etc...

TWO CAN PLAY THIS GAME

Let's say you're on a long plane trip - and totally bored. But you aren't sleepy, don't feel like watching the in-flight movie, and have nothing interesting to read. What to do? Voilà! Singapore Airlines is offering a solution: digital chess. Or, if you'd prefer, digital mahjong, the Chinese board game. And you can compete against anyone else aboard, even if you're in first class and your opponent is way back in 29C. There's also digital trivia, which the whole passenger compartment can participate in, with a prize for the winner.

IT'S ALL PART OF THE JOB

Speaking of trivia questions, which world figure would you guess has appeared in person before the most people in, oh, the past 23 years? Answer: probably Pope John Paul II. According to a new Vatican data sheet, the number since his 1978 coronation is 16 million. That's counting the 331,500 so far this year. His peak came in 1979, when he addressed 1.58 million.

Children watching TV during the so-called family hour last season were exposed to more coarse language and violence than in 1999, the Parents Television Council reported. The conservative watchdog group studied 200 hours of programming airing in 2000 on the major networks plus WB and UPN during the first hour of prime time (8-9 p.m. on the East and West coasts; 7-8 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones.) An estimated 10 million children watch during that hour. The study found coarse language increased 78% to 2.6 instances per hour, while violence rose 70% to 2.8 instances an hour. The average number of instances of violence, sex, and crude language per hour aired during the first hour of prime time, according to the council:

UPN 18.1

NBC 9.1

Fox 7.8

WB 7.5

ABC 6.7

CBS 3.2

- Associated Press