from 1962 to 1994. Here's a previous blog post with lots of great comments.

Tonight is the last Pomona council meeting before the election. The agenda looks quiet but surely something interesting will be said.

Tuesday is the last Ontario council meeting before the election. Ditto and ditto.

Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., "The Maltese Falcon" will screen at the Lewis Family Playhouse in Rancho Cucamonga. It's free as long as you have a ticket from one of the two libraries. I've gotta get one. Like the black bird, it'll be the stuff dreams are made of.

Thursday was clear until a few minutes ago. A nice man from the Mt. San Antonio Gardens retirement home in Pomona phoned to ask if I'd show up that evening and talk about the Pomona elections. "We'll give you dinner and $100," he said. I can always use dinner and $100, so I agreed, on the proviso that I'm through by 8:30 p.m., so I can get home in time to catch "The Office." He agreed.

Boy, I hope I can keep Friday clear.

Taking Foothill Boulevard east the other day from Claremont, I noticed a few changes among Upland's restaurant lineup:

* Philly's Best has gone under, a display of unbrotherly love for cheesesteak fans. That's apparently a tough corner; the only previous occupant of that side of the building, B-Man's Teriyaki, didn't last as long as it should have either.

* Cherry on Top is coming to the former Winchell's. It's either ice cream or frozen yogurt, I couldn't tell. I kept getting green lights.

* The former Country Buffet (was that the name?) has gone through several names as a teppan grill and sushi bar. It's now Mora.

* East of Euclid, Sizzler is closed, replaced by an almost-identical operation. New name: Sizzlin. The two Zs are in red letters, just like Sizzler. "Steak-Seafood-Grill," the overline reads.

Some good, some bad, but on balance, Upland hasn't lost its sizzle.

The exterior of the virtually indescribable wonderland named City Museum.

St. Louis is one of those cities that few people would travel far to see. It's flyover territory for those of us on the coasts. But I grew up near there and always idealized it as a big city, as it was the only one I knew.

Well, I hope no one groans at hearing that Sunday's column is about my recent vacation to St. Louis. I had a great time. The subtext, I guess, is that most places have something going for them, even places you might not expect.

This week's restaurant/car wash: EZ Take Out Burger/EZ Car Wash, 515 N. Mountain Ave. (at Arrow Highway), Upland.

I suspect this will be a one-week-only permutation of my Restaurant of the Week feature. But why not do a knockoff of myself? EZ Take Out is a transparent copy of In N Out. Yet two of its three Inland Valley locations set themselves apart from any other restaurant you can likely think of by pairing themselves with a car wash.

You can walk up to the window, get a meal and eat at a patio table. You can go through the drive-thru for a meal. Or you can pull into a car wash bay just feet away, drop quarters into the slot and set to work with the wand and the foaming brush. Be careful not to spray the people on the patio!

Every now and then I let slip in print what a geek I am, and Friday is one of those times, as I write in praise of used bookstores. As I say there, they really are among my favorite places. Visiting them on out-of-town trips is a habit ingrained since childhood, and my parents didn't discourage it; my mom can happily spend an hour in a bookstore.

I love the vast number of sections in the larger used bookstores. While doting on Fiction, Classics, Sci-Fi, Journalism, Humor, Music and Comics, I always get a kick out of the arcane sections full of dusty hardcovers: Military, Railroads, Sailing, British History, Metaphysics, Linguistics, whatever. (Patrons in those sections tend to be dusty, too.) At Brand Bookstore in Glendale, there's a shelf devoted to Hobos. Amusingly, it rubs patched elbows with a section on Wealth.

The occasion, or rather excuse, for Friday's column is that Acres of Books in Long Beach closes Saturday. That could have merited a column of its own, as I've been there eight or 10 times over the years. (When I was there a couple of months ago most of the good books were already gone, so I wouldn't encourage anyone to make the trip at this point.)

Instead, I wrote, mostly, about our local bookshops. Did you know the Inland Valley has five used bookstores? Me neither. They all get a plug with their address. Join us Friday for the story, and if you're reading the print version, be sure to dogear the pages and underline favorite passages.

