not done yet

"Enough already about the Pope," said the comment I received yesterday. That sentiment is mild compared to some of the remarks left on the News Sentinel's website (here and here). People who do not understand the Pope's role were quick to criticize him and his Catholic flock.

Pope Benedict's trip resonated with me for several reasons. I'm a cradle Catholic who grew up in the New York and Washington suburbs. When we moved to California, my wife and I missed our families. We were drawn to the church where we found comfort in the familiarity of our parish community. On this visit, the Pope is traveling to places that are significant to me. Yesterday he was in Yonkers, the city where I lived until college. Today he was at Yankee Stadium, where I've been several times, mostly for football games but for a few baseball games too. This morning he prayed at Ground Zero, where my cousin heroically perished.

I got an email yesterday from radio newsman Dave Schreiber, a former co-worker at WAVA. I haven't heard from Dave in ages but he was so moved by the Pope's visit to the Park East Synagogue that he had to tell somebody. I'm glad he thought of me.

While I watched the various Papal events, I thought of the people I knew who were in attendance. My daughter was at the White House on Wednesday. My mother and my sister were at Nationals Park on Thursday. Our friend Fr. Ragan Schriver was also at both D.C. ceremonies. Our parish youth minister led a group to New York for the Mass at Yankee Stadium. As I wrote on Friday, several priests we know represented Knoxville during the Pope's visit.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who provides commentary on EWTN, surprised me with his criticism of the Mass at Nationals Park. He expressed his displeasure over the multicultural exhibition, particularly in the selection of music. I was taught that the word catholic (with a small "c") meant universal. It seems xenophobic to expect a Mass of that magnitude to be all-English with only old-school hymns.

Fr. Neuhaus didn't care much for the music at Saturday's Youth Rally either. I have only seen bits and pieces of it on the Internet. I heard a version of "Ave Maria" sung by Kelly Clarkson; a song I remember from Burbank called "Pan de Vida" and a version of my favorite "Litany of the Saints."

The big Masses at St. Finbar Church were usually tri-lingual affairs. The parishioners who spoke Spanish and Vietnamese wanted to feel at home as much as I did. Aren't they entitled to the same feeling of comfort?

ori-palm-i

For Catholics, being at Walt Disney World on a Sunday used to mean going to Mass at the Polynesian Resort. The service was held in the outdoor luau venue. I went to Mass there on my first visit during high school and on my second visit when my family and I attended the press junket for the opening of Disney MGM Studios, which as of 2008 is known as Disney's Hollywood Studios. By the time my wife and I returned with the Kevin & Bean show in the 1990s, the Polynesian Resort Mass had been discontinued.

On our more recent trips to Orlando, we've gone to Mass at the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe. Today was the second year in a row that my wife and I were there on Palm Sunday.



The woman sitting in front of me bent and tied her palm so that it resembled the PX symbol for Christ. The woman sitting next to me (she was from Michigan by the way) had a better angle to see the frond of the woman in front. My garrulous pew-mate then passed her palm frond up a row and asked the lady to please tie it the same way.

I was reminded of the palm artistry we used to see in Burbank every year on Palm Sunday. As the congregation gathered for the Spanish language Masses at St. Finbar Church some entrepreneurs would unfurl mats on the grass and sell palm fronds that had been woven into various religious shapes. My own kids were pretty good at making a cross from a frond or two.

A few moments of curiosity has revealed another subculture on the Internet that I never knew existed. There are enough websites about palm crafts to keep you busy until it's time to burn your palms for next Ash Wednesday.

three (million) penny

One of the many things I liked about living in Burbank was driving past the television and movie studios and seeing the huge banners for their upcoming productions. Along W. Olive Avenue, a series of giant movie posters adorn the walls of Warner Bros. Studios.

Those days out West came to mind the other day when I drove past the Scripps Networks headquarters in Knoxville. They had put up something new since the last time I was there. I went back today with a camera. A giant banner for "Nailed at 9" is visible from I-40. An enormous three-dimensional nail sticking out from the wall catches the eye from multiple angles to promote the different home improvement shows that air on DIY at 9:00 p.m.



