Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 29

Who's your favorite dish in the kitchen? Life Catch Oscar fever: See nominations Wednesday in Life Food and online today at Austin360.com. Find more on 4 austin360.com The hardest-working men and women on Valentine's Day are those who staff the kitchens of Austin-area restaurants. We'll salute some of the hottest Feb. 14 with photos to drool over. So tell us who you'd pick for your favorite hunk or babe cooking in any capacity at a local restaurant Customers and fellow employees can nominate anyone they think deserves a little more loving.

Send a brief description of why your nominee deserves the special attention and include a photo, if available. Deadline is Friday. E-mail featuresstatesman.com or mail to Love Cooks, Attn: Pati Starr, Features Department, Austin American-Statesman, P.O. Box 670. Austin, TX 78767.

The indie band's label lias high hopes for new CD. But will the big-shipment gamble pay off? Austin American-Statesman statesman.com Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Section ft iT warn Thus far, the Shins have landed on winning numbers, with boosts from exposure on 'Gilmore lower right, Zach Braff romim 'Garden State, lower left, and a popular Mcuonaicrs commercial. i 1 xx A I I By Joe Gross Vi STAFF Jan. 13, the popular indie rockers the Shins performed on "Saturday Night Live." For their first Al LI 3 1 1 1 1 .1 ttm 1 I song, me ruruanu-uaseu uanu piayea rnaniom "n- Lunb, the single from their new album Wincing the Night Away." It's a tuneful slice of guitar pop, complete with sing-along hooks and singersongwriter James Mercer's almost British-sounding everyguy voice lilting over the music. It sounded good and fans were looking forward to hearing what the second song would be, seeing as how "Wincing," a sharp, complicated pop album that arrives in stores today, is easily one of the year's most anticipated albums.

(About 241,000 copies were shipped to stores, by far the biggest placement SubPop has ever done and something of a roll of the dice for SubPop. According to label officials, you'll be able to find this album in Starbucks and Whole Foods, both firsts for the Seattle-based label that gave us Nirvana and Mudhoney.) Ax -c. Find more on To hear samples from the Shins' new CD, 'Wincing the Night go to austin360.com. austin360.com So the Shins' second song on "SNL" was "New Slang," the tune that everyone knows from a McDonald's ad to radio play to a critical soundtrack moment in the sensitive-young-person cult smash movie "Garden State." It's the Shins song that your mom probably recognizes. Yeah, that one.

A few days later, Mercer sighs a little when he discusses the "SNL" experience. "For the most part, it went very well," he says. "We rehearse during the week, then we play the songs in front of a full audience during the dress rehearsal, then they get a new audience in and we do it for real. But you do it so many times that the live version doesn't feel all that different from any other time. They xv Vik create a very relaxed atmosphere, which is a little different from the nightly shows like 'Letterman' and Those are produced so fast that it's like, 'OK, get out there and do your (The Shins play "The Late Show With David Letterman" tonight.

As Dale Roe AMF.ltlCAN-STATK.SMAN, fnmi Al'. WH mill Slill inuwcw See WINCING, E3 We only protect immediate families of ex-presidents I Where 'America's Next Top Model' on CW has given KNVA ratings, the soapy drama 'Watch Over far left, on My Network TV has not MY NI'TWf )IK TIIHCW KNVA lives with My Network's woes 1 fc Diane 4 Holloway Watching President Ford's funeral, with all his children and grandchildren in attendance, my thoughts went to security. Which family members receive security? Are we talking parents, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters and their families? ,5 C. Garretson No. The Secret Service is charged with the pro- tection of the president, the vice president, the president-elect, vice president-elect and their immediate families.

Protection of parents and, grandchildren is provided when circumstances warrant. The law regarding protection for former presidents changed in 1997. Former presidents and their spouses (until remarriage or death of the former president) receive protection for up to 10 years, and children of former presidents for up to 10 years or until age 16. If a president dies in office or within one year of leaving office, the spouse receives protection for one year from the time of that death, if warranted. Presidents who served prior to Jan.

