TRADER BOB, MEET DIRTY SANCHEZ: Inspired by a re-read of the comments to Adam's The Price is Right post, I pose the following dichotomy: Price is Right game or deviant (apocryphal) sexual practice?

• Barker's Bargain Bar
  
• Bismarck
  
• Blumpkin
  
• Bonkers
  
• Bullseye
  
• Cleveland Steamer
  
• Double Digits
  
• Donkey Punch
  
• Fisheye
  
• Flip Flop
  
• Flying Camel
  
• Golden Road
  
• Golden Shower
  
• Hole in One (Jordan: "you knew he would nail the distance putt every single time")
  
• Hot Lunch
  
• Plinko
  
• Punch-a-Bunch
  
• Push Over
  
• Secret X
  
• Stack the Deck
  
• Swap Meet
  
• That's Too Much
  
• Tossed Salad

Not as easy as you thought, huh?

Yes, I am a 14-year old boy.

THE GOLDEN ROAD: So, for the first time in I can't even remember how long, I'm staying home from work today because of a variety of ailments, starting with a 102 fever and ending ... well, let's just stop there.

I used to love sick days as a kid growing up for one reason: The Price Is Right, one of the favorites of everyone here. (See, e.g., Isaac's "Price is Right game or deviant (apocryphal) sexual practice?" challenge.) So while I'm on the couch ailing, how about telling us a story from your sick days growing up?

POOR BOYS AND PILGRIMS: Courtesy of the laptop I borrowed from the office and the office's Internet connection, just some random observations from Memphis for you.

1. When did Chrysler's PT Cruiser become an "economy vehicle" for car rental purposes? I figured when I rented an "economy" car, I'd get a Dodge Neon or something along those lines. Instead, I'm tooling around the Mid-South in this surprisingly compact behemoth. Also, the car radio has the novel feature that (at least for some stations), the artist and title playing scroll on the radio. (On a side note, is Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway" as annoyingly ubiquitious everywhere else as it has been here?)

2. Is there anything you can't make a slot machine theme out of? I had some luck on "Price Is Right" and "Hollywood Squares" machines, but I think my favorite was "You Might Be A Redneck If..." penny slots. Just as a thought, if you're playing "You Might Be A Redneck If..." penny slots, you might be a redneck. I wound up losing about 10-15 bucks, but given that I got a free lunch, pretty much a breakeven.

3. Are the members of Men At Work so desparate for money that they felt compelled to license "Who Can It Be Now" to Kmart for use in their Halloween costume ads?

4. One thing I always do when I'm in Memphis is visit one of my favorite independent bookstores. Just one reason why I love it? It's one of the very few places where you can find "Satan Is Real" on the record shelves and a copy of "The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader" on the table right next to it. I only purchased one of the two, in an effort to balance the sales, though.

QUOTE OF THE DAY/WEEK/MONTH: Thank you, Shaquille O'Neal, as quoted in Book Magazine:

Nietzsche was so intelligent and advanced. And that's how I am. I'm the black, basketball-playing Nietzsche.

Tale of the Tape:

Nietzsche: Born in Röcken bei Lützen, Germany (Prussia)
O'Neal: Spent teen years on US Army base in Germany.

Nietzsche: University of Bonn (theology and philology)
O'Neal: Louisiana State University (general studies)

Nietzsche: Apointed to the chair in philosophy at the University of Basel at the age of 24.
O'Neal: NBA first overall draft pick at the age of 20.

Nietzsche: Famous for concept of the "superman".
O'Neal: Famous for tattoo of Superman logo on bicep.

Nietzsche: plagued by mental illness throughout his career
O'Neal: plagued by foot injuries throughout his career

Nietzsche: On his rival Voltaire: "Oh, Voltaire! Oh, humaneness! Oh, nonesense! Il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien. I bet he finds nothing!"
O'Neal: On his rival Yao Ming: "Tell Yao Ming I said 'ching chong fong chang bing dong'."

Nietzsche: "No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
O'Neal: "I'm tired of hearing about money money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok."

