Greetings from Maine, where the wife and I have been spending the long weekend at her parents' house. The local flea markets were sadly unforthcoming with prizes for Cancel Bowl, and the moose head was way too expensive.

For those of you who may remember my mention of Cheez Waffies, I found them at a supermarket in Belfast, Maine. The first few were a little hard to take, but I think I re-acquired the taste. But I don't think I'll be pestering my local grocer to stock them.

Not too much else to report from the north country. I've actually watched more auto racing in the last 36 hours than probably in the entire year previous, as I saw parts of the Indy 500, European GP, ASA's Erie 250, and heard a chunk of the Coca-Cola 600 (yes, heard through the "magic" of NASCAR radio). Yee haw!

Now that it's aired, time to talk about my Millionaire appearance.

First, if you didn't see it, a recap. I moved through the first 10 questions pretty briskly, getting to $32,000 with all my lifelines. This took an abrupt turn with the very next question, as I was asked to give the current year in the Chinese calendar. Not the animal year but the numerical year.

I asked the audience, not expecting much, and am rewarded by vote totals for the four choices ranging from 23 to 28 percent. I then phoned a friend (who is among those at left) who wasn't able to help. As he said later, all he got were animal references and Web pages in Chinese when he tried to Google an answer. So I used the 50-50 and guessed the answer that the audience actually picked. Wouldn't you know it was right?

The $125K question gave the title of the first chapter of a non-fiction best seller, which I had to name. I had no idea, would have picked Silent Spring if forced to choose one, and would have been wrong (answer was The Feminine Mystique). I opted to walk rather than heave one up from half-court. Even for making $64,000 in about 20 minutes, I was surprisingly irritated given how well things were going. I should just have been happy at my good fortune.

Later, I thought that I may have been able to save a lifeline if I'd gone with the 50-50 after asking the audience. I'm pretty sure the $125K question can be Googled pretty easily (which I've just confirmed). Not sure I'd have done this even if I'd thought of it - I'm too risk averse to gamble in such situations.

It also turned out that the woman who went before me knew the answer to my $125K, ironic given that I knew the answer to hers (the topic of the legislation in the Schoolhouse Rock segment "I'm Just a Bill").

Getting to today, I wound up watching it down the hall from my office, with a group of co-workers and students. I was a little apprehensive about it, but it turned out OK. I didn't look too bad, though the height of the screen I got to read was low enough to display more chin than I'd like.

Oh, some of you caught the look that Sarah gave when I started talking about using some of the money to travel. She'll be happy to tell you it was a purposeful look of doubt that we'd be going to Italy or Australia any time soon. Perhaps if I'd won more money and weren't leaving Babson.

I got to watch it again later in the afternoon with some other Babson folks who couldn't see it at its local airtime (12:30 pm). Sorry to report I didn't win any more money. I also got to IM with JQ as he watched it down in Atlanta, which was kind of a surreal experience.

Should any of you be heading to the New York area this summer, I would highly recommend trying out. You can sign up on the show's website starting in June.

I don't have too much to say about Fantasia Barrino winning the American Idol crown. Of the final pair she was clearly the better performer, though that's not been a slam-dunk for victory in the past.

The show was its usual overblown nightmare. The first half-hour was kind of a pre-show thing, with Jennifer Love Hewitt hosting a "concert" where finishers 3 thru 5 performed their songs from the American Idol 3: Sucking the Life Out of Soul Classics album. Ford (as sponsor) had big logos on the stage that were occasionally visible, while a Chevy billboard could be seen frequently during performances. Money well spent.

Christina Christian from season one did a red carpet thing which suggests that she's got a future doing this long-term with E! (who, sadly, was doing their own red carpet thing).

The show itself had a bunch of performances by the final pair, a medley by the finalists (a waking nightmare preview of their concert), and songs by Kelly Clarkson and Ruben Studdard. Rather than have local Fox folks cover rallies in the final pair's hometowns, they had Kimberly Caldwell and Clay Aiken do the job. I think Kimberly Caldwell bought all of that skank that Christian Aguilera had left over.

As for the upcoming first single, "I Believe," it's pretty much the same theme as the previous songs - "look at me, I've made it after all this struggle and blah blah blah." It was co-written by Tamyra Gray, whose album finally got released yesterday. What a coincidence!

