Young Videographers Could Use Some Direction on When to Stop Filming

Nothing like an inadvertent security camera to help out the cops.

Sheriff’s deputies searching an Altadena-area house where juveniles were suspected of stashing stolen goods found several items. The big discovery, reported the Star News, a sheriff’s publication, was “a wonderfully produced and directed videotape inside a stolen video camera.”

“The star is none other than one of our suspects hamming it up.... While he points to the camera, he proudly says, ‘Stolen video camera,’ then points to his shoes and says, ‘Stolen shoes!’ The director then says, ‘Shut up, dude. You never know who might see this! Cut!’ ”

The picture quality may be first-rate, but I’m not sure any judge would give it a two-thumbs-up rating.

Courtly comments: In the same issue of the Star News, Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Ascolese listed some memorable bumper stickers he’s seen at the Van Nuys Courthouse’s inspection area for vehicles with citations:

* “99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.”

* “Save the whales. Collect the whole set.”

* “He who laughs last, thinks the slowest.”

* “A clear conscience is the sign of a bad memory.”

* “If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.”

School daze: A La Canada reader found a dueling greeting card, the cover referring to one occasion, the inside to another (see photo). Some sort of snafu, I guess. Unless the card was for an adult high schooler.

By the numbers: Dan Fink received a note from a car dealer who was looking for a model that Fink had never heard of (see accompanying).

I can’t recall any TV commercials about “6351 08 01 06s,” either. (Sorry I used the word “recall,” Gov. Davis.)

A wacky municipal pen pal: The L.A. city Office of Finance sent writer Marvin Wolf a notice that he had underpaid his 2002 business tax by $5.77.

Wolf sent a check, whereupon the Office of Finance wrote that he had overpaid his tax by $5.20. A refund check was enclosed.

Then the Office of Finance wrote that he had underpaid his taxes by $5.77, including 62 cents in penalties.

“I hate to pay this,” Wolf wrote the agency, “as I am sure that in August or so someone in your office will send me another refund, followed, in perhaps October, by yet another demand for what may, by then, be as much as $6 and change.”

Do you get shore leave? “That’s a lo-o-o-ng trip,” Doug Stokes of Duarte quipped after spotting a cruise ship ad that lined up two unrelated columns of type (see accompanying).

MiscelLAny: The item here from the reader who couldn’t get the Salvation Army to take the green velour sofa on his lawn reminded Richard Showstack of Newport Beach of this story: “A family wanted to get rid of a couch. They put it on their front lawn with a sign that said, ‘Free!’ but it just sat there. ... Then they changed the sign to a new one that read, ‘$30,’ and the next morning ... the couch was gone.”

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; or by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.