Back in this message, we talked about the Sportsmen's Lodge, out in Studio City, just over the hill from Los Angeles proper. The Sportsmen's Lodge is/was a sprawling complex of restaurants, places to hold banquets and other meetings, and a hotel. We told you in that message that it had closed…and it has, sort of. If you drive by, you'll see all sorts of signs announcing that and there have been many news reports. Apparently though, it's the restaurants and meeting facilities which have been closed for a makeover. The hotel, which has recently had some renovation work, is open and not doing so well because no one knows they're still in business.

They have only themselves to blame for this confusion. Their website still has an ad up to celebrate New Year's Eve there and it says, "Join us for the closing of the historic Sportsmen's Lodge." Still, I wanted to set the record straight.

You might not be aware of it but the retrial of Phil Spector has been going on for a few months now. Spector was charged with murder in the death of actress Lana Clarkson but his first trial ended in a deadlock with ten jurors voting to hang him and the other two somehow perceiving Reasonable Doubt. The Phil Spector Murder Trial (version 2.0) is now in its defense rebuttal stage and compared to the first go-round, it's received surprisingly little press coverage.

From what I've been able to glean, it's "Second verse, same as the first," with a few more ladies coming forth to testify that at some point, Spector pointed firearms at them. Oddly, part of the defense effort to knock down this image of Spector as guy who threatens women with guns is to establish that he also sometimes threatened men with guns, too. One of Spector's own lawyers is quoted as saying of this strategy, "The alternative is allowing the jury to believe Mr. Spector hates women and women only."

Good thinking there. If someone is always threatening women with guns and a woman gets shot by his gun, that might lead someone to think he shot her. But if he threatens everyone…well then, he's probably harmless. I can see that.

I've been unable to find any guesstimates of when a verdict might be in. This is annoying because as you may recall, I've decided that if this man is acquitted, I'm going to go on a killing spree. I'm Caucasian, I'm in show business and I even have bad hair. If Spector goes free, I'll go free. My big problem is that at the moment, there's really no one out there I want to kill. I wish they'd give me some idea of when this trial will be over so I'll know how long I have to plan out my killing spree. Also, I apparently have to make sure to threaten more people than I actually shoot.

I usually don't do these little list games that make the rounds but I occasionally do things I usually don't do. The way this works is that each answer you give has to start with the same letter as your first name. You're not allowed to repeat an answer and if you're "tagged" by someone whose name starts with the same first letter, you can't repeat any of their answers, either. Here's what I came up with…

1. What is your name: Mark
2. A four letter word: Meat
3. A boy's name: Mork
4. A girl's name: Mindy
5. An occupation: Michael Jackson impersonator
6. A color: Mauve
7. Something you wear: Mickey Mouse ears
8. A food: McNuggets
9. Something found in the bathroom: Maid
10. A place: Milky Way
11. A reason for being late: Married
12. Something you shout: "Mommy!"
13. A movie title: Mothra
14. Something you drink: Moxie
15. A musical group: Manhattan Transfer
16. An animal: Moose
17. A street name: Marvin Gardens
18. A type of car: Mercedes Benz
19. A song title: "Mairzy Doats"
20. A verb: Moon

It's times like this you wish you had a friend named Xavier. Just so you could send the challenge to him and hear him scream.

Around every ninth e-mail I receive these days is asking me to join or become "friends" via some online community…Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Grouply, Yaari, etc. Half of these are requests from people whose names I don't recognize…or sometimes, I'm not sure if it's who I think it is. I just got an invite to connect on one network with someone named Dave Schwartz. I know four different people named Dave Schwartz and have no idea which of them, if any, this is. Maybe they can all get together and start an online community where everyone is named Dave Schwartz. I'd certainly join it if my name were Dave Schwartz.

Some of these requests involve me joining a whole new site and this is usually more trouble than it's worth. Last week, an old friend from high school invited me to participate in some social networking site which I think is based in Spain. To become a member and accept the invite, the site requires me to fill out a long, nosey questionnaire that asks many things for which the proper answer would be along the lines of, "None of your business, jerkwad." It also demands that I upload my address book so it can send invites to everyone in it. Those of you who are in my address book will be pleased to know I did not do this.

