Was it a missing piece of evidence...

Was it a missing piece of evidence from a recent cop-slapping trial in Beverly Hills?

Paul Roberts, an instructor at Santa Monica College, was mowing the lawn in Santa Monica the other day when he came upon a license plate with a 3-letter, 3-digit message.

The letters on the plate spelled out: ZSA.

However, a check of the state Department of Motor Vehicles reveals that it was last registered to a Santa Monica resident. It was never, apparently, the vanity plate of a Hungarian celebrity/Rolls-Royce driver.

Elapsed dining time for Cal Poly Pomona students gulping down a 185-foot-long burrito constructed at the school Thursday: 20 minutes.

While some students of Southern California’s culture have declared that the Valley Girl phenomenon has passed, Kimberleigh Richards disagrees.

“Valley Girls are still alive and well,” says Richards. “We just aren’t the same ones that Moon Zappa sang about.”

Richards’ Valley Girls group, based in Woodland Hills, is a 2-year-old organization of transvestites--men who on occasion dress like women.

“We want to reach out to cross-dressers who are scared to death that what they’re doing is wrong and that they are the only ones who do it,” said Richards, who publishes a monthly newsletter, Cross-Talk.

Transvestites “face real problems” appearing in public in some parts of the country, Richards said. “Fortunately in L.A., it’s not that big a deal.”

Forty years ago this week, Tinseltown’s most famous sign underwent a drastic change. And pranksters weren’t responsible. Instead, it was the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which decided to refurbish the crumbling HOLLYWOODLAND sign and update it by lopping off the LAND.

The landmark, built in 1923, originally wasn’t associated with the movie industry. Instead, as author Richard Alleman points out, it “represented the one Hollywood business that is--and always has been--even bigger than show biz: real estate.”

The Hollywoodland development was advertised as being “above the traffic congestion, smoke, fog and poisonous gas fumes of the Lowlands.”

Sounds like the Lowlands could be hard on the eyes and lungs even in 1923.

Prices for Lakers and Kings game have been raised again this year. But if, once you’ve purchased tickets at the Great Western Forum (formerly: the Forum), you have no money left to purchase food, you shouldn’t necessarily despair.

Great Western Bank ready-teller machines have been installed inside the arena.