Watch for NEW Buffalo Sabre DAINIUS ZUBRUS to wear #15…he wore #9 in Washington but
Derek Roy wears #9 already (I was hoping to see Dainius to be like Roger Clemens of Major League Baseball or some NFL players that come to new teams and want their old number they “bribe” the current player with a Rolex watch or huge amounts of CA$H to switch…but that dosen’t look like the case here).

I feel “really good” about the Sabres Trades and their PUSH FOR THE CUP this year. We are all SAD/GLAD to see Marty Biron go to Philly, but he’ll be back in the Summer’s like Michael Peca and Matthew Barnaby.

What a great game against Toronto and the 6-1 WIN even without Daniel Briere! It’s hope against hope this is the SABRES STANLEY CUP YEAR (but I can’t say this on the air because of the JINX Factor).

If you’ve ever watched Two & A Half Men (which many have as it’s the highest rated sitcom right now), you’ve probably noticed the lightning-fast screen of text at the end of the show. This was also featured at the end of Dharma & Greg episodes.

What that is – the producer’s vanity card. Usually it’s a quick clip of the producer’s production company. But Chuck Lorre is too creative to let that space go to waste. Instead of showing us a company name that nobody cares about, he uses it as a blog.

Pausing on that spot is one way to see what it says. Or you can just check out his website and read all the vanity cards he’s done over the years, including the most recent. Most of them are pretty funny.

It’s always been interesting to me to see how children learn and use the language. My daughter is now 3, and she’s picking up more and more words every day, and often using them in unusual ways.

My daughter is also very freaked out by Zoey, Elmo’s “girlfriend” on Sesame Street. We’re not exactly sure why, but she refuses to have anything to do with this particular muppet. She has a very nice, complete Zoey outfit which starts her on a crying jag if we attempt to dress her in it. This of course brings me endless amusement, so weekends you’ll often find me threatening Darcy with the Zoey outfit, if she doesn’t behave.

To come, details on the new station website, and my upcoming trip to New Orleans!

–Brian

Walker Edmiston, who played Enik (the good Sleestak) on the original Land Of The Lost, passed away earlier this week. Walker was both the actor in the costume and the voice of Enik on the series.

What is the best recipe for beating the mid-Winter blues? A family trip to Toronto!

We took the brood up North again last weekend for a series of station “remotes,” and had a great time. I’m always amazed at all there is to do up there – you really can’t do it all in a weekend, but we did quite a bit:

Headquarters was the palatial Sheraton Toronto Centre, which I would highly recommend to anyone traveling through. Fabulous service, and you can’t beat a heated pool that’s half inside and half outside. It’s fun to be have snowflakes falling on you in 90-degree water! (Picture above from our 38th floor room.)

Dinner and a show at Medieval Times. Eating with your hands, knights on horseback jousting and fighting with swords, what’s not to like! The kids were duly entertained, and enjoyed their plastic swords (left)

Finally, a romantic meal – kid-free – at the rotating 360 Restaurant at the CN Tower, overlooking the lovely Toronto skyline from the world’s highest free-standing structure.

When we returned, Mother Nature had deposited another foot and a half of ice and snow on the greater Buffalo area. How it was warmer and more temperate in the Great White North I’m not sure, but we’re looking forward to our next visit.
–Brian

Before the girls even sing tonight, I’ve picked my two favorites for this season…

Melinda Doolittle. Easily the nicest and most down-to-earth contestant. And she can sing! I can’t wait to hear what kinds of songs she picks this season.

• American Idol – The official website.

• BuddyTV.com – American Idol news.

• American Idol Rumors – More American Idol news.

• Television Without Pity – American Idol message boards.

• IdolMe.com – More American Idol message boards.

• Death By Camera – Located Myspace pages for many of the contestants.

• Dial Idol – Attempts to predict who’s going home based on busy signals. This has been fairly accurate in the past, so much so that FOX unsuccessfully tried to shut down the website.

