Online Tourism Advice Is Way Offline for Red Line-Blue Line Travelers

My colleague Scott Wilson points out that Frommer’s online travel newsletter says that you can take the Red Line from Universal City to downtown L.A. “and, if you change trains for the Blue Line, it’s feasible to travel all the way south into Anaheim.”

Hmmm. Pity the poor tourists who take the Blue Line to its southern terminus and mistake the Queen Mary for the Mark Twain Riverboat.

Speaking of the Magic Kingdom: Did you read where homeowners who live near Disneyland are complaining that the year-round fireworks shows there are polluting the air and leaving behind an ashy fallout?

Hey, those homeowners should feel lucky. At least Disney hasn’t tried to charge them for the shows. Yet.

Stupid Criminal Tricks: The city of Paramount’s newsletter related how a robbery suspect allegedly asked a relative to provide an alibi for him on the day of the crime. The cooperative relative told officers that the suspect couldn’t have been involved in any crime that day because he was moving. Officers were happy. “The ‘getaway car,’ ” said the newsletter, “was a U-Haul.”

What’ll it be, bub? A perm? A trim? Peter Nardi of L.A. figures he found a bar that must specialize in beer shampoos (see accompanying).

Llamas, labs and Laguna: An overindulgent saloon patron might have thought he was imagining things if he had seen the pair of Laguna Beach bathers (see photo) snapped by visiting Jonah Schrogin of Berkeley.

Dive! More honors for Echo Park’s Short Stop, which is given an honorable mention in Stuff magazine’s survey of the “20 Best Dives in America.”

Just a few months ago, the Short Stop was named the nation’s No. 1 “Hot Bar” by Rolling Stone magazine, which cited its onetime status as a hangout for cops involved in the Rampart scandal.

The Short Stop also earned points since it’s one of the least beauteous of saloons, lacking even an outside sign. The former owner took it with him after selling the lower Sunset Boulevard joint several months ago.

In Stuff’s regional “Dive” competition, the Short Stop lost out to Hollywood’s Burgundy Room. At the Burgundy, Stuff wrote, “the barmaids in this narrow, black-walled Hollywood dive will douse the bar rail with lighter fluid and set it ablaze.”

I think the barmaids should be complimented for conserving electricity.

Foot-stomping music: The police log of Marina del Rey’s Argonaut newspaper reported that “a man and his roommate got into an argument, and the man struck the roommate on the foot with a guitar.”

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miscelLAny: Well, another Christmas has come and gone. My son is almost 9, so this was the first time in years that we didn’t leave food out in the living room for Santa to munch on. I still remember the reaction of my older daughter when she first heard a rumor denying the existence of Santa several years ago. “I suppose,” Sarah said at the time, “that next you’re going to tell me there is no Tooth Fairy!”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, 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.