YOU'VE HEARD OF THE SEVEN RINGS OF SATURN? THESE ARE THE TWO RINGS OF RIKER'S: I bring today the sad news that Jerry Orbach, Law & Order's longest-serving and most indispensable cast member, looks to be leaving at season's end.

Speaking of which, I'm not the only one who has worked out lyrics to the theme song, am I? [Da-DUM!] Welcome to the law! This is Law and Or-DER! . . .

TWISTED TRUTH AND HALF THE NEWS, CAN'T HIDE IT IN YOUR EYES: Today's Page Six has some followup on the case of the lyin'-ass Times bride.

WITH ARNOLD ROTHSTEIN ON MY SIDE, HOW CAN I GO WRONG? After last night's stunning 4-for-4 sweep in the predictions game, let's see if the MascotMatcher system can leave the round of sixteen wholly unscathed:

REGIONAL OF THE LOUIS, LIKE MY TATTOO IS:

Alabama-Birmingham Blazers v. Kansas Jayhawks: A high of 70 degrees is predicted for the Lou tonight, and if that's not the right time to break out the Hickey-Freeman blazer, I don't know what is. It's time for the Minnesota-based country rockers to stop and look at what's going down: two good teams, one bad end. This game's easy -- way back home there's a funeral for the Jayhawks.

Nevada Wolf Pack v. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets: Again with the fashion? Kyan objects to the wolves' poor shaving habits, with all the shaving up-and-against-the-grain, and Carson says go! be different and wear that maize outerwear. Ted lays out an overly-involved recipe for roasted wolf, Thom paints horizontal stripes around the room and Jai . . . well, Jai just sits around and looks cute. The wolves go hungry tonight, setting up the sartorial finale the world has been waiting for.

UP IN ONE-TWEEZY REGIONAL:

Xavier Musketeers v. Texas Longhorns: Aramis, Athos, and Porthos are bringing their muskets, but all D'Artagnan has in his bag is a terrine of duck foie gras. The steers will feast on the foie gras and make lunch of the remaining Frenchmen. C'mon, dawg, never take the Frenchmen on a neutral site -- remember how they did in Belgium?

Illinois Fighting Illini v. Duke Blue Devils: The Illini may be powered by firewater and state-sponsored gaming revenue, but that won't be enough against a team that already killed Eddie Barzoon, got Coach acquitted on murder charges and took Charlize Theron's ovaries. Keh-vun! They took mah O-VAH-RIES! Let me give you a little inside information about Mike Krzyzewski. He likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives his teams instincts. He gives them this extraordinary gift, and then what do they do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Shoot the three, but don't shoot the three. A-ha-ha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off. He's a tight-ass. He's a sadist. He's an absentee landlord. Worship that? Yes.

One more blessing of TiVo: you never have to hear the CBS da-da-da-da-da-DA! DA! DA! theme.

HANSEL. HE'S SO HOT RIGHT NOW: Yeah, like you'd react any differently after taking one look at world figure skating champion Evgeni Plushenko.

Hey, they're breakdance fighting!

DOWN THE SHORE EVERYTHING'S ALL RIGHT: Could Kevin Smith have been right about the Times would review Jersey Girl?

I don't think they liked it a lot:

[S]adly, Mr. Smith has made a movie so false and blatantly icky that it's the film equivalent of making goo-goo noises and chucking a baby under the chin for 103 minutes. At the end, all you're left with is drool and a mountain of baby powder.

The cautionary lesson of "Jersey Girl," which opens today nationwide, might be that when it comes to screenwriting, facetiousness is a lot easier to convey than deep personal feeling. The movie, crammed with wince-inducing contrivances, false notes and fizzled jokes, all leading to a tired race-against-time ending, is so bad that it could stand as a textbook example of what not to do if you're an independent filmmaker flirting with the Hollywood mainstream.

The review is titled "How To End A Career", incidentally. It describes a plot point in the movie, but I'd say both Smith and Affleck need to start making better decisions.

I JUST DON'T WANT TO BE KNOWN AS THE UP-THE-BUTT WEATHERMAN: Coming soon to NBC's Today Show: Inside Al Roker's Ass.

In the unlikely event that you're having trouble coming up with a punchline, the WaPo's Lisa de Moraes goes medieval on Katie Couric's . . . yeah:

Having already made a TV star out of Katie Couric's colon in 2000, NBC News has rounded up the colon of jolly weatherman Al Roker for this year's experiment in uncomfortable-making television.

But because it's all about Katie, Couric will be with him every step of the way, NBC News assured us in its announcement.

Yes, Roker is the one having his colon probed on national television. But the camera will be firmly affixed on Couric, who "will be with him as he prepares the night before and then with him for the exam," the news division said in its news release.

Keep reading.

WHAT'S WORSE, HE CAST HIS WIFE IN THIS ONE TOO: Via Gawker, we learn today that Kevin Smith is afraid of Jersey Girl's critical reception tomorrow:

The film's not gonna be a critical hit. It's an extremely sentimental film, and most critics don't like sentiment. Don't expect big, critical kudos this time around (in fact, we may be less well-reviewed than we were on "Strike Back"). The NY Times is gonna shred the flick. LA Times too, I'll bet. EW probably ain't gonna be onboard.

Does the Times hate sentiment? Let's take a look:

50 First Dates: "[T]he unlikely sweetness of the story carries the day. What is most astonishing is the confidence with which the filmmakers push their premise to its logical conclusion, turning an ending that could have been either laughable or appalling into something so effortlessly heartfelt as to be nearly sublime."

Elf: "Elf' is a charming, silly family Christmas movie more likely to spread real joy than migraine, indigestion and sugar shock. The movie succeeds because it at once restrains its sticky, gooey good cheer and wildly overdoes it."

Monsieur Ibrahim: "This modest, sentimental film looks nostalgically back on Paris in the mid-1960's and casts a loving, oblique glance at the French movies of that era. . . . The two central performances help the lesson go down easily, and Mr. Duperyon's unassuming, slightly ragged realism gives the movie a sweet, lived-in charm."

The Cider House Rules: "The Cider House Rules is an unabashedly sentimental movie that wants to pluck our heart strings, and now and then its tone (and its quiet but incessant soundtrack by Rachel Portman) turns cloyingly sweet. But the performances have an understated gravity and the screenplay a thematic consistency that largely avoid tawdry manipulation."

About A Boy: "The Weitz brothers . . . handle the sentimentality of the story with a light, sweet touch. You succumb to the movie's warmth and bonhomie because the alternative is to remain in the isolating, self-protective cynicism from which Will has been lucky to escape."

Maybe, just maybe, Kevin, what the Times is really biased against is when you make a shitty movie.

(Then again, they've liked all five of his movies so far, even at his most self-indulgent. Go figure.)