Anybody else hear all these steroid rumors in baseball? That a couple of major stars have already tested positive for steroids and that Major League Baseball just hasn't released their names yet? That it's Roger Clemens and Johnny Damon? Anybody hear those rumors? (Well, before now.)

We at The Black Table are big fans of spreading rumors, particularly when they involve our impressive sexual prowess. Isn't that the whole point of the Web? Is Roger Clemens a steroid user? Who cares? It's something to talk about, anyway. And we're all really bored at work.

The Black List is rumor-free today, though; we just tell it like it be. We've got 10 reviews and will have more, because hey, that's what we do here.

--BT

The Black Table needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your best shot. Fire away.

INCOMPETANT ASS GROPING: So, I'm in the midst of hour two of the Chinatown bus ride from Boston to New York, when I notice that my ass feels ... not right. I decide that it's probably numb and continue reading my magazine. Twenty minutes later, the off sensation remains. Thinking that I'm maybe sitting on something, I reach my fingers back ... and make contact with someone else's fingers. As it turns out, the man sitting behind me had seen fit to reach his hand between the two parts of the bus seat and grope my ass. I was mad and I felt violated and all that, but I was also baffled. Who would think to reach between the seat parts on the fucking Chinatown bus? Who? Furthermore, the man had gotten on the bus after I had, which means that he hadn't even seen my ass. Why would you want to touch an ass you've never even seen? Finally, due to his choice of access method, he couldn't even touch my ass with more than his fingertips. His actions could be better described as "poking" than "groping." He couldn't even cop a decent feel. To recap: Costs: having to reach your hand between the Chinatown bus seats and touching an unknown ass which could be totally gross. Benefits: Sort of getting to poke someone's butt. Sir, you lose. F -- Leila

SERIAL COMMAS: I've spent some time in a bleak, horrific, and comedy-material-worthy office as a proofreader for dental/medical supply sales flyers, and this is what has happened: I have begun a neverending love affair with the serial comma. I met it about five years ago, at my first editorial job, then had an on-and-off flirtation with it while in scientific publishing (shifty AP-style). But now, using AMA style, I have fallen in love -- hard. I need that

comma. That comma rules my life, and I will let it until the day I die. AP can say whatever they want about a simple series, but I think even a simple series deserves an air of distinction. I like funny men, puppies, and sushi. Puppies and sushi are in worlds of their own and should be treated that way, lest we mistake puppies for being somehow involved in the sushi. Screw you, AP. I am jumping on couches for the serial comma. So much that I used an outdated, overplayed, and silly pop culture reference. A. -- Jamie Frevele (Editor's Note: The Black Table dislikes men who can't commit, people who can't stop talking about Prague and serial commas. Sorry.)

SNAP TRAP: I arrived at a birthday soirée with my roommate the other day. I discovered Snap Trap. The party shifted into a garage the size of my apartment where the host had 10 different small animal traps. The idea is to get your hand in and out before the trap closes. Why? I have no idea. I saw one trap break a pencil in half, and I saw another close on someone's hand, which promptly started bleeding. And for some stupid reason, I played Snap Trap. Maybe it was the prestige of being the only female to play, or maybe it was because I was born in redneck Wyoming and felt some sort of connection. All I have to say is "it's not about the in, it's all about the out." Not getting my finger snapped in half while playing Snap Trap: A -- Crystal Kash

GETTING CAUGHT BY MY PARENTS: A few too many helpings of sangria with one very handsome man render me useless Saturday morning ... through afternoon. We stay within the confines of my bed for the better part of the day. My parents, aunt and uncle are set to arrive at 5 p.m.; they're coming into town from Connecticut. Even by early afternoon I have great intentions: clean the congealed sweet-and-sour from the bottom of the fridge, get milk and toilet paper, scrub down my bathroom. By 4:30, none of that was done, but I was happily naked as a baby jay, making out with my new friend and delaying kicking him out. When he gets up to use the bathroom, I call my notoriously late parents, just to get an updated ETA. My dad answers, "Heeeyyy. We just pulled up." Me: "Ummmm [long pause] alright then!" I hastily jump into my clothes, pick the knots out of the back of my head and do an under-cover search for my underpants. This guy, who I've hung out with a few times and have mentioned to my family maybe once, is about to get into a freak meeting-my-parents accident. They come up. I introduce everyone, frazzled as hell. I feel awful, about my dirty fridge and utter lack of charm at that moment. But I guess reliving a total sophomore-year-of-high school moment harbors a shred of entertainment at age 24. In hindsight: B- -- Shawna

