The Office: Pretzel Day is here!

Thoughts on "The Office" just as soon as I zap my Aeron chair with some WD-40...

Last week, I asked who was funnier: Stanley or Creed? I love Creed and his kleptomania and tales of free love and complete disconnect from reality, but after watching Stanley literally skip out the door when he heard the Pretzel Day announcement, I think our friend with the crossword puzzles is currently in the lead. Hell, the pretzels even gave Stanley a brief moment of common ground with archnemesis Michael.

Despite -- or, more likely, because of -- the lack of a central plot, this was the best episode they've done since the season premiere. From Ryan's passively resisting Dwight's taunting brain-teasers to the look on Jim's face when Ed Helms realized he had inherited the squeaky chair, this was a hilarious episode throughout.

Or, almost throughout. Knowing NBC's bait-and-switch promo pattern, I assumed that Jim and Pam's phone call was going to last about five seconds longer than the commercials showed. Instead, we got a lengthy, sweet but honestly awkward quasi-reunion for our favorite couple. Really nice all around.

Couple of other notes:

• Did you catch Kelly trying to describe "Lazy Sunday" to Michael on the pretzel line?
• They're really pushing Michael's salesmanship skillz this season. Hmm...
• With Mose finally getting a speaking part, that's four members of the writing staff to appear on the show. Ryan, Kelly and Toby are the others -- and if you want to be technical, Greg Daniels does appear in a deleted scene from "Office Olympics" as Michael's condo neighbor.
  
• How does Michael take a name like "Coselli" (or however you spell it) and launch into a bad Cosby impression when the opportunity for a bad Howard Cosell impression was staring him in the face?
  

So what did everybody else think?

NFL Stadiums A Terrorist Threat?

An Internet web site has posted a threat indicating that �dirty bombs� would be detonated this Sunday at NFL stadiums around the country, including Oakland�to which the league said, �We dare you to blow up Oakland. In fact, we will remove all security because we know you don�t have the balls to blow up the Coliseum at 1220 Stadium Way (be sure to take Hegenberger Road from the airport). We know you terrorist punks would never think to blow up the support beams on the East side of the stadium to take out Mount Davis. We dare you, you jerks! In fact, we'll leave some parking for you.�

Government officials were quick to denounce the threat as not credible. Still, Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green was taken in for questioning, as some law enforcement officials have speculated that he was calling in a bomb threat to get Sunday�s game in Oakland canceled. Likewise, the San Diego police offered Steve Foley as a suspect. The threats also were used to explain why the Dolphins signed Marcus Vick to their practice squad.

"We need to protect overselves," Dolphins coach Nick Saban said. "And you know Marcus will be packin."

The league, however, is takign the threat seriously. The NFL is considering playing all of Sunday�s games at Giants Stadium.

Lost: Pantsless pot-growing polar bears!

"Lost" spoilers coming up just as soon as I see if iTunes has the new Geronimo Jackson album...

It takes a lot to make me bored with an episode largely focused on my three favorite characters -- Locke, Hurley and Mr. Eko -- but damn if "Further Instructions" didn't pull it off. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't care about getting answers to the mysteries, because my default assumption is that Lindelof and company don't know what they are, and in exchange for my not caring, all I expect is for them to engage me on an episode-by-episode basis. And this one really didn't.

Start with the sweat lodge hallucination, which took up oodles of screentime to tell us... what? That Mr. Eko was unaccounted for and badly injured? We knew that, and Locke at least knew the first part (I don't remember whether he saw how badly Eko was hurt in the hatch, or if it was just Desmond). Even if you want to say that the shock of the implosion made him temporarily forget about his Jesus stick-wielding pal, that was still an entire act devoted to a very pedestrian dream sequence that wasn't visually or metaphorically interesting enough to compensate for the lack of revelations. And, no, Il Returno de Boone doesn't really count. I know he was a reminder of what Locke's obsession with the island has cost him, but then make the hallucination deal more directly with that instead of having Ian Somerhalder show up with a different haircut to play tour guide.

The flashback also didn't do a lot for me. Because the writers have waited so long to reveal what caused Locke's paralysis, ther's this weight that hangs over all his flashbacks. Every time he gets into a car, or makes someone mad -- or, in this case, picks up a rifle -- all I can think is, "Is this when he finally gets messed up?" And I'm almost disappointed when he gets through another one unscathed. At this point, they're either holding that one out on us because it's really awesome or because they have no idea and are stalling as long as possible until they can think of something vaguely awesome. Based on the previous two seasons, my money's on the latter theory.

But beyond that, I don't feel like our visit to Locke's marijuana farm really showed us anything new about the character. We already knew that he was a screw-up, that he was easily taken in by family types, and that he often lost his nerve in big moments. Now, the FlashJack from the premiere didn't tell us anything we didn't already know about Jack, but at least Matthew Fox and John Terry acted the hell out of those scenes. Terry O'Quinn didn't get much of a chance to show why he's the best actor in this ensemble.

There were some nice moments here and there, like Hurley's entrance with the canteen, Hurley meeting Desmond, Hurley listening to Locke's speech -- really, anything with Hurley was fine -- and I wasn't even that jarred by the introduction of Kiele Sanchez and Rodrigo Santoro as The Two Oceanic 815 Survivors You Never Met Before, Even Though They Act Like They're Part of the Inner Circle.

But I want Eko to wake up, and soon, and I want the next Locke showcase to be more worthy of both the character and the actor playing him.

What did everybody else think?