1997, and their spouses (Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, George H.W. and Barbara Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, etc.) receive protection for their 'f Congress requested the assistance of the Se- cret Service for the office following the assassination of President William McKmley 1901. In 1902, two operatives were assigned to the -White House. The music in the commercials for Prego spaghetti sauce is haunting me. Whenever I hear it, I go back to a childhood memory.

Perhaps it was the theme song for a radio soap opera. Please satisfy my curiosity; Carol Kolsti The tune was written to evoke that nostalgia, but it's only three years old. That'is the word from the folks at Campbell's Soup, maker of the sauce. This originally was a mere 30 seconds of music, but the response from the public was overwhelming, the piece was rescored to be longer. People have requested to play the music at weddings.

Download the unnamed piece or listen to it at campbellsoup.com'prego.aspx. Ql I'd like to know where I can find a relief map of Austin. We recently moved into Highland Hills area on a hilltop where the Allan family, as in Allandale, made their home, or so we're told by our neighbors who have lived here since the 1950s when the Allans still lived on the hill. Anyway, these same neighbors also say that our neighborhood is second in elevation to Mount Bonnell within the city limits. Whether that's true or not, it has piqued my interest in a map of Austin that shows elevations.

Ryan Gravatt Buy a relief map of Texas ($27) at Miller Blueprint, 501 W. Sixth St. You can also pur- chase a flat, contour map of the area. Prices begin at $8 per section. Want to check the elevation of your home's location online? Visit topozone.com or earth.google.com.

Mount Barker is 843 feet and Mount Bonnell 781 feet, according to the Bureau of Economic Geology. The highest point in Travis County? Chalk Knob, south of Hamilton Pool Road at 1,194 feet. Contact Jane Greig at P.O. Box 670, Austin 78767; (512) 445-3697; e-mail jgrelgstatesman.com or fax (512) 445-3968. For more Jane Greig, visit www.statesman.comlife greig.

Last fall, two mini-networks were born, and Austin's KNVA Channel 54 adopted both. Now, five months into their young lives, one newborn network is doing fairly well, while the other is looking, well, exceedingly wan. KNVA, Austin's former WB affiliate, is home to the CW, which merged programming from the WB and UPN, both of which expired when the CW was born. KNVA also carries Fox's My Network TV, conceived as a home for former UPN stations left out in the cold. The Fox weblet sought to distinguish itself by running two English-language telenovela-style series each week-night.

Stripping, as this is called, is a common practice on Spanish-language TV, but American broadcast networks had never attempted it on a permanent basis. KNVA, which operates under a licensing agreement with NBC affiliate KXAN and its corporate owner LIN Television, was one of only a handful of stations in the country to become a two-network affiliate. The second mini-network airs after the CW schedule. The new lineups debuted in September. CW shows such as "7th Heaven," "Gilmore Girls," "Smallville" and "Reba" air from 7 to 9 weeknights.

My Network's 13-week serials currently "Wicked Wicked Games" and "Watch Over Me" air from 9 to 11 p.m. KNVA management hoped viewers looking for something besides local news or late-night talk shows would tune into My Network's sexy and obviously cheaply produced soaps. So far, that hope has not been fulfilled. "If I had it to do over, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have done it," says Eric Lass-berg, who became general manager of KXAN KNVA last summer after Carlos Fernandez was relieved of his managing duties in May. "I don't think anyone in the country would have done it." What's the problem? My Network is a disaster in the ratings.

Across the country, and here in Central Texas, the serials are appealing to only a tiny number of viewers. KNVA is getting a fraction of a single rating point (0.7 on average, which is about 4,000 TV households) in the later time periods where syndicated reruns of "Everybody Loves Ray- mond" and "King of Queens" earned more than twice that audience last year. Nationally, the My Network shows in prime time are averaging one rating point, or about 1 million out of 111 million TV households. See HOLLOWAY, back page U8 Sto-1 Sum. Witt.