Phantom of the Final Four

UCLA backup center Lorenzo Mata broke his nose during UCLA's practice on Wednesday. Mata, who also broke his nose in January against ASU, announced he would wear a mask in Saturday's semifinal against LSU. Maybe these injuries are just God's way of telling Mata that he should be wearing a mask full time. You figure that Mata will be wearing one of those clear masks, which really won�t highlight his features. Instead, maybe Mata should consider wearing a mask like this, or this, or maybe even this. Maybe Mata could use one of those masks and then switch Mata with Bill Walton at halftime. The officials would be none the wiser.

Of course, there is a better opportunity for Mata. He could don the mask and revive Andre The Giant's "Giant Machine" gimmick from the WWF in the 1980s.



Maybe Mata could even make an appearance at WrestleMania this weekend when UCLA is eliminated by LSU. Is Mata the ugliest player in college sports history? Talk about it in The Hater Nation Forums.

When Captain America failed

(It occurs to me that, since we all watch TV on our own schedules these days, I should say up-front what shows I'll be talking about so people who are saving that Very Special Episode of "According to Jim" won't have it spoiled for them here. This morning's shows, in order, "Survivor," "Lost" and "Scrubs.")

I've seen some dumb "Survivor" moves in my time, with Lex saving Amber in All-Stars the dumbest by far, but last night featured the dumbest move by a contestant I liked and respected since Colby picked Tina over Keith back in Australia.

Okay, here's Terry, coming into the merge at a 6-4 advantage on paper, but one that could probably be swung to 5-5 thanks to Bruce's unhappiness, and all he has to do is give Bruce an incentive to jump. And what does Terry have hidden in his pack? The Immunity Idol. He knows he's the biggest target on his side, so all he has to do is lose the Immunity Challenge by a hair, draw all the votes from the other side, and then whip out the Idol and send Shane home to his nicotine fix -- at which point Bruce has no reason not to change sides, since he likes Terry a hell of a lot better than anybody from Casaya.

Given the numbers, there is going to be no better time in the game for Terry to use the thing; if he uses it now, it swings the numbers back in his favor, and the combination of a majority alliance and his own challenge bad-ass-ness should send him very far. So what does he do? He refuses to drop from the pole, beats Nick and keeps the damn thing in his pocket so that suddenly his alliance is down 6-3. Now, even if he brings the thing out at the next Tribal Council, all it does is save him for a week and give him no winning strategy other than pulling a Tom Westman-esque streak (and remember, Tom lost two individual immunities and was lucky to not get targeted either time).

Dumb, dumb, dumb -- and that's not even counting his lame-ass sales pitch to Shane and Cirie. To get people to give up a power position, you have to offer them an even better one, and much as I hate Shane, I had to laugh at his incredulity at Terry's "no one has to worry for two whole weeks" line of crap. If that's the best he's got, mentally, he deserves to go home the first time he loses a challenge. And now the previews suggest he's going to offer the Idol in trade? Awful, awful, awful. The only value of letting people know you have the Idol is to scare them into not voting for you as long as they can avoid it; give it up, and I don't care what promise they make to you, you're too big a threat for them to keep you around a second longer than they have to. I guess I'm rooting for Cirie to win now. Go, you leaf-phobic straight-shooter!

Meanwhile, on another miserable island, "Lost" had its first good episode in... how long has it been since the Mr. Eko show? Six months? Ten? Hard to tell. The more shows on network and cable that manage to air all their original episodes in a row, the less patience I have for the traditional rerun-heavy stretches in March and April on the networks, especially on a serialized show like this.

The point is, this was a great improvement over the rest of the Henry Gale arc, because stuff finally happened: Sayid and company found the balloon, we learned definitively that "Henry" was lying, there was some action in the hatch (even if that black-light diagram is just another tease that will get less and less interesting the more we learn about it), and there was a good flashback story. Yes, we already knew that Locke was hungry for his daddy's love above all else, but Terry O'Quinn is still the best actor this show has, and it's good to see him let loose, especially in an arena separate from the monotonous faith vs. science pissing contest he's been having with Jack all year. When I talked at the start of the season about being able to enjoy the show as long as I can divorce myself from any desire to have any major mysteries solved anytime soon, this was the kind of episode I was talking about.

Finally got around to both this week's "Scrubs" and the one from two weeks ago that I missed, thanks to the wonders of iTunes. They're already starting to blend together in my mind the way those back-to-back originals at the start of the season would, but I'm pretty sure the watchie-talkies were from two weeks ago and The Janitor's hurdling career was last night. (Janitor+mustache+'80s athletic gear+cigarettes=genius) Other good stuff from last night: Laverne getting banished to the roof and Keith practicing his winking in the background while Cox told Carla to punish him. Some questions: what the hell accent is Dr. Cox using these days? Because his pronunciation of the word "not" makes him sound like Charles Emerson Winchester by way of Wisconsin. Why was Jordan so giggly and enthusiastic at the party at the end? So not her at all. Can anyone recommend a good brand of pizza rolls? And is it just me, or has Turk become the main character this season?

I'll get to "Chris," "Earl" and "Office" tonight, but may not be able to blog about them until later in the weekend.

And She�s Single

If these kids couldn't make it, what chance do the rest of us have?

Anna Benson has decided to part ways with her husband, Kris, after she finally had done her best to ruin his career. Troublesome sports wives such as Joumana Kidd, Jackie Christie, Elisabeth Filarski and Lisa Gastineau will all wear black bras in remembrance.

Evidentially Anna must feel that the time is right to strike out on her own career. What, with her being an aspiring model and soon to be Playboy playmate. Posing for the men�s magazine should help launch her career much like it helped Jose Canseco�s wife � ah, what�s her name? Or that one girl who was on that one show � we will never forget her.

Maybe Anna should reconsider what she is doing. She is exhibiting the same kind of thinking that led David Caruso to leave NYPD Blue. Or the Sports Dork to become a TV writer.

Or maybe she has the same agent as Elizabeth Berkley who convinced her not to return for one more season of Saved by the Bell. Maybe that�s the hook for Benson. The end of Showgirls (yes, it is embarrassing to admit to watching until the end) hinted at a possible sequel. We now have our future star of Showgirls 2. We know she already did a lot of her research at Scores. Well played, Anna.

What A Country

Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik were the greatest wrestling tag-team of all-time, if not the most hated. As the evil Russian, and the wrestling generation�s face of the cold war, Volkoff drew a lot of heat.

Now Volkoff is looking to become an even more despicable character � as a politician.

Volkoff is preparing for a run for the Maryland House of Delegates in September. Do you think he will ask for the playing of the Soviet national anthem before each session? Maybe the Iron Sheik can join him in office and the duo can be the heels of the Maryland legislature. You can see the Sheik saying, �West Virginia, #1! The District #1! Maryland, patoo!�

Maryland is so lucky.

Talk to The Iron Sheik, a regular contributor to The Hater Nation Forums. (Don't tell that sports editor for the local Orange County paper that it's a parody. He thinks its real.)

I wish I could go back to college...

Now that's more like it, "Veronica Mars." A good self-contained mystery, a suggestion that the show could do okay once Veronica leaves high school, a gratuitously awesome "Arrested Development" double-cameo, the biggest spotlight yet for wisecracking Cliff, and a fine showcase for Jason Dohring, who's becoming so good that Veronica may need to investigate a case of show-stealing.

First, let's consider "Veronica Mars: The College Years." Really, there are only four essential characters to this show: Veronica, Keith, Logan and Wallace. Veronica and Wallace are already going to be Hearst together (Veronica getting some kind of scholarship is a fait accompli), and Keith will be just at the other end of town, with Veronica no doubt still helping out around the office. Logan could decide to straighten up, fly right and go to school, and I'm sure a hefty donation could grease his admission into Hearst. Or, if the show wants to avoid the "90210" syndrome where all the characters miraculously wound up at the same school, Logan could keep living off his trust fund, hanging out with the college kids without actually bothering to take classes. I like Weevil, and he could pop up from time to time as a townie. And as much as I love Dick (feel free to quote that out of context far and wide), he and Beaver are expendable; there are at least as many asshole rich kids in college as there can be in high school -- not to mention twice as many cliques and weird societies as you can find in high school. So college wouldn't automatically spell creative doomsday for this show the way it did for "90210," and "Buffy," and "Gilmore Girls," and... shhh. I'm having a moment.

