He does not like to fly...I cracked up when he flew to Bakersfield in Swan Song. And in Ransom for a Dead Man. I guess it goes along with his fear of heights when he says that his ears pop in an elevator. Real good stuff.

PS happy 4th everyone.

i loved that scene with leslie williams. she was so evil...

You're right, Laura. Leslie was the perfect symbol of the insurance industry, and she was perfectly evil -- ice-cold, calculating, totally selfish, and completely uncaring.

Every insurance company lawyer, at heart, is exactly like Leslie. The insurance industry spends billions in excess profits to convince you of the opposite, but this is the truth: Insurance lawyers are truly the blood-sucking scum of the earth, always ready to rip out the throats of widows, orphans and cripples. It's what they live for. And it's never enough. They crave more blood-money, and more and more -- and they will kill to get it.

Ha ha, just kidding.

Not.

oh Ted....am i sensing a deep dark secret in your past? a life-altering, soul-ravaging traumatic experience with an insurance company, perhaps? i can hear the desperation in your outcry--the longing for what was torn from an innocent life.

....or perhaps you are merely the Everyman, feeling deep in his soul what is perpetrated on others, and bellowing the rage, the Truth, into the cold, unfeeling skies.

i will have to think about this. it never occurred to me that the darkness in her soul began with Allstate...

**** Leslie. **** her!!!!!!!!

hmmm....that last line didn't come out like i'd hoped.

Shakespeare would have been frustrated, too, if he had to write "King Lear" using spoilers and smilies.

Well-put, Laura! Leslie is, in short, Allstate personified.

you started me thinking now, Ted. wondering about ray fleming and HMO's...

the world is starting to make terrible sense.

The mention of our hero's fear of flying got me thinking about the episode with Roddy McDowell--did he indicate his fear of being so high in the climactic scene?

he definitely did the first time he rode in the tram, when he went to inspect the accident scene.

on that last trip, he makes a nervous comment when they first get on, about having heard the tram was safe and hoping the person was right. but the fear disappears as they begin the ascent and he starts the mind game on stanford.

columbo has a way of putting aside his fears when he is doing something more important...nailing a killer.

i love columbo.

Yet in "RIP, Mrs. Columbo" he does fly to San Francisco to meet Mrs. Dimitri's shrink. There was no mention of his fear in this episode, and we know he had to take a plane to see this guy.

thanks for the happy 4th wish, Steve.
It was indeed a happy 4th: Italy won to Germany in the semi-finals of the world cup (and I am italian) :-)

I apologize for the OT.

And I also enjoy lieutenant's fear of flying: that's a nice quirk.