one star reviews

Sometimes negative book reviews serve as stronger endorsements than the positive ones... These are usually from someone who Just Doesn't Get It, and their reviews are, so to speak, the exceptions to prove the rule.

For example, this review of "The Rough Guide to California"--the only one-star review amongst several five-star reviews--finally convinced me that it might be a worthwhile book:

"I think the book has some strange opinions. It actually likes Barstow,CA better than Anaheim,CA. Very strange. Purchase not recommended."

adventures in brief

I have been terribly remiss in describing my adventures over the last month or two.

• evan, four, breelupia, and I roadtripped to the Salton Sea and the Cañon de Guadalupe hot springs in Mexico. We tried to find some geocaches and some petroglyphs, too, but found neither. Evan was bitten by a dog!


• shamster and Heather Cano visited for New Years Eve, which we spent at an outdoor party at an old pack station (dating from 1908!) nestled up in the San Gabriel foothills in Sierra Madre--the place appears a tenuous fortification against the Debris, perched in a nook of the mountain with planks straining against the impinging Mountain. Eric played the banjo, Bree the fiddle. In the morning: the rose parade.


• evan, meena stopped by for a visit in Pasadena, en route on their roadtrip. Breakfast at Fox's.


• midendian flew down for a weekend of adventures. We prepared ourselves by drinking whiskey by a woodfire and listening to a This American Life episode on the subject of fiascos. We drove out to Victorville as tourists and hiked to the Deep Creek hot spring. Then we rescued a terrified idiot who had gotten lost--our own fiasco. Breakfast at Corky's Place, Azusa.


• The Doo Dah Parade. Kind of a Southern California Mardi Gras; the antithesis to the Rose Parade. Show up at 10am, pay $10, do whatever you want. A bunch of folks, associated with Amnesty International and from my lab at work put together a float called "Waterboarding USA." A bunch of folks dancing to Beach Boys' surf songs. While shills pulled from the audience are waterboarded. ("Just political enough to be offensive.")