Recently in My So-Called Life Category

Have you non-cable-TV folks bought your converter box? And, more importantly, hooked it up instead of leaving it in the original packaging?

I'm among the 12 percent of U.S. households that rely on rabbit ears (in my case) or rooftop antennas for over-the-air programming. My analog TV requires a converter box to pick up the digital signals that will replace analog on Feb. 17, 2009.

Armed with my $40 government coupon, I bought my converter box on Labor Day for $20. However, I tried, but failed, to unravel the directions in a short, frustrating session that evening. I have one of those brains that seizes up when confronted with anything technical.

I think this qualifies:

"2. Connect the 'To TV (RF)' jack on this unit to the 'Antenna In' jack on your TV using a coaxial RF cable (R). Your TV must be tuned to the selected RF Output Channel (Refer to page 8) channel (3 or 4) to display the picture. (default: channel 3).

"Connect the VIDEO and AUDIO (L/R) jacks on this unit to the video and audio input jacks on the TV using the video (V) and audio (A) cable."

Did the guy who wrote this manual test these instructions on his mother first? I suspect not.

My first attempt, using the second approach, meant unplugging my DVD player from my TV. Sorry, but no. (Unless I misunderstood how to do it, which is certainly possible. No other likely holes in my TV presented themselves.)

Some weeks later, I worked up my nerve and gave it another go. This time I tried the first way, despite all the bewildering parenthetical asides. Doing so meant unplugging my VCR from my TV so I could use that hole. Well, not such a terrible thing, at this point in history, but a little disappointing. At least the converter box works.

Have any of you made the switch, or had difficulty doing so? I'd hate to think Vivian C. Brown and I are the only ones.

[This column originally appeared Oct. 27, 2002, which explains the presence of a couple of dated references. This summer marks 50 years since Hearst Castle was opened to the public, by the way.]

Hearst Castle: an embarrassment of riches

Midway up the California coast, there's a celebrated dwelling, built on a hill by a famous eccentric, that today is a tourist draw and an official historic landmark.

Actually, there are two.

That's where I spent a couple of relaxing days earlier this week. Ventura isn't the most exciting beach town, and that's what I was looking for -- a place that would be much cooler than the Inland Valley, with a beach, and not overrun with tourists. In those respects, Ventura was a winner.

One question: Is the city's name pronounced Ven-tura or Ven-chura? More on that in a moment.

At a record shop, I finally broke down and bought a used copy of America's "Greatest Hits." It's a CD I've eyed warily for years, the '70s band being a guilty pleasure, one I was cautious of making official. Seeing the disc for $8, and thinking on my drive the day earlier about that ol' Ventura highway that was the subject of one of their songs, I chuckled and figured the time was right.

"Ventura Highway" came up just as I was entering the freeway to return home. The disc, by the way, was about what I'd expected: Neil Young Lite, plus the uncommonly (for them) exciting "Sister Golden Hair," plus (ugh) "Muskrat Love." But on balance I'm glad I have it.

Now, back to the pronunciation. I'd concluded some time ago the correct way was Ven-tura, but I'm not sure why. The name was never said by anyone during my stay and, having assumed the matter was settled, it didn't occur to me to ask around.

On my way out of town, though, I was shocked to discover that America, as official a band as the city has, pronounced the name Ven-chura.

Since my return, SoCal natives among my colleagues to whom I mentioned my destination have said the name both ways. I dunno. How do you say Ventura?

I'm taking a couple of days off, returning to work Wednesday. Attending four meetings over three nights last week* made me itch for a quick out-of-town getaway.

Keep checking back here, though, because blog posts will continue appearing, as will a column in Wednesday's paper.

* Chino Hills and Ontario councils on Tuesday, Rancho Cucamonga council on Wednesday and Ontario-Montclair school board on Thursday. What was I thinking?

[For this entry in my Armchair Traveler series, here's my June 1, 2005 piece about visiting Boston. I still have fond memories of the trip, but not fond memories of the freak storm. Concerning the missing glove mentioned below, I found it a month later while cleaning the backseat of my car.]

Boston: Come for the history, stay for the accents

Trying to decide on a vacation spot? Consider Boston, the picturesque city from which yours truly just returned.

Hey, you could do a lot worse than Boston. But you might not do worse than I did, which was to arrive in Boston during a "nor'easter."

