Dave mentions Rachel McAdams as our guest tonight whose film, "Red Eye" opens August 9th. Tony "Cue Cards" tells Dave it opens the 19th. Oops! Dave looks down at the blue card and circles something. Oh, damn. Here we go again, I think. Did I mistakenly type August 9th and not August 19th? I went through the same thing last week when Dave called Jason Bateman, "Justin." I was wanting to call him Justin all day but had to keep reminding myself, "It's Jason, it's Jason." I retyped the opening billboard card right before the show and was worried I typed Justin and not Jason. I was scared to peek at the blue card the rest of the show. Upstairs afterwards I finally checked on the card and was greatly relieved that I had it right. But now again tonight I had to worry about August 9th vs. August 19th. At first I thought I didn't make a mistake. Then when I saw Dave circling something on the card I thought, uh oh, it's me. Not till Bill Maher's second segment did it dawn on me that Tony gets the movie opening dates from the blue cards. I get the info in the morning from the research department. I type up the billboard blue cards and walk them up to Tony's office. Tony writes up his cue cards and brings the blue cards back down to put in the show file. So if Tony told Dave it's the 19th, he knew that because he got that information from the blue card. I breathed a sigh of relief, dodging another bullet.

Safety First: Of course, you know it's time to put away the Late Show Bear. I missed all this as I was pacing backstage in angst thinking I screwed up the opening billboard blue card. Putting away the Late Show Bear tonight was head carpenter Harold Larkin. It was a fierce battle but Harold finally put the beast away. We were safe for another day.
Harold was the one on the left.

Dave has something he wants to clear up. It had to do with last week's Audience Show and Tell. One of the Show and Tell guys was from Missouri. He was in error when asked the capital of Missouri.

From the Friday August 5th Wahoo Gazette:

"I wasn't listening all that closely Thursday night (I was looking up the meaning of 'hydraulics') but the Show and Tell guy from Missouri, did he say the state's capital was Columbia? I remember thinking for a split second that it didn't sound right but the moment went by and I didn't dwell. According to Judy Havener of Fort Worth, Texas, the Missouri guy was indeed wrong. The capital of Missouri is Jefferson City. Nobody else e-mailed me. Nobody else on the staff mentioned it."

Over to Rupert's. Dave asks, "Hey Rupert, ever get rear-ended?" Rupert replies, "Not yet." Again, I missed if Dave had already mentioned "rear-ended." It came up in the pre-show Q&A. I missed the early part of the show, still fretting over August 9th vs. August 19th. Tonight with Rupert, we'll be playing "Guess What Melted." Rupert runs out to get a contestant.

"Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" opens on Friday. We take a look at the promo that's been running.
Announcer: "The reviews are in and critics can't stop talking about 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.'
-'Silly, raunchy fun' proclaims Joel Siegel.
-'Laugh-out-loud funny!' raves Jeffrey Lyons.
- And Roger Ebert declares it's 'just like my early years as a male prostitute in Denmark.'
'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.' Now playing."

In a new "Time" magazine interview, Condoleezza Rice reveals that she doesn't like e-mail. The White House thinks this kind of detail has humanized her, and they're running with it. We take a look at the White House announcement.
Announcer:

"The Bush Administration is hard at work protecting the nation. At the same time, one should remember that even the highest ranking government officials are just people with their own little quirks and foible . . . just like me and you. For instance, Condoleezza Rice doesn't like e-mail. Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't eat fried food. And George W. Bush doesn't know how to read. The White House: Working For You."

Dave then asks Alan to tell the audience and home viewers what it is that we melted out on 53rd. The control room turns off the audio to the deli as Alan whispers, "It's an orange ice cream pop." Dave is excited with the item and blurts, "Oh, an orange ice cream pop!" We return to Rupert and Ashley and Dave asks, "You didn't hear that, did you Ashley?" Ashley, knowing some of her kindergarten students are watching, exhibits a good example for the children when she admits, "Yes, I did."

DOH!

Dave admonishes Alan for allowing Ashley to hear the melted item announcement. Alan, of course, is innocent. His announce was a definite whisper. The problem occurred, I believe, when the control room turned the audio back on to the Hello Deli just before Dave repeated the item, "an orange ice cream pop!" Uh oh. Now what? Rupert asks Dave, "Should I go outside and get another loser?" Good idea. Dave sends Rupert on his way.