Nietzsche: "The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god." Beyond Good and Evil
O'Neal: "Grab my belly." Kazaam

Nietzsche: "Those who know they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity."
O'Neal: "My game is like the pythagorean theorem: There is no answer."

Nietzsche: "Only sick music makes money today."
O'Neal: "Some of my favorite songs--and I don't know if this is the right terminology--are white-boy classics."

Nietzsche: "I am the anti-ass par excellence and thus a world-historical monster -- I am, in Greek, and not only in Greek, the Antichrist. ... I come from heights that no bird has ever reached in its flight, I know abysses into which no foot ever strayed. I have been told that it is impossible to put down one of my books -- that I even disturb nightly rest."
O'Neal: "Yo. I ain't no joke. I'll slam it, jam it, and make sure it's broke."

Lakers coach Phil Jackson gave O'Neal Ecce Homo to read three years ago, and explained why in an interview: "Actually, when Nietzsche wrote that book, he was 27, maybe 28, had a very, very pompous opinion about himself and wanted to tell the world, you know, "here I am," you know? And so I thought that, you know, Nietzsche was definitely appropriate for him because here's a guy who's 28 and hasn't won a championship yet. You know, Shaq didn't get all of these connections, I'm sure. But he knew that something very... there was something very subtle that I was sending him a message about, you know.

"He's a superman, man of steel, that sort of thing. But the books basically say, you know, is this something that corresponds to where you're at in your life, and can I connect with you at this intellectual level. And what I tell them is it's nice to have a companion besides the TV when you're on the road, something that you can, you know, turn that TV off, and you know, open a book and read it before you go to bed at night and understand that there is another world that can open up to you in your intellectual imagination."

Good news for teachers everywhere: when the choice for on-the-road entertainment was between partying with the ladies and studying philosophy's immortals, the Big Aristotle choice Nietzsche.

IN DEFENSE OF REGGIE BUSH: Okay, I lied. This isn't exactly a defense of Reggie Bush.* Bush cheated, and he should give back his Heisman, and the NCAA should actively try to ferret out cases where athletes are breaking its rules, and if athletes break those rules, they should be punished in proportion to the violation, which in Bush's case would have meant permanent ineligibility. Punishment, consequences, yes. Demonization and anger, no.

(It feels like everybody must have an inkling of who Bush is, since the less you know about football, the greater the probability that you know about Kardashians. If you watch neither ESPN nor E!, however, the short story is that when Bush was a standout running back at USC, he took almost $300,000 in "gifts" from an agent. USC has now been sanctioned essentially for not paying close enough attention while Bush was being paid, among other things.)

THE PRICE IS WRONG, B****: "There were red faces at CBS yesterday - and profuse apologies - after the network broadcast a rerun of "The Price Is Right" that included a "showcase" prize package featuring a trip to New Orleans."

And yet, Fox had more class and foresight -- yes, Fox! -- pulling Sunday's "Family Guy" episode because of various hurricane references.

NOMONEYBALL: To understand the complicated problem that is the Los Angeles Dodgers, imagine that you want to buy Microsoft in its entirety. You surely don't have enough money to buy Microsoft, and no bank in its right mind would loan you the money. But why should that stop you? Why not just have Microsoft take out a loan for the purchase price, then give that money to you? You are the owner, after all. And then Microsoft just has to make enough money over the term of the loan it took out to pay off the purchase price. This is how Frank and Jamie McCourt bought the Dodgers. There is nothing inherently wrong with this -- companies are bought this way (more or less) every day. It's even how Ted Turner bought the Braves. The trick is convincing a bank that Microsoft-plus-you will be profitable enough (presumably, though not necessarily, so much more profitable than Microsoft-without-you) that Microsoft can pay its debt to the bank while returning some profit to you. That was the idea behind the McCourts buying the Dodgers without using any significant amount of their own money.

