Standing Guard --But in Denver?

Ever notice the 22-foot-tall fellow guarding a Carson golf course along the San Diego Freeway? Well, Lisalee Anne Wells of Long Beach reports that the big hacker (see photo) gets a cameo role in the John Travolta disaster movie “Battlefield Earth.”

The surprise, she says, is that the big guy “has become part of the suburbs of a post-cataclysmic Denver. Gosh darn, that tsunami was a big one!”

ON TRACK POLITICS: I see where a horse named Mr. Vice Prizident finished second at Hollywood Park on Thursday. I understand that Mr. Vice Prizident refuses to appear on the same track as the horse that finished third in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness--you know, the one named Impeachment.

NO JOKES ABOUT NAGS, PLEASE: Patricia Bales of San Pedro came across a wedding ensemble apparently intended for a horse (see accompanying).

LETTER IMPERFECT: Kathie Freeman of Pasadena spotted a typo in a hair salon ad that gave it a biological connotation(see accompanying).

UCLA’S UNPOPULARITY ON THE ROAD: I gave my theory that UCLA’s poor-selling special-interest license plates would attract more buyers if they carried the words “Beat USC.”

Lord knows the DMV has profited from Trojan haters in its sales of vanity plates. Just this week I saw one that proclaimed, ANTI SC. You really need some ingenuity to find an available combination for this popular cause, inasmuch as BOOUSC, BEATUSC, H8USC, HATESSC and IHATESC are already taken.

USC SUPPORTERS’ TURN TO LAUGH: Referring to the UCLA football players who fraudulently obtained handicapped parking stickers, Mike Kerrigan wise-cracked: “I see UCLA plates every day. Aren’t they the blue ones with a little wheelchair on them?”

A STRANGE BIT OF NOSTALGIA: My colleague Jim Walters spotted a truck with an LV L NINO plate in Seal Beach. It was a roofing company’s truck.

ON THE ROAD: Tom Urban of Santa Barbara wondered how the name of one Texas grocery store is pronounced (see photo).

THEY COULDN’T BLAME CALTRANS BACK THEN: Westways magazine reports that in the 1913 Panama-Pacific Road Race, a 444-mile journey from L.A. to Sacramento, the intrepid drivers “had to ford more than 40 streams.” Just 19 of the 51 entrants finished, and the winning time was 11 hours. The magazine said that many cars “flipped--or as observers were fond of saying at the time--’turned turtle.’ ”

miscelLAny:

Impeachment, which is owned by Bob and Marilyn Lewis of Newport Beach, was sired by Criminal Type.

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Steve Harvey can be reached 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.