In Palm Springs, a 26-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe settled into her new home in a temporary downtown park.

Over in Gilbert, it was the angel Moroni who was lifted atop a new temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After a day or so of seeing Marilyn all over my Facebook News Feed, I noticed a photo of Moroni in the afternoon and wasn't all that surprised to learn that the installation in Arizona attracted a similar level of interest as did the one here in California.

]]> http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/16/m-statues-draw-crowds-here-there/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16949/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16949/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 04:56:36 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16949/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16949/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16948/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16948/#comments Thu, 10 May 2012 04:38:03 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16948/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/09/16948/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/08/but-we-really-do-have-more-bounce-in-california/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/08/but-we-really-do-have-more-bounce-in-california/#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 04:52:44 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/?p=16918 This song has been stuck in my head since the weekend, when I heard it during a sketch on an old episode of SNL.

Turns out, "(More Bounce in) California" pokes fun at the Golden State, but that didn't stop Californians from making it a stadium anthem (literally) a few years back when the song was newer but I was spending months at a time ignoring California from the other side of the Colorado River.

See, California's a place where we revel in our foibles (and, often, in caricatures of our more serious problems — but that's a whole other story) so it doesn't really matter that the song isn't really meant for us to enjoy; we'll own it anyway.

Not only is Soulkid #1's song stuck in my head; it also inspired a California playlist of 36 songs that cast the state and some of my favorite locales sometimes in flattering terms and other times, not so much.

But hey, without stuff like earthquakes, smog, taxes and especially traffic, what would we Californians have to talk about?]]> http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/05/08/but-we-really-do-have-more-bounce-in-california/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/28/la-la/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/28/la-la/#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:17:58 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/?p=16894 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/28/la-la/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/27/the-pining-pt-2/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/27/the-pining-pt-2/#comments Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:59:25 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/?p=16892 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/27/the-pining-pt-2/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/25/cant-get-enough/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/25/cant-get-enough/#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:57:56 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/?p=16890 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/25/cant-get-enough/feed/ 0 http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/24/hey-i-know-of-that-guy/ http://brian.indrelunas.com/2012/04/24/hey-i-know-of-that-guy/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:17:53 +0000 Brian Indrelunas http://brian.indrelunas.com/?p=16581

This weekend, I saw two somewhat familiar names in unexpected places.

Friday night, while looking at stories from the first Coachella in 1999, I realized that the city hall-turned-festival reporter was someone who I had just e-mailed last month.

The next afternoon, as I was sharing the resulting conversation with that TDS alum on MyCoachella.com, I all but ignored news alerts that were flashing onto my phone about some guy pitching a perfect game, brushing it off as "ehh, some baseball thing."

It was only when I took a good look at the Sunday sports section, well after midnight, that it occurred to me the name Philip Humber kind of rang a bell. Some quick Googling revealed that yes, that "some guy" was from Carthage, Texas, and he was a senior at Carthage High School when I was a freshman there.

Now, I don't think I ever crossed paths with Humber in Carthage, but my mom worked with his mom, and I'm glad there's now something a bit more flattering than a murder being turned into a Jack Black movie for the town to hang its hat on.

What's more, my reason for reveling in Humber's achievement felt a lot like my connection to one of the first TDSers to cover Coachella — tenuous, sure, but cool nonetheless.