I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

7: Family Guy

Admitted, this show serves a limited demographic. I doubt most people over, I don't know, maybe 40 or 45 know much or anything about it. But nowadays, or really more, in the early 2000s, it reached classic Simpsons episode of devotion, of memorizing and repeating classic lines, and not just a few, but many, especially from the first couple of seasons. Some quotes have simply become part of my friends' speech patterns.

Family Guy is famous amongst other things for having a first run which was phenomenally popular amongst a certain crowd, being cancelled, and then a couple of years later, against all odds, coming back. I was one of those people saddened by its cancellation and excited by its return; I remember during freshman year signing and passing around a petition my friend was distributing requesting Family guy get back on the air and then senior year watching a bootlegged version of the first episode back before it actually aired which opened with Peter mentioned that Family Guy had a shot of coming back only if the legions of Fox shows which had aired and been cancelled in the meantime, each of which he named, were gone. The show was revived due to a combination of crazy good ratings as repeats aired on Adult Swim and crazy high DVD sales, parking it as the second best selling TV DVDs ever, right behind Chapelle's Show.

Family Show wasn't the first to use it, but it was certainly noteworthy for its over featuring pop culture references leading to random cutaway sequences, and using these so much that often even die-hard fans can't remember which particular sequence goes with what episode - plots in Family Guy episodes are often beside the point more than in any other show I can think of.

When it's at its best, these clips are as funny as anything on television. My friend invented a game we used to play called "Family Guy" game in which someone would call out a word, and we'd type "Family Guy" an then that word into youtube, click on what came up, and then keep following links until we dried them up and then called out another word. When Fox eventually decided to take everything off youtube, it kind of killed the game, but just enjoying those clips in and of themselves, was probably the best way to enjoy family guy - context isn't important, and while I wouldn't want that for all my shows, I'm fine with that for this - there's a place in television for this.

I've always thought there was a great animated show battle between Family Guy and South Park. Most people like both at least a little, but I feel like you're really a fan more of or the other at heart, and for me it will always be Family Guy. South Park viciously took on Family Guy in two episodes, Cartoon Wars part I and II where it basically bashed Family Guy left and right and then left again. Some of their points are valid - plots really are inconsequential to Family Guy, so sure, there's absolutely room to make fun of Family Guy. In my personal opinion, however, instead of teasing Family Guy lightly and funnily, South Park comes off as self-righteous, full of itself, and unable to deal with the idea that Family Guy could in any way be funny, and ham-handed, sour, and mean, in the worst way. I'm glad Family Guy took it in good humor, and I think if you work on a comedy show you can't take any kind of insult too seriously. That doesn't mean it's not stupid though. There's a lot of different kind of ways to be funny, and I'm not sure why South Park can't deal with that.

I could go on about Family Guy at length, but I'll note here that it resuscitated the career of former Billboard Hot 100 #1 artist Walter Murphy, best known for "A Fifth of Beethoven" which appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. He also had minor hits with his take on "Flight of the Bumblebee" and a "Theme from E.T." medley. Murphy did the theme for Family Guy and some of the songs, and even won an Emmy for one of the worst - "You've Got a Lot to See."

Okay, these were a few random asides, but all said, Family Guy is huge. It's now been on for a ridiculous 9 seasons and 164 episodes, the vast majority after its revival. And though it remains as much of a fixture on fox as ever, along with two other Seth McFarlane projects, American Dad and The Cleveland Show, it feels in a way the same way current Simpsons does - just not as relevant as it once was (I don't even mean the quality, which I've heard various reports of, and is up and down when I watch - and with Family Guy, consistency isn't really as important - even in most bad episodes, you're guaranteed a great gag or two) in that I can't assume almost everybody I know has seen the past episode and can quote it verbatim.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

8: House

House has been Fox's scripted mainstay (and second only behind American Idol in importance to Fox) through the past decade, anchoring its lineup with a show that, for the most part of its run, has been both critically lauded and commercially successful.

I watched most of the second and third season of House, and while I enjoyed it very much, it being 85% procedural and 15% serial led me to feel less compelled to watch it weekly - this could instead be the stuff of Sunday afternoon marathons post-football season like Monk and Law & Order: SVU.

Of course, if Hugh Laurie didn't do such a good job, the show could have run out of legs a long time earlier. The formula really isn't all that wonderful - it's one of those situations where, if I described the show to you - a crack medical team led by a moody arrogant savant assisted by his three acolytes take on a strange medical case every week and figure out what's wrong with the patient, often some ridiculous disease you've never heard of - it doesn't sound all that great (to be fair, it actually sounds better than I thought it would sound before writing it out). However, the cast, mostly Laurie, but with a shout out for his only friend, fellow doctor Wilson, portrayed by Robert Sean Leonard, takes it to above average.

I'd like just a quick word about the CSI-like super up close shots of medical organs and other fairly disgusting parts of human insides, and that word(s) is(are), stop showing them, they add absolutely nothing to the show, and seem strange and out of place - the show is not really stylized like CSIs in any other way.

The show has certainly by now reached grand-old-man status - it's a legend in its time slot, but more for what it did, than for what it's doing now. And although most of what I know about the recent episodes comes from reading articles and other people's opinions, I don't find it hard to believe that the show, while perfectly acceptable I'm sure, has passed its prime (and believe me, I do hate those people who are so quick to jump on shows from being passed its prime - but of course, it does happen). As if to give new life to the show, a whole bunch of new characters were introduced in the fourth season. His three helpers all were either fired or quit, and through a gradual winnowing process House chose three new ones.

One of the three new doctors chosen in season 4 was portrayed by Kal Penn, who left House, and well, acting, to join the Obama administration after the election of 2008. The writers of House deigned to do something creative with his leaving the show, and instead of having him get fired, or some other way leaving open the door for later reappearances, decided to have him hang himself and pose this as something of a mystery, regarding why he did it. While I appreciate the going for the gold approach to story telling - there can be no doubting this is a bold manuever - it never made a whole lot of sense for me. Yes, I suppose there's some potential character-mining to be had here, and that was the idea - can House deal with there being no reason, no rationale, blah, blah, blah, I think that benefit is outweighed by the forced feeling the whole action generated.

