That's a wrap!
Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. lives on, but "The Office" has closed shop.
The NBC workplace comedy, set at the fictional company's Scranton, Pa., branch, aired its finale Thursday to end an eight-year run.
As expected, office manager Dwight wed tempestuous co-worker Angela, with whom he previously shared a secret affair. He had abruptly proposed to her on last week's episode.
And as a welcome surprise, former manager Michael Scott was back to serve as Dwight's best man.
It was an answered prayer not only for Dwight (who greeted him with a choked-up "I can't believe you came"), but also for viewers who were hoping that Michael might make a surprise visit in the person of Steve Carell. NBC had stayed mum on whether Carell, the star of "The Office" until his departure two seasons ago, would be in the finale or not.
"I feel like all my kids grew up and then they married each other," said Michael to the camera at the wedding reception. "It's every parent's dream!"
"The Office" premiered in 2005. It was based on the British comedy of the same name, which premiered in 2001. It starred and was co-created by Ricky Gervais. During its run on NBC, it picked up four Emmys and a prestigious Peabody award.
Other Dunder Mifflin alumni who were back for the finale included Kelly (Mindy Kaling) and Ryan (B.J. Novak).
Set a year after last week's episode, the finale provided comfortable and affectionate closure for the characters and the viewers who love them.
For instance, Andy (Ed Helms), who had left the company to chase stardom, hadn't gotten very far, beyond becoming a laughingstock from a viral video of him bursting into tears when he auditioned for a talent competition.
He had since landed an administrative job at Cornell University.
A "where-are-they-now?" panel reunited the subjects of the Dunder Mifflin mockumentary, whose make-believe production had consumed the run of "The Office" and functioned as its narrative frame.
"Do you feel that your life is pointless, now that nobody is filming you anymore?" one audience member asked.
"Yes," replied Toby (Paul Lieberstein) sadly.
In response to another question, Pam (Jenna Fischer) described her relationship with husband Jim (John Krasinski) as being "like a long book that you never want to end, and you're fine with that, because you just never, ever want to leave it."
"Like `Harry Potter,"' cooed the questioner as the audience went, "Awwwwwwwww."
Meanwhile, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) and Angela (Angela Kinsey) celebrated their wedding, preceded by scenes of the male and female bachelor parties.
Along the way, Dwight buried the hatchet with Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), who had bought a bar after Dwight fired him from the company.
"It was nothing personal," Dwight tried to explain. "It's just that you were terrible at your job."
"You're just saying that to make me feel better," said Kevin, accepting his apology.
At the end of the episode, Pam and Jim committed to an overdue exit from their dead-end Dunder Mifflin jobs to start a new life far away, in Austin, Texas.
When they broke the news to Dwight, he fired them on the spot. But he did it as a favor: to qualify them for severance pay.
Moments later, the series' final words were voiced to the camera by Pam, who marveled at all that "The Office" had captured on film: "There's a lot of beauty in ordinary things," she declared. "Isn't that the point?"


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/05/17/michael-scott-returns-for-series-finale-as-office-ends-its-8-year-run/#ixzz2TXpYuGq3

–  There is that lasting image of Dick Trickle in the Winston 500 lighting up a cigarette while driving his stock car with his knees during a caution lap.
He places the cigarette through a hole he carved in his helmet for a quick toke and exhales.
The green flag hits and out the window goes the cigarette butt and back to racing goes Trickle.
"Dick always had a cigarette lighter in his car," said fellow NASCAR driver Geoff Bodine.
Trickle was a unique driver with a unique name who found cult-like status before his death Thursday.
Trickle, whose larger-than-life personality and penchant for fun won him legions of fans despite a lack of success beyond the nation's small tracks, died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said. He was 71.
The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office said authorities received a call believed to be from Trickle, who said "there would be a dead body and it would be his." Authorities tried to call the number back, but no one answered.
Trickle's body was found near his pickup truck at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Boger City, N.C., about 40 miles northwest of Charlotte. Sheriff's Lieutenant Tim Johnson said foul play was not suspected.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Dick Trickle on his passing today," NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France said. "Dick was a legend in the short-track racing community, particularly in his home state of Wisconsin, and he was a true fan favorite.  Personalities like Dick Trickle helped shape our sport. He will be missed."
Trickle earned his reputation as a successful short track driver before joining the Winston Cup series and earning rookie of the year in 1989 at age 48.
He competed in more than 300 Cup races. Although he never won a Cup race and won only two Busch Series races, Trickle earned cult status in the 1990s.
Former ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann would regularly mention where Trickle finished after talking about each NASCAR race. It caught on and drew snickers from race fans around the country.
Bodine said there was only one way to describe Trickle, a native of Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.
"Fun," Bodine said. "Just plain fun."
Trickle was never one to be told how to live his life.
"It's all just sad," Bodine said in a telephone interview. "We don't understand why he would do this. Hopefully we will all learn why he would do that. There was something that triggered him to take his own life. We are all really saddened by this in the racing community."
NASCAR does not keep track of short-track records, but according to the (Milwaukee) Journal-Sentinel, Trickle won more than 1,000 short-track races throughout the country during his prime. He was a seven-time winner in the regional ARTGO Challenge Series in the late 1970s and mid `80s. Trickle also captured the ASA AC-Delco Challenge Series in back-to-back years in 1984-85 before turning to Cup racing.
"Dick Trickle was one of the best race drivers of the `80s, no one knew how many races he won," said Humpy Wheeler, the former president of Charlotte Motor Speedway. "He was right there with Red Farmer and other short track drivers -- the wins kind of got so big that they blended into each other. He was a product of the rich Wisconsin soil, where they race eight races a week in the season, and he could win all of them."
Wheeler said he asked Trickle to try NASCAR in the 1980s, but Trickle initially declined because he was so successful on the short track circuit.
"He could not make enough money then as he could on those Midwest tracks, so he deferred," Wheeler recalled. "For a guy who really won at least 700 races, I could see why. In those days, unless you were a top Cup driver, you couldn't win enough money to overcompensate for that."
Trickle eventually did move to NASCAR, settling into Iron Station, N.C., where he lived for more than 20 years. Bodine said Trickle was full of stories and popular because of it.
"People everywhere knew his name," Bodine said. "That's why they used his likeness in that movie `Days of Thunder.' He was such a character."
The main character in that popular niche racing movie, played by Tom Cruise, was named Cole Trickle.
Bodine said that a few years ago he had to back out of a celebrity cruise for patients who were on kidney dialysis. He asked Trickle to fill in.
"He made such an impression on people on that ship that everyone wanted to know when Dick was coming back," Bodine said. "They loved him. They tell me he was the last man to leave most of the bars on the ship and I believe it."
Bodine also recalled inviting Trickle to compete in one of his bobsled events in 2004 at Lake Placid, N.Y.
He said Trickle went down the first time and crashed. After being cleared by doctors to continue, Trickle tried again and crashed in the same place.
"They were doing interviews with him on TV and he was like, `I don't know what happened, I did the exact same thing I did the first time,"' Bodine said. "And we're all looking at


