London Bridge

In California? Not a chance. It would come crashing down - excuse me, 'falling down,' in case the Royal Crown subscribes to this blog - every second Tuesday. Besides, paying another toll to cross a bridge other than the Golden Gate feels like paying alimony to your ex wife and her sister.

I have a friend who grew up around Miami and swears the regular hurricane evacuation warnings were less threatening than the unpredictable and less frequent earthquakes of California. To this, I call bullshit, and raise him one Bonnie, one Charley, a Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. One tropical storm and four hurricanes - four of a kind. The WSOP doesn't get that kind of action. This was all in one goddamn hurricane season.

To my loyal religious nuts: all five hit the Bible belt of Florida, so please can the Judeo-Christian natural disaster immunity theory that's supposed to explain why a great tsunami hit Indonesia (the poor sinners!).

Now, Loma Prieta was devastating but the advances in modern construction mean many homes can withstand quakes of 7.0 (sometimes higher for larger structures). But would these champion edifices survive Category 3 tropical storms? Not unless they were underground. So, I fail to see my buddy's preference and think that was more his nostalgia talking than his logic. I guess I am liable to miss California earthquakes - come on, not the MLS soccer team - if I move to Hawaii and live on an active volcano.

Really, though, ask a Californian if they are bothered by a little rumble. We consider it a cold shiver, a chronic condition of our beautiful state, followed by a succession of cute hiccups. A small price to pay to have a coastline envied by the rest of the world, Kindergarten Cop as our governor, a progressively backwards city that bans plastic grocery bags but has simultaneously atrocious public transportation and impossibly rare parking spots, a ball team that will never make it to the NBA finals and Prius drivers whose conservationist contributions are dwarfed by their irritating habit of clogging the carpool lanes, thus negating their purpose entirely for the rest of the population that does try to commute with other people.

But if home is where the heart is, my heart prefers a fault line.