I hereby revoke my recent praise for Delta Airlines and American Express for the “first bag free” benefit for passengers carrying the Delta/AmEx credit card. As I learned last night, I’ve just oversimplified the free bag benefit. And the companies are happy to squirm out of it when the fine print allows.

When I was about eight years old, I had a neighbor named Brad. Brad had discovered a garage door opener that matched the one belonging to another neighbor. As you might imagine, secretly closing the door on top of the neighbor’s car generated hours of amusement.

While in Canada last weekend I had a chance to get together with some of the gang from my first gig in radio news. I did the Saturday and Sunday “96 Second News Updates” on CKRA, which was known at the time as 96 K-Lite FM. When I got home I dug up one of the first tapes of me doing a radio newcast. AUDIO

Picking up on my complaints about the “New York 1” apple, Asylum NY asked me to suggest some alternative names. And I was happy to oblige.

Sometimes, an interview is just solid gold. That was the case of Antoine Dodson’s on-camera chat with a news crew. Dodson was already considered a hero for coming to his sister’s rescue during an attack. But little did he know that his words would be remixed, turned into a ring tone and make him into YouTube’s latest star.

This morning, I read that scientists at Cornell University have created two new apple varieties. They’re calling them “New York 1” and “New York 2.” Seriously? The best they can do is to borrow the name of NY1?  It’s not like there’s been a run on apple names recently. Granny Jones was taken? So was Silvery Delicious?

Somewhere in New York City, a chest of golden coins lies buried. $10,000 dollars worth, to be exact. And to find the booty, all you have to do is follow the clues posted online by a couple of pirates. Actually, they’re posted by a couple of guys with pirate puppets.

I’m mostly an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of guy. I didn’t really need “new Tide” because I thought old Tide cleaned the clothes just fine. I haven’t upgraded to an iPhone 4 yet because the 3GS does almost as much. And I drive a 1999 car because, well, it ain’t broke and only has 60,000 miles on it. So I wasn’t overly enthusiastic when the friendly guy behind the counter at a CVS in Atlanta told me I should try the new M & Ms.

After the Jay Leno-Conan O’Brien fracas, it’s been a long time since the adjective ‘adorable’ has been used to describe NBC. But Mediaite got its hands on a video short that they describe “as quite possibly the most adorable take on the origins of NBC?s peacock logo.” And I’ve got to agree.