If you’re in the urban promotion biz, the hip cool thing these days is branding. New York is The Big Apple, New Orleans is The Big Easy and Seattle is, of course, Metronatural. Every city has to have some sort of koan — ya know, one of those Zen riddles — so why not Homer?

The Betster flunked Trademarks for Vegetables back in biz school, but the idea seems to be that if you imprint a phrase in the great cultural consciousness, then forever and ever that brand will come to be associated with a certain product. Forex, “Big Wild Life” = Anchorage.

OK, that worked out well, didn’t it?

With enough word monkeys and typewriters, soon enough, you, too can come up with an urban brand. We’re not talking a slogan, like “The Halibut Capital of the World,” “The City That Works,” “Where the Land Ends and the Sea Begins” or even Brother Asaiah’s “The Cosmic Hamlet by the Sea.” A brand, Betsteroids, a brand.

There’s no need to pay $200k to a bunch of overpaid word hacks who couldn’t make it in the rough-and-tumble world of journalism. The Betster has the perfect brand for Homer, and one not prone to copyediting errors. (Drop an “f” from Anchorage’s brand and see what happens.) On the theory that we should be everything Anchorage isn’t, and then some, isn’t it obvious? That’s right.

Big. Weird. Life. Homer.

There’s nothing weird, though, about these Best Bets — just a heck of a lot of fun.

BEST AND ANOTHER THING BET: Ethics, the gas pipeline, education funding and a Kachemak Bay blimp shuttle. Whew! The Legislature has a lot on its agenda. OK, the Betster is just kidding about that blimp. You can check in with our legislators in Juneau from 6:30-7:30 p.m. today with the monthly constituent teleconference. Stop by the Legislative Information Office on the Sterling Highway or phone 235-7878 to listen and comment.

BEST TRAVELS WITH DARWIN BET: A century or so ago, Charles Darwin took a trip to the Galapagos Islands, got a few ideas and just raised one heck of a fuss. At 7 p.m. today at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, Ralph Broshes and Deb Lowney present slides from their recent trip to South America where they visited the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu in Peru and the Amazon River.

BEST ACTION! BET: Pier One Theatre has been cranking out hip little films the past few summers at Film Camp. Before the 8:15 p.m. Friday showing of “Freedom Writers” at the Homer Theatre, you can see 20 minutes worth of those films. The showing is a fund-raise for Pier One Youth Theatre. Don’t forget the Alaska Ocean Film Festival at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Homer Theatre — yet another film festival here at the Telluride of the North.

Pier One isn’t the only producer in town: the Pratt Museum has been making short films about Kachemak Bay Native culture. At 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, the Pratt premieres four new 20-minute films, including “A Gathering of Native Tradition,” by hotshot filmmaker Miriam Elizondo.

BEST BUG OUT BET: The Pratt Museum’s Beauty & the Bug Workshops have been giving artists a chance to learn about multi-legged creepy critters. From 6-10 p.m. Friday at Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center, Catie Bursch conducts “Illustration Techniques,” a workshop sketching insects, in the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve’s Discovery Lab. Then from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Saturday at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, DeWaine Tollefsrud and Beth Trowbridge present “Of Mites and Men: Exploring the World of Bugs.”

BEST IT’S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE BET: Sure, with Groundhog Day behind us, we’re halfway to Spring. Celebrate the decline of winter — and grab some of that good snow — with snowboarding and skiing at the Ohlson Mountain Ski Tow, open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, weather permitting. Call 235-7669 for updates.