The archdiocese of Boston released the list of parishes that are slated for closure, and there were a few familiar names on the list.

Most familiar is St. James the Great here in Wellesley, which Sarah and I had been going to for a time before moving over to St. Joseph's in Needham (go figure that we found a church we like just as we're planning on moving out of the area). Kind of saw that coming given the statistical comparisons with the other churches in town.

Another with a personal connection is St. Joachim's in Rockport, which has seen a few Coens come through for baptism or funerals. It's a nice church, very New Englandy. It may stay open as a "worship space," the meaning of which I haven't quite figured out.

There's a church in Newton that my office-mate used to go to that's closing; he said they averaged about 10 people a Mass, so he wasn't surprised at all (the one time Sarah and I tried to find it we got lost, so perhaps location is an issue, too). There's also a church in Chestnut Hill that's closing whose location is such that the land alone should bring some serious coin. Probably for the best, given that a new round of lawsuits is supposed to be on deck.

My Millionaire appearance is finally airing on Thursday. Should you be interested in seeing it, check to see if it airs in your neck of the woods.

Quick sports post before I go to bed, to note three things:

1. Like the Bruce I've been pulling for Calgary, with it now being official that the Flyers are out (with apologies to Rosenberg). I think it goes back to their Atlanta days and when they had Jim Craig - I didn't follow the team, but it did make some connection. I just wish Chris Drury still played there.

2. The only part of tonight's Indiana-Detroit NBA playoff game I saw was Reggie Miller's 3. Timing is everything.

OK, only two things.

I will mention the two movies we rented this weekend, though.

First, Lost in Translation, which I don't think I fully comprehended. I liked it, but have a feeling that there's some sort of context I'm missing. I know I missed some of the dialogue when there was a lot of background noise - it's not my best hearing environment. I'll probably have to watch it again.

The other movie was The Runaway Jury, which follows the Grisham trend of changing the book around and making various characters more noble than they come off in the book. Not that it matters greatly, but it does confuse me given that the books are written at a level where they could be pretty easily converted into movies without too much monkeying around.

It was also unfortunate in that you had John Cusack, Gene Hackman, and Dustin Hoffman all vying for screen time. I think the film would have been better served if they gave more focus to the machinations with the jury, which would have removed Hoffman from the equation (nothing personal, just one too many big names).

Another problem was that for a movie about a jury, you don't get to connect with any of the jurors (even Cusack's character, really). They're dealt with in a pro forma manner, odder still given that a few of them are played by pretty well known folks (Nora Dunn, Jennifer Beals, Luis Guzman).

Given that you can read the book in pretty short order, do that rather than watch the film.

No, I don't know why I'm still up, either.

Another point from the week - Fox not learning from Millionaire where American Idol is concerned.

In the 8 hours of prime-time programming from Monday to Thursday last week, 5 of those hours were Idol-related. The final results show this Wednesday will be 2 hours, suggesting a level of padding not seen since Clorette DePasto's bra.

On the plus side for Fox, I don't think we're going to see much of the show after this week. So it's understandable on some level that they want to wring as much out of it as possible. On the other hand, this season's seen a dangerous trend in the amount of filler material shown. All we need are a couple of Fox shows to crap out (which is pretty much a given) before we get Idol specials every Monday next season.

I can't say I'd weep for Fox if they ran the show into the ground - for all my regular recaps, it's a pretty dismal exercise in both TV and music - but I fear that they'd replace it with something worse. And don't you think that they can't do it.

I've been meaning to write about this fantastic meal I had Tuesday night.

A bunch of us went to Olives in Charlestown for a birthday celebration. Olives is owned/run by Todd English, one of the area's celebrity chefs. The food has a Medeterranian flair to it (not surprising given the namesake), while the restaurant is pretty informal for higher cuisine. It has an open kitchen, too, which is fascinating (it also allowed us to see that Todd was in the house that night; among other things he appeared to be working on a dessert served in a martini glass).

The menu on the website is nothing like the one we had, but we made the best of it.

To start I had a black olive and goat cheese gnocchi with grape tomatoes which was tremendous- the sauce and the tomatoes gave this sweet tartness which cut the heavier pasta and cheese. I then had some butternut squash ravioli in a brown butter sauce which was on the house as they apparently forgot to enter an order of onion rings (go figure they mess up the easiest part of our order).

