You knew someone would bring it up:When...

You knew someone would bring it up:

When Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luman visited Fremont Elementary School the other day, first-grader Emily Koreivo asked him: “What’s your favorite kind of doughnut?”

TYPO FROM HELL: We kid other publications, so we have to plead guilty when our own newspaper has a goof. Lorna Lubarsky and several other readers noticed that an ad for angle brooms was given a heavenly theme the other day. A spokesman for 99 Cents Only stores said, “One person phoned us and said she had heard of witches’ brooms before, but. . . .”

CA-LA-MITY: There’s been a lull in disaster movies about L.A.--NBC’s “Asteroid” is set in Houston--so we were thrilled to see the void filled by a new book, “Absolute Disaster--Fiction From Los Angeles.”

Disaster fans will be happy to know that the concept is addressed on several different levels--from romance (Sandra Tsing Loh’s “Raiding the Larder,” set at Caltech), to gardening (T. Coraghessan Boyle’s “Sinking House”), to the post-apocalyptic (Carolyn See’s “Light Ages”).

LASER-BY SHOOTINGS: There’s also a section on “Disasters in Cars,” as you would expect in an L.A. anthology. Harlan Ellison’s “Along the Scenic Route” takes us forward to the age of the Freeway Duel, when the government sanctions roadway battles between angry drivers.

It’s a world of commuters whose cars have bulletproof bodies, rotating buzz saws extending from the axles, laser guns, jet nozzles and can reach 350 mph on a cushion of air.

One man preparing to do battle with a teenager in a Mercury is comforted by remembering “what the salesman at Chuck Williams Chevrolet had told him, pridefully, about the laser gun. . . . ‘Dynamite feature, Mr. Jackson. Absolutely sensational. Works off a magneto hydro dynamic power generator. Latest thing in defense armament. . . .’ ”

Obviously, this stage of L.A.’s development is decades off. Well, maybe years off.

HE TURNED ON TV: Does the name Philo T. Farnsworth ring a bell? If the answer’s no, you’re not alone. Farnsworth was the inventor of electronic television. He was profiled the other night by PBS, which discussed how the onetime Utah farm boy made his breakthrough in 1927 while working in a little apartment in Hollywood.

Later, after RCA muscled him out of the picture, Farnsworth became so disenchanted with the quality of programming that one of his children recalled his father saying, “We’re not going to watch it in this household.”

In one of the great show-biz ironies, Farnsworth appeared as a mystery guest on the 1950s TV show “I’ve Got a Secret,” where he was identified as the inventor of a machine.

The first question from a panelist was: “Is this a machine that might be painful when used?” Farnsworth quipped: “Sometimes. . . .”

No one guessed what his machine was.

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USA Today reports that a lawsuit pitting Reebok International Ltd. against TriStar Pictures over product placement in the Oscar-nominated movie “Jerry Maguire” was delayed when “U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson fell asleep” while watching the movie. The producers no doubt hope that the judge isn’t one of the Oscar voters.

Really folks, it’s just an ordinary broom.