* I just got around to renting, and watching, Academy Award Best Picture winner “No Country For Old Men.” I want my money back – and the two hours I wasted watching this snoozefest.

* I see Dale Petroskey has been dismissed as president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The reasons for his departure are unclear, but I couldn't be happier that he's gone. This is the guy, you might remember, who canceled the Hall’s 15th anniversary celebration for the baseball movie “Bull Durham” in April 2003 because he was afraid two of the film’s stars – Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon – would use the event to voice their well-known opposition to President Bush and the just-begun Iraq war. I have no tolerance for people who take actions that stifle free speech, and the Hall shouldn’t have waited this long to show Petroskey the door.

* The entertainment media and blogosphere have been buzzing this week about how good Britney Spears was in her guest appearance on Monday night’s installment of the CBS comedy “How I Met Your Mother.” I was among the viewers, and I was thoroughly unimpressed with Spears’ performance. She played a ditzy blonde who hit on one of the show's male characters and then offered to sleep with one of the others. That was acting? It seemed she was just playing herself.

* Bad night on Tuesday for two western New York sports teams, both of which I root for. The Syracuse University men’s basketball squad, playing in the quarterfinals of the NIT, blew a 22-point second-half lead and lost 81-77 to the University of Massachusetts. And the Buffalo Sabres, pretty much needing to win every remaining game to reach the NHL playoffs, gave up five goals in the final 7:40 of the third period and lost 6-3 to the Ottawa Senators after building a seemingly safe 3-1 lead. As my friend and fellow Sabres fan Kevin likes to say: “They’re done.”