Seeing Red Around Sacramento

Ruofs is a party animal. He's "moovelous" at celebrity impersonations, cracks jokes, kicks it with politicians and business leaders, and "marches" in parades. He has been kidnapped, jailed and has scored a sky-diving certificate. Once, he was quite a river rat.

Never heard of him? Perhaps you've seen Ruofs (pronounced Rufus), the big fiberglass bull who "grazes" outside Ruland's Used Office Furniture Store on the busy commuter route called North 16th Street.

At 500 pounds and painted a high-gloss red and white on one side, green and white on the other, the bull is a bovine billboard and local personality.

"He's opinionated," admits Steve Ruland, who hatches most of his alter ego's bullish messages -- the ones he attaches to his side of beef. "To him, everything is either local or loco. He misspells words and skewers meanings, like Yogi Berra."