John Guilfoil's blog

As seen on PRrag.com!After 50 years on television, 35 years worth of Showcase Showdowns, one Adam Sandler throwdown and a plethora of cameos and appearances, Bob Barker is set to unplug his signature pencil-shaped microphone and call it quits from "The Price is Right" this summer.

The 6'1" television legend will turn 83 on Dec. 12 according to a CNN report. Barker's television career began when he served as emcee for the game show "Truth or Consequences" starting in 1956. He hosted tie 1976 Miss Universe pageant and made appearances on numerous television shows. He made his big screen debut in 1996's Happy Gilmore where he played himself and beat the hell out of Adam Sandler's character. Surprisingly, also played his first non-self acting role in 1996 in NBC's short-lived "Something So Right."

As seen on PRrag.com!

A lot of people have been pressing me to write an article about some of the implications of the Mark Foley sandal.

I'm not going to.

This public relations guy prefers not to dive into the pool of swarming political tigers and mass media birds of prey vying for a piece of this guy as they carve their way through Washington, people's lives and the upcoming elections. I wish not to wait on line with liberals who are ordered up taking turns firing at the Republican party as they smell blood. Or with the conservatives who dig defensive trenches and draw a line down the aisle among the "other issues."

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In New England, the Major League Baseball season ended yesterday with a Red Sox bittersweet, rain-shortened 9-0 victory over Baltimore.

The season started out well for Boston, who dominated the rival New York Yankees early on, only to be swept in a five-game series later in the summer. This caused the Sox to permanently slip out of first place in the American League East Division and quickly lose sight of the postseason.

Injuries came in waves throughout the season. Pitcher Matt Clement was lost for the season in June, and any hope of his return was lost July 30 when he was placed on the 60-day disabled list. Lenny DiNardo went down with a neck strain in May and did not return until late August. Tim Wakefeld was also lost in late-July and would not return until September. The wheels fell off Aug. 1 when captain/catcher Jason Varitek went on the disabled list. News would come later that promising rookie pitcher, John Lester, had cancer.

As seen on PRrag.com!

Wednesday = Market Rag

The markets are up lately, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its second highest rate ever.

Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, will work with Microsoft to develop the next title in the Halo XBox series. This is separate from Halo 3, which Bungie studios is already developing. Jackson is already signed on to develop the movie adaptation of the popular first person shooter game. He is also working with Microsoft to bundle an HD-DVD version of his movie, King Kong, with Microsoft's HD-DVD peripheral. This is all in an effort to put the Xbox 360 on top of the videogame console world, where Sony currently enjoys a 70 percent market share. Take Two Interactive also announced they would port the latest and next launches of the Grand Theft Auto series to Xbox 360, according to a Microsoft release that was reported by CNN.

As seen on PRrag.com

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both offer an impressive video experience. They also offer improved digital audio. Many people have been slow to upgrade because there are currently two heavily competing formats and the players and disks cost a bundle to take home. Blu-Ray players are still hanging around $1,000.

One British company may have found a way for both next-generation formats to exist in harmony.

New Medium Enterprises has developed technology to put multiple layers, containing multiple video formats, on single disks, which can be duplicate cheaply, removing consumer confusion in purchasing next-generation movie formats.

AS SEEN ON PRRAG.COM

E. coli, the deadly bacteria usually found in raw, processed meats, has appeared in, of all things, bagged spinach. At press time, nine states had reported E. coli cases already, with more outbreaks possible.

Stores have begun to systematically purge their shelves of the leafy green vegetable after federal health officials said simply: "don't eat bagged spinach."

Officials also warn that washing the produce will not remove the bacteria. One death has already been reported in Wisconsin, which has reported 19 other cases of E. coli among its residents, 11 of which were reported in Milwaukee. Elsewhere, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, California and Ohio have reported possible outbreaks.

AS SEEN ON PRrag.com!"

Money is the driving power in media. Fox is driven by money but their drive is more visible because they stand alone on the right side of the spectrum. This article is less about the documentary, Outfoxed, than a commentary about modern media and politics.

Bear with me as I've written a ton of soft features lately. Here's something to wake up the politicos.

Somewhere, towards the end perhaps, this will be relevant to public relations.

Outfoxed, a 2004 documentary by Robert Greenwald, tries to show the dangers of corporate control over the media by citing commonly right-of-center news source, Fox. Greenwald and a group of volunteers monitored Fox News Channel 24 hours per day for several months looking for “conservative bias” in its news reporting. The resulting film shows that Fox is indeed a conservative-leaning media outlet and corporately controlled

As read on PRrag.com

Steve Irwin, internationally known documentary film maker, entertainer and outdoorsman died Monday while filming an underwater documentary. He was 44 years old.

Irwin, known for his enthusiasm and genuine love for nature, died when a stingray, buried in the sand while Irwin was snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, stung him in the chest. Despite a direct puncture to the chest, Irwin was captured on film fighting to the end. He was able to remove the fatal stingray barb from his chest in the last moments of his life.

Google began with an almost ridiculously simple web site in an age of complexity. At the same time, the most popular search engines including Yahoo! were complicated and verbose portals of information, sorted into detailed categories. Google appeared with little more than a dialog box and very rapidly changed the way people seek out data on the Internet.

AS SEEN ON PRRAG.COM

Joe Rosenthal, the Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist who captured the flag raising at Iwo Jima despite being told he was too blind for combat duty in World War II, died Sunday. He was 94.

Mr. Rosenthal captured one of the photography age's most treasured--and perhaps the most reprinted--images when, in a fraction of a second, he caught five marines and a sailor raising the American Flag over the disputed Japanese island on February 23, 1945.

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This may cause a little confusion.

According to a News Corp. press release, Twentieth Century Fox will start selling movies and television shows through web sites owned by its parent company, News Corp, which also owns IGN Entertainment.

This may cause a little confusion.

According to a News Corp. press release, Twentieth Century Fox will start selling movies and television shows through web sites owned by its parent company, News Corp, which also owns IGN Entertainment.

IGN Entertainment owns Direct2Drive, a successful PC game downloading entity in its own right.

The Department of Homeland Security raised the terror levels for domestic air travel and all flights bound for the United States from the United Kingdom to high (orange) and severe (red) respectively. This move comes with the news that a major terrorist plot was foiled in Britain.

AS SEEN ON: PRrag.com

In an interesting twist of public relations fate today, two public figures have found themselves fending off allegations stemming from the use of language considered racially or ethnically charged.

One is a Mormon governor. One is a conservatively-Christian Hollywood mainstay.

In the first example, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney used the phrase "tar baby" to describe the Big Dig. The story started out on the local television and radio programs and made national headlines this morning.

As seen on http://www.PRrag.com

You'll see three videos as part of a weekend update on PRrag. Please understand that they may contain offensive language. You will also notice no advertisements or product placements in this article.

A five second video of President George W. Bush placing his hands on the shoulders of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is raising a mainstream and blog-based media storm around the world.

http://www.prrag.com/2006/07/boondoggle-video.html