Apple #198: Dewey Decimal System

Yes, Dan, there really still is a Dewey Decimal System. And thanks for asking!

For those of you who may not know, the Dewey Decimal Classification system is a method of organizing materials, usually in a library, according to their subject. Think about it this way: you're standing in a library, book in hand. Where do you put the book? Say it's a book about robins, written by one of your favorite authors who also writes a lot of fiction, say Alexander Dumas. Do you put the book with other non-fiction books about robins, or do you put it next to books written by Alexander Dumas? This system helps you make that decision.

Next, you use the system to assign a code to the book. That code gets entered in a list of all the books in the library, and you can use the list to help you find that book again later, as well as any other book in the list. The list is called a catalog and the code given to each book is called the catalog number. The number gets printed on the spine of the book, and then you shelve the book about robins sequentially next to books with a similar number.

There are actually two major classification systems like this used in libraries in the United States and in libraries internationally. The other system, besides Dewey, is referred to as the Library of Congress Subject Headings (for those who know it on an informal basis, LC).

LC is much more comprehensive and detailed than Dewey and is most often used in larger libraries at universities, or at libraries with very specialized collections. The Dewey Decimial Classifaction system (DDC) is used most often in small to medium-sized libraries. Your local public library probably uses Dewey.

In fact, the Dewey Decimal system is the one most widely used in the world. It was originally developed by a guy named Melvil Dewey in 1876.


Melvil Dewey, looking kind of young
(Photo from the Harris County Public Library)


The Dewey Decimal System is now owned -- yes, it is intellectual property that has been bought and paid for -- by a company called OCLC, the Online Computer Library Center. OCLC is actually a consortium, but a very powerful one in the library world. Essentially, they provide the software that the vast majority of libraries use to catalog their collections. You can use software that will catalog according to Dewey or LC, as you choose for your library.


One of OCLC's buildings at headquarters in Dublin, Ohio
(Photo from OCLC)

• If your library uses Dewey, the code on the spines of the books will start with numbers. If your library uses LC, the codes will begin with letters, followed by numbers.
• Melvil Dewey devised his classification system in 1876, when he was 45 years old. He also helped found the American Library Association in the same year, he edited one of the oldest magazines about books and libraries, the Library Journal, and he is generally recognized as the founder of library science in the United States.
• Mr. Dewey also promoted the metric system. Makes sense, since his Decimal System works pretty much in base ten, as does the metric system.
  
• The Dewey Decimal System divides all fields of knowledge into ten major subject classes, indicated with the numbers 000 through 999. Each 100 mark denotes a new subject.
  
• 000 Generalities
  
• 100 Philosophy & Psychology
  
• 200 Religion
• 300 Social Sciences
• 400 Language
• 500 Natural Sciences & Math
• 600 Technology & Applied Sciences
• 700 Art, Sports, & Recreation
• 800 Literature & Rhetoric
• 900 Geography, History, Biography
  

• Categorizations within a given subject are indicated by changing the numbers within that 100-level. Here's how we would make some cataloging decisions for our book about robins:
• At the 100-level, we'd use the 500s, for Natural Sciences
• At the 10-level, we'd use 590s, which is for books about Animals
• At the 1-level, we'd use 598, which is for books about Birds
• Next comes the decimal, and we'd proceed from there, with greater specificity at each step until we have a code that describes this and only this book.
  

• One of the biggest problems with the Dewey system today is that there really isn't room within it to handle books about computers, hardware, software, video games, and that sort of thing. None of that technology was even imagined in the 1870s, and there just isn't a whole lot of room in the 620s (Engineering) for all the information about computer technologies.
  
• If you go to your library's section on computers and look at the catalog numbers on the spines of the books in that section, you'll see that the numbers are probably really really long. That's because the only way the cataloger could get specific enough about the book was to add more sub-categories within the 620s.
• For similar reasons, the Dewey System can sometimes result in awkward cataloging of non-book media, like music recordings or movies -- how do you indicate that something's on VHS as opposed to a DVD? Most libraries just put VHS before the catalog number or the like, but that means essentially that the Dewey System has to be modified to accommodate these other formats. And what do you do for software that's written for a PC as opposed to software written for a Mac?

Clearly, librarians are not the only people who have trouble figuring out what to do with piles of floppy disks
(Photo from ACT/Apricot)

• Questions arise not just because of modern formats or technology. Just this year, the Lords of Cataloging at OCLC couldn't figure out how to categorize a book written by Jim Belushi called Real Men Don't Apologize.
  