The newest out of camp House is that Lisa Edelstein will not be returning next season as Cuddy, and if the wheels weren't already spinning, they are now, and although next season will probably be the last, it seems as if, if it could have been better planned this season should have been. While sometimes cast changes work, it's always unfortunate to have one of those last seasons that just seem one season too far, when some actors and actresses wanted to carry on and some didn't, and you end up with kind of a muddled mess and an end that doesn't do justice to a show's beginning and middle.

Still, House is the big medical drama of its day, bigger I think overall in impression than Grey's Anatomy (though with less impact on the pop charts) every decade needs at least one defining medical drama (90s - ER, 80s St Elsewhere to start), and House is the '00s.

This is a relatively old commercial, I know, but recently I've become a little bit obsessed with it. And not because it's terrible, or so great, or so absurd, but for two main reasons. (Okay, changed me mind after watching it again - it is so great - just not particularly revolutionary or influential or anything)

(Quick sum up: Basically, for his father's 60th birthday, his son takes me on a trip to Norway, where presumably their ancestors had come from - they have a fucking amazing time, paying with their citi credit card all the way, only to find out at the end that they are actually Swedish, rather than Norwegian.)

1 - It makes Norway look like the coolest place on Earth (no pun intended there). How is Norway not paying some money for this, the best reason to visit Norway since the 1994 Winter Olympics? I would like to plan a vacation based solely around this commercial. I literally want to go to Norway, and in order, visit the places the father and son go - the museum or whatever it is with that giant boat, the pint at Ibsen's favorite pub (can that possibly still be around? I hope they're not shading the truth here), the sampling of local cuisine (that fish looks delicious), the fjords, the jumping in the water, the rowboating. Literally, I would sign up for a tour group whose reason for being was reenacting the trip from that commercial. It was the trip of a lifetime, the dad said! What else do you need?

2 - Probably more minor point, but that old guy looks awesome, and has an awesome beard. He's got great sunken eyes and sly smile. If I look half as cool when I am that age, I will be thankful. (Apparently he is portrayed by Norm Golden and I now need to see his SVU episode - it looks like the son may be a guy named Scott Organ but it's harder to definitively confirm this)

Humorously, in the youtube comments, there's a weird occasional back and forth between pro-Norway and Swedish forces - mentioning how terrible it would be to find out that you were Swedish.

Also, when looking up things about this commercial - I found this amazing article of a guy who seriously can't handle the possible inaccuracies of the commercial - such as the fact, that Ibsen would have been more likely to drink in restaurants. Yes, you apparently can't take a ferry to Stockholm, and yes, the music is clearly not Norwegian, but who cares?

Cold Mountain

I watched Cold Mountain the other day. It's one of these films that kind of snuck up on my netflix queue. Once upon a time, in the early days of having netflix, I made a fairly long queue of random movies I was vaguely interested in seeing for one reason or another, and I hit "add" to just about any movie Netflix recommended that held any interest. As time went by, I found myself largely ignoring most of this list, and picking out movies I really wanted to see as I went; generally once I send a movie away, I find a movie on my list to move into the first position. A couple of weeks ago maybe, I sent a movie away, and fresh off the death of Elizabeth Taylor, I picked Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf to be my next film. Yet, the next day, I get an e-mail telling me Cold Mountain is coming - bullshit, I thought, naturally - sneakily enough Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf had a wait, pushing the second position movie into first. Anyway, so I had it, it won an Oscar, might as well watch it, I figured.

I told my friend that I had seen the movie, and he asked me, something along the lines of, "was it exactly what I expect it to be?" After which, I thought for a second, and replied affirmatively. After thinking about it some more, there isn't a much better way to describe the movie if you know anything about it - it's a big, long, romantic, star-studded Civil War epic (Jude Law and Nicole Kidman play the leads, with Renee Zellweger winning an Oscar for Supporting Role) about a guy trying to get back to his love in the South vaguely based on the Odyssey and all about terrible toll of war (not a lot of war movies endorsing war these days). Take a moment to think about that in film form, and I would wager that what you're thinking is just about what the movie is.

What I didn't realize is that the film is positively loaded with acting talent - four academy award winners - Nicole Kidman (The Hours), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) and Renee Zellweger (none other than Cold Mountain). After that, only one other nominee, Jude Law, nominated for Cold Mountain as well as for The Talented Mr. Ripley, appears, but plenty of other actors of note, who, because of the journey format of the story often come into the film for just a couple of minutes - Giovanni Ribisi pops up for about five minutes, Jena Malone and Cillian Murphy are in the movie for what has to be a couple of minutes at most and Emily Deschanel and James Rebhorn are on screen for a matter of seconds. It also contains Jack White's only real acting role (Elvis Presley in Walk Hard barely counts, I suppose).

Lastly, is it wrong, that as a northerner, I always route against the southern soldiers in these films even when they're supposed to be the good guys? I mean I'm not going so far as to root for the northern soldiers who (spoiler!) try to rape Natalie Portman, but still in the battle scenes, death to the South! Nice try of all these southern stories to try to make heroes who were southern but don't have slaves - as long as they wear that rebel grey, to hell with them.

Most irritating sports radio trend #61 (not ranked in terms of irritation)

The "Straw man False Negative"

Let me explain to you what I mean. Sports talk radio host wants to make a BOLD statement, which often isn't really all that bold, so he tries to enhance the boldness of said statement by letting people know before saying it that either absolutely nobody out there listening agrees with what he is about to say (without naming names of course of anybody who actually has this opinion) or noting how crazy you, the listener may think he is after hearing this wild statement.

I find this happens more on single person radio shows rather than two or three person shows, as with multiple people there's always someone to comment on your BOLD statements and act as a sounding board and disagree or agree as needed. With single person shows, the hosts seem to feel as if there's a need to create a dialogue with the listeners, and thus these hosts foist opinions onto the listeners without asking and pat themselves on the back for disagreeing with the opinions they gave to the listeners.

