ABC calls Utah for Romney! Which is like calling Berkeley for Kucinich...

Almost missed this, but it looks like OC Post, the Register's laughable, pathetic attempt at reaching the county's commute-by-subway crowd (uhhhh...) has mercilessly been shotgunned through the skull.

Mostly, anyway—it's apparently going to be merged with the Reggie's throwaway "community news" rag the Irvine World News in February, making the Post an Irvine-only pub. In other words, it'll become as much of a forgotten bastard stepchild as SqueezeOC, which also crashed and burned and now only exists as a skeletal, web-only presence that even the Reg seems embarrassed about—go ahead, hit up the Reg's website, and just try to find the microscopic link to Squeeze's maggotty corpse.

The Reg sank some $20 million into this rancid joyride, a brainfart of former publisher Christian Anderson, who was rightfully canned a few months back. But what we wanna know is: who was the dipshit responsible for approving those pathetic, reader-insulting "Cut to fit Your Life!" Post TV commercials—especially the one with the 15-second Shakespeare play that tried to convince people that 15-second Shakespeare is a good thing?

Anyway, here's the official Reg story. Here's a blog about the Post's death by former Reg editorialist John Seiler. And here's a pissy thing I wrote on my personal MySpace blog not long after the Post's premiere issue in August 2006, when they were desperately trying to get people to pay $19.99 for a year's subscription. For CRAP.

Wonder what'll happen to all those red metal Post newsracks littering the county?

Back in 2002, I wrote about Leilani Gutierrez, a four-year-old girl who was paralyzed in a Costa Mesa car accident. The Chevy Suburban van her and her mother, June, were riding in was broadsided by Michael Leinert, who had run a red light at the corner of Newport Blvd. and Wilson St.. After the initial impact, the van was sent careening into a utility pole.

Leilani is also the daughter of OC musician Rodney Sellars (Sense Field, Year Zero), and the OC music community stepped up - several benefit shows were held to help defray Lelani's medical costs, one of which took place at Chain Reaction and featured sets from Sense Field, Gameface and Crashcart.

Five years on, Leilani has endured a lot: 250 days in hospitals, more than 20 surgeries, a bone graft, spinal cord treatments and a tracheotomy. Horrible, for sure, but at least it doesn't look like she'll have to have anymore benefit concerts -- yesterday, she was awarded a cool $55 million from the federal government, who had employed Leinert. The judgment is believed to be the largest ever awarded in a personal-injury case in OC history. Leilani's attorney, Wylie Aitken, said "She earned it in the worst possible way."

Photo: LATimes.com

(Category: World-Is-Going-To-Hell)

SELLING LUST, NOT HAMBURGERS
"I am appalled every time I see the new Carl's Jr. ad about 'flat buns.' These ads certainly are helping to destroy our culture. The ads degrade both teachers and students. Please tell Carl's Jr. and the television channels that air the ads, I am ashamed of Carl's Jr."
-- Micki Smith, Orange

Hey, Micki -- heard those Del Taco radio commercials yet?

"Regarding your story on Loraine Barr: Why feature her ['She's out of the closet at 88," Front Page, Sept. 2]? So what that she came out of the closet after so many years? Her story is not compelling..."

[blah-blah-bluh-blah-bluh, then we cut to...]

"I'm sure there are an abundance of fabulous stories coming out of Iraq. Why not feature one of those? And some of the most humble public figures you'll ever encounter are hockey players, yet their stories are never told..."

Thanks, Jeffrey "Gordon Dillow" Smith of Fullerton!

Quite a night last night for Garret Anderson, who socked in a club record 10 ribbies for the Angels in their 18-9 thrubbing of the hapless Yankees, who they totally OWN (the Halos are the only MLB team with a winning record against the pinstriped peckerwoods during the Joe Torre era). Included in G.A.'s stats were two home runs, one of them a grand slam -- in his final at-bat, the man was a three-run homer short of breaking the all-time single-game RBI record.

A big deal, for sure. So how did the local press play it? The LA Times did it up huge -- a front-page A1 color photo teasing the story in the sports section, and once you flipped there, a good-size banner headline above the fold. Then we picked up today's OC Register, and could've sworn the two daily rags had switched geographies -- nothing but a small, below-fold blurb on A1, and on the front sports page, a standard report on the game, as if 10 ribbies smacked by one player in a single game was a perfectly ordinary event (it's not; a 10+ RBI game is rarer than a pitcher hurling a perfect game).

The kicker: at the top of the Reg sports section was a report on yet another loss by the rapidly-disintegrating LA Dodgers. Yeesh!

So I'm cruising over the 241 toll road Monday listening to the Angels-Yankees game on 710, when a Del Taco commercial drifts over the airwaves. There's some blah-blah-blah, and then the ad does exactly what the Lake Forest-based fauxMex chain's marketing department hopes it'll do: It gets my attention with the words "chicken-checkers."

As in they check their chicken to make sure it's of high quality (or something like that — I was driving, couldn't take notes). Then the voice-overs keep repeating that phrase in assorted variants, each with increasing tones of nudge-nudge-wink-wink — "We check our chicken all the time! We're big on chicken-checking! Other chains only wish they were chicken-checkers like us!" (I'm paraphrasing here — again, no notes, but that's essentially what was broadcast).

Surely you know the phrase "chicken-CHOKing" — which is what Del Taco wants you to THINK you hear — is synonymous with pounding the pud, beating the meat, wang-danging the doodle, polishing the rocket, spanking the monkey, beating the bishop, firming the worm, making the bald guy puke, milking the lizard, squeezing the Charmin . . . oh, just go to www.worldwidewank.com.

I'm not yet sure whether this is the most juvenille radio ad I've ever heard or the most brilliant, but considering the historic ties that fast-food corporations have with titilating humor — the current Angus = Anus Jack-In-the-Box commercials; those In-N-Out Burger bumper stickers back in the '80s that people cropped to read "IN-N-OUT URGE"; and just about every Carl's Jr. spot produced in the past 10 years (a Six Dollar Burger gets you hot car-wash sex with Paris Hilton!) — I applaud Del Taco for continuing a lowbrow tradition. I wonder what axed Del spokesdude Dan would think?

Since the news broke the other day about the Register moving its completely ridiculous faux alt-weekly Squeeze OC to an all-online format as well as laying off several of its staffers, we couldn't help but wonder how long the OC Post, the Reggie's other lame attempt at capturing younger readers, will be around. Really, if the paper has downshifted into full cost-cutting mode, it'd certainly be the most obvious thing to axe.

We'd shoot it in the skull based solely on those insulting TV commercials alone, the ones in which some wanker ponders to no one in particular, "OC Post, cut to fit my life. Hmmm . . . what else could be cut to fit my life?" and then a Shakespeare play pops out of nowhere at a ludicrous pace — Romeo & Juliet (we think, anyway), all wrapped up in about five seconds. The message, which the clueless Reg marketing department probably never thought would be deduced: "If you're so ADHD that five-second Shakespeare actually sounds appealing to you, then read OC Post!"

The best reason to be hating on OC Post, though, dates back to their debut last fall, when neighborhoods across OC were flooded with free copies of the rag for several weeks — no matter if people wanted it stinking up their driveways or not. Here's what I posted about it on my MySpace blog at the time — with exciting color photos!