KNOW YOUR CURRENT EVENTS
Before getting into the game, Dave says that later in the show we will have something truly amazing. NBC may have its Olympics but what we have tonight is bigger, better, than that. We will see it later in the show.

We are back to multiple categories in Know Your Current Events. Tonight's categories:
Know Your Current Events
Know Your Cuts of Meat
Know Your Hunting Safety Tips
Know Your American Idol
Know Your Academy Award Nominees for Sound Mixing

CONTESTANT #1. Vanessa, from Greenwich, Connecticut. She's a 5th grade teacher, teaching literature and math. Disciplinary problems? Yeah. How do you handle it? She sends them to the principal. "Do you ever see them again?" Vanessa introduces Dave to her friend Don who is sitting next to her. Dave says hello then mutters, "Looks like a first date to me."
Vanessa selects Know Your Current Events
Question #1 - Scientists are warning that what is melting at an accelerated rate?
Vanessa: "The ozone layer?"
No. Answer: "Michael Jackson's face."
Question #2 - Tom and Katie are denying what vicious rumor?
Vanessa: Breaking up?
No. Answer: "Tom had to pay 10 grand to repair Oprah's couch."

GIFTS: Dinner for two. CD, "Celtic Women." And a Late Show mug with the Late Show logo, eventually.

CONTESTANT #2: Laurie from Austin, Texas. She owns at a denim bar. Paul says he is familiar with the leather bars here in New York City. At Laurie's denim bar, they serve drinks while you shop. Hey, cool. And in Texas, I think they serve drinks while you go quail hunting.
Category selection: Know Your Cuts of Meat.
Laurie introduces her husband to Dave. The husband shakes Dave's hand. Dave says, "Don't get up." You can't win in this situation. Get up, and Dave will tell you not to get up. Stay seated, Dave will say don't get up.
Question #1: What is this cut of meat? Answer: Ground Veal.
Question #2: What is this cut of meat? Answer: Pork shoulder blade Boston Roast.

Biff is giving out the gifts today since Stephanie is in Torino. Dave sees Biff say something to a crew member and Dave asks what he said. Biff says "I told him not to get in the way of the camera." As Biff said this, Biff was in the way of a camera. I found this funny.

CONTESTANT #3: Nicole, a nurse from Lyndhurst, New Jersey. How's Jersey these days? Eh, not much happens in New Jersey. What kind of nurse is Nicole? Open heart surgery is her specialty. Ahhh, she certainly knows how to get to Dave's heart. He has nothing but high praise for nurses, particularly open heart surgery nurses. Dave asks, and I think I know where he was heading, he asks Nicole, "What do you think I remember most about the surgery?" Nicole says, "The Foley Catheter?" Dave laughs . . . and laughs some more. Yeah, that's about right. Nicole introduces her boyfriend to Dave. The boyfriend half gets up, but not all the way.
Category: Know Your Hunting
Question #1: (photo of a hunting cap with ear flaps) How does this cap prevent its wearer from being accidentally shot?
Answer: "The other hunters are laughing too hard to hold the gun steady."
Question #2: "Hunters should wear ear protection to drown out the sound of what?"
Answer: "Your friend shrieking, 'You shot me in the face, jackass!'"

And that was Know Your Current Events.

WILL IT FLOAT: TRAVEL EDITION - Tonight, our Will It Float team travels to . . . . The Grotto at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, California. Week One we went to Marineland in St. Augustine, Florida. Last week we were at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City. And who is at the grotto? Why, Hugh Hefner of course! And he is there with his three girlfriends, Holly, Bridget, and Kendra. Hey! What happened to Barbi Benton? Tonight's item: An ionic breeze air purifier.
Dave thinks it will float.
Paul thinks it will sink.
Hugh thinks it will sink.
One of his girlfriends agrees.
Two think it will float.
Our Late Show models toss the ionic breeze air purifier into the very inviting Playboy Mansion Grotto and it . . . . . . . . . . SINKS!
A proud Paul exclaims this was his favorite travel edition of Will It Float yet.

