Strongly Worded Letter

Strongly Worded Letter #10

 

General Manager
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
P.O. Box 68727
Seattle, WA.

Dear Sir or Madam,

     I'm going to share my experience with you but in your head please multiply it by thousands of your other visitors to realize what a serious problem you've got. Fortunately, there is an easy solution to it.
     Tuesday night when I approached Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at about 9:30 to meet my wife's arriving Alaska Airlines flight I couldn't help but notice the traffic gridlock going toward the terminal. Construction? No, all lanes seem to be open. Accident or disabled vehicle? No, we're all moving as freely as we can. Police or ambulance distraction? Nope, all clear.
       It took me several minutes to travel the few hundred yards from the Cellphone Parking Lot to Gate 22, near the baggage claim area, where my wife was waiting curbside.
     As I inched closer to the terminal I saw why. Cars parked two and three deep in the arrivals lanes! Parked! Waiting! Not picking up. With more than half of the available lanes filled up with cars not actually picking people up it left precious little room for those trying to get near enough to do so. Also burdened was  all through-traffic and those cars trying to leave the arrivals area after a pickup.
     Mr. or Ms. Sea-Tac Decision-Maker, why do you not have either uniformed police or uniformed airport employees strolling a beat to prevent stopping or slowly cruising by the curbside pickup area? That gridlock could have been broken up in 60 seconds with someone walking the length of the curb and instructing drivers to move along.
     The passenger volume at Seattle's biggest airport is too large to allow visitors to behave as if its 1990 anymore. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that many other cities, some larger than ours, already pay attention to the traffic flow with the simple way I've described and with excellent results.
     The Cellphone Parking Lot is a good start to stop loitering in front of your doors. You should consider expanding on that as well as educating the public on its advantage to all visitors to the airport.   
     Please accept my thanks for your time in reading this letter and I hope you will consider my suggestion. I am, of course, available to you for any further discussion on the matter if I may be of assistance.

Sincerely,  

The Future Ain't What It Used To Be

Anyone who knows me even tangentially knew what today's post was going to be about before you clicked on through.

 Yesterday was the long awaited public unveiling of the next generation of jetpacks. Yes, the jetpack, which science fiction comics, TV shows and movies have promised us since at least the 1920s when Buck Rogers flew one.

In the 1960s, James Bond flew one in Thunderball and we were told they were right around the corner in real life.

 In the 1990s, The Rocketeer had one and we were promised they were going to be available any minute.

Heck,  just last month I saw Iron Man fly a jetpack built into his suit and as I drove away from the theater I noticed I was in a car, not a jetpack. Again. And I wept.

All that was supposed to change yesterday when the first long range personal human transporter was unveiled at an air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Martin Jetpack (details here)  does make several noticeable improvements over anything that's flown before. It runs on regular gasoline, rises to about 8000 feet (although I am not clear why that is the top altitude), and, most importantly, allows one to fly for about 30 minutes.

On the down side, the technology is still nowhere near as compact as the backpack-sized device we've been expecting. Plus it's still about $100,000 - I know! - and  seems like it might still have some stability problems on windy days like yesterday at the exhibition.

See the underwhelming video of that "flight" here but definitely check out MartinJetpack.com for updates periodically because this is a work in progress (and a lifetime labor of love for Mr. Glenn Martin) and they are headed in the right direction with it. Please let me live long enough to fly one one day. Even if it is literally the last thing I do.

Blood Money

Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger. Blog reader Christy informs us of a new craft-making website with step-by-step instructions on how to create holiday ornaments, earrings, cufflinks and more. Oh, from tampons.

Here are a few of the beautiful items that YOU can now make thanks to TamponCrafts.com:

A lovely Thanksgiving turkey table centerpiece.

A Valentine's Day flower bouquet.

 

A  beautiful Christmas angel.

 

And, for any special occasion, it's the Heart Earrings, about which the site says,  "Wear your heart…on your ears. These tampon heart earrings display both your romantic sentiments and your menstrual pride."

I'll save you clicking here to find out how to make your own pair and let you breathe a sigh of relief as I explain it's only red food coloring.

Houston Has A New Problem...

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, says aliens have been visiting the earth for the past sixty years.

A veteran of the Apollo 14 mission, Mitchell also says world governments are aware of the alien visits, but have covered them up.

NASA denies it is involved in an alien conspiracy or cover up.

Here's more of the story in Dr. Mitchell's own words from Reuters News.

Let's set aside for today whether you or I think extraterrestrials have already visited Earth. We won't solve anything with opinion and we are still short of irrefutable proof more than 60 years since the modern flying saucer era began on 24 June, 1947 near Mt. Rainier, Washington, just a few miles south of where I am sitting right now.

Here's the question on my mind today. Why would he lie? What explanation can there be for an American hero, one of only twelve humans to have ever walked on the moon, to make up stories like this? Would he really risk his reputation - his legacy - on a hoax? What do you think?

I Want To Believe

More than just the name of the new X-Files movie, I Want To Believe is what people must think when they receive a forwarded email and decide to then send it to everyone in their address book too. I'm not sure what makes that unsolicited and unverified information so irresistible to some folks but the chain is hard to break.

Some of the more famous, and durable, email hoaxes include "Bill Gates wants to pay you to try a new email program," "Telemarketers will soon be given your cell phone number if you don't put it on a Do Not Call list," and "Boycott gas stations on a certain date to send a message to Big Oil."

Politicians are often victims of mass email smears, either through carelessness or malice.  Some recent examples of widely circulated stories that are false include "George W. Bush has the lowest IQ of any president" and  "John McCain does not qualify to run for  president because he was born in Panama."

But Senator Barack Obama is the undisputed recent champion of misinformation victims. See how many of these untrue stories you recognize from the past year:

"Barack Hussein Obama" is a Muslim."
"Barack Hussein Obama is a radical Muslim"
"Barack Obama will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance."
"Barack Obama was sworn into office on the Quran"
"Barack Obama has been endorsed for president by the Ku Klux Klan."
"The bulk of donations to Barack Obama's campaign come from foreign financiers."

And my very favorite, "The Book of Revelations describes the Anti-Christ as someone with characteristics matching those of Barack Obama."  That one includes a Biblical warning about Muslims that was written some 400 years before Islam was even founded!

New to in-boxes this week is an email originating from a Captain Jeffrey S. Porter, soldier in Afghanistan describing how the Senator "blew off" the troops during a brief visit to Bagram. It described how he ignored soldiers that "were lined up to shake his hand" in order to instead "take his publicity pictures playing basketball."

