Down, Wisconsin! Apparently, the Badger State’s anger...

Down, Wisconsin! Apparently, the Badger State’s anger over the 1994 Rose Bowl ticket snafu hasn’t abated.

A Wisconsin store called the Dollar Shop has adopted this advertising slogan: “There’s a name for deals this good. In L.A. it’s called looting. In Milwaukee it’s called the Dollar Shop.”

Commented Adweek magazine: “Cold humor? Hey, anything to get people shopping when the wind chill’s 20 degrees below.”

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Icy reception: Which reminds us of an ESCAPE TO WISCONSIN bumper sticker promotion that state started in the Midwest several years ago. The stickers even caught on, but for unexpected reasons. Some drivers removed the “TO.” Others sheared off ESCAPE TO and changed the letters in WISCONSIN so that they read, COWS IN SIN.

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A sure sign of spring’s approach: It’s KFI radio’s annual campaign against the National Pastime. The station’s new billboards say: “Oh God. Baseball again? Not here.” We can’t understand what they have against Dodger Blue, unless it’s the fact that rival KABC broadcasts the games of the Lasordas.

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Actors and other automobiles: Jack Nicholson’s alleged golf club attack on a rival motorist’s car brings to mind some previous incidents where celebs were involved in auto-related spats in the Southland.

* 1993--An actress on the “Seinfeld” TV show uses the studio parking spot of actor/famous husband Tom Arnold and later finds obscenities scrawled on her car, as well as a photo of what appears to be a large man’s naked posterior.

* 1989--A film animation executive charges that Clint Eastwood ruined her day by ramming her parked car with his pickup truck on the Burbank Studios lot. She had made the mistake of leaving her car in Eastwood’s spot while making a delivery.

* 1989--Zsa Zsa Gabor is convicted of slapping a Beverly Hills cop, driving without a license and possessing an open container of alcohol (a flask of Jack Daniel’s) after being stopped in her Rolls Royce. She serves 72 hours in an El Segundo jail cell but later wins a part in the movie “Naked Gun,” in which she re-enacts the slap.

* 1980--Actor James Garner is choked, beaten and kicked in the head by another motorist after their cars collide on Coldwater Canyon near Mulholland Drive. Garner attempted unsuccessfully to stop the attack with a bit of acting. “I faked unconsciousness,” he said later.

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Especially if you marked the “vicious” box: Laurie McCall of Monrovia found the warning in this Municipal Court form amusing, if not eminently sensible. Wonder if there’s a form to report cows in sin?

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Checkout time: In need of some cheering up the other night, we did something we almost never do--we drove home on the southbound Santa Ana Freeway. We were looking for the 25-year-old marquee on the City of Commerce’s Radisson (formerly the Hyatt) Hotel, which has offered many laughs over the years. We always liked their “WELCOME TO SAN DIEGO” greeting, or some variant thereof, on April Fool’s Day.

Thus it came as a shock to see the brief, serious message: “HOTEL CLOSED.” Obviously, this recession’s no joke.

miscelLAny:

In the tradition of Southland eateries with such melting pot names as Senor Sushi, Kosher Burrito and Genghis Cohen, Long Beach is the home of Alpine Deli.