Lou Pickney's Online Commentary

August 2000

Thursday
August 31, 2000
3:00 PM EDT

"Who needs sleep?
Tell me, what's that for?"
-Barenaked Ladies "Who Needs Sleep?"

I had planned originally to get a nap this afternoon, but it doesn't seem to be in the cards, as I've been pretty busy today. Between paying bills and getting directions up to Indy and buying groceries and getting a haircut, it's been hectic. I'm trying to slide my sleep back to nighttime in preparation for my trip to Indiana, which will make tonight interesting. I'm afraid though that if I take a nap now, I'd sleep through my alarm(s) and miss the Herd game.

Marshall opens their football season tonight against Southeast Missouri State. SE Missouri has a Division I-AA football team, and from what Keith Morehouse told me, they're not a particularly good team even for the I-AA level. So this should be a cakewalk for Marshall... but the real test comes on September 9, when they play up at Michigan State. I anticipate that the Herd will hold back and not reveal too many secrets tonight, as they probably won't need to. Until today I wasn't sure who I was going to go to the game with. But I talked with Christi from work, and we're going to go, and possibly talk some other people from the station into going over with us. She's not used to good college football, having been up at Northwestern in Chicago. But who am I to talk, coming from Evansville, which couldn't even maintain a Division I-AA non-scholarship team. Thanks again for that, President Vinson! (sarcasm) Anyway, it should be fun tonight. Last year I moved here the day of the Motor City Bowl, so I missed out on the unbeaten 1999 season. While expecting a repeat this year is a bit much, hopefully they can continue to be successful.

This is also a sad anniversary for Marshall, as it was in 1970 that the football team died in a plane crash. It's a tragic irony that I lived in Evansville and then Huntington, as the Evansville Aces men's basketball team was killed in a 1977 plane crash, so those two cities have a sad link in their pasts. It was thirty years ago, but the effect of the crash is still felt today in this community. But I'll say this for Huntington, they sure go out of their way to support Marshall and the school's football team. When I moved here I remember being shocked at the massive number of pro-Marshall signs and banners that were up at area restaurants and businesses. Compare that to the apathy of Evansville, especially in 1999 when the Aces made the NCAA basketball tournament (both men's and women's) and you could barely tell around town.

I talked with my friend Brent Frazier the other day about life in Nashville for him working at WSMV as a reporter. He seems to really like it there, and they are going to utilize him in the long-overdue revamping of their morning newscast. For me it's a bit of a "When Worlds Collide" situation, with him working with people I grew up watching on TV (like Demetria and Dan, the main anchors). I can't wait to see a tape of him on-air there, it'll be great.

Kara and I talked last night right before I went to work, and things are set for tomorrow. My little adventure takes me up near Cincinnati and then over to Indianapolis. Mapquest and Yahoo's Driving Directions both tried to tell me to go via Louisville, but that seems to be way out of my way, and everyone I talked with over at WSAZ told me that taking the AA from Grayson up toward Cincy was the way to go. So we'll see how that works out. Then I have to try to find Emmis' headquarters in Indianapolis, and from there head up to West Lafayette.

I'm going to go hit Big Bear to get some caffeine pills here shortly, which should help me to stay awake tonight. I just hope the Marshall game doesn't sell out! Later.

Wednesday
August 30, 2000
9:50 PM EDT

Time continues to zip by in a rapid pace. Luckily this is only a four day week for me, and next week, with Labor Day and then another Friday off, will be only a three day work week. Not bad, huh.

Cleveland was an absolute blast. On Friday Doc swung by around 5:30 or so, and we headed out. He drove, which was nice. I could care less if I'm driving or not (and actually I prefer to ride and let someone else do the driving). So we listened to tuned and talked and told stories on the way up. Road trips are fun like that -- they give you an opportunity to find out about people. He told me the story about how he had been engaged at one time, and then I told him the story about the spring of 1999, which is a downer of a story (at least the particular one I told).

So about 30 miles outside of Cleveland, I was getting rather thirsty and needing to hit the rest room. So we took an exit into an area that didn't look too bad to me. Or so I thought. We went over to a BP and got out. Strangely, the front door was locked, but there was a woman behind a window who said that they were closed inside, but she could sell to us that way. So Doc ordered a Pepsi and cigarettes, and I was going to get some water, but she had already walked away from the window. Suddenly these two shady looking guys walked up. The BP woman was at this point coming back to the window, and one of the guys lunged up to the window, shoved some change into the little silver tray, and was like "Buy me some peppermints." He looked to be doped up on something, though not drunk, which was pretty scary. Here I am with Doc, who has his head shaved, us being two white boys suddenly finding ourselves in a bad part of town. The doped up guy's friend was standing behind Doc, and I was thinking great, we're about to get robbed. So Peppermint guy had us freaked, and then the woman behind the counter was like "Excuse me, but I have some customers here." I took a step back, wanting to give myself room to run if need be. But Doc had given the woman his driver's license (yes he got carded for smokes in the hood) so we kind of had to stay there. But then a third guy came up and told Crackhead Peppermint boy to chill out and quit bothering us, and that calmed the situation down. Doc got his Pepsi and Marlboro Lights, and I was like "uhh I don't need anything" and we got the hell out of dodge.

Doc gave me grief about nearly getting us killed, but we were 30 miles out of Cleveland, I thought we were safe. So we finally got in to Cleveland just past 11. Finding Tali's house was a bit of a trick, between the crazy roads, one way streets, and road construction. We stopped at a Hollywood Video to ask directions, and the guy there had this crazy big poofy hair. Later we saw another guy at a BP who had a huge fro -- is big hair for guys making a comeback?? Well anyway we finally found Tali's place, but she was really tired and didn't feel like going out. But unfortunately Tali hadn't known for sure if her relatives were leaving town or not (they finally decided for sure to leave earlier that day), so she had booked us a room at a Red Roof just outside of town. So we went there and dropped her off and went down to the Flats.

Now the Flats is Cleveland's party district. Doc and I were there no more than 2 minutes before we saw this swarm of cops running after somebody. It was humorous in a way, as it reminded me of the beginning of the old WWF Shotgun Saturday Night show (ok that's a really obscure reference, I know). So we ended up going to this club called "Heaven". It was a good time there, we drank alot in a short amount of time, as we only had an hour till the place was going to shut down for the night. I talked with this cute girl who reminded me of the girl from "My So-Called Life", and Doc chilled with some girls over on the other dance floor. But then they closed for the night, and we went back and got some sleep.

