Just another night out in L.A.:Tickets in...

Just another night out in L.A.:

Tickets in hand for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” Howard DeLaney was standing in line outside the NBC studios when “up pulls this huge recreational vehicle wrapped in an incredible graphic of a couple kissing.”

“Emblazoned on the side,” DeLaney related, “it says, ‘Romance Across America.’ Out hops this guy and a gal who start handing out free copies of a book, ‘1,001 Ways to Be Romantic.’ ”

It was the author, Gregory J. P. Godek--”America’s Romance Coach”--and his wife, putting Valentine’s Day eve to good use.

“They gave out about 300 books,” DeLaney continued. “In the middle of this, up pulls an L.A. motorcycle cop. As he starts to write a ticket for the RV, the crowd starts booing. The author goes up to him, shows him the book--and the cop simply bows and drives away! We all cheered.”

TREATMENT FROM HEAD TO FOOT: Marian Pennington of Pico Rivera thinks she found “just the place to go for treatment of hoof and mouth disease.” (see photo).

FAMILIAR TO MOTORISTS: Some 19th-century governors of California, both under Mexican rule and after statehood, who are better known today as street names in the L.A. area (the years of their terms are in parentheses):

* Pio Pico (1832, 1845-46).

* Jose Figueroa (1833-35).

* Juan Alvarado (1836-42).

* Manuel Micheltorena (1842-45).

* John Downey (1860-62).

* Henry Gage (1899-1903).

More recently, of course, Californians have named the 118 Freeway after Ronald Reagan (1967-75) and a golf course service road in Long Beach after George Deukmejian (1983-91).

TEN-PONG ANYONE? A reader sent along a department store ad for a clunky variety of Ping-Pong. Sure it sounds unexciting but at least the balls are less likely to break.

“DUH!” AWARDS (CONT.): Lee Kelly of Yucaipa came upon a package of popcorn rock, described as “a naturally occurring mineral, found at limited outcrops in the Great Basin area of the Western U.S.”

The bottom of the package contains this warning: “Eating rocks may lead to broken teeth!”

WONDERS NEVER CEASE: Mary Susan Herczog ordered a chocolate shake in an Altadena coffeehouse that also serves ice cream. As she was drinking it, another customer entered the shop and asked her what it was.

“Chocolate shake,” she responded.

Puzzled, the customer said after a pause, “Is that like a frappuccino?”

Whereupon the counterman intervened to reveal the mysterious contents of a chocolate shake.

And the customer responded, “Oh, ice cream! That sounds good.”

miscelLAny:

Don Garabedian noticed our reference to downtown L.A.’s 73-story First Interstate World Center as the world’s tallest building in a major seismic zone. And he expressed the hope that L.A. is never hit by a quake big enough to turn the First Interstate World Center “into the world’s longest building in a major seismic zone.”