NBC 's Late Night Fiasco...

Jay Leno's low ratings are causing NBC big trouble. And finally, it seems that the network is bowing to serious pressure from station affiliates. NBC says its retooling its late-night lineup, Leno's show is going on hiatus until after NBC's coverage of the Olympics.

Another scenario under discussion is to give the 10 p.m. hour back to the stations for news while shifting the rest of the late-night lineup. NBC affiliates could have the 10 o’clock hour, followed by Leno at 11 p.m. and "The Tonight Show" host Conan O’Brien at midnight.

Yet another option would be to cut Leno’s show to a half-hour so that the affiliates could run their news at 10 p.m. and Leno could air from 11 p.m. to 11:30pm -- the rest of the lineup would remain unchanged.

NBC maintains that Leno’s show, which has appeared each weeknight at 10 p.m. since last fall, is generating ratings that are in line with what it guaranteed advertisers. But the show has proven to be a dismal lead-in for the late local news .

NBC affiliate stations have become more vocal in expressing their displeasure, especially after the November sweeps came back and showed huge declines for a number of stations at the 11 p.m. hour.

By trying to keep all of its late-night stars happy, NBC has made none happy. Conan O'Brien has to be upset here. There's no easy solution for NBC. Does it cut ties with Jay and admits it made a huge mistake? Or does it tinker with its flagship Tonight Show, moving it to midnight? Very strange.

As Leno (and Letterman and Conan) have stated previously: NBC stands for "Never Believe Your Contract."

What a mess.

The Big Unit Retires...

His nickname is the Big Unit, but a more apt name for Randy Johnson could have been Freak of Nature. A lefty, Johnson stood 6 feet 10 inches tall. Yankee fans will not soon forget how the Unit twice came out of the bullpen in 1995 (for Seattle) and 2001(for Arizona) to slam the door shut on the Yankees. A few years later, an aging Randy Johnson eventually came to the Yankees winning 34 games in two seasons. However, as his 5.00 ERA shows, the Unit was more the beneficiary of a good offense than a shut down, strikeout artist the team wanted.

Johnson is a legitimate Hall-of-Famer and probably one of the last to win 300 games in our generation. He not only authored a perfect game at age 40, he helped Seattle reach the playoffs in 1995 by going an amazing 18 and 2.

I like Johnson not because of his baseball ability but because he's one of the few people to have worse acne than former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. Is it only me or does anyone else get the feeling that if the Unit were not pitching he'd be starring in a Cops episode from Seattle.

I'm back in 2010

So 2010 is here. With apologies to SI's Peter King, here are some things I think I think.

For starters, some people have chastised me for not updating the blog on a more regular basis. I have one rule: I rule the blog, the blog doesn't rule me. The blogosphere doesn't need one more voice railing about Tiger. Although I raised more than eyebrow when I saw the comments of golfer Jesper Parnevik, the guy who introduced Elin to Tiger. "We thought Tiger was a better guy...The next time she should hit him with a 3-Iron."

10.) Now that Copenhagen has come and gone, I wonder: Are we passed the point of no-return for climate change? Scientists a lot smarter than I say that at the current rate, Minnesota will have the climate of Texas sooner than we think.

9.) From the 'legend is always better' file: The return of Bret Hart to the WWE last night revealed the years have not been kind to the Excellence of Execution. It's doubtful Hart could even be a mid-carder now.

8.) The Dallas Cowboys, although playing at home playoff game against Philly Saturday night, look to be in trouble. It's 2007 all over again. Remember? Dallas beat the Giants twice during the regular season but lost as the Giants began their Super Bowl run.

7.) Not that I watched all the coverage but thankfully I missed perennial camera hog Dick Clark on New Year's Eve...Just because he owns the show, doesn't give Clark the right to creep people out. It's New Year's Eve for God's sake, no one wants to see him warble out one more missive to keep some dopey streak alive. Hopefully someone close to Clark has spelled it out for him.

6.) Me in my element: Grand Central Station on 1/2/10...I did about 60 seconds of improv comedy and made about 20 women laugh while waiting in line for the toilet. As my friend Tommy would say, "the fire still burns."

5.) The baseball network is the best thing to happen to television since the founding of ESPN in 1979.

4.) Don't look now, but among other things, your credit card company is looking to charge you an inactivity fee if you don't use your plastic often enough. Priceless. Where's the outrage from Sens. Chris Dodd and Charles Schumer? Exactly.

3.) Not that I'm counting but it seems the BHO Administration is on a Bush-like slump...Between the embarrasing gaffes, security leaks and misintelligence, you wonder who's pulling the strings over there. Time for the Messiah to step up. Campaign's over dude. Quit the interviews and speeches. Time to govern.

2.) Does it make me a bad person to chalk up the death of Bengals wide receiver/All-Pro thug Chris Henry as thinning of the herd? The Man Upstairs has a way of evening the teams, doesn't he? Besides being an arch criminal, Henry was an unreliable fantasy player....

1.) Between the Winter Classic and the Olympics, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has all the momentum to market the NHL...What makes me think he'll bungle it like Fredo Corleone?

Lastly...Let's cut the shit: It's pronounced 'Twenty-Ten'. Can we get on with it now?