busy as Bourke Street

With all that happened lately, I didn't have an opportunity to share a photo of my birthday lunch. We'll get to that after a quick update on some of the things from last week. Deacon Patrick-Murphy Racey has posted a slide show of images from the funeral for Nancy and Peter Feist. It's impressive for me to see four bishops at my home parish.

Both Jack Lail and Michael Silence linked to my blog post about Michael Jackson and Elvis. Silence also linked to the picture of my birthday cupcakes. The photo turned out fairly well, if I say so myself.

Now that we're back on the topic, it's a family tradition to have lobster on my birthday. On Monday, I had a "cold water lobster tail" (probably Australian) and some sugar snap peas at Connor's.



While it was still very good, it wasn't from a true Maine lobster. Fortunately, I'll be able to get one of those when I go to Maine.

reunited

Terry Morrow's phone call woke me from a deep sleep today. He wanted to make sure I knew that Abby Ham was returning to Knoxville. During my nap, my inbox had started to fill up with messages from people who had seen the bulletin on WBIR.com. Blogger Frank Strovel wanted to know if he was the first to email me. He was.

While I was practicing my dance routine at Academy Ballroom again, several more messages came in via email, Facebook and comments on this morning's non-Ham blog post. A comment from Heather pointed out that my name was mentioned in the comments on WBIR.com. Twice.

My hopes that I might be watching Abby on the noon news were quickly dashed by Terry's article. Instead she'll only be on in the morning, which is the newscast I can't watch because I'm already at work. In his interview with Abby, Terry asked why she would leave Cleveland for Knoxville. She said it puts her closer to her parents for when she's ready to start her own family. I jokingly told Terry that the real reason might be that she wants to participate in "Star 102.1's Dancing with the Knoxville Stars" next year. Why not?

one for you, one for me

One of the items on Rich and Lissa's wedding gift registry appealed to my wife and one appealed to me. We gave them a set of four little trifle dishes and an ice cream scoop. We threw in a jar of Mrs. Richardson's hot fudge and a package of Oreo crumbles.

My wife made a chocolate trifle for Father's Day last year. This year she wanted to make two fruit trifles for Easter, one for the choir at All Saints Church and one to have at home. That meant she needed another large trifle dish. We looked up Rich & Lissa's registry again so she could get the same style at Bed Bath & Beyond. She got both the large dish and a set of four smaller ones.



The recipe is simple. She layered angel food cake with thawed-out frozen berries and topped it with a mix of cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. It sat in the refrigerator overnight to allow the cake to soak up the juice. She's talking about making it again when we have to bring a dish to a reception with the Bishop after the Rite of Missioning at Sacred Heart Cathedral. It's part of my responsibility as an RCIA sponsor.

dance like no one is watching

Carol Scott from "Hell's Kitchen" is determined to be the top fundraiser in "Dancing with the Knoxville Stars." Over the weekend, she sent me the following message on Facebook: "ooh, that Lori Tucker just passed me! Time to make more phone calls." Before long, Carol's total had zoomed past Lori's thanks to contributions from her relatives, including her Uncle Nutzy.

Each dollar I raise counts as one vote for my dancing. Sadly, I am lagging behind the TV women (and Terry Morrow). They have all received multiple donations in the three figures. While contributions of $100 and up are awesome (thank you, blog reader Tonya Estep!), we could catch up if each of my daily readers only donated $10. Of course not everyone can, but some can do $20.



As promised, I will continue to mention those who donate to Children's Hospital through my fundraising page. Thanks to Ice Bears fan Lori Ingram and her family, active All Saints parishioners Vicki and Bill Christensen as well as their daughter Shiona, former "Door Girl" Jennifer Bohlken, a nice person named Kristen, my partner Emily's parents and my own lovely daughter.

You can click here to contribute. So how am I doing on the dance floor? Here's a new video to watch while you reach for your credit card. Thanks to BJ Mora for putting it together.

dollar dance

The rumbas on "Dancing With the Stars" don't have much in common with the rumba I was practicing on Monday night. I felt a bit of kinship with Steve-O, who was trying to fake romance with his partner Lacey. I logged on to ABC.com to throw them a sympathy vote.

The votes for "Dancing With the Knoxville Stars" come in the form of donations to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. As of this writing, Emily Loyless and I are tied with Terry Morrow and Rhonda Becker for seventh place. Both he and I have raised $225. Only two teams have raised less. Terry wrote a funny column about his dancing progress so far.



Obviously, I need to drum up more support. I hereby ask my friends in the blogosphere to consider putting a link to my fundraising page on their sites. Here's the URL: http://www.firstgiving.com/frankmurphy The idea was inspired by reader Crystal Myers, who made a donation and sent an email in response to last Tuesday's blog post:

Just wondering, my friend Mike Nicely made your blog by donating to your "DANCING" fund. We talk about you guys all the time and he convinced me to donate to you and get you boosted up. But what I am wondering is, will it make my name BLOG WORTHY? I mean, think of the donations you would get if people knew they were bloggable! You should throw that out there. Usually when they do radiothons, folks get a shout out. So think about it and watch the Benjamins roll in or, in these tough economic times, Washingtons! But hey, it's all for an awesome cause!

I'll do it! Thanks go to my friends Keith & Kathy (the candy maker) and Marcee & Chris (of Maverick Advertising) and Greg (of Integrated Management Resources). They all made donations as did somebody named John (of no last name).

Will I stay on my feet during the performance at Academy Ballroom on April 23? If you want to see the event for yourself, call Seth Linkous at Children's Hospital to buy tickets over the phone. They are going fast and will probably sell out this week. Seth's number is (865) 541-8441.

what brings us together today

Because my wife's birthday always falls during Lent, the loophole in our Lenten observance is celebratory cake. This year we expected to find cake at the Bishop's ordination but did not. However there was plenty of cake his past Saturday at the marriage of Shots Across the Bow and Oh... Really? er, I mean Rich and Lissa.

Our Lenten Friday Forbidden Treat consists of both the German chocolate wedding cake and the red velvet groom's cake. The former was beautifully covered in fondant, the latter was decorated with the banners of the lovebird bloggers. Both were homemade. Before the cake was cut, Rich responded to his best man's toast by quoting an Impressive Clergyman.

sudser dud

Can anyone explain soap operas to me? I have never watched one for more than a few minutes. Last week, I made a point of tuning in to "All My Children" to see Jeff "Fish Bait" Joslin's appearance as an assistant district attorney. He was on within the first couple of scenes and I shut off the TV after he was done.

Today I was watching one of Stacy McCloud's last appearances on the noon news. By the way, she was very kind to mention me in her blog yesterday. After the news ended, I wasn't quick enough with the remote and I saw the beginning of "The Young and the Restless." It started in a morgue, piquing my interest. Then they lost me when the lid of a cheap-looking casket opened and the old woman inside sat up and talked about her exhumation. So, is she a zombie? I thought the soaps were more realistic than supernatural. Or is it just a literary device? How did she die in the first place? Why do I care?

march forth

After the Washington Post included him in their "Post Mortem" blog, Perez Hilton wrote that Ed McMahon is still "alive and kicking." The report that the retired Marine Colonel was ill and "fighting the good fight" has him and his family in my thoughts and prayers again. Last year the news of his money trouble prompted me to write about the great times we had with him while I worked at KROQ. I don't know that Ed will be ego-Googling any time soon but I hope that my best wishes somehow reach him and that he has a happy 86th birthday on Friday.

Shortly after reading read about Ed yesterday, I coincidentally got a notification that I had been tagged in a photo on Facebook. The picture shows a group of us with Ed, Henry Rollins and Beck. We were posing backstage at the 2nd Annual KROQ Weenie Roast. The other station employees pictured are Jed the Fish, Jay "Lightning" Tilles, Thomas Guide, Bill Smith and Tami Heide. As you can see, Ed had no problem wearing his grunge clothes to go onstage and introduce Rollins Band.

long walks on the beach in the rain

Rather than exploring the Internet tonight, I chose to finish reading "Meeting Mr. Wrong," a book written by blogger turned author Stephanie Snowe. She is one of the bloggers I met at the Knoxville Symphony last month. At the time I only knew her online name, "That Chick Over There," and her website, "Jason. For the Love of God..."

"Meeting Mr. Wrong" is getting some press and favorable reviews. The book is a funny series of anecdotes about the losers Stephanie dated before meeting her husband Jason. Her first husband was another loser who left while she was pregnant with their twins. I am always amazed at the way jerks can get dates while nice guys are stuck home alone. I was also astounded at the supreme selfishness and stupidity of the men Stephanie met along the way. Fortunately, she is able to convey the humor of those situations. If the book were a sitcom, it might be called "How I Met Your Stepfather." Each guy gets his own episode chapter. It won't ruin anything for me to tell you that the ending sets up another book all about Jason. Lucky him!

Stephanie came by for an enjoyable radio interview last week. Her publisher posted the audio online in case you missed it.

codswallop

If my website were in England, it might be called "Frank Murphy Dot Co Dot UK." Is there such a site? Why yes, there is. That means there's another Frank Murphy to add to my list. And this guy has a blog!

Yesterday the British Frank Murphy posted an old joke that still got a laugh from me. I scrolled through his older posts and found one labeled "Psychopath Test." Expecting another joke, I read on. It posed a simple question with an obvious answer, or so I thought.

A woman, while at the funeral of her own mother, met a man she did not know. She thought he was amazing. She believed him to be her dream partner so much, that she fell in love with him right there but never asked for his number and could not find him. A few days later she killed her sister. Question: What was her motive for killing her sister?

According to Brit Frank, I'm psychopath because I knew the right answer. Thanks, bloke but I think I'll check with Snopes.com to make sure I'm not crazy like that.

well behaved bloggers

Usually the musicians are already on stage when a performance of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra begins. Tonight the show opened Mariachi style. Eleven people walked out from the wings, the bass players, cellists and harpsichordist sat down but the violinists remained standing as they played Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major.

Maestro Lucas Richman made his first appearance of the night after the front part of the stage with the harpsichord was lowered and then raised again with a grand piano on it. Richman thanked the sponsors and welcomed those of us in the audience for the KSO's second blogger night. I suspect that most of the senior citizens in the audience heard "blah blahs, for those who don't know, are people who blah on the Internet."

Soloist Navah Perlman played Mozart's Concerto No. 24 in C Minor with the full symphony. I especially enjoyed the way the violins blended with her performance on the piano on the softer notes. As I listened, I wondered how she could play for 31 minutes without sheet music. Fortunately it was blogger night, so I could just ask her at the post-concert reception. She uses muscle memory and also remembers thoughts and smells that she encountered while learning the piece. She specifically mentioned remembering the smell of a chocolate cake baking while she practiced. Mmm.. cake.



The most accessible opus on the program, and therefore probably my favorite, was Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4 in A Major. The first movement of the so-called "Italian Symphony" is very familiar. If I was flipping stations and happened to come across it on WUOT, I would turn up the volume and stay in my car until the end of the movement, even if I had reached my destination. During the performance Maestro Richman conducted the orchestra with his whole body. He bounced on his toes with a boyish enthusiasm that reminded me of my own childhood when I would pretend to conduct whatever symphony was coming from my father's record player. I like my classical music loud and fast. At the reception, the maestro told me that he was using his body to express the energy level he wanted from the musicians. He said that famous conductor Kurt Masur uses a lot of energy when rehearsing that piece but barely moves at all during performances of it.

My neighbor is a KSO musician. He was at the reception and we talked about firewood and how I saw him using his chainsaw the other day to cut logs. Another musician said I would be surprised how much stuff they do that is dangerous to their hands. This other guy once cut his finger pretty badly but was happy it happened to his bow hand. A female musician chimed in that she had cut off the tip of a finger but proudly showed how it was successfully reattached.

Navah Perlman was fighting a cold tonight. During our conversation we talked about ordinary stuff too. She could name a couple of grocery stores in each region of the country where she travels like Kroger and Piggly Wiggly in the south and Vons and Ralphs out west. A particular favorite of hers is Fred Meyer in the Northwest. The talk of travel turned to talk of her four kids. The last two are twins. She said if they had come first, she might have stopped right there. Navah's runny nose will not interfere with your enjoyment if you should go to Friday night's performance at the beautiful Tennessee Theatre.

It was a pleasure to chat with several fellow bloggers at the reception as well. Look for links to their reviews to be posted on the spiffy KSO blog soon. We should all try to put our own review links in each others' comment sections too.

isn't it rich?

Phone calls and text messages started flying around the Diocese of Knoxville this afternoon. Somebody spread the word that the name of our new bishop could be announced as early as tomorrow. Of all the current U.S. vacancies, Knoxville has been waiting the longest for a bishop. Upon hearing the rumor, one of the priests I know immediately used the web browser on his Palm Treo to see if anything was posted on the blog Whispers in the Loggia. There wasn't then, there is now. My priest friend was surprised that the name being bandied about is someone he knows. It doesn't always work out that way. Over the past several months of waiting, I have gotten in the habit of checking Whispers in the Loggia daily and searching the site for the word Knoxville. I'll have to begin checking two or three times a day until the official news comes out.

returning the favor

Several other bloggers have mentioned me on their sites recently. That Chick Over There was especially kind in her remarks. She says I remind her of her husband. That Chick and MDA are the most recent to say that they are coming to blogger night at the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Earlier RSVPers included Rich Hailey, Barry Wallace, Rob Huddleston, Doug McCaughan and Byron Chesney.

