DO YOU MEAN, "DON'T TOUCH"?: Farrah Fawcett, after a brave battle with cancer, has died at the age of 62. ALOTT5MA staff wish her family and friends well.

The Board meeting seemed to reach the consensus that the male staff members (all of us in our mid-to-late 30s) weren't quite of age enough to appreciate her for her smoking 1970s hotness. And I certainly didn't. Nevertheless, while I spent those years with posters of Star Wars and the Bashki version of Lord of the Rings, most older brothers around the neighborhood had the poster. The naughty banter no doubt sailed past me, but the image was a hint about what other things in life awaited me.

And Farrah Fawcett's Peak Hotness was such that she aged gracefully and was, even into her sixties, objectively stunning. Even as we mock the 1970s excesses of fashion, Ms. Fawcett was a woman who, even as icon of an era, transcends the limitations of the then-current fashion.

I don't really recall her talent as an actress -- or even many of her roles other than as an Air Force Major in Six Million Dollar Man, some sort of spacebabe in the horrendous Saturn Three (with Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel), and of course as a Charlie's Angel -- but she seemed to have lived her life well and done her profession credit.

She will be fondly remembered for the next sixty or seventy years by millions of old men who were once young.

THE BATTLE OF SHAQER HEIGHTS: CNBC's Darren Rovell needs help coining a new nickname for the latest addition to the Cleveland Cavaliers, ALOTT5MA Fave Shaquille O'Neal.

[From 2004: "I'm like toilet paper, toothpaste and certain amenities - I'm proven to be good. I've still got five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years left."]

DO NOT LET MIA MICHAELS BABYSIT YOUR POODLE, SICKO: In Cat Deeley's EW Must List squib, she said that she does her own wardrobe. I love Cat Deeley, so I hope she's telling the truth. Casey McCall learned that lesson the hard way. And speaking of styling: Cat in Roman Serving Girl; Mary in Roman Empress; Nigel in Members Only over Brooks Brothers; Toni in an Ann Taylor set with an inverted wok in a ruffled cozy on her head. Which reminded me: fast-forward Toni Basil.

On to the sexy-walking, the ass-groping, and the pants-splitting:

The Good:

• Randi & Evan. Mia Michaels likes powerful dancers with muscular thighs and strong shoulders, so you knew she was going to like Randi. Randi looks like Jessica Capshaw and talks like Jessica Stein (without the annoying), and she's been such a surprise ever since she ditched the Stick It! unitard-and-haircut schtick. She and Evan have feel-good chemistry and were mostly synchronized, and it was an interesting idea.

The Doubly Okay:

• Ade & Melissa. Some cool tricks, like when he spun her around in her split (the Rotating Single Lohan), and they seemed to like each other, but this kind of dance never gets me. All the baroquely stylized walking and hand-waving and open-chested jumpsuits. It's $4.99 worth of sequins away from being the kind of thing Baz Luhrmann was lampooning in Strictly Ballroom. No way Melissa is 29, by the way, and what's the deal with the Chapman-to-SYTYCD pipeline?
• Jason & Caitlin. They were believably angry, which surprised me a little. Also, Caitlin's balance is a nice trick -- a one-footed stand on Jason's thigh; some stop-start handstanding -- but I'm getting used to it. What I missed in this paso doble was the whole thing about the woman being the cape -- there was a lot of dance-fighting, but none of the flinging around of the woman that I've come to expect of my SYTYCD paso dobles.

The Half-Good/Half-Bad:

• Kayla & Kapono. I probably shouldn't say he was bad, but I didn't watch him for a second. Kayla seems not particularly smart or interesting to me, but when she dances she is riveting. Every angle she makes with her legs seems completely effortless, like it's the most natural thing in the world to hold your legs at 170-degrees east-west while your partner jostles you vigorously, then unfurl slowly, without the hint of a hamstring quiver, to 180-degrees north-south for a change of pace. There was a point at which Kapono was spinning her and yanked her off-center, and she just did a tiny little adjustment to get back on her axis without missing a beat. I think it's too bad she's so low-key offstage, because being the best dancer isn't necessarily what gets you the most votes.
• Brandon & Janette. He really carried this with his high-energy hip hop. Janette mostly just stood around looking like Lita Ford without her BC Rich.
• Philip & Janine. I'm not wild about Tyce Diorio or Broadway in general, but I did like this routine. The feathers were an excellent prop, in large part because they (and the baby doll dress, which works for Janine in a way that last Thursday's Danskin bondage gear does not) supported the character Janine was playing, and Janine really sold it. Philip was not embarassing, but none of his choreography so far has shown off his best assets, his rubbery body and viscous movement.
• Karla & Jonathan. The judges still haven't given Karla enough credit. If you just watched her, she did a great job, as she has every week. It's Jonathan who sucked the life out of this routine with his sluggishness and his softness. Karla hit every beat, did nice stops, and had plenty of energy. The women are better than the men this season, and Kayla and Karla are the ones who are suffering from it the most.