Colin Cowherd is the king of this maneuver - I've heard it many times from him - specifically, today, he was talking about the Lakers and he talked about how Lamar Odom, as the third or so option for a multiple championship team a la James Worthy could garner serious Hall of Fame consideration. To get you ready for his percieved out-there-ness of that statement, Cowherd spent a couple of minutes before actually saying it letting the listeners know that "NOBODY is thinking this" and that they may disagree vociferously once they hear what he has to say (though I don't think he actually used the word vociferously.) Now whether you think that statement is actually a bold one or not is at least mostly beside the point.

Just say what you think, man. If it's actually bold, listeners will take it that way, and they can disagree with you when they call in, or guests can disagree with you on air. It's just unfair to set up a statement as one no one will believe, when you have no actual evidence that no one will believe it other than you saying so because it suits your purposes.

Michael Kay does this all the time as well - spend more time talking about how the next thing he says YOU will disagree with and YOU will think he's crazy than actually saying whatever he thinks.

Of course this all ends up to another good reason to simply not listen to sports radio, but then that would be no fun.

NBA basketball is on TNT.

MLB baseball is on TBS.

TNT knows Drama.

TBS knows Comedy.

Does this mean basketball is drama and baseball is comedy?

Ponder on that.

Today, I read of China's amazing decision to ban time travel on television - or in full - "Fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons, and a lack of positive thinking" - which eliminates viewings of Back to the Future, or 12 Monkeys or Timecop, among others. (Of course, Chinese people everywhere should thank the government for preventing them from being embroiled in Lost - which basically contains every single element which the government wants to ban).

So, while plodding around the internet in the wake of this decision I found a Washington Post 2006 list of banned keywords on Chinese internet. Now, it's a super long list with tons of political figures and things like that, but here are a couple that I felt stood out as highlights (being aware that as a not-as-political-astute-as-I-should-be citizen, I may be missing some obvious political implications from one of these):

"Indonesia" - I'm honestly curious about what Indonesia did to raise ire in China so much more than every single other country on Earth

"Night talk of the Forbidden City" - Only at night? talking during the day is far less dangerous?

"News Blockade" - well this just starts some levels - the Chinese people can't even look up the fact that they can't get news

"Armageddon" - I'm not sure if this refers to the movie, or the place of the final conflict between divine good and divine evil, but I don't think the Chinese government can prevent the power of either just by banning it online.

"Hire a killer to murder one's wife" - well, I suppose if you're working on the premise that you're going to ban any combination of words, this is as good as any

"Bug" - this one I assume is the recording device and the not the member of the animal kingdom, but this could still cause a serious problem for Chinese entomologists

The picture really speaks for itself, but I'll add the obvious comment. How the fuck is this real and not some terrible Saturday Night Live commercial skit? Who has ever eaten a pizza, and said to themselves, "you know the only thing that would make this better - if I also had some cookies"? (Admittedly, cookies are probably delicious at anytime, but you don't just see them attached to every frozen entrée for a reason.) I would say that it finally happened, except that exactly nobody has been anticipating this.

Of course the only thing more bizarre is Digiorno's new Pizza and Wyngz. It's not really stranger in that it's chicken - wings and pizza seem like a far more logical combination than pizza and cookies. It's that these are not Wings, but Wyngz, because they can not legally be called Wings, as they have no wing meat. Colbert has the definitive takedown.

A (relatively) quick sum of why I picked who I picked in each division:

AL East:

The easiest pick for me - there's a reason everyone's picking the Red Sox - they replaced Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre with Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, and it would be an incredible stroke of bad luck if they had anywhere near as many injury problems this year as they did last year. I picked the Rays to tie in second the Yankees (and forced to pick, I'll have them winning the one-game playoff), which was a bit of a gamble - the Yankees certainly have the better offense, and will probably trade to improve their starting rotation, but right now the Rays starters are superior 1-5, and, well, you have to go out on a limb sometimes. I'm not sure Vlad Guerrero and Derrek Lee were worth signing for the Orioles, but they should be worth a couple of wins, enough, along with their young rotation to list them above the Blue Jays, who lose key contributor Vernon Wells (for good reason, but still, he was decent last year) and are relying on what could also be a very good young rotation, but have less offense.

Player from this division who I most want a jersey or shirt of: My boy Brian Matusz who closed last year in sterling fashion and is primed to sooner rather than later become the leader of the Orioles young rotation once he gets back from the DL.

AL Central:

I'm not all that convinced that the Tigers are better than the Twins and the White Sox - this was probably the hardest call for me of all the divisions. The Tigers have the division's best pitcher and position player, and while in baseball that doesn't necessarily mean all that much, it was a tiebreaker for me, especially since both Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera have been extremely durable so far in their careers. The Twins, if Justin Morneau stays healthy are every bit as good, but their rotation outside of the outstanding Francisco Liriano doesn't thrill me - it may be deeper than the Tigers', but has no second starter to rival Max Scherzer. I don't really have a good reason the White Sox can't win it either, though I generally have a policy against picking teams starting Juan Pierre, and Paul Konerko would be hard pressed to repeat his 2010. Between the Indians and Royals, well, they each have a couple of parts to watch, and for Royals fans in particular, Mike Moustakas should be up sometime soon with any luck.

Player from this division who I most want a jersey or shirt of: I already have a Verlander, which I found for about three dollars, next, I think I'd like a Shin-Soo Choo jersey - already the best Korean position player ever (Sorry, Hee Seop Choi), and one of the most underrated players in the majors over the past couple of years.

AL West:

The Rangers don't have Cliff Lee, sure, but they were probably going to win the division without him last year anyway. I don't love them so much, and the possibility of half their best hitters getting hurt - the Kinslers, Cruzs, and Hamiltons, and not expecting much from tradition power position first base with Mitch Moreland. That said, I don't like any of the rest of the teams any more - the As have the potential for a great starting staff with Brett Anderson, Travor Cahill, Dallas Braden and Gio Gonzalez, but have absolutely no hitting behind it. In terms of the Angels, Dan Haren's great, Jerrod Weaver is good, but I'm not sure he can duplicate last season, and I don't have as much faith in the rest of the starting pitching as well as the potentially horrendous hitting infield until Kendry Morales gets back. The Mariners, well, they get to have King Felix Hernandez, and really, how much more can one team ask for.