Personally I'm looking forward to a day when Food Network might get the chance to display some colossal food porn along the interstate.

you've got to rearrange

When my friend Anja Reinke was elected to the Burbank City Council, it was a big deal to me. However she isn't the first of my friends to get involved in politics. One of my classmates from George Mason University has served on the Fredericksburg City Council for four years.

Debby Girvan recently announced that she is running for mayor of Fredericksburg against the incumbent. Her campaign must be making some waves. Debby jokingly says her "worst fear" came true today. She became a political cartoon.

The newspaper may have missed an earlier opportunity for a caricature of Debby and the mayor. About two years ago, he playfully dunked her at the opening of a city swimming pool. Here's hoping that she figuratively dunks him when the polls close on May 6th.

metal mettle

While looking online to see which Super Tuesday candidates were endorsed by our local newspapers, I was distracted by the front page of the Metro Pulse. The cover story is about guitarist Randy Rhoads, who is one of three famous musicians who died shortly after being in Knoxville. The other two are Hank Williams and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

I was not familiar with Randy's music while he was alive. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago that I first heard of him. I was invited to a year-end presentation of video projects by the students in a media class at Providence High School in Burbank. One of the upperclassmen appeared in a documentary about his late uncle, Randy Rhoads. I recognized Randy's sister Kathy in the film. My wife and I knew her as one of the other room mothers at St. Finbar School.

Kathy's husband Richard is a talented cabinetmaker. He made a gorgeous wooden ambo for St. Finbar Church as well as other altar furniture. When I looked online, I discovered that he is now in the wine business too. Kathy and Richard's daughter Jenna was a classmate of our son for seven years until we moved to Knoxville. Jenna turned up in some red carpet photos as the date of a young actor named Daniel Hansen.

My wife took an extra copy of the paper from the stack on the bar at Patrick Sullivan's last night after my Einstein Simplified show. Now we need to find an old parish directory with Kathy's address in order to mail her a copy of the Metro Pulse. As she read the article, my wife saw that Randy's last name was misspelled on the plaque when he was inducted to the Hollywood RockWalk in 2004. Kathy and her mom are in the photos from the ceremony. They eventually fixed the plaque.

Knoxville has a statue honoring Rachmaninoff and an annual festival for Hank. Perhaps it's time to think of a way to commemorate Randy here too. And spell his name correctly.

don't let the Quaffle in

Someone placed flyers on all the windshields in the parking lot during last night's high school football game. The papers advertised a website that sells clothing from hundreds, if not thousands of high schools, middle schools and grammar schools all over the country. Myschooljersey.com has a database of school colors and mascot names. If your school is not listed, the site lets you log in to add it. Once you find your school, you can order shirts, pants, hats, and accessories emblazoned with the school name and the sport or activity that you prefer. I had fun looking for the schools I attended and the schools my kids attended. Then I dropped in various interests like school newspaper (for me) and chemistry (for my son) to create pictures of items that never existed until now. The one that amused me most was the St. Finbar Quidditch Team sweatshirt.

auction ends Sunday

The same guy who is building his own Batmobile asked if I had an extra $44,000 laying around. I had met him last June in Morristown and was very interested to hear how he had stripped down a Lincoln Continental and was using it to hold a fiberglass Batmobile body. His finished product will look very similar to the real deal that I saw in 1993.

Since I will never build my own Batmobile, the guy from Morristown wanted to let me know that I could buy one on eBay for a mere $44,000. Unlike the original, this car has a back seat for the Batkids. The auction listing says that the car has been in many parades and that it is currently housed in Burbank. I wonder if I've ever seen it.

with steam coming out of his ears

The news that Jimmy Kimmel will do double duty next week didn't surprise me. If anybody can do it, it's him. Jimmy is tireless when it comes to promoting his late night show, even if it means flying cross-country to fill in for Regis Philbin every morning next week and then returning to Hollywood each night to host his own program. I'm sure he would be more comfortable on a private plane but he could probably get some good material for the shows by flying commercial. Jimmy must have thought about a radio deejay named Tom Joyner who became famous as the "fly jock" when he did a morning show in Dallas and an afternoon show in Chicago, flying between the two cities daily.

