Yes

Sometimes it's the simplest things that are the most confounding. Last year, right before Easter, I blogged about how to make a perfect hard-boiled egg. Basic? Yes. Popular? Very. This seemingly simple task received tens of thousands of page views. And, it seemed, almost as many complaints: "But how do you peel them?" Mea culpa. while my method ensures that hard-boiled eggs are never overdone (at last: the cure for the dreaded copper-green ring!), it also can make them harder to shell, because perfectly cooked eggs turn out to be stickier than ones that have been overcooked.

I'd been living in Los Angeles a short time when I found myself in an improv comedy class in Hollywood. A friend who was also an actress had encouraged, well, nagged me to enroll in what is now iO West, the West Coast offshoot of Chicago's ImprovOlympic. I was intimidated, but I also was lonely and looking for a challenge, so I went. That choice, to face my fears and connect with others, forever changed my life. From the outside, the tiny theater space on a stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard looked industrial - not the beachy sort of place I, a newcomer to L.A., had imagined it would be. I was not impressed.

Tina Fey is working on a "Mean Girls" reunion of sorts, but sadly it won't be in the form of another movie. That is so the opposite of fetch. The 2004 comedy, which will celebrate its 10-year anniversary in April, was adapted by Fey from Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 book "Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence. " PHOTOS: Lindsay Lohan career retrospective The cult classic starred a pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan, now 27,  pre-"Notebook" Rachel McAdams, now 35, and the troupe of "Plastics" - pre-"Veronica Mars" Amanda Seyfriend and post-"Party of Five" Lacey Chabert.

University officials and the NCAA have been reluctant to acknowledge that top-tier college football programs are run these days less as athletic programs than as businesses. But a labor administrator's decision Wednesday that Northwestern University's scholarship football players are, in fact, employees with the right to unionize should get their attention. This issue has been bubbling for decades as major sports programs evolved from important but ancillary parts of a college's mission into powerful businesses enriched by multimillion-dollar TV contracts and merchandising revenue, all built on the labor of student-athletes who received no compensation beyond scholarships.

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

If it please the court, let us stipulate to a few things upfront: First, Zsa Zsa Gabor does n ot look so fat that it would take three or four strong men to lift her onto a horse. And Elke Sommer does not resemble a bald-headed, Hollywood has-been who hangs out in seedy bars and has to sell hand-knitted pullover sweaters to eke out a living.

Ever since up-and-coming actress Megan Draper (Jessica Pare) donned the same T-shirt that Sharon Tate wore in a 1967 photo shoot, "Mad Men" conspiracy theorists have been writing the character's obituary, believing she'll meet a tragic end along the same lines as the fate that befell the '60s sex symbol. The logic (and we use the word loosely) is that the show hasn't skimped on showing the social upheaval prevalent in 1968 New York, what with all the wailing police sirens, the riots and Peggy stabbing (albeit accidentally)

Jermaine Jackson says he took a biting musical swipe at his superstar sibling, Michael, because his younger brother had frozen him out of his life. In an interview, Jermaine explained that the cantankerous lyrics to his song "Word to the Badd!!," which criticize Michael for allegedly changing his skin color and obtaining plastic surgery, were written in retaliation for eight months of unreturned phone calls.

When they converged in San Francisco about 45 years ago, Wolfgang Paalen, Gordon Onslow Ford and Lee Mullican wanted nothing less than to be image makers of cosmic freedom. The purpose of art, they thought, was self-transcending awareness.

. . . a time comes when two people should think of these things. Having a home and a family Facing up to their responsibilities. --Bruce Springsteen's "I Wanna Marry You," 1980. Bruce Springsteen's wedding plans gave the rock 'n' roll world this week one of its hottest pieces of gossip since the "Paul Is Dead" rumors in the '60s. Only this time, the reports turned out to be true. The uproar began Thursday when a Portland, Ore.