Player from this division who I most want a jersey or shirt of: I have been searching for a reasonably priced Felix jersey for years, so that goes without saying, but otherwise a Brett Anderson Athletics jersey would be great, partly because he's a left-handed starter on the verge of being a really good pitcher if he can stay healthy, but also because I can then make all sorts of Suede references which almost no Americans will get (ie. He's "so young," he's one of the "beautiful ones," he's "animal nitrate"...).

NL East:

Second easiest division pick, though here, I actually think I'd take the Braves over the Phillies before I'd take the Yankees or Rays over the BoSox. We all know why the Phillies are first - their absolutely spectacular first four members of their starting rotation. However, Chase Utley's out until who knows when, and just about every other key member of their offense is on the decline. The Braves have a very good rotation, albeit not as good, but more potential for growth on offense, with a hopefully healthy all year Jason Heyward, Dan Uggla at 2nd, and a possible comeback season for Chipper Jones. The Marlins have a fierce young rotation of their own, but one that hasn't been able to consistently throw the amount of innings they'll need from it to compete, though the team will be aided by full seasons of Logan Morrison and Mike Stanton. Sports Illustrated had the Mets finishing behind the Nationals, which, biased Met fan that I am, I just don't see - while the Mets pitching has a chance to be wretched, their offense has a chance to be pretty good, and the fact that the Nationals are starting Rick Ankiel everyday certainly does not bode well for them.

Player from this division who I most want a jersey or shirt of: I have a Beltran shirt, and Santana and Beltran jerseys currently. If it were ever acceptable for a Mets fan to own a Braves jersey (though, compared to even five years ago, it's much closer - if you could go back in time to 2004 and tell a Mets fan that he or she would hate the Phillies ten times more than the Braves, he or she would never have believed you) I'd love a Tommy Hanson - I think he will be a bona fide ace sooner rather than later, and I wouldn't mind a Ryan Zimmerman either, another underrated star.

NL Central:

I admit I probably went with my heart a little bit, rooting for the Brewers over the Cards and Reds, but I think there's justification for it - the Brewers, at the expense of a real shortstop, which I'll admit is troubling, traded for two top notch starters who have plied their trades for their careers in the more difficult American League, and should find things easier in the National. That, along with hopefully another healthy Rickie Weeks season and the rest of the Brewers offense could certainly do the trick. I don't think the Reds were any fluke - I think they'll do just about the same as they did last year, but that the Brewers, with their massive starting pitching improvement will inch ahead - a big feat, I admit, but within the realm of possibility, considering just how bad the starters were last year. The Cardinals still have an excellent chance as well with Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and the rapidly improving Colby Rasmus, but I'm not sold, and call me a fool, I know, on Dave Duncan getting the rotation to not miss Adam Wainwright. The Cubs could actually be decent, and it could be fun to watch if Carlos Zambrano can have follow his hot streak at the end of last year, and the Pirates and Astros can not be decent, but at least the Pirates have some fun hitters, while the Astros have...can Michael Bourne lead the league in steals?

Player from this division who I most want a jersey or shirt of: Rickie Weeks, for sure. I need to get one, or best of all an old school Brewers jersey of his.

NL West:

I picked the Giants to repeat because of their starting pitching along with improvements at shortstop, third base (Sandoval can't be that bad again) and a full season of Posey, but it all rests on the starters staying healthy. The Rockies have likely the division's best player in Troy Tulowitzki, and a very solid rotation, but will need some increased contributions from some of the guys in the lineup (Ian Stewart? Dexter Fowler?) to take the division. The Dodgers need a come back season from Matt Kemp, which I think they will get, but they also need some offense out of some other positions, which I'm not sure they will. The Padres were a great story last year, but pretty much traded their best player, Adrian Gonzalez, over the offseason, for good reason, but still, everything kind of went right for them, and I can't see that happening again. The Diamondbacks, well, they got, uh, Joe Saunders last year. I do think Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson could emerge as quite good pitchers though.

Player from this division who I most want a jersey or shirt of: Clayton Kershaw. He's a lefty, and he's incredibly fun to watch pitch.

I admit, some of these picks are a little chalk. But come on, whose aren't these days?

AL MVP:

Adrian Gonzalez, Boston Red Sox

Gonzalez is of course the new acquisition of the Red Sox, the team favored by everyone and their mothers to win the AL East. Although the Padres were certainly competitive last year, and came very close to a playoff spot, they still got a fraction of the media coverage the Red Sox will receive. Gonzalez is in the prime of his career and has had back to back outstanding years, finishing fourth and second in the NL in 2009 and 2010 respectively in baseball reference WAR, and his counting statistics should improve dramatically with a much more offensively potent lineup and a much more offensively potent ballpark. I would place Adrian Gonzalez as the co-favorite in the MVP race along with Miguel Cabrera, with Robinson Cano, Evan Longoria and other new Red Sox acquistion Carl Crawford not that far behind.

AL Cy Young:

Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners

Yes, this is the first of two back-to-back Cy Young award winners I'll be predicting this year, though I think the AL pick is going out far more on a limb than the NL pick. The one aspect of this pick I do like a lot is that by giving Felix the Cy last year with so few wins, if he wins just one or two more and otherwise puts up similar statistics, it would be hard not to award it to him again. He has more or less gotten better year-to-year each of the past five years (Fangraphs' WAR has him better in '09 than '10, but he had a better FIP, xFIP, and tERA last year and pitched more innings, so I'm not exactly sure why), and he's shown no injury history up to now, at least. No reason not to expect a near duplicate of last season. The other key contenders here I would have to think would be Justin Verlander, CC Sabathia and Jon Lester, with me nearly arbitrarily putting them in reverse order or likelihood of victory.

AL Rookie of the Year

Jeremy Hellickson, Tampa Bay Rays

He's a top three prospect in the majors according to just about everyone (and top prospect to be in the majors to begin the season and not on the DL). Hellickson will get a chance to get lots of innings and lots of wins. As I talk about in the NL ROY section, it's all about playing time. Hellickson, though not supposed to be an eventual ace, is mature and has very good stuff, or so I read. Other horses in the race would be Mariners starter Michael Pineda and Toronto Blue Jays starter Kyle Drabek.