When I flipped over to ESPN to check the score of the Giants game on Monday night, I heard the announcer promote that Jimmy would be there after a break. I had to stop and think for a moment since the game was in Atlanta, not New York. Sure enough, Jimmy was at the game. I wondered if he had gone to Atlanta just for the game or if he was busy promoting his show in a city that only recently began airing it. Jimmy cracked a few jokes about the announcers and I didn't think anything else of it until I read the ridiculous news that ESPN has banned Jimmy from "Monday Night Football." Is that any way to treat the guy who hosted the ESPY awards? He's as confused as anyone.

I really like the monologue on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." They make great use of video clips from the news and from that evening's prime time shows. Although the network won't let them do the show live anymore, they tape it around 8:00 p.m. PT (11:00 p.m. ET), which is about three hours later than Leno tapes and about six hours later than Letterman tapes.

I would hate it if ABC hired Jay Leno for a late night show that would bump Jimmy to a later time slot. There's talk of Leno going to Fox or ABC when his NBC contract expires. The mistake NBC made by hiring Leno over David Letterman is coming back to haunt them again as they try to plan for a smooth transition to "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." If Leno didn't want to leave, he could have told them before they announced the plan for him to step down. NBC is sticking with the plan. Last week they announced that they would renovate a stage at Universal Studios to be Conan's new theater as part of their plan to abandon my beloved Burbank.

dis-spirited

Burbank has been on my mind this week. I've been feeling bad for the Media City since I got a press release from NBC announcing their plans to move much of their operation a few miles from Burbank to Universal City. I moved to Burbank three months before Johnny Carson retired from "The Tonight Show." At the time I thought it would be funny to ask someone from a particular business across the street if Ed McMahon's departure would affect them. An article in today's Burbank Leader does that exact thing. The owner of A&O Studio Liquors says they may have to close down without all the TV executives who keep their register ringing. Here's the quote:

Businesses in the area gave mixed reviews.

"It's unfortunate to lose the consistent NBC workers," said Vince Oganesyan, a general manager at the Mobil across the street. "But our main business is not 'The Tonight Show,' so it won’t make a drastic difference."

Beatriz Martinez, owner of A&O Liquor, also across the street from NBC, was not as positive about her store's future.

"It will definitely affect us," she said. "We rely on 'The Tonight Show' for maybe 50% of our business. We might consider selling the store when they leave."

wondered whatever became of

Many average Americans found their ticket to fame on so-called "reality" shows. I prefer the term "unscripted" because there's not much that's real about them. It wasn't long before the semi-famous and formerly famous jumped on the bandwagon as a means of extending their own celebrity. "Back to the Grind," a new unscripted show on TV Land puts actors and actresses in the actual jobs their TV characters portrayed. I read about the show in a post on TV Squad, which provided links to some clips from it. I watched a ten minute segment in which Loni Anderson, who played the receptionist on "WKRP in Cincinnati," spends a day working at real radio stations.

In the show, Loni visited three Los Angeles stations. It was nice to see some studios I knew, but I think it would have made for better television if the producers had sent her to Ohio. Coincidentally, a station there has a name similar to WKRP. Imagine the hilarity of Loni Anderson answering the phones at WKRC in Cincinnati.

The episode must have been filmed at least a year ago. Loni started her day at KZLA, which changed its name and format last summer. In one scene, she brought coffee to a meeting between then-program director R.J. Curtis and and his staff, including morning host Peter Tilden. Peter is now back at KABC, hosting "America's Earliest Morning Show." Later, Loni went across the hall to Power 106 to learn some hip-hop lingo. While Loni reported on traffic conditions, a camera in front of the radio station's building was pointed down W. Olive Avenue and clearly showed St. Finbar church, my former parish. In the evening, Loni reported for duty at KROQ to screen calls for the long-running syndicated program "Loveline." She was greeted by producer Ann Wilkins, who looked like she was doing well. I'm glad the experience of having to share an office with me all those years ago didn't affect Ann adversely.

buenas noches

"Back To You" is the new Fox show that I mentioned yesterday. The graphics during the upfront presentation made it look like the title might actually be "Back 2 You." The funniest clips showed the two anchors at the desk, bickering while waiting to go on the air.

