This is our, uh, life: We mentioned...

This is our, uh, life: We mentioned that actor Randy Quaid visited us to prepare for his role as a columnist in “The Paper.” Imagine our delight, then, when we saw Quaid portrayed on the screen as a slovenly, boozing, dyspeptic writer in the habit of firing off a gun in the newsroom and sleeping in his boss’s office.

Who says Hollywood doesn’t reflect reality?

For the record, we should point out that we actually sleep at home. For one thing, the editors’ offices at The Times are now locked at night.

A former colleague of ours was partly responsible for this security measure. He was an impoverished worker on the night shift who secretly sacked out in an editor’s office to save the price of rent. The arrangement was exposed one morning when our colleague--we’ll call him Gordon Vincent--yelled at a janitor who had the temerity to wake him up. Vincent was fired. But not forgotten.

Someone later put up a sign in the editor’s office where he had slept. It said, “Just think--if you were Gordon Vincent, you’d be home now.”

Instructions that are a breeze: We suspect that the authors of the “Emergency Procedures Guidelines” publication at Chaffey College included the section on “Wind” to see if anyone was paying attention. (The rest of the booklet is written in a serious vein.) On the other hand, noted Carol Olson, a spokesman for the Rancho Cucamonga school, “We do get some strong winds.”

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At least they haven’t posted border guards: A newspaper columnist far from here is lamenting the influx of Angelenos in the wake of our disasters. So worried is Don Digilio that he urged the Chamber of Commerce to “stop promoting the plus things” of his fair city and “get into some of the negatives.”

And where is this paradise--Carmel? Seattle?

Paris, France?

No, it’s that haven of tacky architecture, compulsive gamblers, 110-degree days . . . and, oh, we could go on forever about Las Vegas.

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Here’s the beef: McDonald’s Corp. has ignored pleas from both President Clinton and Gov. Pete Wilson to reopen its landmark stand in Downey. Nor have petitions signed by thousands of people moved it to save the 40-year-old eatery, with its original symbol, Speedee the Chef.

Well, if it makes the beleaguered corporation feel any better, we received a note supporting the McDonald’s closure. And the letter writer, Peter Carltock of Burbank, added that millions of others agree with him. Still, we don’t think McDonald’s will be eager to promote his position.

Carltock, a vegetarian, explained that he believes “a meat-based diet . . . leads to many of this country’s major health problems (and) is also a large contributor to the destruction of the environment.”

In fairness, we should invoke the slogan of Wienerschnitzel, whose billboards say, “Vegetarians can eat the bun.”

miscelLAny:

The 21 years between the deaths of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon represent the longest period without a President dying in America in more than 160 years. The only longer duration was the period between the deaths of George Washington (1799) and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (both on July 4, 1826).