Well 42 years later, Stongen’s grandchildren gave her a “gracious good afternoon” when they bought her a new phone and returned the rotary phone to AT&T. Stongen’s grandchildren estimate that she spent $14,000 on the outdated phone.

I’m sure Miss Tomlin of the telephone company was happy to have such as good customer. And Strongen of course doesn’t like her new phone and wants the rotary phone back. The thing is Stongen isn’t alone an estimated 750,000 people are still renting phones. I’m pretty sure I could see my grandmother (as much as I love her) doing the same thing. ”And that’s the truth.” Click here for the full story.

Charlie Gibson
Hal Sparks – 78%
High Grant – 74%
Larry Bird – 73%
Rutger Hauer – 70%
Roy Keane – 68%
Tome Cruise – 68%
Leslie Nielsen – 67%
Gary Lineker – 66%
Thomas Edison – 62%
Jens Stoltenberg – 62%

Brian Williams
Benny Goodman – 71%
Ben Affleck – 68%
Richard Harris – 67%
Gene Simmons – 66%
Charles Prince of Wales – 66%
Kevin Costner – 64%
James Garner – 62%
Robert Duvall – 61%
Michael Caine – 60%

Katie Couric
Katie Couric – 100%
Heidi Klum – 83%
Andie MacDowell – 80%
Selma Blair – 78%
Alessandra Ambrosio – 78%
Shania Twain – 78%
Britney Spears – 78%
Bebe Neuwirth – 78%
Angie Harmon – 78%
Lisa Snowdon – 78%

Try it yourself at MyHeritage.com. (Free Reg. Required)

Every year at every awards show the goal is to create an opening skit that is better than the year before. The skit typically parodies some of the more popular shows. This year was no exception. The skit began with Emmy Host Conan O’Brien getting ready for the show. He is shown boarding a plane. As the flight attendant asks if he is nervous about the show, he responds with “Nervous? What could possibly go wrong?” The plane then begins to shake as if it is going down. The next shot is O’Brien emerging on a deserted
Island similar to the one from the TV show Lost. The skit was funny, yes, but lacked taste. The problem was that skit took place on the same day that 49 people died in a plane crash in
Kentucky.

Now, I understand that months of planning (I would assume) go into the opening sketch. I will even grant them the fact that they probably took out the part where you actually see the plane go down, although the skit may have always lacked the actual crash. (Emmy producer Ken Ehrlich wouldn’t comment about the skit). But at the very least they could have informed the local
Kentucky affiliates about the skit so they could have made a decision about whether they wanted to air it (we’ll get to that in a second). Instead WLEX staff was caught off guard and were left “completely helpless” GM Tim Gilbert told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “By the time we began to react, it was over. At the station, we were as horrified as they were at home,” he said. (Click here for the full story.)

But I wonder just what would WLEX have done had they known about the skit. Had they made the decision not to air it, what would they put in its place? If you go to a promo or commercials how do you transition back?

And one last note about the Emmy’s that was pointed out in Lost Remote. Apparently they could rack up $1.95 million in fines. Click here to find out why.

UPDATE: I wrote a guest column for the Maneater about this. A copy of the column is after the jump.

Remember that time in your life, probably in elementary or middle school, where you were so embarrassed that you felt like you were so below everyone else? I had tried really hard to push that memory out of my thought process. I had succeeded that was until yesterday I was reminded of that grim day.

You see for me that embarrassing situation took place in elementary. We were running around the backstop at P.E. As I took the finial turn the class bully, Max, decided to trip me. This caused me to fly face first into a puddle of red clay. I was covered in entirety in the mud. I was so upset that I began to cry causing bubbles of snot mixed with red clay mush to come out of my nose. I was so embarrassed. I felt like a dwarf among my peers. My mom came and picked me up. For the most part I had forgotten about that day. Forgotten about how it felt to be picked on, to be the little guy, to be the outsider. That was, until I heard about Pluto.

You see, Yesterday Pluto was minding his own business doing laps around the sun when the International Astronomical Union decided to trip him. They did so by demoting him to a “dwarf planet.” Now I’m willing to bed that the group of scientists never had an opportunity to pick on anyone at anytime in their life and I’m sure they got picked on even more than I did. Which is more reason why they should understand how Pluto feels. Ostracized. Embarrassed. Dwarf like. I would imagine that if Pluto had a nose he too would have red clay mush coming out of it.

When I heard the news I felt an immediate connection with Pluto and wanted to rally for him. But I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. In ABCNews.com’s poll almost 70 percent of those who had nothing better to do at work said that their world is “shattered, I always thought there were nine planets in the solar system!” I quickly then went online and purchased my “Save Pluto” t-shirt and “Honk if Pluto is still a planet” bumper sticker both of which I will display proudly.

It seems as though the decision may be finial textbooks are probably already being updated. Teachers I’m sure are teaching the new pneumonic device to “my very educated mother just served us noodles.” But it is not too late for an apology. Pluto and I are still waiting for one.

Well today that was not the case he was making a prediction that the worst is yet to come. “People think we have seen the worst. We haven’t,” he said. So I am assuming that he is basing that on science. The story ran on the websites of many major news outlets across the country.

At first glance you may think he is suggesting that there will be a bigger hurricane than Katrina coming. No, what he is saying is that because we keep building on the coast and more people populate that some point within the next one hundred years when a hurricane hits there will be more damage and more lives lost than in Katrina or Andrew.

While he is absolutely correct why is it that this is making the front page of so many websites? I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure it’s because the headline on most of the stories is “Worst is yet to come, US hurricane chief says.” The reality is this story is done time and tie again it’s just that now they can attribute it to science even though it’s still common sense.