Ready for a new, more hopeful era of live-blogging? I sure am. I've been watching two days of inauguration stuff, and suddenly I'm hopeful about everything.

I hope, for example, that this season of Top Chef will continue to not-suck.And that Project Runway will soon return from basic-cable purgatory. And that you won't blow off tonight's live blog to watch the season premiere of Lost. (Note: ABC will rebroadcast it this Saturday at 9 pm.)

More importantly, I hope that you all enjoyed posting entries in the Toby Young Stale One-Liner (TYSOL) Contest half as much as I enjoyed reading and judging them. Great work everyone! Here are the winners:

First Place: thundermonkey: "My word, I feel like Prince Charles just ejaculated powdered sugar into my eyeballs."

Second Place: Lazy Susan: "Linda Lovelace wouldn't swallow that!"

Third Place (tie): Heneage: "This dish is more saccharine than a Sandra Lee tablescape." TedSez: "This dish is even more likely to come spewing back out of my mouth than a perfectly honed English sentence."

Honorable Mention: bjonston: "This dish is so bad, it made the onions cry!" get the buttah: "Mmmmm… home-made Ipecac." Heneage: "I've seen more appetizing meals regurgitated from a mother bird." Iceland Spar: "I've seen streetwalkers in the East End with better presentation." Kitten_Witawip: "The swallows will be back in Capistrano before I'd have another swallow of that." Mathnet: "This little piggy went to market and got the finger and then cried 'wee wee wee wee' all the way home, and I wish I'd had none. Or roast beef."

So tonight, every time Toby Young speaks, just mute him and shout one of the lines above. I'll bet the show will vastly improve that way. In fact, I recommend practicing your mute-button skills while I run through these highlights from last week and things to watch for tonight:

  • We decided that "honor the protein" is a great euphemism for expectoration-free fellatio. Apparently, though, it means respecting the memory of murdered animals by making them extra-delicious … or something like that. Anyway, I like our meaning better.
  • Thanks to a horrifying commercial for a foot-scraping device called the PedEgg, I will never eat parmesan cheese again. (Memo to Bravo: Do not allow this commercial to be aired during a food-themed show ever again.)
  • Toby Young confessed that he likes "full-on unprotected sex" with food. I guess that means he doesn't use condiments.
  • When perennial contender Ariane was sent packing instead of perennial also-ran Leah, many of us suspected that meddling producers spared Leah so her hot-for-Hosea high jinks could spice up future episodes. "Will she honor Hosea's protein? Tune in next week!"
  • Tonight is the "restaurant wars" episode. Hopefully, one of the wimp-testants who only waits tables and cooks nothing will finally get booted. Last I checked, this show was not called "Top Waiter."
  • Fabio will say: "In love and in war, you are allowed to do everything" — which is also true in live-blogging. I threw away the rulebook after Week 1, remember?

Ok, it's nearly 10 pm. Get ready for some full-on, unprotected, condiment-free live blogging!