Saturday Sidebar Update

There's still more to come on my TV season round-up -- the negative stuff, primarily -- but for today, we have the Sidebar Update. Enjoy!

This Week's Object of My Affection is Laura Linney. Man, she's great. From sweet, naive Mary Ann Singleton in the various Tales of the City mini-series, to Primal Fear to The Truman Show to You Can Count On Me to Mystic River to Love Actually to Kinsey to The Squid and the Whale... she's had a few clunkers (The Mothman Prophecies, anyone? The Life of David Gale?), but she's been in so many more fantastic movies, and been so incredible in them, that it amazes me she's not consistently recognized by everyone in America as one of our best actresses. Plus: smokin' hot. And a smart hot, too, which makes her even hotter.

I interrupted my reading of the latest Lemony Snicket book to dive into a P.G. Wodehouse classic (they're all classics), Pigs Have Wings. I was just sitting there thinking, you know what would hit the spot? Some Wodehouse. And I was right. Pigs is one of his Blandings Castle stories, and while I will always have the strongest affection for his Jeeves & Wooster tales, I love reading about Lord Emsworth, Galahad Threepwood, and of course the Empress of Blandings nearly as much. P.G. Wodehouse is the funniest writer in the history of the English language, and I will not suffer dissension on this matter.

I am not a huge fan of soccer. Or "football," as you crazy foreigners call it. But come on -- it's the World Cup! Germany 2006, baby. And the American team is supposed to be a real threat this year. Unfortunately, they're in a tough first round bracket, but they've got a decent shot at advancing, and I'll definitely be watching and rooting for them. U!S!A! U!S!A!

Last week I bought George Thorogood's Greatest Hits: 30 Years of Rock. I've never been a big follower of his, but the songs by him that I like, I really like. "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," "Move It On Over," "Who Do You Love," "I Drink Alone," and of course, "Bad To The Bone" -- all great. I think Thorogood is the perfect example of an artist I really don't need to know anything about other than his Greatest Hits.

I'm Hating Mother Nature right now, and everything in it that makes me sneeze. As Spring turns to Summer, my allergies gently turn from a hellish plague to damnable persecution. I say pave paradise and put up a parking lot! Or at least make Alavert cheaper. That shit's pricier than heroin!

And Lyric of the Week is from an alt-country fave of mine, Kathleen Edwards, from the song "What Are You Waiting For?" I'm not sure what exactly the song is about -- a man ashamed of an old relationship, maybe, a woman seeking forgiveness for a past wrong, perhaps. But this particular line is so jarring -- I think it's the only cuss word she uses on the entire album, which gives it a unique power, makes it a far more surprising word than from most any other artist. It gives the lyric a sense of real anger, but an amused, resigned kind of anger that really sticks with me. Or maybe I just like to giggle at dirty words.