Seen & Heard (4)

We all enjoyed the recent shout-out toC-Town on NBC's "30Rock." You'd have tobe from Pittsburgh not to smile at Tina Fey's character's desire to, as her boss puts it,"flee to the Cleve." The show's montage of city scenes, which included shots of the Rock Hall and Public Square, was supplied by Glazen Creative Studios. Glazen president Ron Goldfarb says whenthe "30 Rock" crew expressed interest in filming here, they contacted the Convention and VistorsBureau of Greater Cleveland,which sent a Glazen archive reelto preview. NBC thought the footage was so good they decidednot to reshoot it. Instead they designedtheir video pastiche and accompanying song to suit the footage."We were all nervous [theshow's post-production team] kept calling it a love letter to Cleveland. Of course, as Clevelanders, we've heard that before," Goldfarb says."But I thought the show was really fun, I was glad to be a part of it."

Brains may have helped Strongsville's Jeff Briggs snag $16,000 on "WhoWants to Be a Millionaire." But it was the 23-year-old NASA scientist's wisdom teeth that got him there in the first place. While at home recovering from a tooth-pulling, Briggs spotted an ad announcing local auditions. Three weeks later, he was on the "hot seat" in New York City. "The actual seat is pretty funny, because it's just a wobbly office chair," Briggs says. Questions about The Battle of Yorktownand Conan O'Brien netted him the $16,000 before he bowed out.(Too bad there weren't any questionsabout, say, thermodynamics.) Nevertheless, he says, "The whole experience was crazy, hectic and a whole lot of fun." Final answer.

 

Mimi Puro's path to meeting Oprah began when the time came to update her home's aging shutters. Not wanting to commit to apaint color, she asked her mother to sew fabric drapes for a previewof the finishedl ook. It wasthen that the Aurora mother and nurse had her eurek amoment. "I thought, wow, why aren't we decorating our shutters for the holidays?" Soon after she started designing an array of covers indifferent colors and patterns, and Original Shutter Covers was born."It's not that it's going to change the world, but it will make [it] a littlebrighter." Oprah agreed. Shechose Puro as one of eight finaliststo appear on her May 3 broadcast,"The Next Big Idea." Andwhile Puro didn't win, she's happy about the national exposure. She hopes to have her shutter covers available to consumers by fall.