More recently, Byron wrote that he was impressed with the amount of traffic that flows from my site to his entertaining Knoxville Trivia Blog. It makes sense to me. He writes about local news anchors more than I do.

Speaking of anchors, Stacy McCloud got a kick out of my post about her clown interview yesterday. But mostly out of the photo.

Cassie Kiestler was happy that I found something interesting about digital TVs in her blog. She was just as happy when I was amused by a clever comment she left on one of my posts. I hope she doesn't feel obligated to write about me mentioning her again.

Leeann Samples and her husband Don came to see Einstein Simplified at First Night Knoxville. They didn't tell me they were bloggers. My Google Alert did.

A former Knoxville deejay nicknamed The Greek writes a blog called Knoxville Radio History 101. He took my picture last week while he was in the building to be on a WKTI show called "The Voice."

In a sort of the same but different vein, my friend Rodney Lee Conover informed me that I'm briefly visible on his YouTube channel. The clip is actually one of the DVD extras for his movie "BachelorMan." The disc just came out in November and the film will turn up on HDNet Movies. I visited the set one day back in 2001. Look carefully and you can see me seated behind the director John Putch, who happens to be the son of Jean Stapleton.

on an open fire!

Even Michael Phelps would have trouble burning off all the calories in my Christmas stocking and under our tree. I have been schlepping to the indoor pool at the fitness center at least three days a week all through the holiday season to help assuage the guilt.

Just in time for the holiday eating season, I found a blog called Back to the Fridge by Charlie Hills. I thought about adding it to the blogroll on the right of my page, but the BTTF design doesn't lend itself to easy scrolling and browsing. Instead I view his posts via Google Reader. On Friday, Charlie wrote: "Although the new year is now officially underway, let’s face it: our diets don’t start until Monday." My thoughts exactly! Charlie's tastes agree with mine in two other important areas: TV women and Chex Mix. A lot of guys wisely choose Mary Ann over Ginger but not everyone picks Bailey over Jennifer.

I always get some sweet treats for Christmas. This year I seemed to be especially blessed. I've already mentioned the marshmallows I got from friends and alluded to the gingerbread cookies my kids made. Perhaps my professed affection for See's Candies inspired some family members to load me up with gourmet chocolates.

Today we tried to slice and share some truffles from Joseph Schmidt, Master Chocolatier. One of the truffles in the package of three was supposed to be pomegranate flavor. The others were "all dark" and "extra dark." We couldn't tell by looking at them. The outer shells were a bit hard and broke when we tried to cut them in half. The excellent taste was not affected. Unfortunately the French truffles from Bissinger's were not quite as good. My wife chose the espresso and mint flavors. I took the raspberry. We split the double chocolate and the hazelnut. They were okay, just not as delicious as I had hoped.

The Chocolate Filled Candy Canes we got from Elegant Gourmet didn't do it for me either. After tasting a piece of my wife's, I gave mine away. There was too much candy cane and not enough chocolate for my taste.

On the other hand, a small box of assorted Krause's Chocolates was a very nice surprise for our family to share. They were chosen for us by our daughter's boyfriend who had visited the shop in Saugerties, New York. The chocolates came with a page that identified the flavors by the color of the paper cup and the shape of the candy. For example, the raisin cluster was in a red cup and had a bumpy surface. The butter cream comes in a white cup with a smooth top. Another candy-related gift I received from the same benefactor was a "Star Trek" set of Pez dispensers. As you can see, they're all straight but Sulu.

what brought you here

There's no question that 2008 was a pretty good year for my blog. I won the "Best Local Blogger" award in the Knoxville News Sentinel readers' poll and had a couple of days with big readership spikes. So, which posts were the most read this year? Not surprisingly, a 2006 post about Abby Ham was the number two ranked entry. If I filter out the old stuff that still turns up in people's Google searches, here are my most viewed posts from 2008:

1) Jimmy Kimmel mentioned me when I sent him a funny obituary from the News Sentinel

2) Stacy McCloud's boots will turn up in my search results for years to come

3) This December entry about Julianne Hough's concert in Knoxville made a strong late-year showing

4) Gentlemen's Top Cuts has gone out of business but it got a lot of attention when it first opened

5) Oh and Paris Hilton showed up in Pigeon Forge

6) Fans of Randy Rhoads linked to my post on their message boards

7) Game on! The Osmonds are competing with the Houghs to be the most popular Mormon showbiz family among my readers

8) Fans of American Idol's Ace Young lit up their message boards too

9) Of all my posts about Dr. Bill Bass and the Body Farm this year, this one got the most views

10) Stacy McCloud got promoted to evening anchor but didn't give up the noon news

11) A lot of clicks from Derek & Julianne Hough fans came via the ABC.com message boards, take that Osmonds!

12) People looking for this post could have been Natasha Henstridge fans, "Lost" fans, WATE news fans or maybe even George Michael fans

13) We're back where we started with a follow-up to the most-viewed post about Jimmy Kimmel mentioning Knoxville

14) I think readers of this post about local news were mostly interested in diamond rings or the lack thereof

15) Mmm... cupcakes

16) Melinda Doolittle may not have as many fans as Ace Young but they found this post

17) Who do you think the readers of this entry were searching for, Chef Walter or Stacy McCloud?

18) Like everyone, I was surprised and saddened by Tim Russert's passing

19) It looks like the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra will have a successful blogger night in January

20) My recent story of a young girl's Christmas wish for a styrofoam penguin got mentioned on the local news

21) Pope Benedict XVI might have ranked higher if he visited Knoxville

22) DSRL!

23) The last Haunted Cave might have inspired people to read about Cherokee Caverns

24) Sam's Club gets me hooked on raspberry chipotle sauce and then cuts me off

25) Wasn't it great when the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Rickrolled us?

Happy New Year! See you tonight?

is this my new TV?

Contrary to popular belief, today is the fifth day of Christmas. In lieu of golden rings, I'm taking a break from holiday themed blog posts to share a podcast with you. Today is also 50 days until the digital television transition. As a cable and satellite subscriber, I thought I was ready until WATE ran a test recently and my cable company failed. Way to go, Knology!

On yesterday's public affairs radio program, I interviewed Russ Manning of East Tennessee Public Television. They had to make the switch early when their analog transmitter broke down last June. You can listen to the show by clicking on the play button below or you can download it by right-clicking here. During the interview, Russ mentions that you can get more information from their website. He also recommends a site called Antenna Web, where you can enter your address to find out about the broadcast towers near you and where to point your antenna to receive their free over-the-air broadcasts. There is still time to get a converter box coupon before the switch.

After the taping ended, we were still talking about local TV. I told Russ about my blog entry on WBIR's local HD programming. And we both wondered why WVLT cannot control the volume on their local commercials.

I had fun with the on-air conversation too, especially since I got to gripe about the way some local stations switch from HD to SD before the late local news. I also talked about a blog post by a woman named Cassie whose mother hated the new digital TV they bought for her on Black Friday. Toward the end of the show, Russ and I reference a very funny viral video that I told you about forty days ago. Whether you've seen it before or not, please take two minutes to enjoy this PSA from "Talkshow with Spike Feresten." And then you'll be up to speed for the thirty-minute podcast.

south pole meets north pole

Well, Layci did get her penguin. Thanks to a snowball effect started by my blog post on Friday, the young girl got her Christmas wish today. I wrote about how a mysterious benefactor bought a Styrofoam penguin as a surprise for the girl who had admired it but couldn't afford it. The catch was that only the girl's first name was known. The staff at Carole's Interior and Gifts tried finding Layci, without success. I happened to wander into the store last Thursday and heard the story from Carole Brailey.

As I was writing the blog post on Thursday evening, I realized that the story was too good to not also tell on the radio Friday morning. One caller got upset that I was making such a fuss over a little girl in an affluent neighborhood getting a frivolous gift when there are so many needy people elsewhere in the region. She was in financial trouble herself but turned down offers of help from other listeners. This situation played out during the 9:00 a.m. hour, while WATE's Bo Williams was on the air with us.

The News Sentinel's Michael Silence posted a link to my blog post on Friday morning. The Shopper News ran their own version of the story on Monday morning. WATE picked up on the search for Layci in their newscasts Monday night. Reporter Kristyn Caddell told me that she got the story from my blog after discussing it in the newsroom with Bo and others.

Friends of the family heard the coverage and got word to Layci's sister, who is a college student. The girls' parents, Karen and John, brought Layci back to the store today to pick up her gift from Santa. The man in the red suit told me that in previous years he has been onstage as part of the Sevier Heights Baptist Church's Living Christmas Tree. Layci's Dad said that she had done her part to "pay it forward" in the past. She recently participated in a program to collect and distribute shoes for the homeless.

Kristyn was there with a cameraman from WATE to capture the moment for tonight's 6:00 p.m. news. She was kind enough to mention me in her story and to pose for a photo with Layci. In times like these, Kristyn said she was glad to report a story with a happy ending. Merry Christmas Eve!

death by telekinesis

During a recent remote broadcast from a car dealership, a coworker told me that he was going to an "ugly Christmas sweater party" that night. Although the self-explanatory concept reminded me of a funny scene in "Bridget Jones Diary," I had not previously heard of it. As often happens once something shows up on your radar, I started noticing several pictures of "ugly Christmas sweater parties" on USA Today's Pop Candy Blog.

A few days later, that same coworker saw me wearing one of the Alpaca wool sweaters I received as a gift last year from my wife's brother and his family. They live in Peru, where he is a missionary for Globe International. I felt like I had hit the jackpot when they drew my name in the family Christmas lottery. The Alpaca sweaters are the warmest, softest and most comfortable I've ever had in my life. I wore a light brown one to the Christmas parade two weeks ago. Anyway, my coworker asked if I was going to an "ugly Christmas sweater party." He thought that the llamas on my gray sweater were reindeer.

On Tuesday night I wore the gray sweater to the last regular Einstein Simplified show of the year (not counting our New Year's Eve gig). I kept it on during one of my favorite games, "Story Story Die," but soon got too hot on stage and took it off. Paul Simmons' wife Michelle took pictures throughout the show. I asked her to send me one that I could post here to show that the llamas look nothing like reindeer. Feel free to add your own captions in the comments section.

ort report

For several days after each Thanksgiving, all my meals include leftovers. The cranberry sauce is always the first thing to get used up while the turkey lasts the longest. I've discovered that my new favorite condiment makes a great replacement for cranberry sauce. After I reheat four ounces of turkey for lunch or dinner, I pour some Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce on top. Its sweetness and spiciness give an extra zing that takes the boredom out of leftovers. I've been going through the stuff so fast that while at Sam's Club yesterday, I bought two more bottles without remembering that I still had one in the pantry.

I found some interesting Internet leftovers too. My friend Sandy posted some of her Thanksgiving recipes last week. While tracking back a link to my post about free symphony tickets for bloggers, I happened across a cute story about a kid who thinks sweet potato casserole is called "marshmallow basagna." Byron Chesney posted a picture of Thanksgiving cakes and pies that had me wanting to take a bite out of my screen.

As if my review of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade weren't complete enough, let me point you to somebody at NPR who wrote a blog post about the great Rickroll at the parade. Another blogger did a "live blog" of the event. I've thought about doing that but I ended up sitting back on the couch and jotting a note on a legal pad when something struck me as noteworthy.

rock me Amadeus

After a successful Blogger Night last year, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra is doing it again. This time around it will be at the Mozart & Mendelssohn concert (with a little Bach thrown in) on Thursday, January 15, 2009. I like that the KSO has embraced new media. In addition to the podcasts on their main site, they now have their own blog too.

The soloist that night will be Navah Perlman. If you think her name sounds familiar, you're right. When she got married, the announcement in the New York Times mentioned that "her father is the violinist." Not "a violinist" but "the violinist."

The same rules apply as last time. The first 50 49 bloggers who respond to Stephanie Burdette will get a pair of tickets in exchange for their willingness to post a blog entry about their experiences at the concert. Don't worry if you're not an expert in classical. Even the musically uninitiated will recognize Mendelssohn's "Italian" symphony. Several of the area's many great bloggers posted reviews of the concert last year. Take a look at what Krisha, Byron, Lissa, Tish and Doug wrote after getting exposed to some culture.

The deadline for emailing Stephanie is January 14 at 2:00 p.m. Once again bloggers should consider paying it forward by helping me to spread the word. Write something now and Include a link back to this post. Or you can just link to Stacy McCloud's boots if that's what you want.

light bulb factory

Maybe this week I can clear out a few things that have been sitting in my drafts folder for a while. The clever blog called We Have an Idea and Then We Write It Down came to my attention back on September 27 when they used the words comedy and improv in the same sentence. I have a Google alert for that phrase. They were hoping for a live comedy radio station, just like we were trying to do at the Comedy World Radio Network, which as I've said before, was ahead of its time.

You could spend hours scrolling through the archives at We Have an Idea. I like that they spell idea with an r in their URL. That's the way my dad's old boss, Nelson Rockefeller, pronounced the word. The idea bloggers want a button to bookmark songs on the radio for later download. My friend Sandy recently wrote on her blog that such a thing is on the horizon. I especially liked their ideas for pressure sensitive brake lights and model roller coaster sets.

