Notice Shows That San Bernardino County Is a Tough Judge of Character

You can’t be too safe these days. Alex Baker of Upland saw an announcement that San Bernardino County Grand Jury officials were looking for applicants who must “be of ordinary intelligence, sound judgment and good character. Elected public officials are ineligible.”

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Don’t you just hate it when guests drop in uninvited? The police log of the Laguna News-Post said “a resident called police when she found a snake lying in her dining room.” (I thought that was a smooth transition, going from public officials to snakes.)

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Navel operation: Riverside police used a loudspeaker in an attempt to awaken a suspected drunk driver who had stopped in the middle of the road with a gun in his lap.

When that didn’t work, one cop resorted to one of Riverside’s most famous products: the navel orange.

Officer Erik Lindgren grabbed two off a nearby tree and lobbed them at the car. The first missed. The second bounced off the back the window, rousing the driver. He stepped out of the car and peacefully surrendered himself and his pellet gun.

Press Enterprise columnist Dan Bernstein termed it “a happy chapter of pulp non-fiction.”

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Dealing with royal pains: Bill and Louise Okey of Huntington Beach chanced upon a company that runs etiquette courses for titled nobility -- too late for some princes I could name, but a timely idea, nevertheless (see photo).

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Dueling doors: Columnist Steve Propes of Long Beach’s Beachcomber wrote that the cops had to be called when two people became agitated in a parking lot after they exited their cars at the same time, crashing their doors into each other.

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A dog wash? No, the structure that Leslie Stevens noticed in the desert outside of Phoenix was an abandoned race track for hounds (see photo).

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“Duh!” winner: At Lake Tahoe’s current water level, there seems little danger of anyone’s violating the warning spotted by Warren Williams of Pasadena (see photo).

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miscelLAny: During last year’s World Series between Anaheim and San Francisco, Giants manager Dusty Baker referred to the Angels as a “Los Angeles team.”

Walt Poor writes: “With that in mind, residents of GAMA (the Greater Anaheim Metropolitan Area) can be proud that today we have two pro teams in the playoffs: the Anaheim Mighty Ducks and the North Anaheim Lakers.”

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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.