WHAT ARE THEY GONNA SAY ABOUT HIM? WHAT ARE THEY GONNA SAY? THAT HE WAS A KIND MAN? THAT HE WAS A WISE MAN? THAT HE HAD PLANS, MAN? THAT HE HAD WISDOM? BULLSHIT, MAN! Mindful of the apparently dire state of his health, the NYT's Manohla Dargis pens an appreciation of Dennis Hopper.

AMERICA VOTED: And we'll want to talk.

WELCOME BACK RAYNER: As a belated reminder to our readers, Top Chef Masters 2 debuts tonight at 11p on Bravo. Based on my exceptional meals at his restaurant in the past, I am decidedly on Team Tramonto until someone else sways me.

INANITY PLATES: According to Deadspin, the great state of Michigan accidentally awarded two different people the coveted vanity license plate "WLVRNE." I'm confused -- is "with Laverne" slang for "lesbian"?

DESMOND IS MY CONSTANT: Not to adopt anybody else's dayenu review format, but a Desmond episode of Lost? And an exceedingly well-written one, tying together snippets of what we've seen already this season, looping back upon itself, alluding to scenes from past seasons, and offering hints but not explicit answers? Featuring some people we've missed? With even the annoying characters on their best behavior? Yes please, and on a quick first impression, one of my favorite Lost episodes ever.

WHAT ABOUT GRANDPA FAR-R-VAR-RER-RAH: Minnesota Quarterback Brett Favre is a grandfather.

DIDGERIDOO, OR DIDGERIDON'T? What started off as Lennon/McCartney Night wound up as Ethnic Wind Instruments Night (next week: nose flute!) on a decidedly above-average night of American Idol. If only The Outlaw Casey James approached greatness with his earnest take on "Jealous Guy," certainly, at least no one totally sucked. I'd group the other performers as follows:

• Not That Exciting, But Generally As Good As Always: Crystal, Siobhan, Big Mike and Lee did nothing to put themselves at risk this week.
  
• Not That Exciting, But Certainly At Least Competent: Aaron and Tim were both just about the best I've seen them, though like Katie each was a bit boring.
• It's Time To Go: Sorry, Andrew Garcia, but that Vegas-y arrangement of "Can't Buy Me Love" just killed you. And with three women leaving in a row already, the axe is due for you.
  

OVER MY DEAD BODY: In a story not dated April 1 (as far as I can tell), Mattel announced that the new Scrabble rules will allow the use of proper names. There won't be any hard and fast rules for what counts, you won't be able to use an ordinary dictionary as your referee, sharp implements will need to be banned, and failed Internet startups are going to devalue the X and the Q beyond recognition.

THE BALL IS DROPPED: I'm not the only one who wants Luther back next year. From Wikipedia (and sure to be edited soon):

Notable artists to sing "One Shining Moment"

Barrett was the original artist, but CBS has also broadcast remakes by Teddy Pendergrass (1994-1999) and Luther Vandross (2003-2009). It is believed to be the last song Vandross recorded before his stroke and subsequent death.^{[citation needed]} A version by Jennifer Hudson was unfortunately used for the 2010 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. It ruined an otherwise great tournament. Whoever produced the video in 2010 felt the need to show Hudson as if it were a music video, and it should cost CBS the rights to future tournaments if there's any justice in the world.

Great game and great tourney last night. As much as I wanted to see Butler pull off the upset, I was rooting for Jon Scheyer, who graduated from the same high school as I did, albeit, 20 years later. Scheyer will probably be a second-round pick in the draft and should he make a team in the fall he could increase the MOTT in the NBA to three.

And one last note, I thought the key to the game was Coach K's decision to have big Brian Zoubek guard Bulter's inbound pass with something like 10 seconds to play. Gordon Hayward was unable to get a pass off and forced to call timeout, burning the Bulldogs' last timeout, which would have allowed Butler to reset for their final possession following Zoubek's free throw miss. Love him or more likely hate him, Coach K knows a thing or two about the sport.

