Mike's Minutiae

Homer: [reading his fortune] "You will find happiness with a new love." Aw, even the Chinese are against me. What's the point? I can't fight fate.
                 [cut to: restaurant kitchen]
Restaurant worker 1: Hey, we're out of these "new love" cookies.
Restaurant worker 2: Well, open up the "stick with your wife" barrel.

~~The Simpsons, "The Last Temptation of Homer"

Microsoft the company should big improve Word grammar check.

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. That sentence is a confusing jumble. However, it is perfectly fine in the assessment of Microsoft Word's built-in grammar checker, which detects no problem with the prose.

The University of Washington associate professor has embarked on a one-man mission to persuade the Redmond company to improve the grammar-checking function in its popular word-processing program. Krishnamurthy is also trying to raise public awareness of the issue.

"If you're a grad student turning in your term paper, and you think grammar check has completely checked your paper, I have news for you -- it really hasn't," he said.

Marketing are bad for brand. McDonalds is good brand. McDonald’s is good brand. McDonald’s are good brand. McDonalds’ are good brand. Finance good for marketing. 4P’s are marketing mix. I use marketing mixes for good marketing. Internets do good job. Internets help marketing. Internets make good brand. Gates do good marketing in Microsoft. Gates build the big brand in Microsoft. The Gates is leader of big company in Washington. Warren buffet do awesome job in marketing. Buffet eat buffet.

Labels: Pointless Nostalgia

Last month, the Army missed its monthly recruiting target for the first time since 2000. The Army National Guard and Reserve haven't reached their monthly targets since October. The Pentagon has responded by fattening bonuses for soldiers, training more recruiters like Ziegler, and raising the top age for Guard and Reserve recruits from 34 to 39.

Their success is crucial to the course of the Iraq war. In the first sustained test of the all-volunteer military created by the abolition of the draft in 1973, the Army has had to rely heavily on citizen soldiers, who make up 45 percent of US forces in Iraq. Now, that supply chain is showing signs of stress, and some experts say the current data suggest that the task of maintaining a full force in the Middle East will only get harder. "The longer this war goes on, the more difficult it's going to be to get more recruits," says Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress in Washington.

A recruiter in New York said pressure from the Army to meet his recruiting goals during a time of war has given him stomach problems and searing back pain. Suffering from bouts of depression, he said he has considered suicide. Another, in Texas, said he had volunteered many times to go to Iraq rather than face ridicule, rejection and the Army's wrath.

An Army chaplain said he had counseled nearly a dozen recruiters in the past 18 months to help them cope with marital troubles and job-related stress.

"There were a couple of recruiters that felt they were having nervous breakdowns, literally," said Maj. Stephen Nagler, a chaplain.

While some in Congress have raised the specter of a draft, the Bush administration has rejected that idea, saying higher skilled soldiers are needed in a high-tech age, and are best found through recruitment.

But several senior officers interviewed, including Col. Greg Parlier, retired, who until 2002 headed the research and strategy arm of the Army Recruiting Command, said the pressure on recruiters shows the policy should be re-examined, and initiatives like national service should be considered.

A British graffiti artist has managed to evade security and hang his work in four of New York's most prestigious and well-guarded museums.

"Banksy", who has never disclosed his real identity, claims to have carried out the unusual smuggling operation on one day, during opening hours.

Some of the pieces went undetected for several days - such as a beetle with missiles attached to its body.

Nearly 40 percent of Internet users delete cookies from their primary computers on at least a monthly basis, according to a study by JupiterResearch. The finding has big implications for advertising and marketing firms that depend on cookies for tracking and targeting.

Based on a survey of 2,337 U.S. respondents, the study finds that 17 percent of Internet users delete cookies on a weekly basis. Approximately 12 percent do so on a monthly basis, and 10 percent make it a daily habit.

"The key finding is that a lot of companies have placed a lot of reliance on cookies for audience measurement and the cookie is at risk as a mechanism for tracking people over time," said Eric Petersen, the lead analyst on the report.

"Back in black, I hit the sack
I've been too long, I'm glad to be back
Yes, I'm let loose from the noose
That's kept me hanging about
I've been looking at the sky 'cause it's gettin' me high
Forget the hearse 'cause I never die
I got nine lives, cat's eyes
Abusin' every one of them and running wild."

