That's Carl Reiner and he's my pick for the second-best practitioner I've ever seen in the art of the audience warm-up. That's when they're taping or filming a TV show and someone comes out beforehand and tries to get the crowd into the proper mood to laugh and applaud. Who was the best? And while we're at it, who was the worst? Well, to find all that out, you really need to check out a column I just posted here. Click to read all about Audience Warm-Ups.
Amazon.com is now taking orders for the Segway Scooter, a single-user personal vehicle that can carry you around your neighborhood. I don't expect any of you to shell out the five grand for one — though if you do, go through our links to get to Amazon. But I did want to mention one nugget of trivia. The Segway was invented by a gent named Dean Kamen. Dean's father Jack is now retired from his career as a comic book artist, spent — most notably — drawing for EC Comics. Surely in one of the EC science-fiction books, there's a picture of someone riding around on a single-user personal vehicle…