NL MVP:

Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals

The #1 overall seed of award picks, I kind of hate myself for picking Pujols (though of course, based on this year's NCAA Tourney, a #1 overall pick wouldn't be such a great bet). Here's the problem. We know as much as we can possibly know about anyone that Pujols is going to be fantastic. He's getting older, but he's still more or less in his prime years, albeit towards the end of those for a normal player, and the man has led the NL in baseball reference WAR for the past six years. I'd love to take a chance, I really would, but the other players I want to pick are super dark horses, and I just don't have the balls to actually pick them, but rather to mention them one sentence from now and give myself credit in case they crazily go on and win it even though I didn't pick them. After Pujols, the most likely I think are Joey Votto, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki and maybe Prince Fielder (at this point there are about eight names that I think have about even chance - including Hanley Ramirez and even Jason Heyward and Buster Posey - why not?). My super aforementioned dark horses, for the record I'll refer back to if they come out of nowhere, are Rickie Weeks and Matt Kemp.

NL Cy Young:

Roy Halladay, Philadelphia Phillies

Easiest pick I made all day - more than Pujols even, I think, even though there are a score of great pitchers in the NL. Roy Halladay is basically the best pitcher on planet Earth right now, and even though he's older, he has been extremely durable, is on a contending team and has both the old-school finishing games mentality gut-voters love, and the wonderful strikeout to walk ratios that stats-voters love. Maybe his biggest obstacle (besides every pitcher's number one obstacle - getting hurt) is Cliff Lee or Cole Hamels also having an amazing year, and somehow splitting the vote. Amongst the other outstanding NL pitchers I'd pick in order of likelihood to win would be Chris Carpenter, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, Ubaldo Jimenez and Clayton Kershaw as my up and comer.

NL Rookie of the Year:

Freddie Freeman, Atlanta Braves

Rookie of the Year is first and foremost about opportunity (well, that at playing at least okay with that opportunity). Rookie of the Year, from year to year, is like the Tony awards - some years have extraordinary talent, like last year with Jason Heyward and Buster Posey, but other years have Bob Hamelin (or the musical Titanic) and just about anyone can sneak in there. When predicting it's always a smart bet to guess someone you know will get at bats, and the two best bets in that regard would be Freeman and Giants first baseman Brandon Belt.

Predicted Baseball Standings Time:

Let me get the standings out before the season starts and then thoughts and MVP/Cy Young picks can come later.

AL:

AL East:

Red Sox 94-68

Rays 90-72

Yankees 90-72

Orioles 78-84

Blue Jays 77-85

AL Central:

Tigers 87-75

Twins 86-76

White Sox 83-79

Indians 69-93

Royals 67-95

AL West:

Rangers 87-75

Athletics 83-79

Angels 83-79

Mariners 70-92

NL:

NL East:

Phillies 91-71

Braves 88-74

Marlins 83-79

Mets 77-85

Nationals 72-90

NL Central:

Brewers 88-74

Reds 87-75

Cardinals 86-76

Cubs 78-84

Astros 68-94

Pirates 68-94

NL West:

Giants 89-73

Rockies 85-77

Dodgers 83-79

Padres 75-87

Diamondbacks 68-94

Prior years' predictions can be found here and here and here.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

9. Veronica Mars

Okay, so here's the last show on the list that absolutely nobody watched (well, there's a second one that most people didn't watch as it aired, but I think far more people have watched it since), though it developed a significant cult and is probably one of my, I don't know, five favorite shows of all time (it's incredibly high ranking on my personal list make up for any commercial drawbacks).

I like doing analysis of television as much as the next person, but sometimes more than exactly what you can put your finger on is the feeling you get when you watch a show, when you talk about a show, after you watch it, and when you think about watching it (I spend a lot of time thinking about TV). For Lost, the feeling as the show moved forward changed from excitement right after an episode to frustration, to not really wanting to see more episodes, to at least, for now, not really wanting to see any episodes again(maaaaybe the Desmond-centric time travel one is an exception). For Veronica Mars, my feelings are the opposite. Recently it was mentioned when I was in the car with my friend who had not seen it, and my other friend and I got really excited, telling him to watch it and then later watching the first couple of episodes with him, which were just as good as they were the first time I saw them (or the second). Just writing about it makes me want to watch.

Veronica is a teenage sleuth in a California high school divided between sons and daughters of the rich and the sons and daughters of those who serve them. She is an exception from either of these two groups in that her dad was the sheriff - poor but with power. This all changed after the biggest murder in town history, when he accused the wrong suspect, a multi-millionaire software developer whose son dated Veronica and whose daughter, the dead victim, was her best friend. After that, he was recalled from office and started up a private detective agency, while Veronica became a target at school, since her dad became so unpopular in the wake of accusing the richest man in town. She was asked to choose her friends, or her dad, and stuck with her dad, making her a social pariah. Oh, and her mom walked out on her and her dad somewhere around this time. Got all that?

The way the show works is that every episode contains a small scale mystery - who stole something from the school, who is terrorizing another student - random classmates will come to Veronica for help sometimes, knowing her reputation as a bit of a crime-solver. She then uses some of her dad's cool P.I. equipment along with her natural guile and solves the cases. There's also a big season-long mystery (in the first season, it's who killed her old best friend portrayed by the now much more famous Amanda Seyfried) which works itself out over time, until becoming the focus of the last couple of episodes.

There are many reasons I love this show. For one, the writing is fantastic. Joss Whedon is one of my television heroes and I think it's undeniable Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas (sadly not the same Thomas lead singer of Matchbox 20) is influenced by him. The dialogue is sharp, witty and banter-y, all around, but I particularly enjoy the conversations between Veronica and her dad. Her dad is a great character - it would be so easy to make a show like this and make her dad a bumbling fool, or at the least a naive father on whom she is always pulling one over, or some strict disciplinarian who you are always rooting for her to disobey. This isn't the case at all however - as a viewer, you love her dad - he's smart, he's good at his job, and while he doesn't always know everything she's up to (he does have a job and other commitments, after all) several times in the course of the show, Veronica thinks she's gotten away with something but he knows about it, or knew about it all along. Another character, Logan, who is pretty despicable in the first couple of episodes of the show, became a favorite by the latter half of the first season. The power to transform a character from hated to loved and not have it feel forced (reminiscent of what Whedon does with Cordelia in Buffy) is impressive.

