If you can’t pick a team to win, try betting on a song

On a website offering novel bets for the Super Bowl, I noticed that you can even wager on what Tom Petty’s last song will be at his halftime performance. The favorite, at even money, is “Free Fallin’.”

That’s the composition, by the way, with the words “It’s a long day living in Reseda / There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard.” If someone wants to bet you on the name of the freeway running through Reseda, don’t bite. Reseda has many construction landmarks, but no freeways.

--

Houston, we’ve got tacos

Steve Durgin of Woodland Hills did a double take when he saw a familiar-shaped craft bearing the words “Space Shuttle Cafe” in a nearby traffic lane in Tarzana (see photo). It hadn’t made an emergency landing. The converted DC-3, it turns out, delivers food, though only on the ground.

--

Dueling directions

In the Italian town of San Gimignano, Bob and Marilyn Gomez encountered a trattoria that seemingly couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted customers to enter (see photo).

--

Mystery solved

Actually, Marilyn Gomez said, the sign was “a strange way of announcing that they don’t close midday like most Italian shops.”

--

To live and drive

In Yosemite, Jay Berman saw a sign that evidently was altered by a prankster just to make motorists jumpier than usual (see photo).

In Charleston, S.C., Joyce Brown of Palos Verdes Estates espied a construction warning that seemed to make light of the possibility of a traffic jam (see photo).

--

The really friendly skies

I mentioned the story of the rookie L.A. hotel exec who got the bright idea years ago of sending out thank-you notes to couples who had stayed there -- and caused a furor when it turned out that more than one hubby had spent the night with a woman who was not his wife.

That reminded Susan Goff of an airline promotion some time back that allowed wives to travel at a discount with their spouses.

“The only reason I remember,” Goff said, “is that they had a TV ad with a chorus of lovely wives singing, ‘Take me along, if you love-ah, me, take me along with you. . . .’ ”

The airline, Goff said, got many takers and followed up with notes to the wives, many of whom were angry when they learned they had supposedly taken a trip. The promotion was grounded, as were many husbands.

--

Earth quack

“Everyone’s tryin’ to get into the act!” the late entertainer Jimmy Durante used to joke, and it’s of course more true than ever with regard to television these days.

KTLA reporter Bill Smith noted on his blog:

“On submerged Rossmore Street in Hancock Park, with half the street under two feet of water, a neighbor walked up carrying a big white duck. We couldn’t quite get the camera out fast enough. Still you gotta admire someone who brings a duck to a flood.”

--

miscelLAny

When the Feb. 5 primary election is over, I wonder how the local TV stations are going to fill the countless hours of time slots now devoted to the state’s Indian gaming propositions.

--

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