A friend from Burbank emailed recently to tell me about this year's St. Finbar Fiesta. He also suggested I take a look at an Internet sitcom called "Goodnight Burbank." It's a spoof of a nightly newscast which focuses on the anchors bickering while waiting to go on the air. I especially enjoyed the names of two of the characters. Like some real reporters in L.A., forecaster Trisha Sakamoto dug into her background to find an ethnic last name to use on the air. It's even funnier when anchor Kelly Jones insists that her last name is pronounced "ho-ness."

personal milestone

Five years ago today I boarded a plane in Burbank. After changing planes in Dallas, I landed in Knoxville, ready to start a new job and a new chapter of my life.

by a wide margin

The big news out of Burbank is the election of my friend Anja Reinke to city council. There were four people running for two open seats. Anja and a local restaurant owner each got about 6300 votes. Anja will become one of many St. Finbar parishioners who have served on the council. She should get to take a turn as vice-mayor and then mayor eventually.

The other two candidates, who happened to be a married couple, got about 3300 votes each. Their unsuccessful campaign was endorsed by a soap opera actress whose reading skills I coincidentally featured in my blog last December. At least George Takei loves her.

Anja supports a ban on smoking in places like public parks and restaurant patios. The losing candidates gave an overly wordy answer to the same yes/no question. Maybe someday Knoxville will become more breathable for the non-smoking majority via a sales tax increase or a ban on public smoking. WATE had a town hall meeting on the topic tonight.

free Masons

Last year at this time, America was crazy about George Mason University, my alma mater. I had a pretty severe case of Final Four Fever myself. Blogger Frank Strovel was kind enough to send me the link to an interesting four-part article titled "George Mason: One Year Later." It tells what happened to GMU's three best players after they graduated. Meanwhile, Jim Larranaga is coaching an all-star game in Atlanta tonight as part of Final Four weekend.

This year's Final Four includes one of the other DC area Georges, Georgetown University. I guess I could root for them, seeing as they're a Catholic school and all. I'm not sure but I think the only Georgetown alum I ever knew is Joe Kelliher, who is now some medium-to-big-shot in the government.

After living in Burbank for ten years, it would make sense that I know a couple of people who graduated from UCLA. One of them, former Burbank mayor Michael Hastings, is on my list of LinkedIn connections.

If anyone happens to see me tomorrow, I'll be wearing my Final Four t-shirt from last year.

five unrelated paragraphs

Like me, the writers at Entertainment Weekly noticed the extra seven minutes worth of "American Idol" that we'll get on Tuesday. At least I got it posted the day before they did.

Scott Weiland trashed a room at Burbank's nicest hotel, The Graciela. I stayed there once. The service was top notch. The staff gave me some free deodorant to replace the antiperspirant gel that the TSA wouldn't let me carry on the plane at the time. Staying at The Graciela was a rare treat. Usually I stay at the Safari Inn, which has been used as a filming location in several "C.S.I." episodes including one that aired only a few weeks ago.

A long time ago I mentioned something about radio stations named Froggy or K-Frog, etc. Froggy 101 in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is now capitalizing on the use of their bumper sticker on "The Office."

My post about the Seattle Times Peeps Contest prompted my sister's husband to send me an article about the Washington Post's Peeps Diorama Contest. It may be the beginning of a trend. The St. Paul Pioneer Press is having a Peeps Diorama Contest too.

