Author: King Tom

One of the greatest people I’ve ever known passed away last week.

My father called me today to tell me that WNBC reporter Ralph Penza died.  For both semesters of my senior year of college, I was an intern at WNBC–first with a consumer reporter, and then, as Ralph’s intern. 

Usually, I was told, Ralph only hired on full-time interns from another school.  But I guess that someone had talked me up pretty good, because he accepted me as his intern, even though (because of my schedule), I could only work for him three-and-a-half days a week.

Right away, I was amazed by Ralph’s energy, generosity and humor.  He was dedicated to getting the story right every day.  I learned more from him in a few months than I did in all of my other college classes combined.  There were stories that we’d be out covering all day where by the end I would be dead tired, but he’d still be going strong.

I talked to Ralph a few times since moving out here, and he was still reporting stories.  Ralph was a great reporter.  But more importantly (as I learned), he was a great person too.

Thanks for giving me a chance Ralph.

Lost takes place on an island with polar bears, a giant four-toed statue, and about 108 other mysteries.  The one mystery that is not as pressing as the others is how a main character got his tatoos.

That being said, I ended up liking tonight’s episode more than I thought I would.

Continue reading “One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster” →

For the past few days, streets and sidewalks in Columbus have, for the most part, been covered in a mix of snow and ice. 

Because the temperatures have been below freezing, very little of that cover is melting.  And whenever this happens, I always wonder why don’t they just bust out the flamethrowers and clear off the ice and snow that way?

It’s not like that would actually start a fire or anything, right?

Before I start talking about this week’s episode of Lost, there’s something else I want to publicly ponder.

I was watching the ‘?‘ episode from last season, and was wondering how things would have happened had Boone and Locke discovered and opened the Pearl Hatch after discovering the Nigerian Plane.  The original hatch probably wouldn’t have seemed so mystical, especially to Locke and Boone would have died another way.  But I guess, as Locke would say, that’s just the way the island would have wanted it.

Anyway, on to the present (or as Desmond likes to call them, re-runs):

Continue reading “Quantum Leap” →

 

So Weezer’s been around 15 years.  Kind of hard to believe they’ve been around that long.

While last year, I wrote a fake backstory of the band, I think this year, it’s time to link to the closest thing to the real history- the band’s recording history, compiled by he who rocks.

It’s also fitting that today marks the first real weezer news we’ve gotten in quite some time, although it’s kind of ironic that it’s coming from MTV (in a story about Rick Rubin):

“Rivers [Cuomo] just gave me some demos, the first round for this album,” Rubin said. “I’m trying to get my head clear to really just dive in.”

I’m not holding my breath, but I am looking forward to it.