Finals week begins December 4, 2006–and last time I checked, I have a Contracts final on Wednesday and a Torts final on Friday. Of course, this means studying and reviewing and blah blah blah…but, do you know what else Finals means?

You get to play “Who’s Not Coming Back?”!!!

I love this game because I get to see who did so poorly on their Fall finals that they dropped out over Winter break. I already have dibbs on a few kids right now, so I am going to see how accurately I can predict the future members of the dead.

We should all play!

(In case you didn’t know, my entry title is a rendition of a joke I heard on “The Office.”)

Anyway, The Lion King opened at L.A.’s Pantages Theater last night and I was there! I received a notice back in May for the “secret pre-pre sale” and scored great stage-friendly tickets (meaning I was close enough to see the actors sweating.) And let me tell you: the show is fantastic. It is beautiful and amazing and innovative–if you ever find yourself in a city where The Lion King is showing, you must go–even if the only seats available are the nosebleed seats. From start to finish, it is worth every penny.

My favorite scene, and probably the scene it is most famous for, is the “Circle of Life” opening. It starts abruptly: once the theater lights go out, Rafiki starts singing the haunting first verse: Nan Ts’ngonya Ma Bakithi Baba! Everyone will go nuts. And then…THEN…the animals come out: the giraffes, the birds, the antelope, the cheetah, the elephant. And they don’t just enter the stage from the left and right sides; there were animals coming from the lobby of the theater and walking down the aisles. It was just amazing. I felt like peeing in my seat and weeping at the same time.

It was so good…there aren’t any words in the English language that can describe how great the show was. Just go see it while you still can…it is going to be here in L.A. for only 8 weeks, with the last showing being January 7, 2007.

To give Faith Hill the benefit of the doubt, it’s not as if her public display of disappointment was unwarranted. She’s been in the music business for 13 years, and had to work to get noticed–which is a lot more than Carrie Underwood can say because all she had to do was stand in line for 20-some hours and out-sing her competition.

And I’m guessing, based on the trend of how quickly top models and idols tend to disappear after they win, people who break into an industry without suffering the trials and tribulations of failure and rejection are probably looked down upon as being bottom of the Talent Food Chain.

Which would make Carrie Underwood a type of phytoplankton and Faith Hill a shark–and the phytoplankton somehow got its “hands” on a nuclear missle and killed the shark with it.

  I don’t know if any of you watch the new season of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” but I do–and I love it.

And I’m not much of a reality show-watcher because most of them–or at least the ones on basic cable–are all copies of each other: a group made up of really attractive and really ugly people, a homosexual, a religious freak, and one minority (bonus points if you can find a minority who is a homosexual or a religious freak), an unrealistic setting that breeds drama and STDs, prizes none of the contestants could afford on their own, and an elimination ceremony. Entertainment made easy—and bland.

Which is why I really enjoy shows like “Project Runway” and “Top Chef,” because those programs require contestants with specific talents to do challenges that force them to use their creativity and skills to come up with something brilliant while under strict time constraints. And when you think about it, making a couture gown in a day seems like a better use of human capabilities than running around on an island and trying to make toilet paper out of palm frawns.

But that’s not the point of this entry (didn’t you alread know a diatribe was coming?). I’m actually writing about “Top Chef’s” new host, Padma Lakshmi. She replaced last season’s host–whose name I don’t know so I call her “Wooden Person” because she clearly had no culinary background and therefore didn’t know what she was saying and came off looking like she was whittled out of a piece of bark. Good riddance.

(Today is run-on sentence day.)

Padma Lakshmi is actually a cookbook author and hosted a show on Food Network (which I remember watching back in the days). She’s also a model and actress (who isn’t?)–which is obvious because she’s beautiful.

And you know why else I like her? Because she’s married to this guy:

This is Salman Rushdie—who is 23 years older than Padma Lakshmi. Of course, right off the bad you’ll assume that he’s rich and/or has a lot of power–why else would be he able to get a beautiful model to marry him (I’m talking to you, Donald Trump)?

But surprise, surprise! Mr. Rushdie is an author. He wrote some novels, but his most famous one was “The Satanic Verses” which was apparently insulting to Islamists because of the way Muhammed was portrayed. The novel was banned in India and South Africa, and burned in England. When Muslim extremists sought to execute him, he went into hiding.

This man isn’t a bag of gold…he’s like a walking death sentence. But he got himself a model who probably could have found someone who wasn’t so controversial. And yet, she choose him…which really shows that she’s not obsessed with money and power and fame like other models tend to be. And I respect her for that.

There is someone for everyone!

Watch “Top Chef!”