Honk if you love me:Psychologist Arnold Nerenberg...

Honk if you love me:

Psychologist Arnold Nerenberg of Whittier wrote “A Handbook for Overcoming Road Rage” to bring freeway drivers closer together--spiritually, not metallically. Nerenberg specializes in motorists who can’t control their tempers on the roadways.

His patients--he calls them “students”--are instructed to contact him by cellular phone the moment they feel violent on a highway.

Recently, Nurenberg introduced a new program--ride-along therapy--in which he accompanies drivers. Some are so volatile that they forget Nurenberg is in the car.

Nerenberg’s publicist, Chris Harris, says that last week during one ride-along session, a student flipped off another driver. Nurenberg had the student “follow the car and offer a sign of apology.”

So that’s it! We wondered why that guy was tailing us on the Long Beach Freeway.

WAS IT SOMETHING L.A. SAID? Since defecting from L.A. County in 1871, Orange County-ites have on occasion made derogatory comments about their neighbors to the north. But we never thought the county would move, until Mike Smith of Morongo Valley sent us a flier from Galaxy Vacations Tours.

Smith noticed that Orange County is now a neighbor of San Francisco, another non-admirer of L.A.

NOW WE’RE REALLY CONFUSED: Dave Link of L.A. noticed that the newsletter Liability Week reported that the O.J. Simpson wrongful-death lawsuit “is being heard in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Monica. . . .”

We wish someone could pin down Orange County’s whereabouts. Maybe defeated congressman Bob Dornan has a point in demanding a recount down there.

Or is it up there?

CAPITOL IMPROVEMENT? We think it’s swell that one longtime Hollywood company has decided not to relocate outside the community. But something’s got to be done about the out-of-date design of Capitol Records. A building shaped like a stack of 45 rpm records topped by a stylus? Shouldn’t the building be shaped like a CD player? Not that we know what one looks like.

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: Clerks at a Westside market were wearing buttons that promoted a nicotine patch product for smokers who are trying to kick the habit. The effectiveness of the promotion was somewhat neutralized in the case of one clerk, however. During his break, he sat on an outside bench, his “Ask Me About Nicotrol” button a contrast to the cigarette he was smoking.

miscelLAny:

So what can Dornan do, assuming his recount effort fails? Well, the Garden Grove Republican can always return to Hollywood. Dornan buffs know that he had the lead role in the 1964 film “Starfighters,” in which he played a lad trying to prove himself “a worthy pilot in a squadron his father disapproves of.” The authors of the Motion Picture Guide called it a “silly war yarn” while TV Guide described it as an “Air Force potboiler with a no-star cast.” Probably the same type of negative nabobs who urged Dornan not to run for president this year.