Brady-Alert on the 101: While “The Brady...

Brady-Alert on the 101: While “The Brady Bunch” movie is ostensibly a comedy, the opening scene will bring back painful memories for some locals. That’s because it shows realistic-looking freeway message boards uttering warnings such as “Gang War Riot Ahead” and “Killer Bee Gridlock.” When Paramount Pictures set up those signs along the Ventura Freeway one day last September, they created a giant traffic jam. Naturally, neither Paramount nor Caltrans had thought to warn drivers beforehand.

The movie, by the way, shows only close-ups of the fake message boards. To make up for the inconvenience it caused, Paramount could at least have incorporated footage of the stranded drivers into the movie; in effect, making them extras--angry extras.

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Which reminds us: You know what a bright sunny day means in Southern California, right? Well, KNX traffic reporter Jill Angel answered the question Tuesday as she explained a tie-up on the Long Beach Freeway:

“Great weather for roadwork.”

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Hey! We thought term limits were in effect for that office!You may remember we mentioned a puzzling fax that The Times received when the Clinton Administration was in town. The cover sheet said: SUBJECT: PRESIDENT CLINTON SENDS A DELEGATION TO

And that was the end of the sentence. We don’t know where that delegation was going. But the answer might be: Nowhere fast.

We say this because David Beranek of Long Beach has faxed us a copy of a reply he received from the White House on another subject. It was dated Jan. 2, 2028.

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Crime-Still-Pays Department: In an employment agency’s magazine, Arneita Langford of L.A. spotted an opening for what sounds like a fired S & L exec.

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And we thought lawyers were precise with the language: Brad Golstein of Chatsworth, meanwhile, received a flyer for a State Bar “guide” with a title that could be interpreted the opposite way it was intended.

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Unsolicited advice: Konrad Kingshill of Claremont has an amusing letter in the Smithsonian magazine about his brother, a solicitor (a type of lawyer) in London, who visited the Southland for the first time.

Kingshill says his brother resented encountering the frequent signs of the you-can’t-do-this variety “at doors of restaurants and even at the entrance to the office building in Century City where my son’s law office is located: ‘No shoes, no shirt, no service’ and ‘No solicitors.’ ”

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A roach coach with a sense of humor: Scott Hawthorne of Canyon Country says that “during recent earthquake repairs to our condo, a lunch truck arrived twice daily to cater to the needs of the various workers. A music horn sounded stridently to announce its arrival. The tune? ‘La Cucaracha,’ of course.”

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Thought for the day: Nicholas Scott of Redondo Beach saw this bumper sticker: “Life Is Too Short to Watch the O.J. Trial.”

Or “The Brady Bunch” movie, for that matter.

miscelLAny In an article on the problems women have finding athletic shoes that are the correct size, USC Chronicle, a faculty publication, advises, among other things: “Shop for shoes at the end of the day, when your feet are the largest.”