Odds & Ends September 18, 2004 12:00 am

Wishful Thought September 19, 2004 12:00 am

So Lemme Understand This... September 25, 2004 12:00 am

Man, talk about the terrorists winning...
 

Golden Anniversary Follow Up September 26, 2004 12:00 am

 
As part of KTUL's previously-mentioned 50th Anniversary on the air, the station has made available several classic commercials from their past. ( Windows Media Player is needed to view them.) FYI, the big deal about the Susan Silver commercials was that when she joined the crew she became the state's first female TV news anchor. Unheard of back in the 70s.

Reminiscing like this makes me wonder whatever happened to Linda Soundtrack. 9:45am
 

Reason #27 Why I Refuse to Watch Fox News September 29, 2004 12:00 am

 

I challenge each and every host of a Fox News Channel program to not write a book until after they no longer host said Fox News Channel program. News hosts are supposed to interview other people who havewritten books, not each other! 12:57pm
 

Back to the Frady Hole September 29, 2004 12:00 am

 
KTUL's 50th Anniversary reminded me that it is therefore also the 50th Anniversary of former meteorologist Don Woods' weather creation, Gusty. As the end of each weathercast, Don would do a Gusty drawing, most of the time related to the current weather conditions, which would then be sent out to one of the thousands of people who had written in asking for an original Gusty.

I actually have one of those drawings. Or rather, my mom does. Shortly after the December 5, 1975 tornado struck East Tulsa, my mom wrote to thank Mr. Woods for continually assuring us (specifically, ten-year-old me), that by this time, West Tulsa, where we were, was already out of danger. (It was the first time I had ever seen Mammatus cloud formations, and I was freaking out.) A couple of weeks later, while watching the news, we saw Don drawing a Gusty he said was going out to "Edith Mahan". Edith is my mom's name, and the last name is close, so we thought it was an interesting coincidence. Imagine our surprise when a mail tube came to our house addressed to that same Edith Mahan. We took it out of the tube and looked at it a couple of times when we first got it, but it has remained in that tube & kept in storage ever since.

But I digress. The whole reason I'm even mentioning it is that Gusty has his own website! 12:52pm
 

Toooo Much (clap, clap) Time on My Hands September 29, 2004 12:00 am

 
The official correction to one of my old trivia entries that I first posted nearly five years ago. At the time, I stated

A Rubik's Cube has 1,929,770,126,028,800--nearly two quadrillion--color combinations.

Got an email today from someone who has taken the time to determine the true number of possible combinations: 43,252,003,274,489,856,000. I recommend checking the site out: the author also had determined the number of combinations if you include peeling off the color tabs & rearranging them in every way possible. 12:36pm
 

Washington Likely-Anything-But-Senators September 29, 2004 12:22 pm

 
Major League Baseball has decided to move the doomed Montreal Expos franchise to the Washington DC area. Play will begin next year at RFK Stadium until a new stadium can be built just a few miles from the Capitol building. And now that where they'll be playing has been decided, one very important question still lingers:

What are they gonna be called?

According to the Associated Press, the city's previous MLB residents, the team now known as the Texas Rangers, still hold the rights to their previous name, the Washington Senators. Just got a feeling the Rangers are going to have a big asking price for the name, possibly even asking for the traditional "player to be named later".

If I were the Ex˛pos (y'know, Ex-Expos), I wouldn't pay, just come up with a new nickname. The most obvious choice to me would be the Washington Nationals, a name that has existed in the past for other professional sports teams. Or how 'bout a politically-correct version of the NFL Redskins' name: the Washington Natives. Oh, here's one: the Washington ACs (AC/DC, get it?).

Then there's my personal favorite: the Washington Monuments.
 

The Longest-Lasting Cast Members of "Law & Order" September 30, 2004 12:31 am

 
With Jerry Orbach leaving Law & Order for its future spinoff, Trial By Jury, that now leaves S. Epatha Merkerson as the cast member who has been on the show the longest. Until February, however, Orbach is still the cast member who has appeared in the most episodes (273 of the 328 aired so far). That is, among the cast members still listed in the credits.

Click on the picture at the left to bring up a larger version, which will contain an arrow pointing to a man in the background. A couple of weeks ago I happened to catch the episode containing the scene that this shot was filmed for. That man in the background wearing the light brown trenchcoat, who happens to be coming down the steps toward the camera, is none other than Michael Moriarty, who played the show's original ADA Ben Stone for the first four years of the show's run. Harder to see due to a darker tranchcoat is the man walking beside him, actor Richard Brooks, who was original ADA Paul Robinette.

Since this shot has appeared in the opening titles of every episode of Law & Order since the series began, this means Moriarty & Brooks have appeared in all 328 episodes of the series, a record not likely to be beaten by anyone.

I wonder if they get residual pay for all those appearances.