YOU SURE, AL? Vice President Al Gore...

YOU SURE, AL? Vice President Al Gore says the Clinton Administration has the economy moving again. But he may have trouble selling that to the 1,244 applicants going after just 10 bus driver trainee spots in Orange County. The jobs were filled easily, another 40 could only make a waiting list. . . . Explains county transportation chief Stan Oftelie: “It’s the relentless, unforgiving state of the economy.”

TIME WARP: No barbershop quartet will ever bump Janet Jackson off the charts. But Steve Hobbs of Westminster says it’s an art worth preserving. He and others are putting on a barbershop quartet contest at 7 tonight at the Westminster Community Auditorium. Included among the 18 area quartets is Hobbs’ Vintage Four. . . . “This is part of our heritage as a people,” Hobbs says. “It’s like going back in time, when families gathered around a piano and sang together.”

WET BLANKET? Tim Carpenter of the Housing Now! coalition was pleased that the Santa Ana City Council approved a $30,000 grant this week that helped the homeless. But Carpenter, who vigorously opposed the city’s ordinance against sleeping in its Civic Center area, wants to make sure the council members keep the homeless in mind. He brought each of them a gift: a fuzzy gray blanket. . . . Problem is, the city has a ban on gifts to the council. Mayor Daniel H. Young asked City Manager David N. Ream “to make the proper legal maneuvers” with them. The blankets will go to a senior citizens center.