Taking One Last Walk Down Offbeat 2004 Path

Welcome! You’ve logged on to Windows 2004, a review of the offbeat from the last year:

Obviously he’s driven little in Southern California: Shocked race car driver Rusty Wallace complained to reporters that a rival gave him the one-finger salute during the Auto Club 500 in Fontana.

If it’s not politicians taking your money ... : A Los Alamitos man said a pickpocket lifted his wallet while he was standing in line to vote on election day.

Valentine’s Day Dropout: Heikki Ketola observed a transient on Pacific Coast Highway who was trying to drive a hard bargain (see photo).

It all comes together in L.A.: A tourist asked the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau, “Where is the mountain with the letters and the four heads?” -- apparently thinking the Hollywood sign was on Mount Rushmore.

Another type of Hollywood sign: Bob Patterson came upon a movie set where the producers were apologizing in advance for the script (see photo).

Yard Sale Item of the Year: Robert Castle spotted a container for a body in Bakersfield (see photo) that was empty, luckily. But was it used?

Tourist Memory of the Year: A husband and wife from Arizona were picking up seashells on the shore in Redondo Beach when they saw a nose wash up.

“The birds, they were like attacking it, trying to take off with it,” the woman said. “We shooed the birds away.”

It turned out to be a latex nose, perhaps off a mask, police said.

Speaking of litter: L.S. Larsson of Upland found a sign that seemed to set aside an area for trashy sorts (see photo).

What were the odds? A woman stole a piece of outgoing mail from an L.A. residence, removed a check and altered it so that it was made out to her for $675. Then she took it to a bank and handed it to the teller, Horacio Lasam. Funny thing -- it was one of Lasam’s personalized checks.

The woman had taken it from his residence. She was arrested.

Unhappy hour: Minutes after a Huntington Beach bank robbery, a suspect was arrested in a nearby bar, where he had ordered a beer and was counting a wad of money.

You can drink to this guy’s stupidity too: A shoplifter being held for police in a Manhattan Beach store grabbed an 18-pack of beer and tried to run outside. He crashed into the locked door and fell stunned to the floor.

A nation where no one’s on the move: “Hollywood Squares” panelist Martin Mull asked the most populous country outside China, responded: “the San Diego Freeway.”

You never saw so many insects with shaking legs: The Bug Fair at the L.A. County Natural History Museum was sponsored by Western Exterminator.

Lousy mood: A woman who brought her flea-ridden dog into a veterinary clinic in Pacific Palisades was overheard asking: “But what about my house? I was on my yoga mat, and a flea jumped on me!”

An inside job: The Los Alamitos News-Enterprise said a Cypress resident “returned home to find the house was ransacked but nothing seemed to be missing.... Police determined the apartment was just a mess and was not ransacked.”

Steve Harvey can be reached at (800)LATimes, 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.