Bloggers elsewhere aren't so fortunate as I........

- It’s over. The end has come and gone for The O.C., FOX’s four-year whirlwind of a drama that unfortunately was never designed to have a decade-long, Seinfeld-ian run. That’s what I came to realize well before FOX announced the end of the show. There was just too much action and too fast a pace to endure over a long period of time in an era where many good shows (personal faves Ed and Everwood as prominent examples) only last four years or so. I vacillated back and forth on The O.C. ending, from being sad and not wanting it to go to just figuring that if it was destined to end soon, then good riddance. Ultimately, I’m sad that it’s gone and I feel like it got gipped, mostly because all of the “new” midseason replacement shows FOX is previewing look like they’re going to suck almost as much as a collaboration album between the Black Eyed Peas, the Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears Milli Vanilli would. The finale was good, it left all of the characters on positive terms, which most every show does. I did find it odd that they chose the final five minutes to make a leap forward in time and show us Seth and Summer getting married and Ryan as a professional engineer (yet not do a few minutes of makeup work to help him at least look a little older than the scenes a few minutes prior where he’s supposed to be 19 years old). But overall it was a good finale, plenty of laughs and nostalgia. Best part for me, without question, was Ryan walking through the old, now destroyed-by-earthquake Cohen house and having all of those flashbacks to earlier seasons, especially he and Sandy pulling out of the driveway and passing Marissa (Mischa Barton), which was a hugely popular and memorable scene from the very first episode. In the end, I have a feeling that TV will be worse off for not having The O.C. and I’ll be missing it every Thursday night.

- My brief (and I do mean brief, no need to waste lots of time on this) analysis of the Britney Spears-K Dirt custody battle/soap opera: this is what happens when white trash becomes wealthy and famous. Still white trash, only difference is we all know about their lives.

- Every Major Leaguer has personal business to clear up before reporting to spring training. Some have vacations to take, other have charity work to do, and then there’s Manny Ramirez and Juan Uribe. These two have slightly different things to attend to before they can begin their seasons, although Uribe seems to be a lot closer to being ready. ManRam, as Manny is affectionately known, claimed he would report on March 1, weeks after players were supposed to be in camp and two days after the official MLB deadline. His reasoning: his mother had surgery and he needed to stay in the Dominican Republic with her. A good reason, right up to the point it was revealed that ManRam was scheduled to appear this weekend at a classic car auction here in the U.S. Great move, ManRam, caring for your ill mother or selling your ’69 Lincoln at a car show, pretty much the same thing, easy to see how that could get mixed up. Uribe, on the other hand, was cleared of any wrongdoing in a shooting case in the Dominican in which two men were shot and seriously wounded. Uribe had been under orders to appear in court twice a month for the case and feared it would negatively affect his season with the White Sox, but he’s now in the clear, although his brother and a close friend are still suspects. Gotta be nice not to have the prospect of a shooting case lingering over your head as you begin a new season, eh Juan?

- Ah, those crazy kids and their rap music. Normally damage from loud hip hop and rap is limited to offending the ear drums of old people or just anyone over the age of 40. This time, though, some creative pranksters in Santa Fe, N.M. caused more than a little bit of trouble when they hid three portable CD players blaring loud music which contained sexually explicit lyrics under the pews in St. Francis of Assisi Church. The bomb squad was called in right in the middle of Ash Wednesday Mass and actually detonated two of the devices, which I have to admit it confusing and a little drastic. After all, if you don’t like rap music, just press the stop button or take the CD out, you don’t need to blow it up, gosh. Seriously, though, how does anyone surmise that a CD player that is actually playing music is also a bomb? Maybe I missed the declaration of the Santa Fe bomb squad motto, “Blow things up first, ask questions later.” Well done, guys, well done.

- If this were Egypt…..I would probably be in prison with a life sentence. This is based on news that a 22-year-old blogger there was sentenced to prison for criticizing Islam and Egypt’s president in his blog. Granted, this unidentified guy only got four years, but when you take well-merited shots at your own Moron in Chief every day, well, I’d be looking at a life sentence with no possibility of parole. But as much as anyone can criticize America, one thing is for sure: when our leaders act like ass hats, we can rip them as much as we want without fear of imprisonment, and that’s a very good thing.

- I hate most seafood, so I can’t say I’m too enthused about the 992 pound squid caught earlier this week in the Ross Sea off the coast of Antarctica. The New Zealander who caught the giant sea creature can have calamari for many weeks to come, but a nearly half-ton slimy sea animal is something that I’ll elect to stay far, far away from.