This Just In ...

Crack reporter Frances Monahan had me in a fit of giggles last night at the Barnes and Noble in Squirrel Hill. Much to the chagrin of the serious writer churning out his masterpiece to my right.

-- KDKA political editor Jon Delano will do a feature on his favorite local
bakery, where he always orders six bear claws and a half-dozen bear claws.

-- Despite KDKA's efforts to make certain that we provincial Pittsburghers
don't confuse anchor (and CMU graduate!) Sonni Abatta with newcomer
meteorologist Valerie Abati, hordes of viewers will continue to confuse the
two (who are practically doppelgangers to our aging-demographic eyes). This
will prompt station management to force Sonni to change her television surname
to Skies. This move, of course, will prove even more confusing to local viewers,
who will assume Sonni has been relegated to the weather department. The
confusion will soon end, however, when Sonni is picked up by a bigger market and returns to her given last name. Local message boards will lament the loss of
Abatta -- um, Skies -- for months, perhaps even years.

I love the KDKA newswomen. Sonnis, Kristine, Lynn, Stephanie, Brenda and, of course, Patrice. I love their hair ups and downs, their clothing choices, their bright perky smiles and everything else. But I must admit that my favorite on-air pair would be Ken Rice and Jon Burnett. John never fails to rattle Ken which always cracks me up. He even gets the brow to furrow.

He's a mad genius.