I wasn't exactly holding my breath for the return of Troy, but he served a useful purpose as a character whose involvement in the rape story would move Veronica to be involved, but who was sketchy enough that we could have some doubt about his innocence. I like that the rapist didn't go to jail, as that creates a nice parallel with no one really getting punished for what happened to Veronica. As cool as it was to see Michael Cera and Alia Shawkat only slightly out of Bluth character, I couldn't shake the feeling that he was the rapist -- not only because it felt weird that one of them was central to that story while the other was basically a walking in-joke, but because it would have been a twisted adaptation of George Michael's obsessesion with Maebe. Ah, well. Marian had the best suggestion of the night: "They should have gotten Ron Howard to narrate this one." ("And that's when Veronica realized she had made a terrible mistake.")

Cliff and Lamb are my favorite non-Keith adult characters, so any subplot that has one busting on the other gets the andreikirilenkotattoo seal of approval. Best part of that entire story: Keith's "Gone on a puzzling errand" note for Veronica.

And jack-rammers, but Jason Dohring is good. Veronica as a character is great because she'll never change much from her post-rape personality, but Logan is still a work in progress, which gives Dohring more chances to stretch than Kristen Bell. I know the Felix subplot was cooked up to give Kristen a break from her crushing season one workload, and Dohring and Enrico Colantoni are the only other actors on the show who could shoulder this much non-Veronica screen time. The only problem, as Matt pointed out in yesterday's column (and as posters on forums throughout creation have been saying for months) is that it's kept Veronica and Logan apart for most of the year, and whether they're dating or just trash-talking each other, the show's not nearly as interesting without some major Veronica/Logan interaction.

Elsewhere in TV land (and did anybody catch the "Inside TV Land" special with William Shatner? because that guy may be stranger in real life than Denny Crane, and I love it), I haven't watched "Lost" yet, but "South Park" was an inevitable let-down after last week. Other than the George Clooney Oscar speech joke -- which was funny both because it was true and because it showed Trey and Matt aren't afraid to fuck with anyone, including the guy they owe their careers to -- the hybrid/smug joke felt labored, so the only fun was listening to Ike talk about being baked.

And only a week late, I was proven right about Lisa getting bounced from "American Idol." Again, didn't see the results show, but I doubt I would have been that shocked by Kat being in the bottom two. Weird shit happens on nights when everyone is good or everyone sucks, and she doesn't have the obvious fanbase that people like Taylor, Chris and Pickler have. (Guys generally don't power-vote for this show, so being a smoking hottie will only carrie you so far.) I suspect, however, that this should galvanize anyone afflicted with the McPheever to get off their ass and dial a few times next week (Undercover Black Man, this means you), so I'm not worried yet.

Let's Dance

By now you have heard more �No Fun League� jokes that you can stand, so let's not go there. The league did recently announce � in case you have not heard � that it will again enforce rules to limit end zone celebrations. Which is cool, if you are from the school of thought that dictates you should �act like you have been there before� when you reach the end zone.

It always seemed like a pro-choice type of thing. It is classy to toss the ball to the officials. But you can�t really begrudge a guy for celebrating when he scores. He worked hard to get into the end zone. If the defense is so worried about a player celebrating � stop him. What is far more offensive is a defensive player who celebrates after making a tackle. Congratulations. You have the easiest job on the field. Walk back to your defensive huddle while the adults on offense plot their way to the end zone.

But the league has made its choice. A player can still spike, dunk or spin a football. You can�t use the ball as a prop or celebrate from the ground.

This is really going to take a toll on the league's top dancing king:



You can talk about it in The Hater Nation Forums.

Elsewhere around the dial...

... and how badly am I dating myself by referring to a "dial"? I'm at the tail end of the last generation to remember life without cable, VCRs, CDs and most of the other entertainment technology we take for granted, and it makes me feel very, very old sometimes. Anyway...

First of all, "Thief." Matt did the review yesterday, and I pretty much agree with him. I like the fact that the show's willing to be emotionally cool where all the other FX dramas are hot, but that understated quality also kept me from getting as into it as I was at this stage with "The Shield" and "Rescue Me." Great freakin' cast, though, and I like the dynamics between Braugher and Egg from "Arrested Development" ("Her?"), plus the Parkinson's-afflicted assassin, so I'll be around for a while.

Speaking of Matt, he did a "Veronica Mars" column today that's mainly about the Logan-Veronica relationship but also touches on a lot of the problems with this season:

One aspect of the (Felix) subplot gets resolved at the start of tonight's episode, but that still leaves 623 other plot threads to tie up before the end of this season. Even if you admire series creator Rob Thomas' ambition, you've got to wonder if he's spinning too many plates. The show is still exciting and funny -- it makes me laugh out loud more often than most shows that bill themselves as comedies -- but it feels cluttered, and as a result, its emotional energy is dispersed.

I'm saving "Scrubs" to watch with Marian tonight, but we saw "House" last night and I watched "Amazing Race" this morning. "House" had fun with the inevitable "Odd Couple" jokes, though I would have admired it more if they'd just copped to it by having House make a Felix Unger joke (or, as someone commented on my last "House" blog entry 8,000 years ago, just have him recite the opening narration). The promos spoiled the big surprise in the poisoning case, so the only interesting things on the professional front were House playing world's worst marriage counselor and Cameron all but stripping and sitting in House's lap as she paid off the bet.

I'm not feeling the "Race" this time, even though they're back to the traditional format. Too many obnoxious teams and too many detours that follow the simple muscle-or-luck paradigm. Interesting that Lake didn't use the Yield the way you should (you Yield the last-place team to give yourself a cushion), yet it worked out anyway because the Pinks were so slow and Ray was so fast at assembling the statue. Who the hell is there to root for this time?

Family Feud

It�s been an eventful 2006 for the Mannings�and it�s not even April. The family that exudes big game futility has crammed a lifetime�s worth of disappointments into just four short months. Peyton, Eli, and J.J. (you can read more about J.J.'s lineage here) have all managed to exceed expectations for ineptitude. But which brother has really carried the flag of ineptness for the Mannings?

The cases are laid out before you. It�s up to you to decide in the Hater Poll in the left-hand margin.

• Peyton Manning�s failures have been well documented back to his college days at Tennessee. The year 2005 was a new low�even for a Manning. Peyton went from the cusp of a perfect season to not even winning its only home playoff game. And don�t forget that interception he threw to Troy Polamalu. With Edge moving down to Arizona following the season, that might have been Peyton's best shot.
  

• J.J. Manning had a growing reputation of a big-game choker, despite what Dick Vitale tried to tell you. His horrible performance on senior night gave a small indication of what was to come in the NCAA tournament. Manning went 3 of 18 in Duke's loss to LSU. In Manning's four career tournament losses, he shot 13 of 60 (21 percent). A true Manning.



• Eli Messiah had quite the playoff debut. The guy he replaced, Kurt Warner, passed for like 800 yards in his playoff debut (while leading he St. Louis football team to the Super Bowl). Eli passed for 113 yards and three interceptions. The Giants had hoped they had acquired a younger version of Peyton. They did. But not in the way they had imagined.
  

It's a tough call. Make your case in The Hater Nation Forums and don't forget to vote in the Hater Poll.

Father of the Year

Randy Johnson has had sex. If that is not scary enough, he�s even produced a bastard. The New York Post reported that Johnson has a secret 16-year-old love child he's never spoken to. Which seems so out of character for this guy.

The a-hole, who is a born-again Christian, has seen his daughter only once - right after her out-of-wedlock birth in 1989. Johnson demanded a paternity test when the mother first sought child support in 1998. He has also ignored his daughter�s written pleas to meet him. The jerk now wants the girl�s mom to return nearly $100K he�s paid for day care.

That sure sounds like the Christian thing to do, eh?

While the thought of Johnson having sex and procreating is scary, you haven�t heard the worst part. The 6-foot-1 high-school student �Looks like him, walking and talking, a young girl with attitude,� the mother told the Post.
Seriously, that has to be one ugly kid. She should demand an extra $100K for being saddled with those genes.

UPDATE

Damn, we weren't kidding. She looks just like the dude. And he is not a handsome man.

Johnson�s daughter told the New York Post today that every time she wrote her father, he would respond with a baseball card with his signature, �Randy.� Like he couldn�t have put down �Dad?�

Hopefully Johnson will be scheduled to pitch against the Angels in the home opener.


Talk about it in The Hater Nation Forums. A direct link to the story can be found here.

