This is Halloween...boo!

Hmm, no trick-or-treaters in my apartment complex for the second year in a row. Guess I'll have to eat all these fun size Butterfingers all by myself.

Believe in the power of the rally monkey

I was right, nyah nyah nyah.

When I said "this was a pretty good year for baseball" in my prediction a few days ago, I forgot about the All-Star Game fiasco. And the "will they strike or not?" fiasco. And I had no way of foreseeing the Michael Eisner "wearing a sportcoat over a Mickey Mouse T-shirt" fiasco. But I visited one baseball stadium I hadn't yet been to, saw some good games live, had some hot dogs, and watched some good postseason games on TV through the magic of TiVo. And that, in my book, is a pretty good year.

Now I can concentrate fully on the football season. Hey, I thought Jon Gruden was supposed to be an offensive genius!

Daylight saving time is the standard

My answering machine has a sticker with some quick reference instructions on the bottom. However, this sticker doesn't include the one thing I can never remember exactly how to do, but have to do every six months or so: setting the clock.

To set the clock at those special times of year, I have to hold down the "clock" button until the digital voice says the day of the week, then press the button again, and it'll say the hour. Then I have to press either the "up" or "down" button until the voice says the hour I'm trying to set it to. Then I press the "clock" button a couple more times until the voice reads the entire time.

Now, the first problem is that it takes me three or four presses of the "clock" button to remember that I'm supposed to hold it down. But the big problem is that the "up" and "down" buttons aren't labeled as such, and to me, which buttons are assigned to each one is counter-intuitive. The "up" button (labeled "on/off") is on the left of the "clock" button, and the "down" button (labeled "memo/repeat") is on the right. This is the reverse of every other electronic device I own, where the "up" ("forward," "greater than," whatever) button is either above or to the right of the "down" ("reverse," "less than," whatever) button, with or without another button in the middle.

Because of that counter-intuitive placement, I always first try to use the "announce" button as the "up" button, because it's to the right of the "memo/repeat" button. Not only does it not work, but pressing it resets the whole setting the clock procedure, and I have to start again with holding down the "clock" button.

Somehow, when I was fumbling around last night, I managed to confuse the answering machine, and now its display reads "1" instead of "0," even though there are no messages saved. Oh, well, at least now I can pretend people other than telemarketers actually call me.

Maybe I should just move to Arizona, or Indiana. Hawaii's not an option because football games start too early in the day.

How's the weather, whether or not we're together?

So is Doppler 4000 twice as powerful as Doppler 2000? And then that would make Doppler 7000 even more powerful than that? And what about Channel 11? Why don't they have Doppler 11000? That would be much more powerful! Maybe I need to move to a place with higher channel numbers so I can see just how powerful Doppler can be. Well, in Chicago, Channel 32 tries to pretend they don't really have a channel number, so they probably don't have Doppler 32000. Hey, the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee is Channel 58. Maybe they have Doppler 58000. I can't even imagine what that kind of power could do. Over in Detroit, the CBS affiliate on Channel 62 doesn't even have local news. Maybe the problem was that their Doppler 62000 was just too powerful. Maybe it picked up secret government installations, or life on other planets that scientists were trying to keep under wraps, or something like that. No wonder the digital TV spectrum is only going to go up to Channel 59.

Today was one of the three or four times a year there's actually noticeable rainfall throughout the Los Angeles area, so it was time for all the local TV stations to blow the dust off their weather radar.

Jury of her peers

Wow, even former Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Peter Guber can't get out of jury duty, and therefore has to serve on the Winona Ryder shoplifting trial. Now I feel less like I'm being unfairly persecuted.

Going out on a limb

Based on my baseball experiences in May, when I saw four baseball games in four different major league parks in two time zones in two weeks, I can make the following prediction: the Angels will win the World Series over the Giants.

I saw the Giants, at home, barely beat the Braves; six days later, I saw the Angels, on the road, soundly defeat the White Sox. Yes, I realize the White Sox were a worse team during the season than the Braves, so the comparison isn't that apt, but I'm sticking with this prediction.

I further realize that posting this prediction now, when the Angels are up 2-1 in the series, may draw yawns of boredom. But here's the truth: I meant to post this prediction before Game 1, but I got distracted and forgot. And you can take that to the bank. I didn't remember to post this until halfway through Game 3, the first game of the Series that I've watched this year, while trying to distract myself from having my brains leak out my ears as a result of listening to Tim McCarver.