For an entree I went with a wild king salmon with an ox-tail ragout. The beef helped to draw out the salmon a bit, as it was lighter tasting than I expected (perhaps the difference between wild and farm-raised fish). It came with a potato croquette and microgreen salad, which were fine. I do find the idea of "microgreen salad" kind of funny, as it really looked like the rabbit food people often refer to when talking about greens.

Dessert was going to be hazelnut creme brulee, but they were out. I instead opted for the pineapple sorbet, which came with a pineapple compote and warm pineapple squares. That sounds like a lot of pineapple, and it was. It was kind of the ultimate palate-cleanser, as the different textures and temperatures were nice contrasts but not much of a flavor change.

All in all, I would highly recommend a trip to Olives. I don't think I can recommend more than one in a single year. At least not on my salary.

After running both Spybot-Search & Destroy and Ad-aware, I seem to have corrected the problems mentioned before. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

I have some sort of adware or other thing going on my work computer.

What it does is find various words - favorites seem to include job, car, flowers, jewelry, and hotel, among others - and links them to some other page of businesses in each area. There's also a thick green line under each word to draw one's eye to it.

I'm also having Yahoo! search results hijacked a bit, with the first page being a bunch of links for companies that seem to fit the search. I don't get my actual hist until the next page. In some places, I also seem to be getting ads placed over other ad space (mostly for smoking cessation products and items that help you tan). There's the occasional pop-up, too.

I've checked in what seem to be all the usual places to kill the thing, but can't seem to get rid of it once and for all. If you know anything about this particular piece of crap, or have some general suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.

Caught up on three shows tonight:

American Idol entered its final stage yesterday by naming its final pair, Fantasia Barrino and Diana DeGarmo. Jasmine Trias, whose continued presence on the show created controversy among people with nothing better to do, was finally given the heave-ho. Her clean teen looks, big smile, vacuous facial expression and marginal singing ability all add up to a future announcement by the Disney Channel of the new series Jaz's Aloha Spirit (writers all over greater Los Angeles are now doing a search and replace on their unused Lizzie Maguire scripts).

Fantasia should win, but if Diana squeaks it out I will take one for the team and adopt her weiner dogs.

Turns out that the first single for this year's Idol was co-written by Tamyra Gray. Yeah, that's pretty much the reaction I had.

We also finally got up to date on 24. You'd think we'd have used that six week hiatus better, but this way everything is at least fresh in our memories. I just hope that next season's turmoil isn't another personal vendetta involving Jack Bauer and the Drazen family. Let's give some other band of crazies a turn.

Adding another reality series to the mix, we also took in the final half hour of Colonial House on PBS. It's pretty good, though it seems like the participants are acting more like modern folks than on some of the other shows. I thought the folks on Manor House and 1900 House did a much better job of staying in the period. It does appear, though, that things will get much more 17th century as the show continues.

The one serious problem with Colonial House is the two hour episode length. I'd agree with TV Barn's Aaron Barnhart that they'd be better off with hour-long segments.

Among other things, mid-May is when the broadcast networks do their upfronts, presentations to announce their schedules for the coming season. The hope being that, with the mix of returning shows and bright new ones, critics will praise and advertisers will write big fat checks.

To this point, three networks have presented - NBC, ABC, and the WB. While most of the new shows display originality that runs the gamut from A to B, there are a couple of new shows that caught my eye. And not in a good way.

First, there's NBC's Father of the Pride, an animated show about the lives of the Siegfried and Roy's tigers. I don't think I really need to go on, do I?

The other is the WB's Commando Nanny. This is apparently based on the real-life experience of Mark Burnett. This explains the "depth" (and illogic) of many of the emotions displayed on Survivor and The Apprentice - he learned from working with five year olds. Gerald McRaney passes on the fatigues, as he goes from being Major Dad to Rich Jerk Dad.

I was under the impression that Commando Nanny aired right after Admiral Baby.

New York City is a finalist for the 2012 Olympics, and I have to think they're the favorite. All the other finalists are European (London, Paris, Madrid, and Moscow), and three have already hosted. And with Athens hosting this year, I don't know if they'd go back to Europe so quickly.

As much of a pain as it may be to host, I do look forward to the possibility of an Olympics in a city where I know people whose floors I can hopefully crash on. I'm just going to have to bring my own food and water, as the prices will probably triple the week before the opening ceremony.

