glorify your name

No offense to our parish priests but the best sermons I heard this weekend occurred not at Mass but during the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Both Darrell Green and Art Monk spoke beautifully about their faith, their family and football.

Darrell told an amazing story of how he barely missed the chance for a ride home from college with his best friend Carnelle. He was homesick and depressed that he didn't get to visit his family for the weekend. On Monday morning he learned that Carnelle was killed in a car wreck. Had he gotten the ride, Darrell's life would have probably ended too. Later he said that he felt God had a plan for him to remain with one team when he could have easily been a free agent. By staying with the Redskins, Darrell Green could also stay with the same church. He and Art Monk both mentioned Grace Covenant Church in their speeches. Art and his wife turn up in a photo on the church's website.

Monk must have thought for a moment that he might never get to his speech. He set receiving records throughout his career. Last night he set a record for receiving the biggest ovation from the crowd. The four minutes of applause helped make up for the eight years he had to wait for his enshrinement.

Monk and Green are two of the main reasons I became a Redskins fan. I come from a family of Giants fans. While working at WAVA, I had the opportunity to meet several of the players, including Art and Darrell. At first I would cheer on the individual accomplishments of the guys I had met. How could I not want success for those two? Before long I was rooting for the whole team, just as I am tonight as the Redskins play the Colts.

reblog, reuse, recycle

It's time to revisit a few old blog posts and check for updates. I think Oprah does this all the time. Once in a while I write a brief update in the comments section of an entry, like I did about Gentlemen's Top Cuts yesterday. Three of my past topics turned up in the news today, which was all the incentive I needed to write tonight's post about them.

It seemed incongruous to me that several cable "reality" shows are in high-definition but that "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" were not. Now we hear that the seventeenth season of "Survivor" will be the first shot in HD.

When I watched a Redskins game on the NFL Network, I was underwhelmed by Bryant Gumbel's play-by-play announcing. I wasn't alone in being relieved that he will step aside.

Shea Stadium's final opening day had me thinking about the place. All the times I was there, I never thought about breaking a seat and stealing the pieces as souvenirs. The attempt to Rickroll Shea may have failed but people elsewhere are still showing the love to Mr. Astley.

in this world the headlines read

The Giants were trailing 7-3 in the Super Bowl last night. Their defense was playing well but the offense had only managed one field goal. As I said I would the other day, I got into a New York state of mind by enjoying a Mallomar during the game. Shortly thereafter the Giants scored a touchdown. New England came back to take the lead again and it looked like they might actually achieve the 19-0 record we've heard so much about. When Eli Manning avoided that sack and threw the ball to David Tyree, it occurred to me to have a second Mallomar. Sure enough, the Giants responded with the game winning touchdown.

My mother and her siblings all grew up in the Bronx. They were exchanging emails all weekend as they make plans for Grandma's birthday party this Spring. All of their messages ended with the words "Go Giants!" The biggest Giants fan in our family was my dad. He even sent me to the same Catholic school as some of the Mara kids. Wellington Mara is buried in the same cemetery as several of my relatives. Within minutes of the game's end, people had posted congratulatory notes on Mara's page at FindAGrave.com.

Meanwhile my wife and the rest of the Redskins fans in our family happily recall that both previous Super Bowl wins by the Giants were followed by Redskins wins.

My favorite Super Bowl commercial has been getting favorable reviews. It featured computer generated images of balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The greatest balloon of all time, Underdog fought for a Coca-Cola bottle with Stewie from "Family Guy." To my knowledge, there has never been a Stewie balloon in the parade. Do you think there will be one in the future? I'm not sure that I want to see him there. Although Underdog clearly deserved the soda, Charlie Brown rises up over Central Park and gets the bottle instead. Good grief!

nosh bridges

It seems like every newspaper had a story and every local TV news show had a cooking segment about snacks over the past two weeks. Super Bowl Sunday has become an eating holiday to rival Thanksgiving. Finally, here's an opportunity for me to post some photos of snack foods that have been stuck in my camera phone for months.

A simple trip down the snack aisle at Wal-Mart reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents took us to Colonial Williamsburg. While there, I saw a lecture on archeology. The speaker said they were trying to determine the age of various glass bottles they had uncovered in what was probably a colonial trash pile. He lamented that the people of that era didn't write about changes in their drinking containers. He said it would be akin to someone writing "Dear Diary, they changed the shape of my Coke bottle today." Obviously the archaeologist didn't foresee a future full of blogs in which we do exactly that. And now you know why I was compelled to take a picture of some Planters jars that are cleverly shaped like Mr. Peanut.



