BUSY SIGNAL: There’s nothing like one of...

BUSY SIGNAL: There’s nothing like one of those annoying phone menu systems to spark school spirit. Right? At least, that’s the theory behind the vote-by-phone method used at Cal State Northridge. . . . This week, the homecoming king and queen, as well as campus officers, will be elected via the touch-tone telephone system. A four-digit PIN, acquired during registration, must be punched in to prevent electronic ballot stuffing. . . . The voting works like all those phone menus: Press 1 for Tiffany, 2 for Jessica and so on. Another option: Press 8 and “write in” Kermit the Frog.

LETTUCE ON RYE: The owners of Jerry’s Famous Deli are in the chips . . . and we don’t mean bagel chips either. Founders Isaac and Carolyn Starkman earned about $3 million Tuesday when stock in the Studio City-based deli went on sale. . . . Anyone who bought 15 shares of the $7 stock when the market opened earned almost enough for a pastrami on rye by the end of the day: The price rose 50 cents a share (D2).

PUMPED UP: Taking the logical approach to a flat tire, Tujunga resident Lou Bautista, above, tries to pump it up. . . . Alas, as he later discovered, his tire--and many others parked on Tujunga Canyon Boulevard--had been slashed by vandals (B3).

QUAKE REPORT: Don’t tell this to former tenants of Northridge Meadows, but an earthquake expert testified Tuesday to Congress that it was--relatively speaking--lucky that the Jan. 17, 1994, temblor was centered in the Valley, not Downtown. Paul Sommerville, an internationally recognized engineering seismologist from Pasadena, said that if the Northridge earthquake had hit Downtown Los Angeles, the damage would have rivaled the devastation in Kobe, Japan, where 5,000-plus people died.