A visitor to our office requested to speak with me -- and expressed great surprise when I approached the counter.

"You've lost a lot of weight!" the stranger exclaimed.

I get this once in a while, so I was somewhat prepared.

"I haven't lost any weight. Actually, this is the heaviest I've ever been," I said.

"But your picture in the paper...you look much heavier," he said, a bit confused.

I put my hand at neck level. "The photo's from here up," I reminded him. "I have a fat face."

[Here's the (delayed) second installment in my summertime series of vacation column reprints for you staycationers. This piece appeared July 20, 2007. To explain one reference below, a reader named Pennie Frank had objected in a then-current column to being called "elderly." Well, this was funny at the time.]

Portland has no trouble staying weird

I spent last week in lovely Portland, Ore., and it's a good thing I wasn't there to beat the heat. While Pomona was a breezy 83 degrees, Portland was sizzling at an unseasonable 102.

Just imagine how hot 102 must feel to Oregon's main demographic: bearded, ponytailed men. Sandals and shorts can only do so much.

Hot weather notwithstanding, Portland is a very cool place. Some notes from the Rose City:

Fare categories on the streetcars: child, adult and "honored citizen." My parents, who drove down from Washington to make it a joint vacation with their No. 1 son, were amused at the designation. Personal to Pennie Frank: I suppose "honored citizen" is better than "elderly."

***

The streetcars, a modern addition, are marvelous, ranging over much of downtown and taking you there in clean, air conditioned splendor. Unless you leave the downtown core, they're free. Then there's a light rail line that covers even more territory, also for free. Another leg of the system is under construction.

The idea of all this is to discourage people from driving by offering a workable alternative.

Meanwhile, the Inland Valley, which lost its streetcars circa the 1940s, is begging for a single light-rail line that may arrive, at the soonest, in seven years. I might move to Portland if I didn't know it rains nine months out of the year.

***

Portland is one of the friendliest cities I've ever visited. Seemingly every time we looked at our map, someone stopped and asked if they could help us. Even a shaggy homeless man in a wheelchair smiled and offered directions, as if he were an official greeter. A restaurant server chatted at length about the city. A man on the streetcar suggested sights to see.

Of course, friendliness can become nosiness.

When my mom coughed once, a fellow light-rail passenger asked if she was OK and then, noting her unusual wrap-around sunglasses, asked blithely, "Is something wrong with your eyes?"

She raised her sunglasses, the better to glare with. (Unlike Ontario Mayor Paul Leon, she doesn't have death-beam eyes.)

***

Portland, it's said, has 28 microbreweries, more than any other city in America. Discouraging Portlanders from driving is probably a good policy.

***

Perhaps in keeping with the unofficial motto "Keep Portland Weird," everyone in the city, it seems, has a tattoo, the stranger the better.

One woman's bicep sported a detailed tattoo of a peacock's feathered "eye."

And a clerk at a gelato shop had the text of a poem of perhaps 10 lines wrapping around one of his forearms in ink. I like a man who carries his own reading material.

***

Speaking of reading material, Powell's Books, said to be the world's largest independent bookstore, was worth multiple visits, and got them. Four stories of used and new books -- not to mention millions of stories within those books. It was nerdvana.

***

There's no sales tax in Oregon, meaning that for anything you buy, the sticker price is exactly what you pay. I'm so used to mentally adding a dollar or two to every item as I stand in line that when I heard the actual total, it was like getting a discount.

***

Sights seen included the Chinese Cultural Garden, the Oregon Zoo, the arty Nob Hill district and Portlandia, which is second in size only to the Statue of Liberty among the nation's hammered-copper statues.

No, I don't know if Portlandia was hammered because she'd been hitting the microbreweries.

***

At the zoo, a display pointed out that goats aren't indigenous to Portland and are destroying native foliage. "Should the goats stay?" an explanatory sign read. "Many believe that the goats have rights. Do plants have rights? Whose rights are more important?"

I dunno. Do plants or goats have better lawyers?

***

At the airport I saw a man wearing a T-shirt whose back bore this circular philosophy: "Work to Eat/Eat to Live/Live to Bike/Bike to Work."

***

On my flight home, the pilot, after pointing out Lake Tahoe, announced over the intercom: "We'll be on the ground in Burbank in about half an hour." Up and down the rows, passengers sputtered: "Burbank? We're going to Ontario!"

