Notebook

By Tam Gray, Lina Lofaro, Jodie Morse, Michele Orecklin and Alain Sanders

WINNERS & LOSERS

[WINNERS]

FRASIER Wins NBC's coveted Seinfeld slot. Can a witty but not must-see show keep Thursdays a must-see night?

AMIEN RAIS Muslim leader directs the largely peaceful protests that topple Suharto, earns a future role

FRED THOMPSON He was right: the Chinese were involved. Now was he right about policy being on sale?

[& LOSERS]

GODZILLA A giant mutated lizard? O.K. That the hero of an action movie is French? Sorry--too big a reach

PANAMSAT Its satellite goes on the fritz, and the pagers went off. America rejoiced in its beeplessness

LEW MERLETTI Secret Service head's novel legal claim to hush Clinton's protectors falls on deaf ears

ATMOSPHERICS

THE WINDS OF WAR India is developing nuclear arms, but does it really want to use them? In both winter and summer low-level and high-level wind patterns suggest that if a bomb were dropped on Pakistan (west) or southern China (east), deadly debris and fallout would be blown back across huge swaths of India. How's that for increased national security?

PROGRESS

LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE TREND FORECASTING

Headings dropped from the Yellow Pages:

--Livestock Records --Mops --Worms

New headings:

--Angels --Aromatherapy --Aura Photography --Body Piercing --Cybercafes --Feng Shui --Funeral Art --Internet Services --Permanent Makeup --Psychic Life Readings

Source: Yellow Pages Publishers Association

SOUNDS LIKE, SMELLS LIKE, FEELS LIKE...

If the antitrust suit against Microsoft shows anything, it's that nobody has a monopoly on analogies. Both sides in the complicated legal case filed last week have latched on to similes and metaphors to make their positions clear. But do they work? Maybe up to a point:

METAPHOR BILL GATES: "Forcing Microsoft to include Netscape's competing software in our operating system is like requiring Coca-Cola to include three cans of Pepsi in every six-pack it sells."

Yeah but... ...Coke doesn't control the system that distributes all drinks.

[METAPHOR] A SENIOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL: "If Coca-Cola owned the only store in town, you can bet it would be required to sell Pepsi too."

[Yeah but...] ...it would get a bit messy if the government got into the business of telling stores what to sell.

[METAPHOR] ROBERTA KATZ, lawyer for Netscape: "It's as if one of the networks was also producing the inner workings of the TV set, and every TV was wired so that that network was the one you saw."

[Yeah but...] ...at least the Windows user can stick the Microsoft browser in the trash and download Netscape.

[METAPHOR] JOEL KLEIN, Justice Department antitrust chief: "This is like having someone with a monopoly in CD players forcing consumers to take its CDs in order to get the machine. "

[Yeah but...] ...at least you're getting some free CDs. Besides, you can always get other CDs elsewhere.

[METAPHOR] GATES: "It's like ordering Ford to sell autos fitted with Chrysler engines."

[Yeah but...] ...you have the choice of a lot of competing cars and different engines.

[METAPHOR] JEFF RAIKES of Microsoft: "When you go into McDonald's anywhere in the world, you have a sense of what that customer experience is going to be... It's very important that Microsoft...make[s] sure that customers have a consistent user experience."

[Yeah but...] ...McDonald's does offer a consistent user interface. It also hasn't had a successful innovation in years. And it has competition.

CAIN AND ABEL MEET THE OLSEN TWINS

When the TV networks unveiled their fall lineups last week, one theme seemed to dominate.

Brother's Keeper (ABC) A straitlaced English professor and single father is in for trouble when his brother, a notorious bad boy, moves in

All My Life (NBC) A waitress and single mother is in for trouble when her zany older brother and completely broke younger brother move in

Encore! Encore! (NBC) A womanizing opera singer moves back home, where he has to deal with his sister

Providence (NBC) A young plastic surgeon moves back home, where she has to deal with her brother and sister

Two of a Kind (ABC) A single father finds his twin preadolescent daughters could not be more different

Charmed (WB) Three sisters with supernatural powers find they could not be more different

Trinity (NBC) Five siblings--a detective, a priest, a labor leader, a Wall Street broker and a troubled beauty--find they could not be more different

SOUVENIR

ONE FOR THE ROAD Mourners at services for Frank Sinatra received a personal keepsake: the scarf, shown at right, designed by Sinatra himself. The scarves resemble those he at one time gave away at concerts and were ordered last September.

ON THE CHARTS

MAKE IT A BLOCKBUSTER NIGHT! What's the hottest-selling videotape in Beijing these days? That is, apart from Titanic bootlegs? It's a videotape of a press conference given by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji. O.K., this may not be our idea of a popcorn movie, but the Chinese seem enamored of the Premier's performance: he's humorous and confident, doesn't read his answers, as other leaders do, and says things that are quotable. Now imagine the potential if he acquires a wisecracking sidekick.

NUMBERS

58: Percentage of college students who expect to find a job within three months of graduation

54: Percentage of college students who expect to live with their parents after graduation

825: Total number of faculty members in the physics departments of the nation's 22 highest-ranking universities

7: Total number of black faculty members in the physics departments of those universities

437: Total number of faculty in the computer-science departments of the nation's 22 highest-ranking universities

0: Total number of black faculty in the computer-science departments of those universities

19: Number of years, plus seven months and eight days, Pope John Paul II will have served by last Sunday, making him the longest-reigning Pope of the 20th century

32: Number of years served by Pope Pius IX (1846-78), the longest reign of any Pope in history

Sources: Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance; Journal of Blacks in Higher Education; The Catholic Archdiocese of New York; Catholic Almanac