A sad note today for anyone who followed BU football (the couple dozen of us). Dan Allen, who coached the team in its playoff runs in the 1990s, died this weekend. He'd been suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity, which robbed him of most of his mobility, among other things. He spent last season coaching Holy Cross from a wheelchair, which was pretty gutsy.

His tenure at BU was odd, in that he had those two playoff years but also coached some really bad teams, too. Given that the program was cut not too long after his departure, I assume that he didn't get much support from the school to build on the successes. Others who stop by here from time to time can probably talk to this, and to Allen himself, better than I can, and I invite them to do so.

Things we so busy yesterday with us closing the college that I didn't even know that the Red Sox have now graced their roster with a divine presence. All bow your heads for Youkilis, the Greek god of walks.

I just watched the last 20 minutes of the Frasier finale (which I missed last night, and discovered on while flipping around tonight). I've not really watched the show since the start of the Daphne-Niles relationship (and even then hadn't been a regular viewer), but it seemed like a solid ending. I have to admit slight resonance with the idea of moving and starting a new chapter of one's life, albeit mine is less dramatic given the shorter distance and lack of a romantic angle.

Even for the last 20 minutes, I got to see some of what I both liked and disliked of the show - good writing that ventured into the indulgent, and misunderstandings of borderline plausibility later rectified (in this case, thankfully quickly). While I didn't feel like I'd missed anything by not watching last night, I'm happy I caught what I did.

I've read in a couple of places that Kelsey Grammer may bring the character of Frasier back at a later date if the situation is right (not sure if that's a creative or financial decision; perhaps both). It makes me think a little bit about James O'Neill, father of playwright Eugene, who made a career out of performing The Count of Monte Cristo, to the detriment of not being able to perform any other role with the same public acclaimation. You have to feel at some level like that's where Grammer is (and if so, perhaps bringing Frasier back for a nice pay day wouldn't be the worst thing). On the other hand, if Down Periscope is any indication, another decade of workplace humor and troublesome coupling may just be what the doctor ordered.

(Props to Neil Steinberg's fantastic Complete & Utter Failure for the O'Neill reference.)

Yesterday was an Afternoon of Culture, as I got to go to both an art exhibit and a music performance.

Going to the musical performance was spur of the moment, though as it was (a) free, (b) during a block of time I had to kill, and (c) out in the open on BU's Marsh Plaza, thus allowing me to enjoy the sunny afternoon, the decision wasn't that hard to make.

So I wound up listening to part of a concert by students from the Academy of Performing Arts of Detroit. It was founded by Marvin Winans, a member of the noted Winans family of gospel performers. The venue wasn't the best (they had to compete with traffic noise and the T), but they did pretty well.

The art part of things came at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where we went the exhibit Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle. The Barbaro was the Gardner's home in Venice, which attracted artists like Sargent and Whistler. Most of the works were by them (and Anders Zorn, who I'd not heard of before but whose work I really liked). Monet even makes an appearance, with a work from his first trip to Venice (and Gardner's last).

Adding to the exhibit was its location, the fourth floor of the museum, which was Gardner's living space. This is the first time they've used the space for an exhibition, which is interesting even though it's hard to get much of a feel for it as living space. You do get a great view into the museum's courtyard, however.

Some of you already know about this, but now that I've managed to inform all the people that needed to know, time to get the rest of you up to speed.

I'm moving on from Babson College next month, looking to move closer to where I grew up and do something else. What that something else is I'm not sure yet - though if you've got a something else that might work, let me know.

The move is mostly personal, though there's a small professional component to it as well (mostly related to the blurry line between work and personal life when you live where you work and get calls at 3 am relative to young adults acting as such). I am really looking forward to the relocation aspect of things, especially as we'll be up there for at least part of the summer. Always nice to be near the water during the summer.

I'm not surprised that Jasmine Trias remains on American Idol while La Toya London went packing. I am surprised that there's such a deep and devoted fanbase for music sung by atonal Hawaiian teens. It would not surprise me to learn shortly after the crowning of this year's Idol that Jasmine's success is due to some sort of Internet cabal that used technology to advance her candidacy.

And if there wasn't one before, let's start one now. Take some time over the next few days to configure your modem or other software to act in an auto-dialer capacity, and then tune in next Tuesday to get Jasmine's number. Together, we can bring what appears to be America's wishes into fruition.

