Sad day

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "The O.C.," the once-hot teenage soap opera that saw its ratings plummet like a delinquent student's grades, has been canceled.

The final episode of the drama will air 9 p.m. EST Thursday, February 22, Fox TV and Warner Bros. Television Production Inc. said Wednesday.

The finale "will deliver real closure to the series, to the story we began telling four years ago," series creator Josh Schwartz said in a statement. "It will be fun and emotional and I think really satisfying. It is the finale we always planned to do."

Based in the affluent Orange County, California, city of Newport Beach, "The O.C." caught fire in its first season, 2003-04, as the top-rated drama among advertiser-favored young adults and with a total audience of nearly 10 million.

The show's story lines revolved around Ryan (Benjamin McKenzie), an outsider thrust into a heady new world of money and sex, and rich high school kids including Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) and Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) and their families.

"The O.C." didn't sustain its momentum, dropping to about 7 million weekly viewers during 2004-05 and then to fewer than 6 million last season. This year, returning in November after Fox wrapped its postseason baseball coverage, "The O.C." has only drawn about 4 million viewers.

Observers have pointed to a variety of possible reasons for the slump, including inconsistent quality, the fickleness of younger viewers and a time-slot change.

The third-season finale's high drama, in which Marissa was killed in a car crash, didn't turn the series around. This year found Ryan confronting the death of his one-time girlfriend and the man who caused it.

Fox ordered 16 episodes for the 2006-07 season and all will have aired when the series concludes in February, a network spokesman said Wednesday.

Others in the show's cast include Peter Gallagher, Kelly Rowan, Melinda Clarke, Rachel Bilson and Autumn Reeser.

Despite its brief heyday, the show helped establish cast members including Brody, Bilson and Barton as fan and tabloid favorites.

A replacement for the series was not immediately announced by Fox.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol

So I have been getting a lot accomplished around the house on my vacation time from work. I've de-Christmas-ized the house, made trips to the Salvation Army for end of the year donations, balanced my checkbook, read, put up a peg board in the garage to store tools easily, put under the counter lights under the kitchen cabinets, steam cleaned the carpets, done yardwork and housework. Today I went through stacks of paper making piles for shredding, save for taxes in general, save for Big Sister expenses for taxes, stuff to save, and stuff to deal with. I can actually see the top of my desk now and we have a place to put computer paper next to the printer.

Next on my list is to deal with getting my free credit report. The website won't let me log in because I forgot my password and the email account I had associated with it was hijacked, so I don't exactly want the information emailed to the account on file. I am pretty sure I have cancelled all of my past credit cards, but I want to make sure.