Hell’s Kitchen has a new head chef.

Gone is the infamous hot-headed tyrant Gordon Ramsay and New York Magazine says Marco Pierre White, Ramsay’s former mentor turned adversary, will be taking his place.

It’s a little hard for me to believe this. No one anywhere for any reason could ever dispute White’s chops. To some he’s a legend, to the rest he’s a god. The youngest British chef ever to be awarded three Michelin stars (he was 33 at the time), White was famous for his creative genius in the kitchen but also for his quick temper.

Will we see Ramsay-redux?

Not likely, says White.

“I might be the hardest person they’ll have ever met but I’ve got a heart just as big. It’s about picking people up off the floor and inspiring them to want to carry on ’til the end.”

I would expect that Hell’s Kitchen, under White, will be more about the food and innovative techniques and classic dishes than swearing and slamming plates of food into people’s chests.

It should be noted that White’s age has brought him a fair share of mellowing at as anyone who saw his appearance on No Reservations can tell you. No less passionate about food and quality ingredients, he certainly seems a far cry from the despot that made Gordon Ramsay cry at Harvey’s, White’s first restaurant after becoming a three-star chef.

Stay tuned.

Rule #1 - WAIT UNTIL THE GAME’S OVER

A recap of the end of last night’s game between Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Texas Southern from USAToday’s SportsScope blog:

“Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s Marcelle Goins made a 40-foot three-pointer at the buzzer, sending the game against Texas Southern into overtime. Pine Bluff’s fans rushed the court even though the game wasn’t over. The refs gave Pine Bluff a technical. Texas Southern made the two free throws and went into overtime with a two-point lead.

As expected, Pine Bluff lost — by one point, 77-76.

“You can’t blame it on any one thing because we made a bushel of mistakes,” UAPB Coach Van Holt said. “But the difference in the game was the technical foul on our fans.”

Even as a student at a basketball-crazy school, I’ve always thought that allowing students to storm the court after a game or rushing the field after a football game was an awfully bad idea. Forget the safety hazards proposed by falling goalposts or hundreds of people running close together and potentially getting trampled and killed, the volatile mix of emotional, exhausted players and a rabid mob of obnoxious, sometimes drunken, students is a recipe for disaster. Think about what happens when an opposing player has had enough of a kid yelling in his face as he tries to make his way off the floor and (justifiably perhaps) slugs him and that incites a huge brawl between players, coaches and students as law enforcement officers struggle to make their way through the crowd. What college campus wants that to be the last image of their athletic tradition?

But apparently, the threat of that happening isn’t enough to stop some athletic departments from letting their students rush the court or the field after a big win. Maybe if it starts to cost them games like it did APB last night, ADs will have a change of heart on this issue. It’s a shame that the possibility of someone losing their life in such a needless fashion isn’t enough to generate nationwide reform on behalf of colleges and universities.

So thanks to my girlfriend, I’m addicted to American Idol from last season. I had never watched the show prior to last season when her and I watched and fell in love with Ray LaMontagne-singing, Jack Osborne clone Chris Sligh and now I’m hooked.

Now, I feel the need to discern between what I believe to be American Idol and the four-week whistle-stop freak show around the country where people that, you’d have to assume, realize they have no talent opt to go on national television and embarrass themselves. It’s far too mean-spirited and just not for me. I don’t start watching until the Final 24. So here we are, we saw four people go home last week and here are the four I believe will be heading back home tonight.

GUYS

This was a guy that I’d never really taken to and thought his performance last week of Three Dog Night’s “One” was alright but not attention-grabbing and his bad cover band-esque rendition of Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” will send the former boy bander back to Melbourne, Fla. Randy Jackson said he wasn’t sure that rock was Carrico’s thing even though he dresses the part. Well if rock isn’t his thing, then what is? There’s only room on this show for one corporate rocker and for now David Cook and his inexplicably cheesy hair has that distinction.

