blizzard treats

For the most part, this weekend was spent waiting for the Super Bowl and experiencing the DC area snowstorm via social media. Since Friday, my Twitter and Facebook feeds have been filled with photos of the Snowtorious B.I.G.

Aspiring TV writer Mike Nelson is currently working as a production assistant on "The Real World Washington DC." He posted pictures on TwitPic of his car before and after digging it out of the snow.

My wife enjoys weather maps and forecasts. She has been going to the websites for the Washington television stations to get the latest. Thanks to her efforts, we saw lots of great viewer pictures, details of the Facebook-organized snowball fight and the amusing tale of "Sandwich Girl." WRC-TV reporter Pat Collins spoke with a young woman who had decided to walk three miles to a Giant supermarket because she wanted to redeem her coupon for a free sandwich. No wonder I like her story.

go or geaux?

Although it really doesn't matter to me who wins the Super Bowl, I do want to pick a team and root for them tomorrow. I like both the Colts and the Saints and will have to dig a little deeper to find a preference.

The Colts are especially popular in Knoxville because of Peyton Manning. My friends outside Tennessee might not realize that he is a former UT Volunteer. In addition to all his national endorsements, he turns up on local TV in commercials for Mercy Health Partners. I am impressed with the star quarterback's ability, even if he is a little OCPD.

The City of Indianapolis also has something going for it in my book. One of the boxes in my basement contains the key to the city. Don & Mike and I each received a key when we did a remote broadcast from Indy at the invitation of then-mayor William Hudnut.

Although it has been many years, the Colts lose some points for the way they abandoned Baltimore. They should have left their name and colors behind like the Browns did when they ditched Cleveland. Instead of becoming the Ravens, the old Browns should now be the Colts.

The storyline of the Saints is appealing to me. I like that they were one of the last five teams to have never reached a Super Bowl. Their dedicated fans have been waiting a long time to win a championship. It's almost like the Red Sox or Cubs winning the World Series.

I've been to New Orleans a few times for the Morning Show Boot Camp convention and absolutely loved it. I like going to the Acme Oyster House and getting on their webcam. I love the Bananas Foster at Brennan's and just about anything étouffée at just about any restaurant in the French quarter.

So who's it going to be? Do I cheer for Peyton, whose work ethic and incredible ability I respect and admire? Or do I go with the feel-good story of New Orleans? Maybe I'll think about it tomorrow morning while I'm waiting for Mass to begin at All Saints Church. Hmmm... maybe I just decided.

tell me why

Congratulations to Brent Thompson and his wife who had their baby yesterday. Brent is co-host of Eleven O'clock Rock, the daily streaming video show that emanates from Market Square.

The baby's birth didn't sneak up on them. When I was a guest on the show in December, Brent and co-host Lauren Lazurus said I could fill in for him one day while he was on paternity leave. Turns out they weren't just being nice. I got the call from Jessie Greene, one of the directors, asking if I could be the guest co-host on Monday.

They were still in the process of booking guest for the show. In addition to a musical performer, they wanted somebody for the "Movie Monday" segment. I unabashedly offered up "Fish Bait" director Jeff Joslin, who will join us via Skype at 11:27 a.m.

If you can arrange your schedule to be downtown between 11 a.m. and 12 noon on Monday, c'mon by and get some food at The Lunchbox, which shares space with the studio. Otherwise you can watch "Eleven O'clock Rock" at knoxivi.com.

ever and anon

A potential blogger emailed me early this morning. She introduced herself as a friend of a college friend of mine. She immediately flattered me by saying that my name had come up in their conversations several times over the years. Here is the main part of her email:

Two great passions of mine are the arts and travel. While getting laid off from the travel industry has put a hold on any travel desires, living in New York gives me the solace of the arts, especially the performing arts; almost as necessary to me as the air I breathe. (Which, thankfully, there are inexpensive ways of enjoying.) A musician friend, whose talent and taste I hold in great esteem, has been urging me for months to start a blog of my impressions of performances, art exhibits, and other arts-related notes. Hopefully, travel will come back into my life and those observations can be added as well.

Amongst all the other decisions - name, colors, graphics, fonts - is the question of whether to use my real name or not. Although my musician friend says he wouldn't compose anonymously, this is slightly different. As I am applying to job postings from arts organizations it gives me pause. Part of me says I am being ridiculous. First of all, who says any of these people are going to even find, much less read my blog and, secondly, it's not as though I would be insulting to anyone. But, caution plays a part because of my jobless situation, although another friend of mine who is always cautious, thinks my writing could wind up generating interest that could benefit my career. (But, playing devil's advocate, anyone could respond via the e-mail link if they want to contact me.)

