During the second half of the Aug. 24 game between the Panthers and Miami Dolphins, Fox Sports announcers Dick Stockton and Daryl Johnston started billing a car giveaway as a reason for fans to stay tuned after the teams' starters left the game. "Now all you fans out there, you might be thinking, 'Well, the starting units are out, we might change the channel.' We're going to do something special to try and keep you here tonight. We're giving a car away tonight," Johnston told viewers.
With 1:56 remaining, the telecast went to a shot of sideline reporter Tony Siragusa standing in front of the 6-foot-4, 340-pound Good, who was sitting in a front-row end zone seat wearing an electric blue wig and black-and-blue cape. "The car is coming in right now," Siragusa said. "Here it comes. Beautiful. It's white. It's a Porsche."
He then handed a toy car to Good. Good says he believed the toy was a token of the real car he was to receive and expressed excitement and joy. That turned to anger after Good, who counsels troubled youths, found out it had all been a joke.
A Charlotte Observer sports columnist took up Good's cause, writing a front-page column in Wednesday's newspaper that resulted in outraged fans e-mailing Fox Sports.
That led Fox Sports chairman David Hill to announce he would personally give Good the keys to a new Ford F-150 pickup. "I'm coming to Charlotte Friday to apologize to Mr. Good for a joke that went terribly, terribly wrong," Hill said.Hill said there would be punishments at Fox Sports over the incident, but said none of the announcers involved will be taken off the air.
Good expressed excitement at the turn his story had taken. "I'm so surprised and so happy," he told The Observer. "I thought all I was going to get was an apology."
Who thought it was a good idea to trick this guy? According to the Charlotte Observer guy, the FOX Sports commentators also mentioned how Catman would get to drive off in his car after the game, but might need some oil to help him get into the car.
I don't usually post as an advertisement unless something really blows me out of the water (for tv shows, things like Entourage, Arrested Development, Colbert Report, etc.). So suffice it to say that this show fell into that category. I already expected to like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip because I liked Sports Night which is also by Aaron Sorkin (as well as West Wing). But this was really good. Similar in some ways to Sports Night, but somehow significantly better. It still had the camera moving around with people around a studio and the biting wit and banter of Sports Night, but it added the coolness of Entourage (and maybe West Wing which I never saw). The actors all fit their roles well, and the characters they play are sort of big shots, so that may be where the Entourage style comes from.
I hate to gush over it and then see it falter after a few episodes, but I've got high hopes for this one. Hopefully Rob Corddry will also eventually make a cameo :)
I think the real reason I'm posting about this is it came out of nowhere and it's surprisingly good - even Matthew Perry. That and the show is doubly ironic. It's an NBC show that's parodying NBC (in a not-very-tongue-in-cheek way), and it's a smart show on TV which talks about how TV has been lobotomized.
It's all over the news now....Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, died on Monday. Apparently it was a result of an unlikely circumstance. He was snorkeling at Australia's Great Barrier Reef and as he passed over a stingray, its barb hit him in the chest.
From Auckland, New Zealand, Ashwin Prabhu writes: "To most of us he appeared immortal, always one step ahead of every animal he encountered." Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who knew Irwin and his family well, praised him as a "passionate environmentalist" who promoted a serious conservation message. "He made an extraordinary contribution to creating a widespread appreciation of the value and uniqueness of Australian wildlife," Howard said. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said his friend Irwin was "always the showman" who was generous with his time in promoting Australia.
U.S.-based television company Discovery Communications said it planned a marathon showing of Irwin's programs on its Animal Planet network to honor him.
Irwin was in the area to film pieces for a show called "The Ocean's Deadliest" with Philippe Cousteau, grandson of Jacques, according to Stainton. But weather had prevented the crew from doing work for that program, Stainton said, so Irwin decided to do some softer features for a new children's TV show he was doing with his daughter, Bindi. Wildlife documentary maker Ben Cropp, citing a colleague who saw footage of the attack, told Time.com that Irwin had accidentally boxed the stingray in. "It stopped and twisted and threw up its tail with the spike, and it caught him in the chest," said Cropp. "It's a defensive thing. It's like being stabbed with a dirty dagger."
It's certainly sad, but I don't think that this news is that surprising, considering the extreme risks involved in his career.
In case you hadn't heard, there's been a good amount of hype surrounding NBC's new show this fall, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It's Aaron Sorkin's show, and he's the guy behind Sports Night and The West Wing. I had read that the show actually lives up to the hype, and I found a 3 minute preview on YouTube:
The thing that caught my eye was the credits at the end. The show has Nathan Cordrry in it! For those that don't know, that's Rob Corddry's brother (both of Daily Show fame).
I definitely recommend checking out the preview. This show really looks pretty cool. And I love how the control room is reminiscent of Sports Night.
"Entourage" producers approached Evans months ago to play himself on the series. Evans declined but allowed them to use his home for filming. When the episodes aired these past two weeks, the "Kid Stays in the Picture" writer was angry to discover that they'd made his character into a bumbling, addled mockery of himself.
