No one could accuse Deborah Moody of...

No one could accuse Deborah Moody of being a license-plate libeler of L.A.

She doesn’t traffic in such anti-Angels sentiments as HATE 405 and WHYMINLA, which have been glimpsed on local roadways.

The unpersonalized plate on Moody’s 1988 Chevy proclaims: 2JOY405.

“It (the plate) was one of the reasons I bought the car,” said Moody, a Van Nuys resident. “I hate to see the negative kind of New York thinking creep in here. In L.A., we’re about fun.”

And the fun of the 405? “It’s getting a chance to look at other people,” the upbeat Moody said. “It’s all in your attitude.”

Leaving well enough alone, we didn’t ask her about the 5.

A diverting--if not fun--freeway sight is the person simultaneously driving and rehearsing on a trumpet, flute, guitar, etc. But we found a guy on the Pasadena Freeway who would feel right at home with these motoring musicians. He wasn’t playing, he was conducting --with both hands, naturally.

A hotel by any other name . . .

An inn located on Burton Way in Beverly Hills is listed in three different places in the telephone directory--as the L’Ermitage Hotel, Ermitage Hotel and Hermitage Hotel. The last two are aliases, it turns out.

The phonetically similar versions are insurance against the shaky French of people dialing information--or of the information operators.

Then there’s the place next door, which isn’t listed at all: Le Petit Ermitage.

List of the Day:

Winning times in some unorthodox local events:

1--Pig Races, 10.0 seconds: A porker dubbed Hammie Faye Bakker, on a 50-yard track, at L.A. County Fair.

2--Santa Monica Bed Race, 10.9 seconds: Six Kiwanis Club members pushing a wheeled bed along an 80-yard course.

3--Great Snail Race, 2 minutes, 1 second: A gastropod named Charley scaling a 13-inch stage in the City of Industry.

4--John Welch Stairwell Ascent, 13 minutes, 30 seconds: Attorney Alan Chabot scaling 73 floors in First Interstate Tower.

5--Great Southern California Rubber Duck Race, 29 minutes, 2 seconds: First duck to float 600 yards to shore in Santa Monica.

6--L.A. Marathon, 3 hours, 29 minutes, 17 seconds: Albert Lucas, running the entire route while juggling 3 balls.

You may recall that when the Sierra Madre earthquake struck in June, supervisors and managers in the RTD’s offices picked up their red emergency phones and heard these taped instructions:

“We are all doomed. Drop your pants and kiss your ass goodby.”

RTD officials, who termed the stunt “a poor practical joke,” did succeed in identifying the culprit but will not say what disciplinary action was taken.

However, an RTD source says the individual was suspended for a week. The drop-your-pants advisory was a test recording, which was supposed to be replaced with the real tape.

A West Los Angeles woman was touring a Brentwood mansion that had been put up for sale because of a divorce. She walked into an upstairs room that was deserted except for an oil portrait of the estranged husband. A pencil-sized hole had been punched into his smiling face.

Goodby to the Greedy ‘80s:

Remember those bumper stickers that said: “The person who ends up with the most toys wins the game”?

We saw a new version: “The person who ends up with the most toys wins . . . nothing.”

miscelLAny:

How did the Smart and Final grocery chain get its name? It was the idea of founders J.S. Smart and H.D. Final.