Hello, everybody. Lots of stuff to bring up, so let's not waste any time.

First up, the 35th running of the Iditarod, and the forecast may call for a neck-and-neck finish next week. Defending champion Jeff King has taken the lead from Martin Buser, leaving Eagle Island at 12:55pm Saturday with Buser far behind five minutes later. Paul Gephardt, Lance Mackey, and Zack Steer round out the top five so far.

Now during the past week, Buser ruled the trail, including reaching the Yukon River first on Friday with $3,500 (in $1 bills) and a seven-course meal as his reward. The meal started with a king crab apple tower with horseradish cream, then smoked corn bisque and goat cheese dumpling. For the main course, it was a seafood course of prawns and scallops with pancetta and pomegranante mustard and a meat course of seared ostrich medallions. Jicama salad followed by bittersweet chocolate crepes and a cheese plate with pear poached in port finished off the meal.

Of course, the big story in the first few miles were that injuries suffered by Doug Swingley and Dee Dee Jonrowe forced them of the race prematurely.

As things stand out right now, Buser wants to join Rick Swenson (27th place) in the "Five-Timers Club" while King's on the hunt for a back-to-back entrance to the Burled Arch and his fourth overall. We'll find out when the two are about to make their way to the coast.

And now, something I've brought up in the newsgroups earlier this week concerning a television institution in trouble:

For the last few months now, "Soul Train" has been airing classic episodes from the '70s and '80s in lieu of the new episodes they've been taping for this season. Why, you ask?

Here's why: in recent years, ratings for the show has dropped hard to below 1.0 as stations who used to show Soul Train on Saturday afternoons have buried it to middle-of-the-night time slots. Tribune Entertainment -- Soul Train's syndicator since 1985 -- was very unhappy at these bits of news, and plans were made to derail the Train (i.e., canceling the show) after 35 years as television's longest- running, first-run syndicated program. When Don Cornelius heard about this, the only way he's been doing to save his franchise -- which includes the annual Soul Train Music Awards, in which this year's is coming up -- is to crack open the vaults and air the old episodes as "The Best of Soul Train."

The new episodes for the 36th season have been taped since December and were supposed to air starting in February, but the response (and the ratings) for the classic shows have been tremendous and those new shows will still have to wait a while.

What does the future hold for Soul Train? Well, Tribune has been in financial peril lately, and a change in syndicators may be the best way to keep the Train chugging for a bit longer. King World might be interested, as the shows they've distributed (Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Oprah Winfrey) have been atop the syndication ratings for over 20 years. Another is NBC Universal, because they'll be without a first-run weekly (George Michael Sports Machine) after this month. If the current run of Family Feud can switch from one distributor to
another (Tribune to Debmar-Mercury), so should Soul Train! Of course, that could mean stations running the show once again in the Saturday afternoon slots where they belong(ed).

I wouldn't be surprised if we'll be hearing "The SOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUULLLLLLL TRAIN!!!!!!!" come their 37th season...that is, if the show will be in HD.

Yes, "Soul Train" is on the bubble, and with BET as well as the explosion of YouTube and iTunes on the Internet the show may be given its last rites even if classic episodes from 20 to 30 years ago have been running. Look at "American Bandstand"; it was the only place to be to get your music fix on television until MTV spelled the beginning of the end. I have watched Soul Train on and off for as long as I can remember, and even though they've changed looks over the last three decades to keep up with the times the format has remained the same.

The annual Soul Train Music Awards (part of the show's franchise) will be held this weekend and will start airing next weekend; but with the way things are going, could it be their last? The future of one on television's longest-running shows 35 years running rests in the hands of Don Cornelius.

And with that...we wish you love, peace, and SOOOOOOOOO long!