Monthly Archives: December 2005

For no visible reason, I found myself enjoying the debut episode of Deal or No Deal, a prime-time game show hosted earlier this evening by Howie Mandel. The premise is pretty simple: There are 26 briefcases held by 26 models, each case containing a secret dollar amount ranging from one cent to one million dollars. A contestant is selected from the audience and picks one briefcase. He or she now "owns" that amount but doesn't yet know what it is. The contestant then calls out numbers to open the briefcases that were not chosen, one by one. Each time a low amount is revealed, hopes are raised that the secret amount is high. Each time a high amount is revealed…well, that lowers the odds that the contestant has a high amount in his or her briefcase.

Every so often, a mysterious "banker" phones Mr. Mandel and offers to buy the as-yet-unrevealed amount of cash from the contestant and the contestant must decide "deal or no deal" (hence, the name). The offers are calculated to make the choice harder and harder, and to make the contestant sweat and squirm. The lady tonight had several members of her family on stage with her to offer advice and they were sweating and squirming a lot, too. She turned down many higher offers — one for $138,000 — because though she knew by then she didn't have the million dollar prize in her case, there was still a chance the $500,000 one was in it. However, by the time it got down to the last decision, she knew she either had $500 or $50,000 and when the "banker" offered $25,000, she grabbed it…a good move since it turned out she had the smaller amount.

In broad strokes, this sounds a lot like Let's Make a Deal or maybe the Geoff Edwards version of Treasure Hunt. On the one hand, those shows had more opportunity for variations, whereas Deal or No Deal sounds like it'll be exactly the same game, over and over. On the other hand, Deal or No Deal doesn't delight in humiliating the contestants the way those other contestants did, and Mandel didn't have the genial smarminess of Edwards or Monty Hall.

Matter of fact, I thought Howie did a good job, though I was amused by the opening which had him in a bank vault, talking as if he was surrounded by millions in genuine currency. At the end of the program, if you froze your TiVo, you could read the following statement in a very tiny font…

The host's statement at the top of the program regarding the "high security vault" and any statements regarding "cash" being inside the briefcases were scripted for dramatic purposes. There was no cash on the program set. The producers determine and communicate all bank offers.

Four more episodes run tonight, tomorrow night and so on through the week. I'm TiVoing them to see how long it takes me to get bored with it. I'm guessing half past Wednesday.

One more of these. This was taken outside with me standing about six feet from Mr. Raccoon…and yes, I was careful. Several of you have sent me links to sites that explain that these critters can carry rabies or other nastiness. Thanks for your concern but I don't get that close to them. I just think it's amazing that at least one of them doesn't run when I step outside. He hangs around with an attitude of, "Take your damn pictures if you have to. Just so long as you fill the food dish and clear out."

Fred Kaplan reviews Bush's recent speeches.

I've been reading more articles on the domestic spying matter, doing my best to avoid the pieces that defend Bush just because it's Bush, or damn Bush for the same reason. There's a lot of writing out there by folks who were so eager to begin spinning for their side that they didn't bother to learn the facts of the matter first. This piece by David Sirota seems to me to have a rational handle on the matter. And yes, I know he's a partisan writing on a (mostly) partisan weblog. But I think he raises the questions that need to be answered before we'll know what this is all about.

As I mentioned here, I've been throwing pocket change into jars for 20+ years and have recently been hauling it in to dump into Coinstar machines at local merchants. There was too much to handle in one trip so I did it in three loads. The first, a small "test" bag of coins, yielded about $40. in Amazon credit. The second, last night, amounted to $273.18, which is all I could carry. That worked out to one half dollar, 681 quarters, 662 dimes, 410 nickels and 1,573 pennies…or so says my Coinstar receipt.

Today, I hauled in the last of it: 572 quarters, 466 dimes, 349 nickels and 862 pennies for a total of $216.67. I did not bother checking the machine's math. I trust it.

An odd thing: The machine sorts all the coins out and rejects foreign and unrecognizable ones. You can put them into the hopper again and sometimes, second time through, it will accept a few of them. But at the end of all this, I had about 20 coins which the machine just plain didn't want and I finally took a closer look at them. Two turned out to be old dimes made of silver. A few were foreign. There was one token to gain admittance to a pay toilet at some restaurant and one coin was one of those gold dollar coins with the portait of Sacagawea on it that no one used. But a couple turned out to be magic coins…by that, I mean coins that have been gaffed or rigged for magic tricks. I do a little magic but I can't recall ever owning or using any of these and can't imagine how they got into my jars. I may actually have received them as change somewhere — maybe the Magic Castle, even — and didn't look closely enough to note that, for example, one is a two-headed nickel and another is a dime on one side and a penny on the other. Glad the Coinstar machine kicked 'em out as they're worth a lot more than their face value, no matter which side is up.