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/05/16/sheriff-ex-nascar-driver-dick-trickle-dies-apparent-self-inflicted-gunshot/#ixzz2TXoWV4Mm

Retired NASCAR driver Dick Trickle dies of apparent self-inflicted wound

                                                                            

       
(CNN) -- Richard "Dick" Trickle -- who parlayed a legendary reputation as a short-track driver into a full-time career on stock car racing's biggest stages in the 1990s -- died Thursday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, a North Carolina sheriff's office said. He was 71.

A Lincoln County dispatcher received a call -- believed to have been placed by Trickle -- that "there would be a dead body and it would be his," that county's sheriff's office said in a news release. There was no answer when authorities tried to call the number back.

Emergency units went to Forest Lawn Cemetery in Boger City and found a body lying near Trickle's pickup truck.

The Wisconsin-born Trickle raced during the 1970s and 1980s, then broke through as a full-time and widely recognized NASCAR driver in 1989. By that time, according to a Sports Illustrated article, the 48-year-old grandfather of two had won some 1,200 stock car competitions in 31 years of racing.

He settled in Lincoln County, in central North Carolina, in the early 1990s, according to the sheriff's office.

Though Trickle never managed a victory in NASCAR's premier Sprint Cup series, he did have 15 top-five finishes and won two Nationwide Series races before his retirement in 2002.

Some got to know him thanks to frequent references on ESPN's SportsCenter, with then co-anchor Keith Olbermann tweeting Thursday that "no sports figure Dan (Patrick and) I had fun with took it more graciously. In fact, gratefully."

In a statement Thursday, NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France described Trickle as "a legend in the short-track racing community, particularly in his home state of Wisconsin, and he was a true fan favorite."

"Personalities like Dick Trickle helped shape our sport," France said. "He will be missed."

Past and present NASCAR drivers, like Mark Martin, similarly reacted with sadness Thursday to the news.

"At some point we were all short trackers," tweeted Joey Logano. "He was the best. #RIPDickTrickle."

No Powerball winner, jackpot grows to $475 million

                                                               

