Reporter’s Notebook

THE CAMERA-READY PIGS at Bob Combs' North Las Vegas pig farm have gotten a lot of media attention since swine flu hit the nation, despite the fact that you can't get this strain of swine flu from pigs.

Combs doesn't mind, though. He's used to the attention. "Every time there's a slow time in the news, they come out here for a story," he said Wednesday as he showed a reporter around the farm.

LYNNETTE CURTIS

EARLIER IN THE WEEK, Combs called another Review-Journal reporter to report a possible health scare.

In his message, Combs joked that he wanted to keep the public away from his farm because he didn't want his pigs to catch the flu.

KEITH ROGERS

O.J. SIMPSON'S CASE will never be finished.

On Thursday in District Court, two attorneys representing some of Simpson's co-defendants in the Palace Station memorabilia heist appeared before District Judge Jackie Glass. The attorneys, Bill Terry and John Moran, had clients who pleaded guilty to lesser charges but were ordered to pay restitution to the victims in the case. The hearing Thursday was to clarify the amount.

"I've missed you all so very much," Glass said.

DAVID KIHARA

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER in apparent reference to Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie: "Man, you're my brother from another mother and I love you, but did you just say 'Jill-espie'?"

GOV. JIM GIBBONS PLAYED boat salesman briefly during a Friday media event at a Henderson watersports shop. He sat at a desk to provide a different TV backdrop for reporters asking about swine flu and the late Danny Gans, and while mics were being set up he pitched the Bombardier line of boats to a television reporter.

"We can get you a great deal," he told her, even promising to deliver one painted hot pink.

He's not a boater himself, though.

"I don't have a boat. I don't have a plane. I don't have a Ski-doo," he said. "I don't have anything. I have a truck."

ALAN CHOATE

THE SAME WEEK LAS VEGAS VALLEY WATER DISTRICT officials hinted about possibly needing a rate increase to get the utility through the economic downturn, a potential bombshell arrived in a Review-Journal reporter's mailbox.

It was the agenda packet for an upcoming water district meeting, and it had been sent to the newspaper office all of 4 miles away for the Priority Mail cost of $4.80.

Every reporter's dream: clear evidence of government waste!

Or maybe not so much.

It turns out only five such packets were mailed out, and the post office bumped them up to Priority because of the size and weight involved.

It's all moot anyway, said district spokesman Scott Huntley. The paper packets will soon go away altogether, once the material becomes available electronically.

HENRY BREAN