By the time you read this, baseball will have started. Seriously. At 5 a.m. this morning, the Yankees played the Devil Rays, in Japan. In a dome. Is this how baseball is supposed to kick off? If you set your alarm really early, you maybe got to catch the ninth inning. It's spring time, people! If somehow Derek Jeter went down to a career-ending injury, none of us would have even been able to enjoy it. And that's sad.

We have 11 spanking new entries this week, and we've got 'em all dolled up and powdered for your enjoyment. The right side is the, um, right side to submit. Can you bring it? We think you can.

--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.

EARLY BIRD PORN STORES: Walking up Sixth Avenue on my way to work at around 8:30 a.m., I pass two porn stores. Their doors are always wide open, beckoning in horny customers. Now, I'm just as sex-positive as the next girl, but I really have to wonder: Who exactly feels the urgent need to buy "Bella Loves Jenna" or the latest "Shane's World" before they go to work in the morning? I mean, The Container Store isn't even open yet! Neither is Barnes & Noble. Call me crazy, but while I'm all for a round of just-woke-up nookie, I like to shop for my sex toys a little bit later in the day, like, when I'm awake. Maybe I should venture inside one day and see what kind of customer, if any, is actually shopping for XXX goodies at that hour. Somehow, it seems just a wee bit early for all the bright, delicious debauchery that porn has to offer. Is it asking too much to let us eat our breakfast first and buy porn second? D -- Rachel Kramer Bussel

SAD MAKEOVER SHOWS: The premise is so simple; your family and friends think you're a great person, but, you know, would just like to see your head removed and replaced with a pretty girl. But lately this formula seems to be going awry. To be made over now, you must have the saddest life possible. One of the following circumstances must occur:

1. A horrible childhood nickname (like, say, "duckgirl," or "the uglier twin")
2. A drug addiction that leads to a brief time living on the street. Prostitution is optional, but the drug of choice must be crack.
3. More children than a duckgirl with a crack addiction should ever be allowed to have.

Ugly people with standard lives deserve a chance to be pretty, just as much as the hooker with a heart of gold. Leave the crackheads on the streets and let

Mary Jane Lameass get the makeover. It might sound heartless, but shouldn't duckgirl be satisfied with the fact that she got eight different men to sleep with her to conceive her eight children? At least she's not sleeping on a box anymore. C -- Katie

THE JETS AND NETS MOVING TO NEW YORK: Here's the hottest trend among the owners of sports teams: Convince a city that can barely afford to pay its own teachers and cops to shell out big bucks for a sports stadium. The owners put down little or no money of their own and reap big profits, all with the promise of jobs and future tax revenues while people are forced out of their homes as pesky residential areas are deemed "blighted" and torn down in the name of progress. Both Manhattan and Brooklyn are the proposed sites of such scandals with promises to bring the NFL's Jets to Manhattan and the NBA's Nets to Brooklyn. Don't get us wrong; there are plenty of Jets and Nets lovers here in the Big Apple. Seeing our beloved Jets escape the hellish industrial wasteland this is New Jersey would thrill us -- but not with $600 million out of our city's pocket and our neighbors losing their homes. The lead cheerleader for these very bad ideas is billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Mike has become increasingly comfortable snuggling up to sleazy corporate benefactors. How much of a billionaires' club is he trying to make New York? What's next, bringing the Republican National Convention to Madison Square Garden? Oh, shit. F -- Matthew Sheahan

MARLON WAYANS: Why hasn't Marlon Wayans had a better career? I think it's because he's a Wayans. He was originally supposed to play Robin in "Batman Returns," but he was cut, leaving us to suffer through Chris O'Donnell. He was the best part of the Scary Movie movies, but there were so many Wayans running around it was hard to keep them straight. But it's in the heartstopping Requiem for a Dream where Wayans really shows his stuff. He's funny, scary and moving - rather staggering, actually -- and that's not even accounting for the DVD extras, where Wayans does the best Jar Jar Binks impersonation ever recorded. But what's he doing now? The so-terrible-looking-it-could-kill-his-entire-career "White Chicks". Marlon Wayans is an enormous talent. Can't a brother get a break? A -- Will Leitch

SINGLE-OCCUPANT, GENDER-SPECIFIC RESTROOMS: From some Victorian prude came the idea of separate bathrooms for men and women, with a single toilet each. Identical, save for the silhouette on the door, these bathrooms mock me daily. Having something dangly between my legs, I am obligated to use the room marked "Men," but, should that be full, I am faced with an odious decision: wait for the gender-correct room to empty, my legs crossed and back teeth floating, or risk ostracism and unpleasant swirlie-related flashbacks by venturing into the women's room. "Knock-knock" always comes should I choose the latter; I respond and am informed, with some indignation, that I have misdiagnosed my gender. A polite, if grunted, explanation that my interrogator is locked out, thus preventing acts of moral or hygienic turpitude, does little to calm my puritanical inquisitor. For those who refuse the sensible solution of lockable, gender-irrelevant restrooms: D- -- AMR

