Stupid criminal tricks: A motorist became so...

Stupid criminal tricks: A motorist became so upset when he found a parking ticket stuck on his windshield in Santa Monica that he grabbed the keys out of the officer’s untended vehicle. Then he jumped in his own car and sped off.

Santa Monica police recovered the keys and nabbed the suspect the next day, though it didn’t take a Columbo, or even a Clouseau, to track him down.

“We had his license plate number from the citation,” explained Sgt. Gary Gallinot.

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Not a pretty picture: Here’s the all-important cost-of-beautifying index in L.A., one of the cities surveyed in Smart Money magazine:

* One-month supply of Rogaine hair-restorer: $62.99

* Powder for 13 Ultra Slim-Fast shakes: $3.99

*Half-leg waxing: $23

* One session with a color consultant: $95

* Colored contact lenses, CIBA brand: $145

* One tube of Retin-A: $50.99

* Non-fogging shaving mirror: $20

* Rembrandt whitening toothpaste: $7.99

* One visit to tanning salon: $8

* Hair-shining treatment at a salon: $50

And, sorry, self-glamorization wouldn’t be any cheaper in that dream home in Seattle. The 10 above categories would cost you about the same amount up north, mainly because color consultants charge about $200 up there, according to Smart Money. And with all that gray, overcast weather in Seattle, you just have to see a color consultant there.

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Talk about freeway close: Universal Studios, shooting a scene for TV’s “Murder, She Wrote” at Hollywood Park, put up a sign for a fictitious racetrack that said, “Raleigh Park, State of Virginia.” One Hollywood Park worker, who came to work on the Century Freeway, told co-worker Rick Simon: “Imagine that! I took the new freeway, and in 10 minutes, I’m in Virginia!”

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A real-life horror movie: Meanwhile, the drive from the Valley to L.A. was like a scene from “Falling Down II.” One motorist heard a report of a stall on the Hollywood Freeway and disembarked in Tinseltown. On Cahuenga Boulevard, he promptly encountered, within a quarter-mile, 1) a Porsche that had collided with a tow-truck pulling an ambulance; 2) a stalled van; 3) traffic crammed into one lane because of road work, and 4), a Volkswagen Bug that had rear-ended a Toyota. Luckily, D-FENS was nowhere in sight.

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Also known as ratings-chasing: After seeing footage of a TV station’s helicopter following an ambulance that was transporting the victim of a cave-in at a Downtown construction site, reader Lorenzo Flores asked: “Is this a new form of ambulance-chasing?”

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So who’s buried beneath the rocket ship in our photo? One way to find out is to take the Oct. 30 walking tour of Hollywood Cemetery given by the L.A. Art Deco Society. Cost of the 15-minute jaunts, which will be given from 10 to 11:30 a.m., is $7, which doesn’t seem too stiff to us.