Reporters’ Notebook

REPORTER COREY LEVITAN WAS SURPRISED WHEN DEBBIE LEE, the girl who beat him up in the sandbox outside fifth grade, found him via his new page on the computer networking site Facebook. (Actually, he reports being a little scared, too.) Levitan had just written about the beating in his September Fear and Loafing column.

"Don't remember beating you up," wrote Lee. "But if I did I am sorry... LOL ... I am much nicer now."

COREY LEVITAN

LAS VEGAS CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS have a choice when it comes to the backup materials they pore over during meetings: the paperless option, in which all the material is available on computer screens, or thick, heavy books with all the documentation inside.

As Mayor Oscar Goodman heaved the last of several books in front of him last week, Councilman Steve Wolfson encouraged him to take the paperless way, saying it's cheaper and made his life easier. But Goodman was not persuaded.

"May the record reflect that I will continue to be computer illiterate," he said, drawing guffaws. "And I kinda like the fact that we're killing old trees."

ALAN CHOATE

GOODMAN HELPED PROMOTE A LEUKEMIA RESEARCH FUNDRAISER last week and also revealed yet another of his vices. He was joined at a news conference by the family of Mark Benson, who died earlier this year of adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia. They founded the Help Mark Fight Foundation, which has a golf tournament fundraiser scheduled Monday.

Benson's father presented Goodman with a "Mormon martini," which consists of a soda, "preferably diet," along with "a boatload of M&Ms."

Goodman noted that he usually has real martinis at the end of the day, and "after enough of that, I don't know where I am half the time."

That's when his wife sets the trap: "She puts a bowl of M&Ms next to me. And when I wake up in the morning, at least half of them are gone, and I know we don't have anybody else in the house who may have eaten them."

ALAN CHOATE

MEMBERS OF THE NEVADA BOARD OF EDUCATION wondered how to host a holiday dinner, since members come from all parts of the state.

"Are we going to do it by teleconference?" asked Merv Iverson, a board member from Las Vegas.

"The pizza will be delivered simultaneously," answered Cliff Ferry, a board member from Elko.

JAMES HAUG