The All-Bad:

• Vitolio & Asuka. This routine just seemed to have a lot of waiting around. Asuka in particular seemed to hit her marks and then look around for Vitolio (anagram: Tivo Oil) to pick her up or spin her. There was not a lot of energy and Asuka already has Killer Fatigue.

I've got Vitolio/Asuka and Karla/Jonathan in the bottom three with, I guess, Kayla/Kapono, since I don't know that Kayla is connecting with the audience emotionally, to buy into a Nigel concept. I'd guess Asuka goes home; none of those three men would surprise me.

Eddie Murphy Flops Twice but Wins With Studios - NYTimes.com

PORK BELLIES, WHICH IS USED TO MAKE BACON, WHICH YOU MIGHT FIND IN A BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICH: The NYT explores the question of why movie studios keep paying Eddie Murphy $20M plus a share of the gross when so many of his films bomb:

Hollywood understands that big-time comedy careers are often volatile. Plot the box office runs of Will Ferrell and Mike Myers against those of dramatic stars like Will Smith and Tom Cruise, and the comedians’ are all over the map. Because comedies tend to be easier to film (if not to perform), those players are at bat more often, and so a few misses are considered normal.

That’s not to say Mr. Murphy isn’t paying a price for his track record. Paramount recently rejected a biopic about Richard Pryor that had Mr. Murphy attached to star. The studio’s plans for a fourth “Beverly Hills Cop” are also stalled. Web sites like Studio System that track movie projects list a remake of “The Incredible Shrinking Man” as one of his next films, but Universal Pictures put that project on the back burner more than a year ago (around the time “Meet Dave” tanked).

Arnold Robinson, Mr. Murphy’s publicist, said he would not trouble his client with an interview request from a newspaper. “Mr. Murphy does not do print interviews,” he said in an e-mail, adding, “For his age and body of work there are only one or two other actors that can compare to his career box office numbers.”

Mr. Murphy has other potential projects floating around — a third “Nutty Professor” is in development at Universal — and he has a guaranteed hit next spring in DreamWorks’ “Shrek Forever After,” in which he reprises his vocal role as the sassy Donkey.

Just one more R-rated comedy before he retires at 50 from films; that's all I'm asking.

I THOUGHT, "OH, BAD CHOICE, BAD CHOICE -- WHAT DOES A FRENCH GUY KNOW ABOUT A QUESADILLA?": After tonight's Top Chef Masters, I just want to say that if I ever need someone to tell me bad news in my life, I want it to be Chicago's Rick Bayless. I've never seen a chef with such a calm, reassuring demeanor -- like the world's best pediatrician, really.

We'll talk about the cooking itself and the gratifying, justified results in the comments. Next week: NPH!

JACKBACK: While I'm not a great fan of gratuitous threadjacking, ALOTT5MA management would appreciate your not using a threadjack to reveal the score of an important live sporting event that others in our audience may have TiVo'd for future enjoyment. While the offending commenter immediately realized his mistake and asked that we delete the comment, I felt obliged to delete the entire previous post on the Oscars to avoid spoilage. I do not think I am authorized for comment editing (or am at least unaware of how to edit comments) and felt the more radical step was necessary. Sorry for killing a productive thread.

edited by Adam: No need to end that comment thread -- I've deleted the offending spoiler, and you can click on this link to comment on the expansion of the Best Picture nominee list to ten.

WITH SPECIAL GUEST JESSICA CUTLER: Ana Marie Cox (FKA Wonkette) will apparently be sitting in for Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show on Friday.