Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 15

a OS DemocratandChronicle.com Monday fvT 1VH1 shopping, etc. Mainstream cosmetic companies are beginning to design shades that flatter women of color. Turn to Page 3C DEMOCRAT AND CHRONICLE 0 0 It i 1 1 4 voice and New York 1 I Moving renditions of patriotic songs have given Daniel Rodriguez exposure he once could only 72902 IwAoftheday Jazzy tunes. Dave Rivello's 12-piece jazz ensemble plays tonight. The show runs from 9 p.m.

until midnight at Le Jazz Hot Cafe, 135 W. Commercial East Rochester. Admission is $5. For more information, call (585) 586-5690. Web watch Soul mates? You have to shake your head at some of the latest dotcoms to hit the Internet.

One of those wacky Web sites is a dating service that touts a new psychological IQtest as a scientific method for matching soul mates. If the site's birth announcement is anything to go by, couples "who agree on where to eat are three times as likely to be happy" as those who don't. To find your destiny, go to: Cybersuitors.com Survey says Better safe than sorry. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the percentage of employees who think their employers should be adopting tighter security measures is much higher than the percentage who think employers have adopted tighter security measures.

A national poll conducted by Brighton-based Harris Interactive found that 36 percent of employees think identification procedures for entering the workplace have been beefed up, 26 percent think stricter access to computer systems has been put in place and 11 percent say new job applicants go through more detailed background checks. Freddie Prinze Jr. in 'She's Ail That' On TV tonight And a bag of chips. Don't give She's All That any points for originality or daring. Do, however, credit it for sharp casting and solid execution.

The plot simply moves Pygmalion to high school: A popular guy boasts that he can turn anyone into a prom queen. Fortunately, he's well-played by Freddie Prinze Jr. and she's wonderfully played by newcomer Rachael Leigh Cook. It airs at 8 p.m. on USA (cable channel 32).

Turn to Page 5C for today's TV listings. Next up Dressed to grill. We explore the sizzling backyard world of girl grilling: women who 1 happily usurp the man's traditional place A calling: fni Card game from Japan fuels new obsession COX NEWS SERVICE DUSTY SMITH Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the toy store, Yu-Gi-Oh has come for your childrea And as its sci-fi fan base likes to say, "Resistance is futile." Roughly translated as "king of games," this card-based role-playing game has been a massive success in Japan since its launch in 1994. Now, with Pokemon's four-year reign on the wane, Yugi and his faithful Duel Monsters have become the latest must-have for American connoisseurs of hard-to-pronounce cardboard. "It's our No.

1 thing right now. Just about everybody who comes in asks for them," says Michael Schindler, manager of Strike Zone in Dayton, Ohio. His card and collectible store houses several Yu-Gi-Oh display cases, featuring some individual cards priced upwards of $40. While import versions have been available on the Internet for years, the cards ($3.99 per nine-card pack) made their American debut in February. Aided by a daily animated show as well as a bevy of tie-in merchandise, Yu-Gi-Oh has become a fullblown phenomenon.

The show (which airs weekdays at 4:30 p.m. and 10:30 a.m. Saturdays on The WB, cable channel 16) is ingenious in the way its plot and merchandise are intrinsically connected. Each episode features Yugi, a stock anime teen with a Lisa Simpson-gone-punk hairdo, battling adversaries with get this his deck of Duel Monster cards. It's the equivalent of making a Tomb Raider movie in which Angelina Jolie plays PlayStation.

As for parents who just figured out what a Pikachu is, Schindler warns that "In Japan, Yu-Gi-Oh is four times as popular as Pokemon was at its peak." For more on Yu-Gi-Oh: www.yugiohking ofgames.com That bad penny keeps coming back COLUMBIA NEWS SERVICE The term "cold hard cash" is taking on a new meaning. That's because Americans are breaking open their piggy banks and cashing in more coins than the U.S. Mint pro duces. "In the past, coins would go out and we could continue producing them," says Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the mint. "We knew coins would just stay out there." Now, the mint adjusts pro duction schedules based on how many coins are being returned to the nation's money supply.

