HUCKASCOOP: Daniel Radosh turns his unhealthy obsession with the tarted-up teens of Huckapoo into a feature story in this week's New York magazine. The details and your chance to pester Daniel for more poop on Huckapoo is here.

NEXT YEAR, GET READY FOR "FALLUJAH:" Well, since there's apparently not a Holocaust movie in contention for the Best Documentary prize at the 2005 Oscars, we must have the obligatory fictional film to serve as Oscar bait. But this year's contender scores with what I submit is the worst title ever. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Aryan Couple, which, honestly, sounds more like racist propaganda than a sensitive and moving film about the Holocaust. Here's the synopsis. It opens in New York on Friday, Los Angeles next Friday, and (I expect) video stores nationwide a few weeks after that.

AW GEEZ: I watched the first installment of Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters last week, and perhaps put off by the what seemed to be a 10-minute tribute to No. 81, the cast of Will & Grace, I wrote it off as a subtle NBC infomercial and forgot to tune in or Tivo the rest of the countdown. The whole list is now online and No. 1 is Archie Bunker, a deserving pick. And I'm sure the whole thing will be replayed VH1 style for months to come. I'm disappointed none of the Bradys made the cut.

FO' SHIZZLE, I'M GOING TO GET HELLA CRUNK TONIGHT: Noted lamestain cob nobbler Bill Safire went swingin' on the flippety-flop yesterday in pursuit of the latest dope slang.

PROTECTING US FROM THE REAL RISKS: Prior to my 9 hour flight between New York and Houston last night (by way of an unplanned layover for refueling in New Orleans due to weather and a delay there because of the airline "losing" our plane), I witnessed true bizarreness with the Transportation Security Administration. The person in front of me in line at the security check had (for reasons unbeknownst to me) decided to carry about 4 or 5 hard core gay pornographic magazines on the airplane with him. Apparently, these magazines in some way pinged security, as they had to be unwrapped, re-run through the x-ray machine, and then laboriously gone through, page by page, by the TSA employees in order to make sure there were no weapons or contraband contained between the photos.

As for the flight, two lessons. The Notebook stinks regardless of what time you're watching it or whether or not you're watching it on a plane. Dodgeball is perhaps funnier still on second viewing, even at midnight on the airport tarmac in New Orleans as you wait for refueling.

RULES OF THE ROAD: Another top-notch episode for the second leg of the sixth edition of The Amazing Race. We got to know the teams a little better -- liking a few some more, hating The Hateful Team even more -- as we move from Iceland to Norway in a tightly bunched hour. In particular, the older-person team revealed themselves to be among the smartest racers we've seen, and if they don't get hurt by an endurance task, they may go far.

If I ever did the Race, Lord knows I'd learn to drive a stick shift before leaving. One of tonight's teams didn't, and it was not helpful. Also, there's nothing quite as fun as a series of ass-over-teakettle falls, and this episode had them in abundance. And something many of us have been waiting for -- an actual team penalty for rules violations, but it may not be the one you expected.

Beyond that, we're getting into spoiler territory, so let's all make a left turn for the Comments, and take it from there.

BINIONS ALLEGED KILLERS DRAW TO GUT-SHOT STRAIGHT: Readers of James McManus's compelling Positively Fifth Street (an instant classic of gambling folklore, along with A. Alvarez's Biggest Game in Town and some of the older editions of Edwin Silberstang's Winner's Guide to Casino Gambling; honorable mention to the first 100 pages or so of Mario Puzo's fictional Fools Die) know the story about how Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish allegedly murdered Vegas royalty and Binions Horseshoe heir Ted Binion. You know, the story that involved a best pal, a shitload of heroin and Xanax, a backhoe digging up buried silver, all kinds of wildly conflicted lawyers, and somebody being (allegedly) suffocated by an ex-stripper's mud flaps? The story ends with a pair of acquittals. Um, I guess we'll never know what happened to Teddy Binion in the hours before his wife and buddy hustled out to the desert to dig up his buried treasure. Given the legend of patriarch Benny Binion's itchy trigger finger, I guess you could just say that one bad beat deserves another.

By the way, if any of this arouses your prurient interest, or might possibly do so for your Chrismukkah-needy loved ones, I do highly recommend Positively Fifth Street. Anybody have any suggestions for other book gifts, and descriptions of the target demographic? This one's already on the list.