Any favorite memories of used bookstores?

There's a film screening Friday in Pomona of "To Kill a Mockingbird," followed by a discussion contrasting the book and the movie. This is all part of the Big Read community reading program. The event takes place from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center, 300 W. 2nd St.

Can I admit I think the book and movie are overrated? *

I saw the movie first, a few years back, and, in part because of high expectations, was let down. Gregory Peck is such a model of rectitude, he's not very interesting. I kept waiting for a big character flaw or plot twist that never came.

My opinion softened a bit last year. I read the book and admired its tone and gentle humor, and its child-level perspective. The movie, seen a second time, expectations grounded, became more enjoyable.

Many read the book in childhood, as a class requirement. Perhaps my opinion would be different had I not come to the book as an adult.

Still, I think the message -- to see things from the other guy's point of view before judging -- may be a bit thin to warrant the veneration both book and movie have received. Ultimately I liked them both, don't get me wrong, but I didn't love them.

Anyone share my puzzlement, or am I all wet?

* Based on the comments, apparently not.

There's an open house at the Citizens Business Bank Arena on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. This may be your only chance to explore the arena without buying a ticket for country music, Metallica or hockey.

I can't explain where the arena is located -- unless 4000 E. Ontario Center Parkway means something to you -- but you can find a map on the arena's website.

Now, what are we to call this facility with the unwieldy name? I know Citizens Business Bank ponied up money for the naming rights, but we have to be practical.

At the arena, employees are said to be unofficially calling it "See-buh," a phonetic pronunciation of CCBA.

Sports editor Lou Brewster's column Tuesday suggests "The Bank." He also says the shorthand version may show up in sports stories too.

I've since pointed out to Lou that I suggested The Bank as a nickname in a column on March 9, 2007, right after the ground-breaking.

"Who reads that?" Brewster replied.

Oh.

The Santa Anas seem to have died down today, but they're the subject of Wednesday's column anyway. I round up some literary quotes about the winds and make a few observations.

One quote I didn't have room for was pulled from Wikipedia's entry. Apparently Debby Boone's 1978 album "Midstream" has a song titled "California" with this lyric: "...California, where the sun is warm, where the winds called Santa Ana make you feel like you belong..."

Feel like we belong?? That's a long way from the "prickly dread" of Joan Didion.

Under a new law, chain restaurants in Calorie-fornia will have to post calorie counts and grams of fat starting in 2011, and provide brochures with that information starting July 1, 2009. But some restaurants are getting a head start.

I ate at a Chick-fil-A in Ontario recently and nutritional information for every menu item was printed on the tray liner. Not that it did me a lot of good, since the liner came under the food I'd already ordered, but it made for good lunchtime reading. If I'd gone for the chargrilled chicken instead of the regular breaded chicken, I'd have saved 130 calories and cut the fat from 16 grams to 3.

Did you know their cole slaw has 32 grams of fat? That's only one gram less than the Cookies and Cream milk shake, the fattiest item on the menu! Waffle fries, with 13 fat grams, are actually better for you than the slaw. Methinks some tinkering with the recipe is in order.

The same week, I also visited -- on the opposite end of the valley, and the fussiness meter -- Le Pain Quotidien in Claremont, where they're now putting calorie counts on the menu. Very helpful, except in the case of beverages. A note explains that calories for beverages range from "5 to 195." I'd like one closer to 5, please!

A recent police brief in our newspaper concerned a 100 mph chase in Fontana. The headline, unfortunately, read "Driver arrested after 10- mph chase."

Reader Will Plunkett asks: "Fuel costs hitting the high-speed chase market, too?"

On a related note, Plunkett says that when driving behind an Omnitrans bus the other day, he was startled to see the bus had a huge ad for the film "Death Race." For the sake of the dozens of passengers on board, he decided not to goad the bus driver into a chase.

In my cookie after a Chinese lunch in Rancho Cucamonga, this fortune was found:

"You are an adventurer, traveling on the highway of life."

