DEAR SALLY, THIS IS ACTUALLY A PRETTY GOOD SHOW: Though, I, like Kim, am a big fan of J.J. Abrams' more recent work, I was never a regular viewer of his first series, Felicity. I spent much of the long weekend watching the first season, chronicling Felicity and her friends' Freshman year courtesy of Netflix. Interestly, while Abrams has gone in for pretty heavy sci-fi stuff on his current series, the first year of Felicity is pretty much a straight-shooter. (Abrams apparently veered toward the fantastic in later seasons with a time travel plotline and an extended Twilight Zone homage.) Felicity Porter is the stereotypical good girl--she's going to be pre-med at Stanford. Then, at her high school graduation, Ben, her high school crush, signs her yearbook, saying that he wished he knew her better. Felicity impulsively (for the first time in her life) decides to follow Ben cross-country to the "University of New York" (for some reason, NYU apparently denied permission to use their name, though extensive exterior filming is done there). There, she meets friends and develops a romantic relationship with her RA, Noel Crane (Scott Foley). Felicity and her friends' romantic and academic entanglements form the crux of the story (more emphasis is given to the romantic than the academic, as you might expect on the WB) .

Also fun is playing "spot the future famous folks." Jennifer Garner has an extended arc as Noel's girlfriend, and both J.Gar and Lauren Graham should note--the glasses make you even hotter. Greg Grunberg, now better known as Agent Weiss on Alias or "that pilot who got eaten by the thing" on Lost, plays Sean, Ben's overly entreprenurial roommate. Amanda Foreman, who now recurs on Alias as Carrie Flinkman, plays Felicity's "witchy" roommate. Jane Kaczmarek shows up as Felicity's friend's internship boss and possible birth mother. And yes, Brian Krakow himself, Devon Gummersall, shows up, in a very un-Krakow role--a date rapist. Smartly written, generally sharply acted (Foley, in particular, shows a flair for befuddled comedy), and gloriously scored by W.G. "Snuffy" Walden (one of these days, I'm going to get around to my long posting on the glory of his scoring) it's damn fine television that's well worth your time in the season of reruns.

LEGES SINE MORIBUS VANAE: The debut novel by Kermit Roosevelt, In the Shadow of the Law, looks like a legal thriller from the face of it. To be sure, there are lawyers involved in all sorts of intrigue, from a death penalty appeal to a mass toxic tort -- and, yes, there is a sudden death in the book -- but this is not a Grisham book with dramatic twists and turns.

Instead, Roosevelt uses his skills to paint a compelling, depressing (because it's true) portrait of the large defense-side law firms to which elite law school graduates gravitate, and what such practice does to themselves, and to the law.

I don't want to say too much about the plot, but there is much to say about Roosevelt's theme: law without morality, as the Penn Law motto goes, is nothing. When lawyers lose their moral sense, it cripples both themselves and the law. This gets multiplied, sadly, by what law firms do to young attorneys. As one character says at one point, ''You give up half your life to get good grades so you can get that top-firm job, then as a reward you get to give up the other half.''

Law school -- well, at least mine -- does an awful job at preparing students for the reality of big firm practice -- the choices they will have to make, and, more fundamentally, that there are choices, both between legal careers and within them. And Roosevelt doesn't pretend that any of this is easy -- other than the former Supreme Court clerk, he prescribes no easy answers for any of the characters, no clear answers for what they ought to do once they understand what their careers have done to their lives.

This book hit home for me. As most of you know, I took over a year away from the practice of law starting in 2003, in part because of the concerns expressed in this book: when you're slaving away on document production for a large corporate client, you do wonder -- is this why I went to law school? I went into politics searching for a way to use my skills in a more meaningful way, and then returned to law when I could find a setting in which I could employ them on behalf of clients whose successes would be meaningful to me. (And the paying clients too.) Why? Because the pure practice of law -- when your mind is really engaged in what you're doing on behalf of good people -- is a hell of a lot of fun.

But it's easy to get sucked in. It's so easy to conflate a law firm's objectives with your own and assimilate yourself into the Borg. Roosevelt's book highlights what happens to those who follow that path, and it's not exactly thrilling.

This book should be required reading right next to Scott Turow's One-L, because it provides a necessary education that law students might not otherwise get until it's too late. Read it. Now.

Mr. Poon liked it too.

WE'LL STEAL YOUR MONEY; WE'LL STEAL YOUR SHOW: Of all the bands for Nike to rip off in its advertising, Ian MacKaye's Minor Threat was probably a really bad call. One is hard-pressed to contemplate a more anticommercial band.

Kudos to Pitchfork for breaking the story. Phil, any comment?

MEANWHILE, JULIA DEMATO HAS A FERGIE THING GOING ON: GFY ask -- when did Kimberly Caldwell turn into Pink?

DUFFMAN IS THRUSTING IN THE DIRECTION OF THE PROBLEM. OH YEAH! Previously known for its Zoo and for being the setting of Three's Company, San Diego may now be known as the brewing capital of America, if the new Best Beers in the World ratings from RateBeer.com are to be believed.

I have tried three of the top ten American breweries -- Hair of the Dog, Dogfish Head and Victory. I believe it's time for a Foodery run.

SINCERITY IS NOT MEASURED IN POUNDS: The best appreciation I've seen of the late Luther Vandross comes from Richard Harrington in today's Washington Post:

"My first responsibility is to be honest in what I'm singing," Vandross said in one of a half-dozen interviews we did over the course of 20 years. "My favorite thing is when somebody's emotional state, more than their romantic state, is helped by one of my songs.

"I sing about love, but I also sing about introspection and emotional status and the emotional journey that people go through during the course of a day and how it can affect you -- all the decisions that you make for your life. It's not 'meet me in the shower' and 'let's rub oil on each other.' You'll never hear me sing about those things."

Then he added: "That's my choice, Luther's perspective. It does not mean that anyone who does that is less worthy or less competent."

My favorite Vandross song? Probably "Power of Love/Love Power".

3.1415926535897932328462: 22 digits is all I can do. This fellow in Japan managed 83,431. And if that isn't nerdy enough, 83,431 is -- curiously enough -- a prime number.

Also from the Japanese monomaniac desk, Monday brings us the 2005 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.