A CELEBRATION OF WATERSLIDES, OXEN, AND A YOUNG WOMAN NAMED FLORINKA: One of the ways in which CBS is promoting the new (20th!) season of The Amazing Race, beginning Sunday night, is with an ad highlighting Great Freakouts in Race History.  There's a nice ten minute video someone's compiled from the first five years of racing, and I suspect many here have some favorites.

I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD ANYWAY: Funny or Die answers the Twitterverse's great unanswered question from the Grammys: "Who the #*&@ is Sirpaul McCartney?"

THE TERRORISTS WIN: The news out of the NBA League That No Longer Exists -- the news apart from the donnybrook breaking out among New Yorkers, Bay Area-ers, Asian-Americans, collegiate elitists, Christians, and Republican politicians to claim ownership of Jeremy Lin -- is something about Seattle taking steps to build a basketball stadium while Sacramento's hold on the Kings seems precarious.

Let me get this out of the way first: I think that Seattle is a better place for an NBA team than Sacramento. Seattle is bigger (a million more people in the metropolitan area, 15th-largest in the nation to 22nd, plus within TV-package and driving distance for residual Vancouver basketball fans) and has a richer basketball history (the Sonics were ingrained in Seattle's DNA in a way that the Kings have not been since moving to Sacramento in 1985; plus, Seattle grows NBA talent out of proportion to its population). The Kings in Sacramento are more like, say, the NHL Kings in LA -- present but not beloved. But I recognize that that may just be my bias talking; discount at will.

What I really want to say is that even if Seattle gets another team, a resurrected Sonics, it will just be a cherry atop a giant bowl of shit. Part of me thinks that this is all just a ruse by David Stern to extort a bit more money from Sacramento for the Kings (and all the better that his dupe is Seattle, the city that had the temerity to refuse him the last time he came demanding money). Even if it works, though, it serves the NBA's nefarious interest. A large part of the NBA's business model today is to increase the value of its franchises by demanding nine-figure stadium subsidies from local governments. The Sonics' move to Oklahoma City is Stern's stick, and the Kings' move to Seattle could be his carrot.

That's why, if you live in any city other than New York, Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles, this should matter to you. The NBA wants a new stadium in each city every 20-25 years, and it wants you -- the taxpayer -- to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for it. If your politicians say no, the NBA will take its ball and go play somewhere else -- and the NBA knows that's not likely to happen, because the electoral effect of losing a beloved sports team is more visceral than that of the impenetrable financial calculus of stadium subsidies.

MY NAME ISN'T KRUSTY THE KLOWN. IT'S HERSCHEL KRUSTOFSKY. MY FATHER WAS A RABBI. HIS FATHER WAS A RABBI.  HIS FATHER'S FATH ... WELL, YOU GET THE IDEA:  We, too, will offer the Poniewozik/Sepinwall challenge in advance of Sunday night's 500th episode of The Simpsons: name one -- and only one -- episode of the show which is your favorite.

Mine is the one referenced in the title, and per their challenge I will not list the 5-10 others I could have chosen.  Nor should you.

IT'S A CHEMICAL WEAPON, ESSENTIALLY: From New Mexico comes word of the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper, weighing in at 1.2M-2.0M Scoville units. I cook with Habenaros often enough. I'm aware of what careless preparation with a hot pepper can do to a hangnail or an errant eye rub, but the flavor of Habenaros in a jerk sauce is worth the risk. Yet at more than a million scovilles, I'm not sure what one could do with a scorpion pepper one could not better do with mace.

IF YOU WERE IN MY TAX BRACKET, YOU WOULDN'T BE SHOUTING SUCH SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA: A question, prompted by Matt's Bunheads post below: for imperious and disapproving mothers of a certain vintage, are you Team Kelly Bishop or Team Jessica Walter?

And while we're at it, Emily Gilmore, Lucille Bluth, or Malory Archer quote?

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY LEAVE YOUR COPY OF THE KAMA SUTRA AT HOME:  The Free Library of Philadelphia is hosting speed-dating sessions where each potential suitor has to bring a representative book as an icebreaker, and we couldn't help but wonder: if you were (or are) on the market, which book would you bring to introduce yourself?  And which book, in the hands of the person across the table, would have you wincing and hoping for the next rotation to happen quickly?