It's tempting to go far more in depth, but it would be difficult without way more words so another subject for another day. All I'll say is that, while I could say this about a whole bunch of series on the list (and I may again before it's over), if you have not watched this show, WATCH IT NOW.

Another commercial I don't understand.

Okay, so somehow there are two employees, one for Pepsi Max, and one for Coke Zero, presumably blue collar, probably truck drivers (white collar workers would probably not be wearing shirts with patches on them and baseball caps) who both end up sitting near each other at the counter at a diner. The Coke Zero guy, who was already sitting down when the Pepsi Max employee walked in, is drinking a Coke Zero, but sees Pepsi Max guy start drinking a Pepsi Max. The Coke Zero guy stares at the Pepsi Max longingly. They chat, the Pepsi Max guy moves up next to Coke Zero guy, and he confirms Coke Zero guy's question, which is whether Pepsi Max had zero calories (it does). Pepsi Max character offers up the can of Pepsi Max to Coke Zero guy, who takes it, has a long pull, and then confirms, skeptically that the drink has zero calories. He then takes another gulp, which Pepsi Max guy captures on his phone, and when Coke Zero guy asks him why he's taking that, Pepsi Max guy responds that he's putting it on youtube. The camera then takes us outside of the diner, and all of a sudden Pepsi Max guy and Coke Zero guy come crashing through the window, fighting, presumably because Coke Zero guy was concerned that being seen drinking Pepsi Max would get him in trouble with his employer.

The fact that this commercial is terrible comes out simply from a single viewing. But possibly my main problem is that I don't understand the underlying reason for why we should believe this commercial. And, of course, I get that lots of commercials kind of (or entirely) have nothing to do with selling their product - it's a different type of approach, and that's fine. Let's restrict ourselves to commercials that talk about one product being good by demonstration, or one product better than another comparable one. Usually they either show people, who we're at least meant to believe are real people, talking about the product, or they show the two products at work. In the former, in theory, if they're real people, that gives some sort of credit - real people think this product is good. In the latter, two, say, cleaning products are used side by side, presumably the results of one are much better than the other, and if we are to believe this is honest, it could persuade us. In this commercial however, the characters are clearly actors. There's no reason we would believe otherwise, from the way the commercial is filmed, to the dialogue, to the comical fight scene at the end. Soda isn't a product we can see in action - there's no way for us to judge the effect of taste from watching, like we could with a cleaning product. So basically what's happening is a paid actor who is clearly a paid actor acting as a Coke trucker is claiming how great Pepsi max is. Why on earth would anybody believe this? It's not just that the commercial doesn't work to me; the concept doesn't work. I don't get it.

This is a commercial I've seen a lot recently that has drawn my ire.

Basically, the premise is a bunch of people are having a blast at Buffalo Wild Wings at lunch, but sadly, they need to return to work. Not to worry! The waitress signals the bartender, who hits a button, which transmits a message to the weatherman who is now on the TV, talking about what a beautiful day it is. After he gets the message, though, he changes his tune - his producers set up the scene to look as if there is a storm, massive rain, terrible conditions and what not, and he reports that with such weather, it's best to stay inside and have a beer.

This is all well and good enough, except what's going to happen when they go back to work hours later? Their bosses will ask them where they were. Their excuse will be "I was at the restaurant when a weather report came on telling us about a huge storm outside and advising that we remain indoors. Only later did I find out that the storm was a fabrication concocted by the restaurant to keep us there buying drinks and wings." Who is going to believe that? Unless, alternately, that weather broadcast that was altered was also broadcast somehow into televisions everywhere, so the bosses either thought the same thing or at least understand their predicament.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

10: Lost

Well, unlike the last post, I have the opposite problem. Rather than having nothing to say, I could write a book about Lost (well, at least a novella) and I need to restrain myself a little and will try to avoid getting too specific, but I will probably make some specific examples of things, so if you haven't seen it (and there might be spoilers of something because you can't talk about the show without it, but they also probably won't make any sense to anyone who hasn't watched, and thus quickly forgotten) just trust me on the general points.

For me, and this may be entirely too harsh, and I understand if you think that - Lost, ultimately, represents disappointment. I reserve my harshest judgments not for the worst shows - there's just not enough to say - they're so obviously not good - the Big Bang Theories, or the relentlessly mediocre Mentalist type shows, or the Ghost Whisperers, or so forth and so on. Rather, I'm toughest and most frustrated with the shows that could be good, that have a lot of really good elements, and yet just screw it all up. Lost, along with Battlestar Galactica are pretty much the textbook examples for me of two shows like this - shows that have all this wonderful potential and do a whole bunch of things really well, just to kind of fritter it away in the end (Heroes would be a sub-standard example of this, but it was almost all potential undelivered - it kind of fell apart after the first half-season).

Sometime early in the airing of the second season, I got swept up in Lost fever, watching the first season in a couple of weeks, and then catching up. I pretty much watched regularly weekly until the fifth season, where I kept falling behind but eventually caught up, until the sixth and final season, which I mostly didn't watch, and read wikipedia summaries, and then just watched the final episode, which I feel bad for, because I knew most likely I was going to dislike it, and I feel like I was biased, but yeah, I did hate it.

I was swept up in my initial Lost viewing, as so many others were - the show had a creative, genuinely interesting and new premise, and created a world of mystery with the story and with the look of the show.

This article is a bit disjointed, but I'm kind of taking a quick chronological (or biographical, I guess) journey through my affair with Lost.

Of course, here's the one thing I never liked straight from almost the beginning, and more and more as the show went on: the flashbacks. They're terrible. Well, first, before I tear them to pieces, let's list the exceptions. First, the flashbacks were okay with me, generally, when they moved the plot, and not the characterization. This refers mostly to flashbacks of other events on the island when someone was away from the group - such as when Claire was taken by the Others, and we see what happened to her. I would also however make an exception if there were flashbacks that yielded really important information to the plot off the island, though I can't think of an example offhand (there are a lot of peripherally relevant things - Hurley winning the lottery with the numbers, Locke's dad coming back later on - but these were mostly unnecessary I felt (subjective analysis, I know) and could have easily been worked around).