U.S. Army spokespeople have declared the email "factually false," citing among other things that Mr. Obama "took time to shake hands, speak to troops, and pose for photographs" while in Bagram. Additionally, he did not visit the recreation tent mentioned in the original email for basketball, photos or any other reason. The  solider may have been confused since the Senator did spend some time in the gym, playing and talking with dozens of American servicemen in Kuwait earlier in the week.

Capt. Porter has since released a statement that includes, "After checking my sources, information that was put out in my email was wrong."

Much like a print newspaper's correction on page D27 of a front page mistake I am certain only a tiny fraction of people who received the original false description of Mr. Obama's visit to Bagram will ever read the factual follow-up. Something to keep in mind before any of us hit Send on something that might be too good to be true.

For those who don't have them bookmarked, there are two terrific websites worth visiting to check the veracity of forwarded material of any kind. You can find more details on all of the examples mentioned above as well as hundreds more.

Snopes.com is perhaps the best and best known but TruthOrFiction.com is also very good. 

Questions On Aisle 5.....

So I'm at the Safeway store Thursday afternoon and although I drove away satisfied with $71.26 worth of Yummy, I also left with some questions . Fortunately, I had my cellphone camera with me so can just put them out there and forget about it.

1. Look, I get the concept of store brand knockoffs. They're cheaper than the name brand and they taste sort of the same. But do they have to rip off the name of the major label product too? I'd have more respect for this soda if it just were called Safeway Pop and they put on the label, "Comparable to Dr Pepper."

2. Seriously, what's this deal? How can Grape Jelly be so freakin' awesome and Grape Jam be the unholy spawn of Satan? Why do they even make jam? The Oreo Company doesn't sell regular great Oreos but also offer Oreos made of dirt and hair.

3. It took more than 35 years but I finally found something sadder than the Tears Of A Clown.

4. What is it, my Jewish friends? Beer? Barbecue Sauce? Paste?

5. Who are these people? And why do I care if they know each other, much less are Good Friends? And what does that have to do with cereal? My head is puzzled.

Dog Days Of Summer

It's Tater Tot Friday!!! Well, it's been a quiet week in Seattle, Washington but yesterday was Africa hot, or at least seemed like it to Tater. Keeping in mind how smushed her nose is you can imagine that any kind of heat or humidity just knocks her out. She has been seeking relief wherever she can find it. In this blurry photo we see her sitting in the dirt under a tree. Hang on, Tot!! Autumn's coming!!

And now for something completely different, a book recommendation for you animal lovers - or wallpaper lovers - out there. Catherine Ledner's Animal House features her extraordinary photographs of all sorts of our furry and feathered or ... uh.... shelled friends. Here are  just a few.

 

Today's Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog comes from the book too, information on which is available at the artist's website here along with prints of same. I've cropped the image some to show off the dog bigger although the wallpaper is awesome too!!!! Have a great weekend, y'all.

Buy Me Some Peanuts And Cracker Jack.... (Peanuts Not Included)

Yesterday the Seattle Times reported a new promotion at Safeco Field this summer. That's the home of my beloved, yet struggling, Mariners baseball team, the team that just got swept by the Red Sox at home for the first time in 15 years. Sigh. Anyway, here's the story:

"The Seattle Mariners are declaring two sections of Safeco Field no-peanut zones for a couple of games this summer.

The AL club announced the move Wednesday to make the ballpark safer for children and grown-up fans with peanut allergies.

Special cleaning is planned in sections 311 and 312 down the right field line before the games, one on Aug. 5 against the Minnesota Twins and the other Sept. 9 against the Texas Rangers. Then signs will be posted to alert fans to the ban on peanut products in those sections.

Peanuts also will be banished from nearby concession stands.

A few other major and minor league teams have offered special seating to lower the risk for those who are allergic to peanuts. In May the entire minor league ballpark in Clinton, Iowa, went peanut-free."

I knew lots of folks have peanut allergies but did not realize that they were among the top eight most common food allergies, which are:

Milk
Eggs
Peanuts
Tree nuts, such as almonds, cashews, walnuts....
Fish, such as bass, cod, flounder..
Shellfish, such as crab, lobster, shrimp
Soy
Wheat.

By-the-way, that little list takes care of ninety percent of all documented food allergies.

I'm very lucky. I am not only not allergic to any foods, I am not allergic to anything that I know of, besides maybe hard work and Larry The Cable Guy. I've met lots of people who suffer allergies to everything from grass to novacaine and it sucks for them.

Question though. What is it about the peanut allergy that makes it so very deadly? People allergic to milk can sit next to a person drinking milk and they have no reaction. But I've heard stories of people smelling peanuts and getting ill. There was that one story not too long ago of a teenager that died after kissing someone who had had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch earlier that day. And are peanuts the only one that is so dangerous with so little contact or are there others?

American Idiot

Radio talk show host Michael Savage is this week's media punching bag after he made these comments about autism on his syndicated show:

"[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' " 

First of all he's an idiot. He can argue that autism is often misdiagnosed or difficult to diagnose but anyone who claims 99% of autistic children are just badly behaved or victims of poor parenthood is stupid. Or disingenuous. Or both.

But that should be no surprise to anyone who has ever listened to the Savage Nation, as he calls his show for Michael Savage is the worst kind of "shock jock."  Howard Stern, in contrast, uses humor to make a point, or exaggerates his actual opinion to make a point or just entertains his audience without making a point. Same with Rush Limbaugh. They are not only brilliant communicators but are intelligent and believable people, as well as responsible broadcasters.

Savage is the opposite. Is it possible he is the rude, intolerant, racist, homophobic, fascist, bigoted, vulgar brute that he sounds like every minute of every day on his show? Possibly, but I think he says shocking things just to shock.

The guy in an embarrassment as a talk show host,  as an American, and as a human. But here is where I disagree with some of his critics this week.

Yesterday, a band of protesters turned out on the street in front of WOR, the radio station that airs the Savage show in New York City. They marched, carried signs, and chanted their wish that the host be fired for his remarks.

Seriously, can't someone be stupid anymore without being fired? Clearly there is a huge audience for Savage's act. He is the third most listened to talk show host in America behind Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. More that 8 million people a week want to hear what he has to say. Why not let them instead of demanding that every voice that offends you is silenced?    
 
