Brainy Brunets vs. Thin Blonds

This is liable to set off a new round of dumb-blond jokes. John Altschul of West L.A. spotted a pair of ads placed in UCLA’s Daily Bruin by a company looking for “sperm/egg donors” (see accompanying). Applicants with brown hair were required to have SAT scores of at least 1200. But for thin, blue-eyed blonds, scores of “above 1100” would suffice. Sounds like an example of special preferences to me.

MYSTERY SOLVED: A while back I mentioned a sighting of a sign at a San Fernando Valley residence that said, “A ROTTEN DOG LIVES HERE.”

Well, it turns out the author of the sign was Isabelle Silverman of Northridge, who said: “The rotten dog is my black Lhasa apso, who sits on a recliner chair in the window and barks at everything that moves when he is awake. You can tell who is a dog lover and who is not by people’s reactions.”

She explained: “Dog lovers laugh, and others get very nervous and move away when I walk him.”

TALK ABOUT A NO-FRILLS JOB: Elliott and Joan Adelman of Montebello noticed an ad in a local newspaper for a job that prompted them to comment: “Only 10% satisfaction is understandable when the drivers are paid only one-third of a cent per mile driven.” (See accompanying)

F. LEE BAILEY HE’S NOT SURE ABOUT: In the new movie, “Lethal Weapon IV,” cop Chris Rock tells a suspect, “You have the right to get an attorney.” But he adds: “If you get Johnnie Cochran, I’ll kill you.”

IT BUGGED HIM: Killer bees are not only headed this way, we are told, but now El Nino-crazed mosquitoes and fleas are preparing to stage attacks. Meanwhile, Justin Leavens received a piece of junk-mail that was headlined, “$4,370 A MOTH FOR LIFE!!!”

Pay for moths? At least, the other critters are free.

THE NOT-SO-FARWAY LAND (Cont.): In the vain hope that summer will arrive this year, Only in L.A. brings you 10 more selections from the file of strange questions received by the Catalina Visitors Bureau.

* “Is the island open in April?”

* “Is the water at the beach salt water?”

* “What time does the boat going back to California leave?”

* “Do you need a visa to live in Catalina?”

* “Can you tell me about the buffalo hunts?”

* “May I have the phone number to rent a condom for the weekend?”

* “Can you tell me how to get to the rain forest?”

* “Do you know California time? Is the island on the same time?”

* “If the ticket says ‘1:15’ for the glass bottom boat, do you think I need to be on the boat at 1:15?”

* “May I please have information on the bottomless boats?”

Of course, anyone knows there’s no such thing as a bottomless boat. Well, any brunet.

miscelLAny:

“Who is the worst TV reporter or anchor person?” was the question posed by the L.A. Downtown News to six passersby. One had no opinion, one said “all the weather people,” one asked who Geraldo Rivera was and one voted for ABC’s Sam Donaldson. The winner, receiving two votes, was. . . .

Talk/fight-show host Jerry Springer. I’m not sure whether his victory was an insult to TV anchors or to Springer.

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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.