T.D.

Possibly. Giants are definitely fading and could make an early postseason exit, but Dallas will have to get their shit together and win at Philly next week just to get in the playoffs.

What do you think the Cowboys will do in the off-season? "Back up the truck" and make wholesale changes? I doubt they can, because such a prominent team, going into a new stadium, can't afford a rebuilding year. That seems to suggest coach firings. But I won't even try to predict Jones's strategy...

Charles Dodgson Jerry Dodgion Ion Tiriac

Mr Bean Coleman Hawkins Jim Beam Max Planck Bill Raftery Frank Sinatra

RIP. Never read his book (perhaps I should have!), but I recall Ellis, going back to the late '60s, as a big-Afro'd free spirit and even kind of a countercultural figure. He famously claimed to have been tripping when he threw his no-hitter. Despite his time with Texas, NYY and Oakland, I always thought of him as a Pirate.

Only if you insult Conn mercilessly. Although a certain consensus seems to have developed regarding Conn's er, dickhood , I get along with him well because we're both interested in chess. So no insults other than the allusion just made... But I won the playoff pool a couple of years ago (again without being in the regular season competition), so contestants might want revenge.

Will the playoff pool be open to people who didn't participate in the regular season pool?

I also learned to read very young, before starting school. I don't even remember how. My parents were both students, so I probably got the idea that reading was a good thing, and then likely urged them to help me with it. Long-term, this of course proved excellent, but it was rather unpleasant short-term, as my early years in elementary school became excruciatingly boring (many of my school memories from that time involve staring out the window).

I got nostalgic and rounded up a couple of Tunis books (The Kid From Tompkinsville and The Kid Comes Back) from interlibrary loan. They indeed hold up extremely well to adult re-reading. I also had persistent vague memories of some very good, though dark, baseball books featuring the New York Mammoths. It just came to me that they're the Mark Harris novels, including Bang the Drum Slowly! (With all the DeNiro film hoopla, and even having seen the film, I'm not sure I ever connected the story with the books I read as a child... ) I'll have to revisit those as well, as they're not kid-targeted and I doubt I could have grasped all the nuances when reading them in middle school. Off the sports subject, I also recall some H. Rider Haggard novels.

Jesper Skibby Henry Bibby Lewis "Scooter" Libby

For sure. And it's nothing new. Air-brushing was rampant for decades prior to the Photoshop era.

Yawn. Perhaps I'm missing something (admittedly, I'm a definite Cowboy non-fan if not outright hater), but doesn't this Dallas soap-opera shit go on every year? It's gotta be a combination of the owner (personnel decisions, showboating, talking crap to the press) and aggressive hometown media coverage. I'm sure Texas residents and Cowboy fans eat it up, but it gets tiresome for out-of-towners. Meanwhile, all the principals have issued the obligatory denial of club turmoil.

Tom Boerwinkle Boris Goudenov Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels

Barbie Benton Hugh Hefner Pudge Heffelfinger

Damn. I thought for a while that the "Classical Discussion" forum had become reasonable... If I wanted to read NYT stories, I would visit the paper's website.

There was a funny story on Yahoo! News today (I didn't read it, just the headline) to the effect that OJ could've gotten less time by copping a plea.

Rod "He Hate Me" Smart Don Adams James Clerk Maxwell

No, not familiar. I used to attend Miller Theater concerts all the time, but moved away from NYC area in 2001. Would definitely have gone to the Ligeti concert if I was around. BTW, did you see Fredrik Ullen play the Ligeti Etudes in NYC (Cooper Union) in 2001? I heard very good things (not just media reviews, but from attendees) about that concert, which I inexcusably missed...

Bruce "Some silicone sister with her manager mister" Springsteen Manfred Mann Manny Pacquiao

Tuesday Weld Wednesday Addams G. K. Chesterton

I still haven't seen a definitive statement of OJ's minimum assured sentence. A consensus of 9 years had seemingly developed, but I just saw Yahoo! News come out with 15. I watched the sentencing live, and the judge's delivery was very confusing, making it highly challenging to calculate the minimum. I didn't take notes, and had no clue.

Just saw mention of Poe, which reminds me (re. detective stories) that as a fairly young kid I read all of the Poe (not just detective stories, of course, though I started out with them), Arthur Conan Doyle and G. K. Chesterton (Father Brown) stories I could find (as an adult, I bought complete collections of all). Poe's The Gold-Bug, specifically the gold beetle hanging from the tree, is one of my very earliest reading memories. Only specific young children's books I recall are Beverly Cleary's (which I remember fondly) and of course Dr. Seuss. OT re. Paul Auster, I read a little about him, expected to like his writing a lot (having lived in Brooklyn for quite a while) but read Ghosts (I believe), and didn't care for it at all. Barely finished, and have expunged most traces from my memory. I remember it being excessively Beckettian, while much more tedious. Have avoided his books ever since; considering that critics talk of his Lacan influence , I very much doubt I'd like them.

Tough to say until more facts are known, and one hates to rely on tabloid coverage. I'm an MSU Spartan and Burress fan, and also a Giant fan. I will say that Plaxico has been tough to deal with. Giants rewarded him with a big contract last off-season, and the difficult behavior continued (even seemingly got worse). Moreover, the club played well in his absence, and the passing game didn't noticeably fall off. As far as the gun thing goes, I'm content to let the legal process take its course. NYC Mayor Bloomberg's comments don't augur well for Burress, but the league and Plaxico's counsel may get him some kind of behind-the-scenes break. I expect the Giants to part company with him after the season, and don't blame them. Pity, because the dude's a great talent.

I heard a somewhat different version, with the same punch line. Also doubt the veracity.

PM sent on Carl Stone – Al-Noor – (intone) laptop/sample-based composition from an excellent Tokyo-based composer, NOT JAZZ, NOW $4