Disagree with him? Think his facts are wrong? Offer to go on his show and present a different opinion. If he declines, take your message to one of the thousands of other media outlets available to you.

Here is a convenient sign for you to print out and tape to your radio for future reference.

IF YOU DON"T LIKE THE PROGRAM YOU ARE LISTENING TO, THEN CHANGE THE STATION. IT IS OKAY IF OTHERS DO WANT TO HEAR IT. THIS IS STILL AMERICA.

A Snake In The Grass

It was a little unexpected. Donna and I were out in the front yard counting chipmunks (not a euphemism!) yesterday afternoon when I noticed my dog Atomic playing with something a few feet away. Turns out it was about a two-and-a-half foot snake skin,

We have a fair amount of garter snakes on the island which is great news. They only do good things in your garden and though they are mildly venomous I've never heard of anyone being really hurt by one.

Looking over the discarded skin I was very impressed with what a complete specimen it was, almost like a whole other snake. But I also realized my own ignorance about the hows and whys of snake skin shedding. I can't figure out how a snake (or my late beloved tarantula Fluffy) could manufacture a second skin on the outside its body and then crawl out of it. It seems like a lot of work to end up looking essentially the same as you were before you bothered. So what's that deal?

Your Sweetness Is My Weakness

Not to sound like that old fool Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes but, "Does anyone use real sugar anymore?"

I've been giving it some thought lately because circumstances led me to switch from my usual Sweet'N Low artificial sweetener to Equal. You see, I drink mostly iced tea at home and always buy bulk on both teabags and sweetener at the Costco.

Recently, the store I shop stopped carrying the pink one and started selling the blue one. I resisted at first - old habits die hard - and started buying smaller boxes of Sweet'N Low at the regular supermarket. Well, I was out of the sweet stuff and found myself at the Costco the other day so I bit the bullet and bought a box of 800 Equals for the first time.

Imagine my surprise to find out how much more I liked it! Equal kicks Sweet'N Low's ass!!!!! Praise Allah!!

But wait! if I was so wrong about Sweet'N Low's superiority over Equal, what do I make of the Splenda? I know people (and relatives) who swear by the yellow packets. So what to do?

Help me out, dear readers. What is the best artificial sweetener and why? Are any of them healthier than the others? Are they all about the same calories? Are there any other reasons to use one over the other? Please discuss.
 

Well, It's A One For The Money.....

I confess that I don't regularly read KnoxNews.com, a website with news of interest to residents of Knoxville, Tennessee. But fortunately for me my friend Frank Murphy does and he tipped me off to this interesting recent article:

"Defacing money is a federal offense. At least that's what we've been told. Frankly we're too lazy to look it up.

Illegal or not, fear of arrest isn't stopping a lot of people from scribbling on money. You've seen it yourself. Heck, you've probably even done it yourself. And you've probably tried to figure out what on Earth the writer meant by her ink-pen musings.

Stuff That People Write on Money collects 71 photos of just such monetary doodles. Attempt to decipher them for yourself at www.sorabji.com/.

You'll find plenty of different messages that were inscribed on funds and sent back into the cash flow. Grocery shoppers jot down their lists. Lottery enthusiasts record their favorite numbers. Forgetful motorists scrawl parking spaces. Disgruntled citizens make snide political digs. Star-crossed lovers let the world know that they're together. People practice their signatures. And quite a few former presidents sprout facial hair and afros.

So the next time you visit an ATM or bank teller, you may not just be getting cash to purchase a Nintendo Wii. You might also be getting a menacing warning about angels taking over the world or an urgent message to 'free the werewolves.'"

The last paper currency-based site I remember hearing about is WheresGeorge.com, which exists to mark and track bills as they travel across the world. It's kind of neat to find out a bill you just received in change in your neighborhood has recently been to the other side of the country, then to Asia and back.

 

No Longer A Child Of The Universe

Possibly 99 percent of you who came across the obituary this week of radio and television host Les Crane would not have recognized the name. That is certainly understandable as Mr. Crane's public fame waned about 35 years ago but here are three fascinating things about the man we lost Sunday at age 74.

1. In the early 1960s he was one of the early pioneers of modern talk radio with his frank opinions and confrontational style on KGO San Francisco. He was one of the first to take live listener calls on the air too.

2. The first American television appearance of the Rolling Stones was on Crane's late night ABC show in June 1964.  That summer the program aired at 11:30 p.m., becoming one of the many shows to fall to young Johnny Carson's ratings dominance.

3. He was married five times - his fourth wife was Tina Louise, "Ginger" from TV's Gilligan's Island.

However even without any of that, Les Crane's passing would have been notable for his memorable Top Ten pop single from 1971. He even won a Grammy for his spoken-word recording of a 1927 poem called The Desiderata. This was the 70s version of that silly Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen) song that was a hit by Baz Luhrmann about ten years ago.

As nearly vacant as the memories of my early years are, I vividly remember hearing The Desiderata (Latin for "desired things," by the way) on the radio during its chart run.

And like millions of other young people back then I also had a poster on my bedroom wall of the lyrics to the poem.

If you are old like me, click on the player below to relive your own memory of the song. And you are lucky enough to be young, hit play too and prepare to be embarrassed for my generation that this song was actually taken seriously at the time.

R.I.P. Les Crane. Go placidly amid the noise and the haste...

Viva la Revolucion!

Here's a Very Special Tater Tot Friday as the Tot celebrated the July 14, 1789 beginning of the overthrow of the French monarchy known as Bastille Day this week with her best impression. In the photo above she is pretending to be a French Bulldog. And yes, she also ate cake. Oui oui!!

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldog! Thanks to Tina for the tip on Tillman, the skating and surfboarding English Bulldog. Look, I don't know anything about any of these new dog reality television shows but apparently there is one called America's Top Dog and another called Greatest American Dog. Tillman is a contestant (?) trying to win something I think. Here is a link to an article about this pooch. I didn't read it. Full disclosure: Of course I love the Westminster Dog Show and  even sometimes watch The Dog Whisperer but those are more programs about real dogs rather than dog fake/reality shows.

P.S. Guess who is One today? Happy First Birthday to little Buddha (not to be confused with Little Buddha, one of Keanu Reeves' worst acting performances ever). Whoa.

Buddha belongs to the Mystery Daughter, Melissa, where they currently reside together in New York City. Happy Birthday Boo!!

Gratuitous Boobie Shots? Or Not?

Sometimes I hear from people who maybe read the blog once in a while and they ask me, "How can you come up with something every single day to blog about?" or "How often do you run out of topics?" or a variation on that theme.

