358 - Mr. Wizard

1. Don Herbert: Dead You probably know him as Mr. Wizard. After a distinguished stint as a bomber pilot during WW2, Mr. Herbert returned to the states where he worked on educational radio programs for children in the late 1940's. During this time he was working on a concept for a show that would promote the wonder of science on the newish television medium. In 1951, this show idea became Watch Mr. Wizard, a program which was eventually broadcast on over 90 stations across the country and spawned a 50,000 member strong childrens' science club.

2. Mr. Wizard's World Watch Mr. Wizard's success lasted until its eventual cancellation in the mid 1960's After this Don Herbert began writing science books and making educational films for schools. In 1984 the burgeoning children's cable channel, Nickelodeon, approached Mr. Herbert to produce a new show based on his previous work. This resulted in Mr. Wizard's World, the incarnation probably most familiar to this site's visitors. The Nickelodeon show continued until 1990 and was still shown in reruns as recently a 2000.

3. Sit Down In 2005, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences conducted an in-depth interview with Don Herbert. It seems his hearing is pretty much shot at this point, which might explain why his show ended when it did.

4. Sit Down Still it is pretty interesting to hear about his early days and the multiple shows and other science programs he worked on.

5. Legacy I'm just going to hope that you have 2 hours to spare so you can watch the whole interview even though, by the end of the interview he seems a bit fed up with the whole thing and even a little bitter about his career. I hope he knew how important he was to generations of young people.

337 - with Links!

1. Back in Black Here's an interesting story about how a Marvel Comic reader, Randy Schueller, through a contest with a relatively small prize, wrote the basic story which led to the popular black suit which was a main dramtic component of the Spider-man comics for many years and features heavily in the new, blockbuster movie. Schueller doesn't seem very bitter about the situation, but I can't help but feel these are reletively poor business ethics, from a company making millions on stories mainly about the ethics of heroism.

2. Sketch Swap Use your mouse to create a masterpiece and then send it on for someone else to enjoy. In return, you will recieve a drawing as well. When you see how good the picture you recieve is, you'll be ashamed of the half-assed attempt you made.

3. Kosbees After his run-in with the lawyers of Bill Cosby because of his Channel 101 series, the House of Cosbys, Jusin Roiland is apparently back at it with his new show on VH1's Acceptable TV. By the way, does anyone watch this show? Admittedly, I don't watch a lot of VH1, but I don't think I've seen a single ad for it anywhere on television.

4. Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb A tattoo that is incredibly awesome and yet somewhat repulsive at the same time.

5. Plupon Add three numbers for a sum in a multiple of ten before too many numbers reach the bottom of your screen, and turn your volume down because the sound effects are high pitched and overly loud.

335 - with Links!

1. Termination One of the most anticipated new television shows coming next season is The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a series placed in James Cameron's Terminator world, about the Young John Connor and his mother. An advance trailer for the show has been released on youtube. Who wants to bet on whether is sucks or not?

2. Hypocrite, They Name is Migden State Senator Carole Migden, one of the proponents of a new law banning cell phone usage while driving, was involved in a minor fender bender in which she rear-ended another vehicle. The accident was caused because she was, get this, using her cell phone.

3. Celestial Bodies I tried to get a picture of the moon and Venus similar to this one, but alas, my camera blows.

4. Great Dane Gibson, the World's Tallest Dog.

5. Overpaid The dude that bid $10 million on John Schneider's original General Lee can't really afford it. Here's your chance to get in on the action. This time around, Schneider and ebay are demanding that potential bidders register and prove their ability to come up with the cash before bidding. Good luck.

332 - Wheel of Fortune

1. E-CLUSI-E NIGHTCLUB I'm guessing you've seen this already. It's been all over the place. I have to assume that this girl isn't really super stupid. She's probably just nervous about being on the show and then excited about the possibility of getting that $10,000. Still, even if she couldn't get the X or V in exclusive, I'm sure she can certainly protect our American liberties.

2. ALL Y-U CAN EAT TAC- BAR These people might actually be stupid. It's hard to say. Maybe they just grew up in a place where nobody ever ate tacos. Between the two of them, you'd think they could guess it, though.

3. Can I Have A C? These people are almost certainly stupid. There is a big board that shows the contestants which letters have already been called so there's really no excuse to make that mistake, especially more than once.

4. -L---S This guy isn't stupid. I don't know if he's smart. But he is a damn good guesser.

5. ---S-- -R----R -S -R. -R----R -R--- And before you judge all contestants based on just these few, take a look at this woman who knows exactly how to use the category and the helpful punctuation clue to figure out the puzzle with almost no letters.

329 - with Links!

1. Jerry Falwell: Dead So no more quotes like these, "Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions" "If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being" "Textbooks are Soviet propaganda" and "Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them."

2. Drive-In Last weeks drive in was a bit of a bust due to the cold weather and the cold virus. Stop by this coming Friday for Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story.

3. Ahoy Bruce Campbell proving his awesome-ness once again in this second installment of his Old Spice commercial series.

4. Op-Ed We've all seen a lot of optical illusions on the internet. This site collects a huge number of them, makes them interactive, and gives detailed explanations of how and why they work.

5. Tool-Maker What's the difference, really, between a crow, a raven, a jackdaw, a starling, and any of those other black feathered birds that regular people hate for no apparent reason?

