So many people cashing in on carmageddon. So why not Bluetooth?

This little feather fluttered into the hen house a day or two ago:

Earloomz, a Los Angeles based company, wants to encourage commuters and drivers to catch up with friends and family hands-free while stuck in traffic. For this reason, they are having a massive sale of their Bluetooth Headsets, marking all of them off by 40.5%, something that people in any location can benefit from.

There's always the bright side of apocalypse, right? Get back in touch with your friends!

There. That's Chicken Corner's two clucks contrib to the carmageddon chorus.

Ahoy, nature lovers! Some say the new park in Echo Park is a treasure in itself. But the Mountains Recreation and Conservancy says look deeper! And pay attention to clues. A scavenger hunt at Vista Hermosa Park will reveal more. Planned for today (Thursday) at 4 p.m. Participants will meet at the Grotto Amphitheater.

Interpretive Naturalist Carolyn Everhart provided these details:

The Scavenger Hunt can be for any ages though if the children are too young to read well, they would have much more fun if they had an older child or adult to help. Though I hope a number of children will show up, if an adult is in the neighborhood, they will find it fun as well.

The objects to be found will be a random assortment of odd, nature related items that are scattered throughout the park. One could just walk around to find them but there will be riddle-like clues to help expedite the process. I don't want to give away too much but a teaser clue is: "To find this object of the sea, near a gate it must be. Which direction does the Sun set? To the RIGHT OF THIS GATE is a good bet."

The hunt marks the start of the Conservancy's summer season, which will include campfires every Wednesday evening at Vista Hermosa at 7 p.m. Next, Chicken Corner would like to attend a treasure hunt in Elysian Park -- high adventure! Expect to be lost for several weeks.

Chicken Corner is in Washington, DC, this week, sleeping late, enjoying the less-humid-than-expected atmosphere. Early this afternoon, I poured a cup of coffee and took a little stroll through the paper edition of the Wall Street Journal, and who would I find there? Why, Maria of course! The goose -- two days after his welcoming ceremony at the L.A. Zoo. (The markets are expected to rise upon news that Maria is sharing quarters with Odie the donkey.)

Except the WSJ has renamed Maria. They're calling him "Mario", because he turned out to be a boy.

What? So do they refer to the poet as Rainer Mario Rilke? Will they change your name if it doesn't fit the conventional gender paradigms? Or is it only geese for whom this editorial action applies?

It's possible the WSJ is referring to an outdated stylebook in calling Maria Mario. In the days after Maria was discovered to be a boy, many suggested clipping the little serif at the end of his letter "a," turning it into a masculine "o." But, after much local discussion, the operation was deemed unnecessary. In Echo Park, Maria survived his gender switch without surgery to his name or identity. Dominic Ehrler continues to call him Maria, as does Chicken Corner and the Eastsider. Echo Park calls him Maria. Likewise, he's still a goose, in the broader sense of the word (no pun intended)!

The good news is Maria doesn't really care. He's mainly interested in seeing his pal Dominic and keeping Odie on his toes, er, hooves.