Dropping science like when Galileo dropped the orange

Quick Hitters and Random Thoughts

--ESPN debacled Emmitt?! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

--Holy crap what a show UFC 95 was with 9 bouts airing on Spike! That'll happen when you get quick knockout after quick knockout. Diego and Joe won Fight of the Night honors for their action-packed three rounds. Paulo Thiago was thought to be a one-trick jiu jitsu pony, but apparently he's got a helluva uppercut as well as he laid out Josh Koscheck (though I thought the ref jumped in a bit early). I love watching Demian Maia who picked up his 4th Submission of the Night in his 5 UFC bouts. Great stuff.

Diego probably was gonna have a good night either way.

--Verne Gagne has Alzheimer's, lives in a nursing home and may have killed his roommate?! Well that's uplifting.

--Of course PETA and Ron Artest have hooked up. It was just a matter of time.

--Start with Hanson, add a cup of Fountains of Wayne, a dash of Cheap Trick and a sprinkle of Smashing Pumpkins, mix well and you get Tinted Windows. Exciting, no?

--Whatdya mean INXS fired the lead singer it picked up from that awful reality show? But INXS has been insanely popular these last few years. Oh well, at least you somehow got Estella Warren.

--Former Major Leaguer turned crazy Senator, Jim Bunning, continues to make news for all the crazy reasons. The latest example came from a speech he delivered over the weekend to a group of fellow Republicans. Apparently Bunning was talking about his support of conservative judges when he dropped, "that's going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg...has cancer. Bad cancer. The kind you don't get better from. Even though she was operated on, usually nine months is the longest that anybody would live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer." I guess we all know who Bunning has in the death pool. In his defense he did apologize the next day with this gold, "I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsburg. That certainly was not my intent." No, of course not. Why would she be offended if you talked about her impending death in anxious, can't wait 'til Christmas tones.
In addition to once saying his opponent "looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons," back several years ago Bunning had a priceleess quote, "I don't watch the national news, and I don't read the papers. I haven't done that for the last six weeks. I watch Fox News to get my information." And that was a couple of years before being named one of America's Five Worst Senators by Time.

--Perhaps the greatest combination of ideas ever! God bless you Snuggies.

See all the cool people are doing it!

--Fan-freakin-tastic week for new DVDs with both Summer Heights High and Breaking Bad coming out.

Frank's female doppelganger.

--This week's Gas Station Story of the Week comes to us from Falmouth, Mass. 50-year-old guy was leaving the gas station and had the good manners to hold the door open for a 38-year-old guy. Mr. Manners didn't get a thank you for it so he uttered a sarcastic "thank you" that the younger guy didn't take kind to. So they started having a real worthwhile argument. Like most arguments this one ended with the rude, younger guy taking a golf club to Mr. Manners. Leave it to golf or a gold club to ultimately decide an etiquette question.

--Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew Throwback with real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup?! Possibly enough (not really) to get me to try Pepsi for the first time in my life.

--I have yet to fall into the Twitter craze, but stories like this about Shaq meeting up with some Twitterers? Twitterees? is pretty damn cool.

--Some people are taking the digital tv transition better than others. Police in Joplin, Missouri responded to a shots fired call the other night. Yeah, a 70-year-old shot the hell outta his DTV converter that he couldn't get working.

--Yeah Microsoft good luck asking for money back for accounting errors in the final checks to 1,400 employees you laid off.

--The Oscars were pretty much what you'd expect (coulda used more singing and dancing, am I right?) with one fantastic exception. Kunio Kato won Best Animated Short and at the end of his broken English busted off, "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto." And seriously ABC two cutaway shots of Brad and Angelina while Jennifer Aniston was onstage. Really?! I haven't seen it yet, but I assume Slumdog Millionaire will be the greatest movie I've ever seen.

She looked outstanding as usual.

--Dude from The Wire is gonna force Michael Scott's hand?!

--With the bad comes the good in the form of the Razzies. Paris Hilton continues to stockpile Razzies picking up three more mostly due to Hottie and the Nottie. Mike Myers picked up Worst Actor for The Love Guru beating out the likes of Larry the Cable Guy and Eddie Murphy. Love Guru also managed to get Worst Picture honors beating all those crap parody movies and The Happening.

--This year's Music City Bowl lost only $17 million dollars compared to last year's.

--I noticed at the end of the Oscars they showed a bunch of big upcoming films, but not the Donnie Darko sequel. I wonder if it's because it was an incredibly stupid idea and almost no one from the original is involved. Maybe. If you want to watch the trailer for S. Darko be my guest.

--The NY Times did a story trying to find a real The Wrestler character and it came up with Tito (Chico to Jessie) Santana (God, I loved the ariba toe hold). Tito managed to stay away from all the drugs and women and drugs and drugs that other wrestlers partook of like the '86 Mets. Tito has himself a nice home, long marriage, kids in Princeton and James Madison and he has to be the coolest f'n Spanish junior high teacher in America. Good stuff.

--Rolling Stone with a promising review of U2's new one...

--Good news fatties! The Biggest Loser casting calls are supposed to be based on the Fattest Cities list that Houston always finds its collective big butt on. On the last list Houston was 6th. One spot ahead of El Paso and three spots behind San Antonio. Miami and Oklahoma City 1-2, btw. When this gets combined with Amazing Race maybe I'll watch. Because watching fat people on a treadmill or stationary bike is boring. Watching fit people race around the world is boring. Watching fat people race around the world = gold.

--Remember Duane Causwell? Of course you do, sorry for asking a dumb question. Duane is part of a producing team that hopes to offer us America's Top Baller. They're going through the screening process for a bunch of amateurs right now. Basically it'll be 30 guys in a 12-week competition with the winner getting 50 grand, a contract with an agent and his own shoe made by who knows, LA Gear? Etonic? Pony?

Questions, comments or if you're really glad ESPN added flames to its graphic to indicate a team is "on fire" because without flames who the hell can tell???