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Having been a comic book fan for a long time, I’ve become accustomed to the concept of the crossover. It became commonplace to see characters appear in other characters’ books, even cross-company. When I watch certain TV shows, they almost seem constrained by the lack of characters showing up from a competing show resulting in an initial knock-down drag-out fight before the parties mutually agree to band together to defeat two common enemies, one from each universe.

If I were Tsar of TV, here are the Top 5 crossovers I’d like to see:

5. Grey’s Anatomy and Medicine Ball

Both are set in Seattle, the latter one of a million ER clones from 1995 and that neither I nor anyone else watched, but I would be curious to see how much ass Dr. Donal Logue would kick when confronted with the flighty, always-having-sex (including, apparently, -with-ghosts?) crew of doctors at Grey’s Seattle Grace.

(A link to Medicine Ball's opening theme.)

4. Heroes and Misfits of Science

There’s no way this one would happen, and neither show, truthfully, is really that interesting. But I can’t help but harbor love for the awful Misfits, which had a short run on NBC Friday nights getting clobbered by Dallas on a weekly basis. Plus, this one seems somewhat plausible because the shows actually share the same creator, Tim Kring.
On the other hand, I cancelled Heroes (from my DVR) after it got bogged down in a boring Season 2, and its pretentiousness got to be a little too much. Maybe a guest shot from telekinetic Courteney Cox (who is possibly the only surviving cast member, unless ALF’s dad is still with us) would provide a shot in the arm.

3. Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me
This is another one where the two shows share a creator, and in fact Bryan Fuller said in an interview that the idea of a character who can revive the dead was originally meant for a subplot on quickly cancelled Dead Like Me, where he could wreak havoc with the reapers’ job of collecting souls. Instead, Pushing Daisies became a great, quickly cancelled show of its own.

To be fair, Daisies did feature a crossover with Bryan Fuller's quickly cancelled Wonderfalls, but the character featured on that episode was so obscure that I didn't realize it was a crossover until I looked it up, despite having watched Wonderfalls in its entirety. (Was the Wax Lion booked that day?)

2. Lost and Land of the Lost
I really have been disappointed that the answer to what happened to the survivors of Oceanic Air flight #whatever was not that they actually crash landed in the same mysterious, nebulous island as the folks from Land of the Lost did when they took that fateful boat trip in somebody’s bathtub.

It makes perfect sense. The giant scary invisible monster chasing them is Bill Laimbeer as a Sleestack. Why haven’t Jack, the hot chick, and Sawyer run into Will and Holly (now in their 40s) yet? Instead, the producers are apparently keeping on with whatever plot twists they can pull out of a hat and call it a story. I think my idea wraps it all up with a nice bow.

Make it happen, J.J.

It's a little belated, but I finally have time to write about the latest Vegas trip, which must be preserved for posterity. This time only the four original gangstas were able to go (me, Matt, Eric and John), but I think we did the place justice. Top five highlights:

5. Set it and forget it!

John and I couldn't resist playing the Ron Popeil video slot machine.

Really.

4. Blackjack Switch!

I wasn't able to convince anyone else to play Blackjack Switch with me at Casino Royale. This is a variation on blackjack in which you're dealt two hands side-by-side, and you can switch the last two cards dealt on each hand. This is a significant player advantage. The catch: you can switch into a blackjack and it wins automatically, but only pays 1-1 (not 3-2). The other catch: if the dealer draws to 22, all remaining player hands push.

Despite those rules, it's still a more favorable game to the player than regular blackjack, if you play basic strategy (you split and double less aggressively). I had hoped to make it this trip's Pai Gow Poker, but that didn't happen.

This Casino Royale is far less glamorous than James Bond's Casino Royale. In fact, it's downright crappy; I had an unfriendly dealer recently off the boat from some unidentifiable Eastern European country. I was especially tired, and at one point accidentally hit on A-8 (19). I tried to take it back, but he dealt me the card anyway. I drew the 2 for 21, but that's not the point; it's the principle of the thing. I won $200+ playing that, so the joke's on him (although some of the profit did go to Ron Popeil).