21st Century, boy

If there's been a worse night of "American Idol," I can't remember it. This was worse than Broadway night last year, worse than 21st Century Night last year, worse than any of the Burt Bacharach nights. This was a stinkeroonie, virtually from start to finish, where the between-song filler was more entertaining than most of the songs. In order...

Lisa Tucker, "Because of You": I had been joking with Fienberg that you could probably turn this theme into an "Idol" Salute to "Idol," with Kellie singing "Inside Your Heaven," Taylor doing "Invisible," Elliott doing "Flying Without Wings," etc., etc., etc. I just never imagined Lisa would be brave/dumb enough to pick a Kelly Clarkson tune. Very sharp all over the place and not that interesting. I know I said it last week, but she's going home.

Kellie Pickler, "Suds in the Bucket": The judges nailed it: a novelty song, and one that didn't even give Kellie a chance to show off her alleged personality, save for a wink in the middle. Much as I hate to quote an old line by the D-A-double-G, that whole performance was a non-event.

Ace Young, "Drops of Jupiter": The highlight of the show, by far, was Simon's scolding of Paula when she was having a Corey Clark flashback while fantasizing about Ace's scar. The arrangement was so modest and avoided all of the song's big notes, so I have no idea if Ace could sing the real thing. Snooze.

Taylor Hicks, "Trouble": Simon was right and he was wrong about the wardrobe choice. It didn't look like something Clay would wear, but the motorcycle jacket wasn't working for him at all. I like that he abandoned most of the tics and Pee-Wee Herman big shoe dancing in favor of doing a straight rendition (and I'm stunned that I agree with Paula on anything). Oddly enough, I think he could have made that ending bigger than it was, and I'm usually anti-belting for the sake of belting. One of the better ones of the night, but far from Taylor's best. And, of course, they cut to Taylor's season three doppleganger George Huff in mid-performance.

Mandisa, "Wanna Praise You": Prostelytising aside, this was energetic but not good. She was talk-singing the verses and shouting the chorus, and she always seemed like she was racing to keep up with the arrangement; don't know if that's how the actual song goes or if that's just the result of squeezing it into 90 seconds.

Chris Daughtry, "What If": Before Chris gets to sing, Seacrest has to come out to do one of his patented damage control interviews where he tries to defuse a controversy from the week before, in this case by not only crediting Live for Chris' arrangement of "Walk the Line," but inviting him to suck up to Live as much as possible. As for the performance? Bleah. I hate Creed to begin with, and this song was all shouting and growling, with Chris trying to look so hardcore that he might as well be singing "The Legend of the Rent." On the one hand, I'm glad Simon finally called Chris on being a one-trick pony, but wasn't he the same guy who last week was applauding Chris for refusing to step out of his tiny box?

Katharine McPhee, "The Voice Within": Earlier in the show, Marian dubbed her "the hot wedding singer," and this performance didn't exactly give me evidence to rebut the charge. She looked uncomfortable, was relying on way too much meliasma to compensate for her inability to hold some of those vintage Xtina notes, and it was easily the worst vocal she's done to date. And for all Simon scolds Paula for wanting to be inside Ace's heaven, the only excuse for him dubbing this almost as good as the original is if he wants to do the same with the McPheever.

Bucky Covington, "Real Good Man": Well, this is the most comfortable Bucky has looked and sounded so far, but I'm guessing that this kind of performance would land him in about seventh place on "Nashville Star." (Just like Chris would have struggled to go far on "Rock Star.") Nothing special, but on this night, nothing special is an accomplishment.

Paris Bennett, "Work It Out": Again, I don't have much to say that Simon didn't already put perfectly with his "A little girl pretending to be Beyonce" comment. Paris can sing and she can dance, but that entire performance had me wishing for the real thing.

Elliott Yamin, "I Don't Want to Be": He's growing leaps and bounds as a stage performer, but the vocals kept getting swallowed up by the orchestra and the backup singers, and the one spot in the song where they dropped out so he could go a cappella, he was doing the talk-sing thing. I'm happy to see Elliott showing some confidence (and the producers showing confidence in him by giving him the final spot), but it wasn't spectacular.

Prediction: I'm gonna keep saying Lisa is going home until she does, but this should be a telling bottom three. With everyone either sucking or being mediocre, the votes are going to depend entirely on fanbase strength. Is Pickler really as indestructible as Simon has been suggesting? Will Ace get bottom three'd again? Or does Bucky suffer the Kevin Covais fate of going home when he was slightly above average and his fanbase assumed he was safe?

Ugh. The only pluses were the no-nonsense pace and the return of "House." (More on that tomorrow.)

Gas, ex

Not a bad "24," though the is-she-or-isn't-she mystery about Audrey wasn't that compelling, both because the show's done it so many times in the past and because Audrey's not nearly as interesting as some of the previous characters they pulled this with. But when in doubt, this show always pulls out a kewl action sequence, and the shootout at the natural gas plant was pretty sweet. (On the other hand, a friend pointed out to me: burning the gas neutralizes it as a threat, but pretty much all natural gas is burned at the stove, oven, furnace or water heater before it enters somebody's home. I'm not enough of a chem major to know just what level I have to suspend my disbelief at this week.) Also, how long before Aaron the Super Secret Service Agent gets his own spin-off? Or, at the very least, how long before he and Jack are side-by-side again, kicking ass and not bothering to take names?

I saw "Prison Break" a couple of weeks ago; my memory of it was that I liked Michael's journey to the Whack Shack and subsequent char-broiling, but the rest -- especially the 11th hour appearance of Tony Denison as Michael and Linc's dad -- bored me the way the show usually does when Michael's not coming up with some ingenious solution for getting out. Next week: more narrative throat-clearing, disguised as flashbacks to explain how everyone wound up at this prison. Doesn't "Lost" waste enough time each week on this stuff?

Basebrawl

When the Red Sox and Devil Rays get together, you have to just throw out the records.

(Picture shamelessly stolen from Deadspin like we were Zach or something.)

Lil' Hater: Not Done Yet

A couple more Final Four notes, because like totally, nobody has thought of these jokes before.

Been living in California for a little over a year, and I hate UCLA fans. You think Raiders fans live in the past�they have nothing on Bruins basketball fans. You just know some smart ass was sitting on a load of �Fire Ben Howland� T-shirts and firing up the www.firebenhowland.com domain name before Gonzaga choked against the Bruins. Don�t worry, though. There will be pissed alumni if the team does not win a championship this year. UCLA is all about the championships. You can just tell from all of the banners they won from 1976 through 2006. What a powerhouse.

Don�t rest Howland, those shirts and websites will spring up when you flame out in the Sweet 16 next year.

Between Uconn�s Josh Boone and Florida�s Joakim Noah, which player has the greatest chance of being drafted by a confused WNBA general manager? Most guys, I figure, would rather be intimate with either player before even considering Candace Parker.

Just saying.

Maybe I stepped away from the TV at the wrong time, but at what point in the weekend did Billy Packer get on his knee and propose to Vanillanova's Kyle Lowry? Did Lowry tearfully accept the proposal, and if so, does that explain his 1-for9, two assist choke job?

I've never heard more unnecessary gushing for a too-small point guard who averaged 8 points and only 2 assists for the tourney, and who can't shoot from the outside. On the bright side, maybe Isiah Thomas will draft him now.

I was rooting for George Mason, until with 5 seconds left in regulation, Verne Lundquist tried to sell as a heartwarming story on the plight of the poor Patriots player Tony Skinn. You know, the guy who had punched a guy from Hofstra in the nuts a couple weeks ago, and was now about to make the free throws to send his team to the Final Four. (Unlike the nut shot, he choked and missed, of course).

There's no good way to spin hitting a guy in the balls on purpose. Unless it's a Duke guy getting cock-punched.

There is something I'm supposed to plug here, The Hater Nation Forums, I believe. So go check it out, otherwise I won't get my check this week.

Chargers, Raiders on MNF

The Chargers will opens its' 2006 NFL schedule on Monday Night in Oakland. It's kind of a curious choice for ESPN and the league. There are some interesting angles: It's a great rivalry. (At least it was before the Raiders turned into the modern day Saints.) It will be quarterback Phillip Rivers first NFL start. (It is kind of the league to not start his career off against a real NFL secondary.)

But why does the league want to start its season, one of its premier games, in front of a half-empty crowd in Oakland? Obviously the league is banking that the optimism for Aaron Brooks and Art Shell's coaching�along with the general Raiders myopia�will be at an all-time high.

