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Here’s an interesting piece of trivia: what do all of the following actors and actresses have in common?

Their better-known roles are listed to jog your memory. (If nothing is listed, they’ve been in more roles than Jimmy Carter has peanuts, so you should know who they are.)

• Cliff Robertson (Ben Parker in Spiderman, the movie)
• Burt Metcalfe (producer for M*A*S*H - produced 77 episodes after acting career)
• Donald Pleasence
• Edward C. Platt (”Chief” on Get Smart)
• Robert Culp (I Spy)
• David McCallum (N.C.I.S./The Man from U.N.C.L.E)
• Edward Mulhare (Devon Miles on Knight Rider)
• Martin Landau (Space 1999, The X-Files Movie)
• Martin Sheen (The West Wing, Apocalypse Now)
• Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H, the movie)
• James V. Sikking (Doogie Howser - Doogie’s father)
• Ivan Dixon (James “Kinch” Kinchloe in Hogan’s Heroes)
• Edward Asner (Mary Tyler Moore Show)
• Ted Knight (Mary Tyler Moore Show)
• Bruce Dern
• Dabney Coleman (Mr. Drysdale on the Beverly Hillbillies)
• Carrol O’Connor (All in the Family)
• Chita Rivera (Chicago, the movie & a zillion other roles)
• Robert Duvall
• Vera Miles
• Sir Cedrick Hardwicke
• Malachi Throne (It Takes a Thief)
• William Shatner
• James Doohan
• Grace Lee Whitney (Star Trek TOS/STNG)
• Michael Ansara (Kang from Star Trek - TOS/STNG/Voyager)
• Eddie Albert
• James Frawley (The Honeymooners)

This list reads like a veritable “Who’s Who of Hollywood,” doesn’t it?

Answer: All of the actors and actresses listed above starred in the original run of the TV series The Outer Limits in the mid-1960s.

While thinking about a blog post for a web site under development, I started thinking about the original Outer Limits TV show and how much I liked both it and the remake from the last decade or so, and thought I’d look it up online.

You couldn’t afford to make a TV show today with all of those people in it (those that are alive, at least).

Should I buy health insurance? Should I be forced to buy it?

This week I was instructed to fill out the forms for health insurance, regardless of whether or not I was going to opt into the plan. I had the opportunity to opt out, which I did, because I already have health insurance.

My question is this: under either Obama’s or Clinton’s plan, would I still be able to opt out and choose what is better and less costly coverage for me?

Obama says Clinton’s plan forces people to buy the insurance; Clinton says Obama is misleading people. Now the argument is getting hot and out of control. They’re starting to wander off-topic, and it’s time to talk about NAFTA.

In one of the sharpest openers yet tonight, Clinton complains about always answering the questions first, saying that they should do like they did on SNL and offer Obama a pillow…

You’ll also find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/collisionbend. Short bursts and longer bursts.

hehe…

I understand that East 21st Street next to the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University is snarled with snow and satellite trucks. The weather is nasty, and the city is pretty quiet save for the debate.

The newsroom here at WKYC is busy, but quiet, with an interesting tension as they go live with an 8:00 p.m. debate special; WKYC staffers that met with us all looked slightly edgy as the clock rolled around to air time. I guess this was a really big deal here.

They’re proud, and they should be: they’ve done a heck of a job setting this up.

Rita Andolsen, WKYC’s News Director, had this debate plopped on her lap virtually at the last moment, and the level of organization here is impressive. The relative quiet of our meeting room, right off the main news room, is vibrant with conversation as Paul Thomas prepares for broadcast from this very room.

Right now.

Look alive.

Post.

Now.

So I’ll have a flurry of posts tonight, as I am sitting in the studios at WKYC TV-3 in Cleveland getting ready to report on tonight’s debate between Democratic Party candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

So what is an Independent voter like me doing covering a Democratic Party debate?

Personally, I really don’t see a Republican winning this November, considering how borked this country is after 8 years of Republican George W. Bush: $3.00 per gallon for gasoline, $15 billion per month going to the war in Iraq, a serious health care crisis coupled with a sub-prime mortgage lending crisis, declining education, millions of jobs being exported overseas, and a generally flagging economy combine to make this year a disaster for Republicans.

My sense is that people here are desperate for change. What worries me is that history has proven many times that desperate people can do desperate things — and we’re here relying on people who are masters at manipulating the media.

Feel free to comment!

OK, here’s the scene: we’re coming home from dinner at Applebee’s in Mayfield. We have an iPod (not mine) hooked up to the USB port connected to the car stereo, and the car is equipped with Microsoft Sync. This is exactly how this conversation went down, word-for-word, verbatim:

• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Duran Duran.”
• Car: “Playing artist Carrie Underwood.”
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• (More clearly and deliberately) “Play artist Dur-RAN.”
• Car: “Playing artist Barry Manilow.”
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Go f*** yourself!”
• Car: “Playing artist the Arkies” (the Archies)
• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Billy Joel.”
• Car: “Playing artist Billy Joel.”

Interestingly enough, the Billy Joel tune the car decided to play was “Innocent Man.”

Needless to say, I’m reprogramming my bride’s iPod.

~~~~~~~~~~

Now, this is the conversation I imagine having if we had connected my iPod:

• Car: Ding! “USB: Please say a command.”
• “Play artist Eric Clapton.”
• Car: “Playing artist Eric Clapton.”
• Car: “NOW you’re talking! Clapton is GOD!”

~~~~~~~~~~

And while I’m on the topic of Applebee’s: I was always raised to take my hat off when I entered a public building — it was something that a gentleman always did, as a matter of politeness, good manners, and common courtesy.