I am not a fan of anonymous blogs. They seem cowardly to me. Within the past year I exchanged emails with an anonymous blogger who ended up deleting her blog because people were starting to figure out that she lived in Knoxville.

I think she has to assume that her blog will eventually be discovered. Is she willing to deal with the consequences when that happens? What does she have to say that she would be ashamed to attach her name to? And if she is ashamed to say it publicly, should she really be saying it in the first place?

I do believe in blogs as a way to promote your personal brand. Put yourself in the position of someone who is hiring in 2010. Which candidate do they hire, the person with no online presence or the person who has figured out how to use blogs, Twitter and Facebook?

orange barrels

Many of the web designers, I.T. guys and better bloggers I've known over the past few years have advised me to use different software on my website. Specifically they wanted me to dump Blogger.com. However I thought of the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Back in the olden days, my choice of web hosting service was based on whether or not they could handle Microsoft FrontPage extensions. The computer guru at KLOS helped me get started. I still use FrontPage to upload photos to my site, even though Microsoft discontinued the product about three years ago.

At first, I used my website to host my résumé, some sound files and some photos of my trip to Alaska. All that changed in 2005 when I decided to start writing a daily blog. Rich Hailey, my "blogfather," told me about the software he used at the time, which I think was Movable Type. I downloaded it and looked it over but ultimately went with a beginner-level choice. I've been using Blogger.com ever since.

Most people who use Blogger have a URL that ends with "blogspot.com." It means that their content is hosted for free by Google. Because I already had my own domain, I decided to reinforce my personal brand by keeping the blog at frankmurphy.com. Blogger had a simple option for that. I upload each new entry from Blogger's interface to frankmurphy.com using their FTP service.

Yesterday I got an email from Blogger that made me feel like they were breaking up with me. Apparently I have one of only .5% of active blogs that are published via FTP.

Dear FTP user:
You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your blogs at Blogger.com are set up to publish via FTP. We recently announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and wanted to make sure you saw the announcement. We will be following up with more information via e-mail in the weeks ahead, and regularly updating a blog dedicated to this service shut-down here: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.

There are about seven weeks before my FTP blog gets kicked to the curb. I have a lot of reading to do before I will fully understand my Internet options. At first glance it looks like I could let Google become my hosting service. Because I want my blog to be a large part of my site but not all of it, that may not be the best option for me.

Chris Townsend, the talented web designer who started Maverick Advertising, has suggested several times that I migrate my blog to WordPress. Migrating makes me nervous because I worry that something will be lost in translation. I dread the possible abundance of broken links. Nevertheless, I have set March 1 as a target date to make some kind of switch. The road ahead may be a little bumpy but I hope you'll stick with me.

put down your weapon

On the show "24," Jack Bauer has a reputation for beating confessions out of people. I am unbloodied and unbruised but I have a confession for Mr. Bauer nevertheless. I've been watching your show and enjoying it... from 2009.

As my DVR automatically started recording the new season 8 of "24," I began feeling bad that I hadn't seen season 7. Like many shows, I was saving the episodes to watch together with my wife. Our son viewed the whole season online while at college and raved about how good it was. Last week, after I had gotten caught up on some recent episodes of "Fringe," my wife gave me the go-ahead to watch and delete season 7 of "24" without her.

If I were doing a marathon viewing of "24" on DVD, it would be no big deal. Why does keeping it on a DVR for a year seem weird? Could it be the commercials and promos? In one of the first few episodes, I saw a news tease about the Pope's appointment of Bishop Stika.

I've also seen a lot of promos for the debut of season 8 of "American Idol." They show face after face of contestants headed to Hollywood. I recognized none of them. So far I haven't seen anyone who remotely resembles Adam Lambert or Kris Allen or Danny Gokey or Anoop Desai. It makes me think that the televised audition process is truly a waste of time. They may as well start the show with Hollywood week.

bowled over

That wasn't so bad, was it? Something I have been hoping for since 2006 happened last night. The Pro Bowl filled the football void on the Sunday before the Super Bowl.

I can't be the only one who liked the change. Ratings for the game were way up and I heard on NFL Network that the highest ratings for the game were in football-crazy New Orleans, which had no players on the field. Some people, like WATE's Mark Nagi, objected to the lack of Saints and Colts players in the Pro Bowl. I wonder how many Super Bowl players skipped the Pro Bowl in past years because they were too banged up to play again so soon.

I also wonder if those who didn't like the change were expecting a real football game. The Super Bowl players weren't the only ones missing. The AFC had to go deep into their roster to find a starting quarterback. It didn't matter, the game was fun to watch and AFC quarterback Matt Schaub turned out to be the MVP. Because of the physical nature of the sport, a football all-star game is probably less intense than a baseball all-star game. Well alright, let's say less intense than a basketball all-star game. No matter, the Pro Bowl is glorified two-hand touch anyhow.