NETFLIX: I've been a member for three months now. In 14 weeks, I've rented 24 movies and paid a total of $63.45, which breaks down to roughly $2.64 per movie. Not quite the stellar deal I was hoping for. I watch the movie I get as soon as I get it in the mail and return it the next day. It takes two days for my movie to reach the shipping and exchange office. They usually send out my next movie the same day, but it won't arrive for another two. And here's what really pisses me off: If the movie/series you rent has a bonus disk, you have to get that separately and it's not worth wasting your time for. Hey Netflix, I'd be willing to pay $25 a month if the movies have overnight mailing priority. Waiting around a week for School of Rock sucks. C- -- Amy L. Stender

MEETING JOSE CANSECO: What's the dilly-o, Mr. Canseco? There we are at an overblown art show. Me, for the free food and drink; you, for whatever reason. My guess is you had the night free because: (a) the Dodgers cut you after just one day at Spring Training; or (b) your new acting coach -- Steven Seagal -- had to stay home to groom his ponytail. Back in the last century you enjoyed megastar status, but these days you should consider it a step up if you are cast on the third season of "The Surreal Life." The next time you're lucky enough to have someone recognize you in public, try being a little more gracious, especially when they're being complimentary and want to relive your glory days with a little forearm bash. Do you know how hard it was to NOT ask how it felt to give up a home run by taking a fly ball off your head? You're the third person I've met who's boned Madonna, and I must say you're the worst of the bunch. I would have said this to your face, but I don't know if my HMO covers a steroid-enraged beat down from someone with fewer than 500 home runs. D- (or .197) -- Todd Munson

FELINE ACNE: My handsome tuxedo cat, Henry Higgins, has a case of feline acne. At first, I was disturbed. But after some Internet research and a trip to the vet, I realized it is a common ailment among indoor cats. Now I get to douse Henry Higgins's zit-ridden chin every night with rubbing alcohol. AND I have permission from the vet to pop his pimples myself. I feel reborn. Sitting there popping his whiteheads and blackheads. Cat puss on my hands. Does this make me a sick person? Most likely. But does it make me happy? Abso-fucking-lutely. A -- Catherine

CHOOSING MONEY OVER HAPPINESS: They should have sat us all down in school, like in second grade, and somberly addressed the fact that if you screwed around for 14 more years of classes, you could still make a bunch of money if you wanted to do something you'll hate, for people you'll grow to hate almost as much as you will grow to hate yourself. And then they should explain that people who work hard in school get to do things they like and maybe make money at it. AND THEN, they should explain that everyone can be happy doing something, and if it comes to it, fuck the money, choose the happiness. They didn't, though. Now I have the money, and the shoes, and the jet-setting lifestyle, and the overwhelming desire to cry every night. F -- Hal

UGLY COUPLES MAKING OUT IN PUBLIC: The sweet smell of spring is finally in the air. People are friendly again, the birds are chirping, baseball's around the corner ... and a whole army of ugly people seem to find it necessary to display that, hey, they're gettin' some too -- and they know you're watching. I was innocently eating my lunch outside today when this Screech lookalike and his Natalie from "Facts of Life" girlfriend decided that the best way to put the good weather to use was to lick and rub in public. Last weekend it was an acne JC Chasez-like dude straddling his beached whale girlfriend on the grass in Riverside Park. I know we live in a voyeuristic society; I sure as hell am a people watcher. And I even dabble in the occasional PDA. But please. WE GET IT! YOU'RE GETTING SOME! I hated seeing that crap in high school when it was the prom queen and her buff boyfriend. I sure as hell didn't want to see its short bus manifestation. D- -- Arie

DREAMING ABOUT STING: I'm anxious to get to the airport to pick up my boyfriend. I frantically pack up everything and run the shit out to the driveway, where Sting is waiting in all of his longer-haired Police Synchronicity glory, INSISTING that he will drive me to the airport. I'm like, that's so ... nice, but you don't have to, and he keeps INSISTING, and now I'm late, so I squeak all my junk into the back seat of his Ferrari-slash-Lamborghini-mobile, and we're off to the airport. Sting is driving with utter speed and skill and exuding confidence and kindness and barely contained sexuality, and, no, it's not strange at all that he's playing his own album on the car stereo. We park on the tarmac right next to the plane, but instead of my boyfriend, the person I'm picking up is Albert Brooks, responding exactly as you would imagine any character of his would: "You come to pick me up at the airport with STING? How do you think that's going to make me FEEL? I mean, I'm all rumpled from the FLIGHT, my clothes are all WRINKLED and here you are with STING!" A -- theysuredo

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