I thought Jason Yeager deserved to go home last week and had it not been for the terrible performances of Colton Berry and the elfin Garrett Haley, Yeager and that weird streak of blonde hair would have left us last week. And I think we all would have been better off. Yeager’s performance of The Doobie Brothers’ Long Train Running, in which he grinned like an idiot through the entire thing, was schmaltzy and vapid.

WARM UP THE BUS

It pains me to have to prognosticate the departure of a fellow Hoosier from the program but Menard’s looks will only get him so far in this competition because the 29-year-old from Crawfordsville just isn’t that good. I thought he deserved to go home last week and he gets up there this week and tries to do Queen? Are you serious? Thankfully Jason Yeager is boring and Robbie Carrico is a complete poser otherwise Menard would be heading home to clean carpets. I haven’t liked either of his performances and wouldn’t be disappointed if he’s sent packing a week early.

GIRLS

The worst performances on a night of poor performances (save Carly Smithsen’s pitch-perfect rendition of Heart’s Crazy on You). Forget that she almost ate it coming down the stairs, Malloy labored through Heart’s Magic Man and never found the song. It was off-key, dull and generally terrible. It was high school talent show material. The girl can do a heck of a Britney impression, she’s apparently a good opera singer but she’s a crap pop singer.

This may be wishful-thinking but I certainly think Amanda Overmyer’s Idol days are numbered. Not only did she come out last night looking like she had stuck her finger in a light socket but the DJ Tanner look-a-like completely butchered Kansas’ Carry on My Wayward Son, a song laden with instrumental breaks, as Randy pointed out. When watching this, I couldn’t help but wonder what former Kansas member and Destin resident the Rev. Dave Hope was thinking as Overmyer growled through the song’s melodies. This girl has been a one-trick pony from day one and I think last night her weaknesses really shown through.

WARM UP THE BUS

It was honestly difficult to pick the next Idol-wannabe to go home on the girls’ side after how bad everyone was last night but I think Lushington has done her best to ride the middle of the road and stay out of the cross-hairs as weaker contestants get picked off but I don’t think it’s long before America realizes that they have no idea who she is and that there’s probably a reason for that.

Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute for those of who watch The Office) was the host of the Independent Spirit Awards two weeks ago in LA, honoring the year’s achievements in Independent Film. As part of the show, Wilson shot spoof casting tapes for nominated films such as the Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There, Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Jason Reitman’s Juno, a film Wilson actually did appear in. Below is the tape made for I’m Not There and was the only video suitable for the blog but by no means the funniest. For more, check out epic movie blog /Film.

For the moment, it appears he doesn’t want to talk about it.

After starting quarterback Ryan Perrilloux was suspended a third time (in the last 10 months) and will miss all of spring practice, Les Miles has said that he will not be discussing Perrilloux and his future with the team. My take on the matter has been clear. If he wants to send a clear message to his team about off-the-field issues, he needs to dismiss Perrilloux. Period. LSU football may not be recruiting the brightest student-athletics in the SEC but I assure you they’re smart enough to see the hypocrisy in the star quarterback being given a third opportunity to NOT screw up when many on the time would be given their walking papers the first time they were involved in a bar fight or indicated in a forgery ring.

For the moment, Miles is, at the very least, non-committal on what Perrilloux’s future with the team will be. Miles told reporters today:

“I am not going to spend a lot of time thinking and talking about [Perrilloux],” said Miles at a pre-spring practice news conference Wednesday. “I am focusing on the guys who are competing for a position on this team now. I’d appreciate if you don’t ask me any more questions about him.”

When pressed by reporters for answers, Miles decided to take the always-wise approach of talking down to the media and explaining what being a head coach means.

