It was a big Saturday for me! The Game Show Network was doing a daylong tribute to Charles Nelson Reilly, who died last week, by showing a bunch of Match Game episodes. Naturally, while others were out, in the picture perfect weather, walking, running, golfing, boating, gardening, etc etc etc, I was hunkered down with a bowl of Cheetos and a handful of M&Ms to watch the orange glow of the 1970s burst through my TV set. I've mentioned here before that I always liked Match Game when I was growing up because it seemed kind of naughty. Of course, by today's standards, the show should be called Match Tame. Anyway, there I sat..transfixed by the outrageously colorful, wildly patterned clothes, the piles of hair, the chunky jewelery. And, that was just on the men. It really took me back to adolescence. Unfortunately, I watched so many episodes in a row, my skin broke out, my voice started to change and I called my mom to ask if I could borrow the car.

After the slate of games, they showed a documentary on the show which featured the iconic star Jayne Mansfield as a celebrity guest. She walked onto the stage carrying her little dog. Take that, Paris Hilton. You're only about 45 years late with that bit of kitsch. There really is nothing new under the sun. Anyway, I loved rewatching the show and enjoyed the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly. I think, as an homage, I will start doing my weathercasts in the Match Game style: "Today's temperature will be so hot, you'll have to carry ice cubes in your (BLANK)." "Dumb Dora said 'It rained so hard last night that, this morning, my (BLANK) floated away'." "We could have so much snow by tomorrow morning that even Frosty the Snowman might need a (BLANK.)"

While I was tele-vegetating on Saturday, my wonderful wife was running in the Hospital Hill Half Marathon. That's 13.1 miles, as I heard several times for the rest of the weekend. She was not particularly impressed that the dog and I had walked our normal morning route. Speaking of that walk, I am going to vent a little here about cell phones. One of the joys of walking early in the morning around the ponds and marshes in our neighborhood is listening to the birds sing, the breeze rustle through the trees, the water lapping on the shoreline or nothing at all. Early Saturday morning, there was a woman walking her dog on the other side of the pond...talking at the top of her lungs on her cell phone. I learned that she had taken the weekend following the 4th of July off from work...that her new drapes looked great...that the "others" were planning a lunch. I'm sure she's a very nice person and it's great that she was out for an early stroll, but I wonder if all that chatter could've waited. I suspect that if John James Audubon had been present that morning, he'd have tossed her in the lake.

The trouble with cell phones is that they are always being used where they shouldn't be and, conversely, not turned on when they should be. I get very frustrated when I try to call one of the kids or my lovely, racing wife and get the "please leave a message" message. Not Alec Baldwin-frustrated, but a bit miffed just the same.

*One last item from the weekend, my brother Mark had a birthday. My wife is convinced that Mark has a birthday every six months or so but it really is just once a year. Here is a little bit about him...some of which I've mentioned before:

He served our country in the Air Force and Air National Guard for nearly 30 years. Thank you.

He is now just beginning his second career as a postal worker who prefers comparisons to Cliff from Cheers rather than Newman from Seinfeld. Naturally, my kids insist on calling him Newman.

He had an unusually large head as a small child...looking a little bit like a diapered Pez dispenser. If there were Super 8 movies of him as a lad, you could have seen things like lawn chairs, trash can lids and small animals being drawn toward him due to the gravitational pull emitted by his noggin.

He has an appropriately large brain inside his inappropriately large skull.

He must be a more handsome man than I ever suspected because, as I get older, my kids tell me I look increasingly like Uncle Mark.

Happy Birthday! I said: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!