I spotted this bag of Rap Snacks when someone brought it to an Einstein Simplified show some time ago. The lighting was poor but you can still read that they are YoungBloodz Southern Crunk Barbeque flavored chips. Crunk chips might have been more appropriate for the last time that the Super Bowl was played in the ATL.



Salty snacks are okay but my weakness is sweets. With Lent starting on Wednesday, I may use the Super Bowl as an excuse to enjoy a popular New York treat, namely the Mallomars that have been Ziploc-ed in the pantry since October. Makes sense if I'm rooting for the Giants this year.

My camera phone still had the image of a Kosher cake I captured at Kroger. I photographed this Strawberry Flavored Angel Food Roll, not because I craved the taste of it but because I loved the name of the bakery that made it. The label from Fancy Schmancy Desserts says it's "so good Bubbe will take 2 pieces home... in her purse."

let the points soar

Every year I get frustrated by the NFL's momentum-killing bye week after the playoffs. I've even suggested that they excuse the Super Bowl players from the Pro Bowl and move the Hawaiian two-hand touch game to this weekend. Or stage a consolation bowl between the Packers and Chargers.

As I wait and hope that the Giants can be giant-killers, the NFL Network is giving me something to pass the time. Several times a day they have been replaying games in their entirety. Tonight they showed the Giants vs. Packers game from last Sunday. They've also been running some Super Bowls from the past.

The other day I flipped past and got immediately hooked in by a classic Redskins victory. My wife and son watched with me. We were just in time to see Doug Williams' first touchdown pass of Super Bowl XXII. The Redskins went on to score 42 unanswered points, winning the game 42 to 10.

Seeing the old coverage made me appreciate the advances in television since then. The 20-year-old graphics and camera angles seemed truly archaic. The announcers were Frank Gifford, Dan Dierdorf and an unrecognizable Al Michaels. His voice has changed dramatically over the years. Is it just me or does Michaels do the overwhelming majority of the talking on the Madden NFL video game?

It was great to see my son watch that game for the first time. He's a Redskins fan who is too young to remember the last time they were in the Super Bowl. For my wife and me, it was complete nostalgia. After each extra point, we shouted "Ali Haji-Sheikh," the name of a place kicker we had long since forgotten. The ABC cameras didn't always cut away, which let us hear this sound several times.

As Ricky Sanders caught touchdown after touchdown, I was reminded of his performance at the team's victory celebration back in D.C. This young broadcaster was there to witness Sanders catch a pass from President Ronald Reagan. My good friend Bean and I described it live on WAVA.

In the time leading up to the game, we did some anti-Broncos smack talking on the morning show. Management complained when we said "Denver Sucks" on the air so I came up with an alternative catch phrase by looking in the dictionary: "The Broncos draw liquids into their mouths by creating a partial vacuum with their lips, cheeks and tongues." A listener made us some "Denver Sucks" hats, which we ungraciously wore to the White House. I have a picture taken using some antique technology. As you can see, a flaw in this "film" makes it look like I have something coming out of my nose.

five squared

Yesterday's game between the Giants and Packers left me torn. As a football fan, I wanted to see Brett Favre do well after the great season he's had. But as the son of two Giants fans, I felt some loyalty to Big Blue.

I know that my mother was rooting for New York. She told me how much she enjoyed the game when I talked with her today. My late father was a big fan of the Giants. He had season tickets and everything. As a result, I got to see the Giants play at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl, Shea Stadium and Giants Stadium. Still, I didn't become a real fan of football until later when I was working at WAVA and I met several of the Washington Redskins as they came in for interviews.

Today is the anniversary of Dad's passing. It's hard to believe that my sisters and I have lived longer since his death than we had before it. My mother has maintained a connection to my father's memory by keeping his Giants season tickets in the family. One of my New York cousins buys the tickets from her each year. The other day Mom got an email from the team with information about the Super Bowl ticket lottery. If she had gotten tickets, I wonder if I would have wanted to buy them from her. I've always thought that I would rather watch the Super Bowl on TV (especially in high definition) than go to the game.

margin of defeat

The football season ended today for Redskins fans. We were hoping for a win against a team that got to the postseason by playing a much softer schedule than the Redskins did. Instead the Seahawks and their noisy 12th man showed that they deserved to be in the playoffs.