As a Redskins fan, I thought I wanted the NFC to win. Yet, I was unhappy when an Eagles quarterback connected with an Eagles receiver for a touchdown. When a Cowboys quarterback was intercepted, ending any hope of an NFC comeback, I was pleasantly amused.

My gripe is that the NFL scheduled the game opposite the Grammy Awards. I would have preferred to watch the Pro Bowl before the Grammys. If I still lived on the West Coast, I guess I could have done so. However tape-delayed award shows are another pet peeve of mine. Some of us equate major award shows with major sporting events. The audiences for the Grammys and the Pro Bowl are not mutually exclusive. The Grammy ratings showed an increase too.

The 2011 Pro Bowl will be played in Hawaii, which probably means another evening start in the Eastern time zone. Let's hope that the higher ratings last night keep the pre-Super Bowl void filled with football. I still like my idea for a Consolation Bowl between the teams that lose the conference championship games. Anyone else?

fight to life

Father Michael Woods commented on the influence of social media during his homily at today's 11:45 Mass at All Saints Church. He had just returned from visiting Ashley Reisser and her family at UT Medical Center. The Maryville High School senior was critically injured in a wreck on an icy Pellissippi Parkway last night.

The story in the Knoxville News Sentinel spells out some of the horrific details. Ashley and her friends got out of her car after a fender bender, as did the driver of the other vehicle. Two other cars, a Mitsubishi and a Honda, also slid on the ice and collided with each other. The cars in the second crash hit Ashley and her friends and then hit the other driver from the first crash as he tried to help the girls. The red Mitsubishi drove away. The men in the Honda got out and ran. Knoxville Police are looking for a red Mitsubishi Eclipse with Tennessee license plate 825-SQP. It should have a broken left rear taillight and damage to the passenger side.

I first heard about the wreck from Ashley's brother-in-law, who is a good friend of mine. I was his RCIA sponsor last Easter. He is a parishioner at Sacred Heart Cathedral and needed to know how to contact a priest at All Saints, where the Reissers go. I texted Fr. Michael Woods, who was able to visit the hospital after the 8:15 Mass.

I told Fr. Michael about a Facebook page that had sprung up overnight. By 10:30 a.m., 1,578 members had joined the group "Pray for Ashley Reisser and everyone involved in the wreck." As of this writing, the membership has climbed to 3,881. Fr. Michael mentioned the group in his homily and told how the family was touched by the outpouring of prayers online.

Some reporters from WATE saw my prayer requests on Twitter and Facebook and asked me to put them in touch with the family. The story just aired on tonight's 11:00 p.m. news. A reporter from The Daily Times in Maryville posted her phone number on the Facebook wall, inviting family members to call her for a story to be in Monday's paper.

I was impressed by the "retweets" of the prayer requests. Some were by a morning deejay at a Christian radio station and one was by an outfit called Prayer Network. At least two others helped spread the word too.

The family members have posted some encouraging news on Facebook. Her sister wrote that Ashley probably should not have survived the crash but instead is showing some improvement. Although Ashley has a fractured skull and several other broken bones, doctors are optimistic for her recovery. The power of prayer is strong.

snow leopard

Abby Ham realized the problem right away. She knew some blog readers will mistakenly assume I have a shoe fetish. However her choice of footwear on a cold, slushy day makes it worth the risk.



Abby and her husband stopped by while I was working at the radio station's booth at the Healthy Living Expo. One of the first things she said was that she had worn the wrong shoes for the weather. I told her about the last three times the shoes of local news anchors had appeared on my blog. She agreed that it would still be funny to add her pumps to my online collection.



Of all the supermarkets in Knoxville, it made sense that Earth Fare would be the one with a booth at the Healthy Living Expo. I tried several of their free samples, including coffee from the Vienna Coffee Company in Maryville and chocolate milk from Cruze Farm in Knoxville.

One of the last things you might expect to see at the Healthy Living Expo would be a group of zombies. However when the familiar notes of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" played over the speakers, the zombies literally crawled out from under the tables. One or two of them grabbed my legs as they crawled to the stage where they did an outstanding job of replicating the dance from the music video.

metal-urges

The best piece of art I saw on my last trip to St. Louis was not in one of the city's famous museums but in a restaurant. To be fair, I didn't get to any museums this time but that shouldn't take anything away from the interesting wall hanging at the trendy pizza place π. They have a map of the 48 contiguous states made from pieces of license plates. Each state is represented by a plate from that state. Rhode Island is only the size of the letter R from its plate.