3. The new Planet Hollywood casino, aka "P-Ho"

It seems impossible to me that you could open a giant casino on the Strip and have it fail, but that's what happened to Aladdin, which opened just prior to 9/11 and suffered in the resulting drop in travel and tourism. It's been rebuilt and rebranded as "Planet Hollywood", with a movies/L.A. theme.

And the boys gave it a thumbs up! It has an attractive layout, nice big sports book with a bar for watching football. We watched as my big bet on the Lions (+2.5 at Oakland) came in. The dealers were mostly friendly... we played craps with a knowledgeable bunch (I was trading film trivia tidbits with the stickman).

Speaking of craps... John Chan is the man. He walked away from one table with the much-coveted yellow chip. That's a G, people.

2. No-limit hold 'em!

I was the last one left in town on Tuesday and was feeling flush with profits, plus I had promised that I would play at least one session of high-ish stakes poker. I had played several boring rounds of $4-$8 limit in which I had generally broken even, and I had lost something like $80 to a drunk and unpredictable Eric Lipman while playing $2-$4. I had never played no limit in a cash game, so I decided to try that at Mandalay.

No limit is intimidating because your entire table stake is at risk the minute you sit down. Bluffing is a lot more likely to work because you can throw much more money than the pot is worth on the table; I definitely got bluffed out of a favorable hand at least once. I played very tight (only very good starting cards) and very aggressively when I thought I had a hand.

I started with $100, and after playing for five hours, only three hands had significantly affected my stake:

a) Having been basically blinded down to $75 after a few rounds, I was dealt KK, a very good starting hand in late position. Somebody raised the $1-$2 blinds to $10, and there was one caller. I pressed it up to $50; the original raiser raised me all-in. I called fearing I was up against AA, but it was only QQ, and my kings held up for the win, so I doubled up.

b) I limped in with a 5-4 of diamonds, and the flop was 2-3-6 for the straight! Unfortunately... they were all the same suit, and not my suit (spades). That means a flush beats me with no way for me to improve. I opened with a big bet ($25) in the hopes any four-flush draws would fold, but somebody raised me all-in. He might have been bluffing or semi-bluffing, but even a four-flush with two cards left to come is scary in that situation. With a lot of limpers in the pot (7-8 players), chances were good that one of them had one or two spades. I folded.

c) Towards the end I was back down to $85 or so. I was dealt JJ hand raised it up big pre-flop, to $25. I had two callers, and the flop was straight-friendly (something like 3-5-6). I opened with another big bet to chase out the draws, but was again raised to $50 (by the same guy who had beat me on the flush-friendly flop). The third player called. I went ahead and raised all-in because I had a feeling I was ahead at that moment (no overcards to my Jacks), and I was right; the original raiser folded, and the third player called with a straight draw and a low pair (6-4).

So, all my money was in the pot and I was ready to walk away if my opponent hit his straight for the win. Which he did on the turn; the 7 came to give him a better hand. I was halfway out of my seat when someone pointed out I still had a flush draw; there were three diamonds out there, and I had a J of diamonds. Another one came on the river to give me the flush! It was the super-rare double-reverse suck-out. And, for a change, I was happy for that river card instead of dreading it.

That was a big pot that gave me about $240, and that's what I walked away with. Not bad for getaway poker!

1. Eric's drunk text messaging

Eric's drunk unpredictability allowed him to take some $80 from me at the poker table on Saturday night, and also led to the funniest moment of the trip. While text messaging with his phone, Eric uses the "T9" feature, which attempts to predict which word you're typing by looking it up in a dictionary. If the phone guesses wrong, there's a key you can press to cycle through other possible words you were attempting to type. Eric, on principle, refuses to use the "cycle" key, meaning he gets stuck with whatever word the phone guessed first. Which is how he wound up sending this drunk text message:

He you were here wowl could totally rape me.
I an shivebadd.

What was he trying to actually say? We may never know. Needless to say, "I an shivebadd" became the Slogan of the Trip.