• "With all due respect to the author," said Leslie Buncombe, chair of OCLC's Editorial Policy Committee, "we remain unsure how to categorize this particular work. What is it? Autobiography? Self-Help? We can't even tell if it's fiction or non-fiction. Maybe it's Fantasy Biography?"
  
• I have encountered many books that walk that weird line of "I'm a celebrity and I'm going to tell you about my life and maybe give you some tips but also just talk about how great I am." It is hard to know what to do with those things sometimes.
  
• Buncombe isn't even sure this particular item is "an actual book."

• I should note that catalogers have to make decisions like this all the time, regardless of what cataloging system they're using. In other words, just deciding to use LC instead of Dewey doesn't mean you won't encounter similar types of questions.
  
• Any system of classification will have its shortcomings because really nothing can encompass the scope of all human endeavors across all times. After all, that's what these classification systems are trying to do. When you think of it that way, it's really remarkable that they hold up as well as they do.

Only one entry left to tell me your top five favorite Apples! Some of you, I know, already have your five favorites in mind. Now's the time to post 'em, please.


Sources
Rutgers Moving Image Collection, Glossary of Cataloging & General Terms
OCLC, Dewey Decimal Classification System
Middle Tennessee State University, Let's Do Dewey
Duke Libraries, How the Dewey Decimal System Works and Outline of the Dewey Decimal System
"Dewey Decimal System Helpless to Categorize New Jim Belushi Book," The Onion, August 14, 2006

Apple #197: Potted Mums

In the fall, my mom always bought flowering mums and put them on the front porch, along with pumpkins or other various fall-ish decorations. Twice now, I've tried to do the mum thing myself and both times, my mum plants died within a week. I water them, and the water all runs out the bottom of the pot. So I figure, maybe they don't need that much water. Two days later, they're dried up and dead. What's the deal?


You can buy mums like these from Gro-Moore Farms in Henrietta, NY.

• Chysanthemums, or mums for short, bloom naturally in the fall. They can be forced to bloom in greenhouses any time of year, but fall is their true time.

• The Chinese are the first known people to grow Chrysanthemums (what didn't they do first?), as far back as 15 centuries B.C. They believed that mums contained the power of life. So what does this mean for me, who can't keep a mum alive as long as a week?

• According to the garden experts, the most important thing is to give potted mums lots of water.
  

• They like to be watered best from the bottom, so put a pan of water under the pot and let it soak for about 20 minutes. Make sure you don't forget to take the pot out of the water because if you let it sit for too long, the roots will rot.

• Even though potted mums need more water than most plants in the ground, you want to make sure they need the water before you give them more. This means the soil needs time to dry out before you water. A good way to tell if the soil is dry is to pick up the plant in its pot and see if it feels light.
  

• If the leaves have gone limp and turned yellowish green, and the blooms are relatively small, you've probably let it go too long without watering.

• Potted mums also need lots of sun. They like it best in full sun. Even a half-shady place will keep them from blooming their best.
  

• My mom also told me that she plants hers once she gets them home. I don't think this is exactly accurate because I distinctly remember potted mums on the porch, but she says that's what she does with them and that's how she gets them to stay alive longer.

• There are lots of tips on many websites about what to do when your mum has stopped blooming and you want to plant it so it will stay alive and bloom again the next year. My mom says that when she tries this, it usually doesn't work; the plant doesn't survive the winter. Since she's a far, far better gardener than I am, I'm going to go by her word and just try to get my stinking potted mums to live long enough in the fall so I can enjoy their blossoms.

(Photo from Better Homes & Gardens)


P.S. Don't forget to tell me your top five favorite Apples!


Sources
P. Allen Smith, Magnificent Mums
Groth's Gardens, Mum Guide
University of Missouri Extension, Care of Flowering Potted Plants

Apple #196: Baby Carrots

I eat baby carrots just about every day for lunch. I have meant, many times, and now I've finally remembered, to find out if baby carrots are harvested when they're small. Or are they larger carrots that are honed down to size, maybe by a carrot lathe or something.

• As in many things, the truth about baby carrots depends. It depends on the variety of carrot you have purchased.

• Some varieties, the Nantes variety for example, are bred to grow small and ripen quickly so that they can be harvested when they are small.

Nantes carrots, bred to grow small
(seeds are available from Renee's Garden)


Another version of baby carrots, grown in France. Notice how they're a little bit stubbier, and they taper naturally at the ends.
(These are available for ordering from Coosemans Denver)

• Other varieties are bred to ripen quickly, but they grow long and slender. These are harvested early, but they are then peeled and cut into sections.

