The Week in Review

WEDNESDAY, JULY 21: Sorry to start off with such a flavor-burst of drama, but: AAAWWGGH! Independent candidate Ralph Nader qualified Friday for the presidential ballot in Nevada, after garnering 8,681 valid petition signatures, presumably written in cruelty-free soy ink that also magically unlocks the chains on Maybelline torture rabbits. Sigh. Need we trot you through the mewling insta-wonk logic for the thousandteenth time? A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush, which means a vote for Kerry is a sort of wistful, retroactive vote for Gore, which is a vote for Nader Ultra Light 100s, which, following our base logic, is a vote for Bush Ultra Light 100s--i.e., Bill Clinton. Huh? Shit. Bring back monarchy!

THURSDAY, JULY 22: Gee, no wonder the swarthy bad men rammed planes into our freedom on Sept. 11. We had a "failure of imagination," we missed "operational opportunities" to thwart terror plots and encountered "legal misunderstandings" that bungled cooperation between the FBI and CIA. So said the 570-page report released by the Independent National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (pause to catch breath) Upon the United States--a report hailed as "straight-talking," "tough" and "bold"...by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, whose idea of excitement is eating Yoplait in his sweatpants. Indeed, many relatives of 9/11 victims panned the final report for shrinking from blame: "My concern is that there are people who are not competent and irresponsible who may still be in positions of authority," said one-- straight-talkingly, toughly and boldly.

FRIDAY, JULY 23: There was a tiny magical window of time in the '80s when Emmanuel Lewis was adorable, Arsenio Hall had soul, the Culture Club was edgy and Kirstie Alley of "Cheers" was hot. Alas, times change; people--as T.S. Eliot once said--get fucking fat. To wit: CNN.com reported Thursday that "Cheers," (and, more importantly, Look Who's Talking) alum Kirstie Alley will star of the upcoming Showtime program "Fat Actress," a reality-comedy series about being a sidewalk-buckling flabzilla. Strike up dat pianuh for some old-tyme sitcom ditty! "Sometimes you wanna go/ Where nobody knows your weight/ Even though you're always eating cake..."

SATURDAY, JULY 24: Revenge of the Sith--sayyyyy...that would've worked nicely as the slogan for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign, but instead it's the name of the next installment in the increasingly dim poopernova that is the Star Wars series. Thus it was revealed Saturday--by a guy in a Stormtrooper outfit making $6 an hour--at the Comic-Con International convention in San Diego. In case you don't know, the Sith are the evil guys who seduce young Ralph Skywalker to the dark side, feeding his vanity with promises of a place on the imperial ballot in crucial swing galaxies.

SUNDAY, JULY 25: "Shove it!"--sayyyyy...that would've worked nicely as an alternate slogan for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign, but instead it's the phrase Teresa Heinz Kerry, the first lady of ketchup, lobbed at a writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Image crisis! Image crisis! Do Democrats embrace it as feisty bit of tough talk, or do they lop off this vestigial flipper that harkens back to their days as primitive but gutsy Howard Dean screaming lungfish? Stay tuned!

MONDAY, JULY 26: The first night of the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Boston's Fleet Center with the usual headboard-splintering anal action you've come to expect when you get crashingly bored and bust out the $4.95 Spice Channel sex block instead (hypothetically speaking). With headliner Bill Clinton exhorting Americans to send Kerry to the White House, and female Americans to remove their shirts, opening acts included Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and some other promising local bands.

TUESDAY, JULY 27: Sit on the porch with us, sonny boy, sip some lemonade and let's reminisce about them good ol' days of the Internet IPO--those heady, millennial times of fuzz-faced dotcom entrepreneurs who--in the a short, sweet space between creating Websiteyousuddenlycan'tlivewithout.com and working swing shift at Chili's--were gazillionaires (on paper). Well, talk about a blast from the past: Search giant Google said its much-anticipated initial stock offering would generate as much as $3.3 billion, the Associated Press reported. Sob! Alas the era of laughing at dotcom paupers was all too brief.

--ANDREW KIRALY