1 Virginia (28-6, ACC champion) vs. 16 Coastal Carolina (21-12, Big South champion) Virginia must prove it deserves a No. 1 seed, even after beating Duke in the ACC tournament Sunday. Winning big over the Chanticleers would be a good start. 8 Memphis (23-9, at-large) vs. 9 George Washington (24-8, at-large) Memphis has been inconsistent this season and now faces a George Washington team that has won five of its last seven games. 5 Cincinnati (27-6, at-large)

"It's time to get going again. " With these words, host and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson kicks off the new documentary series, "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. " Premiering on Fox, the National Geographic Channel and eight other affiliated networks Sunday night, it is a follow-up to "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," the groundbreaking and hugely popular 1980 PBS series hosted by astronomer Carl Sagan. Tyson, strolling along the scenic California coastal cliffs of Monterey - just as Sagan did in the opening minutes of the original - is talking about bringing the franchise to a new generation, but with a command that can also be interpreted as a mission statement.

Re "Budget proposals target Pentagon," Feb. 25 Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's attempt to contain military spending will create a serious fuss. Members of Congress will try to protect their districts' industries. Hawks will rage over an increased risk of attack. But will anyone point out that, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2012 the United States (population 318 million) accounted for 39% of the entire globe's military spending. China, the next highest spender (population 1.3 billion)

Humphry Slocombe has created three funky new ice cream flavors for Virgin America fliers, but only one will make the cut for first-class service. Passengers and fans have until Friday to tweet their favorite -- #ButterByMoodlight (buttery with a blueberry glaze), #RedHotBanana (real Red Hot candies mashed into it) or #CoconutBlondAmbition (vanilla marshmallow fluff meets lemon sorbet). (If you don't recognize this hipster ice cream maker, it's the one that uses Bourbon and cornflakes in its Secret Breakfast flavor.)

Millions of people are unhappy that Russia's Adelina Sotnikova beat out South Korea's Yuna Kim for a gold medal in Olympic women's figure skating.  I'm not sure I am. The reason for that is tied up in the fact that figure skating -- for all its balletic grace and beauty -- is a sport.   I'll be honest: I don't remember much about Sotnikova's free skate at the Sochi Olympics, except that she gave a hammy wave to the judges near the end of her routine.   Yes, her long program was jam-packed with jumps, and it was entertaining to watch her unique spins.

Despite the sunshine and the palm trees, the mountains and the beaches, California residents are not the happiest people in America.  In a new Gallup-Healthways poll that ranks well-being by state, California doesn't even make it into the top 10. People from North Dakota had the highest-well being in the country with an overall well-being index score of 70.4 out of a possible 100. Their neighbors in South Dakota came in second place with a...

REMEMBERING HER DAYS AS A young girl--"No one would have accused me of being a happy child"--Leslie Abramson has an enduring memory of her favorite means of escape. After school, at the corner luncheonette, she'd buy button candies and chocolate marshmallow twists (two for a nickel) and spend hours at the comic-book racks, reading. Mad magazine was good for a giggle. But it was the spooky stuff, the horror comics like "Tales From the Crypt," that she really loved. And hated, too.

The tourists think big. Arriving in Southern California, they expect to conquer Disneyland and Hollywood, perhaps on the same day, in between the surfing and snowboarding. Then they get stuck in traffic. Then come the recriminations, the tears, the vows to visit an island next time. The locals think small. Tracing tight little loops between home and work, they dodge freeways and alien neighborhoods. There are Los Feliz people who haven't set foot in Venice since the latter Bush administration (I'm one)

Re "More doubt cast on breast X-rays," Feb. 12 There is more reason for early detection of breast cancer than simply decreasing mortality. There is a very important quality-of-life issue. Early detection often decreases the need for a physically disfiguring and emotionally scarring mastectomy and the need for additional reconstructive surgeries. As a registered nurse and breast cancer survivor, I strongly believe that we should maintain the option of yearly mammograms for early detection.

The Belgian government this week approved new measures allowing the euthanasia of terminally ill children, a decision that on first reading would make most of us gasp. It is a distressing concept, and the idea of helping a child die sounds incredibly cold and morally and ethically unsound - until you dive into the issue. While it raises painful and conflicting emotions, and choices, the Belgians - who have pushed assisted suicide to the edge before - are on the right, groundbreaking track.