You Wanna See Stars? Don’t Look to Network TV

From a brief item at Fortune.com on “prime time [being] populated mostly by unfamiliar faces and unknown names.”

Hit shows today achieve only about a 25% share of the viewing audience. Ten years ago, top-rated Home Improvement captured 33%, and a decade before that The Cosby Show reached 50%….

This isn’t to say that there are no stars left on television. They just aren’t actors. Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Bill O’Reilly, Larry King, and the broadcast network anchors are all bona fide stars. TV’s newest star is talk-show host Dr. Phil. And Donald Trump’s on the cover of TV Guide. No wonder the networks are in trouble.

‘CtrlAltDelete’ Inventor Restarts Career

From The Washington Post

David Bradley spent five minutes writing the computer code that has bailed out the world’s PC users for decades.

The result was one of the most well-known key combinations around: CtrlAltDelete. It forces obstinate computers to restart when they will no longer follow other commands.

Bradley, 55, is getting a new start of his own. He’s retiring Friday after 28 1/2 years with IBM….

Bradley, whose name was once mentioned as a clue in the final round of the TV game show “Jeopardy,” will continue teaching at N.C. State University after retirement.

“After having been the answer on final ‘Jeopardy,’ if I can be a clue in ‘The New York Times’ Sunday crossword puzzle, I will have met all my life’s goals,” Bradley said.

Key quote:

At a 20-year celebration for the IBM PC, Bradley was on a panel with Microsoft founder Bill Gates and other tech icons. The discussion turned to the keys.

“I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous,” Bradley said.

Gates didn’t laugh.

NewMexiKen attended a demo by Gates several years ago. The demo crashed, much to the audience’s delight. I always wondered if Gates had enough of a sense of humor (and marketing savvy) to plan the crash. Guess not.

Grisham’s latest — ‘one of his best’

John Grisham’s latest novel is one. His books have a way of hitting best-seller lists (with advance orders online) long before anyone even knows what they are. By happy coincidence, “The Last Juror” turns out to be one of his best: a thoughtful and atmospheric thriller that for the first time brings the author back to the fictionalized town of Clanton, Miss. This is the setting for another of his best efforts, “A Time to Kill.”

– Janet Maslin, The New York Times

William Claude Dukenfield…

better known as W.C. Fields, was born in Philadelphia on this date in 1880 or 1889.

A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake–which I also keep handy.

I never vote for anyone; I always vote against.

Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed.

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money.

A woman drove me to drink and I didn’t even have the decency to thank her.

Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.

I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.

Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there’s nothing exactly like it.

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.

(When “caught” reading a Bible) “Just looking for loopholes.”

Fields died on Christmas Day, 1946.

The American Crisis

Thomas Paine was born in England on this date in 1737.

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Edward Abbey…

was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on this date in 1927.

If you’re never ridden a fast horse at a dead run across a desert valley at dawn, be of good cheer: You’ve only missed out on one half of life.

The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial.

I have written much about many good places. But the best places of all, I have never mentioned.

In all of nature, there is no sound more pleasing than that of a hungry animal at its feed. Unless you are the food.

Phoenix, Arizona: an oasis of ugliness in the midst of a beautiful wasteland.

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

Edward Abbey died in 1989.

Baseball Hall of Fame

The first players were named to the Baseball Hall of Fame on this date in 1936. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America selected:

Ty Cobb
Babe Ruth
Honus Wagner
Christy Mathewson
and Walter Johnson

Kansas…

entered the Union as the 34th state on this date in 1861.