My family and I thought the refs blew a couple of spots today that should have given Washington a first down. The most exciting play of the day turned out to be a bust. With 12:38 left in the game, a Redskins kickoff sailed over the head of the Seattle returner and landed near the 20 yard line. The Redskins recovered the ball and ran it in for what appeared to be a score. The NBC graphics even briefly flashed "touchdown." It was like a really long onside kick. The touchdown didn't count since they can't advance the ball but the Redskins did get great field position at the spot where they recovered the kick. After all that, they couldn't get a touchdown and then missed a field goal. Speaking of NBC, I thought Cris Collinsworth did a good job in the booth. I wish he were there more often.

The Redskins had been on a winning streak since the funeral of number 21, Sean Taylor. Last week much was made about the Redskins beating the Cowboys by 21 points to reach the playoffs. I don't think there will be as much attention to the fact that they lost by 21 points today.

where's Brookshier?

Andrew Siciliano sounded almost as surprised as I was to hear Pat Summerall calling today's Rams at Bengals game. I thought he had retired two or three times by now. Because the Redskins had already played this week, I was free to enjoy Andrew's amazing expertise on the Red Zone Channel on DirecTV today. Well, technically I watched it on DirecTV.com because I was away from home during football time. A couple of times Siciliano switched to the game in Cincinnati when things got slow in all the other games. I think it was just to listen to Summerall. They don't normally flip to a game just as the announcer wraps up the first half and tosses it to commercial.

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.

no purchase necessary

The reason my wife was okay with my purchase of the NFL Sunday Ticket was so that she too could watch her beloved Redskins. Their games have rarely been on TV in Knoxville these past few seasons. This coming Sunday, she'll be out of town during the Redskins at Packers game. She plans to bring a laptop so she can watch the game online, as I described a couple of weeks ago. Here's the catch: if WTNZ airs the game (and they will), DirecTV will black it out in Knoxville both online and over the satellite. But does the location of the laptop matter? Will the blackout be determined by the Knoxville zip code in our billing address or by the Atlanta IP address she's using at the time?

Last Sunday I clicked on somebody's blog through the Knoxville Blog Network and found a link to another blog which in turn had a link to a site with fantastic NFL coverage maps. It looks like most of the country will get the Redskins/Packers game, which means my wife can watch it on WAGA and won't have to worry about whether or not the DirecTV Supercast will work from Atlanta. Who knew that each team would have only one loss going into Week 6?

green hornet and the big apple band

The only Monday Night Football game I'll probably watch all year was played earlier this week. My family and I didn't mind staying up late to watch a well-played Redskins win. Thanks to the NFL Sunday ticket, we'll watch the Redskins in their throwback uniforms this weekend while our local Fox affiliate shows the Panthers at the Falcons.

One of my all-time favorite artists, Brian Setzer and his horn section made a noticeable improvement in the Monday Night Football opening song. I almost always like songs with lots of brass. The horns get a good workout on the clips I've heard from the new Brian Setzer Orchestra album. "Wolfgang's Big Night Out" comes out Tuesday. This time around they give the big band treatment to familiar classical melodies. Tonight I took advantage of the free download of "Take The 5th" available through the Setzer website. It's a twist on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The concept (but not the execution) reminds me of the disco hit "A Fifth of Beethoven."

The BSO MySpace page has more clips. I especially liked their interpretation of "Flight of the Bumblebee" called "Honey Man." Starting tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m., we can listen to the whole album online for 48 hours. You'll need to click here and then enter the passcode WOLFGANG

If money were no object, I would hop on a plane and go see one of the shows on the 6th Annual Christmas Extravaganza Tour. Listening to the classical variations and last year's speculation that he might retire the BSO made me wonder if someday Brian Setzer would play the local symphony circuit. He would have to bring the Gretsch and the Fender amp with him while the symphony in each city plays all the other parts. It might be the only way we get him to come to Knoxville.

are you ready for some

Today was my first day with the NFL Sunday Ticket in HD. At 1 o'clock I started flipping through channels 718 and up in eager anticipation of glorious high definition football. Just like on Wednesday, I got the dreaded error message, "channel not purchased." When I tried to call DirecTV, all I got was a busy signal. Repeatedly. Maybe I wasn't the only one having problems. I made myself some lunch and put on one of the blurry SD channels to make sure I was at least getting those. By the time I finished eating, most of the HD channels were working. The problem returned at 4 o'clock. Gradually the channels started coming on but by 5 o'clock I was still not getting channel 721. Coincidentally, the error code for "channel not purchased" is 721. I grabbed the phone and called DirecTV to find out what was happening. First I talked to a woman in the Philippines who had me reset my set top box. When that didn't make a difference, she transferred me to a guy in Montana who thought that the problem was somehow related to the September 19th rollout of more HD channels. The engineers were working on it, he said. People on the West Coast will get the new channels first. I was told to be patient as it may take several days (or longer) for them to work their way Eastward.