Wednesday's $360 million Powerball jackpot? Make that you and everyone else.
A message early Thursday on the multistate lottery's website said the jackpot has soared to $475 million after no tickets matched the winning numbers in Wednesday night's drawing.
The winning numbers drawn Wednesday night: 2, 11, 26, 34, 41 and a Powerball of 32. The next drawing will be held Saturday.
Wednesday's jackpot was considered the third largest in Powerball history and the seventh largest overall. A jackpot of $475 million ranks as the second largest for Powerball and third biggest overall.
Lottery officials expect jackpot totals of this size to continue to climb in shorter amounts of time, thanks in part to a game redesign in January 2012 that increased the odds of winning some kind of prize, but also lowered the possible number combinations to win the Powerball.
There's also "cross-selling" of Powerball and Mega Millions tickets -- states being able to sell both Powerball tickets and Mega Millions tickets -- that began in January 2010. As a result, large jackpots will continue to surpass all-time jackpot records set years ago, said Mary Neubauer, spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery. Iowa is one of the founding Powerball states.
"It usually took a handful of months, if not several months, for a jackpot to reach this large amount," she said. "Now it's achieving that within a handful of weeks. I think the redesign is achieving exactly what we had wanted it to achieve, which is the bigger, faster-growing jackpot."
The redesign means players don't necessarily have to strike big to get lucky. A $1 increase and new $1 million and $2 million prizes means the odds of winning something have increased. Just last Saturday, there was no Powerball jackpot winner, but more than a dozen tickets won $1 million prizes in 10 states.
In fact, more than half of the all-time jackpot records have been reached in the last three years. The top two all-time jackpots -- $656 million from a Mega Millions jackpot and $587.5 million from a Powerball jackpot -- were achieved in 2012.
The last major jackpot win came when a New Jersey man won a $338.3 million jackpot on March 23. It is now considered the fourth largest Powerball jackpot in history.
Players aren't complaining about the large sums. That just gets them thinking.
"I'd hire someone to tell me what to do with the money," said R.J. Konyek, 36, an engineer for Union Pacific in Omaha, Neb. "I'd definitely be up for the challenge (of spending the jackpot)."
Insurance agent Joe Williams, of Middleton, Wis., is trying like so many others to get lucky with Powerball. He won $500 several years ago and now wants to score a little higher. Williams doesn't necessarily spend more when the prize is high. But his $4 investment in the quick-pick option means he does spend.
"I know rationally it makes no sense," he said. "But at the same time, without a ticket, I have zero chance."
Ervin Torok, a truck driver from Sioux Falls, S.D., also is looking for his second chance. He won a $500 prize a few years back.
"You never know," Torok, 52, said while checking some lottery tickets from a gas station. "Maybe one day you'll get lucky and win."
Tom Powers, 52, a janitor from Omaha, Neb., bought several tickets Tuesday from a convenience store. He said he would definitely walk away from work if he won the jackpot, but he's not sure how he would spend all the winnings.
"It's really unfathomable the amount of money this is putting out," Powers said.
The next drawing is scheduled for Wednesday night. The jackpot has a $229.2 million cash value.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/16/no-powerball-winner-for-475-million-jackpot/#ixzz2TSAjR2OW

Numbers drawn for $360M Powerball jackpot

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The winning numbers have been drawn for the $360 million Powerball jackpot.
The winning numbers drawn Wednesday night: 2, 11, 26, 34, 41 and a Powerball of 32.
The jackpot is considered the third largest in Powerball history and the seventh largest overall. There was no immediate indication whether any tickets matched the winning numbers.
Lottery officials expect jackpot totals of this size to continue to climb in shorter amounts of time, thanks in part to a game redesign in January 2012 that increased the odds of winning some kind of prize, but also lowered the possible number combinations to win the Powerball.
There's also "cross-selling" of Powerball and Mega Millions tickets — states being able to sell both Powerball tickets and Mega Millions tickets — that began in January 2010. As a result, large jackpots will continue to surpass all-time jackpot records set years ago, said Mary Neubauer, spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery. Iowa is one of the founding Powerball states.
"It usually took a handful of months, if not several months, for a jackpot to reach this large amount," she said. "Now it's achieving that within a handful of weeks. I think the redesign is achieving exactly what we had wanted it to achieve, which is the bigger, faster-growing jackpot."
The redesign means players don't necessarily have to strike big to get lucky. A $1 increase and new $1 million and $2 million prizes means the odds of winning something have increased. Just last Saturday, there was no Powerball jackpot winner, but more than a dozen tickets won $1 million prizes in 10 states.
In fact, more than half of the all-time jackpot records have been reached in the last three years. The top two all-time jackpots — $656 million from a Mega Millions jackpot and $587.5 million from a Powerball jackpot — were achieved in 2012.
The last major jackpot win came when a New Jersey man won a $338.3 million jackpot on March 23. It is now considered the fourth largest Powerball jackpot in history.
Players aren't complaining about the large sums. That just gets them thinking.
"I'd hire someone to tell me what to do with the money," said R.J. Konyek, 36, an engineer for Union Pacific in Omaha, Neb. "I'd definitely be up for the challenge (of spending the jackpot)."
Insurance agent Joe Williams, of Middleton, Wis., is trying like so many others to get lucky with Powerball. He won $500 several years ago and now wants to score a little higher. Williams doesn't necessarily spend more when the prize is high. But his $4 investment in the quick-pick option means he does spend.
"I know rationally it makes no sense," he said. "But at the same time, without a ticket, I have zero chance."
Ervin Torok, a truck driver from Sioux Falls, S.D., also is looking for his second chance. He won a $500 prize a few years back.
"You never know," Torok, 52, said while checking some lottery tickets from a gas station. "Maybe one day you'll get lucky and win."
Tom Powers, 52, a janitor from Omaha, Neb., bought several tickets Tuesday from a convenience store. He said he would definitely walk away from work if he won the jackpot, but he's not sure how he would spend all the winnings.
"It's really unfathomable the amount of money this is putting out," Powers said.
The next drawing is scheduled for Wednesday night. The jackpot has a $229.2 million cash value.
___
Associated Press writers Kevin Wang in Madison, Wis., Kristi Eaton in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., contributed to this report.

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