I’m not saying I ever bought a pack of cigarettes when I was teenager. But let’s just say, hypothetically speaking, that I did… maybe. IF I did—and I’m not saying that I actually DID.. remember, this is hypothetical… that pack cost—would have cost—about 45-cents. (Geez, can you believe I’m still worried about my father reading this? When does the statute of limitations on this one run out?)

45-cents. Significantly less than the federal cigarette tax increase being ADDED ON to the price of a pack as of today. Cigarettes now cost 62-cents more per pack, bringing the price, at least in New York, up to anywhere between $9 and $11-a pack. That’s an increase of around 1200-percent since I was---I mean, since people were--- buying cigarettes back in the ‘70’s.

Our 10 PM newscast Wednesday night included a piece on an April Fool’s joke by a local guerrilla theater group called Improv Everywhere. The joke, as we seemed to report it, was that the group was playing a prank, called “Best Funeral Ever,” on some unknowing folks at a sparsely attended graveside ceremony at Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery. Check out IE’s description and photos of how they pulled off the prank:

“I knew this would be a very sensitive subject, but I thought that if Improv Everywhere could spread a little joy to the saddest place of all, it would be an amazing feat. The first step was picking the right funeral. It was critical that the funeral would be very sparsely attended. My biggest fear was showing up to do this and finding tons of friends and family already there. I started scanning through the obituaries to find short entries that mentioned very few surviving relatives.”

It’s pretty funny, in a sick way, the notion of people at a funeral stunned to discover dozens of complete strangers showing up to pay their respects to the dearly departed. So “PIX News at 10” ran a piece of video, narrated by yours truly, describing the funeral prank, and asking viewers if they thought it was funny or in bad taste.

People, people, people! Goodness gracious sakes alive! Many of the people commenting after last week’s blog post about the April Fool’s Day prank played on us by the street comedy group ImprovEverywhere, didn’t quite… how can I say this?... get the joke. We were obviously punk’d, so in the same spirit of April Fool’s Day, I completely made up this nonsensical response about how we KNEW it was a prank and ran the story in the newscast anyway. I as much as say in the last sentence of the post that I was teasing!

But.. wow… here’s a sample of what commenters had to say, with my responses:

Hello, students! Today, our media lesson looks at how junk science, marketing, and an insatiable hunger across the globe for odd, easily-digested info-bits, all combine to create “news” stories that are passed along to literally billions of viewers and readers as truth, when they are often anything but.

When it was brought up in our afternoon news meeting, it sounded like a sure thing for our 10 PM newscast: new research showing that the most stressful moment in the average workweek falls at exactly 11:45 on Tuesday morning. I mean, how could you NOT like that story? It’s the proverbial everyone-will-be-talking-about-tomorrow-around-the-water-cooler story. It’s specific (not 11:30, but 11:45!), counterintuitive (I thought it would be MONDAY morning!!), and easily referenced (“Hey, I saw on the news that the most stressful time….?”).

The story is also—at least from what I’ve been able to deduce from a little time on Google—completely, absurdly, ridiculous.

"GLEN ROCK – Police are warning those in possession of nude cell phone photos — self-portraits of a teenage middle school student —to hit the delete button or face prosecution.” -Northjersey.com

Today’s story about teenage “sexting” happens to be taking place in Glen Rock, New Jersey. But it could just as easily be in the numerous other states—including New York and Connecticut—where authorities have already filed criminal charges—child pornography charges—against middle and high school students who sent or received nude pictures with their cell phones. Police in Glen Rock tonight are telling students and parents that anyone still in possession of the 14-year-old girl’s photos as of tomorrow could also be subject to felony prosecution.

I don’t necessarily agree with new research getting lots of media attention today showing that marital bliss is significantly diminished when a couple has children.

“Researchers from the University of Denver and Texas A&M University studied 218 couples for eight years and found that even though childless couples also show diminished marital bliss over time, those with children had an accelerated decline -- particularly during adjustment to parenthood right after the birth.”

I don’t necessarily disagree, either. I would take a different approach to the argument overall, namely this: It depends what you mean by “bliss.”

If you read this blog from time to time, you know that I spent a number of years in Tennessee, including six in Nashville. During the time I was there, the number one, most respected, highest rated local news anchorman was Dan Miller. He was a legend, he was unbeatable (I worked for the competition at the CBS affiliate in Nashville, Dan was at the NBC station) and, most maddening of all, he deserved to be.. he was really, really good; a master of the art of talking WITH viewers about the news, instead of shouting it AT them. He was an important early influence on me.

Lolita Lopez and I anchored our newscast last night from outside Citi Field, where the New York Mets were playing their first-ever regular season game in the new stadium. Being a lifelong baseball fan, it was a real treat to be on the field for batting practice and the rest of the pre-game hoopla. You can enjoy major league sports from the stands or on television, but being down on that playing surface, looking up and around at the new stadium from the players’ point of view, talking with Dave Winfield and Tom Seaver, seeing Frank Robinson up close (I’m from Cincinnati and he was my first baseball hero, a few years back) … I was like a little kid on Christmas morning.

But there were a few lumps of coal in the stocking, as well. I’m not talking about Citi Field. I’m no architecture critic or stadium expert, but I think it’s a terrific place to watch a ballgame. I was very impressed. In fact, it was so gleaming and new and intimate (compared to Shea, certainly), and it was such a pretty, although chilly, evening, I would have thought all the fans at the game would be in a sort of blissful, happy trance.