Now the problem - they stink. Well, first, the soft problem - personally, I think any benefit of characterization given by the flashbacks was more than made up for by the time they took from on-island activities, and the disjointedness they added to the show, in addition to being a kind of lazy way of avoiding having to create more subtle characterization on the island itself. We want to show that Jack has to be needed? Let's just make up some random off the island story showing that, that's not restrained by what is going on on the island - same thing for whatever else they wanted to show for other characters. The hard way, but the better way, would have been to find situations on the island and craft their personas rather than show this blatant hit-you-over-the-head example off the island and then a subtler example in the same episode on the island so you can say to yourself "oh, I get it - the flashback and the island plot are related!". That's actually not the worst thing about the flashbacks. That's mostly commenting on their laziness and unnecessary-ness. Some of them were, taken in and of themselves, not bad pieces of television, even if I wished they weren't there. But, more and more as the seasons moved forward, a lot of them were just plain bad and served to show the same character flaw again and again. The absolute worst one of all was the flashback in which Jack is on some tropical island, meets a woman, hangs out with her a whole bunch, and then against her wishes insists on getting a tattoo, and then gets asked to leave. This was the worst (I think I remember even reading an interview with Damon Lindelof or Carlton Cuse where they described this as a low moment for them) - it had absolutely no relevance to anything else in the series and just battered home a point about Jack that if you hadn't gotten from the last eight flashbacks, you're not going to get now, and also, even taken out of context, just as a bit of story-telling it was utterly terrible. There were other bad ones, and to be fair, this is the worst, but you get the point.

The last thing is that by starting this flashback format, they locked themselves in. Even when the flashbacks no longer became helpful (if they were ever helpful), they felt they had to use them in every single episode, instead of just using them when they were needed.

Okay, I think I just spent most of the space I was planning to use writing just about the flashback device, so I'll speed through things rather than have a 4000-word entry.

So let's move quickly through the seasons. First was best - mystery about the island, good characters, for the most part, a lot of different ways they could go. (Cuse and Lindelof say that it should have been obvious they were going the super-duper natural (that's even more super than supernatural) route from always day one with the smoke monster, but I think that's just hindsight talking - they could have gone sci-fi, or they could have kept their limited supernatural in a box, rather than going time travel and so forth). The second season featured some incredibly slow-moving repeated tales of different members of the tail section of the plane (no pun intended, really), and then possibly my favorite episodes of the series (possibly, though not my favorite episode, more on that in a minute), when they had who would turn out to be the super-villain of the show Ben Linus locked in the cage and he tried to convince them of all sorts of things. Of course, this was probably the performance that got Ben Linus promoted to amongst the most important characters of the remainder of the series, a move that was disastrous in my opinion - he became one of these characters (like Syler in heroes, or Baltar in Battlestar Galactica) who lies so often but people keep for some reason believing him over and over again, until it just gets frustrating, tiresome and unbelievable (yeah, he's charismatic, but no one is that charismatic).

All right, skipping forward some more, my favorite character on the show was Desmond, and the best episode was probably his crazy time traveling episode "The Constant" where he has to go back and convince Penny to keep the same phone number so he can call her. Anyway, in terms of how the supernatural elements have anything else to do with the show, yeah, not so much. In terms of just an individual piece of television making though, it's great.

Skipping forward some more (maybe I really should write a series just on Lost), I realized by the last season I really didn't have the desire to watch the show, but I at least tried to keep up with what was going on. The flash-sideways were possibly the worst thing the show ever did even just by themselves, and in addition with the way the Lost creators completely used it as misdirection as what could have been an alternate universe after Juliet blew up the bomb in the '70s (if you're reading this and haven't seen the show, it makes no sense, I know, but for those who have seen the show, it doesn't make that much more sense). Anyway, I'm tired of trying to describe exactly what was bad about things. That whole concept sucked. Just saying.

Yeah, so Lost. It was kind of a big deal. It inspired this Weezer album, after all.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

11: Sex and the City

I really shouldn't be the one writing about Sex and the City. I've seen a few episodes, and a decent chunk of the first movie. It's a big show for a certain demographic over the last ten years (women) and was a giant success for HBO, pretty much the co-biggest the commercial success of the decade along with The Sopranos and I would be remiss not to mention it for its combination of commercial appeal, critical success and cultural phenomenal-ness.

The show was big enough to inspire products like Manolo Blahnik shoes and places like Magnolia bakery to become household terms, just from the show itself. It was a big platform for women in the mid-to-late thirties to be, I don't know, real, and party and be professionals and meet guys and have sex and talk about it and not just get married and have kids and just deal with their mother-in-law.

Of course, my friend who was a fan has always said, rather than about the girls, as one would think, for her it was about the dudes. It's a rich collection of actors who have portrayed the guys of Sex and the City, the diverse (well diverse between white guys) likes of Chris Noth as Mr. Big (who as a die-hard Law & Order fan I always have had serious trouble taking seriously as a romantic lead), Ron Livingston, John Corbett, Mikhail Barishnikov (I remember thinking "what the fuck?" when I read that casting call somewhere), James Remar, Kyle McLachlin and the always great Evan Handler.

I don't have any strong feelings about the show (I don't want it much, the ones I've watched are okay, not great but watchable, but more or less, it's not written for me, for what that's worth).

I wish I had more to say, particularly because I'm sure there is a lot to say about this show, it broke all sorts of ground in a way, and a lot of people love it the way I love other show. I don't have any easy way to make fun of it or deliver some random trivia the way I would about some of the other shows on the list. I'm just going to move on and resolve to write more about the new few on the list. Apologies to all. At least I know far more about the plot of the show than I did before writing this.

