We Don’t Take Risks Like We Used to, Thankfully

A boy and an older man were watching the “Extreme Games” competition on television in an LAX lounge. Writer Hugh Ryono heard the youth ask, “Did they have anything as risky as the ‘Extreme Games’ when you were a teenager, Grandpa?”

“We sure did,” Grandpa cracked. “Except back then we called it the Vietnam War.”

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DINING GUIDE FOR THE ADVENTUROUS: Today’s selections (see accompanying) include:

* Fish that apparently were pounded into shape by human hands (submitted by Allen Sokoler of Woodland Hills).

* Eggs that were cooked over the entrance (Richard Harris of Pasadena).

* Some former curd (Edward Ticktin of Thousand Oaks).

And, finally:

* An odd menu of exclusions from Nancy Gast of West L.A. (see photo). Whoops! That’s a sign at a carwash.

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L.A. GNAW: Here’s another blurb from a court transcript on the Web site of the Rodent (www.emplawyernet.com), an anonymous L.A. lawyer who nibbles at the comical side of the legal profession:

Judge: Is there any reason you could not serve as a juror in this case?

Juror: I don’t want to be away from my job that long.

Judge: Can’t they do without you at work?

Juror: Yes, but I don’t want them to know it.

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ENOUGH TO DRIVE YOU CRAZY: At 7:30 Tuesday morning, several motorists were waiting outside a DMV office on Rosemead Boulevard in Pasadena. The sign on the door said the building opened at 8 on Tuesdays. But the office didn’t open at 8. It was already getting hot in the sun.

Finally, a worker poked his head out and told the sweating assemblage that the building didn’t open until 9.

But what about the sign? he was asked.

“Oh, that’s been wrong for years,” he answered, as if it were common knowledge.

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THEY HUFFED AND PUFFED: Two L.A. County sheriff’s deputies, serving an arrest warrant at a house in Paramount, knocked loudly several times and heard no response. So, the officers began using a ramming device to force the door open.

The city’s newsletter said that “13 tries later, the officers were still on the porch.”

Suddenly, the suspect opened the door. Maybe he wondered what all the racket was about.

miscelLAny:

Cal Poly Pomona historian Ralph Shaffer has a fascinating collection of 19th century letters to the L.A. Times on a Web site (www.intranet.csupomona.edu).

One of the controversies in the 1880s was whether Sunday baseball--or any baseball--should be legal in L.A. A reader complained that baseball lures “our boys and girls into loose and dissolute company. These games foster and encourage idleness, intemperance, gambling and dissolute tendencies.”

Having played right field in Little League, and stood motionless for what seemed like hours, I can attest to the idleness part.

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.