Thanks to the beauty of TiVo, I got a second look at the new espn2 morning show, Cold Pizza last night. A few of my observations were likely clouded by the fact that at 6:30 in the morning, I can’t see a damn thing. So, I need to revisit a few things.

Host Jay Crawford’s teeth? Still huge.

Hostess Kit Hoover? The last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it.

My mornings just got less perkier.

She’s just not as cute as I thought. Maybe, given the fact that when I do watch the show (or if), I’ll be suffering my normal morning blindness, this won’t bother me. But the bad haircut and the huge mouth, plus her startling propensity (at least she did it again today) to wear TV colorbar charts for clothes had me looking for the “rubbed Vaseline on the camera lens” muted shadings of Good Morning America and Diane Sawyer.

Maybe that’s Cold Pizza’s problem, the lighting is too good and the camera is too sharp. Let’s just say HDTV won’t be too kind to Kit.

They had a segment on this morning from the original Mel’s Diner in LA, featuring Sports Guy Bill Simmons, Jimmy Kimmel’s cousin Sal, a funny guy and a creepy reddish-blonde guy who sat with his arm around Bill. I like the idea for the segment. The execution so far? I’m in favor of it.

Today’s was on Bill Parcells and how much credit he deserves for getting the Cowboys to 5-1. There’s not a whole lot you can do to make that funny is there?

Sure there is. Make fun of the fact Parcells pulls his pants up to his nipples. Make fun of the fact that with his weird blonde hair and pancake makeup he looks like Bea Arthur with a clipboard. Make fun of the fact that his front eight top teeth are so capped and so white that he was a stunt double for Seabiscuit. It’s just not that hard.

They did rip on Dave Campo pretty hard, which is always enjoyable. My god, if Bilbo Campo was that strange and unfunny when the cameras were on, imagine how bad he was when he wasn’t trying to “pretend he was cool” on HBO’s Hard Knocks last year.

Oh, and TiVo is still upset that NBA-TV (NBA.com TV or whatever the hell it is) pre-empted back-to-back episodes of the Denver Nuggets Training Camp documentary to show three guys bragging about their fantasy hoops draft. The only thing worse than listening to somebody talk about how great their fantasy basketball team is, is having to watch them do it on TV.

Meanwhile, on NBC, we sat through the worst episode of “Ed” in a year and a half. Granted the worst episode of that show is better than a highlights package of “According to Jim”, but it was painful. When the writing’s good, that show is very funny. When it’s bad…blecch.

And, The West Wing is proving that unless some terrorists from a made up country are kidnapping the slutty daughter of the president, the show still needs to look back to see the shark it jumped over.

This morning on Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer took her vaseline blurred camera to the home of Amy Yasbeck, the kinda pretty redheaded widow of John Ritter. I know that women eat this stuff up, but trying to gag down a frozen Pop Tart (the only way to eat the fudge ones–mmm) while a woman blubbered about trying to explain to her five year old daughter that daddy’s heart blew up and he won’t be coming home, is not how I want to start the day.

Maybe Kit’s not so bad after all.

Sports Illustrated’s NBA Preview issue is out and I love that they’re still using the ambiguous quotes from their “NBA Scouts.” Scout is kind of a broad term isn’t it? Like Lillian from Survivor, she was a Scout Leader, did that qualify her to comment on LeBron’s inability to hit a 12 foot jumper?


LeBron doesn’t get good rotation on his shots. Until he does that, he’ll be a streaky shooter. He also doesn’t execute the carriage knot very well, they’re never tight enough and often cause the tent to fall over on the rest of his troop.

Huh?

But really, do we think that SI is out there combing the nation looking for NBA scouts to comment on this stuff? Hell no. They had some unpaid intern from NYU write them up during his “free time” this summer between running out to Chipolte to get them lunch and trying to clean out a Jergens gum-up on Stewey’s laptop.

Eww.

