Democrats’ conspiracy?Dave Pattler walked into a voting...

Democrats’ conspiracy?

Dave Pattler walked into a voting precinct on Larchmont Boulevard and quipped that he saw a Clinton sign just outside. One official took him seriously and investigated. And sure enough, on the corner was an L.A. city sign that said “Clinton Street.”

WERE THERE ANY OTHER CANDIDATES? The measure didn’t draw much attention, but L.A. County was up for reelection to one post, according to the county’s Official Sample Ballot. We haven’t heard any results, but predict a landslide for the county--that is, a landslide victory.

OCTOBER DAZE: Around this time of the year we usually receive several notes from readers who have found a Sept. 31 reference in a calendar or ad. But we don’t think we’ve ever come across an Oct. 32 reference--a handwritten one, at that--until Vic Voskanian of Glendale snapped a photo at a public works site in his neighborhood.

BUSINESS CARD BARRAGE: A secretary at an L.A. firm phoned to say that an old letter is making the rounds of this area

again. It concerns a dying youth named Craig Sherford (sometimes identified as Craig Shergold) who wants to live long enough to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records in the category “most business cards ever collected by one person.”

The letter asks people to send their business cards to a hospital in Atlanta.

The problem is the youth was indeed mentioned in the 1991 Guinness book, after 33 millions cards were contributed in his name. He has since recovered. And he wants no more business cards, nor does the Atlanta hospital, which has a recording explaining the situation to callers.

RECIPE REVENGE: A reader e-mailed us to say that another old urban folk tale is also circulating. It concerns a woman who asks a waitress at a Neiman Marcus restaurant for the store’s cookie recipe. When the customer is told that the cost is “two fifty,” she agrees to have the sum added to her credit card statement.

Only later does she discover that the cost was $250. In revenge, she puts the recipe on the Internet--to the supposed horror of Neiman Marcus.

The store has knocked down this story several times over the years, saying it doesn’t make its own cookies. A version of this yarn dates back to the 1930s, involving an alleged $100 cake recipe from the Waldorf Astoria in New York.

Incidentally, several months ago, a reader told us he tried the cookie recipe and was unimpressed with the product.

A BIT TOO SUBTLE: The odd thing about the freeway billboards for Oprah Winfrey’s TV show is the manner in which the day’s program topic is displayed. The topic is not identified as such. It’s just pasted on the billboard--and it isn’t put in quotation marks, either. The effect can be jarring. Imagine what a foreign visitor might think upon seeing Tuesday’s billboard, which showed a photo of Winfrey alongside the words: Too Ugly to Leave the House.

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Southern California-type voting precincts Tuesday included a lifeguard building at Venice Beach, the Island Nail & Tanning Room in Long Beach and the Huntington Beach Surf Museum.