"People are going to buy phones and subscriptions and downloads of things they want, but someone is going to have to tell them what they need. What my customers want, and expect to know, is where to find the great music, the right clothes, the best entertainment, the best style and design. I give them that. I show them the way."

~~Sean "Puffy/Diddy" Combs
CITA Wireless Convention keynote speech
March 14, 2005
New Orleans

• his "career continues along the road of tireless and indomitable creativity"
  
• his "ongoing social and philanthropic efforts make it clear that he's not just another businessman trying to raise money"
  
• he is "an all-around 'entertainer'"

Postal Employee: "May I help you?"
Kramer: "Yeah, I'd like to cancel my mail."
Postal Employee: "Certainly. How long would you like us to hold it?"
Kramer: "Oh, no, no. I don't think you get me. I want out, permanently."

~~from Seinfeld, "The Junk Mail"

Our garbagemen knocked over our mailbox and just kept going. Which meant the post office wouldn't deliver our mail until the mailbox was fixed (because they post office won't deliver to our door, only to our streetside mailbox--I don't know why).

Several Imax theaters, including some in science museums, are refusing to show movies that mention the subject - or the Big Bang or the geology of the earth - fearing protests from people who object to films that contradict biblical descriptions of the origin of Earth and its creatures....

"Volcanoes," released in 2003 and sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and Rutgers University, has been turned down at about a dozen science centers, mostly in the South, said Dr. Richard Lutz, the Rutgers oceanographer who was chief scientist for the film. He said theater officials rejected the film because of its brief references to evolution, in particular to the possibility that life on Earth originated at the undersea vents.

Carol Murray, director of marketing for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, said the museum decided not to offer the movie after showing it to a sample audience, a practice often followed by managers of Imax theaters. Ms. Murray said 137 people participated in the survey, and while some thought it was well done, "some people said it was blasphemous."

In their written comments, she explained, they made statements like "I really hate it when the theory of evolution is presented as fact," or "I don't agree with their presentation of human existence."

A bill in the General Assembly would zap games from thousands of state government computers.

The proposal has drawn criticism from state employee groups who say it is petty and wrongly casts state workers as slackers.

But supporters say its time to take a stand against loafers who are spending too much time playing computer card games instead of working.

"You can walk down the hall and see bored state employees with solitaire on their computer screens," said state Sen. Austin Allran, a Catawba County Republican who co-sponsored the legislation.

State rules prohibit employees from using government computers for personal use, but even officials with the State Employees Association of North Carolina acknowledge that workers occasionally surf the Internet or play games during work time.

The head of a State agency may waive the application of this section with respect to a particular procurement of information technology, if the head of the agency:

(1) Conducts a cost-benefit analysis and determines that the costs of compliance with this section outweighs the benefits of compliance

The cardinal leading the Vatican's charge against The Da Vinci Code urged Catholics on Wednesday to shun it like rotten food and branded the bestseller "a sack full of lies" insulting the Christian faith.

"I would ask the author of this book and similar ones to be more respectful because freedom of expression has limits when it does not respect others," [Cardinal Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone] said.

I'm amazed that a salient fact about Dan's last few years escaped notice during last week's barrage of Rathermania and Ratherphobia. Namely, what other distinguished personage of such lengthy service in the public eye suddenly decides, in the last few years of his career, to change the side of his head on which he parts his hair? That, my friends, is plain weird.

The Buffalo area's county budget crisis is taking a toll on the bathrooms in at least one public building.

Erie County has had to slash 2,000 jobs and cut back on services in order to close a more than $100 million budget shortfall.

In the Rath Building in downtown Buffalo, workers report that the bathrooms aren't being cleaned or maintained. One longtime worker in the building tells Buffalo's WGRZ-TV that there's no soap, paper towels or toilet paper in the restrooms.

The "Indecent and Gratuitous and Excessively Violent Programming Control Act of 2005'', introduced to Congress yesterday, calls for stiffer penalties to be doled out to broadcasters who cross the line, and institutes stricter measures regarding the labeling and rating of broadcast content and the enhancement of parental blocking technology.