• Here's how one carrot grower turns large carrots into baby ones:

• Carrots are washed
• A cutter removes the green tops
• An inspector weeds out the misshapen or "problem" carrots
• Automated cutters cut the carrots into two-inch pieces
• A third cutter trims the pieces and does some pre-peeling work
  
• An automated, light-based sorter picks out any carrots that have green in them
• Two-inch pieces are sent down pipes to the peelers
• Peelers rotate, scrape, and peel the two-inch pieces
• Baby carrots are weighed and packaged, then stored in refrigerated units

What most baby carrots look like in the grocery store
(Photo from Harvest Cycle)

• Baby carrots got their start in frozen foods. Food processers were already paring down the larger sized carrots to be included in frozen mixed-vegetable bags.

• Then a California farmer, the guy who sold Bunny-Luv carrots, was tired of dumping his misshapen, consumer-unfriendly-looking carrots. He said he used to feed his extra carrots to his pigs, but pigs can only eat so many carrots before their fat turns orange.

• He saw the frozen baby carrots and thought, why couldn't he do that and package them to be sold fresh? So he tried it, and it was enormously successful from the start.

Your friends, the baby carrots, cooked and buttered, on the plate, ready for you to eat them
(Photo from Busy Cooks)

• One source I read said that baby carrots have less of the good stuff like Vitamin A and beta carotene than larger carrots. This is because when carrots are allowed to ripen over a longer period of time, they store up more nutrients. However, the source said that it isn't too big an issue because regular carrots have been bred and hybridized to increase their nutritional value.
  

• I wanted to know the particulars about this, so I looked up the nutritional data for baby carrots vs regular-sized carrots. I should caution that the data wasn't available in comparable units, so I did some multiplication to get comparable numbers. I don't know if that's how it really works, but at least you'll get an idea of the state of things in carrotland.

• Baby Carrots, 50 grams (nutritional values derived by multiplying nutrition for 10g of baby carrots times 5)
  
• Vitamin A 140%
• Vitamin C 5%
• Calcium 0.1%
• Iron 0.1%
• Sugars 2.5g
• Fiber 1g
  
• Big Carrots, 50 grams (about 1 small-sized regular carrot)
  
• Vitamin A 120%
• Vitamin C 5%
• Calcium 2%
• Iron 1%
  
• Sugars 2.3g
• Fiber 1.5g

• What it comes down to is that carrots are good for you, whether you eat them large or small. Crunch 'em right up.

P.S. Don't forget to tell me your top five favorite Apples, please.


Sources
Ask Yahoo, "Are baby carrots really baby carrots or just carrots cut for babies?" August 4, 2004
Mary Spoon, "Are baby carrots as nutritious as large ones?" Reno Gazette-Journal, June 24, 2002
Elizabeth Wiese, "Digging the baby carrot," USA Today, August 11, 2004
Calorie Count, baby carrots and regular carrots
To read more about how Grimmway Farms grows and processes their baby carrots, go to their Consumers page, then choose Baby Carrots

Apple #195: Your Top FIVE, Please

Yes, it's that time again. The Daily Apple is approaching another centenary mark. That is, we're closing in on Apple #200. When we approached Apple #100 over a year ago, I asked you all, Daily Apple readers faithful and fickle alike, to tell me which ten of the existing Apples were your favorites. I pooled the data and came up with an overall Top Ten Favorites. This time, I'm asking for essentially the same thing.

Except this time, I'm making it harder. You have to choose only five.




They can be any five from the entire history of the Daily Apple. That is, you need not limit your choices to Apples 101 through 200. Please select from all the available Apples.

If you want to refresh your memory a bit, scan the Subject Index, a link to which is also always available in the right-hand frame. Peruse away.

Once you've made your selections, click on the Comments link at the bottom of this entry and list your favorites. If you want to share the reasons behind your choices, please do.

Many thanks, readers!

Apple #194: Formula One Nail-Biter

So, remember how, a few months back, I posted an entry about this season's Formula One line-up of drivers? If you don't, here are the crib notes:

• My favorite driver is Fernando Alonso. He's from Spain, he drives Renault cars, he wears blue, he won the championship last year. He was the youngest to win ever, and people say he's one of the most skilled drivers they've ever seen at his age. In interviews, he always gives credit to his pit crew and to the quality of the car, but he's not so humble that he can't describe how his driving helped win the race. Have I said that I like him?
  