The idea probably wasn't that the McCourts would cause the Dodgers to take on even more massive debt, shed assets, and use the proceeds of the debt to pay the McCourts' lavish personal expenses. And then make sure that the family's salaries and the family's kids' salaries and the family's half-dozen mortgages and personal staffs' salaries are paid, even though the team isn't paying its bank debt and might not even be able to make payroll for the players -- the ones who play baseball, which is what the Dodgers supposedly do. And then hold a big divorce party, where the only thing that the two sides can agree on is the signing of a huge television contract where a quarter of the $385 million that Fox was going to loan (not give, loan) the Dodgers up-front goes not to the Dodgers, but to the McCourts personally, because the Dodgers have better things to do with $93 million than pay banks and players -- Frank and Jamie need their $65,000 a month (each) allowance (that's a real number, by the way).

AND THE ACTUAL RETAIL PRICE OF THAT KOOSH BALL IS... Now, there can be much disagreement about who (if anyone) should replace Bob Barker as host of The Price Is Right, but I think we can all agree that it not working out with Rosie O'Donnell is a Good Thing.

CAPE COD COMMERCIAL HOOK FISHERMAN'S ASSOCIATION: We never did get up a post about last week's Top Chef Masters, but there wasn't that much to say. No superstar chefs or ooh-I've-got-to-learn-this preparations (okay, maybe the Pissed-Off Prawns), and a finish that was tight but not terribly dramatic.

No, I want to talk about judge Jay Rayner, the irascible Tribesman from London, because I'm just about finished reading his The Man Who Ate the World: In Search of a Perfect Dinner and it is surely worthy of your summer reading time. From Vegas to Dubai to Tokyo, Paris and beyond, Rayner travels the world on an unlimited budget (and with a lot of freebies thrown in) to chase down its titular quest at three-star Michelin restaurants, one-on-one sushi sessions, a five-restaurant, one-night trek across Manhattan (Per Se, Le Bernadin, Jean-Georges, Eleven Madison Park, Bouley, and WD-50) and elsewhere. He's an entertaining, opinionated writer -- deeply opposed to what he sees as the cult of authenticity among many foodies, and with much to say about why we -- or, at least, he -- will spend so much on high-end dining:

The fact is I have no problem with the notion of spending large amounts of money on hugely expensive restaurant experiences. I make no apologies for this, even though our puritanical culture so often demands it. £200 ($400) a head for lunch? Yes, please. £50 ($100) for a starter? Seems fair enough to me. £75 ($150) for a main course? Bring it on. In France I would not need to explain myself. There, spending serious volumes of cash on dinner is a national spectator sport.

Elsewhere, behavior like this puts you in the same grim league as politicians and muggers. It’s regarded as an obscenity; an experiment in excess as filthy and reprehensible as snorting cocaine off the flattened bellies of supermodels or slaughtering white Bengal tigers to provide the fur trim for your panda-skin gloves.

There is one reason for this and one reason only: We need food to survive. Therefore it is a necessity, and to crash the plastic until it smolders on a necessity—one that some people don’t have enough of— is regarded as wrong. That is to completely misunderstand the point of restaurants and high- end gastronomy.... [N]obody goes to restaurants for nutritional reasons. Nobody eats hot smoked foie gras with caramelized onion purée to stave off rickets. They go for experiences, and what price a really top experience?...

What does that money buy you? Nothing but memories, and the right to say you were there. Serious gastronomy is no different. ... For the price of a dinner we get to experience life as a wealthy person, only without having to sell our souls as investment bankers, rape and pillage developing nations or exploit downtrodden. It doesn't matter how long it took you to save up (and how low down the wine list you have to shop). If you can pay the bill, you become one of them.

If you are or aspire to be one of them, you'll enjoy Rayner's book.

A TWENTY-ONE CLANG SALUTE Vincent DeDomenico, the creator of Rice-a-Roni, died Thursday at the age of 92. I honestly don't know if I have ever had Rice-a-Roni. Nevertheless, Rice-a-Roni's sponsorship of shows like The Price is Right and Dialing for Dollars is the earliest memory I have of someone trying to sell me something.

Of course, as a Bay Area native, I might not be the right person to eulogize the man. I assume for much of this readership, the Rice-a-Roni commercials were your first regular glimpse of San Francisco, much as Sesame Street still colors my view of New York.

ACTUAL RETAIL PRICE WITHOUT GOING OVER IS ... Did they really tape the last "The Price Is Right" without having Bob Barker play Hole In One (Or Two) one last time? No Cliff Hangers? I'm disappointed.