On Saturday, Tali showed us around town. We had lunch at this place called Heck's Restaurant. It's a small, cafe style place, but they have INCREDIBLE burgers there. Now I don't eat much red meat at all anymore, but this was worth it. Their Cajun Burger was unreal, mmmmm so good! Tali showed us around Case Western Reserve University, which is where my friend Glenn went to school at as an undergrad a few years ago. We drove by Cleveland Browns Stadium and Jacobs Field and the Gund Arena, which was interesting to see. From there we got a nap, then it was time to go hit Cleveland on a Saturday night.

We went down to the Flats again, and went to a restaurant recommended to me by Julie Demer, a place called Dick's Last Resort. I figured that some guy named Dick owned it, but it's the gimmick, where everyone there acts like a dick (i.e. acts rude). It was quite funny to me. They had people wearing crazy paper hats there with all sorts of rude things written on them. But the food was good. Unfortunately I was still rather full from my Cajun Burger for lunch, so I couldn't truly enjoy the Oodles of Noodles (or come anywhere close to finishing the meal). Also, Tali talked me into trying a local Cleveland beer, which was tasty.

From there, we went to a bar called Jimmy's on the Flats. It was a decent place, though we only stayed long enough to have one drink. Tali was wanting to meet up with her new man, a guy named Brad she had met earlier in the week (she sure doesn't waste any time!). So we went to a party out near Coventry with some people from Case Western. There were some really nice people there, and it was fun to get to meet them. Plus they were almost all smart, so the conversation was a bit more to my level than what the usual fare is with people I encounter in Huntington. This cute girl named Abby came up to me and introduced herself, and we talked for awhile. She works in the sleep disorder section of Case doing research, and I never thought that knowing alot about sleep apnea would be helpful for flirting, but in this situation it was. She was impressed with how much I knew about it. I had hoped to get her to come with us to this bar called the Winking Lizard, but unfortunately she disappeared right when this asshole ballbusting prick of a cop showed up and decided to abuse his authority and force everyone to go inside. We were on private property, not being loud or unruly or breaking any laws, and this this smug pig happens to drive by. This sort of thing is why I have such disdain for the police. At least Rick, the host of the party, complied with the cop and didn't cause things to get worse. Inside the house it was burning up, and with everyone inside the place was packed, so we all headed out to the Winking Lizard.

The Lizard is a cool bar, with a ton of drink choices and plenty of room. I was a bit disappointed, as we had talked about going out to another dance club, but that didn't pan out. Regardless, we had fun drinking and talking and what not. Brad's brother Matt was hilarious, and at the end he was trying to hook up Doc with these two girls that Doc clearly had no interest in hooking up with. It was hysterically funny, well not for Doc, but I was laughing my ass off. Memorable stuff for sure.

Sunday morning we went on a Bob Evans hunt, but the first place we found was unbelievable packed, and the second Bob Evans we found was even more packed than the first. So we went to Denny's instead. Because we took so much time looking for the places, when we got back I had to rush to get a shower and get out by the noon checkout time. But I'm good like that, so we made it. From there we said our goodbyes to Tali, and headed out.

Work on Monday was brutal, as my sleep schedule was totally thrown out of whack, but it was worth it to have such a fun weekend.

Monday
August 28, 2000
7:55 AM EDT

I feel completely exhausted right now. The trip to Cleveland was wonderful, and I will write about it on here soon. But between shifting my sleep schedule and then having to turn around and work this morning, I'm pretty zonked right now. I'll write more later.

Friday
August 25, 2000
1:51 PM EDT

Thanks to everyone who called or e-mailed me wishing me a happy birthday yesterday. Things like birthdays can be a little tough with most of my friends and family far away. I went out to Applebee's last night for a birthday dinner. Remember, most of the time my meals involved noodles, rice, tuna, things like that (high nutrition, low difficulty to prepare). So I had the house steak and baked potato, and mmm it was good. There was a time when my Granddaddy Blaylock would tell me to never order a steak well done and to not use steak sauce, cause that kind of defeats the whole purpose of enjoying the flavor of a good steak. So finally years later I've come around; I ordered the steak medium, and savored every bite. I also heard that if you order steak well-done, that the chef will likely give you the worst cut there, assuming that you won't be truly appreciative of good meat and thus won't know the difference. But the last time before that when I had steak... I can't even remember. I don't eat much red meat anymore, so when I do I enjoy it.

As part of my birthday present money, I bought Madden 2001 for the Playstation. It was a tough decision process -- should I hold out for Madden 2001 for the IBM PC and wait till I get my new computer, or wait for the brand new Playstation 2 that comes out in October that will have Madden on there as well? I finally decided to splurge and go buy it. As it was, I had a $20 Toys R Us gift certificate that I got from MyPoints.com, which I was able to use in buying it. So that worked out well.

My bro Matt called me last night, and it sounds like he's having fun down at Mississippi State. I finally purchased the plane ticket to go down there in October, so that's set. I can't wait, it should be so much fun. It sounds like the Sig Ep house that he lives in is pretty nice, and since I'm going the weekend of the Auburn game there should be lots going on there to see and enjoy.

The injection I got at the doctor Tuesday doesn't seem to have cured my headache problem as I'd hoped. Luckily the Butal he gave me a prescription for has knocked out the two headaches I've gotten since then, and I'll be taking my Butal with me for sure this weekend up to Cleveland, cause let me tell you that would be the worst, being up in Cleveland hurting really bad and not being able to do anything about it.

Doc is going to swing by here late this afternoon, and then we're going to head up to Cleveland. Tali tells me that it's roughly 5 hours to get there, so we should be there just in time to go hit The Flats and see what Cleveland nightlife is all about. It should be a fun time. This will be my first-ever trip to Cleveland. It's too bad Glenn's not still up there, that would have been perfect.

It's been great to have the past two days off from work. I'd probably have gotten bored if I didn't have the new Madden game to play, but it's all good. Last night I went out to the Wild Dawg to see what Thursday nights in this town were like (I've had to work every Friday early morning this year). It was pretty fun, though the Wild Dawg has always been a bizarre scene. It's a bar that's a combination of a country-western line dance area and a hip-hop dance floor. As you might imagine, this is cause for some conflict at times, though they have security there like you wouldn't believe.

I talked with Brook Gardiner last night, and he's pretty excited about starting law school up at NYU. Maybe I can find a way to get back up to New York somehow (like if WSAZ sends a crew up to cover Chad Pennington playing for the Jets, I can bum a ride or something). Just kidding about that, but it would be nice to get up there; from what Brook tells me the place is packed with beautiful women. So we'll see about that.

It's looking like I'll end up going with a Gateway computer after all instead of a Dell. My friend Ben has been hooking me up with the info, and I trust him to help me out with it, so it should be good.