If so, I'm traveling in the slow lane. Either that, or I'm stopped on the side of the highway of life, waiting for AAA. How about you?

As seasons will do, the 909's Summer of Scandal has become the Autumn of Scandal, with ridiculousness rearing its head in Rialto, Chino and Chino Hills, and good ol' Pomona. Hoo-boy, did it rear its head in Pomona. Check my Sunday column for the sorry details about a host of people who ought to be sorry but probably aren't.

This week's restaurant: Green Mango Thai Bistro, 11226 4th St. (at Milliken), Rancho Cucamonga.

My unholy love for Mix Bowl Cafe in Pomona has been well-documented. It's Thai fast food, essentially, not far from home and casual enough -- with its bright lighting, colors and neon and its T-shirt-clad servers -- that a lone diner can eat there without feeling self-conscious.

On the other end of the spectrum is Green Mango, which opened a year ago cater-corner from Ontario Mills (but in R.C.) in a space formerly occupied by Mi Tortilla. The family owned restaurant is decorated in teak direct from Thailand, and with its straight-backed chairs, square plates and staff in traditional dress it feels slightly elegant.

The menu, too, is lighter on the noodle and rice dishes Mix Bowl favors. There's a nice range of entrees: chicken, duck, pork, beef, curries, seafood and vegetarian.

I've been to Green Mango a half-dozen times in its year or so of operation, in groups of two to five, but have never written about it. So on Thursday, I went in for a solo lunch. The place was, thankfully, busier than I've seen it. It may, finally, be catching on.

Since my last visit, the lunch menu has expanded from nine items to 30, and prices dropped a bit, with the lowest special at $5.95, which may be helping.

I got Panang Salmon ($8.95), which was chunks of salmon in a red curry with coconut milk, mildly spicy. Quite good, and as with all the lunch specials, you also get a small salad, a wonton, a scoop of rice and a cup of soup. Candidly, these sides are smaller than before, and not as good, either. A cream cheese wonton? That's too American for a restaurant like this. But for the money, you get a filling meal.

In past visits I've had Jade Curry Chicken, Pad Thai (both $7.95) and, for dinner, Pra Ram Long Soung Prawn ($15.95), which is sauteed prawns with garlic, peanut sauce and sauteed spinach. The Sweet Coconut Sticky Rice With Mango ($6.95) dessert is delicious.

There's no special need for me to mention the amusingly named Angry Beef, Angry Chicken, Drunken Noodle and Dancing Crispy Duck entrees, but I can't resist.

Oh, and I can attest that Green Mango is a good choice after a movie at the Mills. Boston's, BJ's, etc., are packed, with lines out the doors. Green Mango is quiet and you'll be seated quickly. It's not as popular as it deserves to be but hopefully it'll be around a while.

While I haven't made a comprehensive survey, it's up there with Thai T in Rancho Cucamonga and Swasdee Thai Cuisine in Chino Hills as the nicest Thai restaurants in the Inland Valley.

Although I still love Mix Bowl best.

For Friday, I've got two observational items from my Midwestern vacation, including the Palin-Biden debate, plus a third item about my plane ride home to ONT. Also, a comment about the Ontario councilman who's been named Lawyer of the Year. Nice, of course, but something tells me he won't be touting that in his re-election campaign.

The column begins, however, with a local-connection item on the actor who played Mr. Clean in the TV commercials, based on a letter sent to me dated Jan. 20, 2005. I filed that missive in my "I.V. Celebrities" folder for future use. His death means now is the time.

See, readers? If you send me an idea and I don't use it right away, don't be discouraged. I might use it four years from now.

My week in the St. Louis area was fab, thanks for asking. I'll likely write a column for Sunday or next Wednesday about the tourist-y highlights, and maybe some column or blog items about general observations.

Here's one: I landed in Phoenix on Tuesday for my connecting flight to Ontario and wondered what the local time was. Should I set my watch back two hours, or one?

Checking a clock in the Phoenix airport, however, proved impossible: There aren't any. I walked from the A gates to the B gates and never once saw a clock. Eventually I asked an airline employee at my check-in area for the time. The time difference was indeed two hours.

