Giving a Dog’s Life New Meaning

See Spot Order Room Service: New York City is going to the dogs. As evidence, we cite a pricey TriBeCa apartment building that just hired the world’s first “doggy concierge” to hand out toys and treats to furry residents and visitors. The building also has doggy room service to deliver trays of milk, gourmet dog chow and bottled water to any apartment.

The Loozies: Now that January is over, most readers assume they’ve seen the last of all those annoying year-in-review stories and can finally turn their attention to all those annoying millennium-in-review stories.

Wrong. Here’s one more 1998 wrap-up: Loser of the Year. In keeping with our motto, “So many losers, so little time,” we are awarding several trophies (which look a lot like Oscars, except they’re made from Popsicle sticks with a face drawn on one end):

* The Party Like It’s 1999 Award goes to Gov. Gray Davis, for budgeting nearly $4 million for his inauguration bash. We wouldn’t mind such extravagance if the money went to a worthy cause, like scientific research to see whether Davis’ hair is real. But otherwise, it’s shameful. And we don’t care that it wasn’t taxpayer money. That just means Davis is beholden to the lobbyists who financed the shindig. Bring back Jerry Brown and his blue Plymouth.

* The Simple-Minded Award is given to the so-called simplicity movement, which urges people to be less materialistic and get rid of clutter, mainly by buying more and more simplicity books, including “Simplify Your Life,” “Simplify Your Life With Kids,” “Living the Simple Life,” “Inner Simplicity,” “Simplify Your Christmas” and “Simplify Your $4-Million Inauguration Party.” OK, we made up the last one, but the rest are real--and that’s just from one author.

* The 1998 Sybil Award goes to C-SPAN’s hit TV series, “Dr. Jekyll and Henry Hyde.” As Dr. Jekyll in the late 1980s, the Illinois congressman defended fibbing to Congress by Oliver North and other Iran-Contra figures--and he cheered President Bush for pardoning former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on charges of lying to a grand jury. But now, as Mr. Hyde, he espouses a zero-tolerance attitude toward deceit.

* The Joni Mitchell Special Achievement Award goes to Orange County government officials, for bringing to life the lyric, “They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.” In this case, the parking lot is the county’s entire freeway system, which transportation gurus admit will grind to a halt almost as soon as the current round of extra lanes and other roadwork is finished. For example, the recently rebuilt underpass of the 55 freeway at I-5 is designed to ease congestion only until 2005. And the widening of I-5 between the 22 and 91 freeways will be out of date around 2010, with no room to expand further. The culprit? Overdevelopment, much of it made possible by putting toll roads through formerly pristine lands.

And none of the possible solutions--trolleys, better on-ramps, reading “Simplify Your Transportation System” books--will ultimately do a thing to ease gridlock.

Best Tabloid Headline: “Holy Smoke! It’s Pope on a Rope! John Paul II Says He’ll Bungee Jump This Spring!” (Weekly World News)

Off-Kilter’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Unpaid Informant: Wireless Flash News. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.