EarthCake!

AS SOME OF YOU KNOW, the earth got angry at Los Angeles again today to the tune of a 5.4 earthquake (originally reported as a 5.8) about 37 miles from our house. We weren't at our house, but in Burbank (about the same distance from the epicenter) where the quake was still a little scary but amounted to not much more than about 30 seconds of shaking.

No one was injured, but a lot of stuff fell off store shelves. My 3-year-old nephew, who lives considerably closer to the epicenter, was a little scared but otherwise unfazed by the "earthcake."

The hilarious part was how breathless the local media (who should know an important tremblor from a strong but basically harmless one) became in the wake of the shake. Admittedly, I am speaking of the very same newspeople who react to more than one day of light rain with StormWatch '08 graphics. But most of the coverage, which interrupted regular afternoon shows for several hours after, bordered on the ridiculous. At one point, all they really had to show was a pile of bricks in an alley in Pomona and home video some guy had taken of his hanging light fixture swinging back and forth. The eerie swinging of a light fixture can only mean one thing! Earthquake!

Oh wait...it could mean that the guy pushed it and then started rolling the camera. That could also be the cause.

It was only later in the day I realized the national media was equally as breathless. Talk about a slow news day. The best roundup of the coverage (and the source of the image I snagged for this entry) was Curbed LA, who also had some awesome security cam footage from a bicycle shop near the epicenter, showing people doing exactly what you're not supposed to do in an earthquake: running like maniacs out of the store into the street.

By the way, when we got home, we did find out there was some damage in our apartment. Two of my Simpsons figurines and three Pez dispensers had fallen over.

WHEN WILL THE TRAGEDY END?????