In fact, there is even a chance that maybe the Raiders could reach three quarters capacity for this game.

Dare to dream. So maybe it is prudent for the league to play this game early in the season when the front-running Raiders fans have not bailed out on the season as of yet.

Discuss it in The Hater Nation Forums.

The sounds of andreikirilenkotattoo

Archived audio of my KNBR interview is up here. My wife says I was great, and she's not at all biased.

Nice Route

It's obvious that Alfonso Soriano cannot play second base. Starting to receive word that left field isn't going to be much better for E4-onso. Soriano misplayed a ball in the first inning that led to an Astros run. Lefty Lance Berkman hit a ball the opposite way to left-center that Soriano misread. He charged the ball and it carried over his head allowing Willy Taveras to score from first base.

That has got to do wonders for the confidence of Washington pitchers this season.

"I try to catch the ball, but it was a line drive going up because of the wind," said Soriano, on a day where the wind blew straight out to center at 12 mph.

Another thing that is painfully obvious. Soriano is going to need to work on his excuse making, too. But manager Frank Robinson noted that Soriano didn�t go for the cheap �sun in my eyes� excuse, instead branching out to the underutilized �wind� excuse. That's progress.

Talk about it more in The Hater Nation Forums.

Ahhh, Brent-ie

I was super-geeked at the prospect of Ricky Gervais both writing and appearing in an episode of "The Simpsons," until I read an article in the newest Entertainment Weekly where he listed his five favorite "Simpsons" episodes ever, none of which would be close to my top five, one of which -- "Homer's Enemy" -- represented everything I came to dislike about the later years.

Thankfully, that article helped me, to quote Tony Soprano's doctor, recalibrate my expectations. I came in expecting another Frank Grimes-esque celebration of Tony at his oafish worst, so the actual episode was a nice surprise. Not top 10, or even top 150, but by the standards of the last few seasons, pretty good.

The best part, by far, was Gervais writing and playing himself as David Brent: the career choice, the awkward flirtation, the inappropriate jokes that require five minutes to explain, etc. Plus, the visit to the Fox lot was pretty funny, especially a Mischa Barton statue that gave a much more convincing performance than the real Mischa ever has.

(By the way, when Paulie Walnuts took one in the walnuts on last night's "Sopranos," was I the only one who instantly thought of "Barney's movie had heart... but 'Football in the Groin' had a football in the groin"? Not just me? Good.)

The only other Sunday TV I finished was "West Wing," which was mostly campaign filler, other than the Toby scenes. My daughter's not a lot younger than Molly, and while I've never violated national security (not that I can think of), the notion of having to be away from Julia for a long period of time hit home for me. Plus, I much prefer Toby's ex-wife when she's not singing in front of burning cars. My prediction for next week, influenced by the least subtle preview reel of all time: Santos wins, but the victory celebration is ruined by the death of Leo.

Lil' Hater: Celebration Day

�This is for the people of New Orleans and Katrina!�
-- LSU Tigers forward Glen Davis, after beating Texas, and reaching the Final Four.

Davis� sentiment is truly heartwarming, and the storyline of LSU winning one for its waterlogged state is sure to be a well played in the next week.

(The Bish is probably having a hard time right now, deciding whether to be the 203rd writer to tackle this obvious angle, or going with his fresh �UCLA is good, but let�s not compare them to a John Wooden-coached team yet� take.)

But let�s not kid ourselves. From a sporting angle, the best thing that happened to New Orleans residents played out over a week ago.

When their crappy QB, Aaron Brooks, left town.

And became a Raider.

That�s right, there was actually a team stupid enough to pay $8 million to have Brooks lead their team to somewhere just below mediocrity over the next two years. Of course, that team had to be the Raiders.

Even the Raiders can�t put a good spin on this signing. Brooks �provides us with a veteran presence,� Coach Art Shell said. That�s about as big an endorsement as you�ll see.

Those weren�t Mardi Gras parades you saw on TV the other week in New Orleans, they were actually parades celebrating their team actually having a decent chance at winning now, with Brooks gone. Between Brook�s poor decision-making skills, and what we will politely call Coach Shell�s clock management �issues,� it should be a great year next year. For Haters.

New Orleans, Aaron Brooks is gone. There is hope for your city, after all.

Wake up and talk

"The Sopranos," week three. I'll be on San Francisco's KNBR 680 AM today at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, to talk about last night's episode, so if anyone wonders how basso profundo my voice sounds, now's your chance to listen live (their website has a link to that). In the meantime, here's the opener to my latest day-after review:

Let�s talk about Silvio on the toilet for a minute.

Look, I know you�re dying to talk about what the monks represent, or Carmela�s therapy session, or Little Carmine�s triumphant return, but I think we need to start with Silvio on the toilet.

Okay, so Tony didn�t make his traditional season-opening waddle to the end of the driveway for his copy of The Star-Ledger. It hurt, but I moved on and was rewarded with the sight of acting boss Silvio conducting business from a hospital men�s room stall while thumbing through a copy of this here newspaper. If I didn�t know that HBO refuses to accept product placement money for the show, I would assume my bosses slipped them a small fortune for that primo advertisement.

The toilet scene was also important because it was funny. While the season�s first two episodes had plenty to offer - religious imagery, award-worthy monologues, prolonged hangings - the laughs had mostly been absent from a show that often plays less as a drama than a black comedy about America�s moral decay.

To read the rest, click here, then come back to comment. Two things I didn't have room to mention: 1)It was really the all-scumbags, all-the-time hour, wasn't it? I'm glad the show does this from time to time to remind the audience that these "lovable" mobsters are really awful people. 2)So what the hell do the monks represent? Maybe the idea that this isn't the exact Catholic Purgatory, but some kind of omnibus spiritual way station to the afterlife. Had Tony/Finnerty stayed there another episode, maybe he'd have run into some Muslims next.

More this and more that

Comments about the last post reminded me of a bunch of other things I watched this week, including:

"24": A friend tried to kill my rediscovered buzz for "24" by pointing out that it's a show that plays much better in DVD-style marathons than on a weekly basis. This is the first time I had to wait more than a few hours to watch a new episode this season, but I still enjoyed it for the most part. The thing is, I've been watching "24" for so long that I feel like a magician's assistant who knows how all the tricks work. It's really hard for the show to surprise me, so the entertainment comes from the presentation and the forward momentum of the story. So when they dropped that big twist about Audrey allegedly selling the blueprints to the French hottie, it wasn't exactly a shocker. Nina turning traitor-- that was a shocker. This was more of a mild "Huh? Wonder where they're going with this?" But I enjoyed the rest of the episode, particularly Jack finding a method other than kneecapping someone to get the info he needed. Plus, the presence of Desmond from "Lost" as the German spy guy had my mind wandering to all kinds of potential Jack lines on Craphole Island: "TELL ME WHERE THE BALLOON IS!" "TELL ME WHERE THE GUNS ARE!" "TELL ME WHAT THE POINT IS!"

"Everybody Hates Chris": Not the funniest episode they've done (even the montage of Rochelle yelling at everyone up to and including herself wasn't that hot), but the inherent sweetness and honesty of the show buys it a lot of points from me even when I'm not laughing. Plus, who doesn't love to see Jimmy Walker die while eating porkchops?

(Speaking of Jimmy, a pointless biographical anecdote you can skip if all you care about are the TV reviews: During one Social Studies class late in 12th grade, our teacher Mr. Lucibello was explaining the LeCompton Compromise or some other kind of historical pact, and, as it often does, my mind started to wander from one vaguely-connected subject to another, until finally, for reasons I can't remember, I was thinking about Jimmy Walker. I started to laugh, and Mr. Lucibello asked me to tell the rest of the class what was so funny. "You don't want to know," I said, which he took as a sign that it was something that would really embarrass me, and since we'd been trading sarcastic barbs all year, he insisted I tell him and the class what was making me laugh. So I told him, in exhaustive detail, how I got from the lesson to Jimmy Walker, and by the end of it, his face was buried in his hands and he said, "You're right; I didn't want to know that." So now, whenever Marian or I start laughing at something only tangentially connected to what we're talking about, we just say "Jimmy Walker" to explain it. Anyway, back to TV...)

