Nowhere near Cleveland: Beverly Yahata of L.A....

Nowhere near Cleveland: Beverly Yahata of L.A. was in a Little Tokyo restaurant when she saw an Anglo American security guard sit down next to a Japanese American man at the counter.

The guard said, “Ohayo,” which means, “Good morning” in Japanese.

The Japanese American responded, “No, California.”

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Your tax dollars at work: It seems that “some county employees may have installed games on county computers which they play with on county time,” Chief Administrative Officer Sally R. Reed said in a recent memo to department heads.

“My computer staff inform that some programs come with several games which must be deleted before they are installed on employees’ computers,” Reed said. “At the same time, if employees have diskettes with games, they can be installed without our knowledge.”

Reed said she didn’t think diskette fever was “widespread.” But the memo was sent by interoffice mail, rather than by computer, in case any of the department heads themselves were too busy playing computer solitaire to notice it.

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Dealing with City Hall can be a gamble, too: Reed’s memo reminds us of an incident involving a librarian at the Southwestern University Law School, who wrote to the L.A. city clerk’s office a couple of years ago, requesting a list of City Council members. Instead, the city clerk’s office sent him a sheet with the betting spreads for that week’s pro football games.

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Another NRA dropout?A colleague heard a live radio broadcast about a shooting in which the reporter said that police had found “an unarmed baby in the car.”

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Dueling anchors: Now that she’s been axed as co-anchor of the CBS Evening News, where can Connie Chung go? Well, we bet KCBS (Channel 2) would take her back. After all, the station’s into nostalgia, as its recent rehiring of Jerry Dunphy illustrates.

In retrospect, we can’t help but wonder if too much was expected of the network team when it was formed two years ago. Even newly elected President Clinton took notice, congratulating Chung and Rather during an interview. And Rather uttered a memorable response, though one that may not show up in broadcast journalism textbooks.

“If we could be one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been together in the White House,” the supposedly objective newsman said, “we’d take it right now and walk away winners.”

Obviously, Rather set a standard that was far too high.

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Food for thought: Wells Lange of Century City found a restaurant flyer that seems to indicate that Popeye’s girlfriend has a brother.

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Another reason to go on living: City News Service sent out an advisory stating that at 1:30 this afternoon, a “celebrity media artist” named Deforrestt, whose works include a silk-screen portrait of Tonya Harding, “will be on hand with Joey Buttafucco to unveil, ‘Rolling Thunder . . . the Joey Buttafucco Portraits.’ In front of the Criminal Courts Building.”

Should be a star-studded turnout.

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Give us some more time to think it over: A sign in the window of a Spring Street stationery store proclaims: “40% Off on All Our 1994 Calendars.”

miscelLAny When Long Beach bid $3.45 million in 1967 to gain possession of the Queen Mary, the runner-up bid was made by the city of New York, which wanted to turn the ship into a high school. Maybe Long Beach should go that route now with its money-losing landmark. Which would raise the question of what to call Queen Mary High’s athletic teams. The Mothballs? The Dry Docks? The Spruce Gooses? Oh, never mind.