This was the perfect week for me to work out the bugs with my Sunday Ticket subscription. The Redskins don't play until tomorrow night. Instead of sticking with one game, I was in the mood to watch them all. They have an easy way to do just that on the ADD Channel or as they call it, the Red Zone Channel. Somebody at Sunday Ticket headquarters keeps an eye on which teams are nearing the goal line and flips from game to game for you. You end up seeing most of the scoring plays live. The rest are shown on replay very shortly thereafter. If nobody seems about to score, they show you whichever game is most interesting. There are no commercials. During today's action, there was no halftime break either. By the time the last game ended its first half, other games had already started their second half.

On Sundays that I can't be at home to watch, I can still see most games over the Internet by using the DirecTV Supercast. The games broadcast in my home market (on WVLT and WTNZ) are blacked out on the web, just like they are on the satellite. The flaw in that plan would occur if the game I want to see is on broadcast television in Knoxville while I'm traveling in an area that gets a different game. For example, I wouldn't be able to see a Redskins game on the computer if it's available on WTNZ. If I happened to be in Atlanta and if the Falcons happened to be on at the same time, I would be out of luck. Maybe there's a way to contact DirecTV if I need to travel on a Sunday and all the other chips have fallen into place. Here's a screen grab of what it looked like toward the end of today's Bengals at Browns game, except that I saw the actual game in the empty black box.

line and sinker

The guy at DirecTV said that my call was approximately the tenth he had received today asking about the same problem. My HD channels (72 through 79) were not working. The on screen message said "channel not purchased," which I knew to be incorrect. How did I know? I watch a little bit of "Arrested Development" or "Nothing But Trailers" on HDNet almost every day. Plus we pay the bill every month. The problem was easily resolved as the guy on the phone pushed a few buttons from his cubicle in Oklahoma. He speculated that it may have had something to do with some new settings because of all the new HD channels about to make their satellite debut. My new pal told me that most of them will turn up on the same channel numbers where they are now.

Before hanging up, I mentioned that I still did not have an HD DVR. I wanted to get one last December, but they were on back order. Ever since then, they have told me the only way to get the DVR would be to pay an additional $300 for it. I had refused because I know somebody who got a DirecTV HD DVR box for no extra charge when he signed up for the service. That's when the guy on the phone set the hook. They had a special offer. I could get one of the HD DVRs for no charge if I signed up for NFL Sunday Ticket. That's like telling me that the ice cream is free when you buy a piece of cake. I love ice cream and cake. I asked him to hang on while I used the cell phone to call my wife for a brief discussion about finances. Meanwhile, the DirecTV guy put me on hold while he checked with his supervisor to make sure the deal was still available. I laughed and said that I was also checking with my supervisor. Both our bosses said yes. They're supposed to deliver the DVR on September 24, just in time to solve the problem of the four Monday shows I want to watch at the same time.

blipverts

On the old "Max Headroom" series, TV executives got instant ratings and made on-the-spot programming decisions based on them. I was reminded of that futuristic '80s show by some modern technology.

DirecTV has a relatively new feature that I only started playing with today. "What's Hot!" is a list of which shows are most popular with DirecTV subscribers at that exact moment. Leave it on long enough and you'll see shows move up or down in the listings. To get to the "What's Hot!" page, I tuned to the News Mix channel and pushed the red button on my remote. Here's a camera phone photo of the biggest shows during the 9:00 p.m. Eastern hour tonight.



It's no surprise that the NFL season opener tops the list. A rerun of "C.S.I." was beating a rerun of "Grey's Anatomy." The MTSU game showed up in the top 5 too. I imagine that TV executives would have a hard time turning off the "What's Hot!" list.

stadia mania

Several sports facilities have passed before my eyes in the last two weeks. During our vacation road trip we drove past LP Field, Busch Stadium, Edward Jones Dome, Jacobs Field, Cleveland Browns Stadium, Fenway Park, Shea Stadium, Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium.

