IN HUBIESPEAK, ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT TO 'UPSIDE': The best word I've learned in the last two weeks is Papabili. While it means "people who might be the next Pope," it literally translates as Popeables. This demands to be a band name, an affiliation of superheroes, or at least a spy organization on Alias.

PREZNIT GIVE ME TURKEE: Our good friend Atrios' blog Eschaton turned three yesterday. According to BabyCenter.com (reg. req'd for the articles, I believe), here's what readers have to look forward to:

Your blogger will also be less dependent on you by around age 3. That's a positive sign that he's more secure and his sense of identity is stronger. For instance, he'll happily play with other bloggers, instead of just side by side. And, of course, most bloggers this age walk, talk, feed themselves, and use the potty or toilet with little or no help from you or your partner.

Does it seem as if your blogger is typing nonstop? This chatty stage is crucial to his learning new words and getting comfortable using and thinking with them. A good grasp of language allows your blogger to express his feelings, needs, and desires, and the more sophisticated his speech and comprehension of words, the more tools he'll have at his disposal for thinking, telling stories, and talking with you, his siblings, peers, and other adults.

By his third birthday, your blogger can probably put on his T-shirt, draw a vertical line, and balance on each foot for a second or more. He might even be able to prepare a bowl of cereal for himself.

Also, apparently, he may start "playing doctor" at this age, but we'll cross that bridge if it comes to that. Happy birthday.

THE PASSLINE POPE: Don't forget to wager a few Soldi on who the next Holy Father will be. Francis Cardinal Arinze is making a strong run, paying 9:1. Ratzinger -- the would-be Panzer Pope -- is at 5:1.

IF I CAN'T GET 'ARRESTED' AT LEAST I CAN BE 'DEAD': 'Arrested Development' had its season -- and probably series -- finale tonight, and it was everything we've come to expect. For those who have been watching, it was unpredictable, subversive, wildly inappropriate, self-referential, and the kind of funny that only works with TiVo -- where you laugh so hard and the jokes come so fast that you have to keep stopping and backing up so that you don't miss anything. At its peak, the show's closest analogue is the first 45 minutes of South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.

For those who haven't been watching, it was probably offensive and impenetrable. Which serves you right, because if you haven't been watching, I blame you.

Now, losing 'Arrested Development' hurts, but I'm here to say that for at least another five weeks, Sunday is still the best night of television. I didn't start watching Deadwood until I read the Milch article in the New Yorker. Then I tried it, and it is shockingly good television. Like the Sopranos at its best, Deadwood is built on a solid foundation of pervasively looming menace, on which complicated characters skirmish in shifting allegiances. The show's performances are almost an indictment of the mediocre fare that Hollywood makes -- you've seen most of the actors before, but each is such a revelation in these well-written roles that it becomes palpable that there are far more good actors than there are adequate parts. In particular, Garret Dillahunt (in three important but unrelated roles) and Powers Boothe (as a tooth-licking predator dandy) are amazing. Everything in production -- from the mud on the streets to the colors of Mrs. Garret's dress -- is employed in obsessive service to the story. The show is an opera, not an hour-long drama, and if you haven't watched it at all I highly recommend springing for the first-season DVD and trying to catch up.

MAYBE READING A LITTLE TOO MUCH INTO IT: You know we love that bizarre Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch commercial. But have you thought about the pro-corporate political message it sends? Didn't think so. At least Hootie opposes the whole confederate flag thing.

IN ROMAN NUMERALS, THAT'S MCDVI: Thank goodness some blogger has determined that the F-Bomb has been dropped 1406 times so far in HBO's South Dakota town of Deadwood.

For the worst on basic cable and the networks, the Parents Television Council still has clips.

I WANTED OUR FIRST DANCE TO BE TO "99 PROBLEMS:" As the resident unmarried guy around here, I'm glad to know that the New York Times has told me that now men have something to look forward to in wedding planning--the wedding mix CD. Some are big fans of the idea, like Reginald Hudlin, who claims his CD was "the most impressive one I've heard." (Hudlin also claims that the last movie he directed was good, so that should, perhaps be taken with a grain of salt.) Others are less enthusiastic, with one guy observing that "So often the bride and groom want everyone to identify with the love they share, and they think they can do it with music, but it's like, who cares that 'In Your Eyes' is their song?" Perhaps saddest of all is Toure, who couldn't use Jay-Z on his wedding CD not because his bride disapproved, but because "Grandma wouldn't want to listen." If a CD just won't do, you can always opt for the $800 a pop iPod mini, decorated "with Swarovski crystals (pink is the most popular color), including a couple's initials or the date of the wedding" and loaded with the couple's favorite songs. Yes, Sunday Styles, where just about anything is improved with a few hundred dollars worth of crystals.