Honorable mention: Me winning $100 when Frank Gore was the first to score a TD in the Monday night game; Me winning $90+ on the Detroit Lions (?) after pressing my bet (?!); me kicking John's ass at three-puck air hockey, with a spectacular come-from-behind victory, at Gameworks; the one-hour deep tissue massage at Luxor; John buying the boys dinner with his craps winnings; eating Kobe beef burgers at the Burger Bar.

I was excited to find out that remastered classic episodes of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem are being run each week on XM Satellite Radio (which I can pick up through DirecTV). Episodes from the '80s are run on XM's The '80s channel (aka '80s on 8), Thursdays at 10 p.m. and Sundays at noon; The '70s channel (7) runs '70s episodes Wednesdays at 10 p.m. and Saturdays at noon. All times Eastern.

One year after getting an iPod (shhh... don't tell Microsoft or they'll force a Zune on me), I still haven't "ripped" (scare quotes) all the American Top 40s I own. There's still a good full day of ripping left to get them all in the system. It's hard to find people to trade episodes with, so these AT40 "Flashbacks" are the next best thing.

Meanwhile, we're coming up on one year in Seatown, which surely has some of the best radio stations on the planet. KEXP gets a lot of love for hitting me with a ridiculous amount of great indie rock, and C89.5, while repetitive and run by high-school kids, easily fulfills my required "beats per minute" quotient. I went to the trouble of making an "iMix" on "iTunes" of certain Seattle songs I really "iLiked," but then they removed my #1 choice from the store, so I'm forced to tell you, in Furdell.com-standardized top-5 form, what "my favorite musical acts what I learned about in Seattle"... are.

These aren't acts that necessarily debuted in 2006... in fact, chances are I was late to the party. In all cases. But I'll still always think about my first crazy year in Seattle when I hear these songs. (That's the best thing about music... its power over memory, and its ability to draw you back in time to the first time you heard a certain song.)

In honor of Casey Kasem, I'll include the Wikipedia link for each musical act, which will tell you more than you knew you wanted to know about each one... just like Casey did back in the day.

5. M.I.A.

It's the 2000s, and while we don't have flying cars yet (so disappointing), we do finally have Music of the Future: lots of electronic squeals and a robotic-sounding drum machine, fronted by a female rapper of Sri Lankan descent. Sometimes, that's as annoying as it sounds, but it also works to produce some awesome beats every so often.

Favorite songs: "Galang" is the best example of what M.I.A. is about; Andrew and Julia are partial to "10 Dollar", which is definitely her most dance-friendly song (and has the most hilarious fan-made YouTube video of anything on this list).

4. Mylo

Mylo's album Destroy Rock & Roll accomplishes its stated task quite nicely. I guess this is what happens when you force your kids to listen to '70s Gold throughout their childhood; they turn into '00s-era mash-up artists who use "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes, and "Waiting For A Star To Fall" by Boy Meets Girl as their palette.

Favorite songs: Said mash-up "In My Arms" is classic, but best of all is Doctor Pressure, a mix of Mylo's own "Drop the Pressure" with Miami Sound Machine's "Doctor Beat." Sheer lunacy.

3. The Knife

Holy crap, The Knife is weird. It's a Swedish brother-sister duo that puts out strange-sounding, heavily electronic songs. The sister does most of the singing in high-pitched English, with a heavy Swedish accent. But once you get past the weirdness, the melodies really take over your brain and don't let go. I guess they're kind of like Bjork, but good.

Favorite songs: Their newest album is Silent Shout, but so far I prefer Deep Cuts, which I've only been able to find via iTunes. "Heartbeats" is a great song that kicks off that album, and "You Take My Breath Away" is my favorite track of all.

2. Neko Case

Oh, Neko Case... your music is so very sad. It's Veronica Mars-breakup sad, that's how sad it is.

"In the end I was the mean girl, or somebody's in-between girl. Now it's the devil I love; and that's as funny as real love."

Seriously... super-sad.

Neko's stuff has sometimes been labeled as alt-country; her songs have amazing depth, with lush storyscapes. And they might make you want to take a bottle of valium. So be careful.

