We don't have the rights to show Olympic footage, so in order to get around it we show footage that is out of focus. Tonight's "Out of Focus Olympic Highlight" is USA's Ted Legity winning the Gold in Alpine Skiing's Men's Combined. To me it looked the same on our show as it did when I saw it on NBC . . . . yes, I was all teary watching it when it happened on the Peacock. Way to go, Legity.

This Cheney keeps getting more and more interesting. Accidents happen when you go out hunting all liquored up. Dave used to love hunting when you were able to hunt cats. Cheney gunning down a 78-year-old lawyer is going to be very expensive no matter how you look at it. And heavens, if the poor gentleman passes away, the Vice President will be in a whole lot of trouble. Even though it was an accident . . . . Suddenly, Dave is interrupted by something he hears over his ear-piece. Dave then sends us to LIVE footage of the Washington Beltway . . .
We see a clip of a white Ford Bronco driving down the highway. Uh oh, this doesn't look like it will end well.
Afterwards, Dave remarks how it's amazing that he can be in touch with the Control Room simply by putting his fingers to his ear. Ahh, the technology.
And the Vice President finally made a statement earlier today concerning the accidental shooting and the ensuing "silent" heart attack by Harry Whittington.
Announcer: "Dick Cheney's hunting mishap turned serious yesterday when Harry Whittington suffered a heart attack."
(See shot of Cheney, as if he is speaking)
"Heart attack? Don't steal my act, bitch, or I'll take you out!"
(Photo of Cheney with a gun)
"And I think you know I will. Dick Cheney - Locked and loaded."

A MESSAGE FROM DICK CHENEY: "I / won't be happy until / I / shoot / every American / in the / face."

CHARTS AND GRAPHS: Ahhh, it's been a long time since Charts and Graphs; according to my records, February 23, 2005. Some of my favorites (and some of these may not have made it to air)
Favorite Winter Olympic Sport:
- 29% figure skating
- 20% bobsled
- 51% drunk skiing

Most common lies:
- 59% "I never got the bill"
- 40% "I overslept"
- 1% "I enjoy hosting a morning show with Regis"

What are you indecisive about?
- 50% not sure
- 50% don't know

Word that best describes the two-man luge
- 4% "thrilling"
- 7% "Exhilarating"
- 89% "Brokeback-y"

Thoughts that inspire United States Olympic Athletes
- 9% "I must bring honor to my country"
- 14% "This is my chance to show the world I'm the best"
- 77% "If I don't bring home the Gold, Cheney will shoot me"

Road rage statistics between 1976 and 2006.
- We see a graph that gradually rises, levels, rises, levels, sharp rise, sharp drop, levels, then drops. The line graph looks like the middle finger.

And that was Charts and Graphs.

Back from commercial, we revisit a favorite of ours: "Is Dave Being Insulted?"
Behind the scrim is a man or woman who can speak a foreign language. He or she will say something to me in their native tongue and Dave will have to guess if he was insulted or not insulted.
And what are we playing for tonight? Alan: "A soloflex."
And what language will the person be speaking? Alan: "Italian"
The scrim rises and the man says something to Dave in Italian. Dave knows Italians love him, but the hand motions of the man made him a bit nervous. Alan, was Dave insulted?
Alan: "Dave, the words just spoken to you . . . . were insulting! Yes, a literal translation of what our Italian paisan just said is, 'It is giving people great difficulty to understand how you are still on television . . . . . the sight of your face gives people much anguish to look at you!"
And that's how we play, "Is Dave Being Insulted?"

TOP TEN: Good Things About Winning a Gold Medal - So far, the United States Olympic Team has won 5 gold medals.
- Men's 5,000 Meter Speed Skating
- Men's 500 Meter Speed Skating
- Alpine Skiing Men's Combined
- Men's Snowboarding Half-Pipe
- Women's Snowboarding Half-Pipe.

And to present tonight's Top Ten list, your United States Gold Medal winner in the Men's 5,000 Meter Speed Skating, Chad Hedrick.
We see Chad via satellite from Torino, Italy.
#5. Makes one kick-ass belt buckle.
#3. I've already been approached by "Skating with Celebrities"
#2. I won a prestigious award without having to play a gay cowboy
#1. It deflects stray gunshots from Dick Cheney.

