GIGA GRANADA HILLS

The Granada Hills Holiday Parade award winners list has been published online , and guess what? In the Novelty: Adult category, the Wienermobile was number one! You know, I work so hard to fabricate amusing fictions for this blog, but the facts always wind up far more amusing than anything I could come up with. If you don't believe me, click here .

Videographer Mark Hovater has done a great service with this video: he captures the spirit of the Granada Hills Holiday Parade in thirteen short minutes! The Giga Granada Hills entry, "Fork-Hauling Birds," makes a cameo appearance at 12:34.

Exciting news: the Wienermobile will be in this Sunday's Granada Hills Holiday Parade! Normally, this blog is against national brands placing their  advertising logos in our hometown parade -- it's about community, not corporations -- but in this case, I'm willing to make an exception. And it won't be the first time a will was weakened by the prospect of wiener-related pleasures. But it will be the first time that parade officials managed to convince Oscar to put his wiener in our parade. Before the wiener was in, officials were told "no" at least six times -- but that only stiffened their resolve. Hot for this dog, the Granada Hills Chamber of Commerce kept pushing, and the Wienermobile's eventual entry was the climax of an entire year of back-and-forth pleas to the Wienermobile's handlers,who finally agreed to put it in. Word is that the huge, wheeled wiener will come early in the parade -- but hopefully not too early. The parade gets off at...

Forget Black Friday. Instead of whisking through Chatsworth Street on your way to the cookie-cutter chain stores of the Northridge Maul, stop in at a few of our independent local retailers for your Christmas shopping on  Small Business Saturday: Small Business Saturday is an American shopping holiday held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving during one of the busiest shopping periods of the year. First celebrated on November 27, 2010, it is a counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which feature big box retail and e-commerce stores respectively. By contrast, Small Business Saturday encourages holiday shoppers to patronize brick and mortar businesses that are small and local. You never know what you might find, and you'll be supporting the independent businesses that give our town character. Happy shopping!

Wait -- an Eagle Rock hipster came over here  to do something? Enjoy this interview with Joe of Joe's Cafe.  And if you come to Joe's, remember, the password is "meatball."  Joe's Cafe is located at 17815 Chatsworth Street, Granada Hills.

In this first installment of the Great Granada Hills Pizza-Off , the hunt for Granada Hills' best delivered pizza will pit two chains against each other: the larger Ameci , with 34 locations, versus the far smaller Vincenzo's , which has just two locations, in Granada Hills and Simi Valley. Vincenzo's Order: Large pepperoni Ordered at: 5:29pm Arrived at: 5:53pm How long will it take? "35-40 minutes." How long did it actually take? 24 minutes Price: $21.04 When they say large, they really mean large: that word gets you 28" pizza. Bigger isn't always better, but in this case it was: Vincenzo's pizza had a very fresh taste, with a pleasurably chewy, bubbled crust. Ameci Order: Large cheese Ordered at: 5:32pm Arrived at: 5:56pm How long will it take? "40 minutes." How long did it actually take? 24 minutes Price:  $14.05 Ameci's large pizza is a 14-inch eight-slicer. Consensus: it did the job...