(I do realize I want to make a quick note - the wikipedia season summaries are clearly written by a fan in an non-objective style of writing - referring to "our resident bad girl samantha," having us all watch with him as "we start the season," and writing on sentence "Life after Big." (also I realize I did want to mention Big as one of the great partially named characters in TV, up there with the Columbos and the McGuyvers and the Kramers - someone should make a list sometime))

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

12: Everybody Loves Raymond

Yes, I know, this one seems like it's from forever ago, as it ended in 2005, but it didn't really peak, popularity wise, until 2000, and I still submit it's the biggest mainstream comedy of the 2000s (Two and a Half Men may be surpassing it, but give me some leeway).

This is one show I was actually there for the beginning for, and I really mean before the beginning (pre-beginning?). When I went to Las Vegas in, well, I guess it must have been 1996, in August, we, at MGM Grand (I think?) went to a couple of free screenings of upcoming CBS television shows, where we would share our opinions. One of them, as I've implied was Everybody Loves Raymond, and the other was the short-lived Moloney, starring Peter Strauss as a Los Angeles cop/psychiatrist (we were on the vacation with family friends, and my friend was so taken with Moloney that he watched every episode - I wouldn't be surprised if he was the only person in the US to do so). It took place on Long Island, where I grew up, so we immediately took to representing the show and it is the kind of show we all liked enough for us to watch it as family for its first couple of seasons. I've basically seen every episode of the show for the first few seasons, and not a single episode from the last one where I'm sure some weird stuff happens (like did at the weird last few seasons of Home Improvement) and the kids get older (Madylin Sweeten, who played daughter Ally, is weirdly 19 now, her brothers who played her brothers in the show are now 15).

The formula's pretty simple. Professionally successful, but common sense stupid, Raymond is always pissing off his smart housewife who is always doing everything around the house and for the kids (she's the deuteragonist - so says wikipedia - second character to the protagonist - I didn't even know this word existed). Oh, and of course, his overbearing parents, along with is older brother resentful of all the attention he gets (prompting the distinct Brad Garrett low-voice grown "Eeeeverybody loves Raymond" (Why I can't just find a youtube of him saying this, like that, is beyond me)), live across the street.

These weren't the salad days for CBS like they are now. CBS was struggling and NBC ruled the roost (really really hard to believe, I know). Raymond was one of the most important shows (along with Survivor and all the procedurals led by CSI) in changing that. The show was Emmy gold as well, winning the best comedy award twice, and all of its main cast members winning acting Emmys, except for Peter Boyle, who was nominated seven times.

To a lot of people I think, it was the last in a great line of classic old-school family sitcoms. It was generally well-received, and I think whatever critical value it had has been all but lost to its CBS successors, instead moving off to the new generation of sitcoms, without laugh tracks and over-sentimentality, like the NBC Thursday night shows (well, not Outsourced, but the rest) and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (the one particularly notable exception to this is How I Met Your Mother, which is very much in an old school format, yet has a critical following). But for the most part, there really isn't another Everybody Loves Raymond.

I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily Show that would be on otherwise).

13: American Idol

Perhaps it's unfair to stow the best rated program of the last decade here at number thirteen. Call it a bit of discretion for a show I genuinely extremely dislike. I admit I've had trouble exactly explaining very well what it is I so dislike about the show, and I'm not always sure I can to myself. In addition, I hold no animus towards contestants post-Idol, I've liked plenty of their music that has come afterwards (well, mostly Kelly Clarkson and a couple of other songs by people here and there). I just really don't like it. Oh, sure, there are a couple of reasons I can pinpoint, and they explain maybe why I don't watch it, but not really why I don't like it so much - two hours of show a week means they contain a ton of absolute fluff and the songs that got released at the end of every year as Idol songs tended to be lousy as a general course -A Moment Like This or Inside Your Heaven, for example. And part of it, certainly is because it's so popular, if nobody watched it, I probably would feel the same way about it as I feel about, I don't know, According to Jim. But it is that popular, so it stares me in the face every time a great controversy is there about which David to vote for, Cook or Archuleta (okay, that only happened once, but you get the idea).

I don't watch it, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen it, for better or worse. It's hard to avoid it ever, with it being so big and talked about. I know all the winners, and just about all of the runners up (I don't want to say for sure that I might not forget about a Diana deGarmo) because they're usually worth knowing, most of them have had at least some semblance of at least one hit (Taylor Hicks really pushing it with just the American Idol done "Do You Make Me Proud?"

It's everywhere. So many things about it have been cultural touchstones over the last decade - Simon Cowell raving, From Justin to Kelly, Clay Aiken claiming he's not gay and then finally coming out, Paula Abdul's scandal and alleged affair with a contestant, the great run of Sanjaya, Adam Lambert not winning probably because he's just gay or because he's flamboyantly gay - there are almost too many to count (there's so many that after writing this I just remembered William Hung - with almost any other show, that would be the biggest random sensation to happen to it). Although it has still been the #1 and #2 programs for the past five years (and no, I'm not giving separate entries to the performance show and the results show), I feel like while tons of people still watch, it's been less talked about everywhere the past couple of seasons (could just be wishful thinking).

Two of the winners have become unqualified stars - Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, and Jordin Starks has had her share of success. Two non winners have also become stars - Chris Daughtry, and oscar-winning Jennifer Hudson (there's a section of the American Idol wikipedia page devoted to award winners - hilariously there's an "Academy Awards" column - which looks like a binary column - it's basically a whole bunch of zeros and a one by Hudson's name).

Someday, someone's going to write a book about American Idol. As we move into a new generation of Idoldom, we have two new judges - really important decisions for the producers, who were worried that Simon Cowell leaving might cause droves of viewers to leave as well - and allegedly Steven Tyler has a knack for it (possibly making other new judge Jennifer Lopez jealous?). Still, we may well be reaching a point where American Idol is relevant in television, but not so much in music anymore.

I'll continue to follow it in as much as I need to know - acts that might actually become popular outside of Idol, and any major scandal news story, but no more. Thankfully, at least the days are gone where any American Idol songs released at the end would instantly shoot super high in the charts (the weirdest for me is going through my old year end top 100s realizing how high a version of God Bless the USA by "American Idol finalists" went - thankfully quickly forgotten - another distasteful byproduct of post-9/11super patriotic fever).