328 - Richard Dawson Rules

1. Frog/Alligator

2. September

3. Drunk

4. Turkey

5. Appliances/Tires

327 - Nightline Face-Off

1. Ray and Kirk So the Nightline debate between Ray Comfort/Kirk Cameron and the Rational Response Squad took place earlier this week and no one seemed to really care. Both sides have claimed victory. In fact, they both might be correct.

2. Brian and Kelly The Rational Responders clearly won the actual debate. It should be noted that this whole event was suggested by Ray Comfort. On a previous episode of Nightline, Mr. Comfort stated that he could prove the existence of god without the need for faith or reference to the bible.

3. Face-Off Almost immediately, Ray Comfort loses the debate by references the bible. His only real non-biblical argument is the painting-must-have-a-painter-proof. Of course this argument falls apart when you ask, "If everything must have a creator, then who created god?"

4. Concession When asked if they would like to respond to this counter argument, Ray and Kirk shrug their shoulders, sigh, and say no. In my mind, this is a concession. If they had not lost the debate before now, then this is certainly the end. When Kirk finally does respond, he begins by using the words "we believe," again defying his side's own edict to avoid using personal belief during the debate.

5. Part One and Part Two But in the end, Ray and Kirk probably did win. Nightline aired their sermon to millions of people that had previously probably never heard of The Way of the Master. This in itself is a major victory for them. On top of that, the segment which aired on the actual television broadcast seemed to be heavily biased in favor of the theists. They were given considerably more screentime, and Martin Bashir's introduction is, perhaps subconsciously, quite condescending to the rational responders.

326 - with Links!

1. Scantron Choosing "C" as the standard answer on a scantron test really isn't always the best idea, especially when the test you are attempting to pass is made exclusively of true or false questions.

2. Controversy Adult Swim gives you six pilots for new shows to preview. They expect you to vote for your favorite and, presumably, the winner will make it to air. Mysteriously, there are only five choices on the poll. Who is so biased against Lowe Country?

3. Pushies Don't let anybody push you around.

4. Call Me Does anyone know the legality of posting someone's personal information on the internet? It can't be legal to publicize someone's phone number, can it? Regardless of the legal question, this guy really, really wants his camera back.

5. Reapers Revived Rumor has it that MGM has green-lit a new movie based on the long canceled Showtime series Dead Like Me. I think most fans of the show would agree that it was less successful after creator, Bryan Fuller, was removed from the project so unless he is involved in the movie, I have reservations. On top of that, reportedly, Stephen Herek is on board to direct. Unfortunately, his directorial track record (with the notable exception of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) is pretty dismal.

322 - Conspiracy

1. It's Die Hard in a Lincoln Continental Hot on the heels of his uncomfortably drunken performance at a NBA Playoff game, Bruce Willis is trying to enlighten Vanity Fair readers about what really went down in Dealey Plaza in 1963 and how JFK's true killers are "still in power, in some form."

2. Potter Conspiracy Is it possible that JK Rowling, the supposed author of the incredibly popular Harry Potter series is nothing more than a committee of hired writers churning out chapters under an umbrella pseudonym?

3. Conspiracy House Rock Media-opoly, carcinogenic nuclear pollution, corporate welfare, pocket politicians, weapons programs, technical difficulties.

4. Where There's Smoke It is clear that the battery industry is influencing the smoke detector manufacturers in an effort to force expensive, borderline obsolete, non-rechargeable, 9-volt batteries on the consumer.

5. Loose Screw Customer complaints (and probably the liberal media) have forced Virgin Airlines to reconsider its plans to include the September 11th conspiracy documentary, Loose Change, as a part of its in-flight entertainment program.

321 - with Links!

1. Nothing My standard answer, when asked what I want for Christmas, is usually "nothing." And I'm not just trying to be polite, I'd normally rather not receive gifts. Thanks to the producers of this product, I won't really be able to say that anymore.

2. Mystery Hill A lot of towns seem to have these mysterious hills on which local legend claims your car will roll uphill. Usually, it is some phantom civil war soldiers or children killed on a railroad track that are said to push your car. This guy shows you the truth of why it appears that your car defies gravity.

3. Leave It To Tivo Modern freeze-frame technology reveals exactly what was contained in the letter Ward received about the Beaver's bad behavior in school.

4. Digital Delay I don't know shit about Imogen heap, but I know I love this Andrew Bird-esque performance using on the fly looping and absolutely no instruments.

5. Hee-Yah vs Yee-Hah I also wanted to tell you about John Schneider's original Dukes General Lee and how he sold it for $10 million.

317 - This American Life

1. Season Two I'm not really sure if This American Life translates that well to television. Perhaps the 30 minute format is too short. Regardless, Showtime has put in an order for another six episodes so somebody must really like the show.

2. Watch If you'd like to watch the episodes they are available for viewing online. If they aren't working anymore, you can illegally download them easily.

3. Listen The most recently aired This American Life radio shows are being provided as a podcast now, and virtually the entire archive is available for listening online. Again, if you rather download the show illegally, it isn't very hard.

4. Missing Except, for some reason, the fifth episode of the series is mysteriously missing. Does anyone know why?

5. Upper Middle Class And finally, The Onion reports on the end of an era.