Favorite songs: "Maybe Sparrow" and "Hold On, Hold On." I need a hug...

1. Blue Scholars

"Blue Scholars in the place to be; we've got one DJ, and one MC. And that's it. (That's it.) That's it. (That's it.) C'mon, put your hands up if you're feelin' this shit."

My musical tastes tend to change every few years, and I think they could easily be skewed toward indie hip-hop, with Seattle's Blue Scholars as a touchstone. They're the antidote for mainstream rap; instead of focusing on wealth/booty/crime/look-how-awesome-I-am, Blue Scholars celebrates life, liberty and the proletariat; MC Geologic's raps are heavily political without being accusatory, and DJ Sabzi's samples are amazing.

And Seattle's not the most... um... urban-feeling city ever. In fact, it's pretty white, especially considering my last two cities were Atlanta and D.C. Seattle is downright Scandinavian in comparison. But when I'm walking around downtown with Geologic rapping on my headphones, I can't help but feel at least a little bit street.

Favorite songs: "The Ave" from their self-titled debut artfully name-checks all the streets off University Way in the U District, instantly recalling what it's like to be a college student; and "Southside Revival" from The Long March focuses on local racial boundaries and politics, with Geologic flawlessly rapping the intelligent and tounge-twisty lyrics ("I've heard a few heads say that hip-hop is dead; not it's not, it's just malnourished and underfed"). You'll have to check out their shit on MySpace to hear that one.

Until next time: Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the booze.

1. If someone asks how long will it take you to finish your dissertation, just say, "forever." It will be more accurate than you know. (Yes, I'm sure some of you whipped yours out in a cool 10 months or so. Feel free not to tell me about it.)

2. Don't say anything bad about someone you admire, and for Pete's sake don't put it in writing. That certain someone might come across the evidence, oh, say, eight years later and call you out. (They might even say it doesn't bother them at all, it's all in the past, etc. But if the calling out occurs after a three-year communication lapse, there's ample room for skepticism on that point.) You will then (quite rightly) feel like an enormous ass.

3. Even in July, San Francisco is very, very cold.

4. Just because you don't understand all of R. Kelly's colorful euphemisms doesn't mean you want to. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

5. There is no mood so dark that a beautiful pair of shoes can't lighten it.

OK, I'm not feeling enough love for Desperate Housewives up in here. It's like 90210? It's like Sex and the City? I could barely stand to watch either of those shows. I've even heard it described as American Beauty: The Series. Closer, but not quite.

DH (acronym? I'm so cool) is different; different enough that I'm shocked it's been able to pull in the top ratings spot every week. I fully expect this kind of show to get relegated to "cult" status, but its success is highly promising for the future of our society.

I will now expound on why I like it, using the Furdell Standardized Top Five List.

5. It's not really a "drama."

At least, not in the standard TV drama sense. It's more of a dark satire merged with a mystery. Kind of like a Twin Peaks that makes sense.

And the litmus test of whether a show is a "drama" is really whether I can watch it without being bored to tears. Although this could eventually turn into the type of show where the developments in the characters' lives become the focus, right now that's secondary to setting up comedic situations and furthering the various mysteries. Plus, it's satirical of how we try to inject drama into our own lives, no matter where we can find it.

4. The Sunset Blvd. Factor.

Yes, Sex and the City also had third-person narration. But this show is narrated by a dead woman. In fact, it's a woman who has killed herself, for reasons not yet divulged. Eat that, Billy Wilder!

From the first moments of the pilot, you know this is going to be a dark, quirky series.

3. Eva Longoria.

Wow, she's hot.

OK, in the interest of equal time, the girls would like you to know that Jesse Metcalfe, who plays Eva Longoria's gardening shorty, was named sexiest man on TV. And he did five years of hard time on our favorite soap opera, Passions. Bonus!

Mom should be posting a comment claiming that he looks like me in 3, 2, 1...

