Hire This Dude

Officials at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences should be backing up Brinks trucks to hire Ricky Gervais as permanent host of both the Oscars and the Emmys for the forseeable future.

This is not a new concept -- Ben Grossman and others have written about it, and any sentient being with a lick of common sense has thought it -- but it bears repeating.

[Off soapbox.]

Weekend in Sight

Plans and considerations for the weekend...

* Meet a friend for dinner at a fine Italian chain restaurant.

* Listen to this CD, a lot.

* Probably go here, here and here. The continued joys of home ownership.

* Perhaps take in a movie. Here are this weekend's contenders: critically acclaimed foreign film "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"; political thriller "Vantage Point" (written, as it turns out, by an old friend's husband); or another foreign entry, "The Counterfeiters."

* Watch episode eight of "The Wire," aka the finest program in the history of American television, on HBO Sunday night. All in the game, yo.

* Finally, tune in the 80th Annual Academy Awards and hopefully win an Oscar pool ... or two (a brutha's gotta make a mortage payment!).