NOT FIRED UP: I like Josh Schwartz, and I really liked Kristen Kreuk on Chuck, so I thought I'd probably give Hitched a try. Then I read that the show has cast Sharon Lawrence as Kreuk's mom. Lawrence was just fine as hard-ass D.A. Sylvia Costas in N.Y.P.D. Blue, less fine as Dennis Franz's suffering wife in N.Y.P.D. Blue, and the worst thing about everything she's been in since. She is a charter member of the fraternity of actors and personalities whose work I just cannot bear, irrespective of the quality of the surrounding production -- a group whose roster includes Billy Crystal, Sally Field, Coach from Survivor, Robin Williams, Trump, and Tyra Banks. So long, Hitched, it's been good not knowin' ya.

HIT 'EM LOW, HIT 'EM HIGH: Two residual thoughts on the McNabb trade:

• Fans are in no position to evaluate the merits of the trade because of what Rumsfeld called the "known unknowns" and what Gladwell would call a puzzle, not a mystery -- we simply don't have sufficient information about Kevin Kolb to determine whether his next 6+ years hold more promise than McNabb's next 3-4. For the coaching staff, on the other hand, it's a more of a mystery under the Gladwell dichotomy: they have lots of information, but can't be sure about what to do with it.
• For almost a decade, I've been wearing my green McNabb #5 jersey to pretty much every home game. Now what? Among the current players, I'm considering a Jackson #10, Samuel #22, Cole #58, McCoy #25 or Maclin #18, though none feel terribly satisfying at the moment. Do I just go old school and get the Reggie White or Jerome Brown throwback?
  

SEX. THE PHYSICAL ACT OF LOVE. COITUS. DO YOU LIKE IT? Obvs, this blog does not generally link to websites promoting pornography. That said, a combination of subject matter, production values, fine supporting work from Peter O'Tool and the fact that it's now available on a non-porn website mandate that I provide our readers with a link to the NSFW (language) trailer for The Big Lebowski, an upcoming adult parody of America's favorite bowling-and-Gulf-War movie.

Not really related, but where else am I going to post this: As many here are aware, before portraying Jacob on Lost Mark Pellegrino played Blonde Treehorn Thug in The Big Lebowski. Here's what happens when the two roles are combined.

WILL TONI KUKOC FINISH THE LAST 1.8 SECONDS OF HIS INDUCTION SPEECH? I know it's a low blow in what should be an otherwise glorious day for Scottie Pippen, as the NBA's greatest player from Central Arkansas was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in his first year eligible. Joining Pippen in this year's class among others are Karl Malone, Lakers owner Jerry Buss, the late Dennis Johnson, and the 1992 Dream Team (meaning Pippen and Malone get to save themselves a return trip to Springfield, Mass.).

KEARSONOMICS: Richard Thaler, whom half the members of The University of Chicago Law School Class of 1998 will remember as the guy who came into Sunstein's Elements class and ran some sort of con involving auctions and predicting other students' behavior, tells us what Sam Bradford doesn't want us to hear: the higher a player is picked in the NFL draft, the lower his value generally will be relative to his salary.

In a fantasy league beloved by a few readers here, I proposed that rather than assigning draft positions in reverse order of a team's finish, we let teams pick their draft slot. The guy with last year's worst record would get to pick any draft position he wanted, then the second-to-last-place finisher would choose from the remaining eleven slots, etc. A person could choose the remaining pick that maximizes the expected value as he calculates it, and if people had differing views, this might make more than one person happy. It's not as efficient as an auction, but it's a step in that direction and a heck of a lot simpler.

The value of a lower pick in a fantasy draft comes from the higher pick in even-numbered draft rounds, but the existence of real-world salary issues (either hard-cap or just soft-budget) in the NFL creates similar value in trading down in the NFL draft. Instead of assigning the #1 pick to the worst team, thus forcing the team to commit significant money to a risky prospect, why not let the worst team pick where it wanted to draft? For example, if the Rams thought that Bradford vs. Suh were a coin flip, they could trade down to #2 and save some money and cap room.

PESSIMISM IS NOT ALLOWED TODAY: Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox (especially to Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron, just because), who yesterday opened up a likely-insurmountable half-game lead on the Tampa Bay Non-Satanic Rays (with 161 left to go). For everybody else who will not have Felix Day rained out in Oakland this afternoon, it's opening day.

