AAA Sees More Travel--Except in West

The summer travel season gets underway this weekend with more people in the West planning to stick close to home.

The American Automobile Assn. is predicting a 3% drop in Memorial Day trips in California and 10 other Western states from a year ago, an indication of continued hard times in the region. For the nation as a whole, AAA is predicting a 4% jump in Memorial Day weekend travel, defined as trips more than 100 miles from home.

Memorial Day travel sets the pace for the rest of the summer; AAA is predicting that travel will be up 4% nationwide between now and Labor Day. AAA attributes the anticipated increase to an improved economy in much of the nation and relatively stable travel costs.

Apparently Americans are not optimistic enough about the economy to increase vacation spending. AAA reports that 76% of vacationers plan to spend the same or less than they spent last year. More than one-third of vacationers are planning inexpensive visits to family and friends.

The AAA projections are based on a random survey of 1,500 adults across the country.

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Gas prices: Southern Californians getting out of town this weekend will enjoy slightly lower gasoline prices than last Memorial Day weekend. The Lundberg Letter reports that the average price of unleaded regular gas in Los Angeles is $1.22 a gallon, more than 2 cents lower than a year ago. The price in San Diego is also $1.22, about 5 cents less than last year.

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Zap ‘em: The off-screen video game wars really heated up this week. When Sega of America proposed a video game rating code--similar to the one for motion pictures--rival Nintendo of America let ‘em have it.

Nintendo said a rating system was unnecessary for its games because they are pre-screened for excessive violence. Rigorous self-censoring has produced games that are “acceptable to the whole family,” Nintendo said.

To get a sense of what Nintendo considers “acceptable” family entertainment, we rented several video games made for the basic Nintendo Entertainment System. Here’s a sampling:

* The Terminator: An urban commando, armed with a high-powered automatic weapon and grenades, tries to kill “hunter killers” and “destroyer tanks” before they kill him. Game adapted from the 1984 R-rated movie.

* Shadow of the Ninja: A Ninja warrior armed with a bow-shaped katana sword and a sickle-and-chain capable of “devastating attacks” slices and dices his way past similarly equipped enemies.

* Contra: A bare-chested commando armed with a high-powered automatic weapon blows away a stampede of apparently unarmed soldiers.

* RoboCop 2: Equipped with a rapid-fire handgun, RoboCop mows down everyone in his way. When hit, RoboCop’s victims are blown off the TV screen. Game adapted from the 1990 R-rated movie.

A spokeswoman for Nintendo explained that the games depict no blood or dismemberment. She said they reflect “acceptable violence within societal norms.”

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This tan is banned: “Speed up your natural tanning process,” says the label on Osco’s Natural Tanning Accelerator.

The lotion, sold at Sav-on Drug stores in 3.75-ounce bottles for about $5 each, promises to help you tan more quickly. An amino acid, tyrosine, supposedly stimulates cells in your skin to produce pigment faster.

You aren’t likely to find a product like this in too many places, and for good reason. Last June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declared that the products were unapproved drugs and warned manufacturers that the agency could force them off the market. Most manufacturers voluntarily withdrew the products.

We called Sav-on Drug’s parent company, Chicago-based American Drug Stores, to find out why the accelerator was still available, but a spokesman wasn’t available. Osco is one of American Drug Stores’ private label brands.

FDA spokesman Mike Schaffer said this week that the products shouldn’t be on the market, though the agency has never ordered a recall. He said there is no evidence that the products are harmful, but there is also no evidence that the products work.