TOWN-SIZE CHANGE: For years, officials at UC...

TOWN-SIZE CHANGE: For years, officials at UC Irvine thought it would be nice if its telephone prefix could be 824 (which would be U-C-I.) Problem was, the whole town of Colton already had it. Colton, however, recently completed its switch from the 714 area code to the new 909. So, starting Nov. 5, all those 856 and 725 phone prefixes at UCI will be changed--everything will be 824. . . . Says spokeswoman Susan Menning: “This gives us about 10,000 new numbers, and we’ve already filled 6,500 of them from our previous two prefixes and our expansion.”

WHOSE DAY? One interested observer of this week’s moon landing 25th anniversary was Dana Point’s Fifi Booth. She’s a former Life magazine writer who worked closely with the astronauts for seven years. Booth has many anecdotes from those days. A favorite from 1971 is about Tracy Scott, 9 at the time and daughter of astronaut David Scott: “Tracy came into the living room and said, ‘Gee, today’s a great day. Daddy gets to go to the moon and I get to go to the zoo.’ ”

KING COTTON: College basketball coaches already know about the promise of sophomore-to-be Schea Cotton of Mater Dei High School. Now a lot more fans will know him too. . . . Cotton, who stands 6-5, is featured this week in a four-page spread in Sports Illustrated. The magazine calls him “the best high school freshman in the U.S. last season” and refers to college coaches who have watched him play as his “worshipers.” His mother, Gaynell Cotton, calls him “a boy in a man’s body.”

VIDEO GOLD: Who’s the best video game player in the country? Nintendo plans to find out with its national contest--Powerfest ’94. Hundreds are expected at regional qualifying, which starts today at Central Electric in Santa Ana and runs through Sunday. . . . “It’s open to all ages, but we’re finding out that the adults are seldom a match for the younger kids,” says spokesman Dan Lang. The national finals will be in San Diego in November.