"The Loop": Is it bad that the funniest parts of the show tend to be the made-up profanity ("Jack-rammers!")? And why did all the commercials promote an entirely different episode (with Thesis dressed in some dorky cowboy outfit) instead of this one? And is it possible for Philip Baker Hall to swing a samurai sword around and grunt in every episode? Please? And why am I still asking questions? I don't know, do I? .... ahem... Sorry. I think I still like what the show's trying to do -- the fast pace, the use of music, the work vs. play theme -- more than I like the show itself. Brett Harrison, Mimi Rogers and Hall are all great, but the non-work scenes are really hit or miss. The sandwich storyline never really clicked until they found a way to tie it into the Hong Kong plot.

"The O.C.": After forgetting to record it last week, I figured we were quits for good; I had only been watching out of habit and old loyalty, and once the run got interrupted, I had an excuse to stop. But since I was taping "The Loop" in another room already, it was easy to let the VCR keep going for an extra hour and watch "O.C." in the background while I was doing something else. As multi-tasking wallpaper, this episode wasn't too bad, I suppose: Kirsten and Ryan actually interacting like family, Seth doing sand-floor to block Summer's punches, Ryan figuring out that he needs to stop playing white knight, and, especially, Marissa stuck in her own subplot that none of the other characters wanted any part of (which meant I could fastforward through all those scenes without worry of missing a good Summer one-liner). Maybe this'll turn out like me and the later years of "NYPD Blue," where I'm watching to be a completist and grading on a big curve.

"Saturday Night Live" repeats on E!: They've been showing the later parts of the Hartman/Carvey/Myers years, so I've gotten to see classic sketches like Chris Farley auditioning for Chippendale's and Michael Jordan doing advertisements for his own brand of hardcore porn and something to help girls with that not-so-fresh feeling. My only complaint: due to music rights, they had to remove Van Halen's "Beautiful Girls" from the immortal Schmitt's Gay commercial parody, and it's not nearly as funny with generic Van Halen-sounding guitar riffs. It's an outrage. An outrage!

This and that

Sorry for the delay: been slammed at work today, and, frankly, haven't had much enthusiasm for the last few night's worth of series TV. The Gonzaga choke was much more dramatic than anything that happened on "Lost or "Veronica Mars." Quick hits, in no particular order:

"Scrubs": Ehh. This has been a brilliant season overall, but other than the peek inside Turk's sex dreams ("One time, you were skinless!") and Dr. Cox reading lines from "Streetcar," not a lot there. And would it have killed Zach Braff to shave his head? His "Garden State" girlfriend could do it, why not him? Even if they needed J.D. to be back to the bushy cut in the next episode, they already have a wig from the episode where Elliott turned into J.D. to smooch with Mandy Moore.

"Veronica Mars": Two duds in a row since they came back from hiatus, though I hear the next two are supposed to be really good. (Speaking of shaved heads, it took me forever to figure out who the girl in the preview was until I IMDb'ed it and realized it's Maebe Funke.) The episodes where Veronica tackles adult cases almost never work, and the bus crash clues are pointing so furiously at Woody Goodman that I'll be bored if he did it and annoyed if he didn't. Two bits I liked: Kendall vamping it up for Beaver, Aaron and Logan with varying degrees of success; and Logan realizing that even he has levels he shouldn't stoop to.

"Lost": Why has it taken me three episodes to realize that Balloon Guy was one of the evil genius serial killers from "The Practice"? Maybe because every scene in the hatch tends to put me to sleep these days? (Plus, didn't they eat all the food already in the "Everybody Hates Hurley" episode? Where did those Dharma-O's come from?) Other than some good performances from the underused Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim, plus Ana-Lucia meta-ing that nobody (including the audience) likes her, not a lot here.

"My Name Is Earl": I want to love this show, really I do. I watch episodes like last night's Y2K flashback, I see scenes and jokes that I know I should be laughing at, and yet the most it usually coaxes out of me is a smile. Early in the season, I complained that they didn't think the jokes through far enough, but last night felt pretty thorough to me, and yet I didn't laugh more than once or twice. I appreciate what the show's doing enough to keep watching, but I can't put my finger on what's holding me at a distance from it. Is it just me?

Ask a Duke Fan

Here's a spin on our popular "Ask a Raiders Fan" segment where we troll message boards talking to idiot fans so you don�t have to. These statements are not exaggerated and come from the website, Devilsillustrated.com. We work hard so you don�t have to. (These answers also are unedited so excuse any Internet lingo or misspellings.)

Why did your team lose on Thursday?

Duke lost this game because the officials let this game be played by prison rules. Everytime Reddick even thought about getting the ball he was being tripped, held and hacked. It seemed the officials were out to prove a point that Duke was not going to get any calls.

Prison rules. Well you don't need a degree from Duke to find the underlying meaning there.

Would you say that J.J. Manning is a choker?

I won't say jj is a choker by any means. He has hit some great shots in past games. He has some off nights in the ncaa.

Hes been in a funk for a few weeks now, by NO means is he a choker!

Seriously?

No he is not a choker, but I don't buy the argument that the defense gets more intense. Baskeball analyst, announcers, and Duke fans have all said that the reason for his struggles is because he was either mentally xhausted or that the defense just started playing him tighter. The fact is that he was drained.

It's funny that nobody from Texas, LSU, UCLA, or Memphis are too mentally exhausted. It's those poor Dookies that are really feeling the pressure.

Could there be any other explanation for Duke's ability to choke?

It's the venue, stupid. Why does the NCAA insist on playing some of these games in football stadiums. It is so un-natural to play basketball in these places. It is hard for all the teams to adjust to the shooting backgrounds and "wide openness" of the surrounding environment.

How will you remember Manning?

Great player, great shooter, not overrated despite the comments of other fools who have little basketball intelligence, and one of the greatest college players ever.

Aren't the greatest college players measured by rings?

There's a ton of great college players that didn't get a ring. Maravich and O'Neal from LSU come to mind.

But did any of them fold in a championship tournament like Manning? Did those guys have a surrounding cast of McDonalds All-Americas, an easy bracket, and all of the other benefits that Duke has recieved?

Nobody has an answer for that.

You can talk about Duke in The Hater Nation Forums. And what do you know, there is a new Last and Ten on the left.

So Much for Mr. Clutch

J.J. chokes again. Now is not the time for who was right; who was wrong; or who choked in the big dance�again. To brag about predicting the demise of Duke in the tournament is akin to bragging about predicting the morning sunrise.

It was too easy. Besides gloating is so Sports Dork.

And don�t worry, Duke fans; we are sure that you will cherish that huge clutch performance over Texas in December. Or maybe you can celebrate that huge win over Boston College in the ACC tournament. Those will be your cherished memories of J.J. Manning. Not the bitter disappointment from his tournament appearances.

Like, nobody remembers that great run that Villanova put on in the 1985 NCAA tournament. Everybody remembers how great of a regular season Patrick Ewing had for Georgetown. Nobody remembers Lorenzo Charles, Danny Manning, or Tyus Edney. They remember superstars like Fennis Dembo.

Plus you have J.J.�s upcoming�soon to be stellar�professional career to enjoy. Maybe Manning can win a professional title in Italy. With so much to look forward to in the future, nobody will remember that J.J. Manning choked in the NCAA Tournament.

Again.



It would be hard to pick a favorite moment in Duke�s loss to LSU. You had J.J. crying when he left the game; Coach Krzymdbnmresxski talking about the �physicality� of the game (code for the refs weren�t giving us enough calls); and really any miss by J.J. Manning (his career NCAA tournament stats are above*).

The highlight was Glen �Big Baby� Davis standing on the free throw line by himself and rebounding his own miss while surround by four Duke players who refused to box him out. That showed that LSU had reached in and snatched Duke�s heart like that crazy dude did in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

And seriously, anybody finding those Coach K car commercials satisfying now?

*Scan for J.J.'s career stats come from our boy, Slade.

A Shoulder To Cry On

Aaron Brooks is a Raider

And here you were worried the Raiders were going to do something smart following the release of Kerry Collins.

Aaron Brooks is a perfect Raider, actually. A nice blend of high potential and limited results. The New Orleans Saints faltered in recent years and it was because Brooks is not the type of quarterback who is going to take his team to the next level. And don�t say that Brooks wasn�t given a fair chance�he was armed with running back Deuce McAllister and receiver Joe Horn. Brooks just couldn�t deliver.

Brooks has put up good numbers over the past couple of years and he likely will for the Raiders, too. That�s great for fantasy football, but those numbers have never equated to more than nine wins for the Saints.

Then again, nine wins for the Raiders would seem like the Super Bowl.

