Russ or Greg? Creepy, unemployed writer guy who lives in a San Francisco bath house (not really) or a guy who lives in a crappy studio apartment in Manhattan that probably still costs him $1200 a month?

Every time Trista picks Russ it makes America gag. Especially last night when she called him “Russell.”

But I know who wins! I figured it out last night. So let me share it with you.

We’re down to three guys. Russ–the creepy idiot who stands no chance of making it past next week. Charlie–the guy that ABC keeps hammering into our heads as the “one Trista’s groin is most attracted to”, and Ryan–America’s favorite. Mr. Sensitive Fireman Poet guy.

Next week we’ll down to Charlie and Ryan.

Two weeks from now we’ll be down to just Ryan. I don’t see any way that Mr. Sensitive Fireman Poet guy doesn’t win.

Let’s analyze this further.

Charlie’s too smooth, even for a dimwitted skank like Trista. I guarantee the minute she saw the head of hair on his older brother (Francis, but nobody calls him Francis or he’ll kill them) she saw her future. Now, he’s got a couple of real advantages here. He lives in LA just like she does. And she just moved and probably doesn’t want to move again. She’s also very succeptible to pressure, as we’ve learned by the fact that Russ has intimidated her into picking him four times now. Charlie is putting big time pressure on her.

Ryan’s a pretty cool dude. Despite the cheesy poetry and the white tiger sketch, he seems like the most normal guy on the show. Plus, the guy’s parents are loaded and he lives in Vail. In fact, isn’t being a fireman in Vail like the easiest job in the world?

“Yeah, we got another ski lodge fire. We’ll just let the snow melt on it. Again.”

Here’s my take on his white tiger sketch. He bought it at one of those gas station art fairs about nine years ago. And on their Shamu date she mentioned that she loved white tigers. Like any guy, he immediately remembered ‘Hey, I’ve got some ugly damned painting of a tiger. I wonder if it’s white? If it is, I’m dumping it off on her!”

I dated a girl who mentioned that she loved Ken Caminiti. So I gave her a bobblehead Ken Caminiti doll that I had and she loved me for it. I could have completed the deal by giving her my Ken Caminiti autographed crack pipe, but some things are too valuable (and useful) to give away.

I’ve got to say that five weeks of Trista have caused me to realize these things about her.

– She’s a beautiful woman. No doubt about it.
– She’s dumb as a box of hair. No doubt about that, either.
– She’s annoying as hell. What is with that little baby voice she keeps doing? Make it stop. You just know that the guy who “wins” will go to bed with sweet, hot Trista and her baby voice saying, “Make love to me like I’ve never had it before!” And you’ll wake up with, “Hey, get up you loser! Are you going to sleep all day! Pick up those underwear! It’s disgusting! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” Meanwhile her pupils have disappeared from her eyes and for the first time, you realize she’s got a mustache. Or something.

So Greg is gone, and just when I finally started to like him. Even though the motorcycle is cheesy and that song was so bad even Johnny Reznick could mock it. He seemed cool and normal and when a guy breaks out the cheesy high school (look at me, I was such a dork) photos, you know he likes you. But alas, Greg is no more.

I like what he said in the limo. “I doubt I’ll ever have another chace for Trista to get to know me.” Gee, ya think?

I didn’t catch a lot of Celebrity Mole: Hawaii last night. Now that Corbin Bernsen and Stephen Baldwin are gone, it just doesn’t do that much for me. But I did see enough to laugh uproariously at Michael Boatman in a hula skirt and a coconut bra. When asked what was burning he said, “I think it’s my career.” Nah, Mike. Arli$$ took care of that years ago.

Boatman was eliminated, leaving only Kathy Griffin, Frederique Van der Wal (or whatever) and that weird blonde kid. I still think Freddie is the Mole. I hope she is, because that means I picked it on the first show.

I also finally got to see Tuesday’s episode of Real World: Las Vegas. The gang is back at the casa du skank and Irulan was threatening to leave the show and go home because Alton did bad things to her.

What did Alton do? He apparently had sex with other women. For the first time all season I wanted to hug Steven. While the other ‘houseguests’ were sitting in silence while Irulan ranted and raved about how poorly Alton was disrespecting her by sleeping with other women, Steven said simply, “[Irulan] has a boyfriend!”

Brynn took Irulan’s side and so did Trishelle. Trishelle is merely siding with Irulan because she’s upset that Steven told her he loved her and then dumped her. She thinks Alton is doing the same thing with Irulan. But then, we already knew that Trishelle has the IQ of a spare tire.

Miraculously (wink, wink) Irulan decides to stick it out and stay on the show. (Like she was ever going to really leave.) Arissa and Alton go to a bar and Arissa sides with Alton.

Irulan and Alton are not speaking, and it’s making the rest of the houseguests uncomfortable.

Then, Alton and Irulan have a talk. It’s like every other Alton-Irulan talk ever. Irulan complains and Alton is not allowed to speak.

He denies telling Steven he had a threesome in Australia. Though he adds, “but that would have been cool as hell.”

Irulan calls her pseudo-boyfriend Gabe and tells him that things are weird with her and Alton. Gabe doesn’t seem to be too sympathetic (nor should he be). She tells him (again) that they hooked up. Gabe doesn’t seem to care. Irulan can’t figure out why. Uh…it’s because he just dumped you, you moron. Gabe finally tells her he “might” talk to her when she gets back in two months. Muahahahaha! Nicely played, Mr. Gabe.

