( continues...) shoes to fill, but you can bet we'll be watching every twisted minute.

"Veronica Mars," UPN: When it comes right down to it, the sharply written "Veronica Mars" is the story of a girl who lost her best friend and her mom in the same short span of time, and who may never get over either event. Mars, played by the effortlessly compelling Kristin Bell, investigates crimes big and small not just to help her dad out with his private-eye biz, but also in order to understand what makes people do terrible things to each other. As in all great film noirs, the lead character secretly wants to believe people can be good and selfless, but she usually ends up disappointed.

Woot! First Bush had to back off his threatened veto of John McCain's torture ban bill, and now the Senate refused to make parts of the Patriot Act permanent. It's almost as if we're seeing sanity in elected officials (well, ones up for re-election anyway)

Hee--the Tribune also the first Watchie Awards, including this one:

Best addition to Comedy Central: "The Word," the segment of "The Colbert Report" in which Stephen Colbert states his loopy opinion of the night, and does battle with a testy bullet-point list that occupies the screen beside him. Oh, bullet-point list, you're almost as funny as Lewis Black!

Best addition to Comedy Central: "The Word," the segment of "The Colbert Report"

As much as I love the bullet point and want to have its babies, I'd have to vote for the ThreatDown here instead. Nothing is funnier than bears.

Go Trib. I watch a...startlingly large number of those shows.

It's almost as if we're seeing sanity in elected officials (well, ones up for re-election anyway)

Some of them sure are stubborn about Arctic drilling though. They've given up on putting it into the Budget Reconciliation bill and are now trying to attach it to the Defense Appropriations bill. Bastards.

As much as I love the bullet point and want to have its babies,

You're going to have to arm wrestle JZ for this honor. She's got a big crush on the bullet point.

I'd have to vote for the ThreatDown here instead. Nothing is funnier than bears.

The recurring bear motif is a constant source of enjoyment. I also like Formidible Opponent.

I do miss Colbert on This Week In God, though. Rob Corddry has stepped up, but its still not as good.

As much as I love the bullet point and want to have its babies, I'd have to vote for the ThreatDown here instead. Nothing is funnier than bears.

Possibly the most endearing part of Colbert's interview with Terry Gross last week was when he admitted that he actually is really, truly afraid of bears and that ever since he was a little kid he's suffered from an irrational certainty that the worst possible thing that could ever happen to him in his whole life, ever, would be being mauled by a bear. He knows that in cold rational fact his likelihood of being actually mauled by an actual bear is infinitesimal, but the irrational fear is there and always has been.

For anyone who missed it this year (like me), "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is being rebroadcast tonight at 8:00 Eastern time on ABC.

Trader Joe's Toasted Oatmeal Flakes (or not):

Hec thinks I have a crush on Bullet Point. I admire Bullet Point tremendously, but the crushiness is really not there. I think he's projecting his own unacknowledged crushitude upon me.

eta: Rob Corddry is really doing a fine job, all told. But I've been getting completely distracted by the occasional appearance of his brother, the Chibi Corddry: just like Rob, but with twice the cute and four times the hair. I'm mildly inexplicably obsessed with the Chibi, and it's interfering with my appreciation of the Original Corddry.