ROBIN WILLIAMS, THE COMEDIAN WHO CAN'T SAY NO:  A little trip into the meta-verse for the weekend: a very special episode of "Mork and Mindy" in which budding tv journalist Mindy is desperate to land an interview with "star of tv, movies and nightclubs" Robin Williams. She realizes that Mork happens to look a lot like this Williams fellow; hijinks ensue.

"Mork Meets Robin Williams" aired on February 19, 1981, and YouTube has it in three parts -- 1, 2, and 3 -- the last of which includes Mork meeting Robin Williams and delivering an important message to Orson on how earthlings can, and can't, handle celebrity.

ODDS OF BEING NORMAN MAILER'D OR MAXWELL TAYLOR'D - 500:1: If the mere thought of Paul Simon's eleventh SNL appearance (3 as host, 8th as musical guest; includes one double-duty) this Saturday doesn't excite you enough in and of itself, let's set out some odds to make it interesting:

If he performs ...
Two songs. 3:1 ✓ 
Three songs. 1:2
During the monologue. 4:1
In a giant turkey suit. 20:1

A song ...
Off the new album, just before Update. 1:5 ✓ 
Something from the Negotiations and Love Songs compilation. 3:1
A Simon & Garfunkel song: 7:1
A Simon & Garfunkel song not on Greatest Hits. 50:1
"Here Comes The Sun." 20:1
Anything from The Capeman. 100:1
"When Numbers Get Serious." 200:1

With a special appearance by ...

MANAGEMENT REGRETS THE ERROR, WHICH IS TOTALLY NOT OUR FAULT:  As Blogger.com explains, they're hoping to restore the last 48h worth of posts soon.

What that means is that this is an open thread for discussion of everything we would have discussed in the past day had we been able to do so -- NBC's Thursday night lineup, the Ashton Kutcher signing, the American Idol audience's decision (a) finally to respect female competitors or (b) to choose mediocrity over rawk, and whatever grammatical/linguistic issues you're having today.  Happy Fridays.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SWINGING AT ME FOR YEARS. THEY ALWAYS SEEM TO MISS: We haven't talked about Game of Thrones lately, but this chart of character relationships provides a rather nice hook for me to check in with everyone, four episodes later. For those familiar with GRRM -- is HBO doing the series justice? And for newbies like me, are you still as engaged and intrigued as I am?

A DISNEY COMPANY FRONTING A MASTER CRAFTSMAN OF MIDDLEBROW RETREADS OF HIS OWN MIDDLEBROW ANALYSIS TO A MASS MIDDLEBROW AUDIENCE:  Y'know, I was going to slam Bill Simmons for not discussing the Lakers' classless exit beyond a single, content-free tweet -- ignored on his two NBA podcasts this week, and no column either -- but then an anonymous blogger so raised the bar on Simmons criticism as to make my offerings irrelevant:

On the TV front, Simmons spent a few years proudly reminding people of his refusal to watch shows like House, The Wire or Arrested Development. Creating a culture site when you essentially have no interest in an entire medium and celebrate your willful blindness to acclaimed work from other media means it can only operate if the intent is actually to be bad at it. In one sense, Jack Kevorkian is an incredibly flawed doctor, but if you approach him from a different frame of reference, he's a specialist with an incomparable track record. Similarly, Simmons so regularly mauls subtlety and complexity with ham-fisted prose and wads multi-faceted concepts into gut-level inanity that maybe his purpose here really is to reduce culture to a kind of gray-lighted broadcast accompanied by a undifferentiated white-noise frat obscenity — like a rocky seashore whose breaking surf gives off the soothing noise of a constant fart.

IT'S UNCLEAR WHETHER SHE ALSO SWEEPS UP ALL THE TOAST:  Cleaning up for Penn students earned this woman $140,000 last year.

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE IDOL STOPPED SUCKING?  Now that wasn't so bad, and most of the credit goes to Lady Gaga who taught the kids an obvious, but necessary lesson -- to sell a song, don't just sing the words. Become the narrator. And she was fun; making Scotty uncomfortable was the highlight of the night.

Singing-wise while Haley's "I Who Have Nothing" was only about 80% Sparks, 80% of that performance is still pretty darn nice. Unfortunately she also had the worst performance of the night, getting swallowed up whole by Michael Jackson's "Earth Song."

The G-Rated Lambert was his normally competent self; Lauren's a bit outmatched by the competition at this point and just hasn't developed; and Scotty ... I can't root for someone who chose that song, this week. Cannot.