IT'S SPRING AND IT'S SNOWING

1. . . . But it's probably not gonna amount to much. Not cold enough.
2. On the other hand, this week you could tell it was spring because the UPS guys were wearing shorts.
3. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, was down at the Park Bench Pub in Cleveland Park Friday night with owner Sally to watch the Maryland/Michigan game with a very boisterous crowd. She felt left out because everyone was focused on the game and not on her, so she barked a lot.
4. Lately it seems there are no new movies to see. Back toward the end of the year there were new movies all over the place (probably in order to qualify for Oscar consideration or something), but now every week just a few dribble out and there's not a wide choice. Mr. High Falutin says February and March are a dumping ground by the studios for middling to bad movies. He hasn't seen anything he likes so far this year.
5. SPECIAL EDITIONS. With the war on, every news show is called that when they're really just the regular shows that happen to be mostly all war coverage. Nothing else is really different. 6. The other night on Nightline, which was really the next morning in Iraq, Ted Koppel had on one of those knit skull caps. He said he wasn't trying to make a fashion statement - just that it was cold. So he wasn't decking himself out in hip-hop gear to try to look phat.
6. Tony Blair's hair is more brown now with less gray showing through. Looks better.
7. FYI: The New York Times shows in a timeline that there were 49,000 women enlisted in the military in World War I. Over the years and wars it has increased and in the current conflict there are 210,177.
8. NOTICED. The moving crawl of the latest news headlines that rolls across the bottom of the TV screen of the networks and the cable news outlets runs right to left. The Iraqi's do it too - but theirs runs left to right.
9. Is it Pi-AN-ist or Pi-an-ist? The promos for the movie call it the first and the dictionary shows that the first preference. NEW THING: Now in the promos for the film, they not only show scenes from the movie but they also have two soundbites from Adrien Brody himself talking about the film, describing what it's about.
10. . . . I thought Brody was a little bit too much in his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. He reminded me a little of Roberto Benigni when he won a couple years ago for Life is Beautiful.
11. ‘YOU THINK EVERY SINGLE BULLET HAS YOUR NAME ON IT." That's what one American soldier said about being in Iraq.
12. . . . A friend of mine said everyone in America wants it quick and easy - "like a drive-thru war ."
13. New anchor on MSNBC: Sam Shane. Good name.
14. Celine Dion's A New Day TV special was pretty good. It came from the Colosseum, a new venue custom made for the performer at Caesar's in Las Vegas, with wild visual and technical effects designed by Franco Dragone of Cirque du Soleil fame. The stage is a performer's dream, just the hugeness of it. Singing while suspended in the air, instruments floating by, one of the largest TV screens in the world ... Pretty impressive. But her new short hair's not. Make it long again.
15. "BEFORE I LET YOU GO ..." That's what CNN's Wolf Blitzer said to Maj. Gen. Daniel Leaf one day last week in an interview. "Before I let you go ... I know you've got a war to fight ... But I need to ask you ..." Gimme a Break! Who are you to keep the man there. You're lucky to have him for a minute.
16. . . . And when 1,000 paratroopers landed in northern Iraq, a CNN reporter walked up to one new arrival and said, "Good morning, welcome to Iraq. I'm Brent Sadler." What, was he the hotel concierge or something?
17. Ringo Starr and Yasser Arafat look alike.
18. A lot of people think the Marine contestant on American Idol (Joshua Gracin) should be out in the field with his fellow troops rather than back home singing on a cushy TV show.
19. Good to see veteran correspondent Carl Rochelle back on TV reporting. The former ABC News producer and CNN reporter is now working for NBC at the Pentagon.
20. They're saying Fedayeen, not feta cheese.
21. Nicole Kidman had her hair pulled back so hard at the Oscars that her eyes looked like slits.
22. There's a new cable channel now: Discovery Times, "television by The New York Times and Discovery Communications." They'll be programming documentaries and current events-related subjects and historical perspective shows.
23. Embedded doesn't mean "in bed with." Or does it?
24. Actor Peter Strauss is now the Miracle-Gro pitch man. He's shown outside among the plants and is identified as actor/gardener. Remember him as the rich man in Rich Man, Poor Man? QUESTION: Who played the poor man?
25. Mr. Big Stuff said Queen Latifah is getting as big as Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin. (She has grown a bit.)
26. Paula Abdul's little dog's name's Thumbelina.
27. The latest NBC up-and-comer looks like it might be Natalie Morales. She's on MSNBC now but on the weekends they've been using her as the news reader on the Today show.
28. Looks like Hugh Downs (former 20/20 co-anchor with Barbara Walters) has stepped out of retirement to do an infomercial. Happens to ‘em all. He's pitching an education program - Where There's a Will, There's an A - available on tape, with Marie Osmond who has a lot of kids.
29. I like the way that dog's ears (Rufus) go up when his owner says his name. He's in one of the Zyrtek commercials. He's a papillon, a breed of toy spaniels that gets its name from their large, erect ears "which are held so that they resemble the wings of a butterfly."
30. Lara Flynn Boyle's right side upper lip looks larger than the other side on The Practice. Is that collagen gone wrong?
31. How come they never show the audience on Saturday Night Live when the guest singing artists perform? I don't think I've ever seen it then.
32. It looks like there's an NBC peacock without the color in it above the door to 10 Downing Street in London, home of the British prime minister.
33. Kiki Shepard on Showtime, formerly Showtime at the Apollo, is playing a bigger role now. Before, all she did was come out in an elegant gown and hold her hand above the Amateur Night contestants while the audience screamed and voted. Now she actually talks and does a segment.
34. ABC7 News reporter Richard Reeve was practically drowned out by the sound of street Go-Go drums the other night in front of Washington's MCI Center, talking about the skating championships. Somebody should've taken away the drummer's buckets. Go-Go is/has been so over.
35. MOUTHS GOT ‘EM IN TROUBLE: Peter Arnett's and Geraldo Rivera's.
36. Now they've got ultra low-rise boot-cut jeans at Old Navy. How much lower can you go-er?
37. A neighbor of mine has trouble saying Renee Zellweger. She says Renee Zegweller. Ha Ha Ha.
38. The background at Centcom headquarters in Doha, Qatar, where they do the military briefings on the war, looks like the old one used in the early days of This Week With David Brinkley: Dark blue world map with lighter colored blue countries.
39. Channel 9 News in Washington now has the i-Bar. What's that?
40. SOFT PORN. The new Bachelor, who's really a millionaire, is shown in the shower with one of his potential mates. You don't see her but you see him from the waist up without a shirt on. (Well, he is in the shower.) They look like they're rubbing/touching each other.
41. UH . . . Rubber Duckie by Ernie (Jim Henson) on Columbia. 1970.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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