You may remember that at my most recent "Jeopardy!" tryout, last September, one of the other hopefuls had founded a dance troupe in Slovakia. I remember because I wrote about it. He did get called to be a contestant, and was a 3-day champion, losing on tonight's show -- and during tonight's interview segment, he talked about said dance troupe, which is how I finally made the connection. (I'm horrible at recognizing people "out of context" -- if we'd ended up at the same tryout next September, I probably would have recognized him, but standing behind a contestant podium on TV, I just couldn't place him.)

I knew he was going to lose either tonight or tomorrow night, because I knew he didn't win tomorrow night's show, because in December, I saw next Monday's show taped, and he wasn't the returning champion.

But now I can't blame their failure to call me to be a contestant on them losing the files from that tryout, since they were obviously able to call him. Maybe they only lost my information.

Why, it was only 11 years ago that they were little baby networks, with their birth announcement being published in TV Guide...



Now they've grown up, and they're getting married. And they're even being progressive by, instead of picking one name or the other, creating a new name! Brings a tear to my eye. Sunrise, sunset, and all that.

I'm not sure how much of an overlap this blog has with the page where I have my jingle collection listed, but just in case: I've completely updated the audio that's available via that page. There are now a bunch of jingles newly available for your listening pleasure, and all you have to do is scan down the page for the table cells with light blue backgrounds. Or just search for "Chicago," or whatever (but if you do that, you'll miss one Chicago jingle that's listed elsewhere).

The new audio was partly due to the fact that my webhost just quadrupled disk space and octupled bandwidth -- or was it the other way around? Either way, I think I'm in pretty good shape, even if every single reader of this blog downloads every jingle twice.

For his 30th birthday, my friend Mitch requested, in lieu of presents, representations of himself.

I drew a comic strip that included several depictions of Mitch (plus his wife Kim and their dog Trinity). Here's the title panel...



Click here to read the whole thing.

Now imagine how good it would be if I had better art equipment, especially a couple of better pens. What I should have tried is scanning my black-and-white line art and doing the rest -- cleanup, lettering, and coloring -- on the computer, which I understand is the way a lot of cartoonists work these days. But I'm stuck in the olden days, so what you're looking at is colored pencils and hand lettering.

At the beginning of my TiVo recording of the West Coast feed of Tuesday night's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," the end of an NBC News special report: "We will have continuing coverage of this terrible story on MSNBC, on the 'Today' show, and your local NBC station on this NBC station. I'm Bill Fitzgerald. This has been an NBC special news report."

The transit authority in Washington, D.C., has a contest running. The winner gets to be their automated voice for a year.

Best movie: "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" (barely edging out "Howl's Moving Castle")

Best non-animated movie: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"

Best TV show: "Arrested Development" (yes, again)

Best new TV show: "The Colbert Report" (barely edging out "The Office")

Worst new TV show: "12-oz. Mouse"

Best new game show: 20-year-old "Super Password" reruns on GSN (not cleared in Tampa when they aired on NBC, so they're new to me!)

Best new comic strip: "Calvin and Hobbes" reruns

Best book I read: Neil Steinberg, Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora, and the History of American Style (because I can't decide between the two volumes of Complete Peanuts)

Revoltin'est development: The TV Guide format change

Revised pick for best album released in 2004 after having had a year to think about it: David Byrne, "Grown Backwards"

Five best albums released in 2005: Ryan Adams, "Cold Roses"; Mike Doughty, "Haughty Melodic"; Josh Rouse, "Nashville"; Eisley, "Room Noises"; Aqualung, "Strange and Beautiful" (numerous albums barely edged out)

Ten best songs released in 2005 not found on one of the above albums: Kaiser Chiefs, "I Predict a Riot" (from "Employment"); Aimee Mann, "Goodbye Caroline" (from "The Forgotten Arm"); The New Pornographers, "Jackie Dressed in Cobras" (from "Twin Cinema"); Chris Mills, "Escape from New York" (from "The Wall to Wall Sessions"); The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver" (from "Picaresque"); Motion City Soundtrack, "Everything Is Alright" (from "Commit This to Memory"); Belle & Sebastian, "Dog on Wheels" (from "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds"); The Coral, "In the Morning" (from "The Invisible Invasion"); They Might Be Giants, "It Was a Very Good Year" (from their podcast); and, of course, Ben Folds, "Bitches Ain't Shit" (single)

Five best "oldies" I added to my music collection in 2005: The Association, "Goodbye Columbus" (1969); Three Dog Night, "The Show Must Go On" (1974); Ozark Mountain Daredevils, "Jackie Blue" (1975); Jay Ferguson, "Thunder Island" (1977); Barbra Streisand, "Stoney End" (1971)

Best musical development in my life: XM on DirecTV

Best sporting event I attended: Fullerton Flyers vs. Chico Outlaws, July 9 (baseball's even better when you get free tickets from the team's general manager)