At the end, Chad Hedrick shows off his Gold Medal. Gold Medal?! It looks like an old 45 record! What kind of Gold Medal is that? I would have been so disappointed to win a Gold Medal that looked like that. Was there really a clamor for such a drastic change to the basic Gold Medal? What is Torino thinking? So I looked it up. Turns out that the Torino Olympics Gold Medal features a hole in the middle to represent the open space of an Italian piazza, or city squares. There are 163 piazzas in Torino. Sheesh. A hole in the Gold Medal? Nope, doesn't work for me, no matter the explanation.

And it's shiny? Shiny may be nice at first glance, but it gets old in a hurry. Got have the matte.

And when do the donut holes go on sale on E-bay?

CHARLES BARKLEY
- 11-time NBA All-Star
- 23,700 points
- 12,500 rebounds
- NBA's Most Valuable Player in 1993
- Named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history
- 2-time Olympic Gold Medal winner

Sir Charles always has something to say and certainly is not bashful in saying it. We will say some outlandish things but when he explains himself, they don't seem so outlandish.
Barkley has won 2 Gold Medals in basketball at the summer Olympics back in '92 and '96. The USA had a tough go of it at the last Olympics. What happened? Charles says in this country we always like to blame somebody, but it's simply the other countries have gotten go much better. We can't dominate the way we once did. Plus, I feel the players on 2004 weren't on the level of the Dream Team's Barkley played on. But if I had to select the Olympic team for 2008, I'd go with the same team as we had in 2004. I think they would go in with a different attitude. It would be fun to see.
Is Barkley watching the Winter Olympics? Charles thinks for a moment and says he doesn't. Why? Says Charles, "Brothers don't like the ice."
Barkley went to college in Auburn where they seemed to have 2 mascots; an eagle and a tiger (I think). One was more popular with the basketball team, one more popular for the football team. Would Charles like to have played football at Auburn or professional? He's got the size for it. Charles says football is too tough a sport. Lots of hard hitting. Charles sizes it up this way: "Football players are really tough . . . they are really dumb . . . but they are really tough."
Still golfing? Charles says, "No, I retired from golfing." Dave laughs, saying that golf is what you're supposed to retire "to," not "from." Why give it up? Barkley says, "I wasn't having fun . . . . I sucked. I played in a tournament and a girl beat me!" The girl? Cheryl Ladd! Charles sums it up: "If you're a man and you can't beat a woman or the smart kids, you stink."
Barkley said something about Oklahoma that got him in trouble. What was that? Charles sighs and says, "They are so sensitive," making an excuse before explaining. Something to do with there being no black people in Oklahoma. Is that true? Charles guesses it is because growing up he never heard a brother say, "Let's move to Oklahoma. It was always 'Let's move to New York City' or 'Let's move to Miami.' I never heard 'Let's move to Oklahoma.'" Has Dave ever gone to Oklahoma? Dave thinks and says, "I believe I've driven through it. Charles asks, "And did you see one?" Dave laughs and says, "No. . . . . I don't know."

Dave is currently reading a book about NBA basketball back in the 60s and 70s, particularly the rivalry between Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Charles says he has so much admiration and respect for the players of that era who blazed the trail to the NBA glory days of the 80's and 90s. And there is no one he admires more than Bill Russell, the great center for the Boston Celtics. Says Charles of Bill Russell, "When you have more championship rings than you have fingers, you're pretty good."
What's with the gambling-association problems facing Wayne Gretzky? Charles has been known to gamble in Black Jack and Roulette and Craps. Charles likes gambling. "Even when you're losing it's exciting, up until they take your money." Charles says he's worked hard for his money, it's his money, and he can do with it what he wants. He doesn't really go into the Wayne Gretzky situation.
Charles Barkley - great guest. His book is now in paperback, Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man? and he can be seen on "The NBA on TNT."

ACT 5: It’s Cheney in his white Ford Bronco.

