Cow of Dracula: Here’s one of those...

Cow of Dracula: Here’s one of those heart-warming tales that always seem to surface during the holiday season. Three cows at Cal Poly Pomona have been supplying blood to enable a pair of vampire bats at the Los Angeles Zoo to survive.

The cows, which each donate two liters every three months, are named Bessie, Spot and Tom Cruise.

As for Tom, Steve Wickler of the university’s Equine Research Center figured that since the animal was performing such a good deed, “why not give it a little notoriety?”

Another traditional food--human blood--is no longer feasible because of handling concerns in the era of AIDS.

Besides, the bats seem to love the bovine variety.

“They just slurp it up out of a little petri-like dish,” said a zoo spokeswoman. “But I don’t think they get any on their teeth like in the movies.”

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Were we speaking of vampires? The Entertainment Professional Publicists Society faxed a bulletin to members that said its Christmas party “has been postponed due to scheduling problems and now will be a Valentine’s party in February.”

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At least his notes weren’t singed: Jeff Bliss, the public information director of Pepperdine University, recently was forced to delay his departure to San Francisco to speak to some colleagues on the subject, “Communicating in a Crisis.”

His delay was caused by the brush fire that burned 60 acres of Malibu and came within two miles of the campus.

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Today’s handy hint: Dick Barnes of Claremont came upon a bottle of Chinese herbal pills with instructions that said, “How to use: Take herbal pills out of plastic bottle and swallow with water.”

More effective than just swallowing the bottle, we bet.

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Service with a smile: A colleague of ours bought a pair of designer undershorts at a shop in Pasadena, whereupon the woman behind the counter asked, “Would you like me to sign these?”

He said he’d be honored and so she autographed them, “To Gary. Love, Heidi Fleiss.”

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To live and drive in L.A.: Westwood resident Roger Hammond writes that “the congestion at Wilshire and Westwood boulevards is bad, but not as bad as 1920 Downtown,” judging from the L.A. Times artwork he found in a 74-year-old edition of Cartoons Magazine.

Indeed, as you can see from the four panels, a driver could fall in love (a pippin is slang for “a person much admired”), get married, father a family, grow a beard and reach old age, all in a period of six blocks.

Four blocks on a really bad day.

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Which reminds us: Joe Domanick’s “To Protect and Service,” a history of the Los Angeles Police Department, notes that Chief Louis Oaks was fired in 1923 after he “was discovered in the back seat of a car with a bottle of whiskey and a half-naked woman.”

Hopefully he wasn’t parked in traffic.

miscelLAny:

We’re still adding to our list of facilities named after movie and TV celebrities, such as the UCLA Tennis Center’s Johnny Carson Draw Board, Malibu’s Michael Landon Community Center and USC’s Steven Spielberg Music Scoring Stage. Our latest addition is the Pasadena Aquatic Center, which has honored a behatted, cigar-smoking TV evangelist with the Dr. Gene Scott Diving Tower.