• The guy running in second is Michael Schumacher. He's from Germany, he wears red and drives Ferrari cars which up until this season have had a less than exciting record in Formula One. He's won the championship a record seven times. This is insane. I have also learned that his methods to win are, shall we say, suspect. He's edged and even bumped other drivers off the track, and in a car going 240 miles per hour, that is extraordinarily dangerous, potentially murderous. But he's the biggest champion to hit the sport, ever. So that makes it right, doesn't it?
• My second-favorite guy is a Finnish driver named Kimi Raikkonen. Last year, he posed a pretty serious threat to Fernando Alonso. He's younger than Alonso, and people were saying he's a superb driver as well, and the only thing holding him back was the fact that his cars kept crapping out on him. They figured him to be a real challenger for the championship this year.
  

The driver championship is determined by the number of points each driver has earns in each race, and the person with the most points wins. They've driven in fifteen races so far this season. In a nutshell, here's what's happened:

• Fernando Alonso started the season strong. At one point, Alonso was ahead by something like 30 points, and people were kind of yawning, as if the whole thing were all but over.
• Raikkonen, my second-favorite, has again faced issues with his car and has not won a race this year.
  
• But then Schumacher won three races in a row. He'd won two others earlier, and the addition of these three in a row put him in the hunt as a possible upset to Alonso.
• In qualifying a race prior to this Sunday's race, Alonso was penalized for blocking another driver, a guy named Felipe Massa. Massa is Schumacher's teammate, but that's not really significant. What is significant is that the rules require that only intentional blocking should draw a penalty. Many observers and drivers, including Alonso, say that not only was any blocking clearly unintentional, they're not even sure how the judges could call blocking of any kind. Regardless, Alonso had to take the penalty, and this meant he had to start at a much worse position at the start of the race that counted on Sunday.
• During Sunday's race, Alonso was pushing his car to make up the lost position, and his engine literally exploded. He did not finish the race.
  

(Photo of Fernando Alonso from La Voz de Asturias)

• Schumacher, on the other hand, had a far better position to start with. He wound up winning the race, which gave him crazy points. Alonso, of course, earned none. This put Schumacher within two points of the lead.
• This is not the first time the folks in charge of Formula One racing have made decisions that penalize others and that also wind up benefiting Schumacher. Many people are crying foul, but it's kind of after the fact as far as this past race is concerned.
• Schumacher also announced he will retire at the end of this year. He's already insanely motivated to win, and now this decision to retire, I think, will push that motivation up another notch.

Schumacher, broken up about his plans to retire
(Photo from SI.com)


There are only three races left. What I have to say about all this is, "Go, Fernando!"

Sources
Formula One 2006 Season Review and 2006 Drivers Championship standings
Formula One articles including
Michael Schumacher - the end of an era
Schumacher wins as Alonso suffers DNF
Italian Grand Prix - selected driver quotes

Apple #193: Puddings, Various

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of pudding on TV. Chefs on the Food Network making pudding, commercials for pudding, people going into raptures at the sight of pudding, Bill Cosby. So this has reminded me of a Daily Apple topic I have meant to investigate for some time now, and that is, what's the difference between American and British pudding. I've gathered that British pudding is different because in British novels people are often eating pudding with a fork, which absolutely would not work with most puddings I have encountered, or the pudding is nicely molded and jiggling on the table, or sometimes it may even have things like kidneys or livers in it.

So what the heck is British pudding anyway? What about rice pudding, isn't that really rice in lots of sticky goo? And what about bread pudding? Isn't that secretly bread with something like syrup or honey all over it? And the final question: what is tapioca?

• First, let's start with American sweet pudding, the kind you know and love from the Jell-O pudding packets. If you make pudding from those packets, you mix the dried contents of the packet with milk. But what's really in those packets? What if you made pudding from scratch?
• Let's say you're going to make chocolate pudding (which is the very best kind). You might find lots of recipes, but basically they would all combine milk, eggs, chocolate, and sugar. First you'd warm the milk and then add the other stuff and beat it all together and cool. There's your pudding.
• Technically, the definition of pudding in American terms is "a sweet cooked dessert with a smooth creamy texture, typically consisting of flour, milk, eggs, and flavoring."

The master of puddings.
(Photo from some guy's confusing My Space page)

• When the British use the word "pudding" they can be using it to describe lots of things. Which explains why I was confused. Sometimes they use "pudding" to mean any kind of dessert, or the dessert course in a multiple course meal.
  