The map got me thinking about the seven states I haven't visited yet. I had tentatively planned to go to Mount Rushmore this year, however some news from the FBI Knoxville Citizens Academy Alumni Association has changed my mind. The group has rescheduled its annual field trip to Washington and Quantico. The new dates are in August, when I am allowed to take vacation.

cracker hack

The very addicting cracker candy that my wife made for Christmas was supposed to last until our son went back to school. The plan was for him to take some to share with his roommates. Yeah, right. Instead, my wife and I made another batch to send him as a care package along with the necktie he left at home.

Normally, cracker candy is made with Saltines. Because we like chocolate-covered pretzels, we substituted Flipsides and used dark chocolate chips. Upgrade! Here's the recipe for those of you playing along at home.

• Preheat oven to 425°

• Arrange crackers in a bricklayer design on a cookie sheet covered with parchment. (We used two disposable aluminum pans.)

• Melt two sticks of butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add ¾ cup sugar and stir constantly. Bring mixture to a boil for three minutes.

• Pour hot mixture over crackers and spread evenly with spoon. Bake at 425° for five minutes.

• Sprinkle chocolate chips over toffee. As they melt spread chocolate evenly with a spoon

• Top with chopped pecans or almonds (I used broken pretzel pieces!)

• Cover with foil and chill until hardened. Break into bite-size pieces, dropping the pan on the floor if you have to. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and mail them to college as fast as possible before they "accidentally" get eaten at home.

audio killed the video star

The digital TV transition last year prompted me to put a WiFi clock radio on my Christmas wish list. I wanted a way to listen to news during the 4:00 a.m. hour, which I used to do when WATE's analog signal could be heard on 87.7 FM. I now wake up to WTOP from Washington, DC.

When I have a few extra minutes, I've been scouring through the source codes for two radio stations' websites hoping to find a hidden URL that will work on my Sanyo device. I got 101.5 FM The Music Place to stream successfully but not WINC-FM. I will keep trying because WINC is my station of choice in Northern Virginia.

I have also been adding more stations and podcasts to the subfolders on my radio via Reciva.com. As I was scrolling through the thousands of available choices, I noticed that the TV audio streams from CNN and MSNBC are available.

Because I've heard that WiMAX is in our future and that we will all have Internet radio in our cars someday, I think it would be a good idea for local television stations to offer streaming audio of their newscasts. I could easily fall back into my old habit of listening to WATE. A local gospel station simulcasts WVLT's noon news, which is good if I happen to be in the car during those 25 minutes. WBIR has a cable channel called 10News2 that repeats their most recent newscast until the next one comes along. I think its audio would be ideal for Internet streaming. Who's with me?

laugh factory

On the trip to bring him back to school, one of the many things my son and I talked about was my blog entry about "Ed Gein: The Musical." I was pleased that the film's producers had seen my post and left a comment. They liked my idea for a parody song called "You: Suede Shoes."

I explained to my son that I didn't feel particularly funny when I was writing that post. Most of it was fairly standard but I thought it needed some jokes to close it out. Since comedy comes in threes, all I had to do was make up three quick punchlines. To do so, I used a comedy technique that I call "one from column A and one from column B."

In this case, column A would be a list of easily recognizable Elvis songs. I've been to Graceland and worked at an oldies station, so I knew plenty. If I didn't, a list is only a click away at Wikipedia. Column B would be anything Gein-related, like body parts or heinous crimes. Then it's just a matter of finding matches.

I suspect that certain movie companies in the San Fernando Valley use the same basic concept to name their movies. Last month, I used it to make up a bunch of "Avatar" jokes on Twitter.

heck of a job, brownie

Chef Walter is a favorite of mine. I try to watch his daily cooking segment as often as possible on the noon news. Several of his recipes have even inspired me to write blog posts, most recently the egg nog cake. Because I like him, I'm a little sorry to throw him under the bus for today's segment. However, I think that broadcasters can learn from it. The lesson is how not to interview kids.

Kids can be great interviewees because of their honesty. Google Art Linkletter if you need proof. Because they may not have their BS generators turned on yet, they can't be expected to fill in the blanks. When you ask a child a yes or no question, you'll get a yes or no answer.

Today's recipe looked promising. Who wouldn't want to try brownies with Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies mixed in? An actual Girl Scout stood alongside Chef Walter while he mixed the ingredients. It would have been nice if he had let her stir or at least pour something into the bowl but he did not.

At one point, he almost asked a question that did not require a yes or no answer and then changed it! He said, "Tell me about... I understand there's at least one new cookie this year, is that right?" She said, "Yes." After an awkward pause, Walter asked, "What is that cookie?" The girl replied, "It's the Thank U Berry Munch and it tastes like..." Walter cut her off and said "I just wanted to hear her say it, I knew that already. Say that again, Thank U Berry Munch is that right?"

Chef Walter also failed to answer the number one question on my mind. Would the recipe work with Samoas?