So this weekend I'm going to Cleveland, next weekend through Indianapolis to visit the Emmis headquarters and then on to West Lafayette. Kara tells me that she's feeling alot better now with her wisdom teeth, so that'll be good. The last time I was up there, in 1997, neither of us were 21 so we couldn't hit the bars (I'll save my rant about Indiana's ludicrous laws for another time), so we ended up partying at the Phi Tau house there. Speaking of there, I wonder if Otter's brother is up there. Last I heard he joined Phi Tau at Purdue, but that was a couple of years ago. And hey, maybe Mike Commons is still there. The last time I saw Commons was at the very fun party with the Phi Taus in Louisville in March 1998. Man, time flies, it sure doesn't feel like 2 1/2 years ago...

Survivor was very interesting on Wednesday night. I can't believe that Richard actually won. I knew that he was smart and clever enough to get to the finals, but to actually win the vote over Kelly was mind-boggling. It's too bad that Rudy didn't get it, though, cause that would have been really cool. How fitting is it that the idiot Sean ended up making the decisive vote in going with Rich over Kelly. Sean had earlier voted to bring Rich on the boat with him over Kelly, which ultimately turned Kelly against Sean. Anyway, I really enjoyed watching Survivor, and I was just talking with Kara about this yesterday, it'll be cool to see what happens with Survivor 2 in January.

Well I guess now would be a good time to get a shower and start getting ready to leave for Cleveland. Glenn tells me to check out a bar there called the "Barking Spider", so we'll see what that's all about...

Tuesday
August 22, 2000
10:49 AM EDT

I missed worked today due to another horrible headache, plus I got sick again to make things worse. I went in to work and tried to give it a go, but I was hurting really bad and had to come home. That meant that poor Phil had to come in on very little sleep and produce the morning newscast. I hated that more than you know, but I really had no choice. So this morning I went in to the doctor and got checked out and was given an injection and a prescription, so hopefully my headache problems are over...

Sunday
August 20, 2000
9:41 PM EDT

I plan on making a couple of big-ticket purchases in the next few days. First, I'm going to buy a plane ticket to go visit my brother Matt down at Mississippi State the weekend of the Florida/MSU game in early October. It's a surprisingly good price to fly out of Huntington to Greenville, MS, where I'll either have to get a ride from Matt or catch a bus or something like that. I still need to finalize the days with him, but it'll be cool. Also, I plan on finally biting the bullet and buying a new Dell computer. My friend Ben Lynch has encouraged me to look toward Gateway, but it's looking like I'll be going with Dell.

Kara called me while I was typing this. It's looking now like it'll be Labor Day weekend when I'll be going up to visit, so that means Cleveland this upcoming weekend, Indiana the next. I already have Friday, September 1st off, so if I can end up getting Labor Day off that'd be nice, but it's not a given.

I caught some of the Colts/Steelers pre-season game on CBS last night. Peyton Manning and company were looking sharp. Hopefully they can get a win over the Chiefs in week one. Also, the Titans lost to the Eagles, but they rested several of their starters (and if you wonder why they did that, just look at how banged up the Arizona Cardinals got in their ESPN game with the Minnesota Vikings).

It's not too tough to get motivated for a three day work week, which is what I have coming up. After several meetings with Bill Cakmis over new camera shots and tosses, we haven't been able to execute any of them due to Melanie Shafer coming down with the chicken pox. What terrible luck for Melanie, who has a young child (as in less than a year old) at home. The newscast becomes secondary in a case like this, as chicken pox for adults is much more difficult and painful than it is for most children. Plus my other anchor, Rob Johnson, hasn't had chicken pox yet, though it doesn't appear that he has contracted them. I had them when I was 10, but as it is I thought that they had a vaccine out for chicken pox now -- am I wrong?

Saturday
August 19, 2000
9:53 AM EDT

I swear, I blink and time flies by. It sure doesn't feel like four days since I last updated on here, but boom there it is.

The trip to Indianapolis/West Lafayette is off for this upcoming weekend as of now. Kara tells me that her apartment got messed up over the summer due to water leaks and shoddy Purdue apartment craftmanship, so they've gotta get that fixed up. Plus, she just had her wisdom teeth out, and I remember from five years ago when I had my wisdom teeth out how it took awhile to recover from that. I'd like to get back to Nashville sometime, but the opportunity to go up to Cleveland with Doc to visit Tali and go party in the Flats has come up. It's too bad my friend Glenn doesn't live there anymore, as he and I always talked about going out there back when he lived there. But it'll be nice to finally check the place out, assuming that I go up there instead of to Indiana.

There are lots of places I'd like to travel -- Cleveland, Indiana, back home to Nashville, down to Charlotte, etc. But funds are limited, not to mention time. I have a bunch of Fridays in a row off, but unfortunately with my bizarro sleep schedule it makes it difficult to plan anything out, and when I do I turn into a zombie part of the time.

Speaking of sleep, I'm going to go help Matt and Penny Sheppard load up their moving van here in about 15 minutes. I'll do that until 11 AM, then I'm coming back here to hit the sack. Sleep till 7, then get up and party. That's the life I live. Also this weekend I have a ton of paperwork to fill out as part of the Emmis purchase of WSAZ.

The fact that I turn 23 on Thursday is interesting to me. It moves me closer to being in my mid-twenties, and makes me feel older, though really it's just a number. The past year has been by far the fastest year of my life. I'm still not really sure if it's doing what I enjoy for a living or being out of school or getting older making time pass faster or sleeping during the day or a combination therein.

I've been reading Steve Alford's book "Playing for Knight". It's much more simply written than the Feinstein book was, and definately attempts to cast Knight in a better role, but it's interesting in its own way.

Friday at work was hell. The migraines that have been plauging me hit again, a really bad one in the early morning hours of Friday. Matt Sheppard suggested that I take three Advil Cold & Sinus, which I purchased over at BP, but they just served to make me very sick. But unfortunately with Phil on vacation and Brenda on vacation and Natalie out and Angie, Christi and Christine all having worked the day before and having to work the next day, my options were super-limited. Actually I called Natalie but didn't get an answer, and I'm glad cause I didn't realize that she was off (she filled in for Phil on Mon-Thur, but Maribeth, our Managing Editor, came in to fill in for Phil on Friday, confused yet?). The point is that I had to work through it and survive to produce a two hour newscast, which really sucked. But I made it. Well I'm off to go help Matt and Penny move now...

Tuesday
August 15, 2000
9:13 AM EDT

Have you ever had a migraine headache? They can be totally overwhelming, an overpowering force of pain which completely shuts you down. A few years ago I had a few that I misunderstood as being earaches. They've hit me pretty hard in the past week, and they've been bad. I was talking with Matt Sheppard at work last night and we discussed headaches, and he told me that there's some prescription medicine called Maxalt that'll take care of it right away.. but it costs $88 for six doses of it. Yikes. But I woke up in the middle of my sleep last night with one, and it's to the point now where enough is enough and I'm planning on going to a doctor about it. Matt tells me that he usually only gets them a few times a year, right around this time. So we'll see.

