Sorry--you’ve got the right number:During jury selection...

Sorry--you’ve got the right number:

During jury selection in a local court, a judge was questioning a police dispatcher.

“So you take nine-eleven calls?” the judge asked. “No, nine-one-one calls,” the dispatcher responded, prompting some laughter.

“Well, I guess that’s why I never get through,” the judge quipped.

WHICH REMINDS US: Years ago, a San Diego city councilman warned that it would be very expensive to institute the newfangled “nine-eleven” system, as he called it. Why? Because telephones don’t have the No. 11 on their dials.

PUG MUG: In our last dispatch, we mentioned a South Pasadena Review article about some residents who notified police that they saw “a man wearing a mask in a car.” The suspicious character, police later determined, was a dog.

Anyway, in a subsequent issue of the newspaper, “concerned citizen” Harry Greenwood has demanded more details. “Specifically,” Greenwood asked, “was the dog actually arrested? Was it working alone, or part of a gang? Did it have a valid driver’s license?”

We’re working on the answers, Harry. But, in the meantime, we found a suspect in a calendar put out by Little Angels Pug Rescue. That nonprofit group says it pays “impound fees to bail our pugs out of animal shelters” (notice the criminal parlance). This pug, named Grammy, is obviously a master of disguises, judging from the dark glasses it wears, in addition to the mask supplied by Mother Nature.

ON THIN ICE: Paramount’s biggest hit--that is, the city of Paramount’s biggest hit--has been the Zamboni machine for resurfacing ice rinks, invented there in 1948 and now a staple of hockey matches and “Peanuts” cartoons. You might ask: Why call a machine a Zamboni? Well, inventor Frank Zamboni saw nothing unusual about the name.

But apparently it wasn’t romantic enough for the folks at Indianapolis Arena. At a recent minor league hockey match there, the Zamboni was draped in pink and renamed the Luvboni. Of course, it was Valentine’s Day.

SEEING RED: Fred Hall, whose Western Fishing Tackle and Boat Show opens Wednesday at the Long Beach Convention Center, recalls that his first production was nearly his last. That was back in 1946, and Hall got the idea of covering the ground at Gilmore Stadium with green-colored sawdust. Problem was, a rainstorm struck on opening day, and the dye came off on people’s shoes and clothes. He had to pay $5,000 in refunds and cleaning bills.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: While we were watching television coverage of William Bonin’s last day, we realized that KCBS (Channel 2) has dropped a sponsor it had in 1992 at the time of the execution of another murderer, Robert Alton Harris. On that occasion, one KCBS reporter’s commentary on capital punishment was followed by a commercial for Tombstone Pizza, which featured a condemned man being asked: “What do you want on your Tombstone?”

miscelLAny

The Daily Bruin reports that to help fund the seismic renovation and expansion of two buildings on campus, UCLA students “will be assessed a ‘student seismic safety fee’ of about $113 per quarter over the next 27 years.” We’d call that an inducement to graduate as quickly as possible.