Michael Crawley emailed me to ask for a plug for the Detroit Dave benefit concert this Thursday night at the World Grotto. Michael says:

The lineup includes Todd Steed and the Suns of Phere, The Labron Lazenby Trio, Scott Miller, Dave Landeo, Karen Reynolds, The Macdaddies, RB Morris and Hector Qirko, Matt Woods, Tall Paul and The Bearded. Also slated is a special reunion of Crawdaddy, with the four original members: Rick Wolfe on bass; Steve Brown on drums; Michael Crawley and “Detroit” Dave himself, hopefully. All proceeds go to help Detroit Dave with medical bills and daily living expenses.

a comedy tragedy

Sometimes a death can bring people together. At every funeral I've been to, somebody says that it's great to see you again but that they're sorry it has to be under these circumstances. Somebody else will say that the only time we ever get together anymore is at funerals and weddings. I hadn't talked with my friend Charlie Reinke in a long time. The sad news of Richard Jeni's death prompted me to call Charlie today.

Charlie is a comedy writer in Burbank. We met because our daughters went to grammar school together. As our families became good friends, our wives would often make plans for the four of us. Charlie and I would occasionally go to TV show tapings using tickets that either he or I had gotten through a business contact. I've mentioned before that Charlie's wife, Anja, is running for city council.

I called Charlie to talk about Richard Jeni. We had taken our wives to see Richard perform at the Ice House and had gone backstage to say hi. Charlie and I were in the audience for a taping of Richard's UPN sitcom, "Platypus Man." Charlie told me tonight how Richard would sometimes make a guest appearance in the comedy writing class that Charlie took when he was getting started in the business. Two of the first three jokes he sold were to a TV show called "Caroline's Comedy Hour" and were delivered by Richard Jeni.

I am a fan of Richard's comedy. I've watched his HBO specials and I booked him to appear on KLOS several times. The program director once asked me to find a comedian to entertain between sets at a classic rock concert the station was hosting at the Glen Helen Pavilion in San Bernardino. I arranged for Richard Jeni to do it but it didn't go well. The road crew for the next band refused to stop soundchecking the drums during Jeni's performance. As Richard valiantly tried to get laughs, you could hear the roadie slowly pounding on each drum in the kit and monotonously saying "one, one, one" then "two, two, two" and so on into a microphone.

Charlie hopes to go to memorial service for Richard. He suggested that I check a blog entry from the wife of comedy writer T. Sean Shannon on her MySpace page. On "The View" this morning, the women mentioned a blog posting about Richard written by Elayne Boosler. It will be the last thing I read before bed tonight.

fromage homage

There's no such thing as bad pizza but some pizza is better than others. If I still lived in New York, I would always get my pizza from Roma Restaurant in Tuckahoe. Instead, I try new places hoping to find one that reminds me of my childhood favorite.

I thought I had found a new pizza place at Turkey Creek last night but the manager said that Mangia Pizza & More has been there for five years. I guess I don't get to Turkey Creek that often. The restaurant is delightfully smoke-free, an instant improvement over Big Ed's in Oak Ridge. The pizza was so good that I asked the manager if he or the owner were from New York. Turns out they are both Tennesseeans with an appreciation for thin crusts, good sauce and good cheese. They gladly put some extra oregano on my pizza, unlike most places. Whether because of Valentines Day or Wednesday church services, my wife and I were the only customers between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. The manager told us that they are busiest on Friday nights.



While we were eating our pizza at Mangia, my wife told me about the "Desperate Housewives" episode she had watched earlier that day. Pizzeria Scavo is about to open and my wife remembered that Doug Savant, who plays Tom, used to work at Dino's Pizza in Burbank. He was already a regular on "Melrose Place" by the time we became regulars at Dino's

The next time they come to visit, my sister and her husband might want to include a stop at the new restaurant opening soon right next door to Mangia. It appears to be the first Tennessee location for Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. The Five Guys in Centreville, Virginia is one of their family's favorite places. I ate there with them just before starting my weight loss program seventeen months ago.