The Raiders are obviously impressed with Brooks ability to throw the deep ball. Hmm, he throws a great deep ball; he racks up huge numbers but never seems to get his team over the top. Why does that sound familiar? He�s a mobile version Kerry Collins. But remember, Brooks was benched in favor of Adrian �The Hustler� McPherson* last year, for crying out loud.

You know they will be talking about this in The Hater Nation Forums.

*Brooks was actually benched in favor of Todd Bauman. As Scott from Buc Stats points out, that makes it much, much, worse.

Commercial Madness

The NCAA men�s tournament resumes today and that could mean only one thing�more Mike Krzybnmcvbiyugbski commercials for that car company. Great. It�s kind of ironic that the two themes of Coach K�s commercial are honesty and trust. They really cast that commercial well. Although he does look like a used car salesman much in the same vain as Larry from Three�s Company, he�s not exactly the model of honesty or trust.

In future commercials do the ad wizards that came up with that plan to have Paris Hilton talk about abstinence and respectability? The Bish hawking hair-care products? That car company should have sprung for a couple of videos of Osama Bin Laden from Al-Jazeera and used those images instead of Coach K. It would have been less offensive.

Now the fine folks at Mercury certainly have the right idea. Instead of hiring some scumbag coach, they went for a hot chick. This is Jill Wagner (right). Now this is what you from a spokes model. She�s appeared in Punk�d, strutted her stuff for a Stuff Magazine layout, and she is even an Internet geek as she just recently updated her IMDB profile. That's right, her last log in to her own personal page here was only a couple of days. Go for it Zach, you totally have a chance with her.

It's just a shame that Mercury isn't sponsoring the tournament. Instead of Wagner, we get Coach K and the dorks for that family casual chain. Perfect. They will also be playing games on Thursday. Here is a quick run down.

Duke vs. LSU: Alright J.J., it's time for the Manning finally deliver in the clutch.

West Virginia vs. Texas: Heard nobody on the Long Horns basketball team could score high on the Wonderlic Test either.

Memphis vs. Bradley: Don Chaney has threatened to kill Bradley coach Jim Les if they don't beat Memphis.

UCLA vs. Gonzaga: It's said that former Steppenwolf front-man, Adam Morrison, is one of the biggest trash talkers in the game. Somebody should tell him to eat a candy bar and shut up.

What do you say about some more needless text as a desperate excuse to use another photo of Wagner? You wouldn't mind, would you?

Check out The Hater Nation Forums and Population Statistic for leading us to the Wagner info.

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Revenge is a dish best served with cold cuts. Or something like that. And last night I got to see two masterful bits of revenge on my TV screen.

Well, technically, I only saw one of them, because I refuse to watch the "American Idol" results show unless every other channel on my cable system is blacked out and my eyelids have been clipped open. But you have to love the way Simon engineered Kevin's exit.

Simon's been doing this a while now. He knows when his criticism is fueling protest votes for contestants he doesn't like, and he knows how to turn that around and stick the knife in when the audience least expects it. After Kevin didn't so much as make the bottom three last week, Simon decided to damn him with faint praise. He sat through a passable, in-tune rendition of "When I Fall In Love," recognized that the worst thing an at-risk contestant can do is to just be a'ight, and paid Kevin the mild compliment of saying that his fans probably enjoyed that song. In Simon-speak, that roughly translates to "See ya! Wouldn't wanna be ya!"

Frankly, I'm disappointed in myself for not seeing that coming. I was as confident that Lisa was going home as I've been about a boot at least as far back as Anwar in the middle of last season. I should have recognized the power of killing with kindness.

I've seen a few recappers complain that Kevin's early exit is going to make this season less fun, because each year needs that one annoying person who sticks around much longer than they have any right to (Nikki, Carmen, John Stevens IV, Savol) and causing the premature exits of better singers. To that, I say Hong Kong Phooey. Kevin was an easy target, so obviously out of his league and so obviously mocked by the judges (even Paula!) that the joke would have worn thin very quickly. But there are still several people who suck left in this competition, and at least two of them (Ace and Pickler) keep getting overpraised by the judges, either because they fit some obvious mold, because they're doing so well in the votes that the judges don't want to look stupid, or both. When the Pickle outlasts someone like Elliott or Mandisa or Katharine, that's going to be a much bigger outrage than if Kevin had outlasted Lisa or Bucky. A prolonged run by Kevin means that American's are naive but nurturing. A long run by Kellie means that Americans are stupid.

And speaking of easy targets, I wrote last fall that the "South Park" Scientology episode "could have been a lot savager and funnier than it was," since mocking the CoS has become like a turkey shoot. I wanted savage? I wanted funny? I got 'em both by the barrel last night, with the whole Scientology=Super Adventure Club=child molestors bit, the Frankenbiting of Chef's dialogue to make him sound like a pederast, the helpful appearance of a psychologist, etc., etc., etc. That first act may have been the funniest thing I've seen since the opening 20 minutes of "Bigger, Longer and Uncut." I laughed so hard and so long at those early scenes that I think Marian may have already visited a divorce laywer this morning. The episode sagged a little in the middle, but around the time we got the "This is what Super Adventure Club really believes" subtitle (a callback to the best joke of the Scientology episode), it was brilliant again.

Two things I especially loved: 1)The jokes were structured in such a way that even the most litigious people on earth couldn't find grounds to sue, and 2)Through Stan and Kyle, Trey and Matt made it clear that they weren't mad at Isaac Hayes, just sad at what they felt had been done to him (whether the stroke story is true or not).

I won't get to watch "Veronica Mars" and "Lost" until sometime this afternoon at the earliest, so I may not be able to blog about them and "Scrubs" and other stuff until tomorrow morning.

Adam Vinatieri How Could You?

Adam Vinatieri had a free pass here in The Hater Nation. The former Patriot kicked off one of the greatest sports calendar years of our lives in 2002. Vinatieri single-footedly eliminated both the Oakland Raiders and the St. Louis Football team in the same playoff season. Both in demoralizing and excruciating fashion. (And lucrative too, seeing we had the Patriots on the money line for the Super Bowl).

That started a year in which the Anaheim Angels would win the World Series. There were no bigger heroes than Troy Glaus and Vinatieri. Now Glaus is playing in Toronto which is cool because his can�t-miss replacement Dallas McPherson won't even make the (expletive) roster this year.

But what really hurts is Vinatieri leaving New England.

Actually, how could he join the Colts? There is a very real possibility that Peyton Manning could shake his choker status with Vinatieri on his side. The Colts would have beaten Pittsburgh if they had Vinatieri. Let's put it this way, Manning will not be referring to his new kicker as an idiot.

Can a kicker really make that much difference?

Yes. Without Vinatieri, Tom Brady is Jim Kelly. He is John Elway without Terrell Davis. The media has been telling us for years that the Patriots are smarter than us, but this is just a dumb move. What an error. This is not like cutting a favorite veteran who is past his prime. This is not cutting Junior Seau at the end of his effectiveness. Vinatieri has been his club�s most valuable player for the past five seasons. Who would you want more than anybody to line up for a game-winning kick?

This has the potential to end very badly. Hopefully the Patriots know what they are doing. Talk about it in The Hater Nation Forums.

Letters, I get letters

Been a helluva day in the ol' snail-mail bag. Our office spam filters are pretty good, and most of the real whack jobs tend to prefer pen and paper (or a Smith-Corona), so opening physical mail can always be a real adventure. Started off today with this bit of Air Mail from Ghana:

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am very, very gratefull and thankful to you - what you have done has wonder me very much and please Ihope you are all well with good condition as we are in Ghana.

It goes on from there to pitch me on sending money for school supplies. What I particularly admire, beyond the spelling and grammar errors, is that apparently I have done a wonderful thing for this person but they don't know my gender. Moving on, I got this type-written postcard with no name or return address:

Dear Mr. andreikirilenkotattoo: Please stop writing articles that glamorize "Sopranos." All Mafia are terrorists, and should be treated like they are terrorists. Thanks for considering this possibility.

Then, I got an oldie-but-goodie, which was written in all-caps that I'll spare your eyes from:

Dear Alan andreikirilenkotattoo & Matt Zoller Seitz: I don't know if this problem has been addressed in your column. I like to watch shows like CSI, CSI Miami, NCIS, but I find that some genius has decided to interject "background" music which is so loud, I can't hear what the actors are saying. What a waste! Can anything be done about it? Has anyone else written to you about this?