Soon a flight attendant issued a reassuring announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to Ontario, not Burbank." A woman seated up front quipped: "Does the pilot know that?"

***

Upon unpacking, I found a government notice in my suitcase that my luggage had been opened and its contents searched. Do these indignities happen to plants or goats?

(David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, three planted goats.)

Ahhh, a rare week without Ontario and Pomona council meetings!

It's the fifth week of the month, meaning our friends in Ontario and Pomona have already had their get-togethers for July. Last time this happened was April.

I forget what it's like to have five nights in a row free of work obligations, just like normal people. In fact I almost filled time by going to Monday's Upland council meeting before getting hold of myself.

Come to think of it, though, one evening this week is spoken for. Thursday evening, Charles Phoenix is speaking to Fairplex Friends and leading a tram tour of the fairgrounds, 5:30 to 7:30. (It's free, but reserve a spot by calling 510-5606.) That's a must and it won't seem much like work.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to leaving work at 6-ish and spending time with friends, or just relaxing at home. Like I said: Ahhhh.

[Well, with "Pomona A to Z" finished, my Sundays are now free here on the blog. But I like the idea of rerunning a past column.

For now, what with travel costs soaring and a lot of people planning stay-cations, I'll satisfy the armchair travelers by rerunning a few past columns about trips I've taken. Let's start with this Aug. 30, 2006 column about Seattle. Unanswered question: Does anyone read the Internet from an armchair?]

No monotony, and no monorail, on Seattle trip

Just got back from my first-ever visit to Seattle, the hip destination George Costanza once derided as "the pesto of cities."

Seattle has always intrigued me, and it's not the coffee, grunge music, flannel or rain.

What intrigued me was the Space Needle and the Monorail.

As you may know, they were built for the 1962 World's Fair. The Needle is a 500-foot spindle with an observation deck at the top. The Monorail is an almost noiseless train that whooshes from the Needle to downtown on an elevated track.

At some point in my childhood, which was largely spent watching "The Jetsons," gaping at NASA moon landings and playing with my Major Matt Mason astronaut toys, I became aware of the Space Needle and Monorail and decided they were awesomely futuristic.

Today they are awesomely retro. I know they were only built to impress the out-of-towners, but as an out-of-towner, I'm fine with that. In my mind, the Needle and Monorail were working examples of the shiny future we were promised, like flying cars and steak dinners in pill form.

So off I went. My first day in town, I read Seattle Weekly's "Best of Seattle" results, which included "Best Place to Send Tourists." Answer: "Elsewhere."

Ha ha! I suppose 10 months of rain a year makes people bitter.

Somehow, though, my visit coincided with a stretch of dry, sunny, warm days. And even though I was carrying a guidebook and a map, the locals were friendly.

One evening, I walked to Safeco Park at game time hoping to buy a Mariners ticket. As I approached the ticket booths, a man walked up to me and said, "You need a single ticket? Here's one for free."

Thus, I watched the Mariners come from behind to beat the Red Sox 4-3 from a decent seat without spending a nickel.

Yes, my visit involved a lot of luck. But not all of it was good.

A poorly written sign at the Monorail station, which is at a downtown shopping mall, broke the bad news. "The Monorail is temporary out of service," it read.

Can we get this thing running? C'mon, I'm leaving in three days!

Thwarted in riding the Monorail to the Space Needle, I took a bus. Ascending to the Needle's observation deck cost $14, but this was no time to be cheap. In exchange, I got a 360-degree view of Seattle. I was so excited I almost bought a souvenir T-shirt.

(Later I got a similar view from the landmark Smith Tower for $6. The Smith tour guide dismissed the Needle as "a restaurant on a stick.")

After the Needle I checked out the adjacent rock 'n' roll museum, the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project, and its Science Fiction Museum, which has, among other cool stuff, Capt. Kirk's chair.

Once outside, I was delighted to see the Monorail whoosh by right above me into the Seattle Center station. Employees, alas, said it was just a test run during repairs. No passengers allowed.

The next day I called the Monorail information line. "Good news!" the recording said. "The Seattle Monorail is back in service as of Friday, Aug. 11!" As this was Aug. 26, the recording clearly wasn't in any better shape than the Monorail.