I should point out that, right after seeing those baseball games in the month of May, I would have been much more inclined to believe the Giants would make it into the Series than the Angels, based on the impressive home run I saw Barry Bonds hit (into the water), and the fact that no Angel player really stood out. But, as it turned out, that's just how the Angels made it to the World Series...as a real team effort, with everyone playing his part.

However, what I really wouldn't have believed in May, after seeing the A's lose big to the Blue Jays at home, that they would have put together such an amazing consecutive win streak later in the season. You know, this was a pretty good year for baseball, and it isn't over yet. One might say it ain't over 'til it's over.

Write a headline or not

Current sports headline on Yahoo!: "Angels Choice: Pitch or Walk Bonds." Other choices the Angels have: play in the World Series or forfeit, wear uniforms or show up naked, eat food or starve.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should

Someone on OpenNap has given his or her Elton John MP3's filenames which specifically indicate that the performer is Sir Elton John.

We got game (show)

Now this is bizarre: watching "Pyramid," which is not hosted by Dick Clark...and seeing a commercial for a radio station, featuring Dick Clark.

Another telephone success story

When I got home from work today, Caller ID was working, without me having to call Pacific Bell. So that's the end of that story. I'm sorry it wasn't more dramatic.

We don't have to care; we're the phone company

The aforementioned cordless phone has a display for Caller ID purposes. I decided to take advantage of that fact and order Caller ID service from Pacific Bell...sorry, SBC Pacific Bell. Tuesday night, I signed up on the web site, and it gave me an "installation date" of Wednesday.

I actually got two phone calls on Wednesday, but saw no evidence that Caller ID was in effect. Since I (apparently) didn't get any phone calls today, Thursday, I decided to test it myself by using the intercom at the front door of my apartment complex.

I went downstairs to do the test twice today, and both times, someone else showed up at the front door to actually use the intercom for the purpose for which it was intended, and both times, I said to them something to the effect of, "You can go ahead. I'm just testing my Caller ID. Ha ha!" So now I think there are several people running around L.A. thinking I'm really weird. Well, several more people, I should say.

Anyway, it looks like Caller ID still isn't coming through, so that means I get to have a little chat with a phone company employee tomorrow. Hooray.

It's an electronics fact

Cordless phones work better when they have a battery. Thus, brand-new cordless phones purchased from Best Buy tend to work better than customer returned phones purchased from Fry's (and not, apparently, checked to see whether or not they had a battery when they were returned).

A great day for beverages

At last, now available in southern California, it's Cherry Coke in 2-liter bottles. Hooray!

June Foray as the voice of The Ghost of Christmas Past in "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol" (1962) sounds almost exactly like Allyce Beasley as the voice of Miss Grotke in the "Disney's Recess" series (premiered in 1997).

I have no idea what my point is here, except to point out that since Allyce Beasley is basically using her own voice for Miss Grotke, this means June Foray is such a good voice actress that she could precognitively imitate the adult speaking voice of someone who was 8 years old in 1962.

The downside of watching "Jeopardy!" by yourself

I was watching tonight's "Jeopardy!" (last night's "Jeopardy!" to those of you not on the West Coast), and the instant the Final Jeopardy! category of Broadway Stars was revealed, I immediately said, "Who is Nathan Lane?"

One commercial break later, that turned out to be the correct answer. Of course, since I was watching alone, I can't prove it. But trust me, it was another great moment in game show history.

Automation can't possibly go wrong

These were among the local commercials inserted by my cable system during ABC Family's broadcast of the Diamondbacks-Cardinals game tonight:

• A promo for "Life with Bonnie," airing on ABC at 9:00 Tuesdays (this aired at about 8:50, I guess to try to attract people who were bored of the baseball game already)


• An ad for the Orange County Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, taking place on Sunday, September 22, 2002 (and I guess this one was supposed to attract time travelers)

Also, at 11:00 exactly, ABC Family mistakenly cut away from the game to "Growing Pains" for about 30 seconds. Fine, understandable, except that ABC Family doesn't show "Growing Pains" at 11:00 on its west coast feed, or 2:00 on its east coast feed, or at any time on its schedule. When the game actually ended a few minutes later, they joined "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" already in progress.