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Hey, I’ll gladly pay a $1.00 more on two things of milk if I get to listen to Spoon while I do it.

The Chicago Bulls find themselves in a very peculiar situation this morning.

Bulls GM John Paxson is faced with this question do you essentially trade away all your young talent from a team that went to the playoffs last year for the best player in the world?

Of course there’s a little more to it than that. Any trade, one could presume, that would involve Kobe Bryant going to Chicago would have to include Luol Deng. As the Lakers aren’t likely to see the value in acquiring Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah and Ben Gordon, giving they are sending the best player on the planet to the Windy City in exchange. It gets even more complicated when you consider that Bryant is the only player in the league with a no-trade clause in his contract and he has made it known that he wants to play with Luol Deng and likely wouldn’t accept a trade to Chicago if Deng is involved going the other way.

I’m not going to say this deal is dead in the water because the Lakers front office has been known to do some colossally stupid things (trading Shaq comes to mind) but they are faced with the reality that Kobe can, and most likely will, opt out of this contract in a year, leaving the Lakers with nothing.

But that can’t enter into the decision-making for Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak. He has to try to win now and trading the best player in the league for the 2005 College All-American team is an awful, terrible idea, regardless of what happens in a year.

Am I convinced this trade won’t happen? No. Do I think that Kupchak is desperate enough to pull the trigger and forgo a season of Kobe and Phil sniping at each other in the papers? Yes.

In the words of the famous (and Western New York’s own) Nick Bakay: Push.

Both of this guys have a shtick that we’ve seen before. It’s nothing new here folks. You know what you’re getting with DP. You’re getting his heterosexual lifemate Keith Olbermann, you’re getting the widow’s peak, the weekly Reggie Miller appearances on the radio show, the daily Adam Sandler name-drops and of course, his trademark, suffocating smarm. Ditto for “Riles,” as he was called by Patrick when he used to appear on Patrick’s radio show. You’re getting an occasionally clever column, some cliché pop culture references, favorite targets include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, some golf columns and the Albom-esque tearjerker usually involving parents of kids who have killed themselves, died in car accidents and/or donated organs to thankful now-living folks wracked with guilt. I’ve seen it before. None of it’s clever, none of its new and none of it is noteworthy.

The real question though is what will fill the backpages of two, seemingly rival but completely different sports publications. I speak, of course, of Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine. I’m hoping, as a subscriber, that SI opts to groom a young columnist and give him a chance to shine or lure George F. Will away from Newsweek and write some heady, statistic-laden baseball columns that no one not wearing a bow tie can understand. I hope they don’t consider publishing some version of the dopey, Dan Patrick “outtakes” that formerly ran in ESPN: The Mag. Let’s see some originality from the most authoritative sports publication in the country. SI is the Time Magazine of sports and now that it’s tricky pony has jumped ship for the Worldwide Leader, the magazine will be left with a very interesting choice.

1. Radiohead - High and Dry - The Bends 

2. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - Give Up

3. Ben Folds Five - Evaporated - Whatever and Ever Amen

4. Josh Ritter - Still Beating - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter 

5. Jay-Z - Song Cry - MTV Unplugged 

1. Death Cab for Cutie - Why You’d Want to Live Here? - The John Byrd EP

2. We Are Scientists - Worth the Wait - With Love and Squalor

3. Ray LaMontagne - Jolene - Trouble

4. Belle and Sebastian - I’m a Cuckoo - Dear Catastrophe Waitress

5. Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry on Their Own - Back in Black

First of all, let me say that I love television. Not as much as I love sports but I am a shameless television junkie and the addition of a TiVo to my life hasn’t helped to curb my addiction any.

After a recommendation from the guys on the Totally Radio Show (http://www.totallyradshow.com), I decided to give the new ABC show Pushing Daisies a try. Let me start by saying that I love this show but have real serious problems with. The reason I bring this up is because the third episode of the season is on tonight (unfortunately the same time as the endlessly-entertaining Kid Nation) and in the absence of any sports of import or Top Chef, it is something that I think is well worth an hour of your time.

The premise of the show is great. The show’s protagonist Ned (played subtly and masterfully by Lee Pace) has an ability that allows him to bring people back to life with a simple touch but the catch is that the person can only be alive for a minute and if he doesn’t kill them again with his touch then someone else must die to take his place. The show is very well-written, clever and has a very whimsical, fairy tale feeling that makes watching it a real delight.

The show’s supporting cast, Kristin Chenoweth, Chi McBride and Anna Friel are all really great and the show would be hands-down one of my favorite shows on television if not for the show’s blood-sucking, trite narrative voice-over. The voiceover is so on-the-nose and obvious that it really gives things away that should be left to the viewer’s imagination. It has the opposite of the problem that I have with another of my favorite shows, Lost. With Lost, the writers don’t tell you anything and make you figure out everything on your own. Not so, with Pushing Daisies. I really want the show to let me figure some things out for myself but the over-indulgent voiceover really prohibits that entirely.  It’s terrible. Really, truly, terrible and the show would do well to get rid of it altogether.

While I love this show, I really wonder if its premise lends itself to a long life on the air. I think the story’s underlying plot points really restrict it in a way that will make it very difficult for me to continue to love and be amused by this show. I guess I’ll just enjoy it while it lasts.