Another thing I noticed. For years, I've been writing comic books where crooks run out of banks holding big sacks of coins. It hadn't dawned on me how much a sack of coins can weigh. I'm a pretty big guy and I couldn't carry more than $300 in coins. How did those Beagle Boys do it all those years?

Also, if you do this, do yourself a favor and either take along some moist towelettes or pick a store where the Coinstar machine is near the bathroom. In Las Vegas, people develop "coin fingers" after feeding money into slots or video poker machines for a couple of hours. After ten minutes of taking coins from a big canvas bag and throwing them in the Coinstar hopper, my right hand could have doubled for Jack Haley's in The Wizard of Oz.

One last thing I'll mention in case you never take this many coins to a Coinstar machine…as you feed them in, a little video window flashes messages like, "Feed your coins into the hopper now" and "Press the red button when you are finished." If you get too far ahead of the counting mechanism, it puts up a notice that says, "My, you have a lot of coins." Well, I used to. Now, I have a lot of credit at Amazon.

Tom McMillan writes that he disagrees with my statement that the American public will probably forgive some bending of the law if they buy that the wiretaps were done to catch genuine terrorists and ward off another 9/11. He writes…

Not all Americans; I, for one, do not. What is supposed to set us apart from other states (good and bad) is due process, a philosophy inherited from Anglo-Saxon juristry (the rulers of modern Britain should be ashamed of themselves). This includes following the law to spy on people — whether citizens of the U.S. or not. And why should rulers always be forced to do this? Because they abuse this power shamelessly otherwise.

But I actually don't disagree with that. By "the American public," I meant the majority…or whatever large percentage would have to buy the rationale for Bush not to lose a few more points of popularity over the revelation. I don't think the excuse will play badly with a certain segment of those who still support him. There are people out there so terrified of another 9/11 and/or so eager to see putative terrorists eviscerated that they'll excuse any trampling of laws. That was almost the Dana Rohrabacher argument in that debate to which I linked: The other guys killed 3,000 of us so we can't be worried with little things like ignoring the Constitution.

The question I'd like to see some journalist put to Bush is this: "You say the Patriot Act and other activities like this wiretapping are necessary to protect America. If your legal advisors told you these practices were illegal, would you authorize them anyway?" I suspect there are a lot of people in this country who'd think it was heroic and admirable to answer in the affirmative.

While I'm on the topic: I watched Bush's speech a little while ago. My feeling is that he's down to offering reassurance to those still on his side, and that he has nothing to offer those who've already turned against him and this war. Given how many lives have been ended or shattered by this military action — and how many more will still be sacrificed, to say nothing of the dollar cost — I find it all very sad. Every so often, I get an e-mail from someone who says something like, "You must be thrilled at every bit of bad news that comes out of Iraq." No, not at all…and I wouldn't think much of anyone who was. This whole thing's like a speeding bus and we're all trapped on it. Bush ain't the guy I would have chosen to drive, and he has yet to convince me he knows the route or even that the trip was a good idea in the first place. But either way, when he drives us off a cliff, he takes all of us with him.

At this very moment on Bravo, on Inside the Actors Studio, your host James Lipton is interviewing that well-known master thespian, Barbara Walters. I guess it does take acting ability to read some of that news copy and pretend it's true.

I'm a little puzzled (my usual state) about the new allegations that George W. Bush authorized illegal wiretaps of folks living in this country. For one thing, though all the Liberal sites tell me it was a prima facie violation of the law, there are Conservative sites (this one, for example) explaining how it isn't illegal. For another, if I read the law correctly in my layman's way, it would have been very easy to secure clear authorization for these wiretaps but the Bush administration didn't go that route. That seems to be leading some to the conclusion, perhaps erroneous, that the outrage may lie not in what was done but in who it was done to, and for what reason. The American public will probably forgive some bending of the law to go after people who could reasonably be thought to have links to known terrorists. They won't be as forgiving if it's spying on citizens whose "crime" was to oppose George Bush.

But what really confuses me is that I think I'm on the same side of this issue as Bob Barr, a man who I think twisted the law into pretzels to use it against Bill Clinton. He has somehow turned into a champion of Civil Liberties, which is a little like O.J. Simpson opening a marriage counselling service with Robert Blake. Still, there's this short debate he had on CNN yesterday with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Here's a video link and here's a link to a transcript. It's an odd discussion since Rohrabacher is a pretty solid "those of my party can do no wrong" guy. Having Barr debate him is like having Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol argue with himself before he met those ghosts…but ol' Bob pretty handily wins the argument. In this country, we don't allow our Chief Exec to decide which laws he'll obey and which ones he won't. I think every Republican who wants to defend Bush on this one should be forced to utter the sentence, "I would not hesitate to see President Hillary Clinton have the same authority."

Here's one to 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood, formerly the home of Hanna-Barbera cartoons. And here's one to the Hollywood Bowl and here's another to the Pacific Cinerama Dome (or whatever they're now calling it) in Hollywood. Here's the Capitol Records Building, also in Hollywood, and here's the Queen Mary down in Long Beach.