It will air next Friday, June 15, both in daytime and on primetime.

YouTube - The Price is Right exact showcase bid

KEN JENNINGS WAS NEVER THIS PERFECT: Actual retail price of your showcase is ... well, this guy yesterday proved the show's title to be true for the first time in 30+ years, and Drew Carey has no idea how to react.

IT'S A DOGGY DOGG PRICING GAME:As Our Friend Linda Holmes put it, "If you woke up this morning thinking, 'What I need is a clip of Snoop Dogg hanging out on The Price Is Right helping a lady win at Plinko,' then you are in luck." Indeed you are. Later this week, according to the article--appearances from Jenny McCarthy, Chris Daughtry, Heidi Klum (who I'm sure will remind the TPIR models that zis is also a competition for you too as well), and NPH.

WE COVET WHAT WE SEE EVERY DAY: Two reasons to be jealous of our friend Daniel Radosh this week:

• He's joining the writing staff for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, due to his very funny blog. (And I'm sure ALOTT5MA is ready, willing, and able to sell out if the price is right.)
• For the cover story in this week's NYT Magazine, he was tasked with profiling Harmonix, the development of Rock Band: The Beatles, and how Rock Band is changing how we experience and buy music.
  

THE TRUTH IS, SHE DIDN'T EVEN NEED THE 'L':  Chris Jones, the Esquire writer who this summer investigated the guy who had the perfect Showcase Showdown bid on The Price Is Right, explains exactly how Caitlin Burke knew what she was doing on Wheel of Fortune:

When Burke first sees a puzzle, she immediately begins breaking it down into smaller pieces — "chunks," she calls them. Each word becomes its own miniature puzzle. In Burke's case, she was given a couple of leads during the Prize Puzzle of last Friday's episode. The third word was a single-letter word, which had to be either A or I. And more important, there was that apostrophe in the opening three-letter word, between the first and second letters.

Of the few hundred thousand words in the English language, only two — I'VE and I'LL — fit that construction. Which meant the single-letter word was almost certainly A. The first phrase that popped into Burke's head while she hoped for her turn at the wheel — I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING — didn't come close to fitting the puzzle, but it made I'LL seem an unlikely starting point. Because HAVE is the word that probably follows I'LL, and here, Burke was searching for a three-letter word....

I'VE... A... I'VE GOT A...

YES, BUT HOW'S HIS RICK JAMES IMPRESSION? Comedy Central is developing a show around Jeopardy! master Ken Jennings:

"What I want to explore is Ken Jennings as Peter Parker or Clark Kent, Spider-Man or Superman -- the normal man-superhero parallax, the normal, meek guy who, put in a competitive situation, becomes a killer," [producer Mike] Davies told The TV Column. "Think 'Price Is Right' with games of skill and intelligence in a multi-game format. Explore Ken against . . . the rest of the world and in national costumes when we can get it."

He declined to discuss any more details, citing "international format theft."

ON BEYOND "CHESTNUTS" AND ALL THAT: Today (the 24th) from 11 AM to 11 PM (EST), WXPN's sublime and soulful Robert Drake will be hosting the 13th annual "The Night Before" show, an awesome mix of seasonal music, from versions of classics you’ve never heard to songs simply celebrating the winter season. Believe me, you will enjoy this show.

Recent show have featured songs of the season by Citizen Cope, Ruth Brown, Ottmar Liebert, El Vez, Bare Naked Ladies, Madeleine Peyroux, Winton Marsalis, They Might Be Giants and more... See here for more information and for a stream of last year's show.

Here are ten holiday songs that I love.

1. This Christmas - Donny Hathaway. Pure exuberance from the immensely talented soul singer. “And this Christmas will be/ A very special Christmas, for me.”

2. Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! - Joe Pass. From the excellent CD Six String Santa by the renowned jazz guitarist. Pass has a wonderful tone and technique, but what makes this version of the familiar tune really come alive is the sparkling way that he and his quartet play with the rhythm. The disc is on sale for the princely sum of $4.99 at amazon.com, a small price to pay for a disc that will make you smile.