And so, after tracking dozens of incidents of the word in print, [Webster's New World College Dictionary Editor in Chief Michael] Agnes and his staff crafted the above definition to add to the existing meaning of "wedgie" as a type of shoe.

The new printing, which will reach bookstores by mid-May, is bolstered by 58 brand-new entries, plus another 20 new senses of existing words (such as wedgie). Scanning the list reminds one how quickly words enter into common use.

"Al Qaeda," "blog," "cargo pants" and "irritable bowel syndrome" are in there. So are "newsgroup," "partial-birth abortion," "street cred," "Taliban" and "Xanax."

Newspaper Web sites have been so popular that at some newspapers, including The New York Times, the number of people who read the paper online now surpasses the number who buy the print edition.

This migration of readers is beginning to transform the newspaper industry. Advertising revenue from online sites is booming and, while it accounts for only 2 percent or 3 percent of most newspapers' overall revenues, it is the fastest-growing source of revenue. And newspaper executives are watching anxiously as the number of online readers grows while the number of print readers declines.

"For some publishers, it really sticks in the craw that they are giving away their content for free," said Colby Atwood, vice president of Borrell Associates Inc., a media research firm. The giveaway means less support for expensive news-gathering operations and the potential erosion of advertising revenue from the print side, which is much more profitable.

"Newspapers are cannibalizing themselves," said Frederick W. Searby, an advertising and publishing analyst at J. P. Morgan.

Confronted with such evidence, most news directors were at a loss to explain how the segments made it on the air. Some said they were unable to find archive tapes that would help answer the question. Others promised to look into it, then stopped returning telephone messages. A few removed the segments from their Web sites, promised greater vigilance in the future or pleaded ignorance.

"I didn't actually go to Afghanistan," she said. "I took that story and reworked it. I had to do some research on my own. I remember looking on the Internet and finding out how it all started as far as women covering their faces and everything."

"Right now this is a lot of hype rather than reality, the idea that cars could be turning against us," said Thilo Koslowski, a vice president and lead analyst for auto-based information and communication technologies at Gartner G2, a technology research firm. "We won't see John Carpenter's 'Christine' becoming a reality anytime soon."

This is Miles "live." Miles in studios. Miles in a wide variety of recording sessions. But, excitingly, all Miles. He's something else....

Live-Evil is more Miles. Mirrors. Laser beams. A recitation by Conrad Roberts call Inamorata. There is so much more to hear.

It's all Miles Davis. With such songs as Sivad. And Selim. As "live" spelled backward is "evil," reflect on those titles. It's the only thing backwards about Miles Davis. Everything else in his life style and in his music is, as always, straight ahead.

People are still trying to find the convenient phrase to categorize Santana. Latin-rock. Chicano-drive. Mariachi-explosion. Pick your own nomenclature, if you think it's needed.

It's startling. It's a miraculous feat of engineering invention. It is total realism. Flexible. Imaginative. Complete. Compatible. And, amazingly, it is simple. In short, it's the most natural sound ever designed for records. It's SQ--the Quadraphonic disc.

SQ is here. It's the finishing touch to the revolution in home audio that Columbia began in 1948. It makes 4-channel sound possible and practical and provides a startling listening experience....

SQ records sell for $1.00 more than regular stereo records. They can be bought and played right now by every foresighted person who owns an ordinary stereo phonograph. [also included is a list of about 15 available quadraphonic titles, including the very aptly-named folk album One Hand Clapping]

For $3.00 you can participate in an experimental program we're setting up.

We're calling it "Playback" and it's the first time we've ever asked our consumers to help us select what sounds, and which records are worth pursuing and promoting.

Not a fan club, not a scheme to take your money, the program will work something like this:

Your $3.00 will go towards the cost of preparing and mailing special 7-inch; 33 1/3 rpm sampler records. The samplers will contain unreleased, or just-released songs by new people and groups. As an advisor you'll receive at least ten of these samplers during the year. You'll then let us know every time you hear something that turns you on (or off, as the case may be).

Also, you'll receive at least ten newsletters from our A&R department, featuring articles written by and about our producers and recording artists.

