WITH A SNAKEHEAD HERE AND A SNAKEHEAD THERE . . .

1. . . . Here a snake, there a snake, everywhere a snakehead. Now it's up to three. The first one was found in a creek and they drained that to search for more. But they can't drain the Potomac. The imported fish from China eats a lot and could upset the ecological balance.
2. VAN HELSING. Saw it. Not bad. All special effects and a bit excessive but it worked for me. Horror-adventure movie, that's all. Hugh Jackman (Helsing) is the man who's on the hunt with Kate Beckinsale (Anna) for Count Dracula (Richard Roxburgh). This Dracula has a ponytail - a more up-to-date look, I guess. Frankenstein's in it and so is a Wolfman-type. Lots of morphing in this flick, like a Michael Jackson video. Dracula's brides have wings and when they swoop into Transylvania they look like the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. And there are fresh-born baby Dracs too. They hang upside down in a slimy-looking pouch.
3. I FEEL LIKE I HAVE A CICADA STUCK IN MY THROAT. Someone at work made chocolate chunk bars and put them in there along with raisins and nuts and things. The chocolate was good but I really couldn't taste the cicadas. You could see them though. Will I go into hibernation for 17 years now?
4. Channel 7 in Rosslyn, Va., was installing a Jumbotron last week on the outside of its headquarters there. Good idea. Plus they'll have a news ticker that goes around. That's more like it. It's a busy area. Now get your cameras out there and talk to the people. They oughta do the weather outside and get those meteorologists out on the street. Make something of it.
5. 7 HOURS IN BAGHDAD. That's how long Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was there last week. Gee., what a time investment.
6. . . . A friend of mine said Rumsfeld reminded him of R2D2 the way he was scurrying around in the desert in Baghdad.
7. Looks like former ABC News correspondent and then National Geographic TV anchor Tom Foreman is now with CNN. He was recently on-the-set with Wolf Blitzer reporting on the Nick Berg story.
8. . . . That videotape of Nick Berg being beheaded ... Poor quality video; the footage was edited; and the sound is not synched in certain places with the video.
9. Those cicadas have an alien space sound when they get going - not like that night time crickets-in-the-woods sound. washingtonpost.com has a cicadacam in someone's yard, a video of one emerging from its shell and over two minutes of the sound they make. Smart. (Check it out at www.washingtonpost.com and go to Photos & Videos.
10. Mr. Big Stuff calls last American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken, Clayken. "He's all over the place. You'd think he won instead of Ruben." This is true. And where is Ruben?
11. TROY. It's 2 hours and 43 minutes. It better be good for that length. Linda Stassi of the New York Post says he needs some more meat on those gams of his.
12. Somebody said Sen. Carl Levin of the 9/11 Commission looked like a gumdrop.
13. LENNY KRAVITZ. The straightened hair don't work. Looks silly on a rock star.
14. Gloria Estefan's first tour in eight years is called Live and Re-Wrapped. What the hell does Re-Wrapped mean?
15. I did a double-take when I saw Star Jones on The View last week. She really did lose a lot of weight. Is that what her fiance's making her do before he marries her?
16. They were giving out credit card-sized countdown clocks for The Day After Tomorrow, the upcoming disaster movie about global warming, at the Van Helsing I saw at the Uptown in D.C.. The movie looks fantastic - if you like things like that.
17. What kind of conventions do they have in Geneva? Industrial, career fairs, home décor, adult movie? Lately they're always talking about Geneva Conventions. Should I go there sometime?
18. Do they strip in Gaza? Ha Ha Ha.
19. Washington's Channel 7 has a Doug Hill's I Survived the Cicada Plague of 2004 T-shirt thingie going on. I don't know how you get them though.
20. IF YOU'RE WONDERING. Those two poles sticking up between George Stephanopoulos and Colin Powell in Jordan on last Sunday's This Week were shotgun mikes on stands and were used instead of the standard lavalier microphone because of the heavy wind right there by the Dead Sea where they did the interview. Shotguns pick up more directional sound and not so much surrounding, extraneous sound. Plus they had fur-covered windscreens on them. Sounded great. This information, courtesy of Mr. Magic, a TV-type who knows what he's talking about.
21. NBC/MSNBC anchor Lester Holt is graying before our eyes. Used to be just in the temples but now it's salt and peppering in other places.
22. THAT MOTOWN 45 SPECIAL. From what I saw of it, it seemed lame. True, everybody's older now and some of the greats are gone. Brian McKnight singing Marvin Gaye's What's Going On - He's good but the inane dancing around him was absolutely stupid. Acting like statues and then moving when he hit the bridge of the song. Gimme a Break! And Cedric the Entertainer with Kimberley Locke, former American Idol, singing It Takes Two-- Excruciating to sit through. Not rockin' like the original Marvin Gaye/Kim Weston duet was. And they had to sing all the verses! Amateurish. Ashford and Simpson at the end singing Ain't No Mountain High Enough ... They still sound great. Michael McDonald's voice is terrific but he was painful to listen to for some reason. I guess it's all that blue-eyed soul coming out. Gladys Knight looked terrific and still sounds it. Overall though, the show was disappointing.
23. So Gwyneth Paltrow and hubby Chris Martin of rock group Coldplay named their little girl Apple Blythe Alison Martin. Why not Apple Butter?
24. Hanalie, dog in the neighborhood, doesn't like the man next door where her new house is and barks whenever he goes by. Owner Sally says, "She's got a sixth sense about who's nice and who's not. So remember that." Yes'm.
25. Some people don't like this TV commercial but I do:
    JINGLE:
    A big dog doesn't want a ... small bone
    Anymore than he wants to play a ... trombone
    In fact if he could use the ... telephone
    He'd call and he'd order a ... Jumbone!
    It's a really, really big, really big, big bone
    And that's why they call it Jumbone.
    
26. UH . . . That's Why (I Love You So) - Jackie Wilson, on Brunswick Records.

rocci@roccifisch.com

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