Before my migraine hell of Monday afternoon, I took Tali to breakfast at Bob Evans. We discussed how different things would be for her in Cleveland, and I tried my best to keep her spirits up. She was pretty down about leaving, with the whole reality of it finally starting to hit her. And then we said our goodbyes and that was it. I had to go through this many times in Evansville, with friends leaving and moving on, before I ultimately said my goodbyes and left for Huntington. Working in the TV business, this sort of this is something that I'll have to deal with from here on in, but it doesn't make it any easier. I just finished "A Season on the Brink" by John Feinstein... and now I'm about to begin "Playing for Knight" by Steve Alford. I have "Bob Knight -- His Own Man" by Joan Mellen waiting after that. Rob Johnson generously allowed me to borrow all three. The Alford book should be most interesting.

I had been told at work several weeks ago to come in this morning at 9 AM for a meeting with our consultant, Bill Cakmus. While organization is a weakness of mine, when it comes to my job I go out of my way to be organized, particularly when it comes to scheduling. The television business is one that does not tolerate a lack of punctuality in any phases of it. But I got in only to find out that the meeting was strictly for the on-air talent, not me, but that I can come in tomorrow for a meeting concerning camera shots. It's a good thing that I only live five blocks from the station...

Over the weekend I finished up my roll of film, as was mentioned in the previous commentary. It was supposed to be back by 2:30 PM Monday, but I didn't get over to Kroger until 10:20 PM or so (thanks to me sleeping very late as a result of losing two hours of sleep to my migraine). But guess what.. no pictures. I went back in this morning and again it wasn't there, not that I expected it to be, but still I wanted some answers, which of course the oblivious staff failed to provide. My guess is that the fact that I ordered the pictures to be put digitally on a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk (for a tidy $5 or so extra) is what caused the delay, but if that's their SOP (standard operating procedure) then they need to post it. So I'm less than thrilled about that, but hopefully it'll be there when I wake up tonight.

The Tennessee Titans beat the St. Louis Rams last night, but pre-season games are for the most part meaningless. Despite how I still feel my strongest allegiance for the Colts, everyone around here keeps thinking that my "favorite team" are the Titans. It's almost like something out of Seinfeld, but I do like the Titans so for the most part I just let it ride. At least Trent Green didn't get hurt last night (he's on my fantasy football team, and his injury after a cheap shot by Rodney Harrison of the Chargers in the pre-season last year is what thrust Kurt Warner into the starting role, which ultimately lead to the Rams going to the Super Bowl).

Only three days left in this work week, only three in the next, and then just four per week in the rest of September. It'll be nice. I love my job, but having vacation time every now and then can be nice. I haven't had any vacation time since my three days off to go to Mardi Gras in early March.

Sunday
August 13, 2000
8:29 PM EDT

Well this was a fun weekend. Sleep was hard to come by at times, particularly on Saturday, when I got up at 12:30 to help Tali move and didn't get back to sleep till after 5 PM. But it was worth it to be able to help her get all her stuff in storage. I know that moving can be a monumental pain.

Last night was another Sharkey's/Yesterday's evening. It was a fun time, though a bit sad knowing that it was the last evening here for Tali. The dance floor at Yesterday's was bumping last night, and I had an enjoyable time out there. Earlier, over at Sharkey's, Kevin was doing some bartending and evidentally misunderstood me when I asked for a Bass draft, and instead brought me a Guinness draft. I gave him four ones and told him to keep the change, and he said "It costs four bucks." That struck me as strange, considering that Bass is $3.50, but then soon enough I realized it was Guinness. Tali was nice enough to take the Guinness and then put a Bass on her tab. I like Guinness too, but the thing is that a glass of Guinness will fill you up like nothing else. It's like bread in a glass. Tali also got me a card, which really meant alot. She's a good friend and will be missed.

Tonight I ordered a pizza from Little Ceasar's. They're convienantly close and I enjoy their pizzas, but unfortunately they have a frequent problem of getting my order screwed up. Now when it's a complicated order like one pizza with half sausage and half ham and they put bacon on instead, like what happened one time when Shelly and I ordered a pizza from there, I can sort of understand. But my goodness, I ordered one large pizza with extra cheese, and somehow that became one large pizza with pepperoni. But the woman there said she'd give me the pepperoni pizza if I could wait for the extra cheese pizza to bake. Is it really that difficult to fill an order? But at least it ended with me getting two large pizzas for the price of one. Though normally I don't order pizza with meat because it's so much better for you with just cheeze, but hey at least the pepperoni one was free.

So now another week of work awaits. This will be my last five day work week until at least the end of next month... and if I end up taking off September 29th, which I have been deliberating, then it'll be until mid October until my next five day week. A September with all Fridays off will be great, kinda like the Harlaxton experience of two years ago.

I took a roll of film in to Kroger's this morning, and so I should have my pictures back by tomorrow night. The first couple of pictures are from the very end of Mardi Gras, to give you some idea of how few photos I've taken lately. But this weekend I took a bunch of pics, and hopefully they will turn out well. I also splurged and decided to get a disk with the pictures on them so I can upload them to my website. Until I get my new computer, and without access to a scanner, that's about the only option I have, so I figured it was worth the four or five bucks to get them on disk.

There may be a bit of a delay in getting my new computer, as I got my car insurance bill in the mail, which will wipe out almost my entire paycheck that I got on Friday. Easy come, easy go. And the next check will go primarily toward expenses like rent, phone etc. So we'll see what I can figure out. I have some big plans involving the Internet that I am anxious to get started on, but I suppose for now I'll have to be patient...

Saturday
August 12, 2000
9:15 AM EDT

I will have to get some sleep here soon. Doc and I are going to help Tali move some of her furniture over to a storage place, and she's wanting to do the moving around 1 PM. So it'll be wake up, move some, then back to sleep. Then tonight will be the big last night in town for Tali, which should be a fun time. Last night was cool, drinking and taking pictures over at Sharkey's and Yesterday's. Tara wanted me to give her the shirt off my back literally (the red and black tiger stripe shirt). If you want to get a stylish shirt for hitting the clubs/bars, go shop at Pac Blue.

I'm almost finished with John Feinstein's "A Season On The Brink" book. It's a fascinating read, though if you don't like basketball I'm not sure how much it would interest you.

