HOLY COW! Harry Caray has been named the greatest radio baseball announcer of all time in a survey conducted by XM radio. While you can't hear Caray call a game anymore, you can still catch Nos. 2 and 3, the Dodgers' Vin Scully and the Brewers' Bob Uecker, on many nights with a decent AM radio (not to mention XM).

Caray's "It might be ... it could be ... it is!" was also picked as the best home run call, while Russ Hodges' 1951 "Shot Heard Round The World" ("The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!) was named the most memorable call.

SURE, BUT THE COCA-COLA FLAVORED ONES WERE NASTY: 7-Eleven's Slurpee turns 40 today.

When I was growing up and going to summer day camp, it was always a huge deal that, on the last day of camp, the buses would all stop at 7-Eleven and the bus counselors would pick up Slurpees for everyone, like it was the most magical forbidden treat ever. (Like it would've been impossible to just ask our parents to take us there to get them.)

These days, it's frappuccinos for me -- and the fact that they're higher in calories (if you get the whipped cream) than Slurpees (which are fat-free) and about the same in carbs . . . um, forget that I told you that, okay?

NERD ALERT: CNN/Money has its annual Best Places To Live analysis out today. If you're looking for a place to live surrounded by nerds, move to the Boston or DC suburbs, which have eight of the top ten towns with the highest percentage of residents with graduate degrees.

[NORM MACDONALD]The worst place to raise a family, for the tenth straight year? The Neverland Ranch.[/NORM MACDONALD]

NEED THEM TONIGHT? Who Wants To Replace That Guy Who Hung Himself debuts with the first of its thirty-nine (?) episodes tonight. The Boston Globe chatted up some music industry veterans for their thoughts:

Ed Valauskas, bassist: ''Bums me out. If Hutchence had simply been kicked out of the band, I could see a gimmick like this. But the guy hung himself. Plus, even though the TV thing worked well for Ozzie, he's a compelling personality. Is their saxophone guy that incredible a character? I doubt it."

Michael Creamer, artist manager: ''Truly morbid. I don't understand why the guys in the band would want to do it. Maybe to bring more attention to the group, but the concept is just bizarre. Nirvana went nowhere after Kurt Cobain died, and these guys aren't exactly Nirvana."

Yeah. When the president of the Trump Taj Mahal died in a helicopter crash a few years ago, not even Donald Trump would use that as the occasion to launch his reality tv competition. I think I'll pass.

THE WORLD OF REPEATS IS WAITING FOR YOU: Just a reminder, folks, that starting tomorrow, GSN (the network formerly known as the Game Show Network), will be running all seven seasons of TAR in chronological order at 9 EST (repeating at 12 EST). For those like me who didn't get the word till later, this is your chance. (Unfortunately for TiVo users, they don't seem to have solid episode descriptions, so you're likely to get duplicates galore with a season pass.) Set your TiVo/VCR now.

My sad admission? I remember watching the first episode of TAR1 and being hopelessly confused by the rules and gave up on it. I didn't come back till TAR4 and the wonderful world of inter alia, the Clowns and Weezer and Geezer.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: Well, since Primetime Emmy nominations arrive Thursday, it's assuredly too laye for us to influence voters, but I want to take a moment to offer a few nominations that would be wholly pleasant surprises in a variety of categories.

