Chino Hills Quake? What Quake? - By N.L. Belardes

Whenever there's an earthquake or fire anywhere in the gigantic state of California, my out-of-state friends worry. And on top of that, the media freaks out with any quake that rattles anywhere in California. Can you say, "overreact"? Say it again. It even made the homepage of cnn.com. Geez. Calm down, America.

Well there's been a quake, a whimpy 5.4 earthquake. I've living room surfed much larger quakes. This one is nothing. A busted water main or two. And I just got a report from 2 miles from the epicenter that stuff fell out of cabinets and broke. Get the broom, Martha. Nevermind, I'll get it. I'm cleaning up this story.

No harm no foul. This is nothing to report. This is no giant China quake crushing 100,000 or a Tsunami washing away thousands. Tornado stories are bigger than this quake. In Bakersfield I felt nothing. Some people felt the ground move, especially those in the tiny 4-story buildings in downtown Bakersfield. No big deal.

Why am I bitter? Because the media even reports whimpy 3.0 quakes! Ay!

Give me a 6.5 ground shaker and a surfboard. Then we're talking quake. In the meantime, the media is overly reporting a big nothing quake.

That is unless the big one is coming in the next day or so.

But until then. Don't wake me up.