• Or, sometimes the British use "pudding" to refer to what is now classified as a meat pudding. Meat puddings are actually the earliest known forms of pudding. The sweet puddings didn't come into being until the 17th century.

• Meat puddings, or most old-school British puddings, are either a mixture of flour and suet, which is the hard fat found around the kidneys and loins of cows or sheep, which is then steamed. Meat puddings can also be the intestines of a sheep or a pig stuffed with meat, oatmeal, and spices, and then boiled.
• While you're all shouting "Ew!" here's another tidbit for you. The word pudding comes from the Latin word botellus, which means "sausage or small intestine."

This is a steak and kidney pudding. You cook this in a little basin and when it's done, you upend the basin, giving the pudding its molded shape.
(Photo and recipe from Cookstr)

• Rice pudding is one of the sweet puddings, and it's not the smooth and creamy mixture we generally think of when we talk about pudding. Still, for many people, it's one of those comfort foods because it's gooey and warm and simple.
• Rice pudding is generally made with rice, milk, and sugar, and then you can add flavorings like lemon or nutmeg, and depending on how thick you want it to be, you could add butter or shortening or some other form of fat. Lots of people also add raisins.

Here's a peaches and cinnamon rice pudding, enjoying the view out the window
(Photo from favorite brand name recipes)

• Bread pudding is one of those inventions designed to get the most use out of a staple item. In this case, you soften and sweeten up stale bread.
• In this variant, you start with bread cut into cubes, then add your good friends sugar, eggs, milk, and butter. From there, you can add whatever flavors you like, such as lemon or nutmeg or cinnamon, and dried fruits, or more exotic things like pineapple or applesauce. Then sometimes people top it with whipped cream or syrup.

A pan of Mom's Bread Pudding
(Photo from RonzCooking)

• Like rice pudding, tapioca pudding uses a starchy grainy thing, in this case tapioca, and adds the milk and sugar and eggs to it. But what are those little translucent knobby things we call tapioca?
• Tapioca is the hard white grain taken from the root of the cassava plant.
• Cassava plants are woody shrubs that grow in tropical places like Africa and Brazil and Indonesia. They are harvested for the starch in the roots, and that starch is then processed. Sometimes the starch gets milled to make flour, and sometimes it is combined with water in order to extract tapioca pearls.

These are cassava roots harvested in Guyana
(Photo from the Eden Project)


A fancy tapioca pudding, with the tapioca pearls plainly visible

• Finally, those other gooey things like custards and creme brulee can also be classified as types of pudding.

Sources
Love to Know Recipes, Pudding Recipes, Rice Pudding Recipes, Bread Pudding Recipes
OneLook, pudding, suet, tapioca, cassava
Encarta, Dictionary, pudding
Compact Oxford English Dictionary, pudding
Purdue University Center for New Crops & Plant Products, Cassava

Apple #192: From the Soaps to Hollywood

So a friend and I were watching that show, Inside the Actors' Studio. In case you've never seen it, this guy named James Lipton who's got a jawline beard and glasses and speaks like a very high-toned academic interviews famous actors about how they got their start, specifics of their films, and then he asks them to answer a little survey with revealing questions such as "What sound do you love?" and "What sound do you hate?" and "What occupation would you choose if you could not be an actor?" It's sort of a high-brow version of E! or one of those tabloid shows, except without all the glitz and paparazzi shots, just two people sitting on stage in front of an audience.




Then my friend told me that James Lipton's big acting break was in a soap opera. Which, if you've ever seen this show and you've heard him talk like he's Mr. Smarty Uppercrust, you would find surprising and then kind of funny.

Of course I had to look this up to verify it, and it's true. James Lipton's biggest role was playing Dr. Dick Grant on Guiding Light for ten years, from 1952 to 1962.

Then my friend and I started talking about all the famous Hollywood actors who got their start on soap operas. Lots of soap opera stars hope they can break out of it, but most of them don't. So it's surprising that how many people we now know and love as Hollywood stars cut their teeth on daytime soaps.

The list below is probably not complete, but it's probably pretty close. Maybe you'll be able to tell which actors I know and used to watch on the soaps Back In The Day.

• James Earl Jones - in 1966 played Dr. Jerry Turner on As the World Turns, and then later that same year, played Dr. Jim Frazier on Guiding Light
• Martin Sheen - now known best for his role as President Bartlet on The West Wing, but way back before all the movies and all the fame, he was Jack Davis on As the World Turns, from 1965 to 1970.
  