It's going to be weird with Tali gone. She was one of the first people I met when I moved here. My dad and I were unloading the U-Haul when I moved here in December 1999, and we had finished for the night. We got a knock on the door.. and there was Tali. She introduced herself, and we did as well. So we're talking, and then dad keeps on speaking as if he's my spokesperson or something. "Well Lou is excited about moving here, it's a great opportunity for him" etc. with me standing right there. That was so embarassing. Last night Tali and I reminisced about that and the fun times we've had here in Huntington. So tonight we get one more night to party, and then she starts grad school at Case Western in Cleveland.

Speaking of the word reminisce, there's a funny store behind that word that I don't think I've ever told anyone. When I was in fourth grade in Mrs. Willey's class at Overbrook grade school in Nashville, we had an assignment of some sort where we were given a list of words and then told to use each of them in a sentence. Most of them I knew, but then I got to "reminisce" and I had no clue. What can I say, I was 9. So anyway, I figured that I might as well give it a guess, and I thought that it might mean to fix something up (perhaps I confused reminisce with renovate). So my sentence was "We reminisced the old house." This particular assignment was hung up on the bulletin board, so when it went up I checked it out, and was shocked to find that I had gotten it right. Mrs. Willey added the word about in red pen to make the sentence read "We reminisced about the old house." I thought I was so clever for pulling that off.. and I still remember it 14 years later.

Friday
August 11, 2000
8:13 PM EDT

Well the work week is finally over. Make no mistake, it was a challenging five days to be sure, but this morning my news director, Ken Selvaggi, told me that he was very pleased with how this week went, including the strong effort by new morning meteorologist Scott Sabol. That kind of positive feedback is great to get.

After work I was busy. Went to the grocery store, got a great haircut at Frank's (barber shop real close to Marshall's campus), then headed to the mall. Now for me, shopping for clothes is something I do with some infrequency. Between my schedule making it difficult to find time and my wish to conserve money, it just doesn't happen much. But I went out to the Huntington Mall, which inexplicably is in Barboursville, to do some shopping.

I went to Structure and loaded up. The woman working there told me they had just switched from being a clearance store to being a "regular" store... but luckily they still had some clearance stuff on sale. So I was buying $50 shirts for $7, and landed some cool stuff. Also got a more expensive but a very nice pair of blue jeans. From there, I went to Pac Blue and blew $80 on two shirts. Ahh, but these two shirts are very nice. Tony Cavalier would call them "Strooooong". One is white with these black dragons on it (and a silky smooth feel), the other is red and black in an almost Cincinnati Bengal pattern... very stylish and nice. My original intent was to just buy one shirt, but I liked them both so I splurged. So now I have outfits for tonight and tomorrow night, yeeeeeah! Plus at Lazarus I bought a nice pair of jean shorts for $15 (they were half off, enter your own joke here). By the time I got in and hung everything up and got to sleep it was almost 1 PM, but that's life.

Well it's time to get a shower and get all ready for tonight. This is my friend Tali's last weekend in town, so we're all going to be doing some major partying tonight. I found my camera, so I'll hopefully be getting lots of pictures. Later.

Thursday
August 10, 2000
8:24 AM EDT

Wow, work was sure hectic today. With this area getting pounded by severe weather, we had lots of news to cover on that, plus breaking news with an accident shutting down I-64 East. Now it's back in at 9 for another Emmis meeting.

I forgot to mention how WOWK decided to cut in last night during Survivor for a weather update. Thanks alot guys. They had been building up the competition for the all-important immunity idol, and right when it was down to Colleen and Kelly at the end... in breaks Channel 13. But of course they got out just in time for commercials, how courteous. That pissed me off something fierce.

AOL decided to do an update of the way its layout looks (great, make things even slower and more cumbersome, why don't ya). I couldn't get to my FTP last night to be able to update the website, so I didn't get yesterday's updates on until this morning when I finally figured it out (Keyword: My FTP Space ended up doing the trick). I'll need to find out the specifics on how to FTP into AOL for when I start my @Home account.

I'm in some serious tennis withdrawl right now. Deb, why did you have to move? Hopefully I can get Christine and Jere from work to play sometime. Though with the kind of weather we've had lately, it's been pretty much immaterial...

Wednesday
August 9, 2000
10:05 PM EDT

Ever get one of those pounding headaches that seems to totally incapacitate you? That's what I have right now, for the second time in three days. I went out on Monday to buy some Extra Strength Tylenol, and it worked then, but one hour after taking some tonight and it doesn't seem to be helping yet. Pain.

Survivor tonight featured a nice swerve, and it continues to be one of the most cleverly produced shows on TV. The switch from Sean to Colleen at the end was interesting, but overall not a bad choice. Now it should be smooth sailing next week for the Tagi trio (Richard, Sue and Rudy). Interesting how no one voted for Richard this week, despite all the talk of people wanting to shoot him down. It's looking like it will build to a final three of Richard, Sue and Rudy, and that will get very intriguing. Sean continues to be a total idiot, which I've been saying for awhile now, but him inexplicably picking Rich instead of Kelly for the breakfast was ludicrous. No wonder he couldn't score with Jenna the time those two had the dinner and like 2-3 bottles of wine a few weeks back when the Pagong and Tagi tribes merged.

Real World last night was mildly interesting. Sometimes I think that Matt may be the only sane one in the house there. I was talking with my friend Chris Combs the other night about it, and he was making fun of how the show, and MTV in general, sometimes decides that "This is the time when we'll teach you a lesson about something." Thank goodness they avoided that last night. Lyricists Lounge Show was pretty good, though I'm sick of the played-out Money Casciolini skits. Wordsworth is a madman on the mic. Meanwhile, tonight's Big Brother continued to be at best mildly interesting, though George's phone call to his wife was pretty cool...

Wednesday
August 9, 2000
7:05 PM EDT

Finances can be complicated at times. Things were going great for mine until I received my car insurance bill in the mail yesterday... making me have to rethink my computer purchase. Ugh. Part of me thinks I should just break down and buy the computer and make things work somehow, but then I leave myself vulnerable in case I need some quick cash. Also, I need to buy a plane ticket now for October when I fly down to visit Matt (my brother) at Mississippi State in October to go to the MSU/Florida game.

Survivor comes on in less than an hour, and my prediction is that Sean will get kicked off tonight. AOL seemed to hint in that direction, as when I got on there an hour ago they had a bunch of Survivor related stuff, including a picture of Sean (aka idiot boy) and a hyperlink to an article on "Gervase and Sean -- Life After Survivor". Hmm. Then again, CBS has been pretty strong about misinformation and swerves (at least when it comes to the ultimate winner) so who knows. But I think it will be either Sean or Colleen tonight getting dropped (unless there's a swerve on the tiebreaker format, which I discussed at length in an earlier commentary column), with Sean seeming more likely to me (I could see Kelly voting Sean off much easier than Colleen, so the clique might push in that direction). On this morning's Bob and Tom syndicated radio show, there was speculation that Rich needs to win the immunity necklace to last another week, but I tend to disagree with that line of thought thanks to the Tagi alliance. But we'll see.