In 2001, Coinstar, a company that makes coin re demption machines, collected 29 billion coins while the mint produced only 19 billion. The average American household has $30 to $40 in loose change that, in essence, has been removed from circulation, says Michelle Avila, a Coinstar spokeswoman. Avila says Coinstar estimates that more than $io billion in coins is sitting in the drawers and coffee cans of American homes. 3 Tenor Daniel Rodriguez brings his message of inspiration to western BY STAFF MUSIC CRITIC The Associated Press dream about i -f RODRIGUEZ, page 6C The Mickey Judy Show What: A salute to Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney's movie music by New York City entertainers Shauna Hicks and Jeff Harnar. Where: Hart Theatre, Jewish Community Center, 1200 Edgewood Ave.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Tickets: $20. Call: (585) 461-2000, ext. 235.

hardly matters, they insist. "These were formulaic, boy-meets-girl movies," Hicks says. "But these stars had heart and that's what people responded to." a For more about JCC activities, go to: www.jccrochester.org E-mail address: slow a DemocratandChronicle.com was our jurisdiction My cell phone wasn't working, and with the magnitude of what was going on, I knew they might be looking for me. So I ran to City Hall, which was three blocks away from the towers, then we headed down to the towers." Then the first one fell. Rodriguez, who describes himself as a man of great religious faith, faced a test of courage.

"Debris and ash were covering everything," Rodriguez says; he's a naturally ebullient speaker, but this part of the story comes out painfully and slowly. "We got back into the command post before the big smoke came down, and we started pulling people into the command post, saving whoever we could." Out of that tragedy, oddly, came a career. children is now known throughout the land as the Singing Cop. It is a greatness that comes with a seat belt. "I've gone from ground zero to Letter-man to Regis to Larry King to ground zero to this funeral to that funeral to ground zero again," says Rodriguez, who sings Friday with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center.

The Singing Cop really is a cop, although he's on a leave of absence now as he pursues his lifelong musical dream. The last day he walked a regular beat was on Sept. but on Sept. 11, he found himself at ground zero. "I was stuck in traffic, so I jumped on the back of an emergency caravan," the 37-year-old Brooklyn native recalls of that morning.

"I knew my bosses were gonna be there. It JEFF SPEVAK Some men are born into greatness, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Daniel Rodriguez was born with a great voice; at age 17, he sang at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. He achieved some greatness in the relative way that New York City Police Department employees might experience it by singing at departmental retirement parties and ground-breakings, and kicking off a Jets-Giants football game with the National Anthem. But with Sept.

11, Rodriguez found Three Tenors-level greatness thrust upon him. The family man he's married with three Revue captures youthful spirit of Rooney and Garland If I VA sr 1 1 sM BY STAFF WRITER STUART LOW Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney met as teenage MGM starlets at a professional children's school. They quickly became friends and went on to make a string of Hollywood movies together, starting with Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937)- Entertainers Shauna Hicks and Jeff Harnar met as singing waiters at Mrs. J's Sacred Cow on Manhattan's Upper West Side. They practiced songs between steaks and eventually created a revue of movie music by their idols Garland and Rooney.

They've performed their Mickey Judy Show nationwide and will bring it to the Jewish Community Center Tuesday and Wednesday. Rather than impersonate the young stars, they try to evoke the playful romanticism of their movies. "Mickey and Judy had real chemistry and cared very much for each other," says Hicks. "But she was no Britney Spears. She felt like an ugly duckling, even if audiences loved her wonderful voice.

She kept pining for Mickey, who was obsessed with his career and oblivious to her." Whatever their offstage frustrations, they were fortunate in their choice of. movie scores. From 1937 to 1948, they sang showstop-pers by Gershwin, Rodgers and Arlen. The JCC show includes favorites from Babes in Arms, Strike Up the Band, Girl Crazy and, of course, The Wizard of Oz, among others. Hicks and Harnar have studied videotapes of these classics not with an eye to mimicking the stars' moves, but capturing their spirit.

"There's a yearning and piquancy in Judy's voice," says Hicks. "She certainly behind the gas or charcoal grill. Following the success of a new book Dressed to Grill, we ask local women what they're cooking and how they got hooked. Tuesday on Page 1C. Sekai K.

Mutunhu collected items for this column from staff and wire reports. More inside Courtesy ot Jewish Community Center and Jeff Harnar nelli. Recovering from hip surgery, she heard parts of The Mickey Judy Show in her wheelchair two summers ago. "It felt surreal," recalls Harnar. "But she worked with us on some ideas." He and Hicks suspect that many younger Rochester concertgoers may never have seen the original Gar-landRooney productions.

It Shauna Hicks had a lot of blues to sing about in her life. And she felt most comfortable onstage where she could exorcise her demons." Harnar admires Rooney's polish as an acton "He was a dynamo ingenuous and energetic." Harnar and Hicks' most memorable recital was a private appearance for Garland's daughter, Liza Min- Columns Comics Television Movies.