The really incomprehensible part of tonight's show was Donna Summer singing "Macarthur Park." Hand to God. "Macarthur Park."

On the positive side, Clay Aiken came on to sing Earth Wind and Fire's song "Fantasy" with the remaining contestants. The positive there being I remembered how much I liked the original, and that I had some free songs to use. I'm now that much more funky.

Speaking of free songs, I got a soda out of the machine in my building tonight, and it turns out to still be from the Pepsi/iTunes promotion. Remember how I never got a free song when it was still going? Now, almost two weeks after it ends, I got a code under my cap. Solid.

It says something about the state of the NHL that a team with its division's best record resorts to giving away free beer in the hopes of goosing season ticket sales. The Tampa Bay Lightning did this during their most recent Eastern Conference finals game, offering unlimited suds if you put down $100 towards 2004-05 season tickets. They got about 25 takers, and were quick to note that people who were drunk would get cut off and anyone needing a ride got a free taxi trip home. No word if there was free stomach pumping or an express list for a new liver.

Getting back to the hockey angle, you'd think a team that racked up 106 points would sell itself. And it might in some parts of the country. Just not in Florida, which I know comes as a surprise to many of you.

Even worse is that this is a pretty young team - average age 28.4 years - suggesting future years of success. It's just that their "fans" will be too drunk to notice.

In the interest of adding a layer of banality to the proceedings here, I've started a new blog, Web Test Central, for taking and posting results of all those web tests that are out there.

Unrelatedly, I commiserate with Delta and their need to raise revenue to avoid bankruptcy. But I'd rather they didn't get into cahoots with AOL to clog my mailbox with CDs, even if they do promise Sky Miles if I sign up for 9.0 service. It's not going to happen.

There's not much to say about an American Idol episode with a disco theme. Well, there is, but it'd mostly be expletives. Oddly enough, it was less vocally painful than the last couple of weeks, but I really don't care for disco. Donna Summer was this week's guest judge, and actually gave criticism, which was refreshing.

This would be the umpteenth week in a row that I'd guess Jasmine Trias was going, especially after how badly she performed compared to the other three contestants. I won't even start on her crimped hair. But she's proving to be popular beyond anything her singing would suggest, so I'm guessing Diana gets the gate.

More fun came after this, when UPN gave us an America's Next Top Model special catching us up on the 12 contestants from this season. A few of the women are making a go at modeling, though appearances in Maxim and FHM seemed more common than runways shows or high fashion shoots. There's also a healthy percentage that aren't quite back in front of the camera - though they're all planning to get there. Of course. Most frigtening was the scene where two contestants were doing a line reading for a UPN flack. I don't think we're ready for America's Next Top Sitcom.

Sarah and I have started watching another reality show, a Monday night offering. The good news is that it's not The Swan.

Not sure how we got watching, but we've seen the last 2 or 3 episodes of The Restaurant. For those of you who've not seen it, the show follows the opening and operation of chef Rocco DiSpirito's restaurant Rocco's on 22nd. The main theme of this "season" (which appears to be all of six episodes) is the clash between DiSpirito and the restaurant's financier/owner (title depending on who is talking)Jeffrey Chodorow. Suffice it to say that news is out-stripping the events on the show, which takes a bit of the mystery out of things for me.

When we're not getting this stand-off, we get tension everywhere else. Last night, for example, featured a spat between the maitre'd and a hostess, a waitress and various floor staff, and two of the cooks. The level of conflict here isn't much higher than what you get between housemates on The Real World, as if anyone possessed the maturity of an average adult things would be running much smoother.

I'm also a little confused about Rocco's participation in this venture, as I don't think I've seen him in the restaurant more than once. It seems like his mom is the real force behind things there (she's the executive chef), but she's been largely out of the power struggle.

I generally don't like shows where the plot is driven by stupid arguments. Give me off-key singing and naked photo shoots anyday. Even so, I'm mildly interested in The Restaurant. But I won't recap it, so there's that to be thankful for.

And now the posts are back in order. Odd.

Now that Manny Ramirez is an American citizen, would he play for the US in a future baseball World Cup, or would his Dominican origin allow him to play for them? I've always found the rules for who can play for what country in international competition pretty odd. I mean, we had guys on the US national soccer team in the 1980s and '90s who didn't speak that much English (or at least heavily accented English).

