Um, About That Back Adjustment ...

“My brother-in-law, Brian Greenberg, injured his back while on a lengthy hike in Canada,” began the note from Jerry Goldstein of Laguna Niguel.

At the suggestion of a local, Greenberg visited a chiropractor down the road. Everything went fine, though the latter’s business card gave Greenberg “some pause (or is that paws?),” Goldstein said (see photo).

Speaking of health: Another traveler, Marion Winkler of Sherman Oaks, saw a sign in Scotland that took on an eerie new meaning after some mischief-makers removed a couple of letters (see photo). Of course, the altered sign does fit in nicely with the name of the Scottish town.

Still on the road: In Denver, Margaret Engle of Arcadia says that after seeing one notice aboard a bus, “I promptly put my sax back in my case” (see photos).

Institution of high learning: The top party school around here, in case you’re wondering, is UC Santa Barbara, according to a survey of students in the 2005 Princeton Review.

UCSB ranked No. 12 in the nation, the only local to make it into the Top 20. And the school’s students rated No. 8 in the category “How widely used is hard liquor?”

Of course, drinking eats up time for other activities, which may be why UC Santa Barbara students were rated as 16th worst when it came to number of hours spent studying.

Attention, high school guys: Just in case you’re interested, the women at the University of San Diego were given high marks for beauty by male students quizzed by the Princeton Review.

The feeling, alas, does not appear to be mutual. “Perhaps tellingly,” the publication said, “none of the [University of San Diego] women completing our survey mentioned the handsomeness of the male population.”

Food for thought: Denise Hamilton, author of a series of well-crafted suspense novels featuring an L.A. Times reporter, has a witty passage in her latest (“Last Lullaby”) about the preoccupation with slimness in Southern California.

A restaurateur named Alexandra is telling reporter Eve Diamond about the latest no-no:

“A woman in Los Angeles cannot be seen eating bread,” Alexandra said.

“Why ever not?”

“It’s ridiculous, I know, but that’s how it is. People look at you weird.”

I pulled my hand hastily back from the breadbasket, where it was already curled around one of her fennel-millet brioches.

miscelLAny: Adding to our list of advertising malapropisms, Brian Daly says he and his wife, Laurel, came upon this item on a list of hotel amenities:

“Paper View TV.”

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATimes, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at [email protected].