On the 405, There’s Plenty of Tortoises but No Hares in the Race to Gridlock
On the San Diego Freeway, I spotted a speed limit sign that said, “.00065 m.p.h.” A couple of tortoises were pictured on the sign, which was actually an ad for the San Diego Zoo. I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but the billboard also gauged with amazing accuracy the average rush hour speed of humans on the 405.
Unclear on the concept: Beverly Diehl came upon a road near Lake Isabella that didn’t live up to its name (see photo).
Some true material for this column: For your inspection, I offer:
* Stockings that give 110%.
* Fabrics that carry the endorsement of a fine newspaper in Verizon’s Yellow Pages--a newspaper I once worked for, in fact. But it did fold in 1989.
* And, finally, factory samples that need some patching (Virgil McDowell of L.A.).
Next stop--the Laundromat? The Beach Reporter said a Hermosa Beach resident came home to find that his bedroom window was open but the only thing stolen was “a ceramic cup full of change.”
McOutrage! This week’s scandal over the McDonald’s/Monopoly sweepstakes called to mind (at least, to this twisted mind) a stunt that some Caltech students pulled against the Golden Arches.
When the burger chain announced a Datsun Z sweepstakes in 1975, the students harnessed a computer to print and fill out more than 1 million entries.
They had noticed that the contest rules required only that entries be printed on 3- by 5-inch pieces of paper--the rules didn’t say humans had to do the printing, either--and that participants could enter “as often” as they wished.
McDonald’s attorneys admitted they couldn’t exclude the nerds’ ballots. The plotters won about 20% of the prizes, including a Datsun station wagon (which they donated to United Way), according to the book “Legends of Caltech.”
What McDonald’s did do was hold a second drawing, excluding the Caltech entries.
The outraged burger chain said the purpose of the sweepstakes was “to lessen the effects of the current economic slump.”
The amused Caltekkies replied that the vast majority of the prizes were $5 books of coupons and added that they couldn’t see “how giving away foreign-made cars can help to improve the American economy.”
A taste for crime: The police log of the Westsider newspaper reported that a man was walking through an alley “when a robber approached him and said, ‘Give me what’s in your hand.’ The robber took the victim’s vanilla ice cream shake and fled.”
miscelLAny:
I mentioned boxer Art Aragon, L.A.’s “Golden Boy” of the 1950s. Doug Hays of Glendale pointed out that Aragon later went into the bail-bond business. His business cards said: “I’ll Get You Out If It Takes 10 Years.”
Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.
