The First E-Mail Crashed at UCLA

History’s first e-mail blooper? The Wall Street Journal says it occurred in October 1969--on the very first e-mail message. Transmitted across a precursor of the Internet from Stanford to UCLA, the milestone message said (drumroll, please): “lo.” It was supposed to say “login,” but the connection crashed after the first two letters. Too bad the line went dead, because it would have been interesting to see how UCLA researchers would have responded to “lo.” Perhaps with “yo.” (Computers were mostly guy things back then.)

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OH, NO! YOU’VE GOT MAIL! I’ve heard of e-mail goofs worse than “lo.” An acquaintance of mine once messaged his wife that they had received an invitation to dinner from another couple. “I know you think the guy’s a jerk,” he added. Only problem is he also sent the message to the jerk. (Dinner was called off.) In fact, I think this column’s readers can easily top those Stanford and UCLA nerds when it comes to e-mail problems. I’m going to give out copies of my book to the three respondents with the most colorful snafus. Please send by e-mail, fax or mail. (And, no wisecracks about the fourth-place finisher receiving two copies of the book.)

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THE LATEST CHARTER CONTROVERSY: During one of the recent meetings aimed at achieving a unified City Charter proposal, Mayor Richard Riordan said, “The game isn’t over until it’s over, as the late, great Casey Stengel said.”

“No, I think that was Yogi Berra,” responded KNX radio reporter Steve Futterman. I hope the rival commissions can reach agreement on the Stengel/Berra question.

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GOV. KLAATU: The item here Thursday about the L.A. school district’s problem finding a photo of Gov. Gray Davis reminded me of a call I received after the last election. A reader opined that Davis bears a resemblance to the space alien Klaatu who lands on Earth in the 1951 movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Klaatu, no relation to Gov. Moonbeam (as Jerry Brown was once known), was played by Michael Rennie (see photos). A peaceful invader, Klaatu is shot by a panicky U.S. soldier but stops his massive robot, Gort, from destroying Earth by uttering the phrase, “Klaatu barada nikto.” Or did Yogi Berra say that? Now I’m all mixed up.

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BITING AD: Helen Morton of Torrance suspects that one pet store could have worded its ad a bit more carefully (see accompanying).

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THE UNMAKING OF A USC DEMOCRAT? The other day porn publisher Larry Flynt released an affidavit in which the second wife of Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) accused Barr, one of President Clinton’s harshest critics, of infidelity during their marriage. In the affidavit, Gail Barr also related that her ex-husband attended USC. “Bob had been involved with the Young Democrats while he was an undergraduate,” she said. “Bob told me that his parents would not pay for his college education if he continued his involvement with the Young Democrats.”

miscelLAny:

More honors for “Titanic” director Jim Cameron: Mad magazine rated his “King of the World” Oscars speech as No. 2 on a list of “The 20 Dumbest People, Events and Things of 1998.”

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.