“My discipline is about team discipline,” Miles said. “My responsibility is to the program and the team and not to the media. You guys get no vote and no say about the suspension. In time, you’ll get to know stuff.“

I’m sure that the reporters present at that press conference are comforted by the fact that eventually, if Uncle Les says it’s ok, they’ll actually “get to know stuff.” If Miles doesn’t suspend Perrilloux, he is taking an awfully big chance on a guy that is a repeat offender and has never actually been a full-time starter for any length of time in the SEC. This thing could all go horribly wrong for The Hat if he keeps Perrilloux on this team and he either plays horribly and costs LSU ballgames, if he gets in trouble again or both. For the moment, it appears that famous cap hasn’t cut of all the oxygen to Miles’ brain.

“The reality of it is [Perrilloux] is no longer part of the team [at this time]. It’s a very serious issue.”

The key phrase in that sentence may be “at this time.” While Miles refused to talk to reporters about Perrilloux at any length, he did leave the door open for the quarterback’s return to the team.

“He broke team rules, and I really don’t want to spend a lot of time thinking and talking about him,” Miles said. “His responsibility is to do everything right and get back on this team. And I’ll focus on the guys that are competing for jobs on our team currently.”

As hard as it is for me to believe, Marquis Daniels is not someone police are investigating  in connection to some criminal activity.

The Associated Press is reporting that Daniels, whose troubles with the law rival that of NFL bad boy Pac-Man Jones, is not a suspect in a rape that allegedly took place during a “small gathering” at Daniels home in the upscale Indianapolis suburb of Carmel.

I know I rail Larry Bird a lot on this blog but I think it’s worth noting that this was a guy that Pacers GM Larry Bird traded for and then stood by even after he was involved in numerous off-the-court incidents, many of which involved teammate, the oft-injured , under-producing Jamaal Tinsley. Tinsley appeared to have learned his lesson about behaving himself after his car took automatic rifle fire after an incident at an Indianapolis nightclub.

I think all Pacer fans are looking forward to the end of the Bird/Walsh regime, the rebuilding of this franchise and the return of a team that the community can be proud of because this isn’t it.

It could easily be said that 2007 was perhaps the best year in movies in a very, very long time. A year of great film and great performances like the one we’ve just had made this year’s Academy Awards, a typically overblown, self-indulgent event, an absolute must-watch. In the absence of sports of any kind, I sat down and watched every minute and came up with a high and a low of last night’s three-and-a-half hour show.

HIGH - GLEN HANSARD AND MARKETA IRGLOVA WIN FOR BEST SONG

One of the truly sweetest, most heart-warming moments you’ll ever see on any awards show. The song, which they performed last night, was far and away the best song. Haunting and beautiful, it was much better than the THREE songs nominated from Enchanted, all of which were crap, and a song from August Rush, a movie that was critically panned. They deserved to win and as John Travolta, and whatever woodland creature he skinned to adorn his presumably balding head, opened the envelope I feared the winner wouldn’t be Hansard and Irglova. But Oscar sometimes has a way of shining on the underdog. The speeches were moving and when the orchestra played Irglova off before she’d even opened her mouth (something I will get to later), host Jon Stewart did the classiest thing of the evening and ushered Irglova back onstage to give her speech as you’ll see above. The moment touched even the most cynical hearts and in a year where the pair of brothers that won for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Pictures acted like they just got free seat cushions at a baseball game, it was nice to be reminded how much these awards mean to the people receiving them.

LOW: SETH ROGAN AND JONAH HILL BOMBING

I don’t know if this bit was written for them but Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill had, hands down, the least authentic, least clever and frankly, least funny banter of the night when they argued over who was Halle Berry and who was Dame Judi Dench. As someone who likes Rogan’s work (save Superbad, which I thought was a really horrible, unfunny movie), I was frankly embarrassed for him.

Another low for me was Bill Conti’s direction of the show’s orchestra. Now, I’m not going to blame Conti for all of it because I’m sure his direction was coming from the show’s producers but I find playing people off when they are in the midst of a speech they’ve waited, literally, their entire lives to make (save Joel and Ethan Coen, apparently) completely disrespectful. The very least The Academy can do is extend the courtesy to the professionals in your own industry to let them say what they have to say and have their moment.