Before heading to Miller Park yesterday, I saw a little bit of "The Today Show." By coincidence, they had a feature about going to a baseball game. Tiki Barber would try to enjoy a game at Fenway for less than $50. Although Tiki advised viewers to buy a $12 bleacher seat, the camera plainly showed him sitting in an expensive seat near the dugout. His budget also did not include the bottled water that could be seen tucked under his arm. I wonder if things are more expensive in Boston than Milwaukee. A 20 ounce bottle of Aquafina cost me $3.50 at Miller Park. I saw many amazing desserts available in the Club level. Bernie Brewer would be a lot thicker around the middle if he ate those sweets. And if he were real, of course.



I was pleasantly surprised by the sweet treat offered by Midwest Airlines as we flew in and out of Milwaukee. Warm chocolate chip cookies are served on every flight. The airline claims that they are baked on board. They looked too perfect for that. I suspect they are at least partially cooked on the ground. I heard some people worrying that the cookies might be a casualty if Midwest is acquired by AirTran.

what's in a name?

Indianapolis Colts shirts are showing up all over Knoxville. On Friday, I saw some nice Colts sweatshirts being worn by a few of the employees at Sam's Club, where I could have bought cupcakes decorated with the Colts horseshoe atop blue and white icing. Our town doesn't have any special relationship with the Circle City. It's all about Peyton.

The News Sentinel gathered together 49 of the many local kids who were named after Peyton Manning since his days as quarterback of the Vols. Today's paper is packed full of Peyton minutiae as it has been for several days. And it's not just the newspaper. Rick Russo from WVLT is filing Peyton-centric reports from Miami. Sports collectors are hoping their Manning memorabilia will increase in value.

People with Baltimore ties still remember how the Colts abandoned them in the dark of night. Years later when Baltimore did to Cleveland what Indianapolis had done to Baltimore, somebody had the decency to insist that the team leave their name behind. Otherwise there would be Baltimore Browns instead of Baltimore Ravens. It would have been nice if Indianapolis had come up with a new name for their team and if the Colts name was made available when Baltimore got a team again. For the same reason, there really shouldn't be Cardinals in Arizona or Rams in St. Louis. The Oilers did the right thing when they became the Titans after moving from Houston to Tennessee even though the Texans didn't use the Oilers name.

There's examples in other sports too. My dad felt abandoned when the Giants left him for San Francisco. However the best case for leaving the name behind when a team moves can be summed up in two words: Utah Jazz.

loss of momentum

It feels like there should be a football game on today. We're ready for some football but there isn't any. Bring on the Colts and the Bears! As usual the NFL has given us a feast of good playoff games only to create a famine on the Sunday before their biggest game. Of course, the best solution would be for the NFL to drop the bye week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. Since that is very unlikely to happen, a year ago I suggested that they try moving the Pro Bowl to this weekend. So what if the Super Bowl players miss the Pro Bowl, right? Here's my new suggestion for 2007: a "Consolation Bowl" played by the losers of last week's games. Who wouldn't have enjoyed seeing the Patriots and the Saints play a meaningless game to fill today's void in the NFL schedule? Or instead of it being meaningless, allow a big sponsor to pony up a huge cash prize for the winning team. Without a Super, Pro or Consolation Bowl to entertain me today, I'll have to settle for staring at the Bundt Cake Bowl I saw at Williams-Sonoma the other day:

three topping sundae, um... three topic Sunday

Something in the church bulletin caught my eye this morning. At their next meeting, the women's guild will watch "Really Bad Girls of the Bible."

The editorial in the current Metro Pulse is one I can agree with. It explains why it's time to ban indoor smoking in Tennessee workplaces. Majority rules, right? Let the 26% or so of Tennesseeans who still smoke do it only in the privacy of their own homes, not in the restaurant where I'm trying to eat.

The New York Football Giants almost won their playoff game tonight. I'm disappointed that we won't get to see any more of the Pillsbury Throwboy, J. Load, the Hefty Lefty a/k/a Jared Lorenzen. He looks a bit like one of the deejays at the hip hop station down the hall. No offense, T.

pillars of society

The Redskins finished their season tonight. Even though it has been a very disappointing year, I was still looking forward to watching the game in hi-def on the new TV when I got home from work. It hadn't started raining here yet but my satellite-delivered HD picture was breaking up. I switched over to the channel with the standard def version of NFL Network. The signal was uninterrupted but I didn't like the way the picture was stretched to fill the screen. That cloud had a silver lining though. It motivated me to scroll through the satellite settings menu and change the "stretch" option to "pillars" which is sort of like watching a show in letterbox except that the black bars are on the sides rather than the top and bottom. By halftime the HD signal had cleared up enough for me to watch the rest of the Redskins game in hi-def. It seemed like every time a team prepared to punt, Bryant Gumbel said they were turning the ball over on downs. Does he know something the rest of us don't?

