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Huggy Boy died the other day, and the newspaper coverage and the obituaries don't do justice to how... unique Huggy was.

Everyone who worked with him has stories. Here's mine: I had a brief conversation with him every week for the entire year I worked at KLSX-KRLA. The dialogue was exactly the same every single time:

Huggy: Wellhellomrsimonmumblemumblemrmooremumblecheckmumblemumble? (Translation: Well, hello, Mr. Simon! Do you happen to know where the General Manager, Mr. Moore, might be? I believe he has my check in his possession)

Me (pointing down the hall): I think he went back to his office.

Huggy: Mumble. (Translation: Thank you, sir. And now I shall take my leave and retrieve my check)

And then he would walk away, although "walk" doesn't begin to describe his gait. He would almost tiptoe down the hall. He walked like a flamingo, as if his knees were jointed backwards, loping, almost hopping.

Huggy was at times nearly incomprehensible on the air. He would sometimes sing along to the records, he'd ramble on about nothing in particular, he'd play the most obscure records in history. He did a lot of things exactly wrong. And, yet, he was so uniquely L.A., so uniquely Huggy, that it all came out exactly right.

The closest thing left to Huggy is Steve Jones, another guy who'd be all wrong if he ever started to do things the "right" way. Too bad more radio isn't like that these days. He hadn't been on the air for years, but I miss getting into the car late at night, turning on the radio, and hearing Huggy mumble and trail off and step all over the records and just be Huggy. You can't become a legend by voice-tracking.

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(ring)

Hello?

"Yes, this is (name of water heater service company redacted). Is this Mr. Simon?"

Yes.

"You had an appointment to have your water heater replaced between 9 and 1 today?"

Yes, it was rescheduled after you cancelled on Thursday.

"We won't be able to install the heater today."

You what?

"We can schedule you for Tuesday between..."

Wait a minute. I cleared out my schedule on a holiday weekend. I wasted one of only two days I have to sleep in this week- my last "two-day weekend" of the year, since I usually work Sundays- getting up early so I could be ready for you.

"Our technician can't get the parts, because the parts warehouse is closed this weekend."

Closed? You couldn't have figured this out beforehand?

"They gave us no notice."

Didn't you have the parts when you called at the last minute Thursday claiming that the techincian was ready but his previous job was taking too long? If the other job didn't take so long, he would've had the heater on his truck, right? Where was it? Or was that a lie, too?

"We can reschedule you for Tuesday between 9 and 1."

You can be more specific than that, can't you?

"We can only give you the four hours."

What choice do I have?

And my holiday weekend gets off to a roaring start.

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You gotta buy Apple stuff because it just plain works, right? I've been trading e-mails and calls today with a friend whose iTunes won't work and, when he tried instead to move everything to a laptop, can't get the laptop to recognize the iPod. Oh, I know we'll somehow find a way to get it to work- I'm pretty sure I know what's causing the laptop problem- but, still, this isn't the "it just works" the Apple apologists tell you about.

And I remember doing IT work several years ago in a mostly-Mac office. Things were constantly running into trouble- crashes right in the middle of critical work, freezes, the little bomb icon. Some made the vaunted video capabilities easier by just plain quitting. I kept busy for a year with that stuff.

That's not to say Apple doesn't make good products- it does, and I would happily accept one of the new Intel MacBook Pros from anyone willing to buy me one- but it's just a reminder that when people evangelize about Apple, they're evangelizing about products that are as prone to problems as many others. They don't always "just work."

But at least they're not Dells.

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It's hot, it's windy, it's Labor Day.

You should be someplace like this:

Of course, it doesn't exist anymore. But you should be enjoying your freedom.

Me, I worked. It IS Labor Day, so I labored. It's what I do.

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No time- just spent an hour and a half at the cellular store. Perhaps it'll be the topic for tomorrow's "The Letter." We'll see.

Let's just say that at the end of the day I'm poorer but pleased. More when I have time.