Your prognostications are welcome, though not mandatory.

BECAUSE GRINNELL'S REAL NICKNAME ACTUALLY IS "CORNELL WEST": As long as there has been an Internet -- hell, let's go back to the Usenet days -- it's been used to spread well-meaning lies and misinformation, and once there was a Web there was a Snopes.com to sort reliably the truth from the urban legends.

The NYT profiles Snopes founders David and Barbara Mikkelson today.

OH WHAT A SHAMEFUL WAY TO BE THE SAME: I don't always find common ground with the folks who love Glee without reservation, but I thought this was interesting. Last month, Dianna Agron hosted the Chickens in Love concert fundraiser for the L.A. franchise of Dave Eggers's 826 Valencia foundation, and apparently she did a little dueting with Thao Nguyen of Thao With the Get Down Stay Down. It's not that Glee is as far from a band that records for Kill Rock Stars as one can get -- you don't have to search too long to find some shared DNA -- but it's far enough that the crossover makes me smile.

Original here.

THANK YOU, 5: The greatest and most accomplished quarterback in Eagles history, Donovan McNabb, has been traded to Washington.

There will be time to evaluate the merits of the trade, and only the Eagles coaches truly know whether Kevin Kolb is ready for the responsibility which is in front of him. Right now, I'm just grateful for what McNabb did for this team and this city: five trips to the NFC Championship game and one Super Bowl, seven playoff trips in a decade, and just thrilling games and highlights. The broken ankle game against Arizona. The playoff win in Chicago. 4th and 26.

Back in August, when I received that text from ESPN alerting me about the Vick signing ten minutes before my C-SPAN debut, well, you know what I said by now: Donovan McNabb is my quarterback -- which, admittedly, wasn't of interest to more than a few dozen folks at a political gathering in Pittsburgh. But McNabb earned that level of loyalty for me -- like Iverson, Barkley, Schmidt, Kruk and Erving before him, his combination of excellence and passion created a special connection with the fans, one reinforced every time McNabb pointed two fingers to the heavens coming out of the tunnel, two fingers expressing a hope that a win would come that day.

Every season with Donovan McNabb began with that hope; no game seemed unwinnable. That talent, that professionalism, that swagger, that heart ... we had one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL for eleven years, and I don't know that he ever received the love from this town that he deserved. I'm sorry he's gone, and will cheer him upon his return.

added: Michael Wilbon welcomes his friend to DC.

WELL, AT LEAST HE HAS THE HAIR: Apparently, Aaron Sorkin may want to venture back into the political world again with his own version of L'Affaire Edwards, and Gawker has some casting suggestions--Tom Cruise as Edwards, Annette Bening as Elizabeth Edwards, and Meg Ryan or Felicity Huffman as Rielle Hunter (though they rightly noted that Huffman is "not ditzy enough"), I'm quite confident we can do better and offer roles for other members of the Sorkin Family Players (Joshua Malina as a once-idealistic but now jaded campaign worker? Bradley Whitford in a cameo as Rahm Emanuel?)

BALBOA-DRAGO? Complete this sentence: A Butler-Duke national championship game represents the purest battle of Good v. Evil in sports since _______________.

Related: #dukefacts

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES: Look, I'm all for keeping shows grounded in real situations, but did Law and Order really need to mash up the climate science e-mail dispute, the Goldman/Brazil custody case, and Balloon Boy all into a single episode? (Also, can someone please advise casting agents that attempting to cast Tony Hale as a plotting mastermind isn't going to be terribly effective? As soon as I see him, all I think is Buster Bluth.)

