Note: VM was also pre-empted last week, but as UPN was still re-running the episode on Wednesday, it was not that big a deal.  Still, having to stay away from the TWoP recaplet for a whole day was awful.  This week there’s no repeat until Sunday evening – I am subsequently going to go insane trying to avoid any discussion of what happens. 

Note 2: Obviously, I am not actually going to go insane.  Obviously, I already am insane.

• The New Jersey Nets.  Because it’s their stupid playoff game, which I now hope they lose. By a large margin.  With an ankle injury to Vince Carter.
• The NBA.  What happened to playing the games only on the weekends because the TV ratings were better?  What, now you’re going to listen to all the whiners who say that takes too long?  Also, congratulations on making me hate a sports playoff event for the first time in my life.
• TNT/ABC.  The only reason UPN can get broadcast rights is because TNT has the rights to this game.  Can anyone name a show on ABC on Tuesday nights?  Anyone?  Why can’t we pre-empt one of those instead?
• George Steinbrenner.  This sounds out there, I know, but I have a suspicion that the reason channel 9 was chosen to show the local broadcast of the Nets game is because they are also the local broadcast affiliate of the Yankees. And because I love to blame him for stuff almost as much as I love to blame:
• Rupert Murdoch.  Whose company owns this particular affiliate, resulting in Channel 9 being left out in the upcoming CW merger (the Time Warner owned WB 11 is getting the NYC CW feed), and who, as a result is not exactly discouraging any bumping of regular UPN programming within the boundaries of the current contract. (Which is probably also why they aren’t going to just run the episode after the game, like other stations have done). 
• Time Warner and Viacom.  Who are responsible for the CW merger, leading to the situation described above.
• The Universe.  Because it obviously hates me.

At least I get to watch Scrubs this week.