In all fairness, Saturday’s night game, though won by Tennessee, wasn’t a convincing case that either team, regardless of their ranking, is America’s best. Memphis lost, Tennessee won but neither is better than UNC, UCLA or maybe even Georgetown. Memphis doesn’t need to watch film of last night’s home game to figure out why they’re no longer undefeated. All they have to do is look at their coach.

It was John Calipari who told everyone with a microphone or a note pad and a pen that he didn’t care about his team’s dismal performance from the free throw line. He insisted that his team would make free throws when it counted and last night, to the surprise of no one except their coach, they didn’t.

It was John Calipari that reportedly referenced the New England Patriots’ run at perfection and wanted to emulate that attitude all while allowing himself and his players to go on television and talk about a perfect season and what it meant. He allowed himself and his players to buy into their own hype. And Saturday night it caught up to them.

While the game had no shortage of emotions and energy, it wasn’t the marquee matchup that some of us had hoped for. From beginning to end, it was sloppy and turnover-ridden on both sides. I came away from last night’s game with the knowledge that neither of these teams will be the national champion at year’s end. Both teams have glaring inadequacies that shown through last night.

Tennessee is a pretty good team from the outside. They shoot well, Chris Lofton is a pretty clutch shooter from the perimeter but the team has no inside presence and would struggle to defend teams with strong postmen like North Carolina, UCLA, Georgetown and Indiana. They don’t rebound the ball well on offense or defense and don’t take care of the ball particularly well either. That could be a problem come tournament time where teams that do the little things well are rewarded with final fours and national championships.

Memphis’ issues are well-documented. They’re a tough team in transition but they can’t outrun everybody and their achilles’ heel, regardless of what their coach believes, is their free throw shooting. The Tigers went 7-15 from the charity stripe last night, including one trip to the line late in the game where Chris Douglas-Roberts missed the front end of a huge one-and-one opportunity that may or may not have costed them the game. The Tigers are also a poor shooting team, particularly from outside, despite what the beginning of last night’s game would indicate.

Tennessee should enjoy their ranking for the time being because I don’t see them getting through the rest of the regular season unscathed, let alone the SEC tournament.

I had previously reported that Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert would be working one night in the kitchen at Les Halles in New York. Well I happened on this podcast where Bourdain interviews Ripert and it’s just about the best thing I’ve seen online since that “My New Haircut” video.

While there has been a ton of wild speculation and poor reporting by most news agencies not directly familiar with the Indiana program (Pat Forde, Andy Katz), CBS’s Gary Parrish has decided to throw his hat in the speculative ring. He is quoting sources familiar with last night’s meeting that Indiana AD Rick Greenspan had with Indiana players. Players supposedly told Greenspan that if Sampson was fired, they’d walk too. Those players, reportedly, included Eric Gordon, D.J. White, Super Walk-On Kyle Taber and Lance Stemler.

“According to the sources, after Greenspan informed five selected players — namely D.J. White, Eric Gordon, Kyle Taber, Lance Stemler and Adam Ahlfeld — of his decision to replace Sampson he called a meeting with the entire team in an attempt to “prepare” them for Friday’s official announcement that Sampson would either be suspended or terminated in time for the Hoosiers’ weekend game at Northwestern. But before Greenspan finished his speech, the sources said an unidentified player stood up and insisted “if Sampson ain’t coaching, we ain’t playing.”

According to Parrish’s story, Greenspan rhetorically asked if he should just cancel the whole season and the player reportedly told the AD “We don’t care what you do. But if Sampson ain’t coaching, we ain’t playing.’ And then they just walked out.”

If this is true, I commend the players for doing what they believe to be right while all of the adults around them try to figure out how not to get hit by the shrapnel. I don’t think any of them would actually go through with it, save maybe Eric Gordon who is going to the NBA next year anyway. Could this be a Jimmy Chitwood/Norman Dale type of situation? “I play, coach stays. If he goes, I go.”

We’ll see what Greenspan has to say at a 2 p.m. ET press conference that has been scheduled at Assembly Hall.