Given that almost everyone in an airport needs to be critically aware of the time, and that people are flying in from all over, meaning whatever time is on their watch or phone may be wrong, one would think a clock or two at an airport might be useful, no?

I was going to make a point of looking for clocks at ONT when I landed, but forgot. I'm pretty sure the airport has several. Am I wrong?

Cooling my heels in a doctor's waiting room today gave me an hour-plus to catch up on Daily Bulletins from my time away. Interesting stuff.

I liked the campaign flier in Pomona, apparently put out by the firefighters union, mimicking a newspaper and titled Pomona's Better Times, with "Times" in giant type. Thank goodness it wasn't Pomona's Better Bulletin or we'd be offended.

Did you know Ontario Councilman Jason Anderson was named "lawyer of the year" by the local Bar Association? I'll have to ask him if that's an honor or not.

And speaking of bars, we learned today that Elliott Rothman, a councilman and mayoral candidate in Pomona, was arrested on suspicion of DUI. That's about all we've learned as of mid-afternoon because the Police Department was told to refer media calls to City Hall and yet City Hall won't call us back.

Good times. And good column fodder. I should've thanked the doc for keeping me waiting.

I'm back in the office after a week's vacation (darnit) and will resume writing once I have an idea what's going on. Or this afternoon, whichever comes sooner.

This is an expansion of my blog post about the TV converter box. Actually, I wrote it as a blog post, but the result was so long I decided to use it as one of my vacation columns instead. I ran a shortened version on this blog. Since then I've rewritten the column a bit. Some of it's a repeat from the blog post but much of it will be new to you.

Is that an El Camino Real bell in downtown Pomona? It is. This Burton Frasher photo shows the northwest corner of Garey Avenue and Second Street in 1925. Dig the surprisingly modern bank facade.

The building, btw, was razed at some later point to widen Garey or build the underpass, but it would have stood just east of where Joey's BBQ is today.

Anyhow, the Auto Club sign on the bell directed motorists to San Bernardino, 31 miles, and to an unreadable place to the west, 24 miles.

Betty Peters, the Pomona Public Library's volunteer historian, found the photo and was amazed to see the bell, never realizing Pomona had had one.

You can read about the bells here and here.

In short, the original El Camino Real was a 600-mile Spanish trail that connected California's 21 missions. In 1906, a modern-day version of the road was established as one of the state's first highways. The route was marked by bells attached to shepherd's crooks. The Auto Club began maintaining the bells in the 1920s but eventually they began being stolen or vandalized.

In recent years, Caltrans has been putting up the bells again, mostly along Highway 101, as a nod to history. I find them quite charming.

Betty Peters wonders if anyone remembers Pomona bells or ones in other local cities. The route apparently went through Claremont as well.

Richard E. Nunez of Pomona, whose photos often grace the Goddess of Pomona blog and whose comments, as "REN," sometimes grace mine, now has a blog of his own at http://ren-rensphotoshop.blogspot.com/

If you're a Pomona nut, he's got some nice photos. And the promise of many more to come.
You'll have to supply your own punctuation and mentally correct all his grammar, but at least his commentary is short. Welcome to the blogosphere, REN!

On tap for Sunday: some Inland Valley dialogue from John Wayne's "Hondo" and, at perhaps the other end of the Hollywood spectrum, a roundup of three Abbott and Costello movies that were partly filmed here. Also, ever notice businesses with names reflecting a different city, sometimes one far, far away? I have, and I've got a list.

Philippe's, the L.A. French dip place, celebrates its 100th anniversary on Monday with dime sandwiches and nickel coffee, the original 1908 prices. It'll be a madhouse but, if you're at liberty that day, Metrolink or the Silver Streak bus will set you down a four-block walk from the restaurant...

We stayed away from the Washington University area Thursday, where some streets were closed for the debate between Joe Biden and Tina Fey (or whoever). But we did watch the debate in a public setting, the Contemporary Art Museum, a block from the restored Fox Theatre. And I don't mean Pomona's.