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To death and taxes we can add one more inevitability: there will always be a long line at the cell phone store, and that line will be populated by the kind of people you normally only see on "Cops" with their faces blurred out, or being ejected from the audition room in the opening rounds of "American Idol." That's where I spent an interminable hour and a half waiting to replace our cell phones the other night.

The floor show resembled one of Fellini's lesser efforts. There were the three teens- two guys who actually appeared to be dimmer than Beavis and Butt-Head (and looked a LOT like them) and a girl who clearly doesn't own a mirror and therefore doesn't know that her clothes are about 30 sizes too small. There was the older couple, the very large husband attired in short-shorts and a shirt with the sleeves torn off to show off much of the sides of his torso, the wife walking around with the kind of expression that says "wear what you want- I'm too old and tired to argue anymore." There was the yuppie woman in a business suit who was rapt in conversation on her cell phone for the entire time, not even willing to get off the conversation- which was clearly not about business- when her name was called to come to the counter. And there was, er, me.

And I was writing a column in my head, ready to complain about the wait and the weirdos and the management but then a miracle happened. I got called up, and the clerk and the store manager patiently made everything work. I had an unusual situation- a grandfathered deal, some credits to attach via codes that the system wouldn't take, a very new model phone- launched this weekend- with which nobody's familiar- and the manager, with good cheer and tenacity, got the thing done right, even as she was being peppered with questions and complaints from people every few seconds. She was able to get me- and all of the other people she dealt with- on our way happy, problems solved, phones working. And now I have my Treo 700wx phones, and they work, and my account's in order.

That's the Sprint-owned store on Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance, CA. They made me happy. Lately, that's a real achievement.

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This week's All Access newsletter talks about, er, the All Access newsletter that never was, with the moral being something about getting to the point again:

This one's gonna be short, because I wrote a much longer one yesterday and threw it out. And there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Next week: probably more rambling. I know my strengths.

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I've had the new Sprint version of the Windows Mobile Treo- the Treo 700wx- for a few days now, and so far, I like it. I haven't tried Bluetooth yet- the headset I ordered hasn't arrived- and I'm still getting used to Windows Mobile 5, but here's what I like:

1. It works.
2. I can finally access and post to All Access' unusually-scripted administration pages without any problem at all. Palm browsers- Blazer and third party versions- couldn't do that.
3. Unlike Palm, I was able to find a notepad program (freeware!) and an FTP client with the right security that would allow me to edit non-.doc or .txt files on my phone. Couldn't do that with the Palm equivalents.
4. It's fast. And when I'm within EVDO range, it's broadband fast.
5. Sling Mobile works- my satellite TV wherever I want it. Ideal for waiting in doctors' offices.
6. Still the best form factor for a PDA phone. No pullout keyboards to screw up one-handed use.
7. The ringer seems louder, the vibrate function is more noticeable. On the old Treo 600 I was using, it was way too easy to miss calls.
8. You can stream lots of content with EVDO and Windows Media Player.

Here's what I'm less happy about:

1. It's still a little thick.
2. I'd like more screen resolution, although the jump up from the Treo 600's substantial enough (the Palm Treo 700's screen is better, but if I can't use the Slingbox with it, big deal)
3. Windows Mobile is still cluttered when you launch it- the Today page, no matter how you configure it, is not as elegant as Palm tarting with a phone keypad. And I'd like more speed dial buttons to appear up front- I haven't really found the ideal configuration to maximize that and still include neat stuff like the photo speed dial buttons yet.
4. The camera's still not great, although it IS fun to take video with it. I immediately shot an Ella the World's Most Famous Cat video, and it was watchable and not horribly choppy.
5. No threaded text messaging, not that I use texting much. I'll just throw an IM program on there and use that.
6. No WiFi built in, which would help here at the fringes where EVDO drops out. But I'm getting a simple WIFI SDIO card that'll take care of that (and my battery life).