I had plenty of neat experiences -- too many to list. Among them: browsing at bookstores and the Rem Koolhaas-designed Central Library, noshing at Pike Place Market, learning some bizarre and hilarious local history at the Seattle Underground tour, riding a ferry to
Bainbridge Island and grabbing a burger at Dick's Drive-In.

My last day, I checked the downtown station again. The test runs must not have gone so well, because the Monorail was still broken.

So I left Seattle with only half of my personal "Jetsons" experience fulfilled. Too bad, but I'm philosophical about it.

After all, it makes sense for the Monorail to still be in my future, tantalizingly out of reach.

(David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, within depressingly easy reach.)

The new cell phone law goes into effect today, but while many of you are rushing around shopping for headsets, yours truly is unconcerned. (So is Captain Hook, who's been hands-free for years.)

I'm one of those holdouts who has yet to embrace cell phones. Never owned one.

Historically, so few people needed to get hold of me that owning a cell phone seemed like an act of vanity. The inevitable rebuke would be day after day of silence, akin to the disappointment of coming home from vacation to find a big red zero on the answering machine, except the cell phone's zero would always travel with me.

It's likely I'll have a phone before the end of 2008 because now, there are enough times when it would come in handy that it's probably worth the trouble. Also, not having a cell phone is an increasingly untenable, not to mention eccentric, position. At this point it's almost like not having electricity. In the meantime, I'm savoring the freedom.

Not that I would expect to ever talk on a cell phone while driving anyway. I don't know how anyone does it, honestly. Driving is difficult enough. So is conversing, for that matter.

Cell phones are something of a mystery to me, as you can imagine. I watch with curiosity as friends use them. A part of me would like a BlackBerry because of the Internet connection; plenty of times I've been on the road and wished I could look up the address or cross street of a business, for instance. If you're going to get a cell phone, just go for it.

On the other hand, maybe a half-step would be less overwhelming.

I was at a Dodger game last week with a group of dozen friends. The friend next to me (I was at the far right end of our row) kept getting text messages from friends further to the left and responding. One of those people was getting drinks and food for the group, which was quite nice of her.

And yet my friend's phone kept buzzing, and he would read the message, reply by typing with his two thumbs and hit send. Must have been eight or 10 messages throughout the game. Would you like a drink? What about food? I'm in line, ask so-and-so what she wants because she's not responding. I'm in line and forgot what you wanted. Etc.

After a while, the allure of the device kind of wore off. It was pleasant to sit there unencumbered, thumbs relaxed, and enjoy the game.

Although I did relay a drink order.

Oh, the food in New Orleans! I knew eating would be a highlight and read up in my Lonely Planet guidebook and in Jane and Michael Stern's "Road Food" for tips on where to go so I'd be prepared.

The afternoon I arrived, there was a Creole Tomato Fest, a Zydeco Fest and a Seafood Fest all winding down simultaneously in the French Quarter. Best food item I tried was a crawfish pie, a little 3-inch diameter pie with filling like a crab cake.

One evening I had crawfish etoufee at the Bon Ton Cafe, a 1950s-era spot with exposed-brick walls on Magazine Street in the Central Business District. In etoufee, the meat is served with rice, whereas in jambalaya, the meat is cooked with the rice. The crawfish was like tiny little shrimp except more tender. Mmmm.

(Food, by the way, automatically improves at any restaurant one can reach by antique streetcar, and many of the places I ate at qualified.)

I had po-boy sandwiches at several places. Johnny's in the French Quarter is almost like a deli, with red-checked tablecloths; there I had the oyster po-boy. Mother's, on Canal Street, is reminiscent of L.A.'s Philippe the Original, a great social leveler in which we all line up at a counter, businessmen and laborers alike. Mother's Ferdi Special (roast beef and ham) was very good, and its bread pudding was delicious too. And I had a catfish po-boy at the Trolley Stop.

Tried to go to Domilise's, reputed to be the best po-boy restaurant, but it was closed the day I went, darn the luck. And Casamento's, recommended for oyster loaves, was closed for the season.

(Incidentally, I look forward to my next visit to the Gumbo Pot at L.A.'s Farmers Market, a favorite of mine for a dozen years, although I don't get there often. After New Orleans I now have more of a basis for comparison. The Gumbo Pot's catfish po-boys, served on a French roll with shredded lettuce and wafer-thin slices of lemon, rind and all, is hard to beat.)

