Get Your Knowledge On Part I...

• Cingular and ATT Wireless aren't waiting until their merger is complete to start blending their networks. Good news for subscribers to each... I hope. I'm an ATTWS subscriber.


• A friend of ours is in Kingdom Hospital (pictured here, on the left), which will start airing next week at 8pm on Thursdays, instead of its former 10pm Wednesday time. A good move, perhaps, in that more people watch television on Thursdays, but they're putting it against CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NBC's The Apprentice. Not a good move. This was to be ABC'S ratings cash cow, having such a prosaic season. It's a shame to move such a good miniseries into the ratings guillotine.


• OPEC is trying to screw us again with a 4% cut in crude oil production. Good plan, we're already bleeding, why not open the wound. Is this proof enough that the war maybe wasn't about oil? Democrats, that's your cue.


• The smoking ban in Connecticut begins today. I was the last to smoke a cig in the bar last night, beaming with pride and internally weeping at another lost freedom. Will it hold? I'll watch the stats.


• Get your drugs from Canada! New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson does.


• 3 1/2 to 7 years for sending out 825 million bulk emails. Connecticut law, which is the most severe when compared to Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New York (most lenient), gives up to seven years for possession of a narcotic (heroin, crack, cocaine). I'd be curious to see if a casual drug dealer makes more than a bulk emailer.