On the other hand, it'll work out for whatever Americans get to play baseball for Greece this summer. I imagine the Greek baseball jersey will be a big hit at the Greek Festival this year. Opa!

Blogger sprung a new look on us today, and somewhere in the changing seems to have done something to reverse the order where posts show up on the page. Hopefully we'll get this sorted out soon.

A slight organizational change to report - all the trip reports and Mark Across America are now found under the Travelin' Jones link at left. I've added a short recap of a recent long weekend spent between Chattanooga and Atlanta, most notable for our trip through the international beverage pavilion at the World of Coke.

You've probably heard about the guy who died at Six Flags New England when he fell out of the Superman roller coaster. A report about the incident suggests that a factor in the death was that the victim was too large for the ride's t-bar restraints.

While I don't want to overly personalize this man's fate and the tragedy of the situation, if he was too big for the ride at 230 pounds, how would I have fared back in 2001 when I almost went on the coaster, but passed thanks to a fear of heights?

(Oddly, I'm OK with indoor coasters like Space Mountain and the Aerosmith one at Disney MGM. I suppose I don't see the drops and thus don't worry about them.)

I'm in the office this afternoon, as the college is closing today. It's actually been pretty quiet, as check-out is running through another room in the building. The real fun will be tonight when we start to actually check rooms.

Not much to report on otherwise, other than I noticed that some committee of the Louisiana House approved of that bill that would ban low-riding pants. Now I have a cleared idea of how they once wound up with a governor's race that featured a convicted felon and a well-known racist.

While I've not read about his testimony in-depth, it seems that Donald Rumsfeld is both taking responsibility for this whole Iraqi prisoner torture thing and refusing to resign. This even though there are more photos and apparently video of mistreatment.

I don't begin to presume that I know what it takes to be Secretary of Defense, and I know that the heads of much smaller entities are often unaware of gross negligence on the part of those working beneath them. But it does strike me that keeping Rumsfeld around will hurt Bush in the long-term, especially if we start to see more images of abuse (and if the ICRC is correct in their claims that mistreatment has been ongoing and pervasive for over a year).

If Bush is smart (OK, if Karl Rove is being smart for him), they'll work on positioning someone to take over should things continue going poorly. And if there's any real sense, they'd not hand things over to Paul Wolfowitz, who makes Rummy look like Eugene McCarthy.

Bring back Bill Cohen, I say.

OK, well the finale of Friends wasn't too bad, certainly nowhere near the soul-sucking crapitude of the Seinfeld send-off.

I am a little confused by some things, though, primarily the lack of set up for the Joey spin-off. As the show left it, the only really major relocation was Chandler and Monica moving to Westchester. Given that Joey was the one who didn't want anyone to move, how does he wind up in LA? I know, wait for the first episode of the new show.

Then there was this odd bit hanging off by itself where Phoebe and her husband Mike decide they want kids. The moment is fueled by seeing the the new babies, but it was oddly out of place.

For the most part, though, it was what you'd expect out of an episode of Friends. Which is probably for the best, really.

This is marginally better for the comments. It'll do for now.

If I've done this right, we've got comments now. Maybe this will get more of you to ask me three questions.

Today marks the airing of the final episode of Friends. I know I'm supposed to be besides myself with grief, or some other emotion appropriately teased out of me by the NBC promo (by which I mean news,with all the Dateline coverage) department. What I'm actually feeling, though, is more akin to when Macy's bought out Jordan Marsh or when BU West Campus institution Ellis the Rim Man closed its doors. It's the mild unease of change, a minor signpost that the march of time continues.

Part of what feeds that is that the characters are, theoretically, contemporaries. I say theoretically given that I know no one like them. But even so, they are of a similar age and have, over the last year, transitioned into full-on adulthood with weddings and babies and the like. Given my own recent past, that does resonate a tiny bit.

Overall, though, the end of Friends isn't going to alter my life. It was a reasonably fun show that I'll be able to see from time to time in reruns or on DVD (Sarah's affinity for the show will lead to the eventual purchase of the set, I'm sure). Anything more that I take from it will come from reflecting on my own past decade. Which isn't so bad, really.

Another prognostication turned to dust when George rather than Jasmine got the boot from American Idol earlier tonight. We're now down to four women, which for this quartet means a lot of belting and glory notes. God help us all.