STEPHANIE AT THE OLYMPICS: We find Stephanie in Torino at the Monte dei Cappuccini. The building behind her: the Museum of the Alps. Has she met a lot of other Americans? Stephanie says she has met a lot of Italians. Imagine that!
Has she made friends tat will last a lifetime? "I don't think so."
How's the food? Stephanie had some slimy gnocchi that tasted like feet. And some pizza. Oooh, pizza, fresh from Italy! How was that? It tasted just like home.
Dave heard there was a traffic mishap; a slight fender-bender. While driving through a snowstorm, their car skidded and slid into another. While information was being exchanged, Tommy the writer was horsing around and threw a snowball that hit the guy's windshield. The poor Italian man looked to the sky and screamed, "Porque de miseri?!" which translates to "Why the misery?!"
And Stephanie met an Olympian today? Yes she did. We see a clip of her meeting Bode Miller. It's a guy who is asleep at the bar. Stephanie shakes the sleeping Olympian in an attempt to wake him; "Hey Bode. Bode! Bode!"

And that was Stephanie's week at the XX Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy. Of course, she could not have done it on her own. She introduces the crew that came along. We see Tom the writer; Hal Gurnee the director, and the camera man, Matteo. To get in the shot, Matteo puts the camera on the ground and joins the trio. Unfortunately, with the camera on the ground all we get to see is their legs.
It was good to see Hal Gurnee again. Seeing Tommy was no big deal.

Back from commercial, Dave repeats that we will have something really really great later in the show. Something really exciting. Something really incredible.

HUGH LAURIE: He on the big FOX hit show, "House." He plays a cantankerous doctor who is also a genius when it comes to diagnosing. Hugh is from Oxford, England but on the show he plays a guy from the States without an accent. He needs to concentrate on each word he speaks to be sure he utters it without an accent. It's not easy but he does a good job at it. He's not perfect, though. He read on an internet site where a viewer was complaining that Hugh's character laughs with a British accent. Now Hugh has to worry about his laughing. He admits to being a bit hypersensitive to such criticism and now worries about, "Am I breathing with a British accent, too?"

This being Olympic season, Dave points out that Hugh's father was also a gold medal winner in rowing in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. We see a photo of Hugh's father and rowing partner standing at attention during the playing of England's anthem as they received their gold medals. Hugh says rowing is a grueling sport and you're always facing the wrong way. And what was the rowing event? Hugh says it was "Coxless Pairs." You just knew something was coming.
Dave: "I thought he had kids?"
Paul: "I didn't even know he was sick."
Hugh did a little bit of rowing of himself but never neared his father's success. For recreation, Hugh has recently picked up the sport of boxing. He had "grown impatient of all things eastern --- martial arts, acupuncture, white pajamas --- and decided to take up boxing. He's been at it for a year now. One thing he has to overcome is the inner voice that tells him he is not supposed to hit people. He has to fight his cultural upbringing that it is not nice to hit people. But when he is sparring and that thought comes into his head, if he reflects on that thought, the opening he had to hit his sparring partner has come and gone. It's too late. Meanwhile, he then gets punched in the face. Hugh's learned not to pay attention to his culturally upbringing.
"House" - on FOX, Tuesdays at 9:00.

ACT 4: And now for the event you have all been waiting for . . . . . besides, of course "Goodnight, everybody!" . . . . set your Tivos, this is better than the Olympics! The scrim rises. It's a man and his monkey. The man tosses a ball to his monkey and the monkey catches it. The man throws another ball to the monkey, and the monkey catches it, too.

ACT 5: It's two Playboy bunnies in the Playboy Mansion swimming pool having a catch with a beach ball.

NE-YO: From his CD, "In My Own Words," Ne-Yo performed the suave and smooth "So Sick."

