Michael Jackson

In my blog on Thursday, I called Fox's wretched Octomom special the official low point of summer viewing. Before making that call, I went back through the summer schedules and my posts to make sure I wasn't slighting some equally dreadful TV production. I wasn't. In the process, though, I realized it's been a weird summer of TV. So I started writing down my highs and lows. Here are my seven highs and three lows - for a summertime Top 10 list. Notice the decided lack of dramas and sitcoms on my list of bests.

TV soap opera 'Guiding Light' shoots final scenes The cast and crew of "Guiding Light" - U.S. television's longest-running soap opera - have finished shooting their final scenes in a northern New Jersey town. Afterward, they gathered at Peapack Reformed Church for a service to remember the show. The church has served as the site for weddings and funerals in "Guiding Light's" fictional town of Springfield. The Rev. Kathryn Henry recalled that the show's title referred to a lamp put in a church window by the fictional Rev. Rutledge to welcome parishioners seeking guidance.

FRIDAY BALTIMORE SUMMER RESTAURANT WEEK STARTS: Close to 100 restaurants participate in the latest incarnation of this now oft-repeated tradition. Select Baltimore-area restaurants offer three-course lunches for $20.09 and three-course dinners for $30.09. Scour the list on the Web site to spot the best deals, then make your reservations and enjoy a meal at a restaurant you've never ventured to before. Runs through Aug. 16. Go to baltimorerestaurantweek.com. For reservations, go to opentable.

Despite the high drama over Michael Jackson's estate, the late pop singer did many things right when it came to end-of-life planning. The big thing is that the 50-year-old had a will - critical to anyone with young children. Jackson's will named business associates as executors to carry out his wishes and designated guardians for his three young children. He also set up a family trust that can keep the division of his estate out of the public eye. More people could learn from him. Too often people don't get around to making a will.

A day after Michael Jackson's memorial service in Los Angeles, Baltimore's Rams Head Live! presented Who's Bad: The Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute Band. In the audience, Joe Galea paid his own tribute to Jackson. He wore an outfit he had assembled a couple of weeks before Jackson's death, for a Washington nightclub's theme night. "I'm a huge Jackson fan. Not scary; I wouldn't have gone to L.A. for his memorial. But I like his music." In real life, however, Galea's style is more chiller than "Thriller."

LOS ANGELES - Music legends, sports figures and civil rights leaders paid tribute to Michael Jackson as a music pioneer and a barrier-breaking cultural figure during an emotional, song-filled service Tuesday at Staples Center. Audience members danced along to musical performances and stifled tears at some of the many tributes to the singer. There were shouts from the audience of "Power to the people," "Long live the king" and "We miss you Michael!" The most poignant moment came at the end, with Jackson's 11-year-old daughter Paris Michael Katherine Jackson - in tears - telling the audience from the stage, "I just wanted to say, ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you can imagine.

They might not have had the coveted wristbands guaranteeing them seats at Michael Jackson's funeral in Los Angeles. But the singer's fans in Baltimore and across the country found other ways to bid farewell to the King of Pop. In New York's Harlem neighborhood, chants of "Michael! Michael!" rang out as hundreds gathered to watch the memorial service on a giant screen. In Gary, Ind., a steady stream of fans wearing Jackson T-shirts and listening to such hits as "Billie Jean" visited the singer's boyhood home.

LOS ANGELES - -A lawyer for Michael Jackson's personal physician said Sunday that reports that the doctor injected the pop star with a powerful painkiller before his death were "absolutely false." "There was no Demerol. No OxyContin," said Edward Chernoff, the attorney for Dr. Conrad Murray. The lawyer, who was present Saturday for Murray's three-hour interview with Los Angeles Police Department detectives, said Jackson was already unconscious when the doctor "fortuitously" entered the bedroom of the performer's Holmby Hills mansion.