Nothing gums up the judicial process like...

Nothing gums up the judicial process like a display of intellect.

Like other jury candidates, Herbert Segall, an emeritus physics professor at Occidental College, was required to disclose the occupations of his “adult children” during jury selection in L.A. Superior Court.

“I have no adult children,” Segall responded curtly. “I have two adult daughters .”

Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith, presiding over the trial involving white supremacist Tom Metzger, asked whether Segall meant that the children were his or his wife’s.

Segall, in his best professorial tone, uttered: “The expression ‘adult children’ is an oxymoron.”

A court officer, apparently suspicious that the judge had been called a nasty name, asked an onlooker what “oxymoron” meant.

(Only in L.A., after first determining its spelling, consulted a dictionary, which defined it as a term combining “contradictory ideas or terms.”)

Segall, by the way, was rejected for the jury.

While we’re at it, we’d recommend that County Assessor Kenneth P. Hahn consult his dictionary. We realize that he was elected just nine months ago, but we figured that he’d have learned how to spell the name of his office by now.

Citicorp Plaza downtown boasts one of the most expensive parking garages in the city, charging a maximum of $22 per day. (The garage, no doubt, will also take ownership of your car in lieu of cash.) But what’s the cheapest public lot? We thought we’d found it on Vignes Street, northeast of City Hall. Alas, it turns out that the sign is out of use. The lot is being leased by the U.S. Marshal’s office and is not open to the public.

Frank Barron of Van Nuys notes that Music & Memories, an oldies record store in his neighborhood, calls itself:

“The Vinyl Resting Place.”

On a normal day in L.A., says a computer ad in Infoworld magazine, “Prime Time Shuttle makes 1,000 trips from four L.A. airports, one Amtrak station, and the San Pablo Harbor . . . “

The Infoworld ad asks: “How do they do it?”

Good question.

A restaurant called brix--with a small “b”--offered mostly Yuppie and health grub when it opened in Marina del Rey (up the coast from San Pablo).

Now, to attract more business, brix has posted a big sign that proudly proclaims:

“Killer Fast Food.”

miscelLAny:

The Star, L.A.’s first newspaper, made its debut in 1851 as a four-page weekly--two pages in English and two in Spanish.