inevitable

Saddened and disappointed are the words that come to mind upon hearing of Anna Nicole Smith's passing. Her death caps off a series of recent tragic events. I first heard of Anna Nicole in the early '90s from my friend Bean, who was a fan of her work as a Guess model before she was in Playboy. I think she may have eventually appeared on his radio show while promoting her series on the E! Network. I never met Anna Nicole myself but my daughter met her son Daniel when he briefly attended the same school in Burbank. I don't think money would have solved her problems but I do think that Anna Nicole deserved to get a large sum after J. Howard Marshall died. Not all his money, but a lot of it.

from beautiful downtown

The time has gotten away from me tonight. I've been reading several entries on a Burbank-based blog written by Lisa Burks. I used to bug poor Lisa for guest bookings when I was a radio producer and she was a network television publicist. Like me, Lisa moved to Burbank in 1992 and fell in love with the place. She sometimes writes about her grave hunting hobby, which I've only done a little of myself. Somehow Lisa found my blog and added it to her blogroll, which then showed up in my Technorati links. I've added Lisa to my blogroll too.

a tale of three cities

Dr. Bill Bass was on "Live at Five" this afternoon. It shouldn't surprise you that I recorded the show and watched it when I got home tonight. The Big Bopper Jr. joined Dr. Bass by phone in the first segment and fingerprint expert Art Bohanan was in studio for the second segment. If you missed it or if you're reading this outside Knoxville, you can watch the interview online.

Do we have any readers in Burbank today? If so, you should know that my friend Anja Reinke is running for city council. Go Anja!

Remember the 1982 World's Fair shirt that I sent to Bean for Christmas? He wore it in Los Angeles the other day. Don't you think it looks better than the shirt the Fixx guy wore on TV last June? Check it out.

could sell paper to a tree

Tonight's episode of "The Office" was brilliant, as usual. I really enjoyed seeing the way the sales staff closed their deals. It's good to remember that while Michael Scott is a terrible manager, he is an excellent salesman. We learned more about the Dwight/Jim dynamic too. They have a tag team approach to sales. One of the best laughs came from how a makeover helped Phyllis and Karen.

As a former California resident, I got an extra kick out of the episode. I watched it in HD which made it easier to focus on the exterior backgrounds as the characters drove to their sales calls. Although the show is set in Scranton, it's filmed in and around Los Angeles. I spotted some palm trees, one of which was visible from the Dunder-Mifflin parking lot. It felt like Michael and Andy were driving around in my old neighborhood. I had the same feeling last night while watching the characters on "In Case of Emergency" drive around in the Valley.

When I first moved to California, I immediately felt at home in Burbank even though I had never been in the city before. It has to be because I grew up watching so many TV shows and movies that were filmed there.

sting like a bee

Choosing which Rose Parade coverage to watch this morning was easy. I went with the high-def, commercial free telecast on Discovery HD Theater. It turned out to be (as I had suspected it might) a simulcast of KTLA's coverage. I would have thrown my support behind Knoxville-based HGTV's coverage if it had been available to me in HD (hint, hint for next year, HGTV). The difference in visual quality was enough to keep me from changing channels even if it meant getting irritated at a couple of things about the way KTLA covered the parade.

My blog got a lot more hits than usual today from about 148 people looking for information about Stephanie Edwards' absence from KTLA. Given all the interest, one of the other networks should have hired her for the day (hint, hint again, HGTV). Many will disagree but I thought that Stephanie's replacement, Michaela Pereira, did a very good job. As I listened to her speak after one of Bob Eubanks' comments, the word that kept coming to mind was "perseverance" because it certainly wasn't "chemistry." At the end of the parade, Eubanks announced that his contract was up and that he didn't know if he would be back next year. Now that Stephanie is gone, they may as well replace Bob too. Didn't Bob and Stephanie used to also host KTLA's telecast of the Hollywood Christmas Parade before being replaced?