The truth is 180 degrees from there in my case. Every day I have to throw out several potential post ideas to choose just one. Some I can use later in the week, some would work anytime, but most are fairly topical and have to go into the metaphorical dustbin.

Let me take you inside the process today and you tell me if I'm making choices that intersect with your interests. Here is what I considered for today's entry.

1) Recap the controversy on the "Barack Obama is a terrorist who hates America" cover of the New Yorker magazine and express my opinion on how badly he has handled what should have been an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive.

2) Discuss an interesting new product - well, a refined version of something that has been around a while - of a program that converts telephone voicemail into emails and send it to you.That way you can read your phone messages instead of having to listen to actual icky humans talk.

3) Or the site that lets you type in any text and flip it upside down. No kidding. ¿ʇɐɥʇ sı ssǝlʇuıod ʍoH

4) Write about how douchy the fans at Yankee Stadium were the other night in booing every single Red Sox player participating in the baseball All-Star Game every single time they came to the plate, handled the ball, or managed the team to another victory. Seriously, they can't be gracious one night a year in the interest of celebrating the sport they allegedly love?

5) Report on the recent topless women's beach soccer match in which the Austrian team beat the German side 10-5. With pictures.

Okay, now you are me. Which story do you publish?

Waiting.

Waiting.

Time's up. Here's the one I picked. You're welcome.

Rage Against The Machine

I don't know if there's a bigger picture I'm missing - in fact, I'm sure there isn't - but it's just too weird not to suggest.

On July 4th we had some visitors in town and I planned ahead to buy tickets for all of us to see the new Will Smith movie, Hancock. We drove down to Renton for the 2:30 showing at the East Valley 13. Fail!

We knew something was up when we pulled into the parking lot and saw just a smattering of cars there instead of being packed as you'd expect on a holiday. Then we saw a uniformed theater employee standing on the sidewalk and knew she was not handing out good news.

The theater had been hit by lightning that morning it turned out and "everything was fried." How random is that? How often is a movie showing canceled by lightning? I couldn't even get a refund on my advance tickets that day since none of the registers were working either.

As odd as that was, stuff does happen and I probably would have forgotten it by now except for what's happened since.

A few days ago, I was running some errands in downtown Seattle and found a parking space on Broadway, near Pine. We have those electronic parking meters that take cash or plastic and dispense a ticket for up to two hours so I put in my credit card to buy some time. Fail!

For the first time in all the years I've been using these machines my Visa card got swallowed inside one. No way to retrieve it, it turned out, no matter how many times I hit Cancel. I found the trouble phone number on the kiosk and called it to make a report. The nice Filipino man who answered the phone told me someone would be out in 20 to 30 minutes to open 'er up. So that happened.

I still didn't put those two incidents together until yesterday when once again technology was my foe. I was in the Tukwila Target store standing in line at the cash register. I was, no joke, buying a jar of mayonnaise and the new Randy Travis CD. In case you are wondering if I could be any whiter, yes, I could have also been buying some golf shirts and some Wonder Bread, wise ass.

Again with the firsts. The power suddenly went out in the entire store.  We were plunged into total complete darkness for about 15 seconds, just long enough for me to wonder why there weren't any emergency lights in the store. If the lights were out much longer I'm sure the looting would have begun and then the looters would have fallen over themselves trying to find the exit.

So the power came on but the cash registers did not. You know computers. Each one had to be rebooted and I just stood there watching a series of screens slowly come present themselves to Ming, my checker. There is no way to rush a reboot so I just stood and stood and eventually left my Caucasian merchandise on the counter and  vowed to return on another day with more reliable electricity. Fail!

Soooooooo, is there a theme here?  Is Someone trying to send me a message about the destructiveness of rampant American commercialism? Or am I jinxed? Or should I be seeing clues to the upcoming Al Qaeda attack?  Or is it just a wacky coincidence?  Courage.

  

Steve McGarrett Is My God

I can't swear that it is my favorite all-time TV show of the 1970s but it is almost certainly my favorite drama. That's why last month's Season Four DVD release of Hawaii 5-0 has been giving me hours of pleasure this summer.

The show ran from 1968 - 1980 and centered on the crime fighting (fictional) police force of the Hawaiian Islands, headed by super cop Steve McGarrett, who, I think you can see from the DVD cover of actor Jack Lord here, had possibly the best hair in the history of television. 

Last night Donna, her father and I watched Episode #71, originally broadcast on CBS  on October 12, 1971. 

It had a complicated plot about a hippie gone bad attacking an insurance company embezzler with a piece of driftwood to the head and stealing his wallet. Inside was the key to locker at the airport in which a briefcase was found with the $250,000 the victim has skimmed. The hippie was played by the late John Ritter and the embezzler by the late Vic Morrow. Their freakish, early real-life deaths should be bad news for other guest stars of the series.

Anyway, McGarrett's #2 man, Danno, is trying to help an old friend from Berkeley whose daughter is missing in the islands and he thinks she is the girl who burned up when the candle shop was set on fire but it turns out that was a cover up because the embezzler left his fingerprints all over everything slapping the girl around after she had already taken a fatal dose of heroin.

Cleo, the girl Danno is looking for, is actually the accomplice of the hippie gone bad and they are trying to board a plane to Asia when the embezzler kidnaps her and tries to hold her for ransom (well, his $250,000 back) in an abandoned airplane hanger that he somehow knows about. The hippie decided to ditch the girl and split with the money until McGarrett's #3 man, Chin Ho, nabs him while boarding the plane.

In the thrilling conclusion there is a shootout at the hangar and Steve wounds the now-fleeing embezzler in the leg with one incredible shot from about 100 yards away and the two wayward kids are safe and sound. The hippie gets arrested for stealing the stolen money but the girl is not charged as an accomplice because she knows Danno.    

Whew. As an aside, my 13 year-old Chow dog is actually named Kam Fong As Chin Ho as a tribute to this great character but we usually call her just Chin Ho for short. Or Chin Chin. Or The Chincess.

I love this show so much that I could write a whole blog just about Hawaii 5-0 but I see that someone already does, here.

There are dozens of websites with tons of great show information too including the Wikipedia page here and the single most comprehensive site about all things 5-0 here. Please enjoy!

P.S. And you'll get no argument from me if you say the show had the best theme song in the history of TV too!

       

First Quarterback Controversy of The Year!!!

