I'll be in court until mid-afternoon. It's your turn to take on the news. This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

It's Gorilla Juicehead Heaven as Jersey Shore returns with Season 3 tonight. The group is back in Seaside Heights, minus Angelina, plus Snookie's friend Dina. In Season 1, they all drove beat-up cars to the Shore (they left in big black SUV's.) This year, most are driving black BMW's. Mike "The Situation" has moved up to a Range Rover. Can they still be authentic? Probably, as this season is supposed to be the wildest yet.

Snooki has been on a roll. She has a new book out, A Shore Thing, filled with Snooki'isms. The Daily Beast provides a partial dictionary of terms. The New Yorker pans it here. [More...]

This post was funny.

Open Thread.

Open Thread.

In the college bowl games, I won with Stanford last night and hope to win with Arkansas (+4) (4 units) over Ohio State tonight.

Open Thread.

ABC's The Bachelor returns tonight, with Brad Womack getting his second chance at love. He was The Bachelor in 2007, and when it came time to choose between his final two, Deanna and Jenni, he stunned viewers by picking neither. Both Deanna and Jenni will be on tonight's show for a few minutes to confront Brad yet one more time. Both look beautiful -- Jenni is married and Deanna is engaged -- to the twin brother of one of the contestants on Jillian's Bachelorette season.

The theme of the season is redemption --Brad's second chance. He does end up with one of the women this season. I won't say who here, but if you want the lowdown, you can go over to PopLeft to see who he picks. How do we know? Reality Steve, of course. He breaks down the season date by date with who goes home here.

So why watch if we know the outcome? For the journey and the spectacular locations and hotels, which this season will include Costa Rica, St. Martins/Anguilla and South Africa. And because it's fun.

For those of you not interested in The Bachelor, which I expect is all but three or four of you, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

One of those days.

For those keeping score, I'm having a good college bowl season, with my major plays (Boise, Alabama, Miss St., Notre Dame, and Wisconsin (+3)) coming through. I am +20 units so far. Tonight, I have Stanford (-3.5) over Va. Tech (4 units).

Open Thread.

What's on your mind? Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Happy New Year! New Years Day means college football. Here are my picks:

It's absolutely frigid in Denver but more than 100,000 are expected on the mall downtown to watch the fireworks at 9 and midnight. Things look warmer in Times Square.

We wish everyone a happy, healthy, safe and personally rewarding New Year.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

What are your plans for the evening? What are you most excited to say goodbye to?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

As 2010 draws to a close, for my final long post of the year, I want to talk about how 2010 was the most boring, ho-hum year of the decade.

In 2008, politics was exciting. In 2009, we were excited as we waited for the hope and change. In 2010, we realized it wasn't coming. The reality is President Obama is not that exciting a personality. He's far too normal. He doesn't fall down and make us laugh like Gerald Ford. He doesn't reek Hollywood like Ronald Reagan, and Mrs. Obama doesn't rely on astrologers and silly slogans like "Just Say No" as did Nancy Reagan to keep us snickering in amusement.

Bush I was boring too. It was like having a caricature of the white Protestant Male from the yacht club for President. But, it was still the 80's, so he doesn't count in this competition. [More...]