Monthly Archives: November 2008

Gonna be busy the next day or so. Sorry. Surely you can find something else worth reading on the Internet.

This link is too good not to steal off Cartoon Brew. The Daily News in New York has posted a slide show of the giant balloons made for the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Great images.

Yesterday afternoon around 2:30, I had an urgent need to get something edible and quick. I was in a neighborhood containing two of my favorite places to do this but both, darn it, had decided to close for the day after Thanksgiving. So I wound up at a Boston Market, which is a chain that usually serves me adequately in such situations. Only problem: This Boston Market was out of much of its menu due to a Thanksgiving Day rush — a fact that was lost on an elderly gent who was ahead of me in line. It went roughly like this…

ELDERLY GENT: I'd like the turkey dinner, please.

COUNTERPERSON: I'm sorry…we had a big crowd in here yesterday and we're out of turkey and most of our entrees. We only have chicken and meat loaf.

ELDERLY GENT: No turkey dinners?

COUNTERPERSON: No, I'm afraid not, sir. Just chicken and meat loaf.

ELDERLY GENT: In that case, I'll have a turkey sandwich.

COUNTERPERSON: I'm sorry…we have no turkey. Just chicken and meat loaf.

ELDERLY GENT: No turkey sandwiches either, huh? Well, how about a turkey-ham combo plate?

COUNTERPERSON: I'm sorry…we have no turkey and we have no ham.

ELDERLY GENT: Now you're out of ham, too?

COUNTERPERSON: Yes, we're out of ham. We're out of everything except chicken and meat loaf.

ELDERLY GENT: The sign here says "Now serving Virginia Ham."

COUNTERPERSON: That's when we have it. We're all out of it at the moment.

ELDERLY GENT: And you're all out of turkey, too? When will you have more? Can I wait?

COUNTERPERSON: We're not going to have any more today. I don't think we'll have any more until Monday. All we'll have until we get another delivery is chicken and meat loaf.

ELDERLY GENT: Monday, huh? How could you be out of turkey? It's the day after Thanksgiving. Everyone has turkey around.

COUNTERPERSON: We don't, I'm sorry. Only chicken and meat loaf.

ELDERLY GENT: All right then. I'll have the Roasted Sirloin.

After another six or seven hours of this, the man finally grasped enough of the concept to order a rotisserie chicken. I stepped up and said in a snappy and efficient manner, "Meat loaf dinner with mashed potatoes and chicken noodle soup, no beverage." The Counterperson breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn't ordered turkey and quickly ran up my order. Five minutes later, it was all on a tray except I didn't have a spoon…

COUNTERPERSON: Sorry, we're out of spoons.

ME: Out of spoons? You're serving soup and you're out of spoons?

COUNTERPERSON: We have soup. We have plenty of soup. We just don't have any spoons.

ME: Shouldn't you tell people that before they order soup?

COUNTERPERSON: We didn't say we had spoons.

ME: Isn't that kind of implied? I mean, if you're selling soup, isn't it a reasonable assumption on the customer's part that you can get a spoon with it?

And from behind me, where he was still waiting for his rotisserie chicken, the Elderly Gent said, "Don't waste your time talking to him. It's the day after Thanksgiving and he wouldn't even give me a turkey sandwich."

The TiVo folks have this great feature on their website that enables TiVo owners to program their TiVos over the Internet. You have to have a Series 2 or Series 3 TiVo and you need to sign up for the service…but when you're away from home, all you need is Internet access and you can tell your machine at home to record a specific show. This has occasionally come in quite handy for me.

Now, they've taken it a step further. It's still being beta-tested but m.tivo.com is a similar site configured for mobile phone access. Again, you need to be signed up for it…but once you are, you should be able to use your iPhone or Blackberry (or similar instrument) to program your home TiVo. I'll try it out tomorrow and report back to you on how it works.

I'm still busy but this can't wait: A number of you have called my attention to a great sale on Amazon. Remember that 40-episode Howdy Doody set I spotlighted the other day? The one that sold for thirty bucks? Well, it's suddenly $9.99. I dunno how long this is good for but if you were thinking of ordering the thing, go for it. And remember that you don't want the 20-episode one (which is still $8.49) because all the episodes on it are on the larger one and so are many special features.

For reasons I may or may not get around to explaining soon, posting on this website will be light for the next few days and I may be even worse than usual at responding to e-mails. Ergo, I am posting a photo of a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, the traditional Internet symbol that says posting on this website will be light for the next few days and I may be even worse than usual at responding to e-mails. The normal volume of both will return before long.

It has come to my attention that I erred when I said the other day that there was only one episode of the original What's My Line? with a guest host. Actually, there were two episodes in 1958 where Clifton Fadiman filled in for John Daly. There was also one 1959 episode in which Eamonn Andrews, who hosted the British version of the show, sat in Daly's chair. Thanks to King Daevid MacKenzie (who e-mailed me this info) and Jim Newman (who came up to me in a restaurant yesterday). I hang my head in more shame than usual.

The Archive of American Television has posted their complete oral history interview with George Carlin. The entire chat, which runs around three hours, was conducted last December and in it, Carlin discusses his career in enormous depth and detail. I haven't watched all of it yet but I intend to. If you'd like to join me, go to this page and start with Part One.