Severe weather has been hitting my region pretty hard in the last couple of days. It's like I'm back in Evansville all over again. Poor David Aldrich was filling in for Scott Sabol this morning, only to find that the brand new weather Triton computer wasn't updating the maps. David was strong enough to make it work, but it was challenging, particularly on a day like this. And this morning David warned me that there would be severe weather in the area today... and he was right.

The Emmis meeting scheduled for this morning was moved to tomorrow, but I left for the station right before I got a call telling me of the change, so I found out when I walked in the newsroom. Luckily I only live 5 blocks from work, unlike back in Evansville when the station was actually in Henderson and it would take anywhere from 15-25 minutes to get there. This is also good considering the outrageously high gas prices (thanks for the new regulations, EPA!!!!!).

Tuesday
August 8, 2000
6:25 PM EDT

It's getting to the point where I need to get a new computer to simply get on the Internet. The reason? Because my bro Matt is in Nashville for the summer at home working, and my little sister Mary Beth uses AOL alot more now, there's much more competition to simply get on-line. You see, AOL only allows one account user at a time to get on, which can make things tough. There are some free Internet services out there, but all that I've encountered require at least a computer running Win95. My archaic machine still runs Win 3.1, so no dice for me there. But all will be well when I finally do buy my new computer and get cable modem access. Everything from super-fast access to MP3's to not tying up the phone line. It's funny, cause the @Home service has some sort of a working arrangement with Adelphia Cable (my cable company, which ironically owns the stadium rights name to the Titans' stadium, Adelphia Coliseum, in Nashville, despite not having a cable presence in that town). Because of that arrangement, @Home has Cable channel 21 to run as a 24/7 infomercial. It's good to know that I can get my propoganda 24/7, and hey who needs things like the Game Show Network or another Fox Sports Net or a thousand other things that I could be watching on that channel? But regardless, the @Home service looks pretty cool, and after running on my outdated machine for so long, I will definately appreciate how good it will be.

Emmis Communications, the soon-to-be new owners of WSAZ (the station where I currently work), had two representatives come in and discuss a myriad of things about the new parent company. They sound like they do a good job of taking care of their employees. I think I'd feel better if I had been here for at least one year, as that would let me know for sure that I could get a crack at some nice things like stock options. But as it is, my one year anniversary with the company hits on December 27, and with Emmis' fiscal year starting on March 1, 2001, it should work out ok. On the surface it appears that 401K will take a major hit from what Lee (our old owners) offered, but that things like holidays will improve. 401K and investing is important to me, but the reality of the situation was that I was probably not going to be staying here for 4-5 years or however long it would have taken to earn the full 401K perks (though you never know, cause WSAZ is a great place to work and I do like Huntington). Emmis owns WVUE (better known as "Fox 8") in New Orleans, which on the surface is immaterial since I have a New Orleans out in my contract, *but* if I were to go to WVUE then I could keep the senority that I've accured. That's the station that my friend Nischelle Turner just went to as a reporter (Nischelle is a talented reporter who I worked with at ABC 25 in Evansville). Tomorrow I have another sleep deprivation day, as we have another 9 AM meeting to discuss the finer points of the 401K plan and the health benefits package.

While flipping channels after waking up tonight, I caught a hilarious video by Redman (of the Wu Tang Clan) called "I'll Bee Dat" on MTV. They had a bunch of fake commercials and parodies (everything from "Redman cereal" to a parody of the Blues Brothers). What I saw cracked me up.

I'll probably swing by Sharkey's tonight before work. They normally go over there for Karaoke night, which is fun, but always seems to not get started until right when I have to leave. It was funny, one time I was there on a weeknight and this guy who I guess just came into a large sum of money decided to order everyone at the bar a round of drinks. I had to stay sober for work, but he wouldn't hear of it, saying "You can't say no to a good ole boy." Actually taken out of context that sounds kind of disturbing, but he was just being generous, so I finally accepted the beer and then slid it over to my friend Doc when the good ole boy turned his back. Sharkey's is a fun place, though it tends to draw an older crowd for the most part. Hell, I get enough of that crowd at work. But no complaining from me, Marshall starts back in a few weeks and the funtime will begin.

Well now I'll get on AOL and see if I can actually get on to upload this. Oh, by the way it turns out that I'll get to visit Emmis' headquarters in two weeks en route to West Lafayette, as their HQ is located in Indianapolis. It'll be my opportunity to see more of how they operate, which should be good...

Monday
August 7, 2000
9:31 AM EDT

The week starts so quickly sometimes. The weekend slides into Monday morning, and before you know it, it's back to the grind again. But the fortunate thing about my job is that I actually enjoy it, so "the grind" isn't all that bad.

I forgot to mention that on Saturday night Misty, one of the waitresses over at Sharkey's, showed me her tongue ring, as she just got her tongue pierced on Thursday. Damn. She's incredibly sexy to begin with, and then she does that and it just makes it all even better.

Meanwhile, the countdown is on for some friends of mine in town. Tali moves to Cleveland one week for today, and she's experiencing the time compression effect of what can happen when you and everyone knows that your time somewhere is about to run out. Doc will be in Charlotte before the month is up. But that's life, eh.

I talked with Brent Frazier last night, and he's definately excited about the WSMV gig, as he well should be. It'll be interesting to see him tossing from a live shot to Dan and Demetria, who I grew up watching in Nashville. It's funny how the TV business works out like that.

I'm still totally hooked on Hot Shots Golf 2. What a fun game. I almost hit a hole in one today, and I was going crazy thinking it was good for a second there. If you own a Playstation, you've gotta check that game out.

Right now I'm listening to the "Siamese Dream" CD by the Smashing Pumpkins. It's an excellent CD, and worth checking out for sure. Reminds me of my high school days, and I guess some of college (I saw the Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage up in Illinois back in the early fall of 1996, which in many ways seems like an eternity ago).

My bro Matt is about to start back at school at Mississippi State. He's got the hell week of his rush at Sig Ep, but then the payoff should be pretty sweet for him this fall. I hope he lives it up. I'm going down to visit him in October, which should be a hella good time (as Cartman would say). I need to go ahead and purchase the plane tickets, though. It's relatively inexpensive to fly there out of Huntington.