But I've joined up with most of the others and I'm not sure why. I'm apparently networking all over LinkedIn, which means that I have some new and tenuous connection to strangers who have tenuous connections to people I know or who have tenuous connections to people who know people I know. So far, it hasn't done a thing for me except that I keep getting pinged and poked and nagged about not accepting the invite from someone I never heard of before in my ever-lovin' life.

I'm even getting friend invites from cartoon characters and dead people. Bill Hanna just made me a friend on Facebook, which is the first time I've heard from him since he told me a Yogi Bear script was late in 1983. Even though I attended Mr. Hanna's funeral in 2001, I'm not 100% sure this isn't him. He was kinda sneaky.

Actually, Facebook doesn't look bad and it might even be useful. I have some friends I'd rather consort with there than in person. Alas, the rest just baffle me. Some of them look like attempts to bring order and uniformity to blogging and e-mailing, which of course drains much of the joy. It's like when you were a kid and you were having fun with other kids…and then some older person would come along and try to organize games. Those games weren't as much fun because they weren't yours.

Before I end this, I have to ask: Please don't invite me to connect with you on any service unless I'm already on it because I'm not joining any more of these things. And I will be glad to be your friend even if we don't do it through Facebook or LinkedIn or any of these online institutions. In fact, just assume I'm your friend right now…and no, you cannot borrow money. I don't know you that well and probably never will.

Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg has sued his own union to attempt to reverse the recent action by their national board in which Executive Director Doug Allen was fired and the negotiating committee was replaced. Rosenberg's application for a temporary restraining order was denied today but he says he will try again.

What seems to be going on here is that Mr. Rosenberg woke up one morning and realized that there might be some aspect of SAG that wasn't divided and dysfunctional, and he filed his lawsuit to try and correct that oversight.

Really. I admire Rosenberg's devotion to his guild and I even think he set out on the current negotiation with all the right goals and values. But things have gone horribly wrong and right now, SAG needs to get out of its current bargaining position while its members still have their underwear, and they need to begin healing and rebuilding and dialing down the anger. This is a time for the guy in charge (still) to be uniting his union, not filing lawsuits against it.

Quite a few folks wrote to remind me that in its second season, Branded took an odd twist, undermining its own premise. Jason McCord was suddenly functioning as a special secret-secret government agent, investigating for and reporting to President Ulysses S. Grant. The opening with him getting kicked out of the army stayed the same but once you got into the episodes, things were different. How did I not recall that? Because I stopped watching the show when they made that switchover. Apparently, a lot of people did.

Several folks also told me that that DVD set contains trimmed (for syndication) prints and not especially good ones. So be wary.

Hey, here's a great way to spend eight and a half minutes. Our pal Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew Films has assembled a little video history of Superman's early animated appearances and parodies. You'll especially enjoy Super (Little) Lulu. Here's the link.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg is up for a position in the Obama cabinet. About eight seconds after this was first mentioned, the blogosphere erupted with a realization: The governor of New Hampshire, the state Gregg represents, is a Democrat and would be expected to appoint a Democrat to fill the rest of Gregg's term. Assuming Al Franken prevails in the Minnesota recount (which is looking more and more likely), replacing Gregg with a Democrat would give the Dems a 60 seat majority in the Senate and the power to block filibusters.

So Senator Gregg is now saying, "I have made it clear to the Senate Leadership on both sides of the aisle and to the governor that I would not leave the Senate if I felt my departure would cause a change in the makeup of the Senate. The Senate Leadership, both Democratic and Republican, and the Governor understand this concern and I appreciate their consideration of this position." He's also said how eager he is to work with the Obama administration and to help craft a new financial policy.

Which means his position works out roughly as follows: "I think I can help devise an economic policy that will help America but I won't take the job unless the governor replaces me with someone who'll probably oppose it."

Back in this post last December, we discussed the ominous fate of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, a Los Angeles landmark that promotes the art of puppetry and hosts an endless stream of kids' birthday parties. Back then, the place was in financial trouble and it looked like it might go out o' business, which would be a shame. So we're proud to note that an unknown benefactor has come to the rescue and things are looking much better. If you're in or around Los Angeles and you have a kid who's going to have a birthday some day, consider booking a party there. You'll enjoy it as much as any child.