Sunday morning reading

Okay, so it's almost afternoon. Here's a great article from today's NYT Business section about the housing bust in Merced. Three-quarters of the current sales there are foreclosures. My question to the developers of these empty REOs is: Merced? What were you thinking?

For your amusement, I bring you an LAT Opinion section cartoon by Mimi Pond. It's about grocery shopping in our very own Glendale!

Sunday Reading from the L.A. Times

Today's Sunday reading is actually a cartoon by Mimi Pond from the LAT's opinion section. It's about one of our favorite whipping boys, Americana!

Jacarandas are back in bloom

Ah, the Jacarandas are in bloom again. To me, the lavender blossoms are the first sign of spring...no, summer, no, June gloom season here in the Southland. For great vistas of lots of Jacarandas, drive down Glenoaks towards Glendale or up Kenneth to Burbank.

Could it be any more crass? Oh no, wait...this is Glendale

Thanks, L.A. Curbed, for this story. Americana at Brand, the new destination shopping center in Glendale, will take delivery of a "Spirit of American Youth" statue to the garden area of a shopping center. Pictured above, the statue is a re-creation of the 1949 sculpture at the Omaha Beach Memorial in France that commemorates soldiers who died on Normandy Beach. Of course, before it's good enough to grace a Glendale shopping center, it has to be dipped in gold. Remember the soldiers who died for your right to shop. To the left is the statue, about to leave NYC for Glendale, and the smaller picture below is the original, in France.

Glendale, The Mattress Capital of the World

What gives in Glendale? Central Ave. has more mattress stores than I've ever seen clustered together in my life. One block has five mattress stores. Leeds. Serta. The Mattress Store. And two Orthos. Isn't that really a lot? How many mattresses does one community need? Are the employees of each store at perpetual war with the employees of other stores? Has there been any violence? Any explanations out there?

Good News for a Bad Mall

The Burbank Town Center is the worst mall in the Valley. However, there's good news at the Macy's there (which is, naturally, the worst Macy's in the San Fernando Valley) -- it now features a MAC cosmetics counter! We no longer have to drive to either Glendale or Sherman Oaks for our lip gloss, although we still want to.