Thirty-one and done.

Boston area television, weather man icon Dick Albert, a 31 year veteran of WCVB-TV channel 5, gave his last weather forecast on Thursday night, riding off into the sunset of retirement.

Albert came to Boston in 1978 and became a fixture on the local airwaves, becoming affectionately known as 'Dickie' by friends and fans. He put his personal touches on the weather forecasts, making the weather report interesting, if not fun to watch.

Albert also made it a habit to visit kids in schools and share his weather knowledge with them. I can remember him visiting my classroom once. It was when I had Mr. Mancini for math and science. I was in the sixth grade, which would have been 1980-1981, I believe.


Thanks for the memories, Dickie. Have fun doing other stuff.

Brett Favre, BB9 and Friends

I've never been a Green Bay Packers fan. If you read here regularly you know or can guess what team I root for. But because I love football and am a football fan, except for one instance (Super Bowl XXXI), I have been a Brett Favre fan. So it was also somewhat of a surprise this week when Favre announced his retirement from the NFL after 17 seasons. After the excellent season the Packers had in 2007, I, like many other fans, assumed that Favre would want to come back in 2008. As a fan of the game, you have to appreciate and respect the high character and level of play of arguably one of the NFL's greatest players ever and certainly one of the top ten quarterbacks of all time. Watching Favre over the years and at his televised farewell press conference this afternoon, I'm impressed by his humility and emotion. It's no surprise that Favre was considered one of the nicest people in the league. Good luck, Brett. Thanks for the memories.

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If you missed any BB, you can catch up on episode 9, episode 10 and episode 11.

Last night's episode was really good. I was a bit surprised that the warning buzzer meant that the couples were going to be split up. I really don't think it was the intention of the shows producers to split them up - or at least not so soon into the season and with so many players left. I mean, why pair them up in the first place if you're just going to undo it later on? It also wouldn't surprise me if, in a few weeks, they resume the couples game but not necessarily with the same pairs of people. I think this greatly depends on who gets evicted in the next three weeks or so.

I was not surprised to see Allison get evicted by a 6-0 vote, since she had the whole house turned against her. I was also glad to see Ryan escape eviction and win the first solo HoH. It will be interesting to see who he decides to put on the block this week, since I don't see that he has conflicts or drama with anyone in the house. My guess is that it will be two of the other guys, since they might prove to be his strongest competition later on. On the same token though, whomever he puts up for eviction that stays in the house might turn against him.

I can't stand Joshuah and think he's just as big of a drama queen and attention seeker as Allison was, so would love to see his butt get evicted next Wednesday. Wouldn't it be sweet if Amanda or Allison get voted back into the house if/when Josh gets evicted?

On the viewer voting, I can't see one of the guys getting voted back in but I'd pick either Parker or Alex. Jacob doesn't have a chance. I think one of the women will be voted back into the house and I really can't see it being either Allison or Amanda, which leaves Jen. Of course I'll vote for her as many times as I can between now and when the polls close on the 11th.

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Would you believe that during its 10 year run on television, that I never once watched an episode of "Friends" ?


If you know me its really not that hard to believe. I'd much rather pop in a DVD of some kind than watch what is currently on the tube (not counting baseball and football games!). There are only a few shows that I watch regularly and they are few and far between, with "ALIAS" and this season's "Big Brother" being the most recent exceptions. Usually when I get into a show, I do so once it has reached syndication, is available on DVD or both. One early example is "Beverly Hills 90210" which was on regularly but never watched when I was in college and that I watched religiously in my early married days in the mid 1990's and would have K tape for me when I would miss it. "ALIAS" was another example of this. As longtime readers of this blog know, I started watching "ALIAS" at the start of season four and had to go back and watch the first three seasons on DVD. I'd like to get into "CSI: Miami" but would rather start from the beginning, rather than pick up the show in the middle of the current season six.

I digress: regarding "Friends", thanks to my sister owning the entire series on DVD, in the last few days I've now watched the first half of season one and am sufficiently amused to continue watching and watching and watching...

Big Brother 9 on CBS

"'Til Death Do You Part"

Last night was my first actual foray into the world of Big Brother. I've never watched this show in any of its first eight seasons, primarily because I have a hard time getting into this "reality television" thang. But this show does look interesting, based on the season premiere...

This year they've thrown a few twists into the mix. Instead of competing as singles, the housemates have been paired off into couples. The couples will form teams and work closely together. Even though they just met, they'll share the same rooms and the same beds. The sixteen contestants are split into seven male/female couples and two homosexual men make up couple #8. Furthering the twist is that a real life couple, Ryan and Jen (not paired together), are going to try and secretly cause trouble among the housemates. Two other housemates (Sharon and Jacob) just ended a 12 year relationship and have been reluctantly and unknowingly reunited on the show and as a couple for this season.

After the introductions and pairing of the couples, the first competition was held, called "Falling for You", where each couple was suspended in the air, holding on to rach other for dear life. As the couples separated and the bottom partner fell onto the mattress, they were eliminated from the competition. The last couple hanging, Jen and Parker, won $10,000 for grabbing a heart pillow and negotiating with another couple for the win, promising that they'd be safe. The winning couple is the first BB popwer couple and will themselves decide the first couple to be evicted from the house. Jen already mentioned in an interview the possibility of those two being evicted first. We will see tonight @ 20:00.

My guess is that Sheila and Adam will be the first to go, since she is vocally unhappy (a whiner and likely would upset the house dynamic) with Adam as her match and is 16 years older than he. Plus, they were the last couple paired and did not get a bedroom, meaning they'll have to share a sleeping bag on the floor.

I'll throw in an update after tonight's show. If you miss anything during the season, go to cbs.com and find out what you missed.

23:00 update: Open your mouth and get yourself kicked off the show. What a dumba** Jacob is. Talking trash about Parker, saying someone else said it and then refusing to rat out who did. His subsequent silence did him in, since it seems that he did the trash talking himself. Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing how Jacob and Sharon would get along this season with the tension of their past relationship simmering constantly. Sheila and Adam would have gotten the boot otherwise, and they know it. Weird though is that during the "Tunnel of Love" game tonight, they seemed to be getting along better. Perhaps they talked at some point and formed some sort of truce. I wonder who will claim Sharon and Jacob's bed out of the two sleeping bag couples.....