Some quick hits:

* Apparently, if you appeared on more than one episode of The West Wing last season, you got an Emmy nod. Same seems to be the case for Six Feet Under, but not having HBO I can't confirm this.

My least favorite West Wing nom has to be Mary-Louise Parker for playing shrill feminist Amy Gardner. An annoying character, complicated by Parker still looking like the trailer park mom she played in The Client.

* Notably reduced presence for the Emmys: ER. Someone finally noticed the show is on fumes.

* Notably hackneyed presence for the Emmys: Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce. These nominations may be the only proof that Frasier is still on the air.

* Buffy continues to get snubbed in categories outside of hair, make-up, and music. I've not seen much of UPN Buffy, but I can't imagine it's that much different from WB Buffy, which was eminently nomination-worthy.

* Everyone who thought Lance Armstrong was in trouble please stand and take your catcalls. Consider that if he wasn't involved in an accident during an earlier stage, he could have retaken the yellow jersey days ago.

Lance went from about 30 seconds down to leading by just over 70 seconds. He could be up by five minutes before the weekend's out. Or he could be in a battle with a younger climber and I'll have to eat my hat.

* They key to using the "watch this auction" function on eBay is actually bidding on items before they expire. I think I miss about 80 percent of the items I've marked. Which is probably a good thing, budget-wise.

I did manage to remember today, and bid on a BU-Tufts football program (which I lost) and a game called Billionaire that I once owned as a kid. It was one of my few purchases during the year or two when my mother dragged me to a local flea market every so often (usually with a friend of hers and her son, so at least I had company most of the time).

Funny thing is my mom probably bought as much as I did at this flea market. Not that there weren't things to get; it was huge, and had some decent stuff. I think she went mostly to get more books to read at work (romance novels by the pound, basically, as they were easy to put down and pick up again when a patient at the nursing home needed help). I did get a bike there (a 10 speed, back before everyone had a mountain bike), and it wasn't bad. Of course, it got stolen, and was eventually recovered, but broken in such a way that it was of little use from then on. Thanks.

* Is it a bad sign that at the tender age of 32 I've already turned to the lottery as my main investment strategy for the golden years?

OK, "main investment strategy" is a little extreme. But we do buy a Mega Millions (nee Big Game) ticket or two every week. I know, it's a kind of regressive tax, but it's not like we blow our food money on it.

* Several Red Sox moments on the top 10 baseball fights listed on Sports Center tonight. Pedro mixing it up with the Devil Rays, Izzy Alcantera kicking the catcher, and one I had forgotten about. Aaron Sele plunked George Bell in 1993. Bell charged the mound, missing Sele with a haymaker (as White Sox fans can attest, swinging and missing was Bell's hallmark that year). Before he could regroup, Mo Vaughn dropped him with a nice block. Had be been a Patriot, he'd have gotten credit for the pancake.

* In the space of 90 minutes tonight, I saw a pug, a daschund, and a Westie out on walks (not all together). As I've said before, my male biological clock is ticking: I need to have a dog.

You can stop making that face, Sarah!