And that was our show for Friday, February 24, 2006. Wahoo EXTRA!

I'm not sure if a show has ever had two Hughs on the same show; Hugh Laurie and Hugh Hefner. Come to think of it, that's more amazing and incredible than the ball-catching monkey.
And get this; just as I typed the above, I hear on "One Life To Live" some guy is named "Hugh." I never really liked that name.

This just in: In order to relieve themselves of the hefty contract and the likelihood of an unproductive season due to injury, the Houston Astros just traded Jeff Bagwell to the New York Knicks.

Next time Jack Hanna is on, I'm going to pitch this for Dave:
"Oh, I meant to tell you I love your brother Benny's Japanese restaurant."

Hey, here's something. Remember Dave would say, "Time on the roundup, six past the hour." This is a phrase spoken by Christopher Glenn, the anchor of the CBS World News Roundup on the CBS Radio Network
"Time on the Roundup, six past the hour."
Well, CBS News Correspondent Christopher Glenn --- His last day was Friday, February 24th. Here's a short bio on the fellow I received from someone at the CBS Broadcast Center.

"A distinguished chapter in the history of CBS News comes to an end February 24th when correspondent Christopher Glenn retires after 35 years with the network. Glenn has been a fixture at CBS News since 1971, when he started there as a radio producer for special events. His radio work has won him many national awards, the latest being the Radio Television News Directors 2005 Edward R. Murrow award for Best Newscaster.
With his unique, instantly recognizable voice, most people still remember Glenn as the reporter and narrator of more than 5,000 episodes of 'In the News,' the Emmy-award-winning television series of current-events broadcasts for young viewers that aired between 1971-1984."

Stephanie Benoist of Paris:
This just in: Paris Hilton has been named in charge of Central Intelligence.

You have money for two songs on the juke box. What do you play?
Kath Creel of Sydney, Australia:
Mustang Sally - Wilson Pickett
All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow

The following is just an example of how life has changed within the past 15 years. From Tuesday's Wahoo Gazette, I mentioned Bill Buckner's error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series vs. the Mets. I wrote: "Buckner should have never been in. His defensive replacement, a guy named Stapleton should have been in. He was in all year in that situation."

I then received this from Wahoo Reader, Don Smith of Kingston, Ontario:

"Dave Stapleton only played 39 games for the Red Sox in 1986. Doesn't sound like he was Buckner's defensive replacement too many times."

"Buckner, hobbled with a foot injury, had no business being in the game, his presence there a result of John McNamara's decision to not put in Dave Stapleton as a defensive replacement as he had been doing all postseason."

Compare Game 4 to Game 7. Buckner's ankle must have gotten worse as the Playoff went on.
World Series; Boston vs. Mets: Stapleton played in 3 games.
Game 1 - in for Buckner in the 8th - Bosox winning 1-0 at the time.
Game 2 - in for Buckner in the 8th - Bosox inning 8-3 at the time.
Game 5 - in for Buckner in the 9th - Boxos winning 4-2 at the time.
Game 6 - the Red Sox were leading 3-2 in the 8th. Buckner made the last out in the top of the 8th and stayed in the game. The Mets tied in the bottom of the 8th. In the 10th, the Red Sox took the lead 5-3. Buckner stayed in the game. And you know the rest.

15 years ago, it would have taken me hours and hours to get this Red Sox information. Today, it takes just a few minutes. Years ago I wouldn't have gone through the trouble to look up the true information about Game 6 and so I would have gone through life thinking Stapleton had played 100 or so games filling in for Buckner. And few would have doubted my claim since they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of checking up on me. So much information right at our fingertips.

The other night during the show we needed to quickly find an athlete who had the nickname "Mongoose. Within minutes we found the following athletes with the nickname, "Mongoose.":
- Pete Sampras
- boxing's Archie Moore,
- Eddie Lukon, a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds back in the 1940's.
- drag racer Tom McEwen."