DRESS REHEARSAL? Don’t expect bargain prices when...

DRESS REHEARSAL? Don’t expect bargain prices when tickets for Mighty Ducks exhibition games go on sale at 10 a.m. today. They’ll cost as much as regular-season games, $14 to $125. Other teams do the same. . . . “The demand is still there,” says Ducks marketing and sales director Bill Holford. “The facilities are the same as the regular season, and we provide the same off-ice and entertainment services. It’s no different from the regular season except there are no points in the standings.” . . . And sometimes, no stars in the lineup.

TRIPPING OUT: A few in Garden Grove are rankled that Mayor Bruce A. Broadwater and two other city officials will fly next month to its sister city, Anyang, South Korea, for some lobbying. The officials want Koreans to build a hotel or bring other business to Garden Grove. . . . They’re paying their own air fare, but the city will pay $4,500 in expenses . . . The mayor’s response to criticism: “The trip is a small cost for a potential half-million dollars in hotel tax each year.” Besides, he adds, “This isn’t in any way a fun trip. If I had my way, I’d go to Spain or some fun place.”

COMFORT ZONE: Public access to the Irvine Co.’s 17,000-acre coastal wilderness preserve is limited--horseback riding, mountain biking and some hiking. But its project director, Trish Smith, told the magazine for the Nature Conservancy, the preserve’s manager, that limited access doesn’t diminish its value: “Many people don’t need or want to experience nature first-hand. But they like to know it’s there. They live in it vicariously.”

METH ACTING: Buena Park’s Neighborhood Improvement Task Force has gone door to door for three months taking inventory of slumlord code violations. One set of tenants, happy to let them see the landlord’s code errors, got an unexpected surprise: The fire official checking out their smoke detectors was also smart enough to notice that the tenants were operating a methamphetamine processing lab--complete with beakers, flasks and hot plates. Four tenants were arrested. . . . Says city police Capt. Gary Hicken: “Most narcotics users are incredibly stupid.”