Tonight's post has me thinking of two different tangents, one about improv and one about radio. You might recall that the members of Einstein Simplified were cast in a partially improvised horror film called "Fish Bait." Our co-director Darby Totten was recently cast as an FBI agent on three episodes of the Fox series "Fringe." And, of course, our live show happens on Tuesday nights at Patrick Sullivan's. Come see us before we take time off for Christmas.

While looking for a link to include with tonight's first paragraph, I discovered that the Internet Archive Wayback Machine has much of the old Comedy World site online. The page that they saved for my show mentions some of my favorite interviewees including Miss Yvonne, the Armenian Comedian and Billy Bob Thornton.

it's the economy

Film critic Betsy Pickle sat behind me at the screening of "Role Models" tonight. She showed up even though she found out today that she was a victim of staff cutbacks at the Knoxville News Sentinel. 13 people lost their jobs in the newsroom along with about 40 more in other departments. I didn't hear all their names but the ones I remember are style writer Kevin Cowan, arts writer Doug Mason, and travel editor Linda Lange.

Some of those names have turned up on my blog in the past. Kevin Cowan wrote about my makeover and Doug Mason sat next to me at the circus. I've mentioned Betsy many times, usually after seeing her at a promotional screening. In the midst of expressing my condolences over the loss of her job, I forgot to offer my sympathy to Betsy for the loss of her father, who died last month.

I don't know if the stock market being down in the dumps the past two days had anything to do with the staff reduction. It was probably in the works longer than that. The News Sentinel does seem to be shifting more focus to its online products. I suspect that the remaining staff will be expected to write more blog entries and to shoot more web video. Betsy didn't know if her old blog and archived reviews would remain online or disappear.

By the way, the movie was pretty good. It has a few gross-out moments but it isn't as shocking as some of the other movies Paul Rudd has been in recently. There are times when the jokes take a back seat to the plot, which isn't a bad thing. Rudd and Seann William Scott play court-ordered big brothers to kids who need a friend. The film builds to a satisfying conclusion at an event I thought they made up. However Laire appears to be an actual event where people pretend to be someone else.

brown bread

The good people of Great Britain were introduced to the Body Farm last night. Television presenter Stephen Fry toured the South and visited Knoxville's famous forensic anthropology facility in an episode of "Stephen Fry in America" on BBC One.

What I've read makes me hope the show turns up on BBC America soon. While filming the series, Fry will achieve my personal goal of visiting all 50 states. Without having seen it, the reviews remind me a little of Graham Norton's funny visit to Dollywood and the Dixie Stampede that aired on these shores a few years back.

According to a review on TV Scoop, Fry described a decaying corpse as "a great seething, living... appalling smelling thing... it's as if it's clawing inside you to try and scoop out every living part of you and turn it into death... it's unspeakably horrible!"

One British blogger wonders if there are any Body Farms in England that he should avoid. A crime scene reconstruction involving a body in a trash bin made another blogger contemplate the stark difference between life and death. An American expat runs down all the states visited in the episode and mentions that Stephen Fry was so impressed by the Body Farm that he might consider donating his own body to science. Not everyone loved it. One major Fry fan had nightmares that she was buried alive under a black plastic tarp at the Body Farm. By the way, the plastic tarps are not there for modesty. Maggots will eat a body more completely in the shade.

cupcake, gonna have a cupcake

In celebration of my major award, I went only partially Elvis today. First, I stopped by Pilot to get a free copy of the News Sentinel to send to my mother. The print edition of the East Tennessee's Best section has a nice portrait photo of me next to the Best Local Blogger description.



At lunchtime I found myself driving past a BBQ joint I have been wanting to try. Pup's Pit is a small building tucked into the corner of a used car lot on Walker Springs Road. I ordered a pulled chicken sandwich with a mixture of mild and hot sauce. The combination gave me the perfect level of spicy heat, however the flavor was too ketchupy. Before eating the sandwich, I ate a little piece of chicken without any sauce. It had a good smoky taste. Next time I will have them leave off the sauce and put on my own when I get home.



As promised yesterday, my celebratory dessert was a Graceland cupcake from The Cupcakery. The banana cake was topped with peanut butter icing and a slice of dried banana partially dipped in chocolate. It was fine, however I would have liked it better if it had banana icing too. The clerk told me that the Pumpkin Harvest cupcakes in the same case had a cinnamon icing and a piece of ginger snap on top. Generally speaking, the Cupcakery's cupcakes look perfect but could benefit from more icing. I like icing.

thankyou, thankyouverymuch

Does your Friday morning routine include a stop at a convenience store? Maybe you can pick up an extra copy of the News Sentinel for me. I want to send copies to my mother, my grandmother and some other relatives. Remember that local Pilot stores give away the paper for free on Fridays during high school football season. Although I'm sure they would enjoy reading a preview of the Catholic at Fulton game, I actually want Mom and Grandma to see Clay Owen's photo of yours truly that will be included with the results of the News Sentinel's annual readers poll.

If you voted for me in the East Tennessee's Best survey, I sincerely thank you. Your votes in the Best Local Blogger category were enough to give me the edge over hundreds of talented local bloggers including the next two top vote getters, Richard Allen and Dave Foulk.

A year ago, I was very surprised to make the top three. You may recall that I placed second, behind Barbie Cummings. "Local Blogger" was a new category last year and I thought that some of the other bloggers might rally their readers to vote in the new poll. I'm all the more complimented that I won without having to ask. The blurb that accompanies the results is really, really nice:

There isn’t much Frank Murphy hasn’t done. You’ve probably heard him on radio station Star 102.1 as one-third of the popular Marc & Kim and Frank Show. He and his wife have done radio commercials for LA Weight Loss. He’s a member of Einstein Simplified, a comedy improv group that performs weekly in Knoxville. He was a judge on “Warehouse Warriors” on the DIY Network. He also likes to nap. A lot.

When he’s not doing all that, Frank writes on his blog. He’s been doing so since August of 2005. He writes about life, love, the Tennessee Valley Fair, swimming, Knoxville-turned-Nashville band Jag Star, body farms, fireworks displays, going to the movies, his love of the world’s largest things, shopping for tuna and fat-free salad dressing at Food City, and the latest on his quest to visit all 50 states. You know, all your favorite stuff.

It’s rare if a day goes by when Frank doesn’t update his blog. It’s also rare if a day goes by when East Tennessee isn’t reading it.

It's appropriate to acknowledge Jack Lail for sending a lot of hits my way earlier this year by linking to my post about Coed Naked Bar Hopping. That entry also got several clicks from the gang at The Sunsphere is Not a Wigshop (who reviewed this week's Einstein Simplified show, by the way). The follow-up post was linked to by Michael Silence.

Speaking of Michael's excellent blog, I got a laugh when the newspaper's photo department emailed me to arrange a meeting, they wrote:

Hey Frank,
KNS readers have voted you ET's Best blogger. Michael Silence was robbed. Can we get a photo of you in action sometime soon?

I think I just might celebrate my victory with a Graceland cupcake. The peanut butter icing and banana cake treat is the featured flavor this week at The Cupcakery.

the other forensics

This is not usually a blog about politics but occasionally something political catches my interest. For example, a Catholic blogger posted a link to an NPR story which reports that Starbucks customers prefer Obama while Walmart shoppers prefer McCain.

Meanwhile my wife's Aunt Ginny and some of our other family members in St. Louis will be affected by street closures for Thursday's vice-presidential debate. People visiting the site of the debate can buy donkey or elephant shaped cookies as a way of showing their preference. The elephant cookies won in 2004, which makes perfect sense to me. You get more cookie for your $1.25 with a big elephant than with a little donkey.

My recent posts about St. Louis restaurants must have caught the attention of somebody important. That's the only way I can explain why I got a press release about St. Louis Fashion Week from the Convention & Visitors Commission.

of the faithful departed

The tragic story of Thomas Vander Woude's death brought my daughter to tears as I told her about it yesterday. Not because he drowned in a septic tank but because of the reason why.

If I had realized that Mr. Vander Woude lived in Prince William County, Virginia, I might have been quicker to read the details of his life. My wife and I lived there too when we bought a townhouse in Dale City. Like countless other deejays, I first read the news when I saw the following paragraph on Perry Simon's showprep page last week:

No, you may not laugh about this poor guy drowning in a septic tank, not after he died saving his son, who had fallen in before him. He was being heroic.

At the time, I didn't click on the link to read the full story. I wish I had. When the Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia picked it up, I saw the limitless scope of a father's love for his child. The blog quoted heavily from a very good Washington Post profile of the man.

An earlier piece in the Post described how the retired Mr. Vander Woude attended daily Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church and spent his days working around his property with his son Joseph, who has Down syndrome. When the cover to the septic tank collapsed under Joseph, Thomas jumped in and got under his son, pushing him up until rescuers could pull Joseph out. By the time they pulled Thomas out of the sewage, the father of seven was unconscious and could not be revived.

As Bishop Paul Loverde pointed out at the funeral, Mr. Vander Woude's sacrifice was "saintly." Rocco Palmo, the writer of Whispers in the Loggia, picked up on the fact that not only are people praying for the Vander Woude family but that an emailer to National Review found themselves praying to Thomas. Parents everywhere should be inspired by Mr. Vander Woude's example of selflessness.

deep in the heart

They do everything bigger in Texas, which is why they are moving forward with plans for not one but two body farms. An article in The Dallas Morning News today reports that in addition to the newly opened Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University in San Marcos, there's one coming soon to Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. Dr. Jerry Melbye, the director of TSU's facility has a license plate that reads DR4N6. I remember once seeing a license plate in California that was either NNNN6 or NNNNSICS.

Of course the original Body Farm is at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Given that Sam Houston used to live in East Tennessee, it's apropos that his namesake college would get a body farm too. Last month UT opened a new training center at the National Forensic Academy in Oak Ridge with a bang.

Since my last Body Farm update, I've noticed that some kids at Bronxville High School in New York are reading "Death's Acre" and posting their book reports on their forensics class blog. I found this interesting because I used to scoop ice cream at the Baskin-Robbins that was in Bronxville.

three from the mailbag

A friend from RIVR Media sent word that they are looking for garages to trick out. The Knoxville-based company produces shows for several networks including DIY and HGTV. This particular show is called "Garage Mahal" (as in Taj Mahal). They are looking for homeowners willing to let the TV show do an extreme transformation on a disorganized garage that could theoretically hold two or more cars. It also must have a ceiling height of eight feet or greater. The homeowners have to be available for filming for a span of three days in October or early November. They are looking to cast couples in their late twenties to mid-forties. The email didn't say but I think they plan to film the show in and around Knoxville. However if you look and sound like you "ain't from around here," that can be a plus. I think it helped them choose my house and me to be on an episode of the show "Ed the Plumber" a few years and pounds ago.

Stan Gibert from the American Heart Association asked me to give a plug to their upcoming Greater Knoxville Start! Heart Walk on November 15 in Market Square. The press release says that adults gain two hours of life expectancy for each hour of regular exercise. Stan must have missed the recent blog entry about how I would rather swim a mile than walk a mile.

Sarah Lewis from Jag Star got an email from her aunt with a link to a blog entry I wrote about the band almost a year ago when I noticed her "JAGSTAR" license plate. Sarah emailed me to say that the vanity plate was a gift from her dad. I'm not the only one who recognized them. Sarah said people in Knoxville would honk at her and leave notes on the windshield. She and her husband have since moved to Nashville and are expecting a baby girl named Sofie in December. Congratulations!

it swings, it jives

The "canned food curse" almost struck again. For the past several years, Webb School of Knoxville collected more donations for the Second Harvest Food Bank but lost the annual football game to archrival Knoxville Catholic High School. At halftime of tonight's game, Lori Tucker and I announced that Catholic had finally won the High School Football Challenge. Moments earlier, Webb kicked a field goal as time ran out in the first half to take a 9-7 lead. They went up 16-7 in the third quarter. Several people in the stands worried aloud about Catholic's chances. However the Fighting Irish came back to win 20-16.

Lori and I were chatting about our respective kids as we waited for halftime. We each have a college freshman this year. While we were standing there, blogger Missybw of The House of Flying Monkeys came up and introduced herself to us. It was nice to finally meet her after all the nice comments she has posted on my site.

As riveting as our check presentation must have been, the true highlight of halftime was a performance by majorette Sarah Harris. Normally I don't care for baton twirling but Sarah won me over with her musical choice and excellent skills. She performed to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" as covered by Michael Bublé. I know purists will find it ridiculous that "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is my favorite Queen song, yet it is.

meant what I said

It's too early to think about Thanksgiving and Christmas. However a press release NBC sent yesterday got me doing just that. The release runs down the network's holiday programming for 2008. Maybe the timing is understandable. While at KROQ, I would experience a bit of a Christmas rush in September. I suspect that part of the reason my friend Bean put his blog on hiatus is because of the workload for the annual Kevin & Bean Christmas CD, which probably needs to be turned in soon.

NBC will broadcast the 82nd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I remember reading over the summer that this year's parade would feature a new Horton (as in "Horton Hears a Who") balloon. I'm still waiting to hear what other characters will make their helium-filled debut in November.

In addition to the return of some traditional holiday specials, the NBC release lists several new shows. They will crank out three countdowns that sound similar to the stuff you see on Vh1 and elsewhere. I will watch at least one, maybe two of these:

"Greatest Holiday TV Specials and Movies" features clips from the most-loved holiday TV specials and films. From animated TV classics to the must see holiday films of the past and present, we'll rank the greatest holiday moments that ever graced the screen.

