Next idea: a key-ring Breathalyzer
The decision by USC’s bookstore to sell a miniature stainless steel flask attached to a key ring has not been greeted on campus with unanimous cries of “Cheers!”
“It kind of suggests drinking and driving,” a structural engineering major told Daily Trojan writer Dan Loeterman. “It’s a flask. It’s going to be for a shot. You’re not going to be pouring Coke in there.”
One faculty member said the trinket suggested that “carrying around alcohol is acceptable and that it’s commonplace, which it’s not.”
The flasks, which can hold one ounce, are accompanied by the slogan, “For your favorite beverage.”
Others saw nothing wrong with the trinkets. “I don’t think it’s going to promote anything that people aren’t doing already,” a biological sciences major declared.
A spokesman for the bookstore said it was not promoting the drinking of alcohol but said it would reevaluate whether to continue selling the key-ring flask.
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Speaking of booze hounds: The other day I mentioned that Judy Freedman’s dog had been prescribed medicine that came with the warning, “Do not drink alcoholic beverages.”
No sooner did I say the warning was nonsensical than an e-mailer who calls himself Professor Numbers told me there’s a doggie beer on the market: Happy Tail Ale.
It is, however, nonalcoholic. The concoction is a mixture of meat drippings, “choice malted barley,” vitamins and other ingredients. A pooch’s version of a Beefeater, I guess.
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Last call: What sounded like an event involving surplus beverages -- apparently very carbonated surplus beverages -- caught the eye of Francisco Amuchastegui of Long Beach (see photo).
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Educated birds? Sherwood Hoogveld of Simi Valley noticed a feeder that he figures is in an area of Big Bear where the feathered creatures can read signs (see photo).
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Hey, no name-calling: Suzanne Moore of Long Beach saw an ad that included an unfortunate misspelling of Lakewood (see accompanying).
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Lakewood (cont.): Really, the city’s not so flaky, although its motto, “Tomorrow’s City Today,” has been ironically displayed on crumbling wooden posts and rusted signs of late, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported. Looking, in other words, like yesterday’s signs today.
So the city has adopted a new slogan, “Times change. Values don’t.” Well, maybe property values do.
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miscelLAny: The other day I wrote about a commuter who admitted sneaking into a teachers parking lot at Cal State Northridge by placing a plank over the exit spikes. Alan Fine of Beverly Hills points out that the miscreant no doubt escaped punishment by telling officers he was on a school board.
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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.