Word came out right after the morning newscast this morning that Al Gore has chosen Senator Joseph Lieberman to be his VP running mate. I have had a disdain for Lieberman for years due to his smug, holier than thou, government-knows-best attitude, particularly with his stance about video games and his views that, in my estimation, amount to censorship. He's a tax-and-spend type, and about the only thing I would be on the same page with him about would be when it comes to national defense. As a libertarian myself, he comes across more as a socialist than anything, but at best he's a liberal with a few twinges of so-called conservatism (though they tend to fall on the side away from anything remotely close to freedom of the individual). It was an interesting choice for Gore, as Lieberman was very critical of Clinton during the whole Lewinsky sex scandal. Gore is actually in a tricky position when it comes to Clinton. Because Clinton has been the benefactor of a strong national economy, he is viewed by many as being "a good president" even though his fiscally irresponsible ways did little, in my opinion, to foster it. But because of the sex scandals and all the controversies surrounding him, Gore would want to distance himself from the Clinton sleaze factor. Not an easy place to be, I guess. Hopefully Bush will trounce him in November, but we'll see.

But what bothers me so much is how the late night so-called comedians portray Gore as being stiff and boring. It's like what they did with Quayle, lying and mischaracterizing in the name of "humor" until much of America believed the lies as being reality. Gore is actually a rather spirited talker and an interesting person, and so say "Well he's boring" in my mind is the total wrong way to think. Vote for Bush over Gore because you want to protect your individual freedoms and personal liberties and do your thinking for yourself instead of a big brother government making every decision and choice for you. That's the way I see it, at least.

Sunday
August 6, 2000
8:31 AM EDT

Ever get in one of those moods where you feel like writing but can't come up with anything to say? That's the state of mind I'm in right now. I suppose that watching The Sixth Sense will do that to you.

I've spent a great deal of time this weekend playing Hot Shots Golf 2 for the Playstation. It's a very fun game, addictive and entertaining, and at times just as frustrating as real-life golf can be. There's nothing like chipping one in from the fringe for a birdie! Actually, I played some real-life golf in high school, but I haven't played in years. I'd love to pick the game up again (and maybe give some competition to Keith Morehouse and Tony Cavalier at WSAZ), but with the whole sleep all day thing, it's not much of an option for me.

I'm in tennis withdrawl right now with Deb Cramer having moved away. I need to get some practice in before I go up to West Lafayette. Kara beat me when we played three years ago, so I want to be up for the challenge of a return match :)

My old friend G.W. Graham dropped me a line yesterday, which was really cool as I had lost touch with him. He's living in Orlando right now, and he sent me a hilarious story about pro wrestler Scott Hall hitting on his girlfriend:

Back in early 1999 I was dating a girl named Libby. She was a real party girl, so we went out to the bars and clubs constantly. One time, wouldn't you know it, there was good ol' Scott Hall again. What happened was, I was hanging out with my friend Matt, and we were shooting the shit in the club. Matt leans over and asks me who that guy was that was hitting on Libby. I look across the dancefloor and over next to the bar, was a drunken Scott Hall trying to hit on my ex-girlfriend!!! He was generally being a drunken fool, trying to put his arm around her and she was just totally ignoring him. Now here is the sick part! Instead of being mad that a guy was trying to put the moves on my lady, I actually got a big kick out of it and I totally marked out when "The Bad Guy" was laying in the moves. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. Finally when Libby broke herself away I asked her if she knew who that was and she had no clue. She had no idea she was being hit on by a wrestler. She said she was about to slap him (I told her she should have stomped his foot, since this was right after the time Scott Hall got his foot run over by a car. remember that???) Anyways I thought that was quite a night. We broke up about a month later, but I will always have the memory of being with a girl that shot Scott Hall down. hahaha.

Is that not hilarious? I wonder if Hall used some of his Razor Ramon lines on her. "If something happens to this gold, maaaan, something's gonna happen to you." Classic stuff from G.W. there.

Saturday
August 5, 2000
10:11 AM EDT

"I'm in it to win it like Yzerman
I can drink about 15 Heinekens"

-Kid Rock "Wasting Time"

The past couple of days have been fun. We had a couple of guys from ECW on our morning newscast Friday at WSAZ to promote their TV Tapings in Huntington, which was fun. I can't say that I ever expected to see Jack Victory with a full nelson on David Aldrich, but that's the fun of morning newscasts. I also went to the ECW tapings last night, which was a great time. I wrote a long review of it, which if that interests you can be found here.

After the ECW show I ended up over at Sharkey's last night. You never know what will happen there. Tara is a better pool player than I realized. I haven't played pool in a year and a half, but back in the day I used to love playing pool (and later snooker, a British billiards type game that I actually like better than pool). There's a great cover band in town called The Ignytors who were playing last night. But even better was the acoustic show that their lead singer Scott and someone else on saxophone put on the night before. If you're in Huntington and wanting to enjoy a good drink or two and some excellent live music, Sharkey's is recommended.

They played the song "Wasting Time" by Kid Rock last night, which was the first time I've heard that song out somewhere. It's from his "Devil Without a Cause" CD. Now that Kid Rock is all mainstream it's not the same, and I dunno about that "American Badass" stuff, but last summer "Devil Without a Cause" was the drinking anthem for Gigolo Joe and Aaron Thompson and I (along with the second CD of 2Pac's Greatest Hits). Anyway, it was cool to hear it over at Sharkey's.

I have two "normal" weeks at work coming up, then some serious vacation time. If things work out as planned, I might not work another full week from then until mid-October. But considering I haven't had a vacation day since March, it's something I'm definately looking forward to.

Just found out that my friend Brent Frazier at ABC 25 in Evansville got a job as a reporter at WSMV in Nashville. I'm happy for Brent -- he's a real talent and WSMV is lucky to be bringing him in. It's cool because that's the station I grew up watching for the most part, and a place I someday would like to work. But I'm glad Brent got that spot not for selfish reasons, but because he's a great guy and a hard worker and a true talent.

Thursday
August 3, 2000
9:13 AM EDT

"All my friends and lovers shine like the sun
I just turn and walk away
One way or another I'm not coming undone
I'm just waiting for the day"

-Counting Crows "All My Friends"

Man oh man, time flies by quickly. I blink and three days slip by. But that's the nature of my life these days.

I mention the song lyrics above because, well one it's a great song, and two because Kara tells me that they're playing "All My Friends" on the radio out in San Diego. In some ways I'm sad because that song is one of my favorites, and there's something special about having a song you love that isn't widely known. It'd be like if they started playing "Anna Begins" by the Counting Crows or "Hannah Jane" by Hootie and the Blowfish on the radio. Though in some ways it is nice to know that many other people will get to enjoy it, too, that way. But Kara mentioned to me in an e-mail yesterday that she'd heard it and she really seems to like it, too.

