Coin Toss Might Settle Whether to Root for Al’s Raiders or Arthur’s Auditors

Did you see where one of the companies being sued by our former Raiders is Arthur Andersen? Yes, the football team that cultivates an outlaw image going up against the indictees from the accounting world. A dream match for fans of shady operators! Sort of hard to figure out whom to root for, though.

Correcting Caltrans: In Thursday’s paper, The Times’ Hugo Martin wrote about an artist who added directions to a downtown freeway sign he found confusing.

It got me to thinking about how many times readers have alerted Caltrans about its boo-boos via this column. Here are some miscues that appeared in this space and were later corrected by the agency (see photos):

* A dueling notice about carpool lanes (snapped by Jamie Frankel).

* An inadvertent merger of Bakersfield and Sacramento (Jack Wormsley).

* And a Port of L.A. sign that was initially sunk out of view from freeway drivers (Steve Morris of Torrance).

My favorite is still in place down in San Diego, though: the warning to oceangoing vessels cruising down I-5 (Kevin Buck).

Effects of a sugar high? Columnist Dan Bernstein of the Riverside Press-Enterprise spotted this item in the log of a local medical center: “Fire hydrant was knocked clean off by police officer in unmarked cop car. Appears he lost his grip on milkshake. Lost control and hit hydrant.” Bernstein’s reaction: “Lessons learned: Stick to doughnuts.”

Just a couple of sentimental slobs: Jeff Bliss passed along an article from the Malibu Times that revealed that Pamela Anderson and her fiance, Kid Rock, recently threw an engagement party at which guests were “asked to bring an adult toy as an offering.” The Malibu paper said “their bedroom booty apparently included leather bras, silver cuffs, silk sheets” ... Well, you get the idea.

Special deliveries: In a piece on offbeat Mother’s Day gifts, KNX news radio mentioned the book “I’ll Never Have Sex With You Again: Tales from the Delivery Room.” Authors Irene Zutell and Larry Bleidner feature such characters as:

* The impatient mother-in-law who grabbed the forceps from the doctor to speed up the delivery of her grandchild.

* The father who missed the birth of his child because he had ducked out to don a suit and tie for the occasion.

* And the mother who, while giving birth, grabbed the video camera from her fumbling husband and recorded the event herself.

My wife still contends that I missed the birth of our daughter because I was watching a basketball game on television in her room. Of course, what she never says is that it wasn’t just any game, but a playoff involving the Lakers. Besides, I’m almost positive my daughter was born during one of the commercials.

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miscelLAny: Coinciding with the opening of “Spider-Man,” City News Service wrote a piece about real-life spiders, pointing out that there are just two known species harmful to humans in Southern California: the black widow and the violin spider. The black widow lives in secluded areas, a curator at the county Natural History Museum said, while the violin spider has been found only in small areas of Pasadena. I guess violin spiders want to take advantage of Pasadena’s cultural opportunities.