2. Martha Stewart, Interrupted.

Marcia Cross' performance absolutely destroys the Martha Stewart homemaker ethic. Her character (Bree Van de Kamp... hee!) has managed to expunge any hint of passion or spontanaiety from her life. She keeps an immaculate house and prepares way-fancy dinners every night... but doesn't seem to realize her family is on the verge of mutiny, even after her husband leaves her.

Plus, she's responsible for delivering what must be one of the greatest lines in TV history. Spoken at a dinner party as other characters are revealing humorous embarrassing things about themselves, Bree chimes in with: "Rex cries after he ejaculates." I laughed so hard I almost cried. It's just the perfect representation of a passive-agressive character crossing the line into agressive-agressiveness.

1. It made me like Teri Hatcher again.

Yeah, we had broken up. I had a crush on her during the first couple seasons of Lois and Clark, when she had this fabulous head of hair that seemed to have a life of its own; then she did the unthinkable by cutting it short. Was it a coincidence that the show started to suck right about then, getting stuck in Neverending Wedding Plotland? I think not.

Now, in DH, she's completely redeemed herself as the de facto star of the show. Hatcher is perfectly sympathetic as the klutzy, sad-sack divorc?e who does her best to avoid being stepped on, with only partial success. She's too dippy to keep from getting locked out of the house while naked, but shrewd enough to worm her way out of her neighbor's blackmail scheme; through all of it, she manages to stay eminently likable.

Plus, she's Teri Hatcher.

It's all good.

So, if you've cancelled this one, I recommend giving it another chance. You can even come over and watch it after dinner with me, Kimberly and "Staci". Good times.

And remember, I'M NEVER WRONG about this kind of thing. I'm talking to you, Andrew.

I just got back from a spectacular (to a nerd like me) public policy conference in ATL. The conference had some exciting panels (see above note re: nerdiness) at which I was genuinely hyped about the prospect of meeting and maybe even asking a question of, that's right, school finance expert Andrew Reschovsky! (Wooooooooooo! Professor! Over here! Professor! Will you sign my conference program?!) And I got to stay with my brother-in-law, his girlfriend, and their attention-whore of a cat, which was great fun.

There are many things that I was aware of missing about the city (Andrew, the Braves, Pasta da Pulcinella, Emory's beautiful campus). After all, we lived there for seven years. But nostalgia hit me at several surprising moments. Here are a few of them, in chronological order.

1. "You are now entering the transportation node." This made me say, out loud, on a crowded Hartsfield escalater while descending to the people mover, "Awww, HI airport voiceover lady!"

2. Friendly bus drivers. MARTA may not actually be sMARTA, and in fact it kind of sucks, but the bus drivers and all the other employees I encountered were both friendly and helpful. This is in marked contrast to the employees on D.C.'s Metro, who, even if you're lucky enough not to get chased with a broom for asking a question, will treat you with varying levels of hostility ranging from obvious disdain (at best) to virulent hatred (evidently not even at worst, given the whole broom thing).

3. Guess that street name! This one just makes me an idiot, because I actually hated it at the time, but for some reason (probably because I didn't have to drive anywhere) I found it charming that the street you're on changes names at least twice before you get to where you're going. Granted this is because white Atlantans were so racist that they didn't want to live on the same street as black people, but I managed to forget all this and be thrilled by the suspense of it all.

4. ATLANTA at Philips Arena. It's just looks cool.

5. The Ted. I know the Braves weren't playing there, but it made me smile just to drive past.

Well, it seems I'm the last to chime in about Vegas. Clearly if I'd seen Andrew taking out all the lanes at the gun store, THAT would have been the funniest thing I saw in Vegas, but I fear guns.

5) Hiking. For some reason, watching little pellets of hail bounce off of James' head struck me as funny. And also, there was a poodle wearing hiking shoes.
Little Pinz (wearing sandals): That poodle is wearing better shoes than me.
Poodle owner guy: Yep.

4) Robomatronic Neptune. The shopping arcade in Caesar's Palace has an aquarium at one end, atop of which sits a statue of what we conjectured was Neptune in all his glory. The statue comes alive every hour and puts on a show, complete with fake thunderstorms and some quarreling between some other family members whose statues pop up unexpectedly. The fact that it all took place in front of a Cheesecake Factory made it rather funny and pathetic, as opposed to fun and impressive, which I think is what they were going for. "I am Neptune, god of the sea! The waves obey my every command! And be sure to check out the fine collection of flannels behind you at Abercrombie and Fitch!"

