I just posted the news that TNT has renewed The Closer for its fourth season (yee-ha!) and what did I notice but it was post 17,000.

SEVENTEEN THOUSAND POSTS?

Lordy.

As I write, I have one measly icon, a pink cupcake. I usually have four full rows of them. Now I have four rows of empty boxes, save one pink cupcake.

So, which one of you varmints stole my icons?

And so began the opening of Tom Snyder's "Tomorrow" show. Don't remember it? What a shame. Don't remember him? You missed something special.

Tom Snyder, who died today, was the original late-late-night talk show host. His "Tomorrow" show debuted one night in 1973, after the "Tonight Show" ended. The premise was simple: a darkened set, two chairs, Tom and a cigarette, one guest and conversation. Not chat, not 3-1/2 minute promos for a star's latest effort, but real conversation, about topics ranging from the events of the day, to politics to the arts. It was stimulating stuff, to which you really had to listen. Snyder was a journalist, not a personality, and he used his abiility to ask the right question and to communicate to create a show the likes of which no longer exist on network television. He was the Charlie Rose of his day, but also a real original.

I remember Tom Snyder when he joined the KNBC News Staff in the late 60's, to replace John Chancellor or Tom Brokaw, I think it was, when one or the other went to the network. KNBC was the proving ground for pre-network personnel in those days. He made the news individual with his quick, acerbic wit and cut-to-the-chase commentary.

But it was his interviews that brought out the best in him. Often intense and punctuated with his unique, robust laugh, he knew how to get the most from a half-hour conversation. But his secret was that he chose his guests not for who they were but what they brought to the conversation. I remember interviews with the likes of John Lennon, any number of political figures, and even Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. Two of my favorite guests were James Woods and Kate Mulgrew, both outstanding conversationalists themselves. Not surprisingly, they were staples on the show.

Unfortunately, as tastes changed, "Tomorrow" came to an end, and far too soon. Tom Snyder went on to do other things, all worthy. He was individual enough to be parodied on SNL, by none other than Dan Ackroyd. He eventually left NBC and joined CBS. But he never created quite what that original show was again.

I'll never forget Tom Snyder, that wonderful show, and his invitation each evening to come join him for the conversation:

"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."

I will, Tom, but it won't be the same without you.

I don't usually blog on my level, for no perfectly good reason, but...

I thought I would never make it out of the 30's. Funny. It's the one time in my life I'm actually glad to turn 40. Never thought I'd say that!

I had a random thought the other day about the random use of a random word causing random irritation in my life, so I made a random decision to put some random musings together in the form of a random blog. The word that spurred this action? RANDOM!

I am convinced that no one outside academia actually knows what the word means. As the "it" word of the moment, I hear it used plenty these days, largely as a synonym for words such as arbitrary, unrelated, unexpected and spontaneous (the most egregious misuse.) What I never hear is correct use of the word, other than by my colleagues discussing research methodology, a blessed sanctuary of correctness in an ill-defined world of misused randomness. I'll focus my treatise on the abuse of random in its adjectival form, used to describe an isolated event, since that's where much of the abuse occurs. We'll leave the application to people to another day.

Ya see, to be random, you generally have to be deliberate. And randomness involves multiple events. So no single occurence can ever be random on its own. It can be unexpected. It can be spontaneous. It can be arbitrary. It can be unique (and let's not get me started on people who try to qualify the uniqueness of an experience.) But it can never be random. Not something the average schnook seems to grasp, especially the late-teen set.

I've long conceded the English language, whether it be British or American (and the random use of random is endemic to both versions of the language) has begun to evolve in such a direction we'll sound more like Cher Horowitz than William F. Buckley in another generation. It's the product of language learned by contact, but not study or practice, and a certain reverse snobbery that makes unacceptable English de rigueur - a point of pride.

Proper use of English and a well-developed vocabulary seems to be something that frightens a great many people. The degree to which I'm accused of doing so for nefarious purposes, usually associated with intimidation or domination around here (generally by people who can't mount a decent argument, but that's another blog) is proof enough of that. The misuse of random is just the tip of the iceberg. We quantify discrete items in terms of amount, not number (the British got there first!), have deja vu all over again (the ultimate redundancy), should mourn the disappearance of the personal pronoun in favor of the generic that, and worse. And we never notice.

I despair for the precise, well-articulated sentence. It's becoming as extinct as the dodo. Instead, we are content to pepper our writing with text message-isms and misdefined words. Randomly.

And that, my friends, ends my random rant on random misuse of random. Comment on!