I wish I had more details on his life and death. All I know is that Bill Yoshida, the longtime comic book letterer, passed away last week. He began lettering comics in the late sixties and became the main letterer for Archie Comics around 1980. Occasionally credited as "Bill Yosh" or "Saburo Yoshida," his handiwork had a lot to do with the look and feel of that company's books ever since, appearing on almost every cover and something like 90% of the interior stories, plus the Archie newspaper strip. He was said to be dedicated and dependable, which you'd have to be in order to letter that many comic books over the years.

An interesting article over at Jim Hill Media. Jim Hill himself explains that the Disney-MGM Studio theme park down in Florida may be in for a very expensive name change later this year.

Nikki Finke on what Chris Rock may or may not do on Oscar Night.

Well, maybe. This afternoon, my friend Tracy Abbott sent me this link to a website put up by the State Controller of California. It's a database of unclaimed property listings…meaning that they have money or other assets for people but don't know where to send it. They have nothing for me but there's some money for a deceased uncle of mine, and I think I qualify to receive it.

I got hooked and spent several hours plugging in the names of every friend I could think of. I probably found about $35,000 worth of unclaimed property for people I know, and I duly alerted them…and now I'm alerting you. I think this pretty much applies to folks who live in California…though I did notice $800 due to a friend of my mother's who moved to New York twenty years ago. The website tells you what you have to do to collect if you think a given listing is you. Happy hunting.

Mary Wallace informs me that The Today Show will be running a feature on the 100th birthday celebration for Charles Lane. The segment, prepped by correspondent Bob Dotson will air either tomorrow morning or Friday, and it will be repeated thereafter on MSNBC. Included will be footage from the party, much of which will also be seen in an upcoming documentary on the man. I'm setting my TiVo.

Just noticed this nice report by Dave Sikula on the "Art of the Cover" panel I moderated at WonderCon.

I misunderstood the identity of my benefactor. The gift of a copy of the Gerry Jones book, Men of Tomorrow, was not from Jim Henley, which is the name of a fellow who writes me often here. It was from Jim Hanley, who operates Jim Hanley's Universe, which consists of two of the best comic shops in New York. He arranged for the book to be handed to me by Rory D. Root, who sells an equally fine array of goodies at Comic Relief in Berkeley, California. Any of these stores would be a dandy place to buy a copy of this volume…or anything else.

One of the many issues I've flogged over the years (in articles like this one) is that it's ridiculous to state that the Academy Awards have an audience of a billion viewers. The number isn't even close to that. It may not even be close to a quarter of that.

In a piece in the current issue of The New Yorker, Daniel Rodosh says all the same things I've been saying about this.

By the way: I've decided not to Live Oscar Blog this year…but my friend Gary Sassaman will be doing so over on his page. Tune in and see what Gary has to say.

I don't know how many of you have been following the story of Fred Garvin, Jeff Gannon, Male Prostitute. A lot of the major news organizations — ones that skew Conservative and others that fear being accused of Liberalism — have given it little or no attention. If an "opposition party" were in charge of either the House or Senate, we'd already have hearings scheduled, but there's very little that anyone in Washington can ever do to provoke outrage and investigation from their own team. A scandal is only what the other party does.

At least though, it's a gold mine for comedians. Here's a link to a Quicktime compilation of moments from last Friday night's Real Time with Bill Maher. And here's one from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Very funny stuff.

I'm always interested when I see someone who has a strong position on one side of an issue and then changes to the other side. Those instances always give me pause to reconsider not just my view of that particular issue but my whole sense of feeling strongly about any controversial topic. I don't usually change my mind but I always think it's good to shake off the notion that it would be unthinkable to do so.

I'm also very interested and conflicted on the whole notion of the Death Penalty in this country. Therefore, I was fascinated to read this interview with TV host Bill Kurtis, who went from believing strongly in the practice to feeling it was just too ineptly administered. I'm not saying anyone should change their mind when they read the interview…and probably not the book he's promoting, either. But I wish more people were open to the idea that if we're to have a Death Penalty in this country, the system needs some serious repair work.

This weekend, NBC's Up All Night is scheduled to rerun the very first episode of Saturday Night Live from October 11, 1975. Not only that but it's the full, 90-minute version as opposed to the truncated hour that is sometimes aired.

