Roy offered to authenticate some people’s holdings, but “this way, they don’t know, and they can turn around and sell it and in all good conscience say it’s an original Wieghorst as far as they know.”

Dear Straight: We've got a bet going around our office that Steve Young was married to Marie Osmond for a short time. Could you please confirm this? — Ken, San Diego No can do, Ken. …

Dear Matthew Alice: I was paying my bills when a question occurred to me that only you could answer. Why is it that envelopes that come with bills are always marked “Place Stamp Here” or …

Oh Wise One: What are those blue-green laser lights emanating from an office building in UTC most nights of the year? Somebody testing communication systems? Bored physics students trying to pick off low-flying aircraft? Answer …

Clutter doesn’t exist In their homes. The first thing you notice is order; and you don't just see it, you feel it. Nothing is out of place. Toys are on shelves, coffee-table books and family …

Dear Saint Matt: Help! My husband and I have been arguing over this useless bit of info for four years. According to him and the headstones on the back ridge, Grant Park in Mission Hills …

Dear Matthew Alice: My mother-in-law told me she believes her father got Parkinson’s disease from a flu shot. I think it sounds pretty far-fetched. But she insists on it with the same tenacity she asserts …

Matt: Okay. I hope I’m not out of line or anything, but you seem to be the answer guy, and I just gotta know this. Ready? Here goes.... In the movie Pulp Fiction, what was …

SAN QUENTIN, THE MAIN BUILDING, RISES FULL INTO VIEW. This maximum-security prison is in fact a scatter of buildings, a fortressed village built upon rock for the purpose of keeping a few men in and …

Hey, dude: I sent this in October. If there's a holdup, at least e-mail me and tell me, and tell me you don’t know the answer or whatever the problem is. I don’t even care …

The other trees in the neighborhood are flamboyant this time of year: blood-red pomegranates, nippled lemons, waxy persimmons, navel oranges, all of them still flecked with cinders that floated down in a brush fire.