He returns moments later with Katie from Vermont. "Montpelier." The game is quickly explained to Katie. She goes outside (did she?) and examines the melted item. Her guess: "A melted creamsicle?" DING! We have a winner. Katie wins a rolling backpack, and for her honesty, Ashley does too. How did Katie know it was a creamsicle? She says she talked it over with her mom when she was outside. Dave becomes suspicious. Paul credits her for using one of her lifelines. I think Dave was starting to work a "disqualification" angle but when his next question went unheard by Katie, he decided to end it right there.

And that's how we play "Guess What Melted."

APE OR ARTIST? - Behind the curtain is an abstract piece of art. The question: Was the art created by an ape? Or by a professional artist? Dave and Paul must decide. This is our 7th installment of Ape or Artist, each time prior the work of art has been done by an ape. What are we playing for tonight? Alan announces, "Dave, we're playing for a rolling backpack."
The scrims rises and Dave and Paul discuss the work. Paul leans towards it being the work of a human. Dave opts for the ape. Alan? Is it an ape, or an artist?
Alan: "Dave, it was painted by . . . . an ape! A resident of St. Paul, Minnesota's Como Zoo since 1980, Amanda enjoys strawberries, grapes and the occasional pudding pop. A Sumatran/Bornean Orangutan living in the Primate Exhibit, she has been painting since June 2000, with her artwork regularly selling for more than $300. Back to you, Dave."

TOP TEN: Strategies of Saddam Hussein's Attorneys - Saddam fired his team on international attorneys and has hired a lone Iraqi to lead his defense.
#8. Answer every question with, "No, you're thinking of Iran."
#6. Brand prosecutor's list of 12,000 witnesses as "flimsy"

BILL MAHER: From the HBO program, "Real Time with Bill Maher," which starts its 3rd season on the 19th. He's also the author of the book, "New Rules - Polite Musings From a Timid Observer."
I missed the beginning of the segment as we were rewriting an ACT 5 stemming from something that happened earlier in the show. I was startled to hear Dave, or was it Bill, mention Donz. I soon realized they were talking about Don Imus, and used Don in the possessive, "Don's."

How's the war in Iraq? Bill says the problem with the Muslim extremists is they don't get laid enough. They aren't poor, they aren't uneducated, they are simply frustrated and angry and stressed out because they don't get laid enough. They don't get the needed sex. He reasons that is why Bill Clinton never started a war. He was forever making sure he was "taken care of." Personally, I too have a lot of frustration, anger, and stress . . . but, sadly, none of it's self-directed.
The war? Bill says if everything went right, if we entered Iraq and everything went exactly according to plan, we may have had a 50% chance of succeeding.
Unfortunately, we have done everything wrong; not the foot soldiers, but the people with the gold stuff on their hats and ribbons on their chest.
One thing Bush has done that politicians never do: he sent us to Iraq with a long-term view. Politicians tend to do everything for the short run, satisfying the short thinkers. Long range, this may be the right thing to do.

In his book, "New Rules - Polite Musings From a Timid Observer," Bill mentions some new rules he believes should be implemented into our daily lives.
-New Rule: The next reality show must be called "America's Stupidest States." We will start at 50, and each week if you state does something really stupid with, say, evolution or images of the Virgin Mary on a danish, your state will move on to the next round. Of course, the final five will always end up being Alabama, Utah, Kansas, Texas, and Florida. "Sorry, Tennessee."
-New Rule: Get rid of the baby changing station in the men's bathrooms. Let's stop pretending that it has been, or ever will be, used. You're only tempting a short homeless man to use it as a Murphy bed.
-New Rule: Stop athletes from saying they do it for the love of the game. They don't. They do it for the money. If pro sports paid a minimum wage, Shaquille O'Neal would be a bouncer at Scores.

I've been thinking about that 3rd rule a bit lately. If you halved every salary in pro sports, how many athletes would quit? Zero. Would Alex Rodriguez still play baseball if he made $10 million a year instead of $20 million? Sure, he would. You can go up and down the entire baseball, football, hockey, and basketball roster and it would be the same for all. None of them would quit.

Bill Maher - his "Real Time" starts its 3rd season on HBO August 19th.

ACT 5: It's our friends Ashley, Katie, Rupert, and the models chowing down at the Hello Deli.
By the time we got to the ACT 5, we knew the show would be very heavy, meaning, too much show for the one hour allotment. In order to save on some time, we went with a much shorter ACT 5 than we had put together earlier in the program. Instead of the minute and a half piece, we went with a few seconds of the above in Rupert's.

