BETWEEN JOBS: DOT-COM BUST; BANKING COLLAPSE; VAGARIES OF ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY: Sepinwall mentioned in his post on HIMYM that it's always nice to see Lindsay Sloane (Jen from last night's episode), but I swear that I was already going to write an appreciation.

Sloane pretty much operates in H!ITG mode, occasionally pulling a third lead on a small romantic comedy or a doomed sitcom (like the brilliant Grosse Pointe), but more often popping in as a one-episode romantic foil. What she does, she does exceedingly well and improbably likably. Her voice is a little shrill, always threatening to muster into a shriek, but Sloane's natural inclination is to underplay that in favor of her dimples and her faintly conspiratorial eyes. She's pretty, but with an earnestness and a shoulders-forward eagerness that makes her seem believably nerdy. The fact that she could make the Tori Spelling role on Grosse Pointe the most engaging of that show's characters, or that she could sweetly and credibly play love interest to both Ted Mosby and Vincent Chase without making anybody ill, demonstrates that her appeal can be broader than the material she's given. I don't mean to suggest that she should be a big star. I guess I think that she's both well-used and underused.

Since we haven't had a HIMYM post this season, feel free to use the comments if you're getting that particular itching, burning sensation. And, as usual, to threadjack for Big Bang Theory.

IF IT'S LONGER THAN A REGULATION BULL RIDE, I'M OUT: Just out of curiosity, when you queue up a video on the Internet that has an advertisement before it, how long can the ad be before you bail out? I just tried to watch the video of Conan O'Brien hitting his head, but the pre-video ad was 30 seconds, and there's no way I'm waiting 30 seconds for a one- or two-minute video. I'm about 50-50 on 15-second ads. So let me appeal to the wisdom of crowds here: how much ad will you sit through for an Internet video?

NOW AVAILABLE FOR STOCK TIPS AND GAMBLING ADVICE: Listen to the audio links here to find out what happens when a pregame baseball analyst (or, since it's Mike Blowers, "analyst") gets a little slap-happy and tries to predict a player's first major-league home run, right down to the at-bat, ball-strike count, pitch type, and location.

(Via USS Mariner)

BUSTED, DISGUSTED: "Am I supposed to be enjoying this?" asked a guy in the row behind me during Sunday's Eagles game, and while I'm not sure whether he was referring to the Wildcat-wacky offense or Michael Vick's participation therein, I'm happy to assume for present purposes that he was referring to the latter.

Because whether it's with current newsmakers Vick or Roman Polanski or John Phillips, there's not much debate about whether each engaged in disgusting, reprehensible acts. Vick was criminally punished for his actions; Polanski, hopefully, finally will; and Phillips, being dead, can never. [Want to complicate this? Throw the acquitted Michael Jackson and R. Kelly into the mix.] In each case, their sins produced victims. And in each case, at some point we have to make judgments as to whether to appreciate their work in spite of their sins, or perhaps in light of their sins, or to decide that the sins prevent us from appreciating their work at all.

Now, this is the part of the blog post where I'm supposed to insert some grand theory or complicated nuance which sorts this out neatly, but the truth is my visceral ewww, gross! reaction pretty much overwhelms the rest. There are enough good films out there which I don't have the time to see that I can skip Polanski's oeuvre easily. Why listen to Michael Jackson when there's always more Prince to listen to? And when was the last time you were invited to a Roscoe Arbuckle film festival?

Those who've been here for a while may recall that it's with R. Kelly that I've been most able to still appreciate the art, even before the acquittal, and that surprised me too when I realized it. When I can figure out why, I'll let you know, because it's mystifying me. YMMV.

With the Seltzer Man, Ronny Beberman, Laid Up, Brooklyn Thirsts - NYTimes.com

HERSCHEL, LIFE IS NOT FUN. LIFE IS SERIOUS. SELTZER IS FOR DRINKING, NOT FOR SPRAYING: Meet Ronny Beberman, Brooklyn's last seltzer deliveryman.

THE WORLD - OR AT LEAST THE NEXT HUNDRED YARDS OF THE LOS ANGELES RIVER - IS WAITING: Traditionally, the first episode of The Amazing Race has been a very long drive from some obscure locale on the west coast to the international airport with a series of teams saying "wow! I can't believe we're on the Amazing Race!" And there was some of that. But Phil et al started strong with any easy-to-solve-if-you-stop-for-three-seconds challenge to boot out the extraneous Team Numero (if-I-pronounce-the-next-word-wrong-it-will-make-me-sound-tough) u-NO.

The rest of both legs were very well constructed - maybe the best opening leg in years: a doable, but not inherently nasty, eating challenge, navigating through Tokyo, a couple of good challenges in Vietnam, and some thoughtful racing by the folks in the second bus. Some bunching, yes, and a not-very-complex Speed Bump for a NEL, but that may be unavoidable as a logistics matter.

It's hard to keep track of who is where at this stage - I like Team Montana, but then I like it when folks can bring a specific set of real world skills to the game ("I've herded a thing or two") and bolt ahead - but TAR 15 looks as promising as any in years.

BONO LECTURING ABOUT THIRD WORLD DEBT FOR 22 MINUTES WOULD HAVE BEEN MORE FUN: I've got to say, last night's SNL was pretty much a disaster. Whenever Megan Fox attempted to act, it didn't work, and the writers wisely wrote around her, building sketches where the hostess' sole purpose was to stand in one place and look hot (the flight attendant, "mail order bride," and "Your Mom Talks To Megan Fox" sketches all being examples of that). But even stuff that could have worked didn't. The Fox-free Update and Qadaffi sketches both were toothless and poorly written, and we give Kenan Thompson a good 6 minutes of uninterrupted airtime between "Jean K. Jean" and the inexplicable return of Grady Wilson.

Of course, the big story is Jenny Slate pulling a Charles Rocket, and replacing a "frickkin'" in a (generally unfunny) "biker chick chat!" sketch with one of those seven words you're not supposed to say on TV. Even that doesn't save the mess. Last year, the show was firing pretty strongly, helped by some serendipitous political material in the first half of the season in the form of Sarah Palin and Justin Timberlake in the second, but it needs to find its footing again right quick.