IT’S COSMOPOLITAN-INSPIRED BABY NAMES MONTH! This just in on the ALOTT5MA baby names desk. Rescue Me and Numb3rs’ Diane Farr is the proud mother of twin girls. Sawyer Lucia Chung and Coco Trinity Chung joined big brother Beckett last week. Dr. Drew is expected to send Loveline onesies.

IN A WORLD WITHOUT THE GUY WHO SAYS "IN A WORLD..."*: Don LaFontaine, who did voice-over movie trailers starting with the phrase "In a World..." has died.

* I noted this event, and stole this title, from John Scalzi. Because, like most things he writes, it could hardly be improved.

Also, if you haven't seen it: Five Guys in a Limo.

ETA: Here's a video about his career.

FINALLY, A MEANS OF DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE 16 DIFFERENT ROCK STATIONS: Partway through my eleven hours of driving this weekend, I noticed that XM Radio has added a couple of single-artist stations to their rotation. In and of itself, this isn't so strange -- a channel of nothing but Bruce, for example, would have supplied me with perfect road trip music. My desire for constant Kenny Chesney (channel 18) and/or non-stop Metallica (channel 51), however, is significantly lower. In fact, it's almost impossible for me to come up with two single-artist channels I am less likely to listen to. (I totally missed the existence of channel 59 -- XM LED -- and thus presumably missed out on the extended dance mix of Stairway. Quel bummer.)

Edited to add: Adam has just informed me that Sirius has an all-Bruce channel. My car, however, only speaks XM.

DUH NUH NUH NUH, DUH NUH NUH NUH [CLAP CLAP]: Today is 9-02, and it being 90210 v2.0 launch day, I can't imagine anything better to do than to open up a mammoth comment thread for everyone's fondest and/or most random memories of the Walsh years in Beverly Hills. Should we start with doomed mob heiress Toni Marchette? Cowboy Scott Scanlon and proper gun safety? Kelly Taylor's overlapping lessons in fire safety, gay tolerance and cult awareness? Or debate the superiority of Valerie Malone to Brenda Walsh. Floor's open.

TWENTY-TWO YEARS LATER, CHARLIE BROWN MARRIED THAT LITTLE RED-HEADED GIRL AND THEY LIVE HAPPILY JUST OUTSIDE SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA WHERE HE COACHES -- OF ALL THINGS -- POP WARNER FOOTBALL: In an ending even more stupid and pointless than Matthew Modine in Birdy, Lynn Johnston has finally brought For Better or For Worse to an end. For me, this marks the departure of a houseguest who had long overstay her welcome. The San Francisco Chronicle adopted FBOFW pretty early on and for more than twenty five years, with only a very few exceptions, I caught every panel of this strip the day it was published. It was, originally, a brilliant strip. Subtle, witty, sweet, and occasionally poignant.

And yet, in the last few years, it had begun to read like a fanfic version of itself and, occasionally like a Monty Haul session of Dungeons and Dragons: it was not enough that Michael Patterson struggled as a professional writer and an editor -- a seemingly rich vein for stories -- but he did battle with an evil editor, saved the magazine, and went on to write important literature that was accepted within moments. It was not enough that John and Elly Patterson wanted to downscale, but that through the magic of -- what, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? -- that Michael and Deanna could scoop up the old homestead. Deanna wasn't just a decent seamstress, but Vera-f'ing-Wang. It wasn't enough that Gord had a nice business, it had to become the greatest business in all of Middleborough. Elly's shop wasn't just a nice little side business, but a crucial part of the town. April's band, of course, endured -- as all high school bands do, of course. Mira Sobenski did not just disagree with Elly about things, but was a hideous troll out to ruin the charmed life of the Patterson clan. And always, without the slightest work other than waiting for Divine Providence as revealed through Elly Patterson.

But with the final strip, the joke is complete. Not a gentle end to a perfect strip hinting and more to come, or a strip with a dignified goodbye, but of a fetid claw reaching out and demanding acceptance of some fixed future for once-decent characters, extending well into the 2020s from the Deanna and the kids panel. Johnston's writing had long since descended into hideousness, so it was -- I understand -- impossible for her to trust the readers on anything. And we are left with this: that everything worked out more than perfectly for anyone who ever found favor with the Patterson clan.