I know people who get very sad this time of year. They wake up one late Spring day and realize the NBA finals are over, the Stanley Cup has been skated, and there is nothing but baseball now.

That's not me. This is a very exciting MLB season with Yankees drama, Cubs excitement, Detroit comebacks, Tampa Bay dominance (until this week!) and many other story lines that I am eating up. And bring on the All Star Game tomorrow night!

But if you are one of those sad sacks with a countdown on your calendar to the start of football season, man, did you love this weekend!

Brett Favre, one of the elite quarterbacks in the history of the game, a player so beloved they should retire the #4 jersey on every team, not just in Green Bay, has decided he wants to un-retire.

I was planning on writing more about it but when I read Gene Wojciechowski's column on same on ESPN.com i realized I could not improve upon anything he said about it. With one exception. I think he goes a little light on Favre. Yeah, I know it is mighty hard to walk out of the spotlight (see Michael Jordan, Roger Clemens, Evander Holyfield, etc.) but the way he did this is kind of a dick move. He should have had all these second thoughts before that March press conference and if he still ended up retiring and now wants to change his mind he should keep it to himself for the sake of the Packers organization.

Anyway, here's the first part of Gene's excellent analysis with a link to the rest....

"The World Series of Poker isn't being played in Las Vegas. It's being played in Green Bay, Wis., and Hattiesburg, Miss. And so far, a very amateurish Ted Thompson is trying to show strength in his hand.

Feel free to laugh the next time Green Bay Packers management, both past and present, starts talking about 'preserving' Brett Favre's legacy and cherishing Favre's place in the team's 'family.' It means nothing.

The Packers are about the Packers, and that's fine, even expected, but at least say so from the beginning. Don't pretend you're genuinely concerned about Favre's standing in franchise lore when, in reality, you're more concerned about damage and image control.

Favre wants to unretire. And yeah, it's a bit of a diva-ish thing to do. Tears in March. Text messages in July.

But Favre has earned his share of diva currency, enough for one Get Out Of Retirement card. He's played hurt. He's played with his heart heavy with grief. And he's played for the moment, not the money. There are bits and pieces of his body all over Lambeau Field.

Thompson, the Packers' general manager, doesn't see it that way. His solution -- and remember, the Packers are the self-appointed guardians of Favre's football reputation -- is to announce that one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, the guy only seven months removed from the NFC Championship Game, can return but may be a second-stringer. Think about it: Favre wearing a baseball cap and holding a clipboard.

Some legacy.

Packers management wants it both ways. It says it wants to protect Favre from himself, but mostly it wants to protect Favre from becoming a free agent, signing with the Minnesota Vikings and possibly kicking the Packers' butts twice in the regular season. That's the reason behind not granting Favre his release -- nothing else.

Management says the 'finality' of Favre's retirement prompted the Packers to 'move forward with our football team.' But how can you move forward if Favre is still on the depth chart? If you don't want him as your starter, which is beyond astounding, then why want him at all?"

The rest is here. What do you think will happen next? This is juicy stuff, people.

Typepad S.O.S.

                                      here
Frankly, I've had it up to        with Typepad lately. I apologize in advance that this will not be a general interest post but I a) need to vent and b) am hoping for some help from more experienced bloggers than me who might be reading this.

Back in 2006, when I was writing my first blog, I used the free Blogger program. A few months in I realized one really does get what one pays for as I fought numerous crashes, bugs and service outages to get anything published.

So when I started over last October I test drove several of the pay services including Wordpress, Squarespace and Typepad, the one I ultimately chose.

I've had several annoyances all along that I have just learned to live with but some of the recent problems - especially since they introduced a Compose Editor "Upgrade" - have me wondering if I once again chose poorly.

I'm going to share what's going on and if anyone has tips that might help please post a comment below (preferred, so we all benefit) or email me privately.

1. The newest problem is that Friday and Saturday the automated Publish feature did not work.  I set my up my entries to post every morning between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. and yes, my calendar was set up properly. Yet, nothing went live until I manually did it when I logged on. 

2.  It doesn't matter how often I go to Design, then Change Theme, then Custom, none of the changes I make and save there translate to the Compose Editor. 

3. In Compose I can find no way to change the default font from Arial, 11. I can change it manually but can not save it for next time.

4. And when I do change my font size manually by highlighting the page I write, the changes only work one paragraph, and sometimes one sentence, at a time. In other words I had to manually enlarge #3 above from default 13 point to the preferred 14. And then I had to highlight #4 and change it separately.

5. One of the Known Issues I'd like to publicly complain about is the suspension of the Post Search feature too. Does anyone know if it is coming back?

6. There must be an easier way, and one with fewer steps, than what I go through to post songs on my Christmas music sister blog each day. Each song first shows up as a link to Download the song rather than stream it. I have to save that, erase that in the Rich Text screen and then add all the embedding code manually on the HTML screen. It shouldn't be that hard. Is it me?

7. In the last two weeks there is yet another new problem. When I click on Save at the end of writing a post, or just to back it up as I go along, it's supposed to save it right away and then let me navigate off the page. Instead, I now almost always get the warning screen that says something like, "Are you sure you want to leave this page? You have unsaved changes..." even though I don't. It is an incredibly annoying extra step to have to go though over and over again.

I'm sure there are more I'm not thinking of but that's all off the top of my head. Again, if you can help me, or direct me to a site or a source that might (except the non-responsive Typepad Help Desk), I thank you. For the 99% of you who understandably don't care how the blog is made, just that it is, I'll try to find something  you'll actually be interested in tomorrow!

  

Stand Back! I Don't Know How Big This Thing Gets!*

I've racked my brain trying to remember where I read it but something I came across this week made reference to London being the World's Largest City once upon a time. You know how much I love anything having to do with the World's Largest Stuff so I wanted to find out more.

Sure enough, someone has written a book on the subject. It's called Four Thousand Years Of Urban Growth: An Historical Census by Tertius Chandler. I may have to track down a copy for further reading but one chart I found online from the book listed the world's most populous cities throughout history and the approximate year they became #1.

London, for instance, was on top for about a hundred years starting in 1825 when they had 1.35 million folks. Some other highlights:

The earliest champ in the book was Memphis, Egypt with about 30,000 people in 3100 B.C..

Babylonia in Iraq was #1 in 612 B.C. and was the first city to have more than 200,000 residents.

Rome, Italy hit 450,000 in 25 A.D..

Beijing, China hit 600,000 in about 1450. Why Rome was not bigger by that point I can't imagine.