It's too bad the floats couldn't have been driven a little more slowly. After the last parade entry rode past, Michaela and Bob still had to fill about 25 minutes of airtime. With a two-and-a-half hour time window and no commercials, we should have had plenty of time to see each of the 45 floats and to hear each of the 21 bands. I felt that KTLA spent way too much time instead on the 23 equestrian units. Make that 22 equestrian units plus one llama unit, which was actually somewhat interesting. During one of his overly verbose descriptions of yet another one of the horse entries, Bob described a rider as one of the most famous charros in America. At this point I was thinking that Bob should have just gone ahead and declared him the most famous charro. I mean, can you think of another, more famous charro?

My biggest disappointment was the minimal camera time given to the Grambling State University marching band. The band members were dressed as imperial officers from the "Star Wars" films. The KTLA cameras focused on Darth Vader and the marching stormtroopers and mostly missed the fancy moves of the Grambling band.

KTLA dropped the (audio) ball during Katharine McPhee's performance and during the appearance of their very own Stan Chambers. I understand the difficulty of creating live television but if there is one person on a float that the KTLA audience should have been able to hear, it was Stan Chambers. The audio mistake with McPhee was frustrating but perhaps KTLA can take some consolation in the fact that NBC had a similar audio problem with another "Idol" reject, Lisa Tucker.

I recorded NBC's coverage of the parade and listened to it this evening. I say "listened" for two reasons. First, it was a standard def telecast recorded in medium quality on my old Series2 TiVo, so the floats didn't look anywhere near as good as on the live, HD telecast. And second, I only recorded NBC to hear the banter between Nancy O'Dell and Billy Bush, who did a fine job of being both entertaining and informative. They are comfortable enough to ad-lib with each other and smart enough to revert to the script at the appropriate times. I heard them say their telecast was available in HD. I would have watched them live on my plasma screen if they had been commercial free and if they hadn't gone off the air after only 90 minutes. Best of all, they seemed to spend less time on the equestrian units, except for the llamas, which were somewhat interesting.

For a while I thought that Oklahoma had invaded California and taken over control of the parade. All the famous Oklahomans were riding on the state's two floats. Nothing says Oklahoma to me more than Nadia Comaneci. Too many of the floats featured butterflies and hummingbirds. I especially enjoyed the float from the City of Palmdale. It depicted a family of desert tortoises, much like my late great pet Mo. Unfortunately, Burbank's float didn't win anything this year. The best float was the one with the fire-breathing dragons from Honda.

Here's a final suggestion for KTLA. Stan's grandson, Jaime Chambers was really good on the parade pre-show. Maybe you should test his booth chemistry with Michaela. Or with Lu Parker.

aroma therapy

It's Deco Week at the Float Barn. When we lived in California, the week between Christmas and New Year's meant that my family and I would spend some time volunteering to help decorate Burbank's entry in the Tournament of Roses parade. I wrote a little about it almost a year ago.

The 2007 Burbank float is called "Free Dog Wash." Look for it toward the rear of the parade again this year. It's number 76 out of 97 in the line of march. A lot of "Star Wars" fans may tune in this year to see the two themed floats and marching stormtroopers.

One difference this year is that I will be watching the parade on the Discovery HD channel. The only reason for me to tune in to the abbreviated coverage on NBC would be to hear Nancy O'Dell and Billy Bush, both of whom I enjoy watching on "Access Hollywood." I may still set the TiVo to record the old fashioned broadcast on HGTV or the Travel Channel also.

Joseph Mailander of Martini Republic emailed to tell me that Stephanie Edwards will not be part of this year's coverage on KTLA and that the hosts are likely to mention her absence as they read from this year's script. You may recall that Joseph enjoyed the photo of Stephanie from my blog entry about the 2006 parade.

I think that the Travel Channel may once again simulcast KTLA's parade coverage. KTLA will offer a hi-def broadcast to viewers in the Los Angeles area. If the Travel Channel will simulcast KTLA's coverage and if the Travel Channel and the Discovery HD channel are part of the same company, does that mean the Discovery HD channel might simulcast KTLA's HD coverage of the parade? If so, I can watch the HD broadcast live (since I don't have an HD DVR) and record Nancy & Billy on the analog TiVo in my home office.