Early opinion: it does everything I was hoping it'll do, and while it's a touch less intuitive than the Palm OS version, that's well worth the tradeoff. We're not quite at the point where I could leave the laptop at home, but this is as close as anything has come to that goal, and in areas with good EVDO coverage, I could use it to do my work in reasonably good order. I'm very, very happy.

I took some pictures of the phone, but they didn't come out well, so here's a picture of Ella on a bed instead.

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We decided to go see Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" today, which meant some schedule planning, because it's playing in exactly one theater in the area and playing once- once!- per day, the first matinee, 12:45 pm. Predictably, the theater was largely empty- nobody knows this movie's even playing. There was one print ad that carried no information other than the title of the movie; it ran on opening day last week in the Times Calendar section. That was it. The Times ran a favorable review a few days later, but otherwise it's just listed in the AMC listings by title only. Fox is determined that people not see this picture, and they're succeeding.

Too bad. It's quite funny and perceptive, very entertaining, and perhaps the first and only movie Hollywood will ever release that specifically blames the fact that stupid people breed more than smart people for the world's ills. That alone is worth the price of admission. It's also reasonably speedy and contains plenty of laughs, Luke Wilson is relatively inoffensive (compared to his usual grating self), and despite a slightly heavy-handed narration that seems to have been applied to help edit the thing down and skip over some exposition, it works. It's certainly no worse than countless other movies that have been given full, heavily-publicized releases this year. Someone at Fox should be ashamed of himself or herself for ordering this movie to be hidden, but it'll rise again on DVD.

The trailers shown before the movie gave some indication where the studios' heads really are. One movie was trumpeted as the most important political movie since "Fahrenheit 9/11" ("Fast Food Nation," which takes the daring position that fast food is bad) and another is touted as from the producers of "Fahrenheit 9/11" ("The U.S. Vs. John Lennon," which point blank says that Bush is pro-death, yet omits the part where John Lennon is an egotistical, hypocritical phony roaming around L.A. with a Kotex on his forehead and scooping up millions of dollars while singing "imagine no possessions"). No, sir, there's no liberal bias in Hollywood, none at all.

But "Idiocracy" is worth a couple of hours of your time, if you can find it. It's only playing in seven cities in North America. By the end of the week, that'll probably be zero. If I was Mike Judge, I'd be ready to do a little Monday Night Rehabililitation on Fox. (You'll need to see the movie for an explanation)

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Eagles win. Up one.

Cowboys lose. Up two.

Phillies lose. Back to one.

Yes, I'm rooting for the Colts tonight. I'd rather be ahead on the day than to break even.

And that's about the size of Sunday for me. It was just work while football played in the corner of the screen. The whole weekend was uneventful, which is okay by me. We did watch a DVD last night- Andy Garcia's "The Lost City," a decent approximation of late 1950s Havana that fairly spits out its disdain for Castro, Che, and the revolutionaries as well as for Batista and his goons and incidentally provided full employment for Latino actors of a certain age (Steven (Rocky Echevarria) Bauer! Julio Oscar Mechosa! Elizabeth Pena! Nestor Carbonell!) and a pair of cameos for Dustin Hoffman (as Meyer Lansky) and Bill Murray (in a very strange role as "The Writer," an Anglo comedian with no name who latches onto Andy Garcia and serves no apparent purpose other than to seem to have been dropped into the movie from some other movie). It's long, and you feel like you're watching a vanity project at times, but the story's pretty interesting and that era has always fascinated me, so I'd recommend it if you're into that kind of thing.

And this whole entry reads like a vanity project, so I'll shut up. But you can't blame me for not wanting to think about tomprrow's anniversary, or watch the dueling network 9/11 shows tonight- I still think about it too much. Football and "The Simpsons"/"Family Guy" will work better for me tonight.

