Is that you?

Did I strike a nerve? Sorry if I feel like my support should go to people that at least make an effort to be decent members of society. They don't have to be perfect—none of us are—but, you know, at least try. And if not, what does it say about us as a culture when we lift them up as heroes no matter what they do, so long as they add another tick to the win column?

So tell me, bravo, what about that opinion makes you feel you have to make an ad hominem attack against me? I'm a prison inmate? Nice. Shall I presume you're, say, a pedophile—just for instance—because you think holding people, no matter their ERA or post-season won/loss record, up to a decent standard of behavior is "nonsense"?

As for the "muddle huddle," it was just something the announcers for the Bengals game said every 15 seconds during the Fox broadcast of the game. It annoyed me, so I thought I'd mention it. I apologize if I ruined your day somehow.

Yeah, it was off-topic in a way, but it's connected to something King often writes about in his column, the quality of the sports announcers for broadcast games. He also talks about the character of players. Like Kenny Rogers, for example.

Off-topic? Only if you never read King's columns.

As for what was on his hand? Steroids or epitestosterone, one or other, obviously. :p

So we have another Borat lawsuit surfacing, and once again from the perspective of the plaintiff, it looks the complaint has merit.

But does it really?

In lawsuit-happy America, the fact that some folks got embarrassed combined with the money the film is making make me wonder if these cases are really about people being tricked. Are swirling dollar signs what's really driving these suits? Sure, it's embarrassing to get caught on film being yourself, but oh well. Behave differently, I guess, or be a good sport about getting caught on film.

Or never sign a release waved in front of you after you've been filmed, no matter what you think it says.

Don't get me wrong. If the Borat producers lied and the various plaintiffs signed releases for something other than the film produced, then their complaints may very well have merit. Nor am I a Borat fan (haven't seen the movie, and in no hurry to).

The thing I wonder is if there is any way to evaluate whether these cases really do have merit, or are simply folks chasing quick settlements to grab a piece of the growing Borat pie.

But, Pyrian, do you really think any of these cases will ever be seen by a judge. I'm just talking in general terms, is there anything out there we can see that might enable us to sorta kinda evaluate the merits of the case. X say this, Y retorts that, but it's just he-said, she-said. Maybe it'll stay that way, and if it does, oh well. I don't have a dog in this fight, so mostly it's just curiosity.

In the end, the way things go these days, I'm inclined to think the threatened lawsuits are avaricious grabs for a piece of a growing pie rather then meritorious complaints. But, hey, prove me wrong. Or don't.

After being barely able to contain myself between episodes of the first season, and with almost as much anticipation in the second, the third season of Lost has lost me. There is little left that's compelling to me. The mystery has dragged on so long and the revelations have been so weird and incomprehensible that the whole situation feels unending and ultimately pointless. Things got so dire so quickly for the major characters in the closing episodes of last season and the opening of this one, and yet the characters have been ultimately revealed to be so unsympathetic, that I just don't care any longer what happens to them.

I think it ended for me when Walt killed the two Anna Lucia and Libby. The message I got from that was that there would be no redemption in this story, that what we were seeing was a descent that, because of the nature of series televsion, had no effective bottom. Lost will end when it's cancelled. Until then, they can only up the ante, hit us harder and harder until absurdity or emotional numbness overtakes us.

Numbness has overtaken me. I just don't care anymore. The fact that I've lost my willing suspension of disbelief probably doesn't help either. The spooky island(s) of lost toys has been dragged out for so long the mystery has become mundane. And the people -- lord, the people are simply awful.

Real life is full of irredeemable moments, and it's full of awful people. Probably more than a few of us have more than a few of each in our own lives, and some incredible tales have been woven in film and literature about such moments and such people. Lost isn't one of them. In the most angst-ridden of stories, when they work, we can take something away that enriches or enlarges us somehow. At this point, all I feel I can take away from Lost is that life is weird and confusing, full of bitter, desperate, stupid people. I get it already.

I don't care about this one bit.

If I see one more thing about celebrities and their children, I am going on a Hollywood Vomit Spree, and I don't care who gets hit.

Not necessarily.

Advance Reader Copies of novels typically go out to reviewers and other interested parties four to six months before publication date. I have on my desk the ARC of a book due out next October.

Laura almost certainly had time to not only read the Pynchon novel, but to ruminate on it, and re-read part or all of it.

Give him credit, he never changes.

Wait, never mind. That's his problem.