This One’s Sexy Too but Not for Sale
Reader Alan Beauchesne of Boston hit me with the stunning news that EBay is offering an item described as “STEVE HARVEY--Candid Photos--Sexy--WOW!!”
Of course, the shots are of the other sexy Steve Harvey, the TV star. (I checked.)
Bidding, by the way, begins at $9, but so far there have been no takers.
Good thing the photo at the top of this column costs only 25 cents today.
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MULTI-TASKING BEHIND THE STEERING WHEEL: Until now, the study here of stupid driver tricks has focused on scattered sightings. But how many occur during an average commute?
Well, Dennis Deapen, an associate professor at USC, surveyed cellular phone usage on the way to the school from his home in the city of Walnut and observed these activities:
Number of drivers using cellular phones (10), smoking (6), eating (3), drinking (2), reading (1), curling eyelashes (1), chewing nails (1) and flossing teeth (1).
Of the three eaters, Deapen said, the most interesting was a driver “with tofu in one hand and chopsticks in the other.” Deapen also included the category of drivers “first believed to be using phones but upon closer examination were: picking ear (4), picking nose (3), picking teeth (1).”
Obviously the latter forgot to pack dental floss.
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IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING: Deapen, who is in the Keck School of Medicine, took notes “from the confines of my carpool seat.” While science debates whether cellular phone usage could cause brain tumors, he notes “the data is already clear” that it makes driving more hazardous.
He does not own a cellulr phone.
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AN L.A. KIND OF VALENTINE: Ruth Adams noticed a topical ad for the workout set (see accompanying).
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AND CHICK HEARN WILL BE THE BROADCASTER: “We may he having problems in L.A. but one thing is sure--18,000 years from now we’ll still have the Lakers,” wrote a jubilant Rick Tello of Castaic. He and Maggie Bell of Dana Point and several other readers based this belief on an ad for a Lakers “calender” of the distant future (see accompanying).
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WE STILL LOVE YOU, BAKERSFIELD: A while back Mike Reynolds noticed that a Caltrans sign on the San Diego Freeway had seemingly created a new city (see photo).
Actually, the agency, which later fixed the sign, was replacing the name “Bakersfield” with “Sacramento,” as it has at several other locations.
Which raises another question: Why is Caltrans snubbing Bakersfield? No offense intended, a spokeswoman told me. The new policy, she said, is to list the farthest major destinations on such signs.
Anyway, the Kern County city no doubt has drawn consolation from the movie “Cast Away,” in which Tom Hanks comes upon a hunk of metal that has washed up on his island. Imprinted on the side is the name of a city.
“Bakersfield?” Hanks says in disbelief. “Bakersfield!”
It’s a Porta Potti.
miscelLAny:
The police blotter of the Seal Beach Sun reported that “a man called the police to ask if it was OK to walk on the pier while he was having moronic thoughts.”
After all these years, I find out now that I should have been checking with the police before writing each day?
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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, 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.