New York in 1925 had 7.774 million.

Since 1965 Tokyo has held the crown. That year they hit 15 million people. According to the 2006 census they had 35.53 million call it home. More than 35 million people living in one city (and its surrounding urban areas.) Wow.

 

Think for a moment about how many cities you could guess are in the top 20 most populous cities on Earth today before you look at the list below. I was surprised by some of the places that made the cut.

#20 Manila, Philippines         10.80 million
#19 Moscow, Russia             10.82
#18 Beijing, China                 10.85
#17 Cairo, Egypt                   11.29
#16 Osaka, Kobe, Japan      11.32
#15 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil     11.62
#14 Lagos, Nigeria                11.70
#13 Karachi, Pakistan           12.20
#12 Los Angeles, USA          12.22
#11 Shanghai, China            12.63

#10 Dhaka, Bangladesh       13.09
#9  Buenos Aires, Argentina 13.52
#8  Jakarta, Indonesia          13.67
#7  Calcutta, India                14.57
#6  Delhi, India                     16.00
#5  Sao Paulo, Brazil            18.61
#4  New York, USA               18.65
#3  Mumbai, India                 18.84
#2  Mexico City, Mexico        19.24
#1  Tokyo, Japan                  35.53 

I've had the privilege of traveling some in my life but have still only been to three of the cities on the Top 20 list. I am curious if any of my readers have been to five. Anyone visited more?  Love to hear from you and as I thank you in advance for leaving a comment I'll mention that someone today will leave the 4000th comment on my blog since it went live on November 1st, 2007. Thank you again for helping me make this a two way exchange of ideas and information.

*"Stand back, I don't know how big this thing gets" is the punchline to an old joke about Adam's first words to Eve in the Garden of Eden, population, 2.    :)

  

The Best Day Of The Week Is Here

Tater Tot Friday! So we had a party over the 4th of July holiday and thought it might be fun to set up the ol' croquet set for our guests. Well, besides the fact that our front yard grass was so long it was like trying to push the ball through molasses, there was another unforeseen obstacle.

Tater Tot insisted on chasing, catching and running away with every single ball that was in play. Thanks to blog reader and my actual brother John for sending me this picture he took of the Tot in action.

Here's another angle I got during the same game.

Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldogs! So I went to the store the other day to get a birthday card for our friend Marty who celebrated his latest yesterday. It seems that Hallmark has a contest running with pet photos on a line of their birthday cards and the public votes on which of the 67 finalists is their favorite. I saw two English Bulldogs among the choices.

First there is Rudy, sent in by Ashley Howe of Lawrenceberg, Indiana. "living with Rudy is like living with a cartoon character, " says Ashley.

The other is Daisy, owned by Susan Rodnite of Tampa, Florida. This photo was taken at Daisy's first birthday party.

You can see the others and vote if you care too here.  Happy birthday Marty, and have a great weekend everyone!

Miss Washington Is A Goer!!!

It was the big only story in Seattle yesterday and I couldn't be prouder. Our state's beauty pageant winner kicks your state beauty pageant winner's ass! That is, unless you live in Nevada - that girl is crazy!

Our Miss Washington, a delicate little flower named Elyse Umemoto, was the second runner up in the Miss America contest last year. But like most beauty queens, you would never have even heard of her if not for TMZ.com posting some private photos yesterday.

Here was their description of the shots: "Miss Washington 2007 might wanna take the crown off before flipping off the camera, getting her Beer Pong on and making suggestive oral sex gang signs."

Judging from the reaction here and online from around the world you would think a video just surfaced of her drowning nuns.  My informal breakdown of the comments shakes out this way: Half think she should be stripped of her crown and the other half say she is a "stupid whore."

To the first point, she'll give up her title Saturday night anyway when Miss Washington 2008 is named. To the second, no, these photos do not necessarily demonstrate she is either stupid or whorish.

What she is is 23 years old. If you don't think these things go on at almost every single party where young people drink then you are as naive as Miss Umemoto. That she was a young woman with public ambition and didn't consider the possibility of shots like this coming back to haunt her was possibly ignorance and more likely naivety. Sidebar question to TMZ; What makes this a "suggestive oral sex gang sign?" Wow, gangs have really changed since I rolled like that in the 80s.

I don't really care what happens to her with respect to the Washington State beauty pageant because the Miss America pageant is as relevant to the 21st century as Beanie Babies.

I have two pieces of advice, not that anyone asked.

Thing One: I hope our own 23 year-old Mystery Daughter learns from Elyse's poor judgment and now better understands that the only surefire way to not be the victim of embarrassing photographs, even if the behavior itself is not particularly scandalous, is to not be in them.

I'm sure our Miss Washington would agree that she would much rather wake up tomorrow virtually anonymous again like she was 48 hours ago than have these photos be the only thing most of us will ever know about her.

Thing Two: For all other drunk beauty queens who forget this incident and do end up in regrettable party photos, don't let your no-good back-stabbing friends get them and potentially  ruin you with their lack of discretion. Send them to me for safe keeping. Word is bond.

Rock In Peace

I had the FM radio on the other day - I don't remember what station - and they were playing Bob Marley's Could You Be Loved from 1980. Now there's a song that has not only aged well, it could have been released in 1990 or 2000 or even today and it would be hailed a a classic. And that is so true of so many of Marley's records; Redemption Song, One Love, No Woman No Cry just to name a few.

That the reggae giant was only 36 years old when he died got me to thinking of all the music he might have made had cancer not taken him and if he was able to avoid assassination.

But is he the #1 musical artist whose potential was barely reached before a life cut short? I started thinking of others who would have to be in contention for the title of biggest musical loss. Here are some my other candidates:

Hank Williams, only 29 when he died. Even non-country music fans know his remarkable contributions to America's permanent songbook; songs like I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hey Good Lookin', Your Cheatin' Heart, and dozens more. The Devil and the liquor took Hank.

Buddy Holly, plane crash, 22. Think about that - only 22! Yet 50 years later we still song along with That'll Be The Day, Peggy Sue, Everyday and more. Honorable mention on the same plane was Ritchie Valens of La Bamba fame, just 17 years old. Who knows what his future held?

Jimi Hendrix, another drinker so he only made it to 27. An A-level songwriter, A+ guitar player who brought fuzz and fire to his instrument. You can't help but think of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain among other 27 year-olds who burned out rather than faded away.