Only about a million people, ma'am, all of them using almost the exact same phrasing, with the occasional naive use of "can you please use your influence," implying that I can just get Les Moonves on the phone and order him to dial down the score so people can hear David Caruso pretend to emote.

And, finally, the piece de resistance (excerpts only):

Dear Mr. andreikirilenkotattoo: I recently read in the STAR-LEDGER your article on the SOPRANOS, which I enjoyed. I compliment you on your excellent reporting.

The reason for this letter is the fact that I've recently completed a novel (factually based) about organized crime that takes place in the Belleville/Newark area...

My question to you is do you know of a publisher who might be interested in the book? As you probably are aware, rarely will a publisher accept a book from a prisoner. It appears that you need an "in" just to get an editor to read the material. I've queried a couple of literary agents and their response has been in thenegative, solely because I'm in prison.

I then noted that the return address included the phrase "Lock Bag," and looked up the guy's name in our archives, where I learned that he's a convicted cop killer who's been in prison for decades. I actually gave some thought to writing back to the guy until one of our columnists mentioned that she's been getting increasingly stalker-ish letters from one of her fans, who has gone so far as to mail her print-outs of his web searches for her home address. The moral of the story: it doesn't pay to be nice to people.

Hot in the 50s

"American Idol" finals week two: a vast improvement over Stevie Wonder Night, though should that be much of a surprise? These decade themes always allow the finalists to stay in their comfort zones with their blanky and their favorite teddy and a cup of warm cocoa, but I heard at least five performances that had me thinking that singer could win and I wouldn't complain in the least. In order...

Mandisa ("I Don't Hurt Anymore"): Holy shit, that was sexy. Obviously, you look at Mandisa and that's not a word that automatically comes to mind, but that's how amazing that performance was. Vocally in command from first note to last, making love to both the camera and the audience (and not in a smarmy, Guarini/Constantine/Ace/Pickler way, but something authentic), just great all around. Best of the night by far, and one of my top 10 "Idol" performances ever. Usually, going first in a two-hour show can be trouble (see Ace in the bottom three last week), but I doubt anyone who watched is going to forget that one for a long long time.

Bucky Covington ("Oh Boy"): Mumbled lyrics and notes that disappeared somewhere inside his facial hair, redeemed only partially by an upbeat stage presence. Worst vocal of the night, though I don't think he's going home.

Paris Bennett ("Fever"): A 17-year-old shouldn't be able to pull this one off and make it feel as lived-in and sultry as Paris made it. I wasn't having inappropriate thoughts about her or anything, but I believed her performance in a way I usually don't when the teen queens try to sing grown-up love songs. Only quibble: the rendition would have been a lot more interesting if it had ended quiet instead of with that belty note, but this ain't a competition that rewards subtlety.

Chris Daughtry ("Walk the Line"): One of the things I really enjoyed about "Rock Star" was that the singers weren't just allowed to rearrange the songs, but encouraged to do it. The "Idol" judges always talk about not being karaoke and making it your own, but what they really want most of the time is a note-perfect copy of the original with the singer's personality injected a little bit. This is easily the most radical reinterpretation of a song anyone's done since at least John Stevens IV trying to croon "Lately," with one difference: this didn't suck. (Also, I think Chris probably could have done the original up right if they'd made him do it.) Yes, Chris is determined to stay in his little Creed/Nickelback/Live box as long as he possibly can, but this was a very cool version of Johnny, and considering the heavily-modified covers from the "American" albums, I think the Man in Black would have approved. (UPDATE: Matt Hunter pointed out in the comments section that this was a straight rendition of the Live cover of "Walk the Line." I listened to a sample on iTunes, and that's exactly what it was, in which case I'm much less impressed. Not a bad performance, but not much imagination.)

Katharine McPhee ("Come Rain or Come Shine"): Katharine, Paris and Mandisa wouldn't seem to have a lot in common other than being women with good singing voices, but that's three very sultry performances in a row by the ladies. Like Marian said last week, she looks like a cross between Katie Holmes and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and it's funny to see her transition from sweet, all-American Katie in her interviews to naughty sexpot Catherine when she sings. Maybe the second best of the night after Mandisa, though the last note wavered more than I think she wanted it to.

Taylor Hicks ("Not Fade Away"): An off night from one of my favorites. Yes, it's a repetitive song, but you can give it personality and variation within those lyrics. After Taylor finished, I fired up iTunes and played both the Buddy Holly version and a Rolling Stones cover from their "Stripped" album, both of which were much livelier and rougher than Taylor's Pat Boone performance (right down to the shoes). And while his dancing is entertaining, it's not exactly good, so when the vocals aren't there, he really does seem like the drunk dad at the wedding. I did appreciate Simon's first big verbal smackdown of Paula in this year's finals.

Lisa Tucker ("Why Do Fools Fall In Love?"): She's going home. She's going home. She's going home. Is there anything else to say? No, she wasn't the worst singer tonight (that would be Bucky), but the vocals were ordinary, the stage moves too pageanty, and I think whatever fan base she might have had jumped ship weeks ago to vote for Paris. The judges telling her to be "young" and "fun" was possibly the most misguided advice they've ever given to a promising finalist. As a torch singer, Lisa was at least interesting in the same "old soul" way that Gedeon was; as a peppy, smiling dance machine, she's a snooze. Nice knowing you, say hi to Melissa for me.

Kevin Covais ("When I Fall In Love"): Okay, I yield the floor to Fienberg on this one. He's not punking the show, he's not amusing himself, he's sincerely trying to win. If I heard this at a high school talent show -- say, after Meadow Soprano's solo -- I would have smiled and said that was pretty good. For a nationally televised singing contest, it was average at best. I do appreciate that he followed Manilow's advice about being understated, a quality you don't get very much of on this show.

Elliott Yamin ("Teach Me Tonight"): Even if he'd stunk, he'd get major brownie points for having the guts to say he didn't like Manilow before he met him. Fortunately, he didn't stink. Yes, he cheated the theme the same way Chris did last week by singing a much later cover version, but he has the most versatile, interesting voice of anybody this season, and he's slowly learning how to be a performer in addition to a great singer. The stylists are still struggling with what to do with him, and I don't think the goatee is it. Would it be too mid-'90s to dress him like a Rat Pack'er?

Kellie Pickler ("Walking After Midnight"): Her pronunciation of the phrase "searching for you" sounded like it was run through a vocoder by way of Inspector Clouseau trying to pronounce either "bomb" (Sellers) or "hamburger" (Martin). Other than that, it was a'ight-blah, but no more, and I don't know what the fuck Simon's talking about when he said how sexy it was. Wait, I know exactly what he's talking about, because in Simon's world, a skinny blonde in tight jeans will always be sexy no matter how sleepy-eyed and dull she seems while singing. Paula called it "a true authentic Kellie Pickler performance," which sounds about right. Considering how often Simon's called her a frontrunner in interviews, I have to assume she's getting tons of votes, which makes me sad but doesn't surprise me.

Ace Young ("In the Still of the Night"): Ah, the inevitable "Ace is back" storyline, in the tradition of "Bo is back" (and, I vaguely recall, "Ruben is back" and "Justin is back"), where an early frontrunner winds up in the bottom three, then gets the pimp slot at the end of the next episode, followed by a tongue bath from Randy and company. Only difference is, Bo was "back" the week he sang "Vehicle" and deservedly put distance between himself and everyone else but Carrie, whereas I don't think Ace was a hell of a lot better than he's been for the last three or four weeks. Yes, he's more comfortable when he doesn't have to move, and, yes, he's pretty, and yes, his falsetto sometimes doesn't make my ears bleed, but I was checking my watch through half that performance. (During the other half, I was noticing that, during parts of the song, his mouth looked like Hank Azaria when he plays Chief Wiggum.) The producers want him to do well because they think a non-threatening hunk will be good for the ratings and/or album sales, but Ace missed the boy band train by half a decade and he's not a good enough singer to stand on his own.

Bottom three: Lisa and Bucky for sure, with Lisa going home. The other member? I'm stumped. The other people who sucked either have strong fanbases (Covais, Pickler) or got favorable comments and placement (Ace). Maybe Elliott? I love his voice, but we all know that's not what most people vote on.

Spoiled by 'The Shield'

SPOILER WARNING: I'm going to discuss the finale of "The Shield" in a lot of detail, so turn away now if you haven't seen it yet.

