My addendum to this is that the "Deflator" text and the related ESPN joke apparently predate the 16 psi ball. That does seem more damning, and I am sorry that I overlooked it before. But it still is incredible that a referee allowed 16 psi balls to be used in a game, and it remains possible that it had happened…

As far as I can tell, Brady was given an illegal ludicrously heavy (16.0 psi) ball in the Jets game and afterwards told his underlings, "Make sure these balls are lighter in the future." I don't think he was a Boy Scout saying "Lighter - but of course above 12.5," but nor do I think he was a mustache-twirler saying…

The most interesting yet overlooked part of the report is that referees in the Patriots-Jets game apparently allowed a 16.0 psi ball (2.5 over the limit) in play. That seems pretty incompetent to me, unless really no one cared about the rule before January.

Honestly, once I figured out what was going on, the awfulness of the art (especially Calvin's always-open mouth) did make me laugh. But it still isn't a newsworthy story.

I know this is a month late, but in case you ever see this: I actually knew one of the accused afterwards. He was pretty harmless (granted his personality might have changed after such a traumatic experience) and also had left the party early on the night in question (as did one of the other accused as well). …

I think she actually hates spoons.

St. Paul was converted on the road to Damascus; Don Draper will be converted on the road to St. Paul. I doubt if that will really happen, though.

It means well but never quite pulls it off. It gets worse as it goes along, I think.

I have sympathy with both points of view here, but I think it may be worth noting that the entire modern idea of canon ultimately traces back to a spoof essay arguing that Sherlock Holmes never came back from the dead and Watson made up the subsequent stories: https://www.lib.umn.edu/pdf…

I actually am curious to see this. The most-watched TV program of all time is an important thing, whether it was any good or not.

I think a more straightforward interpretation, based on the previously line of "I nearly made it," is that Rita turns out to have a couple of kid sisters and that the protagonist and Rita end up on the couch with the sisters watching television instead of having sexy time.

That fellow at Radio Shack told me I was mad - well, who's mad now?

When I was a dorky pre-Internet kid who got most of my information about the world from Time, Corliss was probably the first movie critic I ever heard of, even before Siskel and Ebert.

Believe it or not? I never had any illusions otherwise.

Actually I think makeup was considered vaguely scandalous in some circles until about the 1920s.

OK, so it started the exact moment my age hit double digits! (Or thereabouts.)

Well, those works would be far beyond the abilities of any real eleven year old other than Mozart and Stevie Wonder, but I think this show is in the Peanuts/Calvin and Hobbes/The Simpsons tradition in which the kids sometimes act their age but at other times have the intelligence or abilities of someone several years…

I don't think there were many parodies at all when I was a kid, outside of your immortal Monsterpiece Theater and a few song parodies such as "Letter B." I don't remember any parodies of the likes of Cheers or E.T. (although the latter is already based on two letters - a parody almost writes itself!).

Oh, I admit that it can be disputed; there are indeed many great side characters. But almost everything Teddy says makes me laugh.

True, true, that is a close call.