The conference I attended -- for the National Association of Newspaper Columnists -- included two buffet meals with multiple Big Easy specialties. One was at Dookie Chase's, one of the most beloved restaurants in town, located in the Treme district. That meal and the other included blackened catfish, red beans and rice, jambalaya and gumbo.

I had beignets at Cafe du Monde, the famous 24-hour coffee house in the French Quarter, but no cafe au lait, having never developed a taste for coffee. (What sort of journalist am I??) Beignets are square donuts without a hole, puffy and dusted with powdered sugar.

Napoleon House had a gloriously ancient bar area but my seafood gumbo was only so-so. I splurged for one fine meal at K-Paul's, the restaurant founded by Chef Paul Prudhomme, where I had blackened beef tenders in debris gravy, plus a cup of turtle soup, which proved to be like a thin chili, with a turtle-like snap to it.

At Central Grocery, the self-proclaimed inventor of the muffuletta, I ordered a half-sandwich, knowing from my research that one is big enough for two people. It's on a big round loaf of bread, sliced lengthwise and stocked with ham, salami, provolone and an olive salad. With a bottle of Barq's root beer in hand, I walked a block to the riverfront to dine al fresco in the late afternoon sun on the banks of the muddy Mississippi.

Ah, New Orleans!

If you've been there yourself, you're encouraged to post about your dining experiences.

I'm on vacation all week. In New Orleans, in fact. Let the good times roll!

I'll have a Wednesday column but have to skip Friday's and Sunday's. I will have blog entries daily, however. I promised you, and myself, that I would post daily on this blog for one full year, barring emergencies, and since it's not September 2008 yet, I'm bound to keep posting.

However, yours truly doesn't own a laptop, nor do I really feel like using my vacation time to blog. So what I've done is cheat a bit by writing up something short in advance for each day.

These advance postings aren't dependent on your comments. Because unless I have access to a computer at some point, I won't be able to read your comments until I'm back, and as most of you know, the blog is set up so that all comments must be read by me and posted manually. For this week, then, I've avoided those popular "anyone know whatever happened to...?" posts about local lore.

Feel free to leave comments, but don't be surprised if they don't show up online until next week. In the meantime, enjoy this week's posts -- including a Restaurant of the Week, which is more like a Restaurant of Last Week -- and Wednesday's column.

It's my birthday! I'm 44, making this the most symmetrical birthday since I was 33, and until I'm 55.

No huge plans for today, other than making deadline for Sunday's column. After work, some colleagues are taking me to Mix Bowl Cafe for dinner. Yes, a birthday celebration in Pomona. Where else?

Maybe I can mark another menu item or two off my Mix Bowl list. Can I persuade my friends to order the soup with both liver and tendon, so I can eat a few spoonfuls but not have an entire bowl of it? Probably not. But I'm looking forward to experiencing firsthand the Asian-pop version of "Happy Birthday" I heard on a previous visit, plus the complimentary bowl of mixed fruit with ice. So nice.

* UPDATE: The dinner was fun, nobody ordered the liver and tendon soup (probably contributing to the fun-ness) and the mixed fruit with ice was yummy. But they didn't play the prerecorded "Happy Birthday" song. Well, maybe next year.

I bought two plastic shower curtains on Sunday, one to use in the obvious place, the second to protect the non-tile, painted wall within the shower. Yes, I'm a thoughtful tenant, one willing to shower within a cocoon to preserve my owners' investment.

Side thought: Does anyone ever pay full price at Bed Bath and Beyond? Those blue and white 20 percent off coupons seem to arrive in my mailbox almost weekly. They're so ubiquitous, they even popped up on a cluttered desk in "Kill Bill Volume 1."

(Alternate names I've heard for the chain: Bad Breath and Beyond, or Birdbath and Beyond.)

In any event, replacing my curtains meant perching on the edge of the tub and unhooking a couple of dozen rings, gathering up the old curtains and tossing them, then resuming my perch, punching through the holes in the curtains and hooking them up to all those rings. Pop pop pop pop. Tedious work, but it's nice to have my mildewed old curtains gone.

The problem now is that my bathroom, and in fact half my house, now smells like fresh plastic. I love the smells of napalm and plastic in the morning.