"Greatest Holiday Songs" will count down the best performances of both classic and contemporary Christmas songs. From timeless tunes from the great crooners to recent essentials from the more modern pop stars, we will recount the greatest songs of the season.

"Greatest Holiday Home Videos" goes home for the holidays as we count down the most hilarious and entertaining holiday moments sent in from families' home videos across the country. This special will be an hour of non-stop family fun where we choose from thousands of submissions, and rank the best America has to offer from holiday mishaps to memorable moments to classic Christmas season chaos.

Of the three, I'm most interested in "Greatest Holiday Songs" although it would be funnier to make a countdown show of the worst Christmas songs. I've mentioned several of my favorite Christmas songs in the past. Maybe I'll arrange them in a numbered list before the NBC special airs. I doubt our lists will be very similar. Except for "Last Christmas." Everybody loves that one. If you also enjoy Christmas songs, you should know that the aforementioned Bean posts some Christmas Music Everyday.

There was no mention in the NBC press release of "Christmas Eve Mass at the Vatican." However the Catholic blog Whispers in the Loggia revealed today that Cardinal John Foley will return as "the voice of Christmas." Foley had indicated that maybe it was time for him to step down but higher ups in the Church and at the network urged him to stay.

sorry Charlie

Doug McCaughan used to have a picture on his site of a t-shirt that said "Don't Make Me Blog You." That was exactly my thought today when I was buying a can of tuna fish at Food City.

The shopping trip had started out well. I saw the Tennessee Traveler vehicle parked out front of the supermarket and knew that Alan Williams must be inside. He was just getting in the checkout line and paused to say hi. He said it had been a while since he had seen me. I mentioned that I had recently seen him on stage at the Tennessee Theatre when WVLT did their local upfront presentation. On the way home, I thought about the time I invited Alan, Gene Patterson and Ted Hall to judge a turkey cooking contest. I was with a now-defunct oldies station at the time. Each anchorman judged a different day of the three-day competition leading up to Thanksgiving.

I had driven over to Bearden to patronize one of the few Food City stores that still carries my favorite fat-free salad dressing. During my weight loss, I also switched brands of chicken and tuna. I only buy cans of StarKist that are marked not just "Low Sodium" but "Very Low Sodium." Tuna was a good choice for me on days I felt especially hungry. My serving size for chicken is five ounces. For turkey and most types of fresh fish, it's four ounces. For beef, it's only three ounces. However, I am allowed to eat a whole six-ounce can of low sodium tuna. That's why I got so mad at StarKist today when I took a can off the shelf and realized it had been downsized to four-and-a-half ounces. Boo StarKist! Now I have to look for a store that carries the very low sodium variety of Bumble Bee or Chicken of the Sea in six-ounce cans.

howdy pardners

Dr. Bill Bass founded the Body Farm because corpses in Tennessee are different from the ones he had examined in Kansas. In order to determine the time of death, he needed to study the decomposition process. Bodies decayed faster in summer than winter. The rate depends on the climate. The forensic anthropologists in Knoxville came up with a formula based on the average daily temperature. It works pretty well but to truly advance the science, more body farms must be opened in different climates. Dr. Bass has spoken about this in some of our radio interviews over the years. A new article on the How Stuff Works site also describes the dilemma a couple of pages in.

The second body farm after Knoxville's is at Western Carolina University. The climate there is almost identical to here. At least they made an effort. I think It would be more useful to have a body farm on the Carolina shore than in the mountains. Maybe their farm helped convince the next school to try one.

A new body farm is about to open at Texas State University. Their clever logo shows a skull wearing a cowboy hat. You may recall that the locals were concerned about buzzards when the plans were first announced. The Fox affiliate in Austin recently aired a report about the new place. The news anchor said that the San Marcos ranch will be the largest body farm in the world. Texans are always talking about size, aren't they?

Lastly, I came across a blog by someone who attended a summer class at the original Body Farm. It's worth a click if you have a minute.

the tonightline show

Jay Leno slipped in a joke about moving to ABC on his show the other night. Nobody I know saw it but there was a write-up on the Internet that tells us all we need to know. Jimmy Kimmel responded by doing a funny bit at the network president's press conference the following day.

There's not much new to say about the rumors of a possible move by Leno since my last post on the subject. Except that Leno says he will definitely leave NBC and that Jimmy sent me an email to say thanks for the kind words.

If you clicked on the two links in the first paragraph, you saw lots of comments from people theorizing about whether Jimmy's show should be moved to 12:35 or whether he should bolt to Fox. Here's something for them to over-analyze: Jimmy read my last post and liked it. But which part? The suggestion that "Nightline" could be replaced by a 30 minute Leno show? Or that Jimmy himself should be allowed to compete at 11:35? Or that in the age of DVRs, it hardly matters what time he's on.

Oh yeah, Jimmy's ex got an Emmy nomination for her Matt Damon video.

life lesson

A high school teacher in Oklahoma writes a blog called Chalk Dust Makes Me Sneeze. He refers to himself as Mr. W. and he's in or near Muskogee. I only know of him because he turned up on my blogging radar when he wrote that his parents planned to donate their bodies to the Body Farm here in Knoxville. As I scrolled through some other entries, I learned that his parents' minds were still sharp but that their bodies were failing. After his father passed away, the teacher wrote about the odd feeling of there being no funeral.

Of all the entries I found, the best was the one that describes how to make a marriage last. The teacher came to Tennessee to be with his father, who was too weak to do anything. The dying man was more concerned about his bedridden wife than himself. And the teacher's mother thought more about her husband than herself. Here are the exact words:

People wonder how to make marriage last. Simple. Put your partner’s needs first, even when you’re both literally days from death.

to the Batcave

Perhaps the best place for me to be this week is in an honest-to-goodness cave. Where else can I go to avoid the hype surrounding the new Batman movie? With all the publicity I've seen so far, until yesterday I really thought "The Dark Knight" was opening tomorrow (or tonight at midnight). There's actually another week to wait. Or more if it's sold out on opening day.

Christian Bale and Heath Ledger were on the cover of the Entertainment Weekly that came in the mail last Saturday. There's a review of the movie in the Time magazine with Mark Twain on the cover. I had to take my wife's advice and stop reading it when it started to reveal more about the film than I want to know. She knows how I can be. When I'm really looking forward to a movie, I'll watch and read too much about it. "Get Smart" was a disappointment for me because I had seen all the best jokes in the trailers.

To a certain extent, I can't help it. Batman stuff is everywhere. Today on the Knoxville Blog Network, I saw an interesting entry from The Screening Log about the Bat Signal in Manhattan. In my on-screen satellite guide I saw a listing for a show on History called "Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight." I set it up to record.

The aforementioned Entertainment Weekly had a Batman reference that didn't spoil anything. Under the heading "Even the Darkest of Knights Shines Brightly on Blu-ray" was a near-silhouette of Adam West as Batman standing on a Gotham rooftop. It was an ad for the Blu-ray edition of "Batman: The Movie." I enjoyed the connection between the old and the new. By the way, when Adam West appeared on the "Today" show recently, it was to promote that same Blu-ray disc.

It's clear that Christian Bale is the best Batman since Adam West. Oh alright, Bale is the best Batman since Kevin Conroy, who was the best Batman since Adam West.

wherehouse store

Based on the big crowds at Sam's Club today you would have thought that a blizzard was coming. Despite the economy, people were stocking up for the Fourth of July. I was there just to get my regular groceries. They didn't have any of the one liter bottles of Deer Park water. The clerks told me they haven't had them for a while and probably never will again. Boo! I always take one of the bottles with me to the Einstein Simplified show on Tuesday nights.

It was no surprise that Sam's had run out of Jennie-O ground turkey again. That happens all the time. However the lack of Original Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce was a big disappointment. I hope it gets restocked soon. The sauce recently appeared out of nowhere to become my new favorite condiment. I wrote about it here when I bought my first bottle back in April. I just finished my second bottle of it this afternoon before heading out to Sam's.

My friend Bean gets some great responses to his blogs. For example, novelty singer Dr. Elmo recently posted a comment on Christmas Music Everyday and the son of novelty singer Dickie Goodman sent Bean an email. That's all well and good but I got a pretty good email response to my blog entry about the raspberry chipotle sauce. The company that makes it wrote to invite me to sample some of their other products!

My wife and son fooled me into thinking that I had gotten one extra present on Father's Day. They brought forth a large gift bag for me to open. In it was a box from Fischer & Wieser with the three free samples they had sent. I got a jar of Mom's Pasta Sauce, a bottle of Guacamole Starter and a bottle of Pomegranate & Mango Chipotle Sauce, which obviously is the first one I opened. Pomegranate and chipotle are two of my favorite tastes. The sauce is very good although I would have preferred a little more pomegranate and a little less mango.

In the accompanying press kit, I learned that the company also makes "The Beverly Hillbillies" brand of sauces. I think Jethro needs to send me a bottle since I'm such a fan.

no joke

The bad news came via the Google Alert I have set up for comedy improv information. One of my favorite venues for improv, the Comedy Warehouse (and the other five nightclubs) at Walt Disney World's Pleasure Island will close in September.

A Virginia-based blogger had the official Disney press release and a theory that it was Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville at Universal City Walk that killed Pleasure Island. Another "Mouse expert" wrote that the Comedy Warehouse was sparsely attended on weeknights. He also says that some performers at the Adventurers Club were encouraged to audition for a job at the new American Idol Experience. Yet another Mouse blogger believes that Disney crippled Pleasure Island before killing it. Readers who posted comments on the Orlando Sentinel site aren't happy about the closures either.

When radio is done with me, I had thought I might move to Orlando and watch improv everyday, much like the people complaining on a Disney-themed message board. Some of them chose time shares based on their proximity to the Comedy Warehouse and the Adventurers Club.

I hope that the Comedy Warehouse cast members (especially Lisa) can get jobs doing improv in the theme parks, like the group I saw in March. At the very least, they should be able to perform with one of the talented Orlando troupes like SAK. The closing makes me especially blue that I was too tired to go to the Comedy Warehouse on my last visit to Walt Disney World. My one ticket might have kept them in business a little longer.

The name of the Comedy Warehouse makes me think of a quote from Adam Carolla that I read on his Wikipedia page. He describes himself as a comedy factory, not a comedy warehouse. Like Adam, improvisers are comedy factories, always making up new material. Stand-up comics are comedy warehouses, with a supply of well-rehearsed jokes that they reuse night after night. Ironically the Comedy Warehouse featured improv while the Laugh Factory showcases stand-ups.

Here in Knoxville, I have noticed an increase in attendance at our Tuesday night improv shows. Then I noticed that Patrick Sullivan's has started to occasionally mention Einstein Simplified in their weekly Metro Pulse ad. I'm no genius but I think there might be a correlation.

spelunkadunk

Today's high temperature was 90° yet I needed my Alpaca sweater from Peru. Why? Because it was only 58° where I was, 126 feet underground in a cave. My son and I went to Cherokee Caverns for a media preview of their upcoming Cool Down in the Cave on July 12. For a (suggested) $5 donation, you can escape the summer heat that day.

There will be another media preview tomorrow. I suggested to the cavern volunteers that they may want to offer the tour to bloggers as well. It seemed to work for the Knoxville Symphony and for Gentlemen's Top Cuts. If any of you bloggers can make it on Thursday evening, contact Jennifer or Jim through the Cherokee Caverns website for an invitation.

Our tour guide was Jim Whidby, who has done a lot to preserve the cave and to make it accessible to visitors. As our tour began, we learned that this will be the final year for the Haunted Cave, a Halloween tradition that has raised money to pay for cave upkeep. Now I wish I had gone to it in the past. I'll have to make my first (and last) visit to the Haunted Cave this October.

Jim told us about the Eastern Pipistrelle Bats which he re-introduced to the cave. The previous population of bats were smoked out after vandals got in to the cave and burned some tires. Dummies. I was hoping to see some live bats, but they must have all been out feasting on mosquitoes. However, Jim had a dead one in his pocket. Near the end of the tour, my son spotted a live Cave Salamander trying to hide from us.



Jim showed us some ancient cave drawings made by prehistoric cavemen Bill Landry for an April Fool's bit.



The natural rock formations were much more interesting. My favorite was the face in the rock. Their largest stalagmite is known as the Capitol Dome, although I thought it looked more like Jabba the Hut.



There were two bullet holes visible in one of the stalactites, probably evidence of the vandalism that occurred during the 1980s. Fortunately the vandals didn't destroy the connected stalactite and stalagmite (the column on the left), which took thousands of years to meet.

did you mean lookalike?

Before writing Thursday's post, I Googled the word hookalike and got only nine results, most of which were typos for "lookalike." There was only one tiny reference that was similar to mine. As of today, there are ten results. My site is listed second!

When I saw myself in the list, I tried clicking on "similar pages" to see what Google thought was related to my site. Here are the highlights of what they came up with:

• By Ken Levine - fair enough, his site is on my blogroll.
• AllAccess.com - the site of record for radio professionals
• Blogger.com - owned by Google, used by me
  
• FW Murphy - manufacturer in Oklahoma
• rosie.com - huh? can't figure that one out
• New York Post Online Edition Gossip - or just say Page Six
  
• Blog Flux - where I see how many (or how few) hits I received
• Paley Center for Media - a favorite place in N.Y. and L.A.
• Tournament of Roses - I've mentioned their parade a few times
• Frank Murphy Real Estate - I often get his email by mistake
• Access Hollywood - a show I watch every day
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers - used to have a Frank Murphy
• I'm Just Sayin' - for fans of Kevin & Bean
• jack.fm - a bit of an insult since it's an anti-deejay format
• Jefferson Bass - should be higher on the list, don't you think?
  
