Thursday, October 9, 2003

Which Way?

I've usually had good luck with online services that give you driving directions from one place to another. Tonight, I used Switchboard to tell me how to get to Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena and it told me to go get on the 101 Freeway. As I neared the 101, I consulted the printout to tell me which way to go and the paper said to take the 101 East.

"Well, that'll be a fun ride," I thought. The 101 goes North and South.

But I somehow found my way to the shop wherein my friend Alan Brennert was signing his new novel (click here for details on the book and future signings). It was a nice turnout, and I got to chat with an old friend of mine, Richard Kyle, who was among the founding fathers of comic book fandom. Some say he coined the phrase "graphic story" to denote the format we all know and love, and I can believe that. A lot of things Richard wrote in 1967 about the future of comics have come to pass, and others will happen in our lifetimes. Anyway, it was great to see Richard and I thought I'd mention that here, since folks occasionally write to ask me if he's still around.

• Posted at 10:14 PM · LINK

Siegfried and Roy

You couldn't help but feel sad for Siegfried last night on Larry King Live. You also felt that he was only giving interviews because he or his advisers felt that, for their past work not to be besmirched (and for the future of any acts that use big cats, including theirs), they had to start getting people to view what happened to Roy as a rare, flukish accident. They need to convince folks — and I'm not saying this isn't the case — that the animals aren't that dangerous, that what happened to Roy could not possibly have been prevented and is unlikely to ever happen again.

In this article, Vegas mogul Steve Wynn offers a more detailed explanation of what happened, including the notion that the tiger was distracted by the ringside presence of a lady with a large hair-do.

This is not the same thing but I am reminded of one time I did a TV show where one of the guests was a fine magician named Mark Kalin who, in the course of his performance, made a live tiger appear. Before the taping, the director went up to the pages (the staffers who seat the audience) and told them to make sure that none of the women sitting near the stage were having their periods at the moment. "The cats smell the blood," he told them. "It drives them crazy." I've heard this is — you'll excuse the expression — an old wives' tale, and I'm not sure if the director believed it or if he just thought it would be funny to stick the pages with this silly job. But pages do what they're told and a couple of them diligently went out and started interrogating female audience members about their menstrual cycles — a chore made even more awkward because the tiger was going to be a surprise so they couldn't explain why they wanted to know. I actually overheard two male pages discussing whether certain ladies were young or old enough that it wasn't necessary to ask them, and it reminded me how utterly clueless most males are about things like that.

I also remember that in the trick, throughout two dress rehearsals and two tapings, the tiger never failed to urinate about thirty seconds after it appeared. One of Kalin's assistants was positioned such that he could not avoid being rained upon. After the third or fourth time this happened, I actually heard the guy mutter out loud, "What? And give up show business?"

• Posted at 2:57 PM · LINK

The Terminator and Robocomic

Here's another article about Leno cozying up to Schwarzenegger. I don't think it's as bad as this article makes it out to be. But it could get there.

• Posted at 1:29 PM · LINK

Fixing a Hole

A minor adjustment I made in this site's design last night caused it to be unreadable in most older browsers. What happened — this will only make sense to those of you who know HTML coding — is that I neglected to close one "table" tag. The page still read fine in the current versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, etc. But it didn't appear for the users of some older versions of those browsers until a couple of them e-mailed me and caused me to find the error. I thank those alerted me and apologize to all who were inconvenienced...and I urge you all to upgrade your software. In the next few months, there'll be plenty of sites out there you won't be able to view.

• Posted at 12:35 PM · LINK

Money Matters

Here's an interesting glitch in online banking that happened to me and that might happen to you. I use Microsoft Money, which downloads the details of my checking account and credit cards. On the first Monday of each month, my bank charges me a $12.00 service charge for my checking account and then because my balance is over their minimum, they immediately reverse it. So each month, I download from them a transaction that says, "Monthly service fee, $12.00" and then one that says, "Monthly service fee reversal, $12.00." Or at least, I did.

In June, I purchased something off eBay for $12.00 and sent a check to the seller, whom we shall call Myron. As it turns out, that check was dated the first Monday of that month. For some reason, Microsoft Money merged that transaction with that month's monthly service fee. It saw two $12.00 debits the same day and treated them as one.

Ever since then, it's been treating each monthly service fee as if it's a debit to Myron. Each month, I download "Payment to Myron, $12.00" followed immediately by "Monthly service fee reversal, $12.00." Since the balance is correct, I didn't catch it until this week. Suddenly, I noticed that this Myron guy, from whom I bought one silly item in June, had been charging my checking account $12.00 every month since then! I dug up his phone number and called him to accuse him of thievery or worse. I got his voice mail and decided not to leave a message...which was fortunate because a few minutes later, I resorted Microsoft Money to isolate just my $12.00 transactions and that's when I realized my Monthly Service Fees were missing for the same dates as the charges to Myron. After (literally) forty minutes on the phone to the bank, we figured out it wasn't Myron and it wasn't even them. It was Microsoft Money...or maybe it was me not checking its math closely enough.

Anyway, I almost accused an innocent eBay vendor, and there's a lesson to be learned here. Never attribute to larceny that which can be explained by computer error. Or something.

• Posted at 12:09 PM · LINK

Jay and Arnold

Several articles today (like this one) are discussing the propriety of Jay Leno introducing Arnold Schwarzenegger at his victory party and otherwise boosting the man's candidacy. For what it's worth, I don't think Jay has gone easy on Arnold in the monologues but he has certainly left himself wide open to the charge. I think Leno's wrong if he thinks that he can avoid being considered a supporter of a candidate in such a situation just by not making a formal endorsement and by saying, "He's a friend."

• Posted at 9:56 AM · LINK

Smothers Roasted

Here's a piece about the recent Friars Roast of Tom and Dick Smothers. [WARNING: Contains Jack Carter jokes. Approach with caution.]

• Posted at 2:19 AM · LINK

October 10, 2003 • Current • October 8, 2003