Watched this season for the first time last night–and the first time ever in glorious high definition. A couple thoughts:

* In HD, Seacrest really does look gay. Nothing wrong with that, but now I finally get all the jokes. And if I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a hundred times: He’s an amazing talent. He presides over that show with total authority, managing movement, time, contestants, and stars so deftly that you barely notice the heavy lifting he’s doing. I suspect that 50 years from now, he’ll be looked on as a national TV treasure, like Dick Clark.

* I don’t know about you, but I was really surprised to see Rogue competing–and without the long gloves or anything. It’s really brave. Maybe she’s trying to absorb Seacrest’s powers? Or maybe she really did take The Cure . . .

Well, not Spitzer exactly, but the Emperor’s Club. Josh Levin takes a tour of the escort service’s website. Highlights include:

According to a page on “Introduction Fees,” the club ranked its call girls from three to seven diamonds based on “individual education, sophistication, and ambiance.” Prices range from $1,000 for an hour with a three-diamond prostitute up to $3,100 for a seven-diamond hooker; dawn-to-dawn rates go from $10,000 for a three-diamond to $31,000 for a seven-diamond. Bargain hunters take note: $30,000 will buy you a trio of three-diamond prostitutes—that’s a total of nine diamonds for less than the price of a single seven-diamond call girl.

But my favorite is this bit on “buyouts”:

“We understand that some of our clients / members and represented models may be interested in long-term companionship / private dating on a more personal level,” the site explains. “We are happy to contribute to such arrangements.” How does Emperors’ Club express its happiness on such joyous occasions? By demanding a “buyout”—”a mutually agreed upon lump sum which the client / member transfers to the company to compensate the company for its role in and allocation of valuable resources which make it possible for this relationship to occur between the client and model.”

You may have noticed the pretty BSG ad running just to the right–I encourage you to click through because it takes you to an 8-minute How We Got Here to re-cap events leading up to season four. Season three comes out on DVD on March 18, which can’t come soon enough for me.

And as another little BSG tidbit, here’s some obsessive fan’s look at Tricia Helfer in all of her Six configurations from the show.

Let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we? What I want to know is what this all means:

The appointment was originally booked for four hours and, as Client 9 made his way toward the room, Ms. Lewis asked Kristen to send her a text message when he left. Kristen sent her a message at 12:02 a.m., the appointment having lasted more than an hour.

When she called Ms. Lewis, they discussed the client’s reputation as a “difficult” man who sometimes asked the prostitutes “to do things you might not think were safe,” Ms. Lewis said. But Kristen, according to court papers, was prepared: “I have a way of dealing with that,” she is quoted as having told Ms. Lewis. “I’d be like, Listen, dude, you really want the sex? …You know what I mean.” The fact was that Kristen liked him, though, and told Ms. Lewis that he wasn’t all that difficult.

“I mean, it’s just kind of like … whatever … I’m here for a purpose,” the affidavit quotes her as saying. “I know what my purpose is. I am not a … moron, you know what I mean.”

Ms. Lewis complimented Kristen on her sang-froid, telling her, “You look at it very uniquely, because … no one ever says it that way.”

“Things you might not think were safe”? Is that a common euphemism?

I have to say, I’m not surprised. When the story broke yesterday, my first thought was, Dude must be into some kinky stuff because otherwise, no politician/actor/musician has to pay for sex. If the Gov needed some love, all he had to do was walk down the hall at the office and pick up a hot, star-struck 20-year-old intern.

That he was paying for it suggests that he wanted more than just a normal good time, no?

Of course, there are other, more innocent explanations. Maybe he’s a Never-Nude?

Robert Miller has fun with the numbers of a new survey which claims that French men average 13 sexual partners over their lifetimes while French women average only 4.

One of the many strokes of luck I’ve had in life is having had the chance to meet many of my writing heroes–Andy Ferguson, David Grann, Matt Labash, Stan Lee. In a few cases, I’ve even been lucky enough to become friends with these studs. Jody Bottum is one such friend. Over the weekend, I finally had a chance to finish his piece in the latest issue of First Things, “The Judgment of Memory.” It’s not available online yet (unless you’re a subscriber, and if not, shame on you).

It is one of the finest essays I’ve ever read–at once profound and lyrical. After finishing it last night, I sat still for a while simply drinking in its beauty.

In the afterglow, it occurred to me that for last two years Jody has written four of the best essays you’ll ever see, beginning with “The Mad Scientists’ Club,” moving on to “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano,” and then “Death & Politics.” All of this while editing one of the three best magazines in America. He’s operating in rare air these days and people who love words and ideas should take note.

And if you somehow missed any of those pieces, well. Print them out, take them home, and go treat yourself.

I’d never actually seen the movie, but . . .

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5jzl5761Zw]

I’ve been waiting to mention this, just in case anyone out there was (a) reading the Buffy Season 8 comics and (b) hadn’t gotten to this week’s issue yet. But now that the New York Times has done a story on it, I guess we’re out of the spoiler zone.

So yeah, here’s the deal: Buffy banged one of her slayerettes.

I’m with Buffy. Wow.

Except that I just don’t know that they (meaning Whedon and writer Drew Goddard) earned it. The choice feels a bit off. I don’t think it’s exploitive, but it does feel a bit sensational. Left a vaguely metallic taste in my mouth.

* A quick end-note: Whedon says that Buffy isn’t gay, just that she’s experimenting. Good for her! Except that one of the things the writers had done nicely over time was grow Buffy to the point where she was world-weary soul aged far beyond her years. She didn’t have time for juvenelia of any sort. She was Batman–scowling and laying down the law and being sort of annoyed at her peers who weren’t as dead-serious. All of sudden she’s doing sorority-house sex play? Like I said, this character evolution just doesn’t feel earned.

All of that said, Goddard gets in enough funny in the ensuing four pages to nearly justify the entire thing.

There’s a longer interview with Whedon here where he unveils the rest of the writing line-up for the series, which is pretty much a comic-geek dream team: Jane Espenson, Drew Greenburg, Doug Petrie, Steve DeKnight, Jim Krueger, and then Brad Meltzer.

Doesn’t get much better than that.