Close Encounters of the CSUN Kind

Is there intelligent life at Cal State Northridge? Well, there seemed to be some question, according to one San Fernando Valley newspaper. It reported that actor Leonard Nimoy will give a talk Dec. 17 at the school planetarium. But Gail S. Johnson noticed that the newspaper misstated the title as “The Search for Life in the University.”

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Translation, please! Grant Uba of Long Beach found an Asian hair band product whose description was difficult to follow, to say the least (see accompanying).

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Food for thought: You don’t need an excuse for missing the Sunday services at a Cape Cod, Mass., church this time of the year, report Cliff and Isabel Stuewe of Costa Mesa (see photo).

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Disorder in the court! California Lawyer Magazine’s year-end review, “The 2004 Legal Follies,” offers the following evidence of the wacky nature of life these days:

* In September, the California Legislature granted amnesty to all undocumented pet ferrets and their owners. The bill, referred to as the Ferret Freedom Act of 2004, was later vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger.

* After being sentenced to jail for lying about a stock deal, Martha Stewart spoke to ABC’s Barbara Walters of the “many other good people that have gone to prison. Look at Nelson Mandela.”

* A Florida woman “got her driver’s license renewed after crashing her car into the very same DMV building where she took the written test.”

* A man “driving erratically” on a highway in Tennessee “placed a call for help to 911, saying that he was being chased by three sheriff’s patrol cars.”

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Educating Mom: The crime log of the Dana Point News reported that a woman returned home to find “what she thought was a senseless act of vandalism”: two dozen rolls of toilet paper scattered around her property. She quickly called Dana Point Police Services.

Before the officers could roll to the scene of the heinous crime, the victim’s daughter informed her it was nothing more than the traditional ritual of TP-ing.

And the daughter dropped a bombshell: The prank’s perpetrator “had merely been ‘returning the favor’ that she had done at his home earlier that evening.

“The woman withdrew her complaint.”

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miscelLAny: “My wife and I are into the fourth week of the South Beach diet,” says Phil Proctor of Beverly Hills, “which means that we sprinkle sand on all our favorite dishes, making them impossible to enjoy.”