Maybe you're excited about this AOL / Time Warner thing, but frankly, it scares me out of my pants. Reason: "You've Got Mail 2" and 3, 4, 5, 6. There's no stopping these guys, now that they're drinking from the same cooler. When Ted Turner's head is the sanest in a particular bunch, you know you're in for some real trouble.
 

Are commercials the best thing on broadcast television? Let me put it to you this way: when's the last time you picked up a catch phrase the equal of "Great Googily-Moogily" from the MacNeil/Lehrer Report? How about the last time "3rd Rock from the Sun" delivered a gut-busting zinger on the order of "Make 7-Up Yours?" Commercials are - especially now - the proving ground for hotshot young directors: David "Fight Club" Fincher, Doug "Swingers" Liman and Michael "I'm whoring for Jerry Bruckheimer" Bay have all Gone Commercial, and will probably go again. Wanna know why? Visit Ad Critic, a terrific site featuring hundreds of recent and classic commercials in one sprawling gallery, and you'll be sold in short order. Forget television -- there are better movies here than at your local multiplex: as a "guy comedy," Budweiser's "Whazzup" spot wallops the hell out of "Deuce Bigalow," Apple's "1984" spot is still the best thing Ridley Scott's done since "Blade Runner" and Nike's "Y2K Joggers" is the way I'd prefer to spend my personal End of Days. Great junk. But that's not all! Visit Ad Critic now, and get Monica Lewinsky's "Jenny Craig" pitch, absolutely free!
 

We wait, anxiously, for Blue Man Group to come to Las Vegas. The show, "Blue Man Group Live at Luxor," opens in March; we cannot wait that long. So we buy their terrific debut CD, "Audio," but that's hardly enough; we watch clips of the Group in action, but they just prime the pump. Even a visit to Blue Man Group's official website, with its music samples, modern-art malapropisms and funky-punky-monkey-rock, leaves us wanting. Wanting to see Blue Man Group, the famed performance troupe with the three guys painted royal blue. We wait. And the waiting becomes a form of art in itself. Bizarre, innit?
 

The Passenger attended the Consumer Electronics Show this year, as always. It was lovely, but not quite the futuristic orgasm of bio-technical consumables I'd hoped for. I've already got a PC and DVD player, mes amis -- where are the working lightsabers? The hovering skateboards? The engines that run on water? As it turns out, all these innovations - and a hover-boatload of others - lie in wait at Future Horizons, along with psionic devices, time-travel diodes and nearly every other kind of hi-fi sci-fi. Having trouble with the principal? The Laser Gun is just $8, and "can be built by the average high-school student." Ever craved a bionic exoskeleton of your very own? Future Horizons says, "Who hasn't," and offers one. And "Have you ever felt that someone was using a voice stress analyzer on your telephone conversations?" I reckon that goes without saying; shell out $8 and start making those booty calls without fear of being ostracized. Future Horizons reads like one of those "X-ray specs" ads in the back of pre-1980 comic books; as with any merchandise you acquired in those hazy, halcyon days, your mileage here will truly vary. Better dump some more water in the tank.
 

After Stanley Kubrick's untimely death last year, a good chunk of Usenet was abuzz with a single, burning question of succession. Who would pick up the filmmaker's stubborn, fiercely independent and inventive mantle? More often than not, the first name that came up was that of Terry Gilliam, director of "Brazil," "12 Monkeys," "The Fisher King" and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." Perhaps so, but placing Gilliam underneath Kubrick is a disservice to the former Monty Python troupe member; Kubrick couldn't have made a Gilliam film any easier than Gilliam could have made a Kubrick flick. Dreams, a fanzine devoted to Gilliam and his work, makes a case for the visionary director as his own chapter in the book of the giants, stretched leisurely between Fellini and Kurosawa. His next two films, "The Death of Don Quixote" and "Good Omens" will only prove something to those who haven't been paying attention to the man's work. The rest of us know, and have known for years.

Merge? No, thanks, I just ate. But I'll gladly take any suggestions, corrections, greetings or salutations you want to send me, by way of passenger@vegas.com. See you next week!