Not Too Hard, Not Too Soft

• NFL Week 3:
• This week didn't shed much light on the murky top-middle echelon in the AFC. The Pats, Jets, Bengals, and Ravens, have all played at least one of the other three teams and all of them are 2-1. The Dolphins are probably the only of the four that hasn't put up a stinker performance at some point. We know the Steelers and Colts are very good. We know everyone in the AFC West stinks, even KC who hasn't played anyone good. Maybe Tennessee and Houston belong with the aforementioned four teams. That's pretty much your AFC picture right there.
• The NFC is just a big mess. The only team above .500 in the East is Philadelphia, but I can't imagine many people think Vick can actually lead them anywhere long-term. The Packers may be the real deal, but I don't believe in the Bears. The Saints haven't put up a great game and trail the Falcons, but Atlanta looked awful against the Steelers in Week 1. The Seahawks and Cardinals? Right.
• Pending tonight, I'll go with Indianapolis vs. Green Bay, as of right now.
• Random Pop Culture
• Mad Men: the plot of tonight's episode seemed a bit contrived. It was good -- it always is -- but the situations that Don and Joan found themselves in were a little too perfect, a minor problem that the show runs into every so often. Draper having a panic attack, as Tony Soprano a moment as the show has ever had, was maybe even more striking than the prospect that Lee Garner's withdrawal could destroy SCDP.
• After last season's The Amazing Race where each team was dumber than the last, this season's may have a couple of teams that know what they are doing. The Home Shopping ladies are really annoying, watermelon in the face or no.
• I didn't know what to expect out of the Dexter season premiere after how last season ended. I think, given that dark humor has always been first and foremost on the show, that I did not expect the premiere to be depressing. I don't know why I wouldn't have expected that. Dexter, finally having felt something for someone, had to deal with real emotion. He had to tell the kids about the death of their mother. All things that couldn't be anything but humorless. They managed to work in a little bit of that humor though, so the episode ran through a lot of different emotions. As usual, the show is only as good as Michael C. Hall's performance, and he was at the top of his game.
• Random Video:
• Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men turns 38 today. I'm still wondering who the hell Sudden Impact was.