3) M&Ms 3D! As if animatronic Roman gods weren't enough, James and I somehow found ourselves at the M&M store, waiting in line for the spectacular "Leaving my M in Las Vegas." I'm fairly certain we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. Since I'm sure you're all dying to know the plot, I'll recap it for you. In an Oscar-worthy performance, the red M&M loses his M by betting it on, wouldn't you know it, RED at roulette. We then accompany Red and his trusty sidekick Yellow as they try to retrieve the M in the world of Lost & Found, passing by such places as Lost Virtue and Lost Souls and going straight on to Lost Causes. Then some hijinks ensued, and I'll just put your fears to rest by telling you that the M was eventually recovered, and Red and Yellow did not get melted in the giant furnace, thanks to the ingenuity of those feisty little mini-M&Ms. It was totally awesome. (Please don't tell anyone I said that.)

2) The beef jerky store. That's right, a whole store in downtown Vegas devoted to jerky. Clam jerky, anyone? I hear it's particularly clammy.

1) LiAps. In the bitch seat. Pretending to be a moose.

Well, I'm no Tommy. But I do love pinball, as everybody knows.

I started playing pinball in the video arcade at Holiday Village mall in Great Falls, Montana, as a kid, playing '80s classics like Eight Ball Deluxe. A few years later, I found I could score high enough for free games on Steve Ritchie classics like Black Knight 2000, Terminator 2, and Rollergames (based on the show!). The lure of free games totally hooked me, and my high school and college years coincided with the Golden Age of Bally/Williams, a Chicago company that led the field (and is now, sadly, no longer producing pinball games, in favor of slot machines... yecch).

Wasting my youth on the silver ball has, predictably, totally paid off, as I managed to pick up a tournament win last Saturday. In honor of that, here are my top 5 pinball games of all time. These are the games that, assuming they're working, I wouldn't hesitate to drop some coins in for the express purpose of some nostalgic silverball goodness.

Leave it to MTV to screw up Clone High. The hilarious cartoon featuring clones of famous historical figures at a special high school was unjustly booted from the network when some very humorless people apparently complained about the satirical treatment of Mahatma Gandhi's clone as a fun-loving party animal.

The rest of the main characters were similarly portrayed in terms of high school TV show stereotypes. Abe Lincoln is our awkward, clueless hero; Joan of Arc is a Goth girl; JFK is a womanizing jock; Cleopatra is stuck-up and opportunistic. The evil Principal Scudworth lords over Clone High with the help of his robotic butler/assistant, Mr. Bultertron, who suspiciously looks a lot like Mr. Belvedere and calls everyone "Wesley."

Only about half of the 13 episodes aired in the U.S., as no other network ever picked up the fledgling show, which certainly deserved a wider audience. Hopefully it will make it to DVD one day (heck, they're releasing Punky Brewster on DVD, they should certainly release this).

In the meantime, here are my five favorite moments from Clone High.

Need to learn karate? Want your relationship to light-heartedly blossom? Hope to prove Fermat?s last theorem? Hey, slow down there, cowboy. Those things take time, and we?re busy trying to figure out how to humiliate jocks and get laid.

Ah, but wait! We have an editing tool on our side! Thanks to the montage, we can do all those things in the time it takes most people to scramble an egg. And since the montage reached its cinematic peak in the 1980s, it?s the perfect thing to reminisce about! So join me on my magical voyage through the Top Five Montages ? won?t you?

Apparently I haven't been fulfilling my blogging responsibilities, so here, as long ago promised, is my list of the best, funniest, most outlandish Passions happenings I have seen so far.