According to an article in USA Today last week, one in four HDTV owners is still watching regular programming and doesn't know it. My wife and I may have seen an example of that at a Christmas party this past week where the hosts had a Bowl game showing on their widescreen TV. The graphic along the bottom of the screen said we were watching ESPN-HD but the picture was stretched and distorted.

While looking for links to pepper throughout this blog entry, I found a site called Engadget HD. I am already hooked. They have 34 great reasons to make the switch to HD. Obviously I agree with their way of thinking.

My friend Pam called earlier today. We had a nice chat about our families and our careers. She has recently co-founded an advertising and marketing agency. I told her a little about my plasma screen and about the testimonial spots I do for Strickwood Communications. Rather than clog her email box over the holiday weekend, I'll post the audio of one of my spots for Pam to hear. You can listen too if you want.

rush party

TiVo alert! This week's episode of a popular network TV series is set in Knoxville! And I'm not talking about a rerun of that famous episode of "The Simpsons." On Sunday night, the detectives of "Cold Case" head south to "delve into the country music world." (If you do actually set your TiVo, pad it with an extra hour in the Eastern and Central time zones to allow for the overrun of the Broncos/Chargers and/or the Bills/Jets games.) The TiVo listing says that the character of Scotty is reluctant to visit here. It doesn't say anything about Lilly being reluctant, so let's assume that she is eager to see all that K-town has to offer. At first, I thought there must be a mistake in the listings. It seemed unlikely that the detectives would investigate country music in Knoxville, unless the story took place back in days before the country music industry migrated west to Nashville. The TV Guide listing makes a little more sense. It says that the episode's murder happened in 2000 and that the detectives go to both Knoxville and Nashville. I don't recall hearing about "Cold Case" filming on location in Knoxville but I can hope that they at least use some stock footage of the Sunsphere, which is not a wig shop.

TiVo alert #2: "Hardball with Chris Matthews" will be recording a show from the campus of The Final Four's George Mason University on December 14. The program is not about basketball however. Instead Robert DeNiro will be there to discuss his new movie about the CIA, "The Good Shepherd."

TiVo alert #3: The Brian Setzer Orchestra will be on the "Rachael Ray Show" on December 18 or 19. Speaking of the BSO, did anybody make it to their concert in Nashville last night? I just watched a brief video of the Orchestra playing the "Peter Gunn Theme" with special guest Duane Eddy at the Ryman.

speaking of sports

So far no good for the teams I follow. Knoxville Catholic High School's undefeated football season fell apart in the fourth quarter of last night's playoff game. George Mason University raised their Final Four banner this afternoon but lost the basketball game that followed. My sister's husband went to the game and sent the photos you see below. Maybe the Washington Redskins can break this fan's losing streak tomorrow when they start Jason Campbell at quarterback. At least the New York Mets will not lose this weekend.

special teams

The ending of today's Redskins game was absolutely incredible. The score was tied with six seconds remaining. The Cowboys attempted a field goal to win but it was blocked. Sean Taylor picked up the live ball and started running it back. One of the Cowboys grabbed Taylor's facemask before he was tackled. Since the game can't end on a defensive penalty, the Redskins got one untimed down. Because of the flag, the ball was spotted 15 yards closer to the end zone. The Redskins used their one down to kick a field goal that barely made it through the uprights to win the game. My son immediately started singing the "NFL Replay" jingle.

At the beginning of the season, I was doubtful that we would see very many Redskins games on local TV. So far we've seen more than I expected and there's a good chance we'll get next week's game against the Eagles too.

Today's game was the featured matchup on Fox which means that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were the ones to blatantly favor the Cowboys impartially call the game. In addition to the top announcers, we were treated to all the newest cameras and effects. At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I've got to say that I hate the flyover camera during live coverage. It's supposed to look like the view during the Madden video game but I think it makes it too difficult to tell how many yards are gained or lost on a play. It's frustrating. Those angles are fine for an instant replay when you want to focus on a catch or a tackle. Just show me the normal left to right (or right to left) movement during live action.

After the game, Terry Bradshaw stumbled his way through the highlights of all the early