Budweiser Woos Military With The Olive-Drab Look

Budweiser beer, apparently, is looking for a few good customers.

That’s why it delivers its kegs and cases of beer to Camp Pendleton in--get this--a camouflaged olive-drab truck. Here’s a beer truck dressed for the front lines (and wouldn’t you like to have that concession?).

Normally, Budweiser trucks wear their loud red-and-white bow-tie logo. “But we make several deliveries a week to Camp Pendleton and we wanted them to know that we care for the military as much as we do for our civilian trade,” said Bill Qvistgaard, general manager of Mission Distributing Co. Thus, the entire truck was repainted in the classic camouflage--even with the normally bright “Budweiser” reduced to olive-drab.

“Actually, the truck is uglier than hell in the civilian trade area,” Qvistgaard said, “but when we drive out onto base, we get whistles and yells and thumbs-up. They really go for the camouflage.”

Cut-Out Kidnaping

Missing: a 6-month-old baby boy, topped by a wisp of blond hair, last seen crawling along the east side of Interstate 5 near Carmel Valley Road.

This baby weighs about 120 pounds, stands six feet high and is 10 feet long. He’s a three-dimensional cut-out for a Kodak film billboard.

The bigger-than-life rug rat was stolen from the billboard on Aug. 31, and its owner--Martin Outdoor Advertising--is still waiting for a ransom note. A replacement baby was hoisted onto the board last week, but Frank Sanchez, Martin’s general manager, would still like the first baby back in arms, or at least back in crane.

The baby is part of Kodak’s advertising campaign, “Capture a Wild Animal.” Someone did, sort of.

“Whoever took it must have spent hours trying to pry it off,” Sanchez said. “I don’t know where it is today. Maybe it’s on the wall of someone’s garage.”

Which gives new meaning to the term, “baby mural.”

Wanted: A Drive-In Mall

There’s no question about how the driver of a Toyota tootin’ around Escondido indulges herself. Her car sported one of those window danglers proclaiming, “You Can’t Be Too Rich or Too Thin or Have Too Many Shoes.”

Her customized license-plate holder added: “So Many Malls, So Little Time.”

Wish Upon a Ceiling

Whatever happened to those simpler days when the home decorating question was whether to paint a bedroom in a soft green or a neutral beige?

First came the opportunity to install odorizing gizmos that produce nice, pleasing smells like pine forests or chocolate factories. Then came those environmental tapes to flood your room with the sound of crashing surf or wind through the pine trees or chirping crickets.

Now StellarVision, an outfit in Mission Valley, brings us custom-painted murals depicting the night sky so we can stargaze without leaving the comfort of bed--or worrying about light pollution from the family room or the shopping mall down the street.

The Stellar people paint phosphorescent stars on your ceilings and walls, all positioned they way they would look if you were up at Palomar Observatory. A 10-by-12-foot room costs about $150 or so to be transformed.

“Those kids fortunate enough to have StellarVision tend to enjoy going to bed and do not put up such a fuss,” a promotional brochure suggests. Heck, we’ll buy two!

The star motif is not only relaxing and educational, the brochure says, but it also helps youngsters overcome their fear of the dark. Furthermore, going to bed under the stars with a favorite person is quite romantic, we’re told--especially when it’s sans mosquitoes.

For an extra charge, they’ll throw in the moon and a meteor or two. If you want a shooting star, take a flashlight to bed.

Going Places

Here is a reflection on the ebb and flow of humanity, based on a review of whom Ryder Truck Rental rents trucks to, where they are from and where they are going.

San Diego is the most popular destination for people leaving Los Angeles. But then, San Diego was ranked by Ryder as the third-largest source of people moving to Los Angeles (behind San Francisco and Phoenix).

Which might suggest that we don’t know if we’re coming or going.