Apparently, there's a place on the border of South Pasadena and Los Angeles proper called "Olga." I have no idea what it is, nor does anyone else I have spoken to. Even searching on Google yields bupkis. Perhaps I should investigate this some more, but for now I'm left to creating wild fantasies.
Who, or what, is this "Olga?" Is it a teeny-tiny city nestled inside South Pas near that one liquor store and the really ridiculous intersection with the Gold Line? That seems unlikely, because Google Maps refers to it as "Olga, South Pasadena." Maybe some sly city planner named the intersection's stoplight. That too seems unlikely, because Olga traditionally connotes rotund Scandinavian women belting out Wagner arie and our stoplight posts are rather slender, and not very musically inclined. Man, if I could train a lightpost to sing I could make millions on Broadway. That's be worth at least 20,000 caps.
What I believe to be most likely is that somebody at Google is continuing the traditions of cartographers of yore. Many mapmakers, in order to prevent plagiarism, would invent their own city, street, river, forest or whatever, and name it after themselves. If, for example, a cartographer named Phineas McGillicuddy wished to defend his work from unlicenced copying, he could add, say, a city in Georgia named "Phineas" or "Loch McGillicuddy" in Scotland. Were he to see these spots on someone else's map, then Phinny would know that his work had been stolen and uncredited.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see if anyone at Google HQ is named "Olga." Perhaps I could lure her out with a nice herring dish and some Wagner....
