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So, ever so greatful to her viewers, Oprah Winfrey has once again shown some incredibly generous thanks .. she gave a Brand New Car! to everyone (all 276 people) in her studio audience on 13 September 2004 ... Did she learn nothing from the Very Special Episode of her show where Matthew Perry was killed while drunk driving?

Drinkers will know instantly what I mean by the phrase a regular. Although one may frequent the same bookstore, supermarket or shoeshine establishment--and although the staff at each may come to expect one's presence and even describe one as a regular customer--there is only one meaning that might be ascribed reliably to the simple phrase a regular. It is that the person so dubbed has a strongly preferred place to drink and that he props up a bar somewhere, or occupies a table, with such predictable frequency that his bartender or waitress rarely has need to ask what he will be pouring down his throat. The Simple Joys Of Being A Regular Media Dragon

Literature & Art Across Frontiers: Two More Tales of POD
POD (Samizdat) self-publishing remains irresistible for print journalists. Yesterday's NYT visited New Jersey bookstore Bookends' in-store operation, where they have printed 1,500 books on the premises for customers.
In the UK, The Telegraph looks at "do-it-yourself publishing [as] the new route to success for struggling authors." They cite Peter Murray, whose children's book Mokee Joe is Coming sold 12,000 copies and is now being republished by Hodder Children's (bought at auction).
• [It began with a prophecy at Paris' Saint-Sulpice church. An American visitor pressed a thick volume into the pastor's hands and said, "My father, this book is going to cause you many troubles Another sign the world is coming to an end: 'Da Vinci Code' Spawns Travel Fad]
• · Massimo Pigliucci Monty Python's guide to philosophy
• · · Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a bridge down the way that I need to go jump off of Maud and his Sympathetic Mood ; [Glass Half Full On the Chick-Lit listserv, a novelist posted a refreshingly positive definition of success ; Weep No More Writers ]
• · · · How-to for human behaviour...Always be hungry! Then you'll become like each other Their deepest drive is to bring together spring water and ripe cheese; decay and pink skin fresh from the bath
• · · · · What do we really know about Clinton’s dark places? Tell all autobiographies and thoughtlines rarely do that, especially when they’re politicians ; [Election 2004: Whitlam and Howard: Scarcely any other government has aroused a more agitated literary outburst than either of these two: the embers of Whitlam’s brief bushfire have been endlessly raked over both for the rapidity and range of its innovations and for the manner of its extinction; and, for all his determination to make Australians feel ‘relaxed and comfortable’ ]
• · · · · · I see water and the number seven: ,Ah, yes. But in fact, no police psychic has ever actually solved a crime