Tonight, I watched at least 5 grown men, sitting at tables, dining, wearing hats. One even wore a hoodie over his baseball cap, as if he was trying not to be seen, drinking a bottle of beer (not a glass).

Where have our manners gone?

~~~~~~~~~~

Of course, one of them who was not handicapped in the least — nor was anyone in his party — had parked his brand-spanking-new Cadillac Esaclade in the handicapped spot right out front. They all jumped into the car — not one struggled. Not one looked the least bit guilty about it, either.

Yes, he had a placard hanging from the mirror, but I’m wondering: how much did he pay for it?

Note: I would have linked to these movies at the Internet Movie Database, but IMDB has installed an asinine Flash ad that pops up on top of the page. You cannot escape the ad — it scrolls with you — and you have to wait until it runs its course, then click on the white area beside the Flash app. Where the hell is Jakob Neilsen when you need him? So I’m not sending you there. If you want to look up these movies at IMDB, be my guest: but you’ll have to do it the hard way, without any help from me — the IMDB doesn’t deserve my help.

We saw Juno tonight, a movie up for several Academy Awards this year — and deserving for far more nominations than it received. I have to be careful here, for this movie borders on chick-flick territory, and if I say the wrong things about it, I’ll be drummed out of the guy club for good…

I must say that it was one of the most intelligent movies I have seen in years. Ellen Page deserves Best Actress hands-down (but she won’t get it). The acting was excellent, the photography quite good, and the script was dynamite. Here’s one guideline for movie excellence: when you leave the theater and find yourself still caring about the main character, it was a good movie.

This movie is my sleeper of the year, and it’ll take far more Oscars than anyone thinks.

Also in the theaters, a flick we saw last week, was No Country For Old Men, the latest effort from the Coen brothers. This critically-acclaimed yet highly criticized movie does exactly what you expect from a Coen brothers film: it rivets you in your seat and takes you for a ride.

Now please keep in mind that I like Coen brother movies; I haven’t seen one yet that I didn’t like. This movie is excellent, gripping, and stunning. In keeping true to the Cormac McCarthy novel from whence it came, the Coens have been ripped for not providing a more “Hollywood-esque” ending for the movie. I’m not going to spoil it here, but the movie does not end as you’d expect.

And that, in my mind, is a good thing. Just go in knowing that this movie, like most of the Coen brothers’ efforts, has a little gore and a little violence, with a twisting plot and lots of the unexpected — without being predictable. The story is gripping and intense without going totally overboard out of reality or hog-wild with special effects. Tommy Lee Jones, who only gets better with age and experience, is excellent, bang-on, and absolutely perfect in his role, yet is eclipsed by Javier Bardem playing a complete psychopath.

So that leaves one more flick for me to see, and it is, unfortunately, a chick flick (from what I hear): Atonement. I have to go, sorry guys — I’m committed to it: I’ll bear with as best I can.

My bride and I saw “There Will Be Blood” tonight, a 2-hour and 40-minute adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s “OIL!” from the late 1920s, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the son of local TV and radio legend Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson.

I’ve seen most of Anderson’s movies, and I’ve liked them all — for varying reasons each.

I liked “There Will Be Blood”; it’s probably Anderson’s best work yet.

I liked it because it is a period piece from the early 20th century, which is one of my favorite periods in American history. I have to say, in all honesty, that: a) I was unaware of this movie, and my bride put this movie on the “must-see” list every year (she always creates this list right before the Oscars — which I enjoy immensely); and 2) I was totally unaware that this movie was based (loosely) on Sinclair’s “OIL!”

Seriously.

About a third of the way through the movie, however, the story began to ring familiar. It was at the end, when I read the credits, that the bells went off. I read the book in high school as an extra-credit issue for an advanced-placement English Lit class. So, yes, it wasn’t a total take on “OIL!,” but it had enough of the story in it that I could tell that this was no ordinary screenplay.

It’s timing could not be better: with Exxon Mobil raking in totally obscene, record profits (subsidized by you, Dear Constant Reader — that is, if you’re a tax-paying US citizen), and the recent growth of conflicting religious dogma entering American politics, Anderson’s play between the charlatanism of the oil industry played against the charlatanism of born-again religion couldn’t possibly be better timed.

You see the greed and avarice of the oil industry on one extreme pitted against the greed and dishonesty of people who want to lead the sheep (in this case, people who are willing to believe almost anything to help them accept their own poverty, be it financial, spiritual, emotional, or intellectual) on the other. You see how one side sees through the facade of the other, and how they try to exploit each other through this, with the public — and their money — as the ultimate prize.

The Truth, as it should be, should lie somewhere in between: the evangelicals are charlatans from the word “go!,” and you can’t trust the oil companies to do anything but dig ever deeper into your pocketbook to make their own lives easier — which are two of the major causes of this year’s political senseless, pointless, and exasperating sturm und drang. Let’s face facts: neither Clinton nor Obama, McCain nor Romney, plan to do anything about the oil companies raping the American public, or turning America “green” — nothing (don’t get me started on health care or health insurance!).

Nothing, I tell you: it’s all a bunch of crap to get them in office and nothing more. None of them offer any real hope or promise to the American public. I’m not a big fan of CNN’s Lou Dobbs, as I think he is merely a big, whiny mouth, but I can see more clearly now that he does have one thing right: there is a war on the American Middle Class — and none of our government representatives are doing a damned thing about it — nor will they.

I’m not against a company making a fair profit on their goods and services — that’s what America is all about. But, by the same token, we’re also about fair play, honesty, and The Golden Rule.

And nobody in politics, the oil industry, or the right-wing evangelical movement honor any of that: they only want their fair share — of your checkbook. (See the movie — it’s important.)