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There were a lot of "how did 9/11 change us?" articles in the papers today. I heard people intoning how it was "the day that changed everything." And no doubt it did change our perception of the people who want to kill us into people who can very well actually kill us. It also created a new travel experience, new rules, even an underlying sense of Cold War-like dread. It galvanized a lot of people into thinking in bold, forceful terms about fighting terrorism, until they lost their nerve and started wondering whether maybe selling the Je.... er, Israelis out might call off the dogs for a while. It changed our sense of safety in many ways. And there were the lives lost, including guys I knew from college- their deaths made everyone feel more vulnerable along with the sorrow.

But I thought about that day, and I thought about my life, and I compared the before-and-after:

September 10, 2001: Woke up at 4:10. Fed cat. Worked. Went for a run. Worked some more. Ate lunch. Went to the post office. Stopped at the bank. Drove home. Worked. Ate dinner. Worked. Watched some TV. Went to sleep.

September 11, 2006: Woke up at 4:10. Fed cat. Worked. Went for a run. Worked some more. Ate lunch. Went to the post office. Stopped at the bank. Drove home. Worked. Ate dinner. Worked. Watched some TV. Went to sleep.

Life before 9/11 and life today are remarkably similar. I have my routine, and it's still in place.

If I do anything else, the terrorists win.

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It was only after I wrote yesterday's item that I realized that I'd made a mistake. There was one difference between September 10, 2001 and yesterday.

I didn't feed the cat on September 10, 2001.

We didn't have the cat on September 10, 2001.

Ella the World's Most Famous Cat wasn't yet born on September 10, 2001.

We're not sure when she was born, exactly, but we know it was later than that. We're not 100% sure where, either- she was found in a schoolyard in Long Beach as a kitten, but that's as much as we know.

Unknown origin. Mysteriously entered our lives after 9/11. Increasingly devoted to interfering with our sleep and my work.

I'm not suggesting anything here. She could indeed just be an innocent little cat, oblivious and harmless. Or... or...

There's just no green card and no way to trace her whereabouts, 's all I'm sayin'. I haven't seen any mysterious calls to Pakistan on our phone bill, and I haven't seen any incriminating paw prints on the computer keyboard, but you have to be vigilant. And she does spend a lot of time at night sitting at the end of the bed staring at me.

But I doubt terrorists eat Fancy Feast. At least, I hope not.

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It's 8:00 pm (ignore the time stamp) and I'm hopelessly behind in work. I haven't even gotten to the weekly newsletter yet. Once again- second week in a row- I got 90% of the way through and decided it just didn't work. So you'll have to forgive me for this placeholder.

I'll have "The Letter" tomorrow. I'd better.

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This week's All Access newsletter deals with one of the main things terrestrial radio has left in its arsenal, and how the industry tends to forget it's available to them:

It's another late, short one this week, because it's a busy week and I gotta get stuff cleared away before the NAB convention next week.

Next week: Dallas for the NAB. You know how much I love conventions.

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Not a bad day. Work wasn't too mind-melting, the weather was beautiful, and the horrific noise from Monster House next door- they sprayed stucco and sandblasted a wall, leaving a fine spray of pebbly stuff all over our driveway- was cancelled out by the arrival of a bouncing baby 42" plasma TV set. You gotta love life when there's HDTV involved.

Throw in Dodgers-Padres. Critical series. Friday night, great weather. Maddux vs. Wells. A half-game division lead. And so far, Maddux hasn't given up a hit through six. Phils won, too. Good day. There are three hours left for things to go bad, but so farI'm not complaining.

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Saturday. Busy.

So watch this opening for the "Linus the Lionhearted" cartoon show. If you're a certain age, it'll all come back to you. And it hasn't been seen since the whole cartoon-merchandising crossover thing became verboten. But Sugar Bear survived for decades therafter.

And yes, it's Sheldon Leonard and Carl Reiner with the voices. The jungles were full of New York Jews in 1964.

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So they choked.

