A bunch of "loose ends" to tie up tonight…
- Jackie Estrada, who's one of the folks who brings us the Comic-Con International each year, says it's definitely Russ Manning in that photo. How does she know? Well, she took the photo. That's a pretty good reason to listen to her.
- Two different folks who attended tapings of Thank God You're Here confirmed my suspicion that the spontaneous sketches were somewhat edited for broadcast. The scenes felt edited so even if they weren't, that's not a good thing. The ratings were not wonderful for a heavily-promoted debut so the question now is whether NBC will try to fix it or bail. If they try to fix it, I'd suggest three words — do it live — but they'll never do it. One of the things that I think will eventually doom most reality shows is how little "reality" is in them. At least, I haven't seen a moment yet which the producers couldn't have anticipated, prepared for or even configured.
- I haven't written anything about Don Imus because…well, I don't watch Don Imus. The few times I've caught a few minutes of his show, he seemed like a guy who didn't like anything: Didn't like his guests, didn't like the topics, didn't like his employers. I remember the guy when he was starting out and he was occasionally funny and insightful back then. At some point though, the sour curmudgeon act seems to have consumed him and now he just sits there and says nasty things about everyone and everything. The only surprising thing about his recent racist/sexist remarks is that he got called on them. Instead of suspending him for two weeks, they oughta punish the guy by forcing him to say only positive things for two weeks. His face would probably shatter.
- I erred. I said the other day that my appearance on the Time Travel radio show this Friday would be at 4 PM West Coast Time. It's actually 4 PM East Coast Time so you can figure out when it happens where you are. Sorry. I've corrected the earlier posting.
- Lastly, one of the things you learn from having a weblog is that some people don't know how to read and some have no sense of humor. Every time I post anything even vaguely political, I get some insightful, reasoned rebuttals but I also get at least one message from someone debating a position I neither wrote nor hold. I also get an amazing number of e-mails from people who seem to be taking jokes seriously. So just to make sure everyone understands: I did not take my mother to McDonald's for her 85th birthday. My mother is a wonderful lady and she deserves the best. I took her to an Arby's.