-They have a “big wedding”. These are always dull and maudlin and appeal to middle aged women who sit around in their living rooms, alone, wearing their old wedding gowns (or possibly one they bought at a thrift store). The show will corner this very important demographic and might even get renewed. Of course, it only works once and only with main characters.

-The main character leaves. Remember the guy who replaced Topher Grace on That 70s Show? No? Neither does anyone else.

-They introduce a baby. Even shows that are still good sometimes do this as they feel the icy claw of cancellation. Remember way back in the days of yore to the one-joke show, Mork & Mindy? (“Nanu, nanu!” isn’t that HILARIOUS…man and people say TV sucks NOW). They introduced Jonathan Winters as Robin Williams’ baby. At least there was some sort of comedic karma in Robin William’s helping Winters get a job.. Usually it is just a pair of twins (child labor laws) for those same, barren, lonely, crazy cat-women to “coo, coo” over for a few episodes. Still, show is usually canceled within the year.

-Character moves to a new city, gets a new job or a completely new set of friends. It happens a lot in real life but when it happens on a sitcom? It is over.

-They bring in an aging star to bolster the cast. Eric Idle was on Suddenly Susan. Now I am actually FOR this theoretically. I would love to see Mickey Rourke added to the cast of  Two and a Half Men, for instance. Or, perhaps, Rutger Hauer to the cast of Parks & Recreation.

-Someone sees and communicates with a “ghost” on a show that has never had any supernatural plot in its history.

-Characters, who have been on the show for years, and had nothing to do with one another are suddenly in bed. Before they added that anonymous guy who replaced Topher Grace (who is pretty good in Predators by the way), That 70s Show had the cute dark haired girl date everyone except Tommy Chong.

-Guest stars, complete with colostomy bags and liver spots, begin to appear who last worked on Fantasy Island or The Love Boat. I suspect this usually indicates some aging Hollywood money-man is giving his old friends last ditch jobs.

-An actor who died on the show returns as a long lost brother, cousin or clone.

-Someone wakes up and determines inconvenient or convoluted plot developments were actually “a dream.”

-The show is moved to the old Walker Texas Ranger slot. Then the show is moved to Sunday and the old  Punky Brewster spot. The next appearance will be at 1:30 a.m. after old MASH reruns.

KANPE, a new Haitian relief organization, are getting a hand from Arcade Fire. The band will donate match donations up to $1,000,000. All you need to do is text STAND to 30333.

Kanpe's partners include Partners in Health and micro-credit organization Fonkoze. Your $5 donation turns out being $10. Not usual for me to write something serious here...but...it happens.

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When I heard the Russians were spying on the USA again I not only had a warm, fuzzy feeling of nostalgia; I also felt relief.  I mean, the USA is still worth spying on!

Back in the OLD days even our friends spied on us. And, don’t get me wrong, friend or not, if you get caught spying  you should go to jail. The government seems to concur (ask Jonathan Pollard about it if you don’t believe me).  But then I noticed that these people were not being accused of being “SPIES” per se. The breathless news coverage would indicate otherwise and I first saw this on Univision so combine my abysmal Spanish with that network’s tendency toward dramatics and I thought Kim Philby had risen from the grave.

These people are accused of being “unregistered foreign agents”. Hell, BILLY CARTER was accused of that.  SO what is going on here?

Upon further (English language) investigation I noticed where these spies lived and who they were connected to. Then it all began to fall into place. Below I have compiled a likely list of aims and targets.

-Suburban yuppie spies? This must indicate the Russians are interested in the location of every Pottery Barn in the Eastern USA.

-Vladimir Putin really wanted the new iPhone early.

-Apparently, this group of super-spies were attempting to infiltrate another important U.S. network—LinkedIn (has ANYONE ever actually made a connection on LinkedIn? Wonder why not? Russian spies.).

-Gathering all the information they can to stop opening of Moscow Walmart.

-Not really spies but rather scouts for the new New Jersey Nets’ owner Mikhail Prokhorov. I am sure it has something to do with Lebron .

- Or maybe Dmitry Medvedev wants to buy the Knicks after Putin becomes president again.

-Once I saw that NJ Transit buses 11, 28, 29, 34, 97, 191 and 705 all ran through Montclair I realized one of the agents was trying to bring the all the Buses in New Jersey to a halt paralyzing commerce in the mid-Atlantic.

-Knew that planting a left-leaning Peruvian journalist in the USA would lead to immediate access to secret Pentagon documents.

-New York area provides access to the minds behind the U.S. economy which is the envy of the world, or at least of the world’s bookies.

-Nefarious plot to disrupt Nathan's hot dog eating contest.