TELL HER THIS IS HER LAST CHANCE, TO GET HER FIANCEE IN HER FINE BROMANCE: What's so admirable about I Love You, Man is that no matter how predictable its narrative might be -- and to know the concept is to know the arc, more-or-less -- it still hits its necessary stations along the third act in a way that feels authentic to the characters (and real life), and not at all forced. It's not an exceptional film, but it does deliver the laughs and some insight: if you were thinking about seeing this movie, and want to know what it's like to see Jason Segel play a Young Jeffrey Lebowski, go see it. [Mild spoiler note in comments.]

MORE ENDINGS THAN RETURN OF THE KING!: Consider this a BSG thread. A good battle sequence, to be sure, and I really liked how things went pear-shaped, but the last act dragged quite a bit. I don't really have much to add here, although I liked my suggested resolution better.

Comments may be chock-full-a-spoilers.

NUMBER 17 -- KAL PENN: Between New York Magazine and Daily Fill, an interesting list of sixteen people who've never hosted SNL but should, starting with the glaring absence of Julia Roberts.

[FWIW, as much as I like their Craig Robinson suggestion, why not increase it to the whole supporting cast of The Office -- or at least some subset of Brian Baumgartner, Leslie David Baker, Phyllis Smith, Mindy Kaling, Paul Lieberstein, Creed Bratton and Kate Flannery.]

[Weird note: of twenty episodes completed or scheduled for this season, only three female hosts -- Anna Faris, Anne Hathaway and Rosario Dawson.]

BUT CAN THEY SWIM? Fidel "the Greek?" Castro, on his national team's failure to advance in the World Baseball Classic:

We have gone to sleep on our laurels and we are now paying the consequences. Korea and Japan, two countries which are geographically really far away from the United States, have invested abundant economic resources into this imported, or imposed, sport.... Asians are not as physically strong as their western rivals. Nor are they as explosive. But strength sufficient is not enough to defeat the reflexes that their players have developed; and explosiveness in itself cannot compensate for the methodology and sangfroid of their athletes. Korea has tried to look for more heavily-built men who are capable of hitting more forcefully.

Our hopes were based on the patriotic dedication of our athletes and the fervor with which they defend their honor and their people, from a pool which is several times, even dozens of times, lesser in human resources as compared, for example, with Japan, discounting from those resources those that are weak in conscience and permit themselves to be bribed by our enemies. But this is not enough to maintain our supremacy in baseball. We have to apply methods that are more technical and scientific when we develop our sports figures....

"ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING NIGHTS OF THEATER OF MY LIFE": I read a lot of the articles about Natasha Richardson over the last few days, and it sounds as if she was a wonderful, generous human being who was uncommonly well-loved by just about everybody who got to know her. Most of the stories also carried quotes from luminaries about what an incredible actress Richardson was. If I have ever seen a performance of hers, though, I don't remember it, so what I thought was missing from all the coverage was an explanation of how she was an incredible actress, and why people felt so deeply the loss of her as a performer (and why we should too).

To the rescue comes The House Next Door (and, again, is there any other web site that does what THND does even half as well? There may be no more valuable resource for culture criticism than that one). Sheila O'Malley's thoughts about Richardson's turn as Sally Bowles in Cabaret won't unclog my blockage about that particular medium, but it did a wonderful job explaining to this neophyte exactly what was important about Richardson's performance, and in the process filled out the picture of Richardson as a daring artist as well as an admirable human being.

ALWAYS BE PREPARED: Things that may happen to you if you fall in love, according to the Decemberists:

• Your girlfriend and the captain of the opposing team condescend to fix on you a frown
• Televised news programs reveal that your lover is a spy named Valerie Plame
• Your girlfriend is killed by shots intended by her brother for you because she belongs to a rival gang
• You bet your son away to a blind brigadeer in a game of high-stakes canasta
• Your wife turns out to be a crane and has to fly away because you found her weaving cloth in a box
• You drown in a sentient river while rescuing your lover from your adoptive mother, who is a forest
• You and your spouse live happily ever after in a home built of packing foam

I'M STILL HOLDING OUT FOR JOHN CASEY TO BE APPOINTED CIA HEAD: I'm uncertain whether to be amused, disturbed, or something else by the fact that the President of the United States apparently has some awareness of or familiarity with Gossip Girl.