We’re reporting on our newscast tonight about a weird moment involving Mayor Mike Bloomberg today. He was at the news conference announcing Governor Paterson’s gay marriage bill, and during the mayor’s comments a reporter’s electronic device began playing music. Here’s video of the subsequent stare-down, which, by the way, was being broadcast live right here on Channel 11. Prepare to feel slightly uncomfortable...

***UPDATE ON BLOOMY'S THURSDAY MELTDOWN:

Mayor Bloomberg today made what sounded like a tepid apology to the reporter he chastised yesterday during a nationally televised news conference. Blogger Michael Harris, who’s disabled, talked with reporters about the experience today, saying Bloomberg approached him this morning about what happened. Harris described it as a “conditional” apology, with Bloomberg saying he regretted the incident “if” it offended Harris. But the reporter says he accepts the gesture, and is ready to get on with his work.

So there I was, down on the field before the Mets first game in their new stadium last Monday. Lolita Lopez and I would be anchoring the news from outside Citi Field later that evening, but during the pre-game, I was soaking up the atmosphere; brand new stadium, down on the field watching batting practice, great players past and present everywhere I looked. Among them, to my breathless delight: Frank Robinson.

It’s recess time on a kindergarten playground. Today, that new obnoxious kid is really hassling everybody. He’s small, but he’s loud and irritating, and what he lacks in strength he makes up with bluster. He knows instinctively that if he can get under the skin of the bigger kid who is the classroom leader, or have the big kid run away from him, he’ll start getting more attention and power.

Much was made, at least for one news cycle, of President Obama shaking hands and being polite with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez while they were attending the Summit of the Americas last week in Trinidad. To his critics, led by former vice president Cheney and Newt Gingrich, Obama’s courtesy was somehow legitimizing Chavez’s socialistic policies and anti-American leanings and rhetoric. The right thing to do, the Right is saying, would have been for the President to consciously avoid contact with Chavez, using his staffers and security entourage if necessary to do so.

For the first time in many years Wednesday night, I “covered” (and I use the term very loosely) a red carpet entertainment event. It was the premiere of the new Woody Allen movie, which was opening the Tribeca Film Festival at the Ziegfeld Theater in midtown. Here’s my “report” (and I use THAT term very loosely).

Today’s news about former Senator Alfonse D’Amato and his wife expecting a baby reopens yet again the discussion about older dads. I refer specifically to MUCH older dads; D’Amato is 71, and not new to this. He and his wife had a son 14-months ago. D’amato certainly sounds confident that his age won’t be a problem, since he plans on being around for a while.

“’I’ve got good genes. Papa will be 96 in May and Mama is 94. Age today is nothing. I still don’t have an AARP card.’ This pregnancy was planned for the couple. When this baby graduates from school, Alfonse will be 89 years old.”

And that’s really the big issue: is it “fair,” for lack of a better word, for senior citizen men to have babies with their younger wives, when it’s very likely they might not be around for a big portion of their child’s life, or even their child’s childhood? One classic New York example is the actor Tony Randall. He had his first child with his 26-year-old wife when he was 77. They later had a son. Randall died in 2004, with his children 6 and 7-years-old.

People across the nation are still shaking their heads over the unfathomable decision someone made to photograph a presidential 747 on a low flight over the Statue of Liberty. It was as close to a 9/11 replay as you would ever dread, and city officials, including the mayor, were never told it was going to happen. Every person in the world, it seems, knew that this was a horrible idea--- except for the guy who ordered it. What was he thinking? Here are some possibilities...

Optibamatism: def. – The phenomenon of the persistence of a relatively high level of optimism under President Obama during his first 100-days in office.

I was sitting in our news meeting today, my eyes wandering over to the bank of TV monitors in my news director’s office, and I saw an interesting juxtaposition of items being displayed on the typically busy cable news screen. The headline at the bottom of the page read something like “Swine Flu Spreading Across the U.S.”… not a “happy” headline, to say the least. And then over on the lower right hand corner of the screen was the stock ticker, showing the Dow industrial average at that minute. It read “+150.” That, I thought, is a good example of optibamatism (see above).

I’m not going to go into President Obama’s individual policy initiatives as I join the long line of mediacs commenting on the mythical First 100-Days (a benchmark so arbitrary, John Dickerson of Slate likened it to one of those invented Hallmark holidays… you know, Grandparents Day, Secretaries Day, First 100 Days Day). I’m just addressing the national mood toward the president, and the reasons behind it, as we make our way through this bruising chapter in our history.

I’ll keep this brief, Senators, because there’s not any more time to waste. I must say, even by Albany’s standards, the futzing around over an MTA bailout has reached a new low. For weeks, the Senate leadership has dithered over something that will have an immediate impact on the wallets of more than 2-million transit users. 2-Million! That’s more people than most states’ entire populations. How many other top priorities do you have preventing you from pulling this together?

I hope you’ve heard by now that without a plan, the MTA doomsday budget kicks in… only now it’s being called Doomsday-Squared. The MTA’s deficit is now projected to be around $600-million more by next year, and they’re talking about eliminating or cutting way back on late night and overnight subway service. If that happens, it won’t be just an inconvenience for the many thousands of people who ride those trains—it’ll mean they can’t get to their jobs. What do you have to say to those people?