In fact, if you read the Sacramento Kings one, you can see that the intern hid a message to his ex-girlfriend in the text.

They’re going to miss Hedo Turkoglu, for my money they didn’t use him enough last year. Jim Jackson had a good year, but his knees are getting any younger. I hate you Jessica, I hope that investment banker you’re with now gives you the clapp. I like Lawrence Funderburke’s game..actually I just like to say Funderburke. I’m saying it now.

How does that get past the editors?

I have no idea.

As you have noticed, Desipio has a new look. Basically, we just wanted to brighten the place up. And since Google gave me $100 million, I thought I should put their logo on the front page.

OK, fine, they didn’t give me squat, OK. And yes, that Google search thing was in the spot yesterday morning before we changed the look. It just kind of stands out more. But, I hope the new design is cleaner and easier to read. You can also access our archived stuff the same way you used to, by clicking on “Desipio Archives” on the left side menu (clever, huh?) or see just those written by the columnists by picking one our names on that same list.

So don’t say I never gave you nuthin’. I gave you this. Yeah, it’s pretty much nuthin’.

The Bulls aren’t all injured. Though, add Eddie Robinson to the list of walking wounded. Last night he slipped and strained a corn row.

Kirk Hinrich’s had the flu for five days? Yikes. It’s either ebola or he needs to sack it up.

Greg Blache says he likes it when his players complain about the officiating. Hey, that’s…great?

Dick Jauron said he benched Kordell because he was not playing well, not because of his injury. Kordell met with Dick for 90 minutes yesterday and then came out saying that the only reason he’s not starting is because he’s hurt. What part of, “Kordell, you suck and that’s why you’re not playing,” does Kordell not understand?

What’s more amazing, the list of guys with injury, or that Chris Chandler’s not on it yet?

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to call Roger Clemens a class act. What is in those doughnuts? Some sort of ‘shroom?

Paxson has talked about trading for Tyrone Hill. Tyrone Hill? What? Huh? Isn’t it time to re-sign Brian Skinner and cut him, again?

That’s like the talk of trading for Othella Harrington. Look, if you want an undersized, ineffective forward, I’ll do it for a million bucks. I’ll even bring my own shoes.

Somewhere, Fuzzy Zoeller just winced.

Interim Commissioner of Baseball For Life Bud Selig called Steve Bartman to console him, but when somebody showed him the ratings for the first three games of a Cub-less World Series, Bud called Bartman a douche bag.

Joe Montana stopped by practice last week to talk to Brady Quinn. Yeah, just another boring day in the life of a Notre Dame quarterback.

Herb Gould gets and ESPN.com check and says Ron Turner is safe. He ought to be.

Grady Little’s not sure he wants to go back to Boston. That’s cute. Like it’s going to be his decision or something.

Is Alex Gonzalez the worst player to ever win a World Series game with a homer? Did you see the homer? He hit it to the shortest part of the park and it scraped the back of the way. Cheap. But it counts.

Ahh, the WAC, it’s getting bigger and more mediocre by the moment.

Jake pointed this out. If you buy a full season ticket package to see the Brewers next season, and pay by December 15, you get to take batting practice in Miller Park. I think that’s how Brooks Kieshnick made the team last year.

Some London kids took Viagra on their lunchbreak. That’s pretty sad if 12 year olds can’t get it up. Well, they are British, I suppose.

Jim Carrey is going to spoof Steve Austin in “The Six Billion Dollar Man.”

Liza Minelli tells Cindy Adams (there’s a conversation for you) that David Gest was a Svengali. I believe the word Liza meant to use was “homosexual.”

A Ball State student shaved her head and pretended to have cancer in an effort to have people give her money. That’s quite the little fundraiser.

The Virgin Mary tour has made a stop in Passaic, New Jersey.

Shannen Doherty is in the December Playboy. Do we even want to see that?

America’s finest news source with the story of the CIA-leak scapegoat. I’ll bet it was Steve Bartman.