At least we were spared the denouement that -- no doubt -- Lynn Johnston had in her head: Warren killed in a helicopter crash; Paul Wright cheating on his newly pregnant wife; a diabetic Mira Sobinski blind and with an amputated leg; Jim suffering yet another catastrophic trauma without the sweet relief of death.

I'm glad this thing is over. At last.

THE IRONY IS THAT IT'S A SHOW ABOUT A WRITER: During the first season of The N's Beyond the Break (one of the worst shows on television, and I mean that in the best possible way), there was a regular two-minute-or-so commercial featurette that ran in the middle of each episode. Sponsored by some feminine product (I cannot remember which, I am proud to say), it was momentarily indistinguishable from the show itself, in that it featured a generically pretty cast of bikini-clad surfer girls draped over the Hawaiian scenery while debating the merits of various boys with the solemnity of Yalta conferees. The most memorable thing about these commercials is that they sounded as if the dialogue were overheard in one language, manhandled into a simulacrum of English by outsourced translators, then delivered phonetically by head trauma survivors.

Take that model, move it to the Hamptons, and replace the swimwear with diaphanous period gowns, and you have the Season 2 premiere of Gossip Girl. This is a show whose dialogue frequently consists for long stretches only of sardonic asides, and for other scenes only of pithy retorts unmoored from anything to which to retort.

If you were unable to follow this linguistic pointillism, or if you happened to miss this episode, let me tie it up for you: Last season expended prodigious effort, culminating at the :50 mark in the last episode, in bringing together several couples (the princess and the pauper; the delicate flower of a prince and the sassy handmaiden; the ineffectual bitch and the guy who dresses like a circus clown) and then spent the last 10 minutes junking it all and confusingly mixing and matching the couples. This episode spent about the same amount of time unjumbling them, as if the cliffhangers never happened, except that in the A-plot, the circus clown doesn't yet get the girl because when he tries to say "I love you" it comes out like when Fonzie tries to say "I'm sorry." And there was a prince pretending to be an American commoner and also Madchen Amick looking like she's aged all of three years since Twin Peaks. And all of this with an un-Schwartzian tone: if Chuck often feels like Elmer Bernstein, Gossip Girl is all Fall Out Boy, mopey and self-indulgent.

Oh, and that reminds me -- there was some bad music. As a guy whose taste is eerily in lockstep with the soundtracks of The OC and Chuck (Apples in Stereo, Of Montreal, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, New Pornographers, etc.), I find the music on Gossip Girl befuddlingly dull. So, to sum up, welcome back TV; I hope you get better quickly.

STUDIO 8-H, SEPTEMBER 13, APPROXIMATELY 11:30 PM EDT: Open on Lorne Michaels' office. Michaels, of course, is having his portrait redone, while being manicured. The door opens:

Michael Phelps: [He's topless. Audience cheers.] You wanted to see me, Lorne?
Lorne Michaels: Yes, come in. Are you having a good week?
Phelps: I'm very excited about the show tonight. I've been doing my practice, working on my lines, and I'm just thrilled for the opportunity.
Michaels: How's the opening monologue coming along?
Phelps: Actually, I'm a little nervous about that. I've never done this sort of thing before. Can I try some of it out for you?
Michaels: Sure, Mike.
Phelps: Where do ghosts like to swim? [pause] Lake Eerie!
Michaels: [pause] Okay, that was awful. But there is something we can do.
Phelps: Just tell me. I really want to do my best.
Michaels: About a year and a half ago, we had Peyton Manning come in to host, and he told us he wasn't much of a comic. So I called up GE's research scientists to see if there was anything we could do about it, and they came back to me with an answer. [Opens closet door. And he pulls out ...] They came up with this suit. Yes, I know -- looks like a basic two-piece men's suit, but it's not. It has been specially engineered for maximum comic potential, using space-aged fibers and polymers. This shirt has been woven with special threads that subliminally creates a laughter reflex in 80% of female viewers aged 18-34. All you have to do is put it on, and I guarantee it will make you 15% funnier than anyone else out there.
[Enter Andy Samberg. Audience cheers.]
Samberg: Lorne, I couldn't help overhearing something about a suit to make me ...
Michaels: No. Nothing will make "Laser Cats" funny.
[Samberg makes pouty face, leaves.]
Phelps: How long does it take to put the suit on?
Michaels: About a minute. You'll have just enough time if you...
Phelps: Live from New York, it's Saturday Night! [Bolts out Michaels' door.]