This week, there's been a few items across the table that I just couldn't let slip by. Hold on tight, kids, it may be a bumpy ride.

We're Getting The Band Back Together

I graduated from high school in the mid-1980s, and as such was part of the first generation of MTV-driven youth. Yes, children, Old Uncle Scott was there when "Video Killed The Radio Star" hit the airwaves and ushered in the Golden Age of Music Videos.

Of course, the early videos were primitive things, usually composed of concert footage with plenty of shots of the lead singer (and his hair) singing directly to some bosomy lass who, oddly enough, was standing in the front row and not having to fend off the jostling hordes behind her.

One of the bands that led the charge into making videos the creative wonderland they became was The Cars. Who doesn't remember the animated madness of "You Might Think" or Ric Ocasek's water-walking in "Magic?"

But like so many '80s bands, the glitter faded for The Cars, and they broke up in 1988. A chapter in music history was closed. We all bought our greatest hits album and figured that was that.

Now, I hear The Cars are getting back together. My first reaction was excitement. I always liked Ocasek's stuff, and his voice is one of those that will make me stop in my sometimes-obsessive radio channel surfing. Then, I listened to the story more closely and realized that no one had learned from the sad rock experiment that was Van Hagar. The new lead singer of The Cars is, I swear I'm not making this up, Todd Rundgren.

Don't get me wrong, I think Todd Rundgren's great. "Bang The Drum All Day" was my official Friday at 5 p.m. song for years, and "Hello, It's Me" is a classic rock love song of the highest order. However, Rundgren and Ocasek are so dissimilar as to seem to be from different planets.

Go ahead and form your group, guys, and I wish you all the Top 40 success you can shake a stick at. But, please, change the name.

Party On, Dudes

Any of you who have ever spent a night or three on the wrong side of a barred window know that, when The Man has you, the most valuable thing in the universe is a friend with bail money.

Not that I've ever been in jail, you understand. It was a holding cell, not jail, and the charges were dismissed.

At any rate, it also helps if your friend doesn't end up in jail himself while trying to get your bail money together. This is a lesson some teens in Pelham, N.H., didn't quite get their minds around, apparently. Hoping to raise bail money for a chum currently incarcerated in Massachusetts, they allegedly threw a party at the local American Legion hall ... at which over 70 folks, including the hosts, got busted on a variety of intoxicant-related charges.

Well, I just hope they got into the holding cells early enough to get a bunk. Those floors are cold.

Nice Kitty

Anyone who's ever attempted to get a house cat to do something it didn't want to do, such as take a pill or submit to claw clipping, knows the damage a feline can wreak when it chooses to do so. Save the tail, every end of a cat is pointy in some way, and they are wizards at applying all those points simultaneously to legs, arms or other more sensitive portions of the human anatomy.

A trucker in Gainesville, Fla., must have missed out on the experience of being owned by a cat, and it was perhaps this lack that prompted him to stick his arm into the cage of a tiger he'd delivered to a county fair. The big cat, disturbed by the intrusion or perhaps just in the mood for a snack, bit the man's arm, severing tendons.

Of course, there's also the chance that, as the trucker's sister said, alcohol might have had a teensy bit to do with the situation. Jason Hardin's sister said her brother was drunk and trying to "commune" with the tiger.

So we'll close this week with this admonition, kids: Don't drink and pet. Especially not giant man-eating kitty cats.

Anything weird going on in your world? Drop me a line, anytime!