Regan McMahon nabbed this (herein abridged) from the Net: "If you'd bought $1,000 worth of Delta Airlines shares a year ago, you'd have $49 today. If you'd bought $1,000 worth of AIG shares, you'd have $33. If you'd bought $1,000 in Lehman Brothers shares, you'd have nothing. But if you'd purchased $1,000 worth of beer a year ago, drank it all, then turned in the aluminum cans for a recycling refund, you'd have $214. ... The best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle. It's called the 401-Keg."

At City Arts & Lectures the other night, an audience member asked Jim Lehrer, "Do you consider Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann journalists or entertainers?" Straight-faced, Lehrer asked the audience if the question had been audible, and then said, "The question was, 'Am I having a good time in San Francisco?' "

-- Introducing UC Berkeley Alumnus of the Year Robert Haas at an alumni do on Saturday, Jim Gaither mentioned that after 1964 Cal commencement exercises, Haas and a pal drove to Stanford, where they crashed the Stanford graduation procession line.

Haas confirmed it: Four years to get his Cal degree, he said, but only half a tank of gas to get one from Stanford.

-- In honor of four states recognizing the legality of gay marriage, Strange de Jim reports that on Wednesday an anonymous person paid $2 toward every customer's coffee at the Starbucks at 18th and Castro. Meanwhile, Dagmar and Ray Dolby have given a matching grant of $25,000 to Camp Courage, a May 2 training session in Oakland for activists promoting the legality of same-sex marriage. Their son, writer Tom Dolby, marries his partner, Drew Frist, in September.

-- Barbara Thomas, watching when KGO-TV's Dan Ashley was reporting on Maria D'Antuono, the elderly woman rescued 30 hours after the earthquake in Italy, was fascinated when he said she had passed the time by an activity he pronounced as croak-ay-ing. Big fun in the rubble with those bats and hoops.

A thousand T-shirted volunteers were swarming at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Wednesday morning, but it was family day at Project Homeless Connect, so the next thing you noticed was the clients: mothers and children. I won't name the names of those who walked me through. The point here isn't the bold-faced, it's helping the un-bold-faced.

At the front door, volunteers instructed to look their clients in the eye greeted anyone - homeless or not - who wanted help. At triage, clients and volunteers filled out questionnaires about needs. Bowls of Easter candy and other snacks were on the tables, warming up the impersonality of the space.

Shortly before noon, there were more volunteers than customers; "over-volunteered," was how a veteran described it. Having encountered the needy on street corners and in alleyways, citizens were eager to pitch in.

There's often a big lineup at the vision center, I was told. But this time, everything was mellow, perhaps because the family crowd was younger than those usually in need of glasses. Also available: medical and dental services, nonprofits that deal with abuse, foot and chiropractic care, massage. There were free books, places for veterans services, lunch served at tables by volunteers, and a magic show for kids, and lines for giveaway Levi's for kids and young people.

"Do you have a bug problem?" asks one sign, and it doesn't refer to overheard conversations. "Are they bugging you?" In a rectangular arrangement of chairs, eight people sat quietly facing each other, needles sticking out of their heads. The acupuncture station provided help for "a variety of pains," said one patient.

The last place I came to was the Haircuts section, where two volunteer barbers were cutting the locks of young people sitting in chairs in front of them. Some of the clients - especially children - had never before had a professional haircut.

But one thing was missing: a mirror. Try to recall your last haircut. Didn't you watch the proceedings? Wasn't it a pleasantly vain experience to sit there monitoring the transformation?

Surely vanity can go hand-in-hand with self-respect. Bravo to the barbers, and to everyone else who pitched in. But is there someone out there who can donate a freestanding mirror?

Public Eavesdropping

"Sometimes it's all right to think inside the box."

Man to two companions, overheard wandering around the Alameda Point Antiques and Collectibles Faire by Richard Hellmann