Irulan and Alton start wrestling. Not “I want to kick your butt wrestling” but “lets have rough sex with our clothes on wrestling”. I will admit, Irulan is pretty spunky. She jumped off a bed and dropkicked Alton at one point. He picked her up and dumped her right on her head and it didn’t phase her. She kicked him, threw ice at him and he poured ice water down her back. It was actually pretty entertaining.

Eventually they ended up in the living room where they wrestled on the pool table. Irulan hit Alton with a pool cue and broke it. Oops! And then, my favorite part of the episode occurred.

Brynn comes out of her room and says, “Can you guys shut up. I’ve got people in here.”

People? Why aren’t the cameras in there? Screw the playfight. Brynn is having an orgy! Man, I hate MTV.

There was no Ed last night because NBC had some cheesy war movie on with Jeff Goldblum. My body rejects Jeff Goldblum like a bad clam, so I did not partake.

But, I did catch most of the second half of Illinois-Michigan and as bad as Illinois looked in the first half, the exhibition that Brian Cook put on for about an eight minute stretch in the second half had Danny Manning 1988 written all over it. Wow. He posted up. He drove. He nailed the three. They might as well have engraved his Big Ten Player of the Year trophy and handed it to him after the game. The Illini are now 5-2 in the Big Ten and only a game behind the 6-1 Wolverines.

Bill Self is the first coach in Big Ten history to win the conference title in his first two seasons. Anybody want to bet against him for number three?

Meanwhile, in South Bend, the Fighting Irish were batting the toothless, shoeless hillbillies from West Virgina. Yesterday, I gave you the fascinating (maybe) stat that in their last 13 games, that the Irish had been outrebounded 10 times, but were 11-2 in those games. Last night they outrebounded West Virginia 51-27. Fifty-one to twenty-seven! The Irish are 17-3 and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d like to give Mike Brey a very manly hug.

This Arizona candy bar snatching thing won’t go away. Apparently, after pantsing Kansas on Saturday, the number one team in the land looted a candy machine in their hotel. Luke Walton is now accused of being the look out in the heist. As his dad would say, “That’s TERRRR-ible. Just TERRRR-ible, Lucas!”

Lute Olson is quoted, in perfect old guy-speak as saying, “That’s hogwash.”

But the hotel manager claims that the team paid the hotel $80 for the candy.

If they didn’t steal it, why would the team have felt the need to hand the hotel manager $80 on their way out the door?

I was remiss in my Super Bowl Redux, and I promised a joke that I forgot to include. It’s crude and for those of you who live in, or love the state of Iowa, don’t take offense. You can use this joke yourselves for say the University of Wisconsin. But this is courtesy of my friend Eric, from a few years ago.

Why is the nickname of the University of Iowa the Hawkeyes?

Because sheepf@#$ers won’t fit on the football jerseys.

Classy? No?

And finally, (mock applause fills the Internet) I watched my fourth consecutive Jimmy Kimmel Live last night and he’s already down to having Adam Corolla has his top guest. They did some funny stuff though. Yesterday was Oprah’s birthday and Jimmy had his Uncle Frank pass the collection basket through the audience. They came up with nine bucks and Jimmy called the Home Shopping Network to order Oprah a gift. Jimmy had some problems with the phone and they ended up at QVC where they ordered Oprah two pairs of pants. One in size medium, one in size XXXL.

Later on, they had a lady cook on who fired up the deep fat fryer and they threw all kinds of stuff in it. They deep fried a Subway sandwich, some grapes, pizza, an audience member’s watch…

But Jimmy, who’d been doing shots of some kind of liquor (disguised in a goat’s milk carton) all night was pretty hammered by then. Jimmy’s giving off the “I’m just daring ABC to fire me” vibe.

He just might get it. But I hope not.

Somebody rattled Brian Cook’s cage at just the right time.

Herb Gould says that last night was Brian Cook’s defnining moment.

Mike Downey feels bad for the refs. Whatever.

Groucho Smith with a list of the best teams in basketball. The Bulls are on it. But they’re very low. Very.

Bill Cartwright is upset at his team. He ought to be.

The Irish hit the boards and thumped the ‘Neers.

The Sox just don’t get it. You don’t need to spend big bucks on closers. In fact, you never did.

Fred Mitchell sits down with red assed Kenny Williams.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to write a good one on Barret Robbins and how the Raiders abandoned him. It’s Bill Callahan’s fault.

Rap is angling for free drinks.

Greg Couch says that Bud’s the weasel not Pete.

The Wizard of Roz with a good one on Mike Singletary. Any column that makes Greg Blache look like an idiot is fine by me.

David Huh on Mike Brey.

A much needed look at Terry Tate: Office Linebacker.

Yeah, I still don’t feel sorry for Rick Neuheisel.

Rick Reilly enjoyed the demise of the Raiders. He’s a Broncos fan. What did you expect?

Russian lawyers are seriously going to sue because they think Dobby the elf looks like Vladimir Putin. Sweet.

Ted Casablanca with his weekly gossip. Including stuff on Joe Millionaire and Julia Roberts. Not together, though.

An intrepid reader mysteriously named only “Michael” has great stuff from The Smoking Gun on Joe Millionaire’s Sarah. And her kinky past.

EW on last night’s The Bachelorette.

Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce is coming to CBS.

Magic Johnson is coming back to TV. No!!!

Amazingly, and happily I report, Ken Tucker at EW likes Jimmy Kimmel Live!

If nothing else, OJ Simpson is the king of the damaging 911 call.

Matt Drudge is reporting that Ted Turner wants to buy back the Braves.

The world’s greatest newspaper says an Australian university is offering a degree in stripping!