A Contest You Can Lose Sleep Over

If you snore loudly, Glendale Adventist Medical Center wants to listen. The hospital is inviting noisemakers to submit audio or video tapes of themselves roaring, snorting, wheezing and gasping in their sleep.

The snorer with the most range will win two free medical visits, a night in the facility’s Sleep Disorders Center (giving his spouse a much-needed break) and equipment to help deal with the problem.

Snoring can be an indication of sleep apnea, pointed out Kathy Cavander of the disorders unit, “which can cause high blood pressure and heart irregularities.”

The judges use no decibel meters.

Usually, Cavander said, there’ll be a moment “when you hear a tape and we all say, ‘Yes, that’s it.’ ”

Cavander still remembers the man who sounded like a motorcycle. “You know, like when it accelerates to pass you on the freeway?”

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WAKE UP, PAC BELL! Diane Schwartz of L.A. had to laugh at a newsletter from the phone company that discussed a hypothetical case in which your phone goes dead (see accompanying). The next line began: “You call Pacific Bell. . . . “ I guess you could yell out the window.

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THEY’RE NOT SLEEPY: Actor James Doohan (Scotty in “Star Trek”) became a proud, 80-year-old papa the other day when his wife gave birth to a daughter, Sarah. But he didn’t set a record for oldest celeb to father a child.

That honor might belong to Anthony Quinn, who was 81 when his son Ryan was born in 1996. With Father’s Day approaching, here’s a list of some other late-bloomers and the ages at which their most recent children were born:

* Tony Randall at 78 (son Jefferson, 1998)

* Randall at 77 (daughter Julia, 1997)

* Charlie Chaplin at 73 (son Christopher, 1962)

* Clint Eastwood at 66 (daughter Morgan, 1996)

* Hugh Hefner at 65 (son Cooper, 1991)

* Warren Beatty at 63 (daughter Ella, 2000)

* Cary Grant at 62 (daughter Jennifer, 1966)

* Woody Allen at 52 (son Satchel, 1987).

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ARTIFICIAL WONDERS OF L.A.: Gamblers’ money isn’t the only thing that goes up in smoke at the Hawaiian Gardens Casino. An ersatz volcano recently materialized out front, complete with rumbling, smoke, flames and fake lava along Carson Boulevard (see photo). Hawaiian music also plays.

Casino general manager Ron Sarabi, who conceived the plaster version of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, said he was striving for a “Hawaiian atmosphere.”

Oddly, Hawaiian Gardens has only the most tenuous connection to Hawaii. The city’s name dates back to a bamboo-shack refreshment stand that stood at one intersection in the 1920s and was said to remind visitors of a Hawaii garden.

The shack, of course, has long since disappeared, buried by the tide of civilization.

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PLAYS AND WORDS: An article in The Times recently mentioned that when Laker guard Brian Shaw teams up with center Shaquille O’Neal for a basket, the players call it “the Shaw-Shaq Redemption.”

It reminded me of the late Times sportswriter Frank Finch, who had a flair for making sports puns out of movie titles. In the early 1960s, for instance, he termed the Dodgers’ Maury Wills, the league’s stolen-base leader, as “The Thief of Bags, Dad.” But his most memorable line came when a very catchable pop fly fell for a base hit because of the confusion of Phillies shortstop Bobby Wine and second baseman Cookie Rojas. Finch called it, “The Daze of Wine and Rojas.”

miscelLAny:

It’s reassuring to report that a sign on the Seal Beach pier seems to be respected by visitors (see photo). At least, in my walks on the pier, I have yet to see a fisherman in high-heeled shoes.