Hey! What Team Does She Play For?

No doubt this instance of cyber-terror has occurred elsewhere. An acquaintance of mine, a teacher’s aide at a Southland elementary school, walked into the main office at lunchtime and, as was his custom, sat down at a computer and tapped into the ESPN World Wide Web site to catch the sports scores.

Suddenly, he was horrified to see a seminude woman on the screen. A seminude woman in a compromising position, yet.

He apparently had mistyped by one letter; often porno Web sites adopt addresses that are very similar to popular destinations.

But who would believe him in these suspicious times, a middle-aged bachelor with a risque scene on the screen in a school office?

Fortunately, no one else saw the screen. He still can’t remember whether he threw his jacket over the screen before he managed to turn it off.

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DINING FOR THE ADVENTUROUS: Today’s entries for daring eaters were submitted by Brian Wallace, who found an American theme restaurant of sorts in Belgium; Sarabeth Rothfeld, who visited a car dealership where the cones were apparently near the carburetors; and Rick Beavis, who came upon a place that seems to insert the jelly into doughnuts using needles (see photos).

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AND, IN THE “DUH” CATEGORY: Joan Martin sent along a recipe for glazed pork chops, which contains this line: “Blend all ingredients, except chops.”

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UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT: Charlotte Schamadan of Monrovia couldn’t help but laugh at an experience she had on a flight.

“I travel frequently for my public speaking business, which sometimes means that I travel alone,” she said. “Since I am deaf, I take special care upon boarding to alert the flight attendants of my special needs. Simply, I tell them that I am deaf and an excellent lip reader, and I ask that they alert me to any important messages (such as an imminent crash!) by standing in front of me and repeating the announcement.”

On this flight, she gave her usual request to an attendant, who returned a few minutes later with a 4-inch thick binder, saying, ‘Here. Read this before we take off.’ ”

The book was written in Braille.

Schamadan politely informed the attendant, “I am deaf, not blind, and I don’t read Braille.”

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PLATE TALE: The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society, as I’ve mentioned, investigates oft-told tales to determine if there’s any truth to them.

The current Web site (https://www.snopes.com) discusses a tale about Robert Barbour of L.A. who, through a misunderstanding, was issued a plate that said NO PLATE.

Soon he was receiving parking tickets for cars that weren’t his, up and down the state. Reason: When officers found illegally parked cars with no plates, they would write NO PLATE on the ticket. The DMV computers would match these citations (more than 2,500 of them, in fact) with the owner of the NO PLATE car.

Eventually, after Barbour pointed out the problem, officers were instructed to instead use the word NONE, though some wrote MISSING. Which was bad news for a Marina del Rey man. His plates read, MISSING.

Anyway, the society investigated the story and determined it was true.

Which made this columnist happy because I reported it more than a decade ago.

miscelLAny:

In case you were wondering, no one has taken up singer Rosemary Clooney on an offer she made as part of an “Extreme Shopping Event” on the QVC cable network. She’ll warble “White Christmas” in the home of any listener willing to shell out $100,000.

Sounded like a great deal to me. After all, it’s not like this was one of those shows where there was an annoying two-drink minimum.

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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, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053 and by e-mail at [email protected].