I wrote a piece about this first show here. As you watch (if you watch), you might ask yourself what you'd have thought if you'd been an NBC exec that night. The broadcast was not unsuccessful, but also not all that indicative of what the show could or would become. One of the things I find fascinating about early SNL is the way it was more or less invented "on the air" over its first few programs…a luxury I do not think any show would be granted today. The first week, it showed signs of becoming a good, free-form variety show…but not the all-sketch show it soon became. As I understand it, there was some debate then as to whether the Guest Host slot was a way of trying out folks until one emerged as the person who ought to host every week…or if they really wanted to keep the show as amorphous as it seemed to be its first few weeks. In the end, they seemed to split the difference.

Last evening, I watched that "First Five Years of SNL" special that ran on NBC the other night. Those things are all a bit too self-congratulatory but I found it interesting. It would have been more interesting had it paid a bit of attention to Albert Brooks, The Muppets, Andy Kaufman, Harry Shearer, Father Guido Sarducci and a few other contributors. Supposedly, a longer version of this special is to be released on DVD in a few months. Perhaps some or all will get covered there.

Probably for a limited time, Playboy has put up the text of its 1974 interview with the late Hunter S. Thompson. The first two-thirds, being mostly about which drugs he'd taken and when, is pretty boring but the remainder, which is about Nixon and politics, is well worth a glimpse. Beware the nekkid lady pictures lurking in the margins.

Speaking of DVDs that are finally coming out, Jim Hill says that his sources within Disney are talking about putting out Song of the South in the Fall of 2006. Apart from the release date, this matches what I was told earlier this month and reported here. I was told they weren't sure when but that it could be in time for this Christmas. Next year, since it will be the 60th anniversary of the film, seems more likely.

As mentioned here before, Paramount is finally (finally!) coming out with a DVD release of the 1959 version of Li'l Abner — the one which, unlike this one, actually starred Peter Palmer and Leslie Parrish. Release date for the gen-yoo-wine article is 4/19 and you can pre-order from Amazon by clicking here. I'm told to expect an excellent wide-screen transfer but nothing in the way of extras…but that's okay. It's priced cheap and at least it'll be out. I'm a little surprised not to see Julie Newmar on the cover since you figure she'd stupefy a few males browsing the video racks…but then I never understand the marketing ideas they come up with for these things. Maybe they just figure heterosexuals won't buy anything with show tunes in it.

While I was off in San Francisco, my main TiVo received the latest software upgrade, which includes the "TiVo to Go" feature. The way this works is: If you have your PC networked to your computer, you can record a show on the TiVo, then transfer it to your computer hard disk and watch it on your computer or — and here's the "to go" part — you can transfer it to a laptop or burn it to a DVD and take it elsewhere to view.

Because TiVo is under constant assault from networks for making it way too easy for folks to record their shows in digital, uploadable format, TiVo to Go has been designed with a couple of silly restrictions. You're assigned a number they call a "Media Access Key" and this designates the PC on which the transferred shows can be watched. Supposedly, this will discourage the swapping of recorded shows over the 'net…but of course, there are dozens of software and hardware methods one can use to do this without employing a TiVo. I can even use one of my other TiVos, which comes with a built-in DVD burner, to record a show onto a DVD, then copy said DVD onto my computer. TiVo to Go also requires you to specify your own, personal password for playbacks and enter it every time you view a program you transferred to your PC. Again, this makes things a little more difficult for the honest user but probably won't prevent anyone who wants to swap shows from accomplishing what they wish to accomplish.

The shows are saved on your computer in a special file format with a ".tivo" extension. These are playable via Windows Media Player if you have the right codec installed. For those who don't know: A "codec" is a file interpreter that enables a player to decode an audio or video file. You probably already have many codecs on your computer. If you don't have the proper one, TiVo has a list of ones you can purchase…but don't do that. Not when I've found that the free Media Player Classic will run the files just fine.

TiVo also says you have to purchase Sonic MyDVD software if you want to burn a show to a DVD, but if you search around the Internet, you'll find folks explaining how to do this with DVD burning software you may already own, such as Nero. You may also be able to find instructions on how to convert a ".tivo" file to a plain, old-fashioned MPEG file that you can edit like any desktop video. It's a bit complicated for the novice but I'm betting there will be a simple conversion utility available before long.

So what do I think of this new TiVo feature, so far? I think I am not sure why I will use it. Still, if I do find a purpose, it at least seems to work okay on my little set-up here. I have lots of stuff on my harddisk I don't use…so what's one more?