Let’s not make postal workers any edgier:A...

Let’s not make postal workers any edgier:

A big computer virus was supposed to hit Thursday. It turned out to be a dud, but Symantec, a large producer of anti-virus software, was ready for any emergencies. On its Web site, Symantec instructed users of stricken computers to “format a diskette with the potentially infected operating system” and mail it to the company’s Anti-Virus Research Center in Santa Monica.

Oh, one other thing.

Symantec added: “Do NOT write ‘Contains Live Virus’ on the envelope or diskette mailer (this upsets the post office and may prevent delivery).”

THE COAST OF GLENDALE: We mentioned that in the movie “Escape From L.A.” a 9.6 earthquake turns the San Fernando Valley into the San Fernando Sea. Ridiculous notion, right? Well we thought so until we saw Glendale Community College’s catalog, which has a cover showing an ocean scene. It’s a shame that the cover was cropped so you can’t see the nearby Glendale Galleria.

SURF THOSE ASPHALT WAVES: Actually, there is some precedent for Glendale’s fantasizing. From 1937 to 1972, a college located at Vermont Avenue and 79th Street in South L.A. called its athletic teams the Waves even though it was eight miles from the ocean. That was Pepperdine College, which has since relocated to Malibu. The original rationale for “Waves”? A school history says some Pepperdine students from out of state were so captivated by the Pacific that they suggested the name.

Of course, the water was a lot cleaner then. If a school nickname was inspired by the ocean today, it might be the Sludges.

CHECKOUT TIME IS NOW! Hank Cervantes of Marina del Rey sent today’s photo from Atlanta, where he attended the Olympics. Said Cervantes: “You’ve no doubt heard that hotels in Atlanta were crowded. Well, here’s how a local Econo Lodge felt about it. . . .”

SURE, SHAKESPEARE CAN BE DIFFICULT TO WADE THROUGH, BUT . . . : Phillip Wesley of the Orange County Public Library was examining some donations when he came upon a copy of Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” It had been checked out of the library of L.A.’s Franklin High on March 23, 1922.

Wesley mailed the book to the school, calculating that, at 25 cents a day, someone owed a fine of about $6,752.50. Someone, but not him. He noted in his letter that he attended John Marshall High in the Los Feliz district in the 1940s.

THE LIBRARY REACTS QUIETLY: Franklin librarian Linda Tigner wrote back to Wesley, thanking him for returning “what is undoubtedly our most delinquent book.”

And while Wesley was obviously not a suspect in the case, Tigner did notice an interesting coincidence. “Viola Stevens . . . was our first librarian,” Tigner wrote. “She left Franklin in 1929 to become the first librarian at Marshall High and . . . presumably she was your librarian when you attended that school.”

Whatever, the tardy Lear reader (or next of kin) needn’t worry about paying the $6,752.50 fine. Tigner recalled that she once received “a check in the amount of $200 from a penitent thief who had taken some of our books in 1948. I read his confession, absolved him and tore up the check.”

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You may have read that a Westside lawyer is suing Mezzaluna restaurant, claiming it violated the civil rights of his dog by refusing to allow mutts to dine there. The Players Restaurant in Beverly Hills, on the other hand (or paw), has a “canine telephone reservation line” for “well-mannered” dogs that wish to eat in its outdoor dining area. This being Beverly Hills, we imagine poodles get the best tables.