RACHEL McADAMS: From the film, "Red Eye." It opens August 19th. Rachel says she bumped her knee on the 2nd guest chair as she attempted to get to her seat. And you all wonder why we have 2 guest chairs? Dave offers first aid but Rachel says none is needed. Our lawyers immediately flagged that portion of the tape.
Rachel is also in the big summer hit, "Wedding Crashers," with Owen Wilson, Christopher Walken and Vince Vaughn. Working with them on the set in Maryland was great fun. I expect to see "Wedding Crashers" eventually. If I don't rent it, I'll wait for it to come on the HBO.

Rachel is from Canada and this summer she and her friends have been traveling to different cottages up in northern Ontario on Manitoulin Island.
It must be a popular place because it produced applause from the audience. On one part of the trip, they went on little 4-seater plane. The pilot – a friend who just graduated from flight school. Ooh, sounds like fun.
Also on vacation, her friend killed a chicken. It's OK. Her friend is a vet and he isn't afraid of killing chickens. Why kill a chicken? Because they were hungry. The vet-friend went out into the yard, took the plumpiest chicken, and snapped its neck. Ewwww. How'd it taste? Rachel says it was the best she ever had. Like most Americans, I like meat. I just don't want to know the process of it going from grazing in the field to my dinner plate. I do all my animal hunting at the A&P.

"Red Eye" opens August 19th and Dave calls the film, "creepy." Rachel plays a hotel manager on vacation. One scene finds her on a plane about to go down. The director directed the passengers to act as if they were in a plane that was about to go down. Some prayed. Some screamed. One sang opera. Unfortunately, the sound of the plane in turbulence (actually, a plane on a hydraulic platform) made too much noise and it took lots of work to eliminate it. You couldn't even hear the opera guy.

And that was our show for Monday, Augusts 8, 2005. Wahoo EXTRA!

We lost. The Town Board voted last night and it has decided that the beautiful, natural, serene rail-trail that runs behind our neighborhood is to be paved over with blacktop. Yes, the people in charge in Orangetown, New York are living by the credo: "It's a beautiful path! Let's pave it!" The $4 million project of blacktopping the path will benefit in-line skaters and . . . . and. . . . .well, that's it. The bike clubs admit the trail is fine now for those on trail bikes, Schwinns, and Huffys, but not for the Lance Armstrong wanna-bes. They also admit that the 10-speeders and 20-speeders won't be using the paved path anyway since they prefer the local roads.

I laugh every time I read this. It's the CBS summary of their new show, "Ghost Whisperer." It stars Jennifer Love Hewitt.

". . . it focuses on a young newlywed endowed with the unique ability to communicate with spirits, who has spent her entire life coping with this extraordinary gift, but who also yearns to lead an ordinary life--if only the dead would stop talking."

I was watching some weekend TV last week. CBS had regular golf, NBC had old-man golf, and ABC had women's golf. I decided to go outside and pull weeds. It was more entertaining. I was going to write this yesterday but I decided to wait a day.

With NHL hockey making its return this October after a year's lockout, I thought this might be a good time to catch up and renew my interest in the game. I was once a big fan of the NHL, particularly the Islanders, but have strayed away these past 20 years. I've been considering renewing my interest with the NHL's return. Then I read today that Vancouver Canucks forward Todd Bertuzzi, the guy who blindsided another player with a cheap shot from behind and breaking his neck, will be reinstated after being suspended for what amounted to be 20 games. Steve Moore, whose neck was broken, may never play again. And there's more. Bertuzzi was then extended an Olympic invitation for the Canadian team to participate in an orientation camp in Kelowna, British Columbia. Hey, that's the Olympic spirit! Great idea, NHL! You know what? I think I'll put my return to the NHL on hold. I pass for now. The NHL has some P.R. department, don't they?

I'm still having problems e-mailing myself from home to my computer here at work. All my quotation marks, single quotes, and dashes end up appearing as question marks. I think tomorrow I'll send it out that way so you too can experience my pain. Hey, AOL, what am I doing wrong? Or what are you doing wrong? It was all fine BEFORE you upgraded me. Ahh, isn't progress grand?

31 years ago today, this letter dated August 9, 1974, was signed by Richard Milhous Nixon:

"Dear Mr. Secretary,
I hereby resign the Office of the President of the United States."

"Let me make this perfectly clear, I am not a crook."