#5 ? The past lives of Luis, Sheridan, and Antonio. Every soap opera has its super-couples, and the duo of Luis and Sheridan is the most annoying one on Passions. Not only are they madly in love in this life, but they have frequent flashbacks to their former lives in which they also, you guessed it, were madly in love. And Luis' brother Antonio is always there to complete the requisite love triangle. What's great about these flashbacks is that they are always ripping off some blockbuster movie. My favorites are the Titanic rip-off (Sheridan = Kate Winslett, Luis = a Hispanic Leo, and Antonio = Billy Zane) and the current one, a Pirates of the Caribbean rip-off, except Sheridan is in love with the Johnny Depp character, not the Orlando Bloom character, and Antonio is the upstanding Captain determined to protect his love from the blackguard pirates. When I last saw them, the trio were being attacked by some "phantom pirates." I?m rooting for the phantoms.

#4 ? Precious falls for Luis. Popular guy, that Luis. Not only are Sheridan and Beth in love with him, but so is Precious. Those of you who read my last entry may remember that Precious is the chimp that Beth hired as a nurse for her mother. Whenever Luis comes to the house to see what he thinks is his son by Beth (really his son by Sheridan, kidnapped by Beth), we, the viewers, are made to know that Precious has quite a crush on him, mostly through dream sequences of the chimp and Luis running through a meadow, dancing at a ball, giving each other foot rubs ... you get the picture.

#3 ? Theresa goes to hell. Theresa, pregnant by her boyfriend Ethan's ex-father Julian (it's a long story) and dumped by Ethan on account of it, decides to commit suicide. Since people on soap operas are always Catholic (I guess it's more dramatic than being Presbyterian), and suicide is a sin in Catholicism, Theresa goes straight to hell. She finds herself in what looked to me like a vegetable cart, being spirited along a never-ending tunnel by some "scary" demons that looked like eight-year-olds dressed as devils on Halloween. And this went on for DAYS. Theresa looking scared, having her hair blown back by a fan to make it look like they were going very fast indeed, and occasionally uttering things like, "Where are you taking me?! No! NO!" Upon finally reaching her destination, Theresa meets with the devil himself. The best description I can think of is that he looked remarkably like the devil in the Mexican movie Santa Claus, as seen on MST3K. She wound up making a deal with the devil to restore her life and spare her from hell, but I can't remember the details, and the writers seem to have forgotten all about it too, so don't hold it against me.

#2 ? Kay freezes Charity. Kay finds a magic book and uses it to freeze her cousin in a huge block of ice. See my previous Passions entry for more fun details.

#1 ? Beth?s "baby" leaks. In my favorite ridiculous Passions moment, Beth, who has been pretending to be pregnant by strapping a five-pound bag of sugar to her waist, somehow starts to leak while in the ob/gyn waiting room. As sugar pours onto the floor from her fake womb, the onlookers, instead of saying, "Hey, you're not really pregnant, you lying bitch," become alarmed for her health because, after all, it's not normal to leak sugar when you're pregnant, so there must be something really wrong with her.

And that does it for my top 5 list. I promise that the writers have more bizarre moments in store for us, and I will be sure to keep you posted.

I learn a lot of things every time I play poker, really I do. But last night I learned exactly five things -- and that lends itself well to a Top 5 List.

Well, actually, I already knew these things. And technically there's only three of them -- but two of them are really long.

"You're so novel; what a good idea." -Nada Surf, "Popular"

Why are the British so accepting of novelty songs? American Top 40 has the same boring songs on it week after week (e.g. "Mesmerize" by Ja Rule and Ashanti; "Holidae In" by Chingy, Snoop, and some other guys, since nobody seems to be able to sing an entire song solo anymore; and anything by Jessica Simpson).

What we really need are lighthearted novelty songs that break us out of this monotony. Why can't Americans latch on to mindless novelty songs the way British people do? Perhaps it's because we're incapable of introspection. Novelty songs are essentially spoofs of stupid pop songs, and most Americans refuse to admit that songs like Hillary Duff's "So Yesterday" are the work of Satan. (They say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was writing bad pop songs for Hillary Duff.)

Anyway, here is James' and my list of the Top 5 Novelty Songs.

