SANDFORD AND SONGS: I've never read any John Sandford thrillers and I don't think I'll be picking up any soon after reviewing this list of his stock protagonist Lucas Davenport's top 100 rock songs, a good half of which are ones that make me lunge to change the radio station should they come on.

BUOYED: I didn't believe we could ever see a final immunity challenge on Survivor as good as Lill v. Johnny Fairplay on the rafts.

This one may have been better. Wow. A fitting end to a great season. Let's talk.

THE ANSWER IS YETH: A.O. Scott has seen Revenge of the Sith:

This is by far the best film in the more recent trilogy, and also the best of the four episodes Mr. Lucas has directed. That's right (and my inner 11-year-old shudders as I type this): it's better than 'Star Wars.' . . .

But of course the rise of the Empire and the perdition of Anakin Skywalker are not the end of the story, and the inverted chronology turns out to be the most profound thing about the "Star Wars" epic. Taken together, and watched in the order they were made, the films reveal the cyclical nature of history, which seems to repeat itself even as it moves forward. Democracies swell into empires, empires are toppled by revolutions, fathers abandon their sons and sons find their fathers.

I believe that's enough to release the inner twelve-year-old in all of us.

"I'M NOT CRAZY": A lengthy, compelling piece in Time Magazine online by Christopher John Farley on Dave Chappelle, including an interview from South Africa. (id/pw here).

Fans should be comforted. Says Chappelle: "My personal feeling is I didn't like the direction of the show. I was trying to explain it to people, and no one was feeling me. There's a lot of resistance to my opinions, so I decided, Let me remove myself from this situation. You hear so many voices jockeying for position in your mind that you want to make sure that you hear your own voice. So I figured, Let me just cut myself off from everybody, take a minute and pull a Flintstone —stop a speeding car by using my bare feet as the brakes."

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT IT FREES WILL FERRELL FOR 'ZOOLANDER 2: MUGATU'S REVENGE': And the bad news is that Roger Ebert reports today on the off-again film adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces, beloved by many here.

S-P-E-L-L-E-R OF THE DAY: Today, we highlight Calvin Lau, who will be representing the U.S. Military stationed in Europe at the National Spelling Bee next month.

Calvin is based at the Schweinfurt American Middle School in Schweinfurt, Germany, where his father Frederic Lau is Sgt. 1st Class, Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, a unit whose alumni include Robert E. Lee and George McClellan, and whose forces captured fugitive Confederate Presidnet Jefferson Davis.

What advice did Sgt. Lau give his son?

“One of the tips I always give him is know the origin (of the word) because lots of different languages spell it different ways. At some point you’re going to meet a word you’ve never heard of before. That’s going to happen. The best advice I gave him before he went was make sure you understand exactly what you have to spell before you start spelling … you have to know the word before you start.”

If you think Calvin's the speller coming from the farthest away, oh, wait and see . . .

HE CROSSED THE LINE: Despite the frequent admonitions around these parts, I have never been a regular watcher of "America's Next Top Model." However, last night, my family was sitting around (I'm at a family gathering deep in Texas) and came across the marathon on VH1 and were oddly captivated by super-crazy contestant Keenyah (did you know she's black?), contestant Kahlen, who doesn't look all that pretty on TV, but nonetheless takes gorgeous photos, and of course, Janice Dickinson, the psycho hose beast. That said, couldn't they come up with a better catchphrase for the conclusion? Things like "The Tribe Has Spoken" and "You're Fired!" are much clearer, cleaner and snappier than "I'm pleased to tell you you're still in the running toward becoming America's Next Top Model."