• Life In The Office - fan site for the best comedy on TV
• Metro Pulse - Knoxville's alt weekly
• Starlight Bowl - one of my favorite places in Burbank

There's one site on their list that I won't include here. It's got a bunch of Asian characters and the words "Credit Card." Why is it in my results? Because it has the same URL that my friend Bean used for his first blog. He posted every day for ten months and then deleted his blog, which is too bad because it was quite good and it would have been fun to re-read. Somebody swooped in and grabbed his user name and Blogspot address. After a year-long hiatus, Bean resumed blogging at his new site, Strongly Worded Letter.

pretty woman

Here's one for the Urban Dictionary. A young lady attended a recent church ceremony wearing a dress that was more appropriate for a nightclub. At least I think it was a dress. It was closer to a teddy. I've seen swimsuits that were less revealing. My daughter's friends have a funny word to describe a girl dressed that way. They called her a "hookalike."

I had a couple of possible blog topics rattling around in my brain during my son's swim meet tonight. I settled on this one (and assembled the first paragraph in my head) as we sat in a restaurant afterwards. My wife and I were having a fun conversation with another couple about our experiences at different parishes. They laughed when we told them about the hookalike. In a cool coincidence, when I got home I discovered a comment on yesterday's post from the author of a blog called Wordlustitude. It's full of funny made-up words similar to hookalike. Forget the Urban Dictionary. Now I want to see hookalike on Wordlustitude.

faith of our fathers

Writing about my father's birthday yesterday got me wondering what he would look like if he were still alive. He would be about the same age as Ted Kennedy, Gene Shalit and Casey Kasem. Of the three, he would probably look most like Kennedy. On this Memorial Day weekend, I can make a virtual visit to the cemetery where my father is buried, thanks to a blog entry I posted two years ago.

A blog post I read this past week mentioned a priest named Fr. Michael Whelan of Australia. Seeing that last name reminded me that my father had a friend named Fr. Charlie Whelan (of New York). Like my father, Fr. Whelan was a writer. He worked for a Catholic magazine called America. A quick search revealed that Fr. Whelan retired from the magazine a year ago after 40 years of service. Best of all, they have posted a video of Fr. Whelan speaking about the first article he wrote for America. I can see and hear what one of my father's contemporaries looks and sounds like today. I didn't realize until now that Fr. Whelan was about five or six years older than my father.

In the video, Fr. Whelan mentions President John F. Kennedy and the relationship between church and state. That became his area of expertise both as a writer and as a professor at Fordham Law School. He successfully argued before the United States Supreme Court in 1971 on behalf of a Baptist church. The Fordham Law Review published a couple of tributes to him last May.

This morning at church I picked up a free copy of a newsletter called Catholic Update. The June issue deals with church and state too. It emphasizes that the Church does not endorse candidates or tell people how to vote. It merely reminds voters of the 7 key themes to keep in mind when making their own choices. Catholics are not single-issue voters. One sentence summed up my problem with politics:

In today’s environment, Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised, sensing that no party and few candidates fully share our comprehensive commitment to human life and dignity.

The newsletter directed me to a website on Faithful Citizenship that will warrant further reading on my part.

that time again

Several more of the television shows I enjoy have gotten their cancellation notices this week. The LA Times Show Tracker has an updated list. Good-bye to "New Amsterdam," "Welcome to the Captain" and "Miss Guided." We already knew that "Journeyman" was done. I found out about "Back to You" and "Aliens in America" on Saturday.

This is the week that the networks announce their new fall schedules. As in the past, I will be clicking daily on various sites for updates. In addition to Show Tracker, I like TV Squad and the coverage by The New York Times, USA Today and The Hollywood Reporter.

Today's big story was the formal announcement that Jimmy Fallon will replace Conan O'Brien when Conan leaves "Late Night" to take over the "Tonight Show." Many people are wondering what will happen with Jay Leno when his "Tonight Show" run ends. My friend Bean came up with a great idea months ago. NBC should put Leno on at 10:00 p.m. Why not?

artful dodger

Stories about animal cruelty often evoke a greater response than stories about cruelty to humans. The news about a box turtle in Brooklyn has gotten my attention. Myrtle was found covered in the same orange paint used at construction sites. I thought everyone knew that you aren't supposed to put paint on a turtle.

When I was a kid, we would visit my grandparents' house on Long Island every summer. I loved walking through the nearby woods to look for toads and box turtles. Sometimes I would bring one back to the house and feed it some wild raspberries before eventually letting it go. There's at least one box turtle who lives near my house here in Knoxville. Perhaps you remember the time I saved it from drowning in my pool.

Myrtle's story was first reported on Monday by a Brooklyn blog called Gowanus Lounge. Since then it's been picked up by the wire services and the local media. WCBS-TV has a video report you can watch.

The outlook is good for Myrtle. A painted shell is much more harmful to baby turtles than to one that's full grown. The Gowanus Lounge readers posted links to the Turtle Rescue of Long Island, which may be able to help. Another reader suggested using a product which worked for a turtle named Goldie. It would be fitting for the orange paint to be removed by a product called Fast Orange.

move 'em on, head 'em up

When there are changes to my blogroll or the sidebar, I try to make them on the first of the month. It's because I started my blog on the first of a month and somehow it makes sense in my mind.

I found Cupcakes Take the Cake when they posted entries about some local bakeries. They did it again today with a great story about a cupcake just like the one I tried last week except that it was mistaken for a bomb at the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge.

Slashfood is a site I've been visiting regularly for some time. Yesterday they showed us how to make cake-sicles, although they look more like cookie-sicles.

Amelia's Space often has a peek behind the scenes at WVLT. Today she posted about their coverage of the closure of I-40 through downtown. One day last month she took us to the farewell party for Jessa Goddard and Kim Bedford.

At last month's Blogfest gathering, I enjoyed visiting with Doug of Reality Me and his wife Cathy of Domestic Psychology. Her funny post about trying to find the bathroom that night made me want to check back periodically.

After the recent Papal visit, a friend reminded me to check Whispers in the Loggia for their intense coverage. When the Pope gets close to naming a new bishop for Knoxville, we will probably read about it first on their site.

Can anybody recommend a blog about improv? It would be great to find one that I like and to add it to the blogroll on June 1. That date has some improv significance to me.

show some restraint

Thanks to an email reminder from my friend Bean, my family and I went to Baskin-Robbins after dinner tonight. It was their annual 31 Cent Scoop Night. While blogrolling this afternoon, I had also read a posting on Reality Me about the promotion. Just like last year there was a line out the door. A sign on that door warned customers of the ten scoop limit. Another sign advertised that they needed help. I was tempted to hop behind the counter and pitch in.



Back in my scooping days, we had to wear hats when working at Baskin-Robbins. Tonight, an employee in a red shirt kept touching her long hair after bending over to scoop out some ice cream. The lower she had to reach for the ice cream, the closer her hair got to the tubs. My wife said that she didn't want this girl to serve us. When it was our turn, I told the girl that we needed another minute to decide. She moved on to the next customer and we were helped by a guy with short hair.



I saw several people with multiple scoops including a guy who showed me his five. I only got a single scoop of Chocolate Mousse Royale, which was all I needed. As good as it was, I realized that I have lost my ice cream jones. When I first moved to Knoxville, I would eat ice cream almost every night. That's part of the reason I gained the weight that I lost a couple of years ago. I still love sweets but if I had to choose between ice cream and cake, I think I would take the cake. Or the cookie or the brownie or some candy.

always more fun

The cupcake fad is about to hit Knoxville in a big way. We already have VG's Bakery and MagPies, both of which I still haven't tried. However I have discovered another blog devoted to the little treats, Cupcakes Takes the Cake.

Now The Cupcakery has established its first foothold in East Tennessee with a delivery-only location in Oak Ridge. They plan to open a Bearden store in June. I had the opportunity to taste a couple of their flavors one afternoon last week when a box was delivered to the office. There were enough for me to take two varieties home. I cut each in half and shared them with my wife. The Double Chocolate had a disc of baking chocolate stuck into the buttercream icing as a garnish. The Peanut Butter Cup had a crumbled Reese's on top. As you would expect, the creamy frosting steals the show from the chocolate cake. That's probably why a cupcake shop in Los Angeles sells icing shots for 75 cents. I think I would enjoy one of these gourmet cupcakes with some buttercream injected into the middle. Can't have too much frosting.

If the Bearden store were already open, I would be tempted to swing by this week for the featured flavor, the Graceland. It has banana cake with peanut butter icing. I've always loved banana cake. By the way, why can't I ever find the frozen Sara Lee Banana Cake I loved as a child? Anyhow, back to the point. The Cupcakery will offer Graceland cupcakes from April 28 through May 3. I wonder if they might be similar to the Elvis Cupcakes I saw online. One of the blog commenters suggests a Fluffernutter cupcake. This. Must. Happen.

Bearden will actually be home to two cupcake shops. Their online calendar says Cities Cupcake Boutique will have its grand opening on Sunday, May 18 but according to their store hours, they will be closed Sundays. When I was a kid, Sundays were the busiest day at the Crestwood Bakery. Everyone went there after church. Oh yeah, back to the point again. Cities cupcakes are each named after a different city. Knoxville gets an orange cupcake. In a bit of political commentary, the vanilla cupcake is named after Washington, DC. Maybe they can do a peanut butter and banana cupcake and name it after Memphis.

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?

pope notes

Pope Benedict XVI traveled to New York today. One of his stops was at St. Joseph's parish in Yorkville, which is only a few blocks from my sister's apartment. Tomorrow he will be in Yonkers, my original hometown, to visit Dunwoodie.

At least three priests with a Knoxville connection will be in New York with the Pope. Fr. Eric Andrews will represent Knoxville at St. Patrick's Cathedral tomorrow morning. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz will concelebrate Mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Fr. Augustine Idra will help safely distribute communion at Yankee Stadium. One hundred Knoxville parishioners will be there too.

My blog got some traffic today from Digg.com (thanks Ralph!) and from people searching for "Papal Mass" on Sphere.com. Of all the links in tonight's short post I think my favorite is the "safely distribute communion" video.

blogic: the gathering

What do you call a group of bloggers? Several of us got together tonight for hot wings and conversation. Perhaps we could borrow a term from the animal kingdom. A pride of bloggers makes sense for obvious reasons. So does a parliament of bloggers. A gaggle could fit too. Or maybe even an exaltation. I suppose we could try making up our own term. A blaggle of bloggers reminds me too much of the Bob Loblaw Law Blog. Actually, a boggle of bloggers has a nice ring to it.

Most of the bloggers present were people I had already met. Rich, Lissa, Doug and Cathy used their various handheld devices to work on their posts from our table at the Wild Wing Cafe. Doug has already published his recap. He's not exaggerating when he says that the loud TV audio was a conversation killer. It was on just long enough to get us to leave. Once we got to the exit, the play-by-play was replaced with music.

Victor and his brother Joseph were, I think, first time attendees. Victor works for AOL, helping to maintain their Weblogs, Inc. Network. He often writes on the DIY Life site. I told him that I regularly read TV Squad, Engadget HD and Slashfood.

I forgot to ask my fellow blogateers if they had seen my post yesterday about Googlegängers. My former improv brother (now in the USAF) Lance Harwell turned it into a meme by posting a comment with a list of his own Googlegängers. Why not post your own list there too?

beginning of the end

If WNBC-TV is really "for New York" like the song says, they should post their excellent half-hour special about the doomed Shea Stadium. At least a two-minute clip of "The Amazin' Shea" is available online. Maybe they could post fourteen more of them.

A producer's blog gives some background on the interviews they conducted with members of the 1969 World Championship team. A review in the Daily News and an entry in a Shea fan's blog describe the show too.

Of course Shea Stadium isn't only about the Mets. The TV special also covers the Jets, the Beatles and Pope John Paul II, who all made history there too.

Sadly, Rick Astley will only be a footnote in the Shea Stadium lore. An online vote to choose an eighth inning song was Rickrolled, in a way. The fans booed. Want to see a great example of Rickrolling? Read my friend Bean's April 1st blog entry.

tip of the iceberg

The "Stuff (blank) People Like" phenomenon hasn't grabbed my full attention. I had heard about the original site, Stuff White People Like but didn't spend a lot of time looking at it, much less the various copycat sites.

Today I found that I had been added to the blogroll on Confessions of a Worshipper (thanks!). One of their recent entries linked to a list of Stuff Christians Like. On the flip side of the coin, All Access posted a link to Stuff Radio People Like. Comparing the two is somewhat reminiscent of the old Goofus and Gallant cartoons in Highlights Magazine.

hand in, handout

There are plenty of hair salons for women. Since my makeover, I get my hair cut at such a place every month. There's at least one local salon just for children. Mike Huff, the co-owner of Kidz Fun Kutz is now opening a hair salon for men, admittedly inspired by Hooters. He has taken some heat in the blogosphere for hiring only pretty women. In my opinion, the all-female staff members who I see at Garde Bien are just as attractive as the women at Gentlemen's Top Cuts.