Your turn. I want to know who you'd put at Number One on this chart: the musical artist who had the most to still contribute to the world before his death. Michael Hutchence? John Lennon? Selena? Jeff Buckley? Luther Vandross?  Ian Curtis? Biggie? 

Funnier Than Wall. E.

I know that I am guilty of at least half of the boo-boos on this list but as a grammar enthusiast I can't resist sharing it with y'all. It really is the funniest thing I have seen this summer.

Many thanks to blog reader Ana for directing me toward something called DeanHunt.com.

Bloggers Are Terrible Writers

In Affiliate Marketing | 44 comments | permalink

There are so many bad writers on the Internet, especially in the blogging world, so here are some amusing rules to help you become a world-class writer.

34 Rules For Kick ass Writing

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)
unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used unless you don’t want to seem too formal.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos.
13. Do not use more words, phrases, sentences, or other linguistic elements than you, yourself, actually really and definitely need to use or employ when expressing yourself or otherwise giving voice to what you may or may not be thinking when you are trying to say how many words you should use or not use when using words.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don’t use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, i.e. etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill excessive exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others elude to them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate distracting quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have once remarked, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
28. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
And finally…
34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

"V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N In The Summertime....."

Donna and I were blessed with many visitors over the long holiday weekend. We had friends and family in town from Nashville, Las Vegas, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles along with dozens of folks who live here in western Washington that we hosted at several events.

Today's blog post is just a few photographs mostly for the benefit of those we invited over who couldn't make it due to work or other summer plans.

Left to right, me, my Dad, and my brother John. Taken on the ferry from West Seattle, pulling into the Island.

The Atomic dog sleeping in the guest room to be near my dad.

 

My friend Dave with Sophie and Godzilla.

My friend Christine with Happy.

 

Donna's dad Howard and my dad on our friend Eric's boat taking an Independence Day cruise around the Island. Thanks, Eric! And have you ever seen two guys more excited to be boating?

Dave, stealing my wife. That's Dave's painting on the wall too. He is one of our favorite artists. Get him while he is cheap!

My brother at our July 3rd party. It rained quite a bit that morning  but cleared up nicely for the outdoor event that night. Whew.

I've mentioned the 1905 waterfront place we plan to restore. The boat ride was my first chance to get a picture of it from the backside. That's what she said.

 

My dad, cutting his birthday cakes on July 4th. When you get to be his age, one cake is not enough. Happy 70th though!!! You kicked Tim Russert's ass.

And finally, a few random fireworks shots from the Island's display. Taken from the yard of the new place. I hope everyone else had a safe and happy holiday weekend too!

Insane Clown Posse

The Summer Of Death continues over the holiday weekend with the reported deaths of two famous American clowns.

First, former Senator Jess Helms, Republican from the great state of North Carolina, finally responded to the will of the people and died at age 86. He was perhaps most famous for trying to filibuster the Senate's vote on making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday in 1983. He likely represented the views of many of his constituents during his early terms of office but perhaps they continued to evolve on social and racial issues where he did not.

More significantly, how about that Bozo The Clown?

From the Associated Press report, "Larry Harmon wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure, said his publicist, Jerry Digney. He was 83.

As an entrepreneur, Harmon licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos..."

Some fun facts I learned about Bozo from his obituary:

1. Pinto Colvig, who provided the voice for Walt Disney's Goofy, was the first Bozo the Clown, a character created by writer-producer Alan W. Livingston for a series of children's records in 1946.

2. Bozo wore size 83AAA shoes!

3. The business — combining animation, licensing of the character and personal appearances — made millions, as Harmon trained more than 200 Bozos over the years to represent him in local markets.

4. The Chicago version of Bozo ran on WGN-TV in Chicago for 40 years and was seen in many other cities after cable television transformed WGN into a superstation.

And my favorite, 5. Bozo — portrayed in Chicago for many years by Bob Bell — was so popular that the waiting list for tickets to a TV show eventually stretched to a decade, prompting the station to stop taking reservations for 10 years. On the day in 1990 when WGN started taking reservations again, it took just five hours to book the show for five more years. The phone company reported more than 27 million phone call attempts had been made.

While reflecting on Bozo, I was wondering, "Are there are any local children's shows anymore?". There used to be hundreds on television, including many that even went national like Romper Room, Shari Lewis, and Captain Kangaroo. And of course, the majority that did not, like Seattle kids' show legends J.P Patches or Stan Boreson. Does anyone know of any still being made today? 

American Ingenuity At Its Best

Many thanks to blog reader William for this one.

"Like any red-blooded, masculine man of the male gender, I love PVC weaponry. You should too. If the concept of heading on down to the local Home Depot and transforming $100 worth of random pipe bits into a killing machine doesn't appeal to you, you're a goddamn pansy. Also, you're probably sane and will live significantly longer than I will. Nonetheless you disgust me, and I take comfort in the knowledge that your obituary will be nowhere near as humorous as mine. For those of you who laugh in the face of hypersonic shards of plastic puncturing your spleen, here's an intimate look at how I've kept myself busy for the past week: building a PVC flamethrower..."

The web page goes on to give a step-by-step demonstration on how this fellow built it. Not that I am suggesting it is a good idea, or that you should too, but if you do, send me pictures!!!! Here 'tis.

 
 

Tater Tot Loses A Sister

It was a terrible week for all of us in the Baxter family this week as we said goodbye to our beloved pet, Santa's Little Helper. She was 12. The picture at the right was taken on a chilly day last autumn when we took SLH and Tater for a walk on the beach.

Santa was born on a farm in Acton, California and was offered free to a good home. She was so tiny and all white when she was a puppy, much like Mini-Me, only cuter, and without a sex tape that we know of.

She was also the most obedient and most loyal of all our dogs. If Donna or I were ever sick, she would lie by the bed for however long we needed her. She would not even get up to eat or pee unless you made her. She so wanted to help.

Six years ago this October 30th, she had a spinal embolism and was paralyzed.  We feared we would lose her then but through medication, physical therapy, and mostly her sheer willpower and desire to please us, she fought almost all the way back.

She has walked pretty wobbly since then and had some trouble with the stairs quite often but every day we got to be with her since then has been a blessing and a bonus.

Here are a few photos I pulled together this week of SLH, including a few of her as a puppy.

The end came swiftly. We think maybe last Friday afternoon she had another event that affected her muscles and she was clearly uncomfortable throughout the weekend. She wasn't moving at all other than when we coaxed her. In her final hour on Monday though she took herself outside and lay down in the rushing water of the pond in our yard. After a little while she walked into the woods and lay down behind a tree for the last time.