#5 - The Ketchup Song. This song has apparently spawned the "new dance craze". It's sung by Las Ketchup, three Spanish sisters who's first album was called "Hijas del Tomate," or Daughters of the Tomato for you non-Spanish speakers.

Strangely enough, these girls now apparently own Europe because this stupid song was so successful. Go figure.

#4 - The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun. This was Julie Brown's amusing (and only) hit from the mid-'80s before she hit it big on MTV. (No, not Downtown Julie Brown. Regular Julie Brown. The white one.)

It's clearly designed to cash in on the whole "Valley Girl" craze of the time, but is still funny in a dark way:

Debbie didn't listen to what the cop said
She aimed and fired and now the math teacher's dead
It's really sad, but kind of a relief
I mean, we had this big test coming up next week

That's novelty-rific.

#3 - The Chipmunk Song. In the genre of both animal-themed and Christmas-themed novelty songs, this one is clearly tops in cuteness and charm. Thus, I can forgive it for spawning the whole "Alvin and the Chipmunks" thing, even though I'll never be able to get their version of "Bette Davis Eyes" out of my head. Creeeeeepy.

#2 - Touch My Bum. I discovered this song on Top of the Pops, a British countdown video/concert show. It's sung by the Cheeky Girls, which is funny in and of itself.

You really have to hear it for yourself, I don't think I can do it justice just by relating a few lyrics. (Hint: the words "touch my bum" figure into things. A lot.)

#1 - David Duchovny. Bree Sharp performed this hysterical stalker song dedicated to the nigh-emotionless X-Files actor.

It's not just good musically, but good comedy as well. The best part is when she yells, "I'm gonna kill Scully!" That cracks me up every time.

So that's the list! And now, Andrew drunkendly posts his vehement disagreement with our list, and calls us stupid. In 3, 2, 1...

Because VH-1 needs more five-hour-long list-based specials now that "Top 500 Most Embarrassing Moments in Polka" and "I Love 4.3 Seconds Ago" have run their respective courses, the cable network has teamed up with Blender: The Magazine for Gen-X Kitchen Appliances to come up with, purportedly, the "Worst 50 Songs Ever".

Naturally, they didn't try all that hard. "We Built This City" by Starship is #1, which, admittedly, is a horrible song... but is it the worst ever? "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight" is #3 on their list, which is really a shame; that's one of those songs that was probably written in five minutes that actually holds up well over time. "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice at #5 is bad, but he himself had a much worse song than that.

Well, I'm no Mo Rocca, thank God, but my extensive collection of American Top 40s with Casey Kasem certainly makes me something of an authority on terrible songs that were at least somewhat popular at one time, but really shouldn't have been. Thus, I feel the need to present to the world... James' list of the Five Really Worst Songs Ever.

5) The Borgata casino in Atlantic City is pretty cool. More like a glitzy Vegas casino than those other gross, crowded Boardwalk ones. Plus, the table minimums were fairly reasonable for AC... $10 blackjack when I walked in at 3 p.m. on a Friday, and it didn't go up to $15 until about 6 p.m. I was worried it would be all quarters all the time.

4) $2 upper-level tickets at Shea Stadium are the way to go. I'm a big fan. (Only in NYC: the seven-year-old kid next to me yelling, "Right fielder, you suck!")

3) Why would you intentionally walk Randall Simon, who's hitting about .115 and is 0-2 with a GDP, to load the bases and get to Craig Wilson, who's hitting .396 and already has a home run? Predictably, it didn't work out so well. Silly, silly Mets.

2) Driving in New York is actually not as terrifying as people make it out to be. Granted, everything you know about traffic laws is wrong and should be ignored, and it's pretty much every man for himself as far as merging and changing lanes goes. But it's kind of fun gunning it in order to outrun a bus to the intersection, and then cursing out the pedestrians who took too long crossing the street.

1) About Red Sonja...

Exactly what good is that armor supposed to do? Do chain mail bra and panties adequately offer the protection today's heroine needs in the cutthroat fantasy world of sword and sorcery? I say thee nay. But somehow I was able to look past that and enjoy the back issues I picked up at the flea market anyway.