Thieves’ Modus Operandi Is Tantamount to a Paramount Gaffe

An employee in a Paramount city building gazed out his window and spotted two men breaking into a car across the street. Two detectives arrived promptly and arrested the alleged crooks. The latter demanded to know who had snitched on them, according to City Talk, Paramount’s newsletter.

The deputies pointed across the street to the employee’s place of business--a Sheriff’s Department substation whose parking lot was filled with black-and-whites.

“Duh!” concluded the newsletter.

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HEAVENLY CONNECTIONS: Jeff Bringle of Santa Clarita tipped me that the architect for Holy Innocents Church Hall in Victorville is, appropriately, Lord Architecture Inc. I phoned the San Diego company and learned that Lord specializes in jobs for churches. But the name is just a coincidence, said the owner, Bennett Lord.

“I started out working for a guy who did church work and when he retired I took it over,” Lord said.

The name is a good conversation starter, Lord said. And he quipped that, “When you apply for permits with that name, no one’s going to turn you down.”

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HEADS UP! Ed Meckle of Tujunga noticed that the “Make 7 Up Yours” display in a market probably should have been arranged in such a way that no one would think that the statements on the T-shirts were supposed to be read separately (see photo).

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STUPID MOVIE LINE: Ah, spring-break time is approaching for the younger set. It’s the perfect time, then, to reprise the immortal line uttered by actor Robert Conrad in “Palm Springs Weekend” (1963):

“I drink to the Easter orphans, to all of us wicked little children banded together on the beaches and resorts from Florida to California to observe the rites of spring. Here’s to sex, sand and suds!”

That piece of dialogue, by the way, won a place in the scholarly tome, “Stupid Movie Lines--The 776 Dumbest Things Ever Uttered on the Silver Screen.”

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.