Lockport got quite a lot of snow last week (about 16 inches) for the first time this year.

I’m a little freaky in that I actually enjoy a little shoveling. Believe it or not, I also like splitting logs with an axe. (I used to do a lot of both as a kid in rural Michigan.) Anyway, as I have about 5 times so far this year, I got up at around 6am the morning of the “storm,” and shoveled the walk and driveway so Heather and I could get to work. That night when I returned, it looked as if I hadn’t shoveled at all! Rather than pull on my boots and get at it again, I called a snow-plower.

Let me just say that after slaving for almost an hour on your driveway to generally mixed results, watching a truck pull up and easily push all that snow away in minutes is a breathtaking sight. I gave the guy an extra 5 bucks because I was so happy. It’s weather like this that makes me yearn for the new Ford F150 I used to drive in Virginia – I could hook up a plow to that truck and make a lot of extra money!

Today the streak of 22 days below freezing was broken. As I was driving in to work it was 41 degrees, and snow was actually melting for a change! At this rate we may not have snow in the yard for Connor’s snow fort, but I’ll take that trade-off.

Details on our Toronto weekend to come!

–Brian

Kelly Clarkson says she has NO PLANS to shave her head like Britney Spears…Kelly says “well, she’s still hot, whatever…if you can pull that off, go for it. I like my hair, I’m keeping it, That’s crazy.”

The people at ESTHER’S HAIR CUTTING STUDIO are no fools, they saved Britney’s hair (after she cut it off last Friday) and they are going to
sell it for a starting bid of just $ 1 MILLION! Not only will you get Britney’s hair but also a partially consumed can of RED BULL and a
BIC lighter that Britney left behind as well as the actual CLIPPERS used to do the deed! just go to www.buybritneyshair.com to make your bid, please bid high and often!

Did it rock your world that BREINEY SPEARS shaved her head?!

I love what KELLY CLARKSON said…”she’s Britney Spears, it will end up being cool…she’s still hot.” Kelly my advice to you, don’t shave YOUR
head just yet!

The Police are coming to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on July 22nd!

Tickets go on sale this Saturday morning (2/17/07) at 10am through Ticketmaster in Canada (toll free 800-265-5566).

Chances are, this will sell out quick. If you want tickets, be ready to buy them Saturday morning!

If you haven’t already seen this, check out this scene of Lost (from the 2/7/07 episode) played backwards here.

That scene was easily the highlight of Lost last week. Hopefully, the storyline moves along a little this week and more strange stuff like this happens again.

Without revealing who or what they’re talking about, I’ve read reports that some of the original cast members are looking for other jobs. And I can’t blame them – the focus of the first seven episodes this season has been on Jack, Sawyer, and Kate.

I’d love the stories to go back to the main island this week, so we could see some of the characters that haven’t been around much lately – Claire, Sun, Jin, Hurley, Locke, Sayid, Charlie, Rose, Bernard, and Desmond.

And it wouldn’t be a tragedy if the two new characters on the island disappeared (Nikki & Paulo – I couldn’t even remember their names and had to look it up). It seems pointless that two new characters were introduced when so much of the other cast is left ignored.

ABC and the producers of Lost have promised a big surprise this season, something that will change the entire course of the show. I hope turning it into a romantic triangle soap opera of Jack, Sawyer, and Kate wasn’t the big surprise.

Including tonight, 15 more episodes to go this season. And if you’re happy with the no repeats thing (which I am), you’ll be thrilled to know there’s a good chance that next season will be even better. ABC is considering running all 22 episodes without repeats or breaks over the course of 22 weeks, probably beginning in January 2008. That’s speculation for now, but could be confirmed in May when ABC announces next season’s plans.

I think RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS’ drummer ANTHONY KIEDIS put it
best after the GRAMMY’S…”I was shocked The Dixie Chicks didn’t win
BEST RAP RECORD” (they won everything else…5 GRAMMYS in all the categories the were nominated in). All in all I thought it was a “slickly”
produced show but a little “ho-hum.”