Speaking of spoilers, sometime spoiler hints aren't such a bad thing. Michael Chiklis did a lot of press in the last few weeks suggesting that one or more regular characters were going to bite it by the end of this half-season, so when we got to that scene with Shane and Lem, it was pretty clear what was going to happen, if not how. But that assumption actually made the scene work better I think, then if it had been an out-of-the-blue shock. Because I suspected what was coming, I could see Shane agonizing over what he felt he had to do, trying desperately to get Lem to say something, anything, that would make him change his mind. I know Chiklis and Forest Whitaker are getting all the acting hype this year, but hot damn was Walton Goggins good there. He actually made me feel sorry for dumb, racist, selfish, remorseless Shane even as he was preparing to murder one of his best friends to save his own ass.

I e-mailed Shawn Ryan to ask whether the viewer was supposed to realize Shane was going to cap Lem long before he did it, and this is what he wrote back to me:

I knew that advance publicity might "color" that big scene some, but I figured we'd concentrate on the process, not the shock, and try to keep it as real as possible. I always had the feeling that the audience might think two or three times in that scene that Shane might pull a gun, and then, as he continues not to, maybe they'd figure it wasn't going to happen, but we'll see how people react.

Felt like the "surprising, but inevitable" conclusion to this season and we tried to plant clues and hints all the way through the season. We knew as far back as July of last year that this was what we were going to build to, so if you go back and watch the season and see the Shane/Mara scene in Episode #503, it would seem like an obvious setup, or if you watch the music montage at the end of last week's episode, the lyrics "The Killer in me is the killer in you" hit right over Shane and Lem in a way I think is very prophetic now.

While I'll miss Lem, this murder had to happen, not just to keep Vic on the streets until the end of the series, but to begin the massive karmic payback he's deserved since he murdered in the pilot. He's always taught Shane, by word and by deed, that the ends justify the means, up to and including murdering a fellow cop if he's threatening your livelihood. He's had this coming for a long time, and I cannot wait for the scene where Vic finally finds out what happens and confronts Shane about it, and Shane pulls the "I learned it from watching you!" card.

And now, of course, Shane is going to have Dutch and Claudette on his ass (Billings, too, but he's a waste of donor organs), not to mention Kavanaugh, Aceveda and Vic himself -- each investigator with his or her own agenda, which could make for some strange bedfellows next year. Again, I cannot wait.

Some other thoughts on the finale to the best season of "The Shield" to date:

• So Vic is Danni's baby daddy, huh? It seemed so obvious that I figured it couldn't be him (maybe Ronnie?), but they do have the history together, and it means that Kavanaugh was dead-on when he told Corinne about it. And speaking of the ex-Mrs. Mackey...
• The unofficial on-set motto of the show is "The Shield: It's so wrong." Maybe a sub-motto should be "Nepotism: It's not so wrong." Obviously, Shawn Ryan's wife Cathy has been around from day one, and she's done a much better job than you would expect from the boss' wife; she actually held her own in that scene where Kavanaugh stayed in her kitchen just a little too long. And on top of that, we got Ally Walker -- aka Mrs. John "President of FX" Landgraf -- as the world's highest-class low-class ho. After she left/got dumped from "Profiler," Walker all but gave up acting to raise her kids, but she's been doing a few guest spots lately, and Ryan got a great, creepy performance out of her. Plus, as Shawn says, "How many showrunners ever get the chance to 'turn out' their network's president's wife?"
  
• Claudette as captain works really well. Other than maybe Monica Rawling, she's the only person to ever occupy the job who Vic's respected and/or feared, and she knows enough about how Vic does business to cause him a lot of problems. And it now makes Dutch the wise and mature member of his partnership. Also loved Dutch once again trying to pattern his behavior after a sociopath. First he strangles cats, now he's trying to pimp out the precinct cutie. I know he's not the main character, or even the audience identification character like Bayliss was on "Homicide," but what are the odds that the ol' Dutchman turns serial killer before the series is over?

So, what did everybody else think?

Who is Getting the Better Deal?

Joey Harrington or Alfonso Soriano?

Harrington has taken a beating in Detroit, by both a weak offensive line and a fan base that hasn't enjoyed a winner since the last time Bobby Layne missed a happy hour. So Harrington went on vacation to Southeast Asia recently and came back to find the club had signed by Josh McCown and Jon Kitna.

It could have been worse Joey...they could have replaced you with Aaron Brooks.

Now Harrington is free to move to a team like the Patriots to be a backup where he will never have to deal with the pressure of being an NFL starting quarterback. Or he can just start for the Oakland Raiders.

Evidentially Al believes that Joey can go vertical.


Anybody who watches Soriano play second base knows one thing: Fonzie is not a second baseman. That just goes to show that Soriano does not watch any game film, at least not defensively. It�s no shock that the Washington Nationals want to move E-Four-so Soriano to left field, but maybe they could have discussed that transaction before they traded for him.

Then again, this was a team that acquired Jose Guillen last season. The former Angels outfielder is downright lucid when compared to Soriano who refused to take left field yesterday. Funny, Guillen pitched a fit when he was pulled out of a game by Mike Scioscia, but at least he was in the game. Soriano is behaving like, well, Terrell Owens.

Which only means that Drew Rosenhaus will get him a $25M contract with a new team when he is released. So Soriano will likely become a highly sought after free agent, get a huge contract, continue to play second base, and not have to deal with Frank Robinson.

Soriano definately gets the better end of the deal here. But you can debate it in The Hater Nation Forums.

Waves of psychetude

So, the Shawn Ryan interview is in today's paper. In addition to reprinting the exchange I already put here, this was the most interesting thing he said:

"I spoke with the writers at the beginning of the year and I said, 'Let's not save anything,'" Ryan explains. "Most TV shows that are successful, you don't want to do anything that will risk the long-term viability of a show, and I gave my writers permission for the first time to ignore that. We're telling a story that the viewers can tell we're not going to rewind the clock back to midnight. This thing is moving forward; there are going to be complications, repercussions."

The 90-minute finale is so awesome that even Barney from "How I Met Your Mother" wouldn't need a custom-made motivational poster to get psyched for it. And speaking of which...

Really strong "HIMYM" last night that, not coincidentally, focused mainly on Barney and Marshall, while Ted and Robin were left to do the latest iteration of their Ross 'n Rachel dance in the background. Any episode that lets Jason Segel dance automatically gets the andreikirilenkotattoo Seal of Approval, with bonus points for pop-locking, but this was the first time we've seen the show's two least-similar characters play off each other much. Question: is it wrong that I both loved Barney's karaoke AC/DC, and that I desperately want to work "steak sauce" into a conversation today?

I'll get to "24" later today. I have, however, already seen the first three post-hiatus episodes of "Prison Break," and I've been underwhelmed. Like I said in this column that ran over the weekend, the show has now gone into full-on stall mode until the real escape happens, presumably at the end of the season. This show is a classic example of why the 22 episodes per season model isn't right for every series.

Other stuff I watched in the last couple of days:

Take Your Daughter to Work Day on "The Office" featured almost too many highlights to list here (Stanley giving Ryan a hellfire-and-brimstone verbal beatdown, Angela blowing off Toby's daughter, Toby's daughter calling Phyllis "Mother Goose," Dwight reading those horrific German fairy tales to the kids, Pam's desperate attempt to connect with the kids), but the highlight by far had to be the reaction of Edward R. Meow to young Michael's comment about having 100 kids so he'd always have friends. That's the saddest, funniest bit of puppetry I've seen outside of Jim Henson. In general, shows about adults have a hard time incorporating kids without getting either too sappy or too mean, but I thought this was dead-solid perfect. Now that "Arrested Development" is gone, "The Office" is the only comedy on TV I feel the need to watch over and over to catch things I missed.

"Grey's Anatomy" was a'ight-blah, but the thing that entertained me most were the scenes where Sara Ramirez was in the same frame with either Ellen Pompeo or Sandra Oh and looked to be about three times either of their size. (And that's not a knock on Ramirez, who's gorgeous and voluptuous as all hell, but on two actresses who are reaching Danni Boatwright/Calista Flockhart levels of scary thin.) If the writers can't conspire an excuse to have Ramirez sing, could they at least have some kind of fight scene where she and Addison mop the floor with Meredith and Cristina?

Gotta go pay the bills with a review of "The Evidence," which made me feel like a kid again -- in that I was just as bored watching it as I was watching mediocre '70s cop shows.