IT TOOK THE UNITED STATES UNTIL 1988 TO BAN THE SALE OF LAWN DARTS: And, maybe, the javelin is next to go.

ON THE WHOLE, I'D RATHER BE IN PHILADELPHIA: This morning in my hotel room in Philly, I was surfing through channels and was struck by two things:

• I happened on Dracula 2000, which wouldn't have caught my interest except for that when I turned to it, it was in the midst of a sequence where first Omar Epps and then Christopher Plummer are brutally beaten by Dracula (who apparently has developed bullet-time powers). This is followed by a ludicrous spectacle involving Jeri Ryan threatening another woman, but I was too distracted by Ryan's fake fangs.
• ESPN Classic was airing a pair of episodes of American Gladiators, and I found myself rather inexplicably transfixed. Of course, the show makes no sense--are we supposed to be rooting for the "everyman" contenders, or "Your American Gladiators?" But the spectacle that is Atlasphere cannot be denied.

Also, I briefly wandered into a toy store, which rather inexplicably (and in poor taste) had a substantial selection of Chris Benoit action figures on display--it was clearly an act of obliviousness rather than active bad taste, but still, gave me the willies.

FOR US I SEE IMMORTALITY IN PHILADELPHIA CITY: Last night was great -- myself and Matt, Kim and Mr. Cosmopolitan [have we ever established his online name, because "Mr. Cosmopolitan" is kinda cool], Phil and Philomena Throckmorton, and commenters Jeff Martin and "Looking Italian" had a pretty great time with the sing-a-long 1776 musical and afterparty at Lucy's Hat Shop. Wherever we do something like this again, you should come -- it's good to put faces to names.

A few words on the sing-a-long 1776 itself -- they've got the bones of a great experience there, but it needs some work. For starters, parts of the film are just way too boring for the kids in the audience -- the Broadway-record twenty minutes of no-singing between "The Lees of Old Virginia" and "But Mr. Adams," plus the absolutely show-killing "Molasses To Rum" and John & Abigail Adams duets. But other aspects were great -- animal sounds, shouts of "Huzzah!" and all the new calendar dates, snoring loudly when Franklin slept, etc.

So what they ought to do is divide it into "family" and "grownup" performances. For the kids, edit out all the boring stuff from the DVD, use the narrator/host to explain what you're skipping, and add more (and less tacky) props for the kids -- something better than a plastic made-in-China 50-star flag, for example. And you can bring it down to and hour-and-a-half, easy.

And then the grownups can have their fun separately, and with this, we had some ideas:

• Whenever Josiah Bartlett of New Hampshire does anything, shout "What's next?"
• For Delaware's ailing Caesar Romney, "Hail Caesar!"
• For William Daniels as John Adams, do you go with Mr. Feeney or K.I.T.T. references?
  
• For each of Ken Howard's entrances as Thomas Jefferson, "Shadow!" would be appropriate. Either that or "Dump Sydelle!"
  
• Also, with the kids gone, there's more you can do with Jefferson's "lust" issues.
• That said, we're probably the only group that had people snapping to honor Edmund Burke's being quoted.

Anyway, we had a great time. What's next?

THE WSOP REMINDS PLAYERS TO DISABLE THEIR CELL PHONES, PDAS, AND SPIDER SENSE: It's that time of year again where I remember that I forgot about the start of the World Series of Poker. Day 4 is in progress, and as usual Pauly at Tao of Poker is there with the fringe-insiderish scoop. Kind of hard at this point to see who the chip leaders are, but a quick look at Poker News confirms that there are were at least a few celebrities in action today, including Tobey Maguire (television's Seabiscuit), heroin-aggrandizer Sully Erna (lead singer for Godsmack), and Simpsons producer Sam Simon, who got outflopped early in Day 4 action. Potential but unlikely celebrities include geologic-temperature-unknown Steve Austin and decent NFL linebacker Chad Brown.

HE, APPARENTLY, CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH: It appears that the pile of "upcoming Spielberg projects" has yet another member to go alongside the Liam Neeson-fronted adaptation of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, his first Tintin movie, and something that sounds a whole lot like Sliders. This one's of particular interest, since it's apparently an Aaron Sorkin-penned script about the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. One of the oddities of Spielberg's career is that when he works back-to-back, he often generates two stronger films than when he takes time off (Jurassic Park/Schindler's List, Minority Report/Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds/Munich). So, who plays Abbie Hoffman?

SEE THIS SYSTEM HERE? THIS IS HI-FI, HIGH FIDELITY. WHAT THAT MEANS IS THAT IT'S THE HIGHEST QUALITY FIDELITY: In recognition of today's release of the exceedingly well-reviewed Petey Greene biopic Talk To Me (Carrie Rickey, Tony Scott, Roger Ebert), it's time to say something nice about its star, Don Cheadle, who assuredly is not as famous as he deserves to be.

I don't know that the man's ever given a bad performance, though if I had to pick a favorite it's either Maurice "Snoopy" Miller in Out of Sight, as Sammy Davis Jr. in HBO's Rat Pack biopic or as Mouse in Devil in a Blue Dress, i.e. "the one where everyone noticed him for the first time." (Okay, I haven't seen Hotel Rwanda yet, which makes me both a bad moviegoer and a bad citizen of the world, nor have I read his book on the genocide in Darfur, but his continuing activism on genocide in Africa deserves to be recognized as well.)

(Also, try to watch this duet with Adam Sandler without cracking up.)

I just like Don Cheadle, and I am happy to see him get more leading roles. You?

GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT: Two weeks into the great Oakland garbage strike -- in which the two sides appear to be advised by, respectively, a North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax -- Waste Management still is running about the worst PR campaign I've ever seen. For two straight days, they've publicly announced that they're making all the scheduled pickups. Maybe if they say it one more time, I won't even see the can full of smelly diapers that's been sitting in front of my house through two straight garbage days now, surrounded by an expanding ring of loose bags, or as I like to call them, feral cat magnets. I might actually have been predisposed to favor WM in this dispute, but lying about having fixed my problem isn't exactly making it easy.