The museum set up chairs and a big screen to air CNN's broadcast of the debate that took place (tingle!) a few miles away. In St. Louis it started at 8 p.m. Nearly 100 of us watched. It was a very pro-Biden crowd. Watching the debate with a group was much more fun that watching at home. There were plenty of groans, laughter and catcalls.

Everybody loved it when Marge Gunderson (or whoever) said it was time for John McCain "to leave. Er, to lead." Although there were snickers when Biden kept repeating what sounded like "Bushis": "How is McCain's policy on the economy different from Bushis? How is McCain's policy on Iraq different from Bushis?," etc., etc.

We eagerly await the SNL version.

Reporting nearly live from St. Louis, this is Bushis, Bushis, Bushis. Doggone it.

A grabbag of items for Friday: Claremont police make a most unusual traffic stop, and speaking of unusual, two not-especially-complementary events share a venue in Ontario. In Chino Hills and Ontario, they're showing free movies, even if the planned "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in Ontario didn't quite come off. And Steve Harvey's "Only in L.A." returns as a blog.

Tonight is the vice presidential debate, live from Washington University in...St. Louis. Which is where I am right now. I'm a witness to history!

The school is in the University City neighborhood, which happens to be one of my favorite places, but which I imagine will be a mess today. I hope to watch the debate on TV somewhere. I think the winner will be St. Louis.

This week's restaurant, Mariscos Los Enrique's, 812 Mountain Ave. (at Mission), Ontario.

I had to get down to Mountain below Holt for the "Moutain" photo earlier this week -- Councilman Jim Bowman had given me the tip, btw -- and I went at lunchtime, figuring I'd find a restaurant in the area. Continuing south to Mission, I found Mission Plaza, a strip center fronted by a Jack in the Box, on the southwest corner. The center also turned out to be home to Mariscos Los Enrique's, a Mexican seafood restaurant. Bingo!

The interior is rather nice: big broad windows, a large dining area and four colorful murals, two of them quite large, with beach or ocean scenes featuring sharks, crabs, octopi, catfish and other of our undersea friends. Tables have Coronita cartons with various hot sauces in the slots that once held bottles.

The menu is heavy on seafood items. You could go crazy and get a large, $105 party platter of shrimp, scallops, calamari, crab legs, etc. More reasonably, they have various shrimp, fish fillet and octopus dishes from $9 to $13, plus an array of soups, tacos, burritos, tostadas and appetizers, and breakfast items too.

My server brought out thick tortilla chips, a sinus-clearing salsa, lime wedges and a small plate of fried catfish chunks on cucumber slices, speared with toothpicks. I ordered a catfish sauteed in garlic ($9.75).

The result was a whole fish, which was deep-fried -- that was the other option and apparently the server misunderstood my choice. But the result was quite good, the skin pleasingly crunchy, the meat tender. It came with beans, rice, a mix of diced tomatoes and onions, and corn tortillas. It was a satisfying meal.

Life doesn't often take me to Mission and Mountain, but it's nice to know there's a good restaurant down there.

I'm off for week's vacation in and around St. Louis, Mo. My parents are now living in the suburbs on the Illinois side. Lots of sightseeing, shopping and eating is planned. For instance, no stop in St. Louis is complete without a visit to Ted Drewe's, the frozen custard stand on Route 66.

But while I'm away, keep reading. Columns will continue to appear on schedule. And while my intention wasn't to write blog posts in advance for vacations, I wrote a bunch anyway. Might even write one or two while I'm away.

Any St. Louis natives or admirers out there?

Today's column is about the community reading programs in Rancho Cucamonga, Pomona and Claremont. Each city has numerous events planned, far too many to list. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Read about Rancho's effort here. Claremont's, here. And Pomona's here.

The Pomona program's web address is the ridiculous http://www.class.csupomona.edu/downtowncenter/bigread/events.html. Putting that in my column would have resulted in two or three hyphens, which would only have confused everyone more.

Here's the Big Read website and its current lineup of books. I've read only eight of the 22.