Odds and Ends

SAN DIEGO -- The police chief in the nation's seventh-biggest city has ordered a cover-up. He's cracking down on his own officers' tattoos.

Effective Wednesday, San Diego police officers with "excessive" body art must cover it up with long sleeves or turtlenecks while on the job. Hot summer temperatures won't be an excuse.

"For 37 years in this business, I have never worn anything but long-sleeve shirts with a tie. I think it's the way officers ought to look," said Chief William Lansdowne, who announced the policy in a long-sleeve shirt and a tie.

The new policy, outlined in a five-page memo, is expected to affect half a dozen of the department's more than 2,000 officers, police spokesman Dave Cohen said.

Lansdowne, who took over the department last year, said he believes San Diegans deserve a professional, well-groomed force. He said the new policy - which also covers piercings, branding and decorative scarring - will help project that image.

The rules say tattoos covering more than 30 percent of the exposed skin of a uniformed officer must go undercover. So must tattoos that rise above the collarbone and any tattoo depicting nudity, violence, profanity, racism, Nazi insignia, pentagrams and gang symbols.

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ST. LOUIS -- Sometimes inspiration can strike in the most mundane of places. For Isaac Newton, it was an apple tree. For Mike Mason, it was a portable toilet.

Mason was standing in a long line to use the facilities at a softball tournament when he was struck with a thought: Wouldn't it be more pleasant to stare at a beer can instead of a portable toilet?

The 45-year-old has formed MediaCan Inc. to turn portable toilets into advertising venues.

Mason says he wants to attract the attention of companies like Anheuser-Busch Cos., PepsiCo Inc., and other firms that sell products in cylindrical shapes. Their advertising messages can be put on 8-foot-tall replicas of soda or beer cans, pill bottles, or batteries. So far, Mason hasn't had any takers.

Anheuser Busch, for example, said MediaCan, "is not an idea that fits with the image of our brands."

Still, Mason has patented the structures - two 40-pound plastic panels that fit around portable toilets as a shell. Advertising can be inserted into the panels.

"There's a desperation right now for different types of advertising," Mason said. "We're serving a dual purpose, by hiding an eyesore and providing an advertising venue with a lot of wow factor."

Adam Salacuse, president and chief executive of Boston alternative advertising agency Alt Terrain LLC, says that brands have to be careful about creating a negative connotation.

"Marketing now is all about being relevant and creating a positive experience," Salacuse said. "I'm going to go relieve myself in a Budweiser can? That could be a problem."

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McLEAN, Va. -- The cops caught the crook red-pawed.

An elderly woman complained to police that someone was stealing figurines from her yard in a Washington D.C., suburb. Officers set up a spy-cam and caught their suspect in the act four times.

Police in Fairfax County say their bad guy is really a not-so-bad Labrador retriever named Magnum. The dog had been retrieving the figurines and bringing them home.

Police say Magnum's owner tried to find where the lawn ornaments were coming from, but failed. Now, all but two of the figurines have been returned - and those involved had a good laugh.

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BURLINGTON, Vt. -- A 1937 Burlington High School class ring will be reunited with its owner's family.

Beverly Mae Lord apparently lost it in the 1940s in her backyard, where the ring was found earlier this year by the current owner who dug it up while gardening.

Dori Weigand said she believed the owner must have been a woman because the tiny ring hardly fit on her pinkie finger. The initials "BML" offered the only clue.

Weigand called The Burlington Free Press where an investigation using an old BHS yearbook, a marriage record, an online Social Security database and old issues of the newspaper led to the identity of the ring owner and her children.

"Oh, my God!" said Linda Rosario when told about the discovery of the ring. "I bet she lost that years, years ago."

Weigand said she would arrange a meeting with Rosario so she can return the ring to its rightful owner.

"It'll get to be in its family again," Weigand said. "I'm just so happy that it's been recovered from the ground. It's sort of a resurrection."