Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Or Second. Or Third. Or So.


This evening I happened to catch this ad for Law and Order: LA (a show which, just a couple of weeks ago I wondered aloud about the continued existence of...obviously having been mesmerized by the one and only episode of it I watched last fall).



What struck me was the apparent ignorance of the network, or the producers, or an advertising agency, or whoever wrote and approved these lines:

For the first time in twenty years, a Law and Order detective will fall.

Oh? Really?

If by “fall” they mean “will die,” then they obviously have forgotten the very first L&O lead detective, Sgt. Max Greevey, who was murdered in the 1991 episode “Confession.”

I imagine they would argue that Capt. Danny Ross, who was killed at the beginning of the ninth season of Law and Order: Criminal Intent does not qualify as a “detective”--but the fact that he was killed while working undercover sure makes it feel like he was another L&O detective to “fall.”


Perhaps there have been others as well--I don’t follow Law and Order: Special Victims Unit--but in any event, I’m thinking it’s not exactly accurate to portray this apparent killing-off of a Law and Order franchise detective as a “first.” More of a “second” or even “third.”

But, who's counting?

Monday, April 04, 2011

Still Standing. For Now

So I typed in my address and got this map, indicating the state of the bridges within 10 miles of my house.



I presume the green icons represent bridges that are in decent shape (a helpful graphic should have a complete legend); the red ones, obviously, are not. Although the green icons, thankfully, outnumber the red ones, there's still a distressing number on red ones. Doesn’t fill a guy with a lot of confidence … especially since the red icon right next to the “pin” on the map is a bridge I use several times a week.

Amuse and/or frighten yourself by visiting http://t4america.org/resources/bridges/.