• Julianne Moore - first appeared as Carmen Engler on the now-defunct Edge of Night. The next year, she played both of the half-sisters Frannie Hughes Crawford and Sabrina Hughes Fullerton Crawley on As the World Turns.
• Lauryn Hill - in 1991, played Kira Johnson, who falsely accused the dashing Duncan McKechnie of sexual advances, on As the World Turns.
• Meg Ryan - played love-triangle-tortured Betsy Stewart Montgomery Andropoulos on As the World Turns from 1982 to 1984.

Meg Ryan, on the cover of Soap Opera Digest, in September 1983. Hey! Her lips used to look normal!

• Demi Moore - played rough-voiced, intrepid reporter Jackie Templeton on General Hospital. When she wasn't looking worried, she was flipping her hair around a lot.
  
• Rick Springfield - played Dr. Noah Drake, who was utterly unmemorable except for the fact that he was a rising rock star who played at a hospital benefit concert on General Hospital. He also appeared on the Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files, the original Battlestar Galactica, Wonder Woman, and the Incredible Hulk. Oh, and this year, he went back to General Hospital.
  
• Jack Wagner - was bad-boy-turned-investigator Frisco Jones on General Hospital, then he appeared on Santa Barbara briefly, then he got a decent part as untrustworthy Dr. Peter Burns on Melrose Place, a couple disappointing movies, and now he is Domenick "Nick" Payne Marone on The Bold and the Beautiful. Back in the 80's, when General Hospital was trying to get more stars launched into rock & roll fame, he released an LP with the hit single, "All I Need."
  
• Kelly Ripa - played recovering alcoholic Hayley Vaughan Santos, who was married to her real-life fellow-actor husband, on All My Children, before moving to Regis' show and Hope & Faith at the same time.

Kelly Ripa as Hayley Santos, about fifteen years ago maybe?

• Marisa Tomei - her first role was Marcy Thompson Cushing on As the World Turns, from 1983 to 1985. She and Meg Ryan actually shared a dressing room for a while.
• Salma Hayek - in 1989, played the lead role in the Mexican soap opera Teresa, in 1989.
• Eva Longoria - now known as the sexpot Gabrielle Solis on Desperate Housewives, got her start as a flight attendant on Beverly Hills, 90210. She was in one episode of General Hospital as a Brenda Barrett lookalike, and then spent two years on The Young and the Restless as Isabella Braña Williams, from 2001 to 2003.
• David Hasselhoff - before Baywatch, before Knight Rider, he was Dr. William "Snapper" Foster, Jr. on The Young and the Restless, from 1975 to 1982.

Hasselhoff, working it on The Young and the Restless, as Snapper Foster

• Lisa Rinna - was Billie Holliday Reed on Days of Our Lives, from 1992 to 1995. She moved on to Melrose Place, opposite Dr. Peter Burns, from 1996 to 1998, but then went back to Days from 2002 to 2003. Now she's the host of Soap Talk. She was also on one of those Dancing with the Stars-type shows one season.
  
• Brandon Routh - the disappointing most-recent Superman appeared as Seth Anderson on One Life to Live from 2001 to 2002. I used to watch that show back then, and I barely remember him. Not exactly an electric person on-screen.
  
• Lester James Brandt - once upon a time, he played Rafael "Rafe" Santiero on Another World, from 1995 to 1996. He got some bit parts on such stellar TV shows as Silk Stalkings and Walker, Texas Ranger, and then, instead of going on to Hollywood, he decided to work for Heidi Fleiss, in her all-male bordello in the desert north of Las Vegas. I guess the fate of a soap opera star can go in either direction.

Sources
IMDB, multiple biographies on individual actors
IMDB Movie/TV News for January 5, 2001
Soap Central, As the World Turns, Who's Who in Oakdale
Tiscali Film & TV, Marisa Tomei Biography
Superior Pics, Selma Hayek biography
Globalist, Bollywood Beatbox for August 23, 2003
"Rick Springfield Rejoins 'General Hospital,'" NPR, March 2, 2006
Betting on the Studs, Newsweek, December 12, 2005
Hair Boutique, Lisa Rinna Short Sassy Signature Hairstyle
This Summer's Screen Sizzlers, Gwinnett Daily Post, May 5, 2006
Eva Longoria Sheds her 'Desperate Image,'" Media Blvd, April 20, 2006