3. Linus and Lucy - Vince Guaraldi. This is the most up-tempo track from the transcendent A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is often regarded as the best Christmas CD of all time. My sons dance around the living room every time we play this. Listen to the clever changes in meter, the lively percussion, and the swooping piano lines.

4. May Christmas Bring You Happiness - Luther Vandross. “May the happiness that you’ve been looking for/ Finally find its way to your front door.”

5. Step Into Christmas - Elton John. Released in 1973 when Elton John was at the very peak of his amazing career, this song is a pure pop confection that never fails to bring a smile to my lips and a bounce to my hips.

6. Who Took the Merry Out of Christmas? - The Staples Singers. If you love the infectious groove of the Staples Singers big hit “I'll Take You There,” then you will almost certainly love this song. The lyrics begin with a list of things that have caused people to forget about the true meaning of Christmas (“too busy fighting wars,” “too busy buying toys”) and then turn things around with a powerful chorus urging everyone to put the “merry” back in Christmas. The words and music make you believe that this is a truly attainable goal, and, more profoundly, a meaningful chance for peace, racial harmony, and prosperity for all. Good stuff.

7. O Little Town of Bethlehem - Sister Rosetta Tharpe. As you can tell, I generally prefer secular songs, but this sacred song is simply stunning.

8. Some Day at Christmas - Stevie Wonder. Released during the Viet Nam War, this song, sadly, is pointedly relevant once more.

9. It Doesn’t Have to be That Way – Jim Croce. Loneliness during the holidays is a common theme among Christmas songs. Croce's tender tale gets all of the nuances just right. If you have ever been lonely at this time of year (and who hasn't), give this song a listen. I think you will find that it rings true.

10. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Shawn Colvin. Possibly my favorite version of this Christmas classic, Colvin’s song simply touches my heart.

ONLY TWO LITTLE CHILDREN, BUT I DO HAVE KIND OF A COLD THIS WEEKEND: Of late, the Cosmo family has been seriously in need of a little hey-remember-when-we-used-to-eat-at-restaurants-that-don't-serve-chicken-fingers time. So tonight we enjoyed Danny Meyer's riff on barbecue at Blue Smoke. (Interestingly, Blue Smoke is about as kid-friendly a restaurant as they come, but that is perhaps a topic for some other blog.) One of the great things about the restaurant, other than the seriously yummy pulled pork and Memphis ribs, is that they have really gotten the music right. Kinda bluesy, kinda jazzy, kinda R&B oldies standards -- and played at exactly the right volume. Towards the end of our meal, some version of Stagger Lee that wasn't the one you usually hear came on, and while Cosmo Girl was rocking out, Mr. Cosmo and I drove ourselves nuts trying to remember who sang the version you do usually hear.

When we got home, I checked iTunes, and discovered two things: (1) the standard version of Stagger Lee is sung by Lloyd Price, and (2) do you have any idea how many people have recorded this song?? Everyone from Wilson Pickett to Nick Cave to the Dead to Bobby Rydell to Neil Diamond to Bob Dylan to Ike and Tina Turner to Professor Longhair to Huey Lewis to Fats Domino -- it's insane. The only song I can think of off the top of my head that's been recorded as often is Amazing Grace, which is sort of cheating. Got any others?

SOLUTION: STOP BELIEVIN': Something has been popping up in the reviews of the finale of The Killing that echoes a complaint that came up in a similar form with the ends of Lost and The Sopranos and in a different form with the long delay between Books 4 and 5 of the Game of Thrones series. The complaint, asserted by tons of people (including some of our friends) is "Show X has broken its contract with viewers by [failing to deliver the promised resolution/leaving mysteries y and z unsolved/failing to deliver what the consumer expected]."

HE INTRODUCES THE ACTS: CBS is the only major network with a network daytime game show anymore with the deathless The Price Is Right, but apparently, they're discussing reviving Pyramid as a replacement for the now-canned Guiding Light. If they are reviving the Dick Clark classic, who do you want to see host and who should be regular celebrity players? Are there other game shows that need to be revived to fill the slot?