From the endless crescendos of '80s hair-metal bands like Motley Crue and Tesla to the reach-for-the-stars posturing of synth-pop acts like Tears for Fears (who have reunited for a tour and a new album), the favorite mode of expression was to shout, shout, let it all out. What was there to shout about? Well, it hardly seemed to matter to many hitmakers...

• Tracy Chapman ("Fast Car," 1988, Billboard #6)
  
• U2 ("Pride," 1984, Billboard #33)
  
• Suzanne Vega ("Luka," 1987, Billboard #3)
  
• Midnight Oil ("Beds Are Burning," 1988 Billboard #17)

The '80s were a turbulent and troubling decade as the rich got richer and the poor hung on for dear life. Underground acts in many genres railed against the political policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and they sounded the alarm about social crises such as AIDS. But in the pop mainstream, it was all "don't worry, be happy," with nary a hint that there was anything more substantial to sing about...

Ain't got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don't worry, be happy
The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don't worry, be happy
Look at me, I am happy!

From Motley Crue's "Girls, Girls, Girls" world of slutty strippers to Madonna's higher-priced "Material Girl" courtesan, women often were portrayed in the '80s as one more commodity for sale to the highest bidder. It was as if the feminist strides of the '60s and '70s had never happened, and women who didn't fit the airbrushed Playboy ideal were vanquished, even in their own videos -- Anne Wilson of Heart barely appeared in her own band's clips after she gained some weight and the group was remade as bombastic '80s balladeers.

The '80s gave us some of the most pathetic instrumental sounds in musical history. Where the analog synthesizers and the earliest drum machines of the '60s and '70s were intriguing new instruments in their own rights, the new digital instruments tried to electronically "improve" upon acoustic keyboards and drums but wound up sounding more artificial and obnoxious.

You know what I'm talking about: the fake "breathy" strings sound of a Yamaha DX-7 keyboard and the "army of handclaps" snares of a Linn drum machine. These sounds were tired five minutes after they were invented, but they appeared absolutely everywhere throughout the '80s...

I'm no expert here, but just look at the moussed-up hairdos a la A Flock of Seagulls, the legwarmers and slouch-shouldered tops that appeared in the wake of "Flashdance," the kerchiefs and eyeliner for men favored by the hair-metal bands -- have there ever been more ridiculous looks?

Whether they're trying to turn back the hands of time or experience some era long before they were born, the saddest aspect of all these people partying like it's 1985 is that they're missing so much great music in the present.

Over the past decade, German beer consumption has dropped dramatically. In 1990, every German man and woman drank an average of 147 litres (258 pints) of beer a year. The figure has now sunk to just 206 pints.

Last month, there was more bad news when the Oetker group, one of Germany's largest beer producers, announced it was closing the 133-year-old Berliner Kindl brewery in Berlin and the Brinkhoff brewery in the western city of Dortmund.

Germany's surviving 1,270 breweries are now having to confront an uncomfortable truth: that Germans aren't drinking enough beer any more. There is even a term for the industry's gradual but apparently certain demise - Brauereisterben or "brewery death".

"There is a problem. People don't want to be seen drinking grandfather's beer. It isn't chic. It isn't lifestyle," Peter Hahn, the chief executive of the Association of German Beer Brewers admitted.

Actress Teresa Wright, who won an Academy Award for her role in Mrs Miniver, has died at the age of 86.

Such was the impact of Wright's acting debut that she was nominated for Oscars for her first three movies.

Her first nomination for The Little Foxes in 1942, was followed by a double Oscar nomination for Mrs Miniver and The Pride of the Yankees in 1943.

Her daughter, Mary-Kelly Busch, said Wright died of a heart attack at a hospital in Connecticut.

Debra Hill, the Halloween writer-producer who rose through Hollywood's ranks to become one of the industry's pioneering woman producers, died Monday, according to family friend Barbara Ligeti. She was 54.

Hill had battled cancer for 13 months, Ligeti said, but was working on several projects, including a film about the last two men pulled from the rubble of the Twin Towers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, until her last days.

"She changed the face of women in film. If you talk to people who are real players in this town, they will say Debra was one woman who would help other women ... with boundless generosity," Ligeti said. "And with all of that, she managed to be the best girlfriend a person would ever have."

Hill's big break came in horror films when she and director John Carpenter co-wrote the genre's modern classic, Halloween.