Mike said that he chose a location on Middlebrook Pike because the rent was more affordable than on Kingston Pike. The site has a high traffic count and is not far from Knoxville's population center at Cedar Bluff. Gentlemen's Top Cuts will be the first business to open in a mini-mall that will also be home to Nixon's Deli, a nail salon and Domino's Pizza. A fifth storefront is still available.

With the salon due to open Wednesday, there's still lots of work to be done. Yet construction was temporarily halted so some bloggers could get a preview of the services to be offered. I was invited because of a post I wrote back in December. The guys who write SayUncle, Modern Redneck and Reality Me were also there. Publicist Zane Hagy told me that he is having great success getting bloggers to spread the word about his various clients.

Doug of Reality Me preceded me by several years as a member of Einstein Simplified. Today he channeled Steve Carell in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" as he had some personal waxing done. He made sure we could all hear him scream although I suspect it may have been exaggerated for our benefit.

Like the other bloggers, I was offered a free haircut. I declined because I already have an appointment at Garde Bien scheduled for next week and because I didn't want to cheat on Stacey, my regular stylist. Zane said that my son could take advantage of the freebie instead. While Carrie cut my son's hair, I got a manicure from Michele. She cut my fingernails and then had me dip my hands in hot paraffin. After that she bagged my hands like evidence and told me to wait a few minutes. When Michele peeled off the wax, I could only think of Dr. Bill Bass. He had described the process of degloving in our interview about the book "Flesh and Bone." The skin sloughs off the hands of a corpse. It can later be retrieved, mixed with water and Downy and used to get the fingerprints of the deceased.

virtual refrigerator door

At any given time, my "drafts" file has a dozen or more ideas that could possibly be turned into blog entries. The paragraph below has been stuck in there for a while waiting for me to get back to the topic of fine art. I almost included it in a post that mentioned Jackson Pollock but I ended up taking that entry in a dessert direction.

In December my daughter spotted a Picasso-style doodle that resembled me. Soon after I posted the photo of it, she found the Mr. Picassohead site that lets anyone make an electronic drawing. She made one of me and another of three of my favorite movie stars, the Marx Brothers.

you're it

A few of the blogs I regularly scan have been tagged with the same meme. I got tagged by missybw at The House of Flying Monkeys. Who can I tag? I think I've used up my quota on other memes. I either need to find some new targets or try something else. Here's my idea. Tag yourself. Go ahead and write your own responses in the comments here or post a link to your own blog.

Name one thing you do every day:
The obvious answer is that I post something on my blog. I also try to watch and delete something on the HD DVR or the TiVo.

Name five things/people that make you feel good:
dark chocolate
doing improv
reading my friend Bean's blog
a nice long nap
swimming in my backyard pool

Name four things you love to eat but rarely do:
Oreos dunked in milk until they stop bubbling
lobster
pomegranates
pulled pork BBQ

Name three things that remind you of childhood:
smell of my mother's Chanel N°5
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Batman

Name two things you wish you could learn:
to sing half as well as my wife
to deal with the anxiety that causes me to procrastinate (add link later)

heaven and earth are full of your glory

When Pope Benedict XVI visits Washington DC, security will be tight. One of my relatives who lives up that way told me today about some of the rules for the Papal Mass. It will be practically impossible to drive to the ceremony. Charter buses and handicapped drivers will have to park at RFK Stadium and catch a shuttle to Nationals Park. Everyone else is supposed to take the Metro. The WMATA needs to make another Peeps video for those going to the Mass.

Tickets are also in high demand to the April 20th Mass in New York. The Archdiocese of Louisville, headed by Knoxville's former bishop, gets a larger ticket allotment than others around the country because of its bicentennial. Archbishop Kurtz will be at the altar with the Pope in Yankee Stadium.

Tickets to both Masses are non-transferable. Everyone attending needs to bring a photo I.D. It sounds like there will be some sort of computer checkpoints to make sure the name on the I.D. matches the name of the registered ticket holder.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is using a blog format to post updates about the visit. The Washington Post has also started a Pope Watch blog which is where I read about some complaints over the liturgical music the Holy Father might hear in D.C.

The music in question is the "Mass of Creation" by Marty Haugen. It's used, some say overused, at parishes all over the country. The critics would prefer that liturgy organizers plan a Mass full of Gregorian chants and the same music used in Rome. What would be the point of that? Haugen's composition is not bad. I think the Pope should get to hear what Mass actually sounds like in America. If he doesn't like it, he can always make them change it in the future. However I wouldn't be surprised he turns out to be like Mikey in the Life cereal commercial. "He likes it! Hey Benedict!"

out with the crowd

Parishes all over the Eastern U.S. may experience a priest shortage from April 15 to 20. I'm no Faith Popcorn but I'll predict this trend based on a conversation after Mass this morning. Fr. Ragan Schriver said he will go to Washington on Catholic Charities business that week. Not coincidentally, he will attend Pope Benedict's Mass at "some baseball stadium" on April 17. I told him that the Pope will be one of the first people to play the new Nationals Park. The others in the group were amused by my choice of theatrical verbs. Fr. Augustine Idra then said that he too was going to a Papal Mass at "some baseball stadium" but in New York. I then mentioned that Benedict XVI would be one of the last to play the old Yankee Stadium.

Here's more proof why the Internet is great. Almost a year and a half ago, I wrote a silly blog entry about a church hymn that reminded me of the Taylor Dayne song "Tell It to My Heart." On February 21, Ms. Dayne sang that very song on "Jimmy Kimmel Live." On Monday the church song came back into my life when I got an email with a large attachment. The sender’s name was immediately recognizable to me even though we've never met. It was from singer/songwriter Tom Franzak. Best of all, the attachment was a copy of the song I had written about. Tom's message was: "I arrived, somehow, at your post where you mention my song, 'Come And Follow Me.' Thought you might enjoy this." I wrote back thanking him. Now I need to figure out a way to get John D. Becker to send me a copy of his "Litany of Saints."

still have to go through Dallas

Nobody wants their frequent flyer miles to go to waste. Almost every week there are people searching the Internet who find my blog entries from 2005 about cashing in miles for unnecessary magazine subscriptions.

Last fall I realized that I finally had enough miles for a free trip. I tried to plan a trip to see my friend Bean in Seattle but there were no free tickets available on the date I could fly. I put it off and put it off until I was faced with the fact that my miles would expire at the end of February. The only way to save them was to have some activity on my account. Because I don't yet know when I can make the trip, I needed to do something other than book a flight.

I called American Airlines to explore my options. Fortunately, they had something that sounded great to me. I could extend the expiration date for the remainder of my miles by donating some of them to one of two charities. The Make-A-Wish Foundation does nice things for sick kids and would be a worthy recipient. However I chose to donate to the airline's own charity called Miles for Kids in Need. Instead of flying sick children off to their favorite theme park, my miles will help send a child to get needed medical treatment. Not as much fun for them but it made me feel better.

egos checked at the door

As soon as the news leaked out that Jimmy Kimmel had booked Ben Affleck on his post-Oscar show, we could all guess that they would do a response to Sarah Silverman's hugely popular Matt Damon video. However nobody could have predicted exactly how fantastic Jimmy's Ben Affleck video turned out to be. It's the talk of the entertainment blogosphere this morning on sites like Best Week Ever and Pop Candy.

The best place to find clips of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" is on visiontellie2's YouTube page. He/she/they make it easy to see the whole progression of the Matt Damon feud, the Silverman video and the Affleck response.

Not surprisingly, visiontellie2 also has the most complete list I've found of all the celebrities making cameos in the new video, even catching some that Best Week Ever missed. It makes me wonder if visiontellie2 has some inside information. In addition to Ben and Jimmy, look for Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Joan Jett, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Meat Loaf, Pete Wentz, Dominic Monaghan, Macy Gray, Perry Farrell, Lance Bass, Huey Lewis, Josh Groban, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Dicky Barrett, Rebecca Romijn, Christina Applegate and Cameron Diaz.

When I needed help trying to post the video of Jimmy mentioning me, I wrote to visiontellie2 for advice. Better than advice, I got back a link to the video that he/she/they had uploaded for me!

thank the academy

The Oscars are always must-see TV at our house even though I've seen hardly any of the nominated movies this year. In the past, my wife and I have made an effort to see the films nominated for the major awards. With the price of gas and everything else going up and money getting tight, I am reluctant to shell out cash for movie tickets, much less the concessions.

Lately some movies I had wanted to see in the theater have been showing on a plethora of HD channels. In the past month I've seen "Children of Men," "Pride" and "The Astronaut Farmer." None of them won any Oscars but I enjoyed them nevertheless.

I won't attempt to live-blog the awards like they're doing at Best Week Ever and elsewhere. However, I noticed a few things worth mentioning. Did Steve Carell actually curse when pretending to be upset that he was presenting the animation award instead of the documentary award? One of his "shoots" sounded like the real deal to me.

During the dead celebrity tribute, I always feel embarrassed for the people who don't get applause. Some of the deceased get carryover applause by having their name announced right after a popular actor or actress. Shouldn't they mute the microphones during the annual montage?

I thought I saw Knoxville Catholic High School alumnus Cormac McCarthy in the audience when the Coen brothers won the adapted screenplay award. Yes, it was him. They pointed him out when "No Country For Old Men" won Best Picture.

All night long I've been trying to catch a glimpse of Diablo Cody's shoes. I read that she was going to wear the million dollar pair from Stuart Weitzman. Why do I care? One year, Stuart's publicist hired me to help out during Oscar week. According to her blog, Diablo has mixed feelings about wearing them. Oh yeah, she won an Oscar for "Juno," one of the few nominated movies that I saw.

Hey, the "I Drink Your Milkshake" guy won! I look forward to seeing that movie next year when it's on HBO or Showtime.

coed naked bar hopping?

Okay, here's what happened. On Thursday, one of my co-workers asked if I had seen the obituaries. I had not but there was a copy of the News Sentinel within reach. By coincidence, Terry Morrow, the paper's television columnist, was visiting. We opened the paper and saw the photo my co-worker had noticed. It showed a now-deceased man during happier times. He's wearing a hat that says "Coed Naked Bar Hopping."

Like anyone else would, we laughed about it. Our conversation was not on the air. I knew from past experience that my boss doesn't like me to joke about local deaths on the radio. I told Terry that someone in another market might be able to have fun with it even if I couldn't. We all know that comedy equals tragedy plus time. Sometimes comedy also equals tragedy plus distance. Because Terry and I both know Jimmy Kimmel, we thought it would be a good idea to send the obit to him.

When I got home, I dashed off a fast email to Jimmy. I complimented him on the Matt Damon video and sent a link to the death notice. His one-word reply was "Hilarious!" Quick tangent: I can't wait to see the next volley in the Kimmel/Damon "feud" which reportedly includes Ben Affleck.

Anyway, as I was scanning the Knoxville Blog Network tonight, I saw a link to a post titled "Knoxville on Jimmy Kimmel Live!" As soon as I clicked, I saw the man in the CNBH hat on "The Sunsphere Is Not a Wigshop." The writer explains:

a friend of mine that is a production assistant on the jimmy kimmel live show called me and told me i was the only knoxville connection that anyone on the crew had and they needed a copy of thursday's knoxville news-sentinel.

He spent $30 to FedEx the newspaper to California and says it may turn up on Tuesday night's show (Mondays are usually reruns). Jimmy must have known I would be too cheap to spend the money.

rumbly in my tumbly

The original plan for Wednesday's post was to list the various dessert items that have been tempting me since the start of Lent. It turned into an all-cupcake missive. As a result, a few other sweets got left out until now.

Hurley is my favorite character on "Lost." When I learned that Jorge Garcia is a blogger, I eagerly read through his archived posts. He was impressed by a Milwaukee restaurant that served extra soda alongside his root beer float. I too, enjoy root beer floats although mine are made with diet root beer and fat-free whipped topping. His fondness for Oreo Cakesters also rang true with me. Over the summer I shared a three-pack with my son. Thanks to Jorge, I'm craving them again.

The folks at Slashfood continued to make me salivate with some red velvet layer cake and chocolate almond cakes. The latter led me to a site called Dessert First, which featured a molten chocolate cake on Wednesday. I occasionally get Google hits on a mention I made of chocolate lava cakes a year ago. Still haven't tried one though.

Chef Walter got ready for Valentine's Day by making a Butterfinger cake on Monday. I especially enjoyed his reference to Jackson Pollock as he poured on the chocolate sauce. I wonder how many people watching had no idea what he meant.

too soon

Some audience members at the Einstein Simplified show tonight wanted us to joke about Heath Ledger's sad death. Fortunately we ignored their suggestions.

I heard the news about Heath from my daughter, who knew I would want to know as soon as she saw the breaking news on CNN and Fox News this afternoon. When she called, I was watching our local stations, which were reporting only on the winter weather.

By odd coincidence, my friend Bean posted a blog entry early this morning about the rash of celebrity deaths so far in 2008. My friend Lisa Burks has an entire blog about (mostly celebrity) deaths.

When I turned on my cell phone this morning, I had a voice mail from Terry Morrow. He said he wanted to ask me something about Brad Renfro. Terry wasn't there when I called back so I don't know for sure that he wanted to try and talk me into going to Brad's funeral, which was yesterday or his burial, which was today. But that's what I suspect.

