These jury deliberations may really heat up:...

These jury deliberations may really heat up: For more than a day, attorneys had squabbled over the admissibility of testimony in a Downtown money-skimming trial involving former county sheriff’s deputies. The jurors sat in an adjacent room and waited, and waited. They were finally called back to the courtroom at midday Friday, only to hear U.S. District Judge David Kenyon announce that the trial would not resume until Monday.

Suddenly, a juror produced a note. The bailiff read it and, sober-faced, passed it over to Kenyon. The four defendants, their attorneys, the two federal prosecutors, an FBI agent and an IRS agent waited expectantly.

Kenyon read the note out loud. “Can we have a microwave?” it said.

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Shop till your building drops: It isn’t easy persuading a credit card company that you’ve been mistakenly charged. But Eric Rose succeeded in having an erroneous $27.06 department store purchase erased from his account with a minimum of argument--and not because he’s a City Council deputy. Rather, it was because the sale was listed as Feb. 12 at Bullock’s Northridge, which, you’ll recall, was shut down by Mother Nature on Jan. 17.

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Attention, shopper! Speaking of billings, Dan Steinbrocker doesn’t deny buying a pair of underwear (see receipt), but he’s darned if he remembers buying it at a pizza joint. The mix-up apparently stemmed from the fact that the Fairfax-area Little Caesar’s is inside a K mart. “I’ve heard the expression, ‘Eat my shorts,’ ” Steinbrocker said, “but this is ridiculous.”

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More pre-shocks: We’ve come across still another sign that prophesied that Jan. 17 would be a good day to keep one’s head covered. Ray Ceniceroz, who took the photo at the Arcadia school, says: “While the reminder to wear a helmet proved to be good advice for everyone that shaky day, it was really intended for young bicycle riders.”

Dueling Zsa Zsas: We mentioned the other day that a press release put out by USC spokeswoman Zsa Zsa Gershick mentioned the existence of the Streisand Professorship in Intimacy and Sexuality. Ron Rieder of Sherman Oaks guessed which Streisand funded the position, but added, “Zsa Zsa Gershick? Come on, Steve!”

No, really. In fact, we asked Gershick about her name last year and she said: “My father was Hungarian, and he adored Zsa Zsa Gabor, so that’s how I got the name.”

This is probably a convenient time to mention that the other Zsa Zsa did not play the title character in the 1958 epic “Queen of Outer Space,” as we asserted Friday. “She was one of the queen’s slaves,” a trivia buff told us.

And gets in trouble, we presume, for slapping a guard.

miscelLAny:

The history book “Los Angeles 200,” states that as late as 1786, “none of (L.A.’s) settlers could write.” Then, again, the same thing is said these days of many of the town’s film and TV writers.

Expanded menu? Dan Steinbrocker’s receipt for underwear from pizza parlor.