Available here in Flash format.

Also, The Straight Dope answers the question, "In Nintendo's Duck Hunt, how does the TV know when you've hit a duck?"

Years ago, I had a $7 Radio Shack radio. It was AM/FM, dial-tuned, a little bigger than palm-sized. I put it under my pillow at night and listened to the Orioles' games. The broadcaster for many of those games was Chuck Thompson, who died a week ago. The Post has an obituary and an appreciation.

As fast as Americans flick their remotes today, it's amazing the shows we'll stop and briefly watch.

For instance, Crossroads Cafe appears on the loal Montgomery College channel. This show "offers a complete program designed to teach English to speakers of other languages, by depicting the lives of six characters–their backgrounds, challenges and their struggles, which are typical of many ESL/ESOL learners."

I have now spent five minutes of my life watching.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has done a terrific retelling of the Atlanta woman's hours as a hostage.

I spent a few minutes going through the great X-Entertainment the other day. If you're unfamiliar, X-E is the site that not only remembers '80s commercials and TV shows and things you thought were totally rad, but then it goes and writes thousand-word essays about them.

Among my favorites in this browsing:

• X-E reviews Grover's The Monster at the End of This Book. After reading my brother's copy back in the day, I'd agree with X-E: It deserves a thumbs up. Grover has his sappy moments, but he does silly better than Elmo has ever dreamed.

• X-E reminisces about Hulk Hogan's commercial with the Honey Nut Cheerios bee. The '80s was full of inspired commercial pairings, but Hulk-bee was one of the best. "Watch in awe as Hulk Hogan more or less threatens to eat every infant on the planet before being cooled down with a soothing bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios." And, yes, there's a link to the video.

• X-E goes in-depth on cheap fireworks. Among others, featured are snappers, snakes and tanks. The names may put an image in your mind, but you may be unsure that this image is indeed what X-E is writing about. I have to ask you one question. Are you thinking of somethng that qualifies as a cheap firework? Like, barely a firework? If yes, then X-E is writing about it and making huge animated gifs of it in action.

• X-E reviews the Nintendo Power Glove commercial and supplies the video link. "Championed in The Wizard, anyone who owned a Power Glove when it first arrived was pretty hot shit."

• BONUS. The same page includes review and video of the Nerf fencing commercial. "Very few sets exist nowadays, something I attribute more to the fact that kids love chewing foam than the natural degeneration by age of said foam."

"Breakfast with the Beatles."

Way back in the fall, I was sick. Fever bounced up and down all day long and lingered in the 102 area. Throat didn't cooperate either.

So for the first time on my own, I found myself getting a prescription for medicine. I was in my local Safeway, and the pharmacist was asking for my prescription drug card. If I didn't have it, the up-front price would be much more expensive and I'd have to submit a claim later. So, I thought to myself, this was how that card worked. Who knew?

Trying to save myself some up-front cash and later-on annoyance, I stepped away and found my health insurance card. Still not the right card, but something. Maybe someone at the health care company would know a phone number for the drug people, I thought, because sick people probably called them by mistake all the time, right? You bet. The call center woman had the number ready.

As I wrote down the digits in my handy-dandy mini-notebook, I found myself kneeling next to a box of Berry Crackles, the most ridiculous-looking box of cereal I'd ever seen in my life. I'd never before attempted to imagine a hallucinating squirrel — dancing with his goofballs on corporate grocery dollars — but at that moment I knew I'd never need to try.

"As it will be your student's first home away from home, the dorm room should be as comfy and as well equipped as possible. These products will save your student time and money and make the transition to college and scholarly life a little easier."

Then CNET recommends the "Avanti Teba minikitchen oven with two-burner cooktop" and the "Haier Pulsator portable washer," presumably because no one mixes electricity and water in confined spaces as well as college freshmen.

Boston Globe story: "Handwriting is making a slow comeback in some schools after decades in which many educators shunned serious penmanship studies."

Financed by the erasable pen cartel, no doubt.

Mobile PC magazine has assembled a great list of the Top 100 Gadgets of All Time. If you're not a gadget guru, don't worry. This is a people's list. Making just the 100-90 section are the BeDazzler, the Pez Dispenser, the Schick razor, and the Metronome.