The Associated Press made news with their decision to prepare an advance obituary for Britney Spears. The concept of updating the obit files was even the plot of a "Mary Tyler Moore Show" episode. Yet, the most recent deaths of the young and famous caught the wire services unprepared. Some writers feel they should only keep obituary files on older, more accomplished stars. With instant news on the Internet, readers now expect to see complete obituaries as soon as a celebrity dies. The news services will have a hard time keeping pace with Wikipedia.

newsies

As a fellow blogger, Stacy McCloud understands how much we appreciate getting comments. She has posted two here recently. This morning she got a laugh from my entry about her reflection on Chef Walter's saucepan. Here's a post-haircut photo of Stacy for your enjoyment.



If you don't keep up with the comments you may have missed a good radio story about Mark "Sparky" Thompson in response to yesterday's post. And earlier in the week I posted a comment myself to tell you that Abby Ham finally sent the picture from her goodbye party at The Breakfast Club concert in November.

our top story tonight

Stacy McCloud got a haircut. In her updated blog entry she describes it as a cross between Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Katie Holmes. I haven't seen it yet but I'm sure it looks nice. Maybe Byron Chesney will be able to post some photos in the morning.

Yesterday Byron posted a link to an article about the ratings increase at WKYC since Abby Ham joined the station. I had emailed Abby on New Year's Eve to wish her well and to bug her about the two photos I am hoping to get from her to post on the blog. Here's the reply she sent me today:

Frank,

So good to hear from you. Things are going great. We just moved into our new house so it has been a little crazy, but we are finally settling in.

I miss Knoxville so much. I have my days when I get really sad that I don’t live there anymore. It all happened so fast. It’s hard to believe that I am in a whole new place. I really like Cleveland, though, and the new station. I guess I always miss the places I leave behind.

I went to the Rock Hall before Christmas and was going to stop and take a picture in front of the stamp, but the wind was blowing so hard. I think I would have lost my new camera. I still have to download the pictures from The Breakfast Club night. I will get those to you very soon.

Hope all is well and you had a great holiday. Tell Marc and Kim and the gang (Tearsa included) hello for me.

Abby

top 10 from the home office

When the year is new there is comfort in repeating the old. My New Year's Day traditions are watching the Rose Parade and reading The List in the Washington Post. Unfortunately this year's in and out list didn't entertain me as much as last year's.

A lot of people make top ten lists to commemorate the year gone by. Byron Chesney posted an interesting list of his top ten stories about local TV news. It's not surprising that Abby Ham topped his list. Nor is it surprising that Abby topped Terry Morrow's list of the best on local TV in 2007.

I emailed Abby the other day to remind her about the pictures I want her to send. While we're thinking about her, I compiled a list of the top ten search terms that brought people to my blog in 2007. I understand all of them except for numbers 4 and 8.

1. Abby Ham
2. Jessica Simpson naked
3. Regis & Kelly
4. product placement
5. Frank Murphy
6. magazines for miles
7. puffy shirt
8. cigarette girl
9. calories
10. Stacy McCloud

Did you know that Stacy enjoys a banana with peanut butter every morning for breakfast? She mentioned it in a comment on Monday's entry as she contemplates whether or not to cut her hair.

as people make merry

Merry Christmas! Today is the day we celebrate even though Jesus was probably born on April 17. Here are some random holiday thoughts.

My friends Bean and Rich posted their responses to the Christmas meme they got tagged with by me. They're funny. Don't miss numbers 13, 16 and 21.

Had I known that yesterday was National Egg Nog Day, I wouldn't have waited until today for my first sip of the season. I would say the first sip of the year but I had some on August 17.

I thought of some additions to my list of favorite Christmas songs. I can't believe that I forgot "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." I like almost any version, especially the Darlene Love original and the U2 cover. Another favorite is "For Unto Us a Child Is Born," which we heard on the PBS broadcast of "Christmas at St. Olaf." The piece is from Handel's "Messiah." The lyrics are taken from the same Bible passage that I proclaimed at the 8:00 p.m. Mass last night.

the meme team

The Christmas meme I got the other day is being proliferated throughout the local blogosphere. Stacy McCloud and Barry Wallace have posted their memes after being tagged by me. I need to officially meet Barry. Apparently I've seen his band but we haven't been properly introduced. Les Jones and Doug McCaughan emailed me to say they are working on their Christmas memes. MissyB got tagged by someone else but referenced my frozen egg nog stash in question number five on her meme. Some bloggers got tagged more than once.

In response to question 14, I said that I would write more about my favorite Christmas songs. Every year hearing Leroy Anderson's "A Christmas Festival" overture gets me in the holiday spirit. Thinking about that medley made me realize that "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" should top my list of seasonal favorites. The choir at our church has added a choral version of an Amy Grant song to their repertoire this year. I liked it enough to find the original song in my CD collection and listen to it in my car. As a result, I will add "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)" to my list.

I think I've mentioned my secular favorites before. "Sleigh Ride" is another Leroy Anderson composition that I must hear for it to feel like Christmas. "Last Christmas" could almost be described as a guilty pleasure. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" also deserves inclusion. The last few bars of "Happy Holiday" continue to grow on me. At some point in the next few days I will listen to my Andy Williams CD and watch my Andy Williams DVD too.

thanks for the meme-ories

Byron Chesney tagged me with a meme the other day. I've needed time to think about my response because it digs a little deeper than my comfort level allows. I had better respond now that Jack Lail has tagged me with a different meme. I'll get to Jack's tomorrow. Byron's meme asks me to name three things I can't give up, one physical, one mental and one emotional.

Physical - I have a real hard time disposing of anything. In fact, I get a little anxiety each time I delete something from my TiVo. It's even worse when the TiVo gets full and starts deleting stuff on its own. Rather than dwell on the stuff I know I should get rid of, I'll focus on two things I'm glad I kept since childhood. I still have a locker full of baseball cards that I got the hard way, buying them in wax paper wrapped packages with bubble gum and by trading away my duplicates to classmates in exchange for cards I wanted. I also still have my Corgi Batmobile.

Mental - My mind has retained a lot of trivia about "Batman" and the Amazin' Mets. I haven't tested myself in years but I used to know who played each of the guest villains and which Met wore which jersey number.

Emotional - I would prefer to keep the happy emotions but it's the bad feelings that come back to haunt me. When I get really sad it's often because I have remembered the painful feelings from the times that one or the other of our kids was sick enough to need hospitalization. Because of those times, I can get great joy from the fact that they got through it and are now both happy and healthy.

the spirits up

Whitney Matheson of USA Today doesn't miss an opportunity to point out the lameness of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime." Yesterday she linked to another clever list of the worst Christmas songs ever which ranked "WC" at only number eleven. They put "Do They Know It's Christmas?" as their number one. By the way, Whitney has a Knoxville connection. She graduated from UT.

Meanwhile, my friend Bean seems to be on board too. On his Christmas Music Everyday blog, he posted a cover version of "Wonderful Christmastime" by Jars of Clay. He writes that "the only listenable Paul McCartney songs of the 21st century can not be sung by Paul McCartney." Hey, it looks like Jars of Clay will be performing in Pigeon Forge on January 26 and Gatlinburg on February 1. They probably won't play any of their Christmas songs though.

As I type this, I'm watching "Christmas in Washington" on TNT in HD. Dr. Phil and his wife returned as hosts for the annual event. Robin McGraw's reading of the teleprompter was very stiff and almost too uncomfortable to watch. Both Katherine McPhee and Ne-Yo sounded good. Colbie Caillat looked nervous in what they said was her national TV debut. Vanessa Hudgens sounded weak, especially when attempting the "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" part of "Angels We Have Heard on High." Then Heather Headley came on to show them how it's done.

blogkeeping

The first of the month is when I try to do a little bit of blog maintenance. If I add a new bell or whistle, it usually shows up on the first. For example, I added a few things to the sidebar on November 1. Today I put a widget called AddThis on each entry. It makes it easier for you to submit me to Digg or StumbleUpon or several other networking sites. Let me know how well it works for you.

I joined the blogosphere on August 1, 2005. It's an enjoyable hobby which I plan to continue for the foreseeable future. When I write here, I often think of it as a letter to my friends and relatives outside Knoxville, even though very few of them actually read it. I try to keep the topics here separate from those that I bring up on the radio. Sometimes I have to delete reader comments that are too much about the morning show and not enough about the subject at hand. Again, this blog is my hobby, the radio show is my job.

Earlier this week, the radio station webmaster asked all the Star 102.1 deejays to start blogging on the station's official website. I wrote and posted my first entry while I was at work today. My intention is to use that blog to expand upon some things we discuss on the morning show. I will post there a couple of times a week while I'm at work. I'll continue my daily posting here from home. I invite you to click over and read my work blog occasionally. It would make my bosses happy if you did.

weary world rejoices

In an effort to catch a five minute appearance by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, I recorded all four hours of the "Today" show yesterday. Ann Curry flubbed her line and said that Brian "Seltzer" would be on the show. She joked about it later by saying Setzer was bringing some seltzer to their morning. Although the set was decorated for Christmas, the band played "One More Night With You" from their "Wolfgang's Big Night Out" CD instead of a holiday tune. The BSO will return to "Today" on Christmas Day. Since the equipment was all set up, they must have recorded the Christmas segment before this morning's live performance. In fact, they might have shown part of it. As they came back from a local news break, I saw the Orchestra finishing up "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus." Ann Curry tried to explain that away by saying it was a rehearsal for the live segment that was still coming up.

Gifted tenor Carl Tanner was on the "Today" show a couple of years ago. A friend of mine knows Carl pretty well and has been doing what she can to help his career. She called me this afternoon to ask if I had any suggestions for getting Carl an appearance on WASH-FM, the all-Christmas station in his hometown. I think Carl could be a good guest on my friend Loo Katz's morning show. Meanwhile, I asked if I could get one of Carl's holiday CDs for myself and one for my friend Bean, who loves Christmas music even more than I do.

Mere weeks after launching his new blog, Bean has another new website called Christmas Music Everyday. Each day he will post a song from his extensive Christmas music collection. Bean's site promises to be even better than the enjoyable "Last Christmas" blog I heard about, uh, last Christmas.

closed circuit to bloggers

The blog template has been giving me fits. The slightest error while cutting and pasting HTML can ruin everything. In the past few days, I have updated the sidebar to add a few bells and whistles like the "Recent Comments" list. I thought it might encourage more of you to post comments. As always, I prefer non-anonymous comments. Part of the problem I'm having is that several of the sidebar elements disappear on the post pages and/or archive pages. Another part of the problem is that the changes I made looked fine in my Firefox browser at home but were messed up in my Internet Explorer at work. I think that I made my Google search box too wide, causing the sidebar to appear below all the blog posts. Changing the size of the search box was easy enough. The hard part has come trying to upload the new template to my server. I keep getting a message telling me that the upload is taking longer than expected. It usually stalls after uploading 12% or less of the files. Also, this very blog post has been resisting my repeated efforts to upload it. At this point I would be surprised if anyone ever gets to read it.

I know that some of you will suggest I switch to different blogging software. In fact, I got an email from a reader over the weekend inviting me to try WordPress. When my friend Bean relaunched his blog, he switched to TypePad. I'm not ready to think about that right now. I have written 922 posts using Blogger without any major problems. My current difficulty is probably a minor hiccup.

Something else came to light in my sidebar updates. I put in a newer Technorati widget, which announces to the whole world that my "authority" number is 9. How lame. Unless, as my friend Chris suggested today, Technorati numbers are like golf scores. Most of the other blogs I read have much higher numbers. For example, Left of the Dial has a 28, Knoxville Trivia Blog has a 42, Reality Me has a 54 and The Kat House has a 581. I don't even know where to begin to up my number.

Maybe posting a link to my RSS and Atom feeds will help. Shortly after the Knoxville Symphony's Blogger Night, Tish from the aforementioned Kat House pointed out that my RSS feed wasn't listed on my site. That's because I didn't know how to do it. I've been occasionally skimming through the help topics, trying to figure it out. Now I think all you do is post a link to http://www.frankmurphy.com/rss.xml right?

wham bam, thank you Ham

Thanks to Doug McCaughan for the kind words he wrote about me yesterday. He wisely chose to invoke the name of Abby Ham in hopes of increasing his page views. Meanwhile, Abby fans should keep an eye on Terry Morrow's blog and on the Knoxville Trivia Blog, which has become your number one source for Ham info. For those of you following along, Abby did agree to pose with the World's Largest Rubber Stamp and to send me a photo for the blog. The last line of her email to me speaks to all of us: "I know I said this, but thank you for being so nice to me when I first arrived. I appreciate it more than you know!"

you better believe it's big

A careful look at my sidebar reveals that I added three sites to my blogroll today. Two were long overdue. Welcome to Reality Me and House of Wachs.

The big news is that my best friend Bean has returned to blogging after a one year absence. He unveiled his new effort today at Strongly Worded Letter. For the past month he's been writing a secret blog that no one knows. It will take me a day or so to get caught up with his archive.