• Tom Cavanaugh, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, Jack & Bobby--It's fairly inexplicable how Cavanaugh has managed to avoid getting Comedy-side nominations for either his lead work on Ed or his recurring guest part as J.D.'s brother on Scrubs. Cavanaugh's performance as Jimmy McAllister in a couple of episodes of this season's late and lamented WB drama, though, should have been good enough to make people take notice, especially a scene where he goes toe to toe with Christine Lahti about his drug addictions.
• "Malone v. Malone," Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series, Without a Trace--If just for making a gripping hour of police procedural without a crime being involved, this deserves mention. Rather than any person being missing, this episode of the consistently solid crime drama focuses on Jack Malone being deposed in his divorce. However, what makes it truly special is how effectively Malone slowly boils, building to a shocking act of physical and emotional violence. Top-notch stuff.
• Judy Greer, Outsanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, Arrested Development--Kitty Sanchez is genius on the page, I suspect, but Greer manages to make it even better, with an odd mix of tender pathos and utter insanity. And any nomination for AD is welcome.
• Liza Weil, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, Gilmore Girls--Kelly Bishop would be most deserving of a nomination, but enough people are focusing on that, but Weil would also be worthy for her performance as Paris Geller. Sure, there's been nothing as exasperatingly funny from her this season as there was two seasons ago with her neurotic "I had sex, so I'm not going to HARVARD!" breakdown, but her work this year both mourning for her late lamented romance with Prof. Fleming and her relationship with Doyle are worthy alone.
• Tom Amades, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Everwood--I really wish I weren't picking just one person from Everwood, but if you have to pick, Amandes is it. It's a nasty category, with competition from 2/3 of the cast of West Wing, Victor Garber, and likely frontrunner Shatner, but Amandes is worth it--be it praying in a bathroom stall for the health of his wife, comically feuding with Dr. Brown, or telling his daughter the horrible, nasty, truth about her boyfriend--he's been one of the best actors on TV this year. Period.
• Robert Sean Leonard, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, House--OK, Hugh Laurie is a veritable cinch for a nomination, but the supporting cast on this show doesn't really get enough attention. Leonard, as Dr. Wilson, perhaps the only doctor who House will defer to, helps anchor the show. His stoicism and skepticism counterbalance Laurie's arrogance and certainty, and it's that balance that makes the show work.
• Outstanding Reality Series, Project Greenlight--One word. Gulager. That's all. And maybe an Emmy win will get the series picked up for a well-deserved fourth run.
• Outstanding Reality/Competition Series, Project Runway--OK, Survivor, Amazing Race, and Idol are locks. Top Model probably gets the fourth slot, occupied last year by Last Comic Standing. But is there any question that Runway was wonderfully executed and made reality TV that well deserves its props here? Didn't think so. Sadly, the residual popularity of Apprentice may leave Runway feeling "out."

So, who are your favorite longshots who haven't gotten much mention? I'm not talking about the folks who EW and the like have been pushing (Kristen Bell, Lauren Graham, John C. McGinley), all of whom are deserving--but those who don't seem to get much love from anywhere.

HOLY FRACK, I THOUGHT I HAD TO WAIT ANOTHER YARON! Second season of Battlestar Galactica starts Friday.

I don't pretend to understand the analysis from this bizarro Salon article that what makes the new BSG good is some post-feminist gender mumbo. That's crap. Katee Sackhoff is hot. But inherently so, not because one should write term papers about her for a Reed College feminist studies program.

BSG is good because it's good science fiction. The writers set up rules for how the universe operates -- and now lives by them -- there is no Lt. Data to use the sensor array to create a phase-shield positronic crucible to protect the threatened planet from a series of novae. Early in season one, the fleet -- some of which had not faster-than-light (FTL) capability -- had to make a choice between standing and fighting (the Galactica was elsewhere) or leaving a third of the fleet at the nuclear-tipped hands of the Cylons. Certain doom awaited those who stayed behind. So, save 2/3 of the fleet, or die as one?

In Star Trek, they'd have figured out a way to save everyone through emergency transporters or something. The physics and engineering of the society could not do a thing about it, any more than a fleet of news helicopters could have stopped the collapse of the World Trade Center. The ships that could jump to FTL did so. The rest died: 10,000 or so people in one of the more simple and disturbing images in movie or TV science fiction. A long shot, with a few enemy ships popping out of jump-space. A few missiles fly toward the remaining fleet and all are snuffed out.

It's dark. It's well-written. It's smart. And it's the best television science fiction since we learned that To Serve Man was a cookbook.