[...]

After working on Halloween and several of its sequels, Hill joined her friend Lynda Obst in forming an independent production company in 1986 that made Adventures in Babysitting, Heartbreak Hotel and The Fisher King.

In 1988 she entered a contract with Walt Disney Pictures under which she produced the feature Gross Anatomy and worked on other projects. She also produced The Dead Zone, 1983; Head Office, 1985; and Clue, 1986.

Director Quentin Tarantino is in talks to write and direct a new instalment in the Friday the 13th horror franchise, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The gubernatorial campaign manager for former Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Body" Ventura is working with a group of New Jersey residents urging actor and comedian Joe Piscopo to run for governor of the Garden State.

Doug Friedline, who led Ventura's successful campaign in 1998, has created a draft committee called "Run Joe Run 2005!" He said the committee is made up of about 60 independent and "disgruntled" Democratic voters who want to give New Jersey voters a choice other than presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Jon Corzine and his Republican challengers.

8PM
(71) Wildlife Journal [Animal Planet] - Turkey has said it is changing the names of three animals found on its territory to remove references to Kurdistan or Armenia. The environment ministry says the Latin names of the red fox, the wild sheep and the roe deer will be altered. (link)

9PM
(4)(9)(35) "24" [FOX] - U.S. counterintelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Al Qaeda sympathizers or operatives may have tried to get jobs at the CIA and other U.S. agencies in an effort to spy on American counterterrorist efforts. (link)

(54) Movie: Boeing Boeing [TMC] - Boeing Co. announced yesterday that it forced its chief executive to resign after an investigation uncovered that he had an affair with a female employee. (link)

10PM
(2)(7)(15) CSI [CBS] - The results of a CT scan done on King Tut's mummy indicate the boy king was not murdered, but may have suffered a badly broken leg shortly before his death at age 19 — a wound that could have become infected, Egypt's top archaeologist said Tuesday. (link)

• Mission: none.
  
  
• How they fancy themselves:

  The authoritative trade magazine of the decorative lighting industry for over 80 years. Read by retailers, distributors, manufacturers, reps, architects, designers and other allied lighting professionals. (link)

  As opposed to those "axis lighting professionals"?
  
  
• Target Demo:

  Home Lighting & Accessories reaches over 10,000 lighting retailers, manufacturers, and allied professionals with hard-hitting, information-driven features every month. (link)

  I can't wait to read those "hard-hitting" lighting features.
  
  
• Upcoming events:
  
  
  • March 8-10: Beijing - CHINALIGHT 2005, China International Exhibition Center. Beijing UT International Exhibition Co. and Taiwan Lighting Fixture Export Association. Beijing Zhongmaolian International Exhibition Co. (link)
    
    
  • March 9-10: Los Angeles - NeoCon® West, L.A. Mart. Merchandise Mart Properties. (link)
  
  Just in case you were wondering, at NeoCon West, "design is a potent force with defying extremes"!
  
  
• Didja know? "Fypon has the same name recognition in our industry as Coca-Cola does in the soft drink industry or Kleenex in the tissue market." (link)

Microsoft and NBC Universal are in advanced discussions about a deal that could result in NBC taking full control of the cable news network MSNBC, The Post has learned.

The two sides are discussing a deal in which NBC Universal would take over Microsoft's stake in the venture, while Microsoft would maintain access to some of NBC's content for use over the Internet, sources told The Post.

Forty years after the heyday of the US-Soviet space race, the emerging contest between these two Asian powers is already showing signs of ferocity.

China may have put a man into orbit, but Japan, it seems, intends to build a station for him on the moon.

For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.

~~John F. Kennedy, 9/12/62

The idea has sparked an outcry from firefighters and rail workers, who say removing the signs could endanger their lives. They say federal officials seem more focused on guarding against a terrorist attack than on the daily threat of accidents.

"There's this feeling that you have to secure everything possible in every way possible for every possible kind of terrorist attack," Garry L. Briese, executive director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, said.