CATHERINE KEENER: Academy Award nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Capote. This is her 2nd nomination; her first for her work in Being John Malkovich. Also up for the Supporting Actress Award this year:
Amy Adams: Junebug
Frances McDormand: North Country
Rachel Weisz: The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams: Brokeback Mountain

I haven't seen any of these. The only movie I saw in 2005 was Chicken Little. I liked it. The critics didn't.

The week she was nominated, she was also called for jury duty. And her first day of jury duty was the morning after the Screen Actors Guild Awards and what happens so often to so many following SAG parties, she was a bit hungover. She ended up falling asleep at the courthouse. She was sure people were looking at her and judging her. She kept thinking, “I am such a bad juror.” And then she was called to possibly sit for a DUI case. In the end she was not selected to sit on the jury, but it was an honor just to be nominated.
Catherine is making plans to take her son to Scotland for a getaway. She’s been to Scotland 4 times before and loves the place. It’s the perfect place to go for a person who has an interest in getting away from everything. I spent an afternoon in Edinburgh, Scotland about 15 years ago. It’s a place I would love to go back to. Beautiful place. On Catherine’s first trip to Scotland she met an 80-year-old guy in a pub. He needed two canes to walk. When the sun started to go down at around 10:00 PM, he got up to go home. She offered to walk him home. He lived at the top of a hill . . . . and it took nearly 2 hours to get him home. She said it was great.
In the film Capote, Catherine plays author Harper Lee (author of the book, To Kill a Mockingbird) who traveled with Truman Capote to Kansas to do research for a magazine article. We see a clip from the film, a clip which amused me. Capote is on my list of movies to see if I actually went to see movies. Hopefully I’ll rent it.

And that was our show for Wednesday February 15, 2006. Wahoo EXTRA!

This just in: Dick Cheney did not shoot anyone today.

It was big of the Vice President to take the blame for shooting Harry Whittington in the face. I guess he had to go with that story when he realized no one was buying the other story of “Hey, Harry’s face shouldn’t have been there.”

Did the police report mark it down as “collateral damage”?

I wonder when Scalia is going hunting with Cheney again?

Sometimes I wish everyone would just leave me alone. I don’t like it when people put ideas in my head when I am perfectly happy without ideas. For years I would have my instant coffee in the morning. It didn’t matter what brand; it didn’t matter that it was instant. I avoid Starbucks because once I have a $4.00 Starbucks coffee I will become tainted and then my morning instant coffee will never seem good enough. If all I ever have is instant and never experience the better, I will always be satisfied with instant. So I’m reading something in the LATE SHOW newsgroup and a woman, who will remain nameless here, says she can only drink coffee or tea out of a white coffee mug. Coffee doesn’t taste as good in a dark mug, she suggests. “Poppycock” was my reaction. But now when I drink my morning instant, I’m looking and studying how my coffee presents itself in a white mug as opposed to a dark mug. And dammit, a white coffee mug is better! Before, any mug was just fine and dandy but now that someone put the idea in my head that a white coffee mug makes a difference, I’ve convinced myself that, yeah, it does make a difference. How ridiculous is that! Coffee is coffee; the color of the mug container should make no difference whatsoever. But it does. And now what do I do with all my dark-colored coffee mugs? I can’t use them anymore. I don’t enjoy my morning instant nearly as much in a dark mug. It has to be in a white mug. At one time this irrelevant matter made no difference in my life, but someone put an idea in my head and now I have to accommodate my irrational mindset. White mugs only. I wish everyone would just leave me alone.

Tuesday afternoon I feared I forgot to put on deodorant in the morning. Things weren’t the way they should have been. I looked like Al Gore on the campaign trail. But my morning routine was no different from any other morning so I was confused. But I convinced myself I must have somehow forgotten to apply. Wednesday morning you could be sure I put “apply antiperspirant” at the top of my list. But then Wednesday afternoon I felt the same discomfort. What gives? I’m guessing I got a bad batch of “Dry Idea.” It ain’t working. In fact, I think it promotes perspiration. I asked Denise and she was excitedly said she realized the same thing. Never had a problem with the “Dry Idea” before. I guess they forgot to put the drying agent in this one.