If you were to go back and read the 918 entries that I have posted in the 27 months since I started my blog, you might notice the way Bean's Blog influenced me during the ten months of its existence. I linked to it quite a bit. I also liked the way he avoided blogging about his day job. Besides, he's got people who do that for him. Now he says that I influenced him. On his new blog, Bean plans to limit his posts to one main topic per day. He used to write lengthy posts on a multitude of topics that were consistently entertaining but took up too much of his time. I really missed reading his thoughts over the past year. As I told him on the phone tonight, I would have preferred that he post infrequently rather than not at all. Welcome back!

many way's to enjoy the "Internet"

The results of the East Tennessee's Best Readers Poll were tucked into the Preview section of Friday's News Sentinel. While flipping through the rest of the tabloid, I saw the Web Watch column, which I always enjoy. It reminded me that there was a recent column with links I had wanted to explore, even though I could recall none of the details. Fortunately the News Sentinel is making their website easier and easier to use. It only took a couple of clicks to find a list of Web Watch columns. The one I wanted was from October 5.

The sites highlighted that day were The List Universe and The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Both have lots of depth that will keep you clicking for as much time as you can spare. The List Universe has everything from tips for being frugal to memories of '80s TV shows.

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks is filled with photos sent in by readers. Seeing the misused quotation marks in real life is annoying. Seeing them on the blog is hysterical. The site also had a link to a blog called Apostrophe Abuse. I can hardly decide which one I like better.

thanks for your vote

The official results of the East Tennessee's Best Readers Poll were in this morning's Knoxville News Sentinel. Because I knew my name would be in the paper as first runner-up in the voting for best local blogger, I thought it might be nice to pick up a few extra copies for family members. I flipped to the Favorite Pastimes section and looked for my category. The fact that I had gotten more votes than world famous super blogger (and second runner-up) Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com was overshadowed by the picture and description of the winner. The page was dominated by a large photo of Justis Richert, also known as Knoxville-based adult performer Barbie Cummings. Her now-defunct blog was voted number one. I won't be sending a tear sheet to Mom or Grandma.

I also won't be going to the awards luncheon to pick up my certificate. I wanted to go, like I did five years ago. I even emailed Jack Lail asking if he knew the date of the ceremony. I got a reply from the paper's marketing department. They offered to send my award to me. It turns out that the banquets have been discontinued due to poor attendance. Maybe they could have gotten more people to show up if they could guarantee that Justis/Barbie would be there.

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?

butcher brothers

Conventional wisdom says that the book is usually better than the movie. My son certainly feels that way about the Harry Potter series. I didn't read any of the J.K. Rowling's work until after I had seen the first three films. It surprises me that I enjoy the Potter movies more than my son does.

It only took a couple of episodes of the excellent Showtime series "Dexter" for me to want to read the books that inspired it. Over the summer, I started reading "Darkly Dreaming Dexter." Perhaps because I thought I knew how it ended, I would put the book down and not pick it up again for weeks. The real reason for my slow progress may be simply that the book is not as good as the TV series. The ending of the book seemed rushed and was fairly different from the series. I finally finished reading it the other day and started on "Dearly Devoted Dexter," thinking that I should try to get through the second book before the second season of the show ends. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the current season of the series is not based on the books at all. It might make more sense for me to hold off on reading until the show goes on hiatus again.

To promote the return of "Dexter," Showtime offers several cast pictures for bloggers to use. They also put red dye in some public fountains around the country. It reminded me of the time I saw blue toilet cleaner in a Washington DC fountain. The cleaning fluid would probably do a good job of removing the blood red dye in Philadelphia, Las Vegas and L.A.

fortnight full of fun

It's been a busy couple of weeks on the blog, capped off with the news of my major award. I hope you got a chance to hear my latest Body Farm interview, if you're into that kind of thing. Three local TV stations were on the receiving end of some criticism. One for a mistimed graphic, two for misidentifying football players. I got two doses of musical culture, one real and one artificial. The smoking ban made me happy but some fire damage left me puzzled.

The Mets disappointed me. All season long I expected to be watching baseball in October. The Phillies kept that from happening. It will make me feel a little better if the Phillies lose to the Rockies or whoever they're facing in the playoffs. For a while, I thought that the Mets' collapse was part of some sort of karmic curse reversal. Perhaps the Mets had been eliminated to clear a path for the Cubs to reach the World Series. I was wrong about that too.

how is this possible?

No matter how many times I replayed the voice mail message, it did not change. "Hey Frank Murphy, this is Sherry Long from the Knoxville News Sentinel. I wanted to let you know that you placed first runner-up in the East Tennessee's Best Readers Poll for the best local blogger." She went on to ask if I wanted to buy an ad in the October 19th special section announcing the winners. I called her back to explain that my blog doesn't generate any money, it's just a hobby. Maybe I should accept some ads. Any thoughts?

Obviously I am very happy about the news that I am now an award-winning blogger but I am also quite surprised. Make that shocked. First of all, thank you for voting for me. I really did not see this coming especially since there are so many great blogs in this area that get a lot more page views than I do. I'm chagrined that I didn't cast a vote for myself because I didn't think I had a chance of winning. In the past I have tried to drum up support for Einstein Simplified in the Metro Pulse poll, always to no avail.

It's been five years since I was invited to the East Tennessee's Best award luncheon. In 2002, I was fortunate enough to win a runner-up award in the morning radio duo category less than a year after moving to Knoxville. I may have gotten the wrong idea that winning was easy. I appreciate it more this time. Thanks again!

callbacks

At this time last week, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Patrick Sullivan's would go smoke free rather than limit their clientèle to older smokers. Things went smoothly tonight except for one small thing. After our performance, several smokers went outside to puff. They stood too close to the front door, creating a foul cloud that the rest of us had to walk through.

The historic collapse of the Mets left me with very little to say. A headline on the New York Times site summed it up perfectly: Ya Gotta Bereave. The Best Week Ever blog brought a smile to my face with their analysis of why the Mets fell apart. I especially like their idea of a Julio Franco curse.

I learned about 90 minute sleep cycles when I first started working an early morning shift. Phillies fan Perry Simon remembered hearing me preach about it and mentioned it on his blog this week. Since we're on the topic of sleep, I think I'll go get me some.

bloggers' field trip

The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra opened its season tonight with an all-American program. They will perform the same selections on Friday night at the Tennessee Theatre, in case you missed it. Just after the concertmaster made his entrance, my wife told me that someone backstage usually starts the applause as he walks on. She shook her head as I made sure that I was the first one to applaud for the conductor tonight. The show was divided into two halves: familiar and unfamiliar. I thought the first piece, "Short Ride in a Fast Machine," was fairly dissonant and modern sounding.

Everything stopped while they loaded in a piano for the soloist Jeffrey Biegel. I wondered why they didn't have the piano already on stage. Instead they used the orchestra pit floor as an elevator. The pit floor started at stage level and had to be lowered down into the bottom of the pit for the piano to be placed on it. By the time the floor was raised, I had ample time to imagine Biegel making a grand entrance, seated at a candelabra-covered piano and wearing a Liberace cape. He didn't. In reality, he strode in perfectly normally, sat down and played the heck out of Liebermann's Piano Concerto No. 3. The concerto is a new composition which was commissioned by a group of 18 orchestras, including ours. You can hear about it in the KSO opening night podcast.

Given the advanced age of most of the concertgoers, I knew to get to the restroom quickly at intermission or else I would be stuck at the end of the "prostate parade." The line for the men's room is always just as long as the line for the ladies' room. The concert concluded with two very well-known pieces, "Appalachian Spring" and "An American in Paris." My father often listened to classical music at home, including the Copland opus. I remember when I first heard the Shaker hymn "Lord of the Dance" at church, I assumed that Copland had written it. Hearing the composition tonight reminded of the one time I saw Aaron Copland in person. I was working in the box office at Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts for the summer when I saw Mrs. Shouse driving her golf cart across the plaza with Copland as her passenger.

After the concert, bloggers were invited to a post-show reception with the musicians. My wife and I had a chance to chat with Lucas Richman, Jeffrey Biegel, Katy Wolfe Zahn and our neighbor Ihsan Kartal. We also spoke with my blogfather Rich Hailey and Lissa Kay as well as my friend Krisha Newport. We got to meet some other bloggers too including Byron Chesney, Craig Thomas, Tish McQueen and Doug McCaughan, who turns out to be one of the founding members of Einstein Simplified.

most wanted

An arrest has finally been made in the Johnia Berry case. Johnia was murdered and her roommate was injured almost three years ago in a senseless crime. Her family has tirelessly campaigned to keep the case in the news. Blogger Les Jones helped by creating a website and bringing it to the attention of other bloggers and members of the mainstream media.

I found it reassuring that the man they arrested does bear a resemblance to the face in the composite sketch of the suspect. As he did the perp walk, the TV reporters asked him some leading questions:

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"I never meant for this to happen. I'm sorry."
"Did you mean to kill her?"
"No."
"Why did you do it, was it an accident?"
"It was an accident."

Most of the first half of today's "Oprah Winfrey Show" on bipolar disorder was preempted locally by the sheriff's congratulatory press conference. The sheriff congratulated the TBI and other agencies. Representatives of the other agencies congratulated the sheriff and the detectives. The representatives from Food City received some well deserved praise for putting wanted posters in their store windows and on their trucks. When Johnia's mother spoke, it was truly emotional.

After the local affiliate returned to Oprah, they posted a graphic urging viewers to stay tuned for the 5 o'clock news. Unfortunately, it was the same time as the Oprah crew flashed a graphic promoting tomorrow's show. The local graphic wasn't big enough to completely obliterate Oprah's graphic, resulting in the unfortunate combination pictured below.

batmobile lost a wheel

"One Knoxville media personality" is a media label used by Terry Morrow yesterday in his review of the Emmy Awards. I'm pretty sure he's referring to me and I'm thrilled about it. In context, the whole sentence reads as follows:

As one Knoxville media personality cracked to Tele-buddy on Monday: The Emmys paled next to even some commonplace affairs like the People’s Choice Awards.

Also more entertaining than the Emmys is the coverage of the award show on the gossip blog Crazy Days and Nights. They supposedly had an actress texting some dirt from inside the ceremony. They followed that with some juicy blind items about the backstage goings on. I'm a new reader to CD&N. I first heard of it about two weeks ago when I found a link to the surprising Old Hollywood story of an award winning actress who was really a man. The answer to the mystery was revealed today. TV's Joker is also involved.

The topic of media labels came up in January, 2006 when I found one that would amuse my friend Bean. The mention was in my review of "Carved In Bone." Meanwhile, Bean and his wife are vacationing in Italy this week. He's been sending me occasional emails from his i-Phone including one of his wife waiting in line at the Sistine Chapel and one of his new Pope snow globe.

because you can can can

The good-spirited taunting went both ways at the annual meeting of two arch rival high school football teams last night. The fans from Webb School of Knoxville shouted "Where is Harry?" to which the Knoxville Catholic High School fans responded "He's on SportsCenter!" Of course, that's only wishful thinking at this point. As far as I know, KCHS alum Harrison Smith has yet to get any playing time for Notre Dame. Webb countered with "0 and 2," a reference to Notre Dame's dismal season record. If they keep losing, maybe Charlie Weis will give Smith a chance to show why he earned the Mr. Football award last year.

Because Webb hadn't beaten Catholic since 2001, the enthusiastic Irish fans reacted to the "0 and 2" chant by shouting "0 and 5!" Better make that "0 and 6." Catholic defeated Webb 28 to 7 last night. I was there for a presentation at halftime. Both schools collected food and money for the Second Harvest Food Bank. In that competition, Webb outscored Catholic 143.7 to 75.5 pounds of food per student.

Missy at The House of Flying Monkeys thought that the "CBFC was pouring haterade" on her. Can anyone tell me what those initials mean? From where I sat, both student sections seemed plenty loud, until the score got lopsided in the second half and the Webb fans got less noisy. The stands were packed. Some Webb parents were kind enough to let me sit in their section. The guy sitting next to me was the owner of Gridiron Burgers, which I promised to try soon, especially since it's a smoke-free restaurant. I may disagree with Missy about the "haterade" but I'll be the first to admit she is right about the talented Webb cheerleaders.

free tickets for bloggers

Some area businesses are wisely reaching out to the local blogosphere. A public relations firm sent me an invitation to a blogger night at a newly renamed restaurant on Kingston Pike. I missed the event last night because I was on stage as I am every Tuesday. Les Jones was among the bloggers who were able to attend.

I have already marked my calendar for blogger night at the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. Communications Director Stephanie Burdette asked me to help spread the news that the first 50 bloggers willing to blog about the show can get a pair of free tickets to the opening night concert on Thursday September 27 at the incredible Tennessee Theatre. We are also invited to a post-concert reception with Music Director Lucas Richman, guest pianist Jeffrey Biegel and several KSO musicians. The program that night consists of music from American composers. I will especially enjoy Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and Gershwin's "An American in Paris."

Okay bloggers, here's how to get your culture fix. Be one of the first 50 to email Stephanie at knoxvillesymphony.com. The deadline is 2:00 p.m. on September 27. Act fast because I think that there are more than enough East Tennessee bloggers to scoop up all the available free tickets before the deadline. If you are willing to "pay it forward," post something on your own blog to help spread the word to the bloggers among your own readership. To be really nice, include a link back to this post.

Now that it's the hot new trend, we need to have a bloggers' night at an upcoming Einstein Simplified show. Any interest out there?

first b.r.a.

So what if it's a new twist on the old chain letter? So what if it's just another type of meme? I won an Blogger Reflection Award and I'm happy about it. D.O.M Dan has chosen to award my efforts this Labor Day weekend. In 25 month