Deborah Cramer's last day at WSAZ was yesterday (August 2nd). We closed out a strong July 2000 sweeps period (the quarterly TV ratings time where they determine viewership) with a great newscast on Tuesday. It was Deb's goodbye, and we sent her out in style. I had some of the photogs shoot some goodbye vignettes with various staff personalities, both behind the scenes and on the air people. I even made a brief appearance, and Deb talked about how she and I had played tennis, which was fun. But sadly now she's gone, though we have the quite capable Scott Sabol in now to handle the weather duties in the morning. He's been working weekends for the past 2 1/2 years, so I'm happy that he's moved up to a Mon-Fri shift. Scott reminds me alot of Wayne Hart, which is a compliment as Wayne (current chief meterologoist at ABC 25 [WEHT] in Evansville, Indiana) is an amazing weather anchor. Luckily we won't have another sweeps period until November, which should give the audience enough time to get used to the new trio of Rob Johnson, Melanie Shafer and Scott Sabol. I give major credit to Ken Selvaggi, WSAZ news director, for giving me the freedom to create a strong newscast and for surrounding me with the high-quality talent needed to put together a demanding two hours of news every morning.

My bills are paid, and now I'm zeroing in on buying a new computer. The contemplation now rests between Dell or Gateway. I'm high on Dell and my parents and my bro Matt both purchased computers through Dell, but my friend Ben Lynch is a licensed Gateway distributor and is naturally urging me to go with Gateway. So I'm considering which direction to go in. Right now it's looking like it will be Dell, but I'll give Ben a chance to make a counter-pitch. Either way, I'll have a kick-ass computer and a cable modem connection, which will make my current setup in comparison look totally laughable.

MTV is so strange sometimes. In Tuesday night's episode of The Real World, they would choose to censor a word and then later not censor it, and then after that censor it again. It's not like on WWF Raw where the censor just misses the bleep button, this was done intentionally. This is much like the very sold "Scared Straight '99" episode where they allowed an HBO level of cussing and nudity (on the calendar in one of the felon's cells) and then at the end played a 2Pac song with the cuss words edited. Real World loves their contrived anger, so naturally Matt got left out of almost the entire episode. The Lyricists Lounge Show the past two weeks has been alright, but not as good in my opinion as the first few of the season were. Last week the Fuoliani for President skits were hilarious, and this week the Jailhouse Chef skit was funny as well. Not that the recent episodes were bad, but just a bit below the level of earlier shows.

My prediction of Rich staying at least another week came true.. but I'll admit it, I read on SurvivorSucks.com how video had surfaced on one of those magazine shows of Richard wearing the immunity necklace, so I knew he'd last at least long enough to wear that, which he did this week (and thus protecting himself from elimination). The big shock, though, was Gervase getting voted off.

You see, some smart Internet people, via the source code, found a picture with an "X" over it for every cast member on the CBS.com webpage.. every cast member, that is, except Gervase. Another piece of video that was a supposed "Final Four" picture also included Gervase. That was all blown out though last night with Gervase's elimination. Personally, I didn't think that CBS would really trust their web crew with the info of who won, especially with them making the blunder of posting an episode synopsis six hours early a few weeks back. But whether or not it was an intentional swerve.. it fooled me. NewsBlues.com even admitted feeling silly for falling for it, which is where I originally accidentally found out about it. They didn't spoil it per se, but I ran my mouse button over the hyperlink to whom they said would be the eventual winner, and it was to "Gervase.html". So that kind of gave it away to me.. or so I thought.

Anyway, Gervase is gone, and now things get interesting. I said I thought Rich would win initially, because of his shrewd ways, but that was without knowing exactly how the endgame worked. With Jenna, Sean and Gervase all sure to hate Rich, short of it being Rich and Sue at the end I'm not sure if he would win the vote, and even that way something tells me that the anti-Rich sentiment would win out. But regardless, here's what you have now: a strong block with the Tagi alliance (Rich, Sue and Rudy), the last two Pagong people (Colleen and that idiot Sean), and then the emotionally-torn Kelly. That's six people, so even if either Colleen or idiot-boy get the immunity necklace, the alliance can go after the other person. There hasn't been a tie yet (unless there's been one and it was edited out), so I'm not sure what happens if there's a 3-3 split. But barring some stupid tiebreaker rule, I forsee Colleen or Sean being voted off next. When it gets to 5 is where it could get tricky. If Colleen/Sean gets the immunity necklace when it's down to 5 people, then who will the Tagi clique go after? My guess would be Rudy, which sucks as Rudy has been a loyal voter (unlike that no-good indecisive Kelly), but Sue will probably use her pull and connection with Kelly to get the clique to turn on Rudy. But that's only if the Colleen/Sean survivor to the round of 5 wins the immunity necklace, otherwise it's likely immaterial.

In a way this is like a classic story -- you have your villian (Rich) with Tagi almost becoming the "Bad Guys" (if you believe the raving idiots that were comprising the "Survivor Round Table" this morning on CBS' Early Show). You have Colleen and Sean, who are the "Good Guys" from Pagong still clinging to their "beliefs" of everyone for themselves, which has proven to be absolute idiocy. Then you have Kelly, torn between "The Dark Side" as she put it, and the two remaining people from Pagong. But to me it's a polar opposite. I've been against Pagong ever since they came out with the whole holier than thou idea that an alliance was somehow morally reprehensable. Because when you're fighting for a million dollars, it's a war, and you do whatever is necessary to survive. And to have such a lack of intelligence as to not see the reality of the situation is, to me, mind-boggling. But now most of them are where they belong -- voted out.

As for Big Brother, the less compelling "other" CBS reality show, Jordan the stripper got the ax last night. Which is too bad, I was hoping for her promised naked trampoline show. But now maybe Josh and Brittany will hook up, though likely not in the way that Josh wants (with Brittany claiming to be a virgin and all). Then again, who knows.

Did any of you all catch the flasher in the crowd on NBC's Today Show yesterday? If not, get the scoop on that over at News Blues. There's a morning radio show in New York called the Opie & Anthony show. I've never heard them, but they're in a similar line as Howard Stern (who's own morning product has fallen big-time from most reports ever since his divorce). Anyway, the woman who flashed ended up getting a $1,000 payout from Opie & Anthony. You'll notice the sticker under her tits that was from O&A's show, which I guess was part of the stipulation for the payout, I'm not sure. The reaction by Matt Lauer and Katie Couric was hilarious, with Katie clearly saying "Did you see that?" and then showing her shock on live TV before regaining her composure. Of course as a producer I'd be pissed as hell if that happened on one of my broadcasts, but as a viewer it was hilarious. I have the thing on tape actually, and it's one of those classic morning moments (like in 1999 when Charlie Gibson fell asleep on Good Morning America).

Sleep calls me now...

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