Taking a Bite Out of Crime ... and a Couple of Doughnuts

Today’s episode of stupid criminal tricks begins with two LAPD officers observing a pair attempting to rob a shop. The suspects notice them, make a run for it and are captured, reported the LAPD’s Blue Line newspaper. And what kind of a shop was it? Well, as the newspaper quipped, “I guess these bandits forgot there are a few of us who still hang out at Winchell’s.”

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Dum de dum dum: While we’re on the subject, P. Chester Daley of Porter Ranch heard this definition of a lawbreaker from the LAPD’s fictional Sgt. Joe Friday on a KNX radio rerun of “Dragnet”: “Los Angeles means city of the Angels. When an angel’s halo slips, that’s where I come in. I carry a badge.”

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Moving on to spelling infractions: Joseph Granados of Oak View writes: “I saw a sign on a telephone pole that read: ‘Janet will you merry me!’” Added Granados: “I didn’t know if that was something of an Elizabethan proposition or what....”

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Almost like a life sentence: I spoke of how some hardy Dodger fans had two chances to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during a recent game--once during each seventh-inning stretch of a 14-inning game. That reminded Joseph Clifford of Rancho Palos Verdes of a 16-inning Dodger game that he attended. Clifford said the marathon inspired him to come up with some special lyrics near the end of that night:

Take me out of this ballgame, take me away from the park.

I’m tired of peanuts and Crackerjacks, they don’t care if I never get back.

So it’s root, root, root for ... anyone.

If this game won’t end I will scream.

So it’s one, two, three strikes I’m away

From this old ball game!

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Sounds more like a dish for Joe Friday: Patricia Sullivan and E.A. Condon Jr., both of Vista, came upon a killer ice cream dish (see accompanying).

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Hey, mom deserves better! Steve Gabel of Long Beach noticed an offer for a brunch this Sunday that seems likely to induce a hangover (see photo).

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Speaking of pain: Nothing tops the guillotine special spotted by Barbara Wolff of Thousand Oaks a few years ago (see photo). A sure way for an Angeleno to lose a halo.

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Fashion note: Over the years, I’ve received reports of street people engaged in such unlikely activities as talking on a cell phone, reading the Wall Street Journal and filling out an income tax return. I didn’t print the sightings because, well, I’m not sure I could detect a street person by his or her outfit.

Just the other day, Sue Lancaster of Rossmoor spoke sympathetically of a shabbily dressed panhandler she saw. Retorted her husband, Hal, an old college chum of mine: “Why, he doesn’t look any worse than Steve Harvey does!” You see my problem.

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miscelLAny: The Huntington Beach Wave carried this police log entry: “Golden West Street and Summit Avenue, traffic hazard: A resident reported six to eight ‘confused ducks’ near McDonald’s at 7:15 p.m.” Maybe the quackers were wondering what happened to the canceled 29-cent hamburger promotion.

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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.