The football season's two weeks old and I don't even want to watch anymore. Stupid penalties, fumble-itis, and general fourth-quarter malaise, and they choked. At home. Against their chief rivals.

At least it looked good in HDTV.

And Sundays will be free now.

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Dallas tomorrow.

Once again, I feel completely ill prepared. I've thrown stuff into luggage, but I'm not ready for a stretch away from home. Conventions and me, we don't get along. Nor do I much enjoy travel, especially when there's a convention involved, and in an unfamiliar place, to boot. When it's a place like Philly or D.C. or New York, at least I know the lay of the land. Dallas? Don't know. I've never left the airport. This'll be a first.

It'll be interesting to see what the convention's like this year. If anything, the mood of the radio industry's gotten even darker since last year. I'll be writing later this week about my attitude towards the changes in the business, but I'll shorthand it by saying that I think a lot of the misery is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That, and I don't think the rank and file of the business has any confidence in its leaders.

But that'll be a topic for another day. For now, I gotta finish packing. I am SO not ready for this trip.

See you in Texas.

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Most of my recent flights have been relatively painless. Today's was just annoying. The minor indignities piled up:

1. The parking garage was full and we ended up with rooftop parking, also known as Where Your Car Gets A Thin Film Of Jet Fuel All Over It.

2. The flight was cramped and the flight attendants forgot to offer food, which was probably OK because we'd have had to pay for it anyway and it was just a crappy snack box. But still.

3. The luggage took over a half hour to get from the plane to the luggage carousel, and ours were the last bags to arrive.

4. We discovered that when they built Dallas-Ft. Worth International, they didn't bother to put many elevators in, which makes getting a cart full of luggage a liability.

5. The bus to the rental car shuttle dropped everyone off all the way at one end, far from our rental car company and far from the carts. Again, lots of bags, no help. Great.

6. The car rental guy relentlessly tried to upsell us to an SUV at significantly higher cost. I refused. The car we got had plenty of trunk space.

7. The hotel clerk feigned ignorance when I noted that my reservation- in writing!- asked for a king bed, non-smoking. He did eventually come through, but...

8. ...when I noted that the room was on a lower floor and therefore close to the atrium, and that I knew that these rooms get a lot of noise from the lobby, he said no, it'll be quiet, the rooms' been renovated and the events won't be late. I'm in here now and I can hear a lot of music and chatter from the lobby.

9. Parking is like $15. a night for SELF-PARKING. $15.? And the room key doesn't open and close the gates like it's supposed to, but they know it's a problem. They've KNOWN it's a problem. They haven't FIXED it, mind you, but they KNOW it's a problem.

10. The place is crawling with radio folks, mostly GM and sales types, most of whom I don't know. It's suits and frat boys and salespeople. You know how uncomfortable this makes me.

On the other hand, we went for dinner in the Uptown area and had great salads while watching the trolley roll by and the hipsters stroll by, and it was the first time I felt comfortable here. The drive from DFW to downtown through Irving makes the area look like a clone of the more unfortunate stretches of Florida- kinda like the run-down-strip-mall-and-strip-club parts of Dale Mabry in Tampa or the Trail in Orlando. Texas Stadium looks cheesy and run-down, too- must have seemed like the ultimate in the 70's, but now it makes Giants Stadium look modern. But when we were in Uptown and around Turtle Creek and on the fringes of downtown, Dallas seemed... cool. Restaurants, galleries, shops, people walking around- I can deal with that.

Radio conventions? That's a little harder to deal with. I start trying tomorrow.

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It was a long day at the convention topped off by a lovely evening at Ameriquest Field to see the Rangers and Mariners from the eighth row behind home plate (thanks, Gavin), with dollar hot dogs to boot. But that means I got back late, so I gotta cut this short. More tomorrow- maybe even the long-delayed "The Letter" for this week. I know, you can hardly stand the suspense. Stay calm and duct-tape the windows closed- you'll get my Award-Winning Convention Coverage tomorrow.

