MISC.’S GOTTA HAND IT to a guy we usually like to discredit, Ollie Stone. Imagine–getting accused of tarnishing the memory of Richard Nixon!

GAME THEORY: Like other segments of fantasy/ fanboy culture, video games have either failed to attract a significant female following or never tried too hard. Some would see say it proves girls are too smart for such idiocy; others would rant about inequity and girls being prevented from growing up to become fighter pilots. Still others see an opportunity, like American Laser Games, a shoot-’em-up game firm now expanding with the Her Interactive line.

Dunno, ‘tho, about Her’s first title, McKenzie & Co. In it, according to a Variety review, you take the role of one of two “practically-perfect teenage girls,” a gymnast/ cheerleader or an aspiring actress. (“McKenzie” is the nickname of the Geo Tracker the girls take to The Mall.) Your task: “Try to get cozy with one of four dreamy guys when you’re not shopping, gossiping, trying on tons of new clothes, or putting on makeup.” In one segment, your character tries to arrange a prom date but faces turmoil “when your dream date asks you to go out with him at the same time you promised to help your grandmother do volunteer work at a hospital.” You also have to deal with “non-beautiful people like Wenda Wencke, a fish-rights activist who declares `Free the Fish’ and carries a dead carp which she hugs like a teddy bear.” It comes on five CD-ROMs (one for the main game, one for each of four dream dates) and also includes an audio CD, a mini-lipstick, and a discount coupon for two more dreamy-guy disks.

I’ve never claimed anything was wrong with beauty, or with safe fantasy outlets for nascent heterosexual stirrings. But this game glorifies the very type of “popular girl” everybody in my high school loathed. I may not have ever been “dreamy” but I’d have rather hung out with the fish girl than one of these stuck-ups.

VIRGINIA’S DARE: Belltown’s venerable Virginia Inn has evolved from a workingman’s bar in the ’70s to an art bar in the ’80s to a lawyers’ bar in the ’90s, adding deli sandwiches and going smoke-free along the way. Last month it evolved again, becoming probably Washington’s first free-standing full cocktail lounge since Prohibition. It’s all thanks to a little-publicized liberalization of the state liquor laws last summer. Full-liquor-service joints still have to offer food under the revised law, but they don’t have to maintain separate restaurant rooms or uphold the old minimum ratio of food to booze sales.

The old law was installed at the behest of big steak-house operators with major political connections (one of whom, Al Rosellini, became a two-term Democratic governor). It served to stifle creative nightlife as well as smaller restaurants. But changing tastes toward lighter eats and lighter drinks reduced the sirloin-and-Scotch lobby’s power. The new law comes just in time for nightspots to try and exploit the Cocktail Nation craze. It’s already allowed places like Moe’s, the Off Ramp, and the Easy concentrate on music and beverages instead of striving to push up food volume. I just hope the VI continues to use beer glasses in its annual glass-painting benefit for the Pike Place Market Foundation. It’s harder to get elaborate designs on a shot glass.

DROP THAT METAPHOR DEPT. (Bastyr Naturopathic Univ. trustee Merrily Manthey, quoted in that big 1/3 NY Times story on the King County Council’s project to start a subsidized alternative-health center): “This clinic we’re trying to set up here will be the Starbucks of the health care world.” Will it offer red-and-black designer colostomy bags, or Holiday Blend prescriptions? Will it dispense spitcups in regular and grande sizes? (I know it won’t serve lattes; the standard naturopathic diet forbids dairy products, along with meat and wheat.) More seriously, will it become a brand name known for adequate but unexceptional work within standardized bland surroundings?

Could be worse, metaphorwise. I recall the unfortunate street-poster slogan used in the mid-’80s by Capitol Hill’s otherwise admirable Aradia Women’s Health Center: “Are you tired of the sterile environment of a doctor’s office?”