I know Tater doesn't mind sharing her day with Santa's Little Helper today. We will all miss her so much. We tried to give her a good life and I know she gave us one. This is the last picture I ever took of her. She was sitting in my office about two weeks ago, keeping an eye on me to make sure I wasn't going anywhere without her. 

Neither of us could have known that it was she who would soon be going on without me. :(

 
  

Through Rain And Sleet And No!

Well, it's the second time it's happened this year and  I am really ticked off. I'd fire off a strongly worded letter to my imaginary boyfriend, U.S. Postmaster General Jack Potter, but I know it wouldn't do any good.

From time to time I'll stop by my "city" Post Office, the one I frequent when I have stuff to mail and I find myself on the other side of the water from the island where we live. I like to surprise Donna by sending her postcards, for no reason other than everyone likes to get something handwritten in the mail once i a while and it lets her know I am thinking of her.

Last week I sent her an awesome little antique photograph of a very proper and fancy little girl, circa 1920 I guess and expected it to arrive at home the next day. It's only 13 miles by the way. Well, it didn't come. Surely by the following day though, right? Not so much. The sad end to the story is that it has now been a week and the postcard never came.

Somewhere in the middle of all this I stopped by the so-called Post Office and talked to the worker bee on duty. I explained about the undersized black and white photo postcard I had mailed that week that never arrived at its destination and wondered if she could re-check the mail chute in case it got stuck.

"Oh, it was undersized. There's your problem," she shot back.

"Well, it was a little smaller than a modern postcard but certainly something your machines would have been able to pick up. It wasn't invisible!," I countered.

"Did you put your return address on it?," she asked , and not ironically.

And I said, before leaving, "With all due respect, if you can't deliver it to the correct address already on the card, why might you be able to deliver it to the return address?"

Look, I know you take your chances if you don't get tracking on anything you mail and it certainly wouldn't occur to me to do that on a postcard but it is still disappointing. So, Donna, your little girl is lost but please enjoy this image of a monkey riding a bicycle, with my deepest affection.

Love, Bean

1975 Revisited

I never really saw Saturday NIght Live in its first, oh I don't know, 20 seasons or so. All the talk through the most recent seasons, whether they were good or bad ones, is that nothing could compare to the glory years of the show. Generally that is understood to mean 1975 - 1980, the first five seasons.

Well, I had my chance finally this past weekend when NBC re-aired the very first episode of SNL from October 11, 1975. They did it as a tribute to the debut host that night, the late George Carlin, another recent victim of the Summer Of Death.

Guess what? I think the people were right.

I was really surprised how fully-formed the format of the show was from that very first episode. Monologue, sketches, commercial parodies, Weekend Update, musical guests, it was all there. Carlin did not appear in any sketches but did deliver some of his most famous routines from his best-selling comedy albums of the early 70s, like Baseball Vs. Football, What Do Dogs Do On Their Days Off? and Why Isn't There Any Blue Food?.

That night was the debut of the Not Ready For Primetime Players, including John Belushi (impossible to take your eyes off of), Dan Akyroyd (very funny back then, not so much now), Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Larraine Newman, and Garrett Morris (the original, "Hey, you're the black guy from Saturday Night Live").

I was also struck by how ambitious that first show was. Two musical guests, performing two songs each. Billy Preston's Nothing From Nothing was terrific and his disco suit even more so; Janis Ian looked terrified singing her then-current hit, At Seventeen.

Comedy genius Albert Brooks offered a short film that included one scene where the age of consent was changed to nine or something. I was more shocked that it aired on network TV here in 2008 then back in 1975.

How's this for a highlight? The show also featured comedy weirdo Andy Kaufman doing his signature Mighty Mouse theme song lip synching bit. I don't know if he had performed it on television before that night but I don't doubt that there were just as many people watching who were more confused than entertained by his...uh....  "alternative" approach to comedy. I loved it.

Not everything worked. There was a Muppets sketch too. Yep, Jim Henson's real Muppets. I didn't get it.  At all. Also a comedienne named Valari Bloomfield who was terrible. And, surprising to me, I thought Chevy Chase was the weak link of the cast. Not a good actor, not a good cue-card reader, not a skilled comedian. Perhaps he got better?

One more quick thing. How did they cram four songs, tons of sketches, three Carlin bits. another comedian, a Muppet piece, Chevy's Weekend Update, the Kaufman routine, and at least three fake commercials all into one 90 minute show?

Fewer commercial minutes might have been part of it. But the Number One reason I give the nod to Episode One over any Saturday Night Live show I have seen this decade is that back then the sketches ran out before the comedy did.

The current show makes every bit at least 25 percent longer than it needs to be, often more. If the new guys had come up with Belushi's 1975 Wolverine bit, instead of it being remembered as a comedy classic, we'd know it as that sketch we feel asleep to ten minutes in.

If you saw the show this weekend I'd love to hear your thoughts. I am now going to Amazon.com to look into a Season One DVD...

"Everybody Likes To Cha Cha Cha...."

I was reminded of the Sam Cooke song lyric above when I got an email from blog reader Jennifer in Sacramento. She wrote:

"I heard about this cool website yesterday. You can sign up for free and then text message any question you want and get a text message answer back. The website is www.chacha.com  A friend who belongs to a club that I do told me about it. Check it out."

Thanks, Jen. Here's how the website describes its service:

"Ask any question in conversational English from a cell phone. Call 800-2ChaCha or text 242242 and get the answer as a text message in a few minutes."

Some of the examples of questions shown on the site are, "Where can I get pizza near Spring St. and 6th Ave. in NYC?" and "Is there a way to remove acrylic paint from jeans?"

So, not being too proud to beg, I tried it out. For some reason the very first question that came to my mind was, "How does the moon affect the earth's tides?"

About two minutes later, I got this text back on my phone, "Moon's gravity tugs on the ocean enough to make a bulge form in the sea below the moon. As Earth turns ocean shores go into bulge."

The Wikipedia page about the service says that real people answer the questions, not an automated search engine. So I was pretty impressed with the speed and the quality of my response.

Caveat! Thing One:  The site says, "standard text messaging rates apply" and I have no idea what those are and how much my little experiment cost me, if anything.

Caveat! Thing Two: If your wife sees a text message from something called ChaCha.com be prepared to potentially have some 'splainin' to do. I'm just sayin'. It could be misunderstood.