Unless someone gives me tickets to something else.

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I dashed this one off on my cell phone while zoning out at the convention, and it's generated a ton of positive reaction. Go figure. Here's this week's "The Letter From All Access News-Talk-Sports":

I'm sitting in a hotel meeting room in Dallas listening to a convention panel on... on... oh, geez, I don't know anymore. It's something about radio, that much I know. I know that because of the big banner behind the stage that has the word "RADIO" on it. I tend to lose consciousness at these things.

I gotta go now. I gotta be prepared in case something newsworthy happens. I know, I know, but I have to come up with SOME justification for being here.

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What are YOU doing this Rosh Hashonah eve?

We're sitting four rows from bullshit. That's literal. We're at the Resistol Arena in fabulous Mesquite, Texas for tonight's Mesquite Championship Rodeo. Really.

Actually, it's pretty cool. The folks are friendly, the atmosphere is fun, and it's a special Celebrity Night, with Lynn I Never Promised You A Rose Garden Anderson, Barry Northern Ezposure Corbin, Will Clark, and a bunch of local TV newsholes. Well, shet mah mouf 'n' l'chaim, y'all.

Pictures upon my return. Plus more grousing about the convention, travel, and jury duty. Can't beat that for entertainment.

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Apart from the flash flood and the smell of steer feces, today was another good day in Texas.

We headed out for Fort Worth this morning and while on a side stop in Las Colinas, the skies opened up- lightning, thunder, and torrential rain. Macarthur Boulevard was a river. But the whole thing lasted maybe a half-hour; by lunchtime, we were at Angelo's BBQ on White Settlement Road continuing our gastronomic tour of the Metroplex with another 'cue stop (yesterday's, Holy Smokes in Dallas, featured awesomely tender brisket and great sauce and sides). Then it was on to the stockyards for the obligatory tourist stop to get a whiff of where dinner comes from, not to mention to see the armadillo races.

A little of that schlock goes a long way, and the antidote was an afternoon at the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern, where Rembrandt is across the street from Warhol and Ruscha and Lichtenstein. In Cowtown. Really. And then, the last big meal before returning home and resuming the diet, steaks at the Silver Fox in Fort Worth, more awesome meat.

Really, if only there wasn't a convention to get in the way, this was a great trip. Pictures coming. Time to go home now.

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Once upon a time, people bored each other with slide shows and home movies. In modern times, we bore each other like this: as promised, some snapshots from Dallas and Fort Worth:

The convention? Didn't bother with pictures. Okay, only one- this was the obligatory "Is FM Talk Coming?" panel, and I snapped this only to prove that while the panel was run by R&R, our competitor, the banners, for ABC Radio Networks' prominently displayed the slogan "ALL ACCESS FOR NEWS" or "ALL ACCESS FOR SPORTS" or "ALL ACCESS FOR TALK." I'm not sure, but I may owe the ABC folks dinner. Here, on a blurry cameraphone shot with no flash, Clear Channel's Gabe Hobbs (center) goes into a spasm while ESPN's T.J. Lambert (left) chuckles softly and our pal Gavin Spittle from Live 105.3 Free FM/Dallas (right) wonders how he ended up on this panel and why they still ask "Is FM Talk Coming?" about 20 years after it came:

Dallas is a sophisticated city, the locals will tell you, and they're right, even if a downtown landmark is a sculpture version of a cattle drive:

Even the suburbs feel the need to follow suit- here's Irving's Las Colinas stallions in a sterile office plaza:

Who'd visit Dallas without heading to the sixth floor? Of course we weny to Dealey Plaza. Highly recommended, by the way:

We wanted to see a meaningless late-season ballgame between two losing teams, and Arlington obliged with this Rangers-Mariners matchup, which was entertaining enough, especially from these seats (yes, that's Ichiro at bat):

In Mesquite, all you need to know is right here:

But first, there's patriotism:

And then, yee ha.

