No deep thoughts to leave you with as I head to the wilderness for a week. Oh, what's the first thing off the top of my head, uh, OH, the A&W Root Bear is back! Not at the restaurants... just on the canned root beer. Also, the makers of Family Guy have a blog. Happy week!

Time for a fast food rant...

- I'm out cruising on the weekend when I start to crave a chocolate shake. Now, I like McDonald's shakes, but on this occasion, I decide no one really makes a milikshake like DQ. So I head to the new DQ "Grill 'n' Chill" where the only shake on the menu is something called a "Curly Shake." (If you're unfamiliar with the Grill 'N' Chill concept, basically they just take everything on a regular Dairy Queen menu and make and/or serve it slightly differently. And there's a fireplace, or something.) So anyway, I get my Curly Shake - it's a regular chocolate shake, with an extra dollop of soft serve on top, complete with DQ's trademark curl. It's given to me with a big plastic dome lid. Great, I think, until I realize I can't put a straw through the lid, and will have to remove it. Now, I'm in my car, and stuck with a shake with no lid. Plus, when the shake is gone, you pretty much need a spoon to eat that extra, unmixed soft serve that has sat on the top the whole time.

- By the way, I tried a spicy Burger King Tendercrisp. Good, but not as good as a spicy Big Crunch from KFC.

Watched a bit of ABC's coverage of the Indy 500 on the weekend. It's somehow strangely reassuring to know there isn't a single ABC broadcast that won't get converted at some point into a commercial for Disney World.

On my list in the last post, I forgot to include Arnold Stang (Top Cat), who is still with us. Any others y'all can add?

EDIT: I wrote this post on the 25th, and was unable to post it then for reasons that continue to mystify the experts.

No real explanation to offer for my, well, unexplained absence. It was just a busy week at work. Now for real important stuff -- like the deaths of four veteran cartoon voice actors in a week: Frank Gorshin (a lot of more recent stuff, plus he was the Riddler on "Batman"); Henry Corden (the second Fred Flintstone), Howard Morris (Mr. Peebles, Jughead, and he was on "Your Show of Shows" and "The Andy Griffith Show"), and Thurl Ravenscroft (Tony the Tiger, "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch" singer). Basically, from the field of voice actors from that now long-ago era, we're left with...

• June Foray (Granny, Rocket J. Squirrel, various witches)
• John Stephenson (Mr. Slate)
• Stan Freberg (Junyer Bear, the Three Little Bops)
• Dick Beals (little boy voices)
• Paul Winchell (Gargamel, Dick Dastardly, Tigger)
• John Fiedler (Piglet and a lot of on-camera stuff in some well-known pictures)

Also, as far as I know, all Betty Rubbles after Bea Benaderet are still with us. Interesting to note that according to IMDB, Betty #2, Gerry Johnson, has not acted since the 1966 Flintstones movie.

My world seems a little more important today: Louis Riel is the featured article at Wikipedia today, and, well, I'm a regular motorist on the Louis Riel Trail.

I'm looking for the old A&W tuba jingle. You know the one. Anyone have it, give me a shout. The fate of the nation rests on it.

Yup, having trouble publishing again. Things seem to be all right at the moment.

By the way, an update on the Radio Shack story, it seems the real Radio Shack is coming back into Canada, with plans for 30 Toronto-area stores by year's end. They're also trying to recruit associate-dealers of the Circuit-City owned Radio Shack.