"They named the character 'Bob' and made him an old, loopy producer," said a source. And the final insult is, "They even used Evans' own house in the show!" The Bob Ryan character, portrayed as a washed-up Hollywood joke, wants to make a film about the Ramones with Adrian Grenier's character, Vince.
An HBO rep said yesterday, "Bob Ryan was not based on Robert Evans."
The real Evans, a former actor and studio exec, has been a Hollywood player since the 1950s. He has enjoyed seven (sometimes very brief) marriages to women including Ali MacGraw, Catherine Oxenberg and Phyllis George.
Sounds like it really is supposed to be him if they filmed in his house and even asked him to be in it. Maybe they could give the real Bob something to relax. "Hey Bob, here's a check for $5,000 to stop threatening to sue us. Is that something you might be interested in?"
The two snakes caused a panic in the dark theater, according to the report. "That to me is very scary," herpetological association representative Tom Whiting said. "I would hate to be watching a movie about snakes and have a rattlesnake bite me."
Wranglers were called to collect the snakes, the report said. No one was injured in the incident and, so far, the culprits have not been caught. Officials believe the snakes were smuggled into the theater in backpacks. "This thing is under someone's chair and they go to sit and they just push your foot in the air and startle it -- obviously all they got to do is startle this thing," Phoenix Herpetological Society spokesman Daniel Marchand said. "It's dark. They can't see you, you know that well. If it's scared, boom it strikes."
The snakes were released into the desert.
Speaking of Snakes on a Plane, I was watching part of Big Fish this past weekend, and it made me think that Snakes in a Lake would be a good sequel. If that's what they end up calling it, I claim full motherf*%$in' responsibility.
dave submitted a really interesting story about someone who consented to a police search. The catch? The officer asking to do the search knew he was looking for drugs, but claimed he was searching for a place described in a sexual assault case.
Manar was allowed into the home, where he found a small amount of cocaine and marijuana and then arrested the homeowner, Frederick Carl "Fritz" Krause III. "I was outraged," recalled Krause, who was fired from his job as a director at WPSD-TV after the March 2003 arrest. "You would think you could trust authorities to tell you the truth."
Krause, then 29, pleaded guilty to possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia -- but on the condition he could challenge the legality of the search. Today, as a result, the Kentucky Supreme Court will hear arguments on an issue it has never addressed: Whether a defendant's consent to a search can ever be "voluntary" -- as required for a search without a warrant -- when it is the product of a police officer's deceit and misrepresentation.
Courts have long held that police may try to trick suspects during interrogations -- by falsely telling them that their fingerprints were found at the scene, for example, or that a partner confessed and implicated them. The thinking is that the suspect is already in custody and has been read his rights. But constitutional law experts say the use of trickery to get permission for a search is more troubling because it easily can be coercive. "Anyone falsely accused of sexually assaulting a young girl would allow the search in order to clear himself," said Wayne LaFave, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of a six-volume treatise on searches and seizures.
"You kind of wince a bit and it's not something you want to do, but sometimes you have to use deception because it is necessary to solve crimes," said Louisville Metro Louisville Police Detective Larry Duncan. "I refer to it as a little white lie."
There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported. The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district's health curriculum in line with national standards.
The Rev. David Morgan served on a committee that developed the lesson plans. He said the new curriculum moves beyond the "Just Say No" approach. Health textbooks, older than some students, will be replaced. "If we had math books from 1988, reading books from 1988, as a parent, I would be furious," said Patty Rafailedes, a physical education teacher.
The Ohio Department of Education doesn't require schools to provide sex education, particularly when it comes to using contraceptives. The state curriculum calls for venereal disease education, which often is taught along with nutrition and the effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. "Sex is more complex than the information about drugs and alcohol," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "It is not a not-now, not-ever message."
According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July 2005 showed that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between the ages of 11 and 19.
Authorities said 10 to 15 people wearing masks left six big trash bags full of taco sauce packets at a Taco Bell. A note attached to the bags said they had been collecting them for three years.
Marion Deputy Police Chief Cliff Sessoms said officers have suspended their investigation, because it doesn't look like a crime has been committed. But he adds police don't like it when masked people walk into a business.
A Taco Bell spokesman said the hot sauce won't be used due to safety concerns.
So not only does it not make sense to begin with (as in, what was the point?), but now the sauce is all going to waste anyways. Weird.
It's not a very drastic change, but I liked the look already. Instead, it's more of a bunch of design tweaks. At any rate, you may have to hit refresh (maybe even a few times) to see the changes. You'll know it's right if it looks like the image below. I've given everything - stories on the main page as well as the navigation boxes on the left and right a tabular look. While doing that, I made some other tweaks that you may or may not notice.
I am aware of a small bug in Internet Explorer where the right border on stories appears shifted for some stories. This bug does not appear in Firefox, and I eventually gave up on trying to fix it in IE. For anyone that's not already aware, getting stylesheets to work right in IE is a pain in the ass.