Two people trapped inside an Eatontown Petco store heavily damaged in a gas explosion Friday morning are listed in critical condition at an area hospital.... Workers from J.F. Kiely Construction of Long Branch were working outside the store, at 231 Route 35, when they hit a gas line with a backhoe, [Eatontown Police Capt. George] Jackson said.... The emergency workers were checking the integrity of the building, and once it was determined safe, would send in dogs to see if any other people might be in the building.

Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law.

52% of the 42,301 average annual traffic deaths from 1999 through 2003 occurred on rural, non-interstate routes, although travel on those roads represents 28% of miles driven.

Many rural areas, particularly in the West and South, are gaining population, but roads in those areas are more likely than urban roads to have features that make driving hazardous. They include narrow lanes, limited shoulders, sharp curves, steep slopes and pavement drop-offs.

Safety improvements on rural, non-interstate routes have lagged, although driving on all U.S. roads and highways has become less dangerous since 1990.... Tools to improve safety include rumble strips, better signs, lane markings and lighting, guardrails, and removal of obstacles along roadsides.

Attorneys for the star of NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" said Judge Rodney S. Melville's sweeping order barring anyone involved in the case from discussing it outside court "could be interpreted to limit Mr. Leno's ability to publicly speak about the trial."

"How would [Abraham Lincoln] feel, what would he be thinking about, all of the dissension, all of the division, that the liberals and a few others, including some our movie stars and song makers, are trying to divide this country over its efforts to establish freedom and liberty in countries around the world? We are all here tonight because men and women of the United States military have given their lives for our freedom. We are here tonight not because of Rosie O'Donnell, Martin Sheen, George Clooney, Jane Fonda or Phil Donahue - they never sacrificed their lives for us or for liberty.... I say we tell those liberal, tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals to go make their movies and their music and whine somewhere else."

He said if they lived in Iraq or Afghanistan, "Ironically they would be put to death at the hands of Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden."

via Daily Kos

Cable television shows packed with sex and profanity, such as HBO's "Deadwood," FX's "Nip/Tuck" and Comedy Central's "South Park," would be subject to the same indecency regulations that govern over-the-air broadcasts if the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee has his way.

Currently, the Federal Communications Commission has the authority to fine only over-the-air radio and television broadcasters for violating its indecency regulations, which forbid airing sexual or excretory material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children are most likely watching.

But Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) told a group of broadcasters yesterday that he wants to extend that authority to cover the hundreds of cable and satellite television and radio channels that operate outside of the government's control.... "We put restrictions on the over-the-air signals," Stevens said after his address to the National Association of Broadcasters, according to news reports confirmed by his staff. "I think we can put restrictions on cable itself."

WKRP in Cincinnati was one of the most popular television shows of the late '70s and early '80s, but it is unlikely ever to be released on DVD because of high music-licensing costs.

The show, which centered on a fledging radio station with a nerdy news director and wild disc jockeys, had a lively soundtrack, playing tunes from rock 'n' rollers like Ted Nugent, Foreigner, Elton John and the Eagles.

For many TV shows, costs to license the original music for DVD are prohibitively high, so rights owners replace the music with cheaper tunes, much to the irritation of avid fans. And some shows, like WKRP, which is full of music, will probably never make it to DVD because of high licensing costs.

"The indication from the studios is that we may never see (WKRP in Cincinnati) because of all the music that would have to be licensed," said David Lambert, news director of TVShowsOnDVD.com, a clearinghouse of information on TV shows released on DVD. "As the DJ spins the record as he's talking to Loni Anderson, if there is music playing even for a couple of seconds, then the people producing the DVDs would have to license it."

The reason WKRP was shot on videotape (unlike the other MTM sitcoms like Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore, which were on film) was that it was the only way they could afford to use a lot of real rock songs on the show. At the time, ASCAP had a different licensing arrangement for taped shows than for filmed shows; licensing the music for WKRP cost something like half of what it would have cost had it been filmed.

Well, the music licenses expired by the time the show was being prepared for re-distribution in the mid-'90s, and by then ASCAP no longer had a "discount" for videotaped shows. Also by then, the cost of licensing songs had skyrocketed across the board. So it would have been prohibitively expensive for the distributor to re-license all the songs used on the show. They certainly could have done a better job of replacing the songs they couldn't pay for, but it was inevitable that some of the songs would be gone due to rising costs, and that's all there is to it.