A Smoggy Pager Alert
We can all take pride in the fact that certain products are specifically tailored for Southern California. A carpet company has patterns in such colors as “SigAlert,” “Rush Hour” and “I-5.” There was the whiskey billboard that said, “The 405 Should Be This Smooth.” Now, Shawn O’Hare, who runs a pager store in Torrance, tells me of a visit by a sales rep, who offered the instrument in several colors. One of the most beguiling was “Clear Smog Gray” (see accompanying).
Hmmm. “Clear Smog Gray” also seems a candidate for an unclear-on-the-concept award.
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SACRE BLUE! Jim Nash of Palm Springs came upon an invite that asked diners to bring “mold,” among other tasty delights.
Dick Tyler of Montrose found a dish apparently christened in honor of someone named “Gordon Blue” (see accompanying).
And Bob Richardson of Venice noticed a self-dueling sign for drive-through parkers (see photo).
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CHEW ON THIS ONE, TOO: P. W. Mooney points out that one of the restaurants recently shut down by county health authorities was named Super Healthy Food.
Reason: No public health permit.
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GUFFAWING POSTAL: KNX radio held a “Hong Kong Getaway Contest,” in which listeners were asked to send in postcards to win a free trip to that region.
“Since I’m in charge, I guess you could call me ‘Mr. Hong Kong Contest,’ ” said spokesman Fred Bergendorff. “At least that’s what Newsweek magazine apparently thinks because recently I’ve unexpectedly started receiving free issues at KNX addressed to ‘Mr. Hong Kong Trip.’ Don’t have any idea how it happened but I’m not complaining.”
A DIME FOR HIS THOUGHTS: The scholarly tome, “More Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest,” pays tribute to a 38-year-old man who was arrested by L.A. police “on suspicion of trying to collect $400 by passing off 3,804 pennies as dimes. He reportedly put the pennies in dime rolls and presented them to a bank teller.”
His downfall? His rep as a serial fake-dime-stuffer, say authors John Kohut and Roland Sweet.
“The mass of coin bundles and a wanted poster” identifying him “as a suspect in two similar incidents,” they wrote, alerted bank officials, who called the police.
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SCARY PEOPLE WITH SCISSORS: On the subject of hair salons with provocative names, Martin Byhower nominates this Torrance shop of a few years ago: Curl Up and Dye.
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CAR CHRONICLES: Michael Haas of L.A. was driving on a surface street in West L.A. when a car behind him honked.
“I took my foot off the gas pedal and stopped, believing that caution was indicated,” Haas wrote.
Seeing no problem, he sped up, as the honking car tried furiously--but unsuccessfully--to pass him in the congestion. When the bumper-to-bumper traffic stopped in mid-street, the honking driver exited his car and strode toward Haas.
Just then, though, the traffic started up.
The enraged motorist, rather than get back into his car, “ran after my car a quarter of a block before giving up,” Haas said.
The driver eventually returned to his car, caught up with Haas, cursed from his car, then “disappeared without a trace.”
And how was your day?
miscelLAny:
Standing in line for hot dogs at Edison Field in Anaheim, I realized how expensive ballpark food has become when I saw notices indicating that the concession stands now accept credit cards.
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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.