And more yee ha.

Brought to you by an appropriate sponsor:

Here at the Fort Worth stockyards, you'll note the likenesses of the CEOs of some major radio companies, with a couple of cowboys sitting on them:

While The Who and a bunch of other acts were disappointed by drawing 35,000 people to that Baltimore music festival, this guy at a Fort Worth stockyards bar was happy with an audience of about three, plus a guy with a camera way back on the street:

The old theater marquee says "Coming Soon The New New Isis," as opposed to the old New Isis or the New Old Isis:

And it wouldn't be Fort Worth without a guy blowing on an armadillo's ass:

What isn't in the photographs is how good a time we had. No, not at the convention- that was the usual pile, as I've already noted and will expound upon at length this week. The good time was in a series of great meals at BBQ shacks in Dallas and Ft. Worth, a spectacularly good salad in Uptown, Mediterranean chicken and salad and piping hot-out-of-the-oven pita in a strip mall on N. Central Expressway, and perfect chili and toasted-on-a-press bread at an authentic old-fashioned drugstore lunch counter near Highland Park. It was at the ballgame, joining a standing ovation for a soldier recently returned from Iraq and standing stoically on the club level while the entire ballpark gave him an extended welcome. It was in the overwhelming level of friendliness, from the checkout guy at the Kroger who marveled at the way my credit card had the Kroger club bar code right on it to the old guy at the Highland Park Pharmacy counter lamenting how he can't have the chili anymore but wishes he could to the clerks at Nieman Marcus who treated us as if we could afford what we were ogling. It was in marveling at the Art Deco facades in Fair Park and the families enjoying the Mesquite Rodeo. I've been warned about Dallas being not like the rest of Texas, but I liked it. And I liked Fort Worth, too. And I think I'll like Austin and San Antonio and the rest of the state, too.

We'll be back.

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it's been a busy catch-up day, so all you get is random and not terribly coherent ramblings tonight. Sorry in advance.

I'm watching the Monday Night Football game from New Orleans in high def. Actually, it's almost-high def, because it's ESPN HD (motto: "It's widescreen. Don't complain.") The game has thar grainy, foggy look that gets inserted somewhere between the truck and the satellite. Annoying, yes, and even more frustrating on a big screen.

It's being painted as the rebirth of New Orleans, and that would be nice, but the reality is that the crowd's still suburban and white and the city still has a long way to go, even with U2 and Green Day and a brass band doing the pre-game. It's a nice little thing, but I don't think sports is ss important a healer as the sportscasters want you to think it is. Let the Saints get into a losing streak and see how much healing there'll be.

By the way, I can understand a southern accent, but Archie Manning... Suzy Kolber asked a question and his answer sounded like "hworarartdkddtevyc" to me. Is his middle name Boomhauer?

Enough Grainyvision for now- time for a "CSI: Miami" break. nothing like David Caruso's one-note acting in widescreen high def. You can see the strain lines in his face with every strangled line delivery. I love this plasma.

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I got called for jury duty today.

This oughta be interesting.

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Well, that was kind of a waste of a morning.

I showed up in Long Beach early this morning to serve jury duty. The L.A. county system is a one-day or one-trial affair, which makes it more palatable, but having to spend time in that dank, dilapidated, scary building wasn't a pleasant prospect no matter how quickly it would go. I was there at the appointed time, got past security, went up to the sixth floor, and waited. And waited. And waited. If they want to start after 9:00 am, making you show up at 7:45 am is kinda cruel.

But they do allow you to bring cell phones into the jury room, so I actually was able to do a little work using my Treo and EVDO, and that passed some time until a judge came in for a pep talk- this is your civic duty- and they played a video showing how a trial works, and then the jury room attendant told us, slowly and with much repetition, what would happen. (It would have been annoying, but I understood, because you KNOW that no matter HOW many times she repeats the instructions, someone will screw it all up) After a while, they called off a bunch of names for one courtroom, and I wasn't on that list. At about 10:45, they called off another bunch and I was on that list.

