A COLLEGE MASCOT SURVEY PRESENTED SOLELY TO INVOKE CRIES OF INJUSTICE FROM ALOTT5MA COMMENTER JENN.: The Top 12 On-Field Mascots.

MEXICAN MAFIA TEQUILA VS. POORLY DRAWN AUTEUR GORILLA CARTOON: I've said a lot about how crappy Entourage has been and can be, and I'll defend it. In fairness, though, I should mention that this season has done an uncommonly (for it) good job digging its two protagonists a hole deep enough to make me want to watch how they crawl out. That the show has done this with the quality of actors it employs -- aside from Scott Caan and the intermittently used Rhys Coiro, the wooden and dazed-looking porn star Sasha Grey is the least ineffectual of this season's principal cast -- is impressive.

Granted, I have no faith in the show's ability to resolve these problems satisfactorily, and I seriously doubt they'd do what the show really needs (make Vince an irreversible failure, to see the other side of the unwarranted success he had; it would be particularly satisfying to have set this season up so that either Vince's or Ari's success would be inextricably tied to the failure of the other, but obviously that is a very different show than the one I've been watching). It does feel like this season is playing with higher stakes that were harder earned.

The C- and D-plots are still pissing me off.

[EXPLETIVE DELETED]: Today's NYT challenge--write an 1,100 word article about a song when you can't mention the title of the song.

AN EVIL BEAR WHO SMELLS OF STRAWBERRIES: The summer movie season is just about over, and having still not seen Inception I can count the number of truly awesome summer movies I've seen this year on one finger: Toy Story 3. Everything else disappointed me in one way or another -- Dinner for Schmucks and Iron Man 2, especially, given the talent involved -- and the second-best movie experience I had this summer was probably when I finally saw Adventureland on cable.

Hopefully, you've got better things to report. [Last year's summer movie round-up is here.]

And, seriously, next time AFI or anyone else does a Greatest Screen Villains list, Lots-O'-Huggin'
Bear has to make the list. That's Oscar-quality work from Ned Beatty.

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HAVE LEARNED NOTHING MORE ABOUT HIM. I HAVE, HOWEVER, LEARNED SOME THINGS ABOUT MYSELF. THERE ARE THINGS MEN CAN DO TO ONE ANOTHER THAT ARE SOBERING TO THE SOUL. IT IS ONE THING TO RECONCILE THESE THINGS WITH GOD, BUT ANOTHER TO SQUARE IT WITH YOURSELF: It is time to celebrate the best of television in 2009-10. And as bad as the twenty most embarrassing moments in Emmy history have been, there's always room for a twenty-first. Good luck, Jimmy Fallon:

THE BEST THAT [RUSSELL BRAND AND HELEN MIRREN] CAN DO: In today's Times, Mark Harris checks in on filming of the Arthur remake and finds out just how they're planning on updating the Dudley Moore-Liza Minnelli-John Gielgud comic smash for an era in which neither alcoholism nor ostentatious displays of wealth are as in favor as in 1981.

P.S. I'm testing out some new "share this" buttons in the blog template. Let me know if they work for you, and do please use them.

P.P.S. Reminder -- Emmys. Tonight. Live. Here.

WHERE THE DRINKS ARE IMAGINARY: If ALOTT5MA had a podcast, I fully expect that it would be a whole lot like NPR's new-ish Pop Culture Happy Hour, which this week manages to incorporate not merely a pretty insightful discussion of last week's Creative Arts Emmys, but a discussion of pop culture figures that seem primed for rediscovery that somehow (d)evolves into a monologue about Gymkata. Check it out.