A Mouse by Any Other Name ...

Well, today is Mickey Mouse’s 76th birthday. It’s worth noting that creator Walt Disney originally called him Mortimer, but wife Lillian persuaded him to go with Mickey. Just think: If she hadn’t stepped in, high school and college kids all over the country would refer to “easy A” courses as Mortimer Mouse classes.

Strictly impersonal: Richard Lorentz, a professor at Cal State Northridge, received a piece of e-mail that, no getting around it, lacked the human touch.

It wasn’t quite as startling as the missive Dan Fink of L.A. once received, but it belongs in my Junk Mail Hall of Fame along with some other strange greetings (see accompanying).

Those devilish Angels: You know that talk of the Angels re-adopting the Los Angeles name is getting out of hand when the New York Times steps into the fray.

Writer Murray Chass observed that if owner Arte Moreno wanted an instant, steady stream of revenue, he should sell the naming rights -- not to the stadium but to the team.

Can’t you just imagine the announcer introducing “your IBM Angels”?

Orange Countians might suffer bruised feelings, but at least they wouldn’t be burdened with that dreaded L.A. name.

Incidentally ... : Chass noted that poor Anaheim was part of a running joke years ago on the old Jack Benny show, where a train dispatcher would intone: “Train leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga.” Chass, however, committed the shocking error of spelling the last town “Cucamunga.” I might add that Rancho Cucamonga (as it is now known) is the home of the Quakes baseball team, a minor league franchise affiliated with none other than ... the Angels.

Anaheim and Cucamonga -- still linked! They have, however, shed Azusa.

Scorecards ready? Entries in the Nov. 21 Doo Dah Parade in Pasadena include:

* The Spawn of Captain James T. Kirk.

* Men of Leisure Synchronized Nap Team.

* Weapons of Mass Destruction Search Team.

* Post-Partisan Depression.

* BBQ Hibachi & Marching Grill Team.

* Unsynchronized Divas.

* Chia People.

And, of course, the returning...

* Bastard Sons of Lee Marvin.

Call off the SWAT team: In a local newspaper, Erika Brandau of Venice noticed a brief about a Santa Monica resident who called police “after a bottle of wine he had set on his kitch- en counter mysteriously vanished.”

“The man told police that he did not hear anyone enter or leave the residence. The man walked outside and, near his home, he discovered the bottle of wine -- half-empty -- on the ground. The loss was estimated at $3.”

Sad to say, this is another one of those crimes that may never be solved.

miscelLAny: I spotted this sign hanging from the rearview mirror of a late-model Lexus parked in Long Beach: “No Radio. Already Stolen.”

I was going to snap a photo of it but figured that, with my sense of timing, just as I’d start to snap away, the suspicious owner would appear.

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., CA 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.