Off to the courtroom we went, but after a 20 minute wait in the hall, we entered the courtroom only to be informed by the judge that the defendant caved and pleaded guilty, so we wouldn't be needed. Back to the jury assembly room, back into the jury pool, and then, at about noontime, they announced that they'd only need enough jurors for one more trial and that if they read your name, you'd be free to go and you'd be done for the year.

It was a long list.

With only about two or three slots left, I heard "Uh, Perry... Simmon?"

Freedom.

FREEDOM!

I'd been sprung on a technicality!

I got out of there like a bat out of hell and promptly walked right across freshly rolled asphalt, leaving a crust of tar on the soles of my Hush Puppies, but I didn't care. I didn't care that the traffic on Terminal Island and across the Vincent Thomas Bridge was crawling. The red lights and slow drivers in San Pedro didn't bother me. Free at last.

I'd like to say that I learned a valuable lesson about civics today, but I didn't. All I learned was that having a Treo with high-speed Internet is a life saver when you're stuck in the Long Beach courthouse, and that next time I'll bring a snack. Kids, that's what America's all about.

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Not a lot of time tonight- no "Letter" yet, and I'm watching the Phillies struggle. It remains agonizing to be a Philadelphia sports fan- the Phils have been leaving runners in scoring position all night, and the closer couldn't close and came close to walking in the winning run (and almost hit a batter for the winning run). ESPN keeps showing Phillies fans in agony in the stands, and that's how I'm feeling at home. Whether they win or not, it's too painful. Say what you want about having a last place team, but at least it doesn't feel like open heart surgery without the anaesthetic.

Back to the game now, which is in extra innings. I should just watch something else and check the score later, but I can't do that. Masochism runs in the Philadelphia sports bloodline. We can't help ourselves.

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This week's All Access newsletter: dashed-off crap about not having material. Filling space with irrelevance, my specialty:

This week's lesson: why it's important to always have Plan B ready to go.

Oh, right, the convention. There was a little more after last week's Letter, including yet another talk radio panel. And what topics came up? "Is FM Talk coming?" and "Is talk for women coming?" I kid you not. Every single convention, at least once, usually two or three times, they talk about the same things. It's all they know how to do. This, folks, is Our Industry. I'm so proud.

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This is how unmotivated I am tonight: I can't even get off the couch to go to the computer and enter this. I'm using my cell phone. Can't even bother to think up anything to write, either. Sorry.

Perhaps I'll come up with something interesting tomorrow. The Vegas odds aren't good.

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The season's over. The Phils won today but it was too little, too late. The diagnosis: self-inflicted gunshot wound, also known as the inability to beat the Washington Nationals even two out of three last week. Sure, the first half of the season didn't help, but they were in the wild card lead and coming into an eminently winnable week, yet couldn't do it (and came one 14 inning marathon- and one ball- away from getting swept by a terrible Nats team).

Can we assume Charlie Manuel's done? Please? Look at Detroit to see what a managerial change can do (and could have done for the Phillies).

If a lot of the onerous contracts (Abreu, Lieberthal) will be off the books (everything but Pat "Nobody Wants Him" Burrell), is there anyone reasonably available for third base or as a left-handed starter? Are they going to have to try and resign Wolf for lack of another option (Zito'll be too expensive, and Ted Lilly's not enough of an upgrade)? Do they go with Coste, who hit well but isn't much of a defensive catcher or pitching handler, or look for another catcher? Do you admit to yourself that Tom Gordon wasn't as good as his numbers indicated, and looked shaky even when, as today, he managed to get the save?

Too many questions, but at least there's enough in the lineup- Howard and Utley, of course, and Victorino, too- to prop up that off-season hope. That, sadly, is all we get as Phillies fans these days. And, no, I don't care who wins from here on out.

As long as it's not the Yankees.

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