More importantly, the Sox finally won a game outside of the AL East, besting Cleveland 9-5. Now if Oakland can just do us a favor on the other end and snap the Yankees' winning streak...

Three more questions to answer, courtesy of W. Scott Monty:

1) What is your favorite breakfast cereal?

A tough one! If forced to choose one, I'd go with peanut butter Cap'n Crunch. This elicited an "eewwww" from Scott, which just means more cereal for me.

2) If you could live anywhere in the country, where would you choose to live?

Somewhere coastal between Salem and Newburyport, MA (I grew up in a town on the coast between the two). Wouldn't have to be right on the water, but I'd like to be able to see the ocean every day.

3) What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? (European, if you must know).

According to this article, 11 m/sec or approximately 24 mph.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a show whose idea of big band music results in more Barbra Streisand songs being performed than Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday combined. But that's what we got tonight on American Idol, as the big band competition resulted in a score of Mrs. Brolin 2, Actual Legends 0. The real loser, of course, was the viewing public.

That being said, the night made it pretty clear that Fantasia and La Toya are much better than the other three singers. Not that that's going to get them into the final. As far as tonight goes, any of the other three could go, and for no particularly good reason I'm going with Jasmine. Not the first time, but she seemed to fit into the theme least.

And for those of you who find my following of this show problematic, I will happily say that I did not watch last night's clip show. There are some limits.

Got my first set of three questions, thanks to Greg Sorenson:

1. What one question in your life are you most sick of people asking you?

Right now, it's "when is your Millionaire episode going to air?" I like that people are interested, but when I've answered the question 4 or 5 times for the same person, it gets old. Listening is at least as fundamental as reading.

2. What was the first *compact disc* you purchased?

It's a tie: Mermaid Avenue by Billy Bragg and Wilco, and Painted From Memory by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach.

3. What, if any, (movie/show/book) kept you up all night scared?

Summer 1980. It's a hot and sticky night, and the power's gone out. For whatever reason, I could not get the sinister cat-eye drawings from the Choose Your Own Adventure book The Mystery of Chimney Rock out of my head. (Yes, I was a dorky kid, too.)

Just read that Al Gore is planning to buy NewsWorld International, a cable channel that currently airs international news broadcasts, in order to form a new network with a liberal bend.

While the last thing we need is another politically-slanted cable channel (regardless of slant, though some of the fringier groups could have interesting programming), I more lament the loss of a US outlet for international news. We get so little idea of what others are reporting, either in general or about the US, that even a slightly-watched channel is a valuable resource.

I suppose we'll still have the news on BBC America, and whatever random sightings of Deutsche Welle one can find.

Counter worked, but I didn't like the location. Let's see if this is better...

Testing a new counter...

After a long time riding pine, welcome back to Matt Couture! His second go at blogdom is linked on the left, and in honor of his return I'll do as he asks in his second entry.

All readers of this blog should email me and ask me three questions - no more, no less. These three questions can be on any topic. I would then request that you (assuming you have a blog or LiveJournal or such) do the same for your readers.

As sometimes happens when you watch TV, you see something that triggers a memory. For better or worse, my most recent example of this is snack food related.

Last night we were watching an episode of Unwrapped about snacks, and they went to the Wise plant to see them make Cheez Doodles. This got me thinking of another Wise product which I hadn't seen in years, which had these wafery cracker type things sandwiching an orange cheese food-type product which should have been on some sort of USDA watch list.

This led me to get on the Wise website, and discover that the product, known as Cheeze Waffies, still exist. I don't know why it's 'waffies' rather than 'waffles' (which would make more sense given how they're shaped), but they're apparently still out there. A quick scan of the supermarket shelves this evening didn't turn them up. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's probably for the best.

If you happen to see them in your travels, let me know. I'd be interested to see where exactly they turn up.

My tendency to get paged during movies has followed me home. Tonight, just before the climactic Battle of the Bands in School of Rock, the pager went off. This necessitated a five minute pause as I sorted out what was, in essence, stupidity.

In any case, tonight's movie was much better than last night's. I tend to think Jack Black is a taste best doled out in small doses, but his manic personality worked pretty well. Bonus points for making my general disdain for Sarah Silverman work for me by casting her as a completely disagreeable shrew. Extra bonus points for the use of Joan Cusack in a supporting role, too.