Gab

Seafair event: The June 11 Itinerary column in Travel referred to the kickoff event for the Seafair festival in Seattle as "Will It Float?" The July 1 event is called the Baffle Gab Milk Carton Derby.

As edgy Irish comedy-thrillers go, Robert Massey's “Rank” largely ranks as “Martin McDonagh Lite,” but like its more extreme noirish forebears, Massey's 2008 caper tale revels in skillfully expressive language, even in the most trivial exchanges - loopy digressions and non sequiturs are the main attractions in its U.S. premiere at Odyssey Theatre. Adhering to its genre formula, the play's Irish-inflected love of gab goes hand in hand with its mounting sense of menace, as down-and-out cab driver Carl (Kevin Kearns)

Joan Rivers' salty tongue got her booted from a British daytime talk show in the middle of its live broadcast. Rivers used two expletives while talking about Russell Crowe as a guest host on the live gab-fest "Loose Women." She was asked to leave during a commercial break. The 75-year-old comedian said in a statement Tuesday that she was sorry for the swearing and had assumed that a censor would "bleep" the words out.

Re “ Romney blames loss on Obama 'gifts,' ” Nov. 15 Will somebody please let Mitt Romney know that the election is over and he lost? He had many, many months to present his vision for the future, and America (which he might not realize includes women, minorities and young people) rejected it. He should have let his eloquent concession speech serve as his final words. Instead, he spewed a fictitious, bigoted and condescending view of why he lost: It wasn't because he was poised to roll back women's healthcare rights, give tax breaks to the rich or dismiss 47% of the country as takers; it was because young people, minorities and the working class were bribed with gifts and blindly made their decision based on free stuff.

My Korean Deli Risking It All for a Convenience Store Ben Ryder Howe Henry Holt: 320 pp., $25 No one in Ben Howe's Boston family can remember the last person who "worked with their hands. " When Howe marries into a large Korean American family, his life becomes a series of contrasts. In an effort to save money, Howe and his wife, Gab, a highly disillusioned corporate lawyer, move into the basement of Gab's mother's house on Staten Island. From here, Howe commutes to his job ?

I very much resent Mike Penner's implication [Aug. 25] that people who don't like Dennis Miller doing football are the ones who don't get his humor. We don't like his cluttering up the broadcast because we're all too stupid to understand him? Give me a break. I get him. I like him. But I'm trying to listen to a football game, not an HBO comedy special. Contrary to network belief, the lower ratings have been because of awful games, not the lack of endless, egotistical gab. I listened to a lot more of the broadcasts after Dierdorf left than I did while he was there, and I'm certainly going to have the sound off if Miller stays.

Kelly Osbourne has been released from the hospital after a five-day stay following a seizure the E! fashionista had on the set of her show "Fashion Police. " "Kelly Osbourne has returned home and has been given a clean bill of health by her doctor," her rep told E! News. The 28-year-old experienced a 30-second seizure while filming her E! roundtable show Thursday and collapsed on the set. She was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was admitted for several days as a precautionary measure so doctors could pinpoint what may have caused the episode.

"My career must be slipping--this is the first time I've ever been available to pick up an award." MICHAEL CAINE accepting award, above, as best actor, musical or comedy film, for "Little Voice." "I couldn't resist." CHRISTINE LAHTI who was in the ladies' room last year when named a winner, after walking onstage with a stream of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. "I would like to share this with every single senator who votes to dismiss the [Clinton] case tomorrow."

Sorting through today's phone gadgets and services can be intimidating, but the upside is that it's fertile ground for gift-giving. A wide range of stores sell phones and equipment, from relatively inexpensive wireless accessories to more involved purchases such as home phone upgrades, mobile phones or pagers. With mobile phone accessories, the key thing is compatibility.

Those who remember fondly the cult British sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" may want to know: Edina's in town. Well, not Edina exactly, but close enough: Former fashion public relations tycoon Lynne Franks, the real-life inspiration for the show, has come to L.A. to stay. First aired in November 1992 in the U.K. and in July 1994 on the Comedy Central cable channel in the U.S.

Barley Pop Bill showed no mercy. Those outlaws were fixing to steal his beer, and he went vigilante, blasting away with his double-barreled shotgun. Not satisfied, he drew his twin Ruger Old Army revolvers and riddled the outlaws with lead. As the smoke cleared, he smiled. Weren't nobody in Orefield, Pa., who'd be taking that brew bucket. Most friends call him Dale Green. Most people also pass their weekends in more sedate pursuits. But Green was spending his Sunday here at Guthsville Rod & Gun Club in eastern Pennsylvania, dressed from head to toe as a gunslinger of the Old West, sharing pistol smoke with 50 others doing exactly the same thing.

Football media days/daze staged annually by the Southeastern Conference compare to the frenzy of Super Bowl week, with a notable exception: Super Bowl week ends with a game. "This has got to be the largest credentialed media contingent for a nonevent," said Tony Barnhart, veteran multimedia sage of Southern football. The SEC credentialed 1,050 people for last week's gridiron fest at the Wynfrey Hotel. They take their "nonevent" football seriously down here. For three days, Wednesday through Friday, starting with Arkansas and ending with Louisiana State, fanatics of all shapes and allegiances jammed the lobby for the chance to glimpse their heroes.

My Korean Deli Risking It All for a Convenience Store Ben Ryder Howe Henry Holt: 320 pp., $25 No one in Ben Howe's Boston family can remember the last person who "worked with their hands. " When Howe marries into a large Korean American family, his life becomes a series of contrasts. In an effort to save money, Howe and his wife, Gab, a highly disillusioned corporate lawyer, move into the basement of Gab's mother's house on Staten Island. From here, Howe commutes to his job ?

If you want to feel like a goodwill ambassador, take a street-legal golf cart for a spin. You'll get plenty of waves, smiles and ride-along offers from wannabe passengers. You'll also get lots of incredulous stares, questions and requests from concerned friends that you call them upon arriving home. At least that was my experience in the week I commuted to work in the Club Car Villager 2+2. The four-passenger Villager is the first consumer-oriented low-speed vehicle, or LSV, from Club Car, the world's largest manufacturer of small, plug-in electric vehicles.

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama broke the ice on Monday, but both men left it to their spokesmen to characterize their 20-minute chat. "Terrific," the likely Democratic nominee's aide called it. "Very good," said the former president's spokesman. The two Democratic heavyweights spoke on the phone Monday while Obama rode from Kansas City, Mo., to Independence -- their first conversation since Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her exit from the race three weeks ago.

Joan Rivers' salty tongue got her booted from a British daytime talk show in the middle of its live broadcast. Rivers used two expletives while talking about Russell Crowe as a guest host on the live gab-fest "Loose Women." She was asked to leave during a commercial break. The 75-year-old comedian said in a statement Tuesday that she was sorry for the swearing and had assumed that a censor would "bleep" the words out.

ON the ledger sheet of life, it's not clear which of the two L.A. couples in Kate Robin's "What They Have" is more in the black. Both are attractive and artistically ambitious. Both are striving mightily for that ever elusive balance between self-actualization and self-acceptance. And both love to talk ad nauseam about where they're at. The play, which had its world premiere Friday at South Coast Repertory, is made up almost entirely of navel-gazing chat. In fact, the slightest of ambivalent feelings can launch an army of words on the different shades of emotional gray.

"Swingtown" is a CBS television show, scheduled for midseason, about partner-swapping couples. It's also what CBS executives lightheartedly call their new Internet strategy. The idea is to let their online material be promiscuous: Instead of limiting their shows and other online video to CBS.com, the network is letting them couple with any website that people might visit. "CBS is all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships," said Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive.