Too bad Court TV wasn’t around then:...

Too bad Court TV wasn’t around then: Attorney Robert Shapiro’s indiscretion in the O.J. Simpson case--he muttered “bullshit” while an opposing attorney was speaking--was mild by old-time L.A. standards.

During the 1850s “it was normal procedure to throw inkstands in the courtroom,” wrote W. W. Robinson in “Lawyers of Los Angeles.” On one occasion when the lawyers moved beyond inkstands and took up “canes, chairs and finally pistols,” Robinson reported that Judge William Dryden crouched behind his bench and yelled:

“Shoot away, damn you! And to hell with all of you!”

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Economic indicator No. 4,328: John Miller of Santa Monica directed us to a store on the Westside that seems to be going through some very rapid changes (see photo).

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Dental salon?Mari Wada of Monterey Park, meanwhile, found an ad for a dentist who apparently doesn’t have bald patients (see excerpt).

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Attention, cyber-surfers: No more sitting listlessly on a flat sea, wondering if you’re wasting your time because you’re not sure what the ocean has to offer that day. Simply subscribe to “The SurfLine-Wave Fax,” a $14.95 monthly service that offers forecasts and “special updates whenever conditions change.”

We’d recommend setting up your equipment on a long board, though.

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List of the day: The brainstorms on display this weekend at the Invention Convention in Pasadena include:

* An illuminated croquet set for nighttime play.

* A toothpaste dispenser whose lever cranks out a uniform line of the stuff each time (no more rolling up the tube!).

* And a parking pager that “you set for the amount of time you have on the parking meter,” said Invention Convention President Stephen Gnass. “When your time is up it either vibrates or beeps. It also has a pocket for holding change in case you want to put more money in the meter.”

Gnass is obviously unaware that in L.A. a parking cop will give you a ticket if he sees you return to your expired meter and put in more change. No kidding.

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The Loch Angeles monster (cont.): We recently reported that Silver Lake-area flyers have accused the government of covering up the presence of a “strange prehistoric creature” in the Ivanhoe Reservoir.

We weren’t concerned until we heard from Ralph Shaffer, a history professor emeritus at Cal Poly Pomona, who pointed out that this is not the first such report in L.A. County.

Shaffer enclosed an Aug. 1, 1886, article from the L.A. Times that was headlined: “A Holy Terror. The Fiery Dragon of Elizabeth Lake.”

The article recounted how a traveler named Peter B. Simpson said that west of Lancaster he encountered a creature “about 30 feet long . . . of a warm reddish color with a long snout and jagged yellow teeth . . . enormous wings, ribbed like those of a bat evidently, long hind legs and a long tail.”

Simpson said he fired his rifle at the beast, which then flew off, plopping down into Lake Elizabeth.

“Perhaps,” Shaffer says ominously, “it migrated to the Ivanhoe Reservoir.”

As if L.A. doesn’t have enough real estate problems.

MiscelLAny:

Sunday is the birthday of the City of Angels (don’t tell us you forgot!). Say what you want about L.A., but for a city turning 213 years old it shows no sign of slowing down.