1 Happy St

NOTE: Some Spoilers

"Entourage" had another less than stellar episode last night. Is it impossible for them to come up with a joke or situation that isn't entirely contrived and unfunny? Between Drama continuing to give off vibes that he's into guys, Turtle wanting to date a girl with a psycho father, and Vince/Eric putting all of their efforts into a movie project that I can't see anyone ever wanting to see (would you see a movie called "Medellin"?), this show continues to frustrate me. Why can't they go back to the story-lines that made me want to watch from the beginning: Drama getting road rage, Turtle coming up with Zack Morris-esque money making schemes, and Vince bagging hotties? As the old saying goes, if it ain't broke........

Only 2 episodes left of "The Sopranos". I'm excited if only to see how they plan to wrap up 500 different story-lines in 2 weeks. Have you noticed that they continue to introduce new characters? Wrap it up Boys, we're running out of time. I do appreciate that they're giving tons of screen time to A.J. even though he's never shown the ability to act. As Rob Schneider, Dana Carvey, and Adam Sandler imitating Jerry Seinfeld would say, who are the ad-wizards who came up with that one? This still remains the best show on TV though. Every week, we're treated to a new 1-hour movie. I'm gonna miss it.

If you haven't been paying attention, you probably didn't realize that MTV has given the go-ahead to the biggest no-brainer in television: reuniting the cast of Real World Vegas for another go 'round so we can find out what happens when 7 unrealistically good looking people who like to engage in acts that shouldn't be shown on regular television get together in Vegas again, and start gettin' real. Oh trust me, I will.

And finally, good work Jim. It only took you 3 years, but you done good. Karen was the fun choice that you brag about to your friends. Pam was the right choice for the long-haul. You won't see that on a Hallmark card, but it's the truth. Thursday night's episode was 60 minutes of brilliance. Hopefully Jim won't screw this up Ross Geller-style.

Last night, HBO decided that they finally wanted to put some quality Sunday night programming on the air again. They must have figured that they had given their customers the old screwgie long enough and it was time to put something on that was actually good. In case you missed it, last night was the season premieres of both "The Sopranos" and "Entourage" back to back. Well it wasn’t so much a season premiere with "Entourage" since they’re calling this the 2nd half of Season 3, but it was a new episode after a long layoff nonetheless.

My reviews: SPOILER ALERT

"The Sopranos" started off with a seemingly meaningless weapons arrest of Tony at his home in New Jersey. The local D.A. quickly dropped the charge, and my first thought was that it seemed pretty pointless to arrest him in the first place for something so trivial and small. But then we learned that the charge was dropped locally so that the federal government could pursue it further. Interesting. I was reminded of how Al Capone was finally incarcerated 80 years ago; not for something major like murder, but for tax evasion. Could it be that Tony’s eventual demise this season is for something trivial as well? I guess we’ll see. The episode also focused on a quick weekend vacation for Tony and Carmela at Bobby and Janice’s lake house, Bobby inexplicably beating the crap out of Tony in an escalated Monopoly fight (who hasn’t been there before?), and Bobby killing someone for the first time, leaving behind a boatload of evidence in the process. My final grade – B+. Not great, but not bad. Then again, the first episode is always the slowest, so this bodes well for the rest of the season/series.

Immediately following "The Sopranos" was a new episode of "Entourage". The Producers are calling this episode 13 of season 3 even though episode 12 aired all the way back in August of 2006 (again, the HBO screwgie). If you remember, episode 12 ended with Vince firing Ari, and we’ve been left hanging ever since. On Sunday night, we jumped forward a little bit. Details as to how Vince found a new agent (who turned out to be that girl from "Son-In-Law" by the way) were skipped over and instead focused on Vince’s relationship with his new agent, as well as his new relationship with Ari as a friend and not a business partner. I give the girl from Son-In-Law at most five episodes before she’s brushed aside and never heard from again. It’s unfortunate really, since she still looks as good as she did back then. The episode also focused on Vince’s birthday party (kind of), but that was more of a back-drop to allow Ari and his new agent to come face-to-face in a non-frontation (I’m making up words now), all but assuring the audience that there’s no way Ari is gone for good. It’s tough to grade an episode like this since nothing really happened. But since nothing happened, I’ll give it a generic C and wait impatiently for next week.

-Which is worse: knowing the answers to most of the questions in VH1’s “World Series of Pop Culture”, or getting mad at yourself when you don’t know the answer?

-By the way, the two contestants who failed miserably on the SNL category should be ashamed of themselves. How can you be a contestant on a pop culture trivia show and not know SNL?

-After watching one of the lost episodes of “Chappelle’s Show”, I can see why he took off to Africa for a couple months.

-Christopher Knight (Peter Brady) had the worst bachelor party of all time.

-Does anyone else get upset when Nick at Nite plays “Fresh Prince” reruns instead of “Roseanne” at 9:30 and 10? Better question: why the daily changes?

-With E getting more playing time on “Entourage” this season, do you think the producers of the show wish they had taken the original casting more seriously after their concept was green-lit?

-When did VH1 turn into the E! channel?

-“Entourage” is one of my favorite shows, yet it still manages to disappoint me every week. I am thankful that they didn’t go too far with the “Dom” character though.

-I wonder if Mark Buehrle wishes that Ozzie Guillen would have selected Liriano for the All-Star team instead of him. Now he gets two whole days of reporters dissecting his 9-5 record and mediocre ERA.

-Speaking of baseball, do you think the Mariners signed Carl Everett because there are some White Sox minor leaguers that they’re interested in, but they didn’t know how else to get them?
-The button on the cuff of my favorite shirt fell off. I’m not the type that can roll my sleeves Miami Vice-style, so I guess I’ll have to throw it away. Otherwise a perfectly good shirt, it’s strange that something so small could ruin it.

-Do you think Tommy John is upset that his legacy in baseball is for radical arm surgery? The man won 288 friggin games! And yes, I had to look that up. But wow! 288 games! To put that in perspective, coming into this season, Pedro had won 197.

-Was that whole “shirt button” thing covered in a Seinfeld episode once? It sounds familiar. Can something be plagiarism if you didn’t know you copied the idea?

-As a White Sox fan, I couldn’t be happier that there isn’t a White Sox version of “Fever Pitch”. Watching Drew Barrymore run circles around Aaron Rowand to avoid US Cellular Field security in centerfield during a playoff game would have been enough for me to kill myself.

-To be fair, I actually liked most of that movie. But how could the producers think the last 20 minutes were a good idea?

-For my health's sake, I'm lucky that I only recently discovered Dairy Queen's Heath Bar blizzard.

-I just went pee for the first time in like a full day. I was expecting full flowage for a good couple minutes. But it turned out to be just normal.

-What does the inside of a water tower look like? Is it filled with water like a tall pool? Am I a moron for not knowing this?