CICADA: I moved from New York City recently. A cicada got into my house last night and committed hara-kiri in my dish drain. I found him this morning while I was making my coffee. Before I realized he was a cicada, I had my best roach-crushing shoe, a bottle of Raid, a wad of paper towels and my vacuum cleaner with hose attachment standing by, ready to suck up his little corpse. Strangely, though, when I approached him he didn't put up a fight, just floated belly up in a small pool of water. It flashed through my mind that the municipal water supply must be extremely toxic to knock one of these creatures out, but after I disposed of his body and scrubbed my kitchen with bleach from top to bottom, it occurred to me that this was not New York and this was not a New York cockroach. I thought about those bugs that have been putting up such a racket in the trees outside my window, keeping me awake in a way that ConEd ripping up the street in front of my house never could, and typed "cicada" into Google Images. And there he was, in all his glory. Not a warmongering cockroach but a harmless little cicada, lost in the night and seeking refuge in my dish drain. B- -- Kate Andrews

SUMMER CLOTHES SWAP: It's nearly the end of another summer season, and so it's a great time to have a clothes swap with friends. I went to a clothes swap organized by a friend of a friend who lives in Brooklyn. Ten women came and donated clothes of various styles and sizes, and we all sifted through the remnants like we were at Century 21, but the best thing was that everything was free. However, I got a little insecure as all the ladies passed up a leopard print skirt that I donated. I was so sure that little skirt be a crowd favorite. As the skirt got passed around and thrown back into the discard pile, I questioned my own fashion taste. A woman's sense of style is often her trademark, but it can also make her a fashion victim. I also wonder if any of the other ladies felt a wee bit vulnerable about revealing themselves as closet retail hoarders. However, it is cool to recycle, in a fashionista-hippie sorta way. Plus, sometimes cleaning out your closet can make room for fun with friends or at least a donated brown suede skirt that I can totally rock this fall. A- -- Nichelle Newsletter

HIS NOODLY APPENDAGE: Praise be he who hath discovered the glory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, hereafter to be known as FSM. For the FSM represents the truest representation of how the world, and the creatures of the earth, managed to come to be in the form they are now. The proprietors of www.veganza.org can explain the theory better than I can, but suffice to say that the theory that the FSM has created, and continues to adjust, life in all its forms, is quite a compelling argument. Especially because you have to talk like a pirate to understand this. Arrrr. A+ -- David Gaffen

WAITING IN LINE AT THE GAS PUMP: Ah, the halcyon days of 99 cents per gallon gasoline. Zip up to the pump and pay. Now, hot, sweaty, delirious drivers jockey for position in long lines for $2.37 a gallon gas-two cents cheaper than at the station across the street. Gas-swilling SUV owners swear at each other and shake their fists at their spouses, wondering why they ever bought the gluttonous bastards in the first place. What will gas-station-line rage come to? Soccer moms in catfights over five cents a gallon less? Lincoln Continental drivers holding up the gas hose as high as it can go to get every last fume while other livid drivers lay into their horns? Pickup truck drivers with their tanks on E getting out, pushing the fuckers up to the pump, and punching anyone who gets in their way? An ugly late summer scene promises to get as ugly as a Chuck Palahniuk novel as prices rise and drivers tank up to take the kiddies to school. F -- Angela Genusa

MESSENGER BAG BECOMING A PERMANENT OVERNIGHT BAG: So I moved to Brooklyn. Cheaper rent, longer commuter, bigger space ... all growed up. But I'm never there. I leave for 12-14 hours at a time, so I've started tossing certain things into my bag to have, just in case I don't make it home for a day or so. Today, as I was getting ready to go to work, I picked up my bag and noticed that it has started to weigh about as much as a pre-schooler. I open it up and see, amongst the usual work papers, cell phone, keys and cigarettes: 10 tampons (not the usual one or two), tube of toothpaste (not travel-sized), travel toothbrush from some women's center (where the hell did I get that?!) travel-sized Speed Stick, perfume, TWO pairs of clean underwear (a thong and full coverage) Midol, Immodium, a bitty bottle of lotion and a long-sleeve t-shirt. I'm all set for an impromptu weekend in the fucking Poconos or another World Trade Center-like disaster. When I lived in the Village, I was lucky if I remembered my damn keys. It seems like I'm prepared, but it gets a little hard to explain when I'm on a first date and I'm digging through my bag trying to find my cell phone, and said date says, "what the hell have you got in there?" Having to explain to my date that I'm NOT planning on moving in on our first night out definitely gets a C- -- Kittens LeStax

RABBIT LEVER VACUUM PUMP: "Half a bottle of good wine is worth saving," says the back of the box that my new Rabbit wine-saver came in. I couldn't agree more. So I open one of the bottles that I got as a housewarming present. I may live alone now, with no roommate or boyfriend to tipple with, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a glass of wine with the dinner I cooked for myself and will eat completely alone. My, that is a lovely cabernet. And just four swift pumps of the Rabbit's handle and voila, the remainder of the bottle will remain unspoiled until tomorrow, when I'll enjoy it with my giant mound of leftovers. Damn, this thing really works! I can hear the vacuum release as I take out the special stopper and pour myself another glass. Cheers to drinking in solitude, unfettered by conversation and companionship! A -- Katharine Davis

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