If you're playing around with Windows Live Local, you can see all sorts of interesting places. Here are some links…

• The Playboy Mansion
• Disneyland
• The home of TV producer Aaron Spelling
• Mandalay Bay hotel, Las Vegas
• Circus Circus Hotel, Las Vegas
• University High School, Los Angeles (my alma mater)
• Town Square, Burbank (Warner) Studio
• NBC Studios, Burbank
• CBS Television City, West Hollywood
• Statue of Liberty, New York
• The Ed Sullivan Theater, New York (where Letterman tapes)

From what I can tell, the photos are 3-4 years old in most cases but not all.

Picture of a raccoon standing in my swimming pool on the top step, probably freezing his adorable tail off. Or maybe it's freezing her adorable tail off. I don't look that closely.

Thank you, Don Pardo! Yes, it's time for another installment of the greatest game since George W. Bush played Find the Weapons of Mass Destruction! As always, we give you links and descriptions for five websites. Four of these actually exist somewhere on the Weird Worldwide Web. One, to the best of our knowledge, was made up by our crackerjack staff of fibbers. Your job is to spot the lie. So…hands on mice, get ready. This is for the 1963 Studebaker, a battery-powered battery changer that's only good for changing its own batteries, a rare photo of Paris Hilton fully clothed, ten thousand shares of stock in a chain of self-service massage parlors, a Diebold brand calculator that can't add properly, and a big, wet kiss from Al Roker. Go for it…

• Street Mattress – Ever notice how many times you see a discarded mattress on the street or curb? Ever wanted to visit a website full of pictures of some of the more notable ones? Now's your chance.
• Stare Down Sally – You've probably participated in Staring Contests where you have to not blink before the other person. Well, you've never faced an opponent as formidable as Sally.
• DVD Rewinder – The perfect Xmas gift! You'll never pay another fee for not rewinding your rental DVDs if you own the DVD Rewinder.
• Rate My Cow – And not only can you rate other folks' cows, you can upload photos of your own cows and allow others to rate them. An udder delight.
• The Sid Melton Veneration Site – Devoted to celebrating the life and times of the man who played Danny Thomas's agent and one of the carpenters on Green Acres.

P.S. If you'd like to help with future installments of There's No Such Website!, we could use some suggestions of real but unlikely websites.

I took this one a few days ago. While walking through the kitchen, I looked out the patio door and noticed that the food dish was empty and that a very sad, confused raccoon was studying the dish and nudging it a bit. I think he thought that if he hit it just right, Friskies would appear. So I grabbed a sack of chow and my camera, opened the door and stepped out onto the step…and the raccoon did not flee. He just pulled back a few steps, waited while I filled the bowl and then posed obligingly for pics while eating. Which is not to say he was the perfect model. See that ceramic bowl at right that's filled with water? Later that evening, either he or one of his relatives knocked it off the step and broke it.

Jack Cafferty had a short but pungent bit of commentary today on CNN, and I thought I'd link to a video clip of it and print a transcript…

Who cares if the Patriot Act gets renewed? Want to abuse our civil liberties? Just do it! Who cares about the Geneva Conventions? Want to torture prisoners? Just do it! Who cares about rules concerning the identity of CIA agents? Want to reveal the name of a covert operative? Just do it! Who cares about whether the intelligence concerning WMDs is accurate? You want to invade Iraq? Just do it. Who cares about qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court? Want to nominate a personal friend with no qualifications? Just do it. And the latest outrage, which I read about in The New York Times this morning…who cares about needing a court order to eavesdrop on American citizens? Want to wiretap their phones conversations? Just do it. What a joke. A very cruel, very sad joke.

I see a lot of the Conservative websites are not upset that the Patriot Act may not get extended indefinitely. A year or so ago, they were throwing the "t" words (traitor and treason) at all who opposed them. But Bush is below 40% and we may be closer to a Democrat in the White House than some of them would like. Time to start pulling back on those presidential powers.

Here's an aerial shot of The Magic Castle, a sorta-exclusive private club in Hollywood to which I belong. If you want to get a neat picture like this to put on your blog, it's easy: Just get a digital camera and rent a helicopter and pilot. Have him fly over whatever you want to photograph while you hang out the door of the chopper and snap away.

Or I guess you could do it the easy way via the new Windows Live Local feature which offers maps of the world. For many areas (mostly urban), you can click into a "bird's eye view" and get aerial photos from all four directions. The pictures, at least in my area, seem to be about five years old. (I notice that a market building near me is vacant in the photo. Whole Foods moved in there about four years ago.) The "locate an address" feature does not work flawlessly — most of the ones I've tried have been off by a block or so — but it's worth the effort of figuring out where you should be. Some of the visuals are quite astounding.