I WANTED TO BECOME THE ARTIST I AM TODAY, AND IT TOOK YEARS: Give NYMag's Vanessa Grigoriadis credit for a pretty damn insightful thinkpiece on how NYC native Stefani Germanotta became Lady Gaga. Excerpt below the fold, which should be enough to tantalize even more than my telling you that you'll get to find out what much-beloved role she had in her high school's musical:

IN ALL OTHER WEEKS, WE DO NOT MENTION JUSTIN BIEBER EVEN ONCE; WHY, IN THIS WEEK, DO I LINK TO PAGES INVOLVING HIM TWICE? In a feature we haven't looked at in four years, The Boston Phoenix again ranks the 100 un-sexiest men of the year. Find out who they think looks like a cross between Stevie Wonder and Mel Brooks, who's "a caramelized monument to syrupy-sweet pseudo-romantic dross," and which singer was described as sounding "like someone has kidnapped Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard, cut off his testicles, and is holding him for ransom in a church basement decorated with rainbows and unicorn."

NOBODY GOES THERE ANYMORE. IT'S TOO CROWDED: Commenter Meghan alerts us to the publication of the newest edition of Restaurants & Institutions Magazine's list of the Top 100 Grossing Independent Restaurants in America, which we managed to discuss last year as well. While fifty of the top 100 are in NYC or Las Vegas, it's impressive to see Philadelphia's Parc debut at #66, one of three local Stephen Starr locations on the list.

In terms of total meals served, DC's Old Ebbitt Grill believes it has topped the titans of Frankenmuth. It also happens to be the only restaurant I know of that prints the scientific nomenclature of its oysters on the menu.

HELLO, ANGELS: ALOTT5MA, with great premorse, announces the death of John Forsythe, aged 92.

IT'S NOT BROKEN; DON'T FIX IT: I am flummoxed as to why -- other than greed for more tv dollars -- anyone would support expanding the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship from 65 teams to 96.

There's simply no competitive justification -- every team that demonstrates during the regular season any possible claim to being the best team in the nation has no problem gaining entry into the field. Disputes over worthy "bubble teams" almost never concern teams which could reach the Final Four (#11 George Mason, a 2006 at-large bid), let alone have a legitimate claim to championship-seeking. This will only further reduce the importance of both the regular season and the conference tournaments, and, really: are you excited about two days of games featuring matchups of the 33rd and 96th best teams in the country, or between 15th and 18th-seeded teams? Is America yearning to see mediocre big-conference teams face off against decent mid-majors lacking pedigree?

The tournament is entertaining because some #2-#4 seeds are vulnerable to some seeded #13-#15 in the opening two days, and yes those games will still happen a round later. But do we really care if an 11 seed is "knocked off" by a team seeded 22nd?

I KNOW I'M FUNNIER THAN DAT PHAN: Season 4 winner Vecepia Towery Robinson is pissed she's never been invited back to a Survivor all-star season.

The Mercury News article notes that she was named #2 on a random website's list of the worst reality tv winners ever (warning: slideshow!), and while they got #1 pretty much right, I have a feeling we might be able to improve upon the list. For instance: what about Project Runway 2's Chloe Dao, TAR 6's Freddy and Kendra, ANTM's Jaslene Gonzalez or, of course, Harlemm Lee? Your turn.

A BANDY-LEGGED LITTLE TROLL: I feel much the same way about tonight's Survivor that Alan does, but let's go into spoiler mode to discuss.

TWO SEPARATE, YET EQUALLY IMPORTANT ITEMS: I rather suspect our audience cares more that S. Epatha Merkerson will leave Law & Order after 16 years as Lt. Anita van Buren at the end of this season than about rumors that Charlie Sheen wants out of Two And A Half Men. Merkerson has been quietly excellent for years in a pretty thankless role, and while I don't normally like my L&O with a side order of personal life, her cancer storyline has helped reinvigorate the mothership this year (along with the cop pairing finding its footing and the Roache-Waterston relationship)--she'll be missed. As for Sheen, well, I'll let someone who's made it through more than 1 or 2 episodes of Men opine.

IT KINDA, SORTA RHYMES: Your next three hosts for Saturday Night Live will be Fey, Phillippe and Sidibe.

[Trivia question: Prior to Gabourey Sidibe, who was the last African American woman to host Saturday Night Live?]

THERE'S A RIOT GOING ON: The Washington Post compiles some of David Mills' best music writing for the newspaper, including a fascinating profile of Morris Day struggling to figure out where it all fell apart.

ANYTHING THAT'S NOT BIEBER, DIES: Funny Or Die has been taken over today.