Our reviewer called Charles Bock’s Vegas novel Beautiful Children “a mind-expanding reading experience,” which is either a commentary on the quality of the book or the size of the reviewer’s mind, but regardless, the book is unarguably this: free to download. Through Friday. This comes courtesy of publisher Random House, which has probably issued a press release explaining why they did it. (Be all interactive and Google that yourself.) As for the free book, find it here.

I’ll admit it: I’m a TV-watching fool, and my favorite new show is about to end an eight-week run. More devastatingly, it may get reformatted from an hour down to a measly half-an-hour, if it stays on at all.

Tom Green’s House Tonight

He loves skateboarding, he’s rapped with Flava Flav and he celebrated Pauly Shore’s birthday by hurling chickens from his roof into his pool (OK, they were actually Cornish game hens). I’m talking about the brilliant “web-o-vision” talk show experiment launched by the original Jackass and decades-ago MTV golden boy, Tom Green.

Tom Green’s House Tonight began as an Internet-only show that developed a cult following. The next logical step, in Green’s mostly illogical mind, was to upgrade the equipment, build some bleachers in his house and put it on the airwaves. Is he a shut-in? I’m not quite sure, but he does occasionally venture out into Hollywood to shoot weird man-on-the-street videos. If you think he’s too nuts and intense, rest assured he’s tempered with age and now the focus is on his guests. The Fernwood Tonight-esque show is only available in five markets, Las Vegas being the only one on the West Coast, even though the show is taped in Green’s home in Los Angeles.

Turn in at 11 p.m. through Feb. 29 on VegasTV KTUD channel 25 (cable channel 14) for the final new episodes. Then pray to the gods of TV that this work of genius isn’t snatched away from our restless eyeballs.

Next up for the Democratic candidates: the War on E-Mail.

Backup documents here.

Short of Hagar the Horrible coming out of the closet, Dagwood expatiating upon The Tasty Sandwich as a Platonic ideal — or even ghosty li’l “Not Me” of “Family Circus” cutting the brake lines on the family station wagon, here’s one blogger’s formula for adding some relevant existential bite to “Garfield”: by removing Garfield himself.

Plus, lasagna is overrated anyway.

No surprise revelation here, but I’m no American Idol fan. Aside from enduring the entire third season for a writing assignment, and regardless of my exclusion from certain conversations as a result, I’ve never made a point to watch it. I don’t even have time to watch my favorite TV shows, let alone some glitzy karaoke contest starring a queeny Brit and former Laker Girl.

However, listening to the Howard Stern show this morning on the way in led me to wonder what the fuss was over 17-year-old phenom David Archuleta, who recently performed John Lennon’s “Imagine” on Idol and further advanced the widely held notion he would win this season handily. Not only did Stern breathlessly marvel over the performance, but brainy staff member and musician Fred Norris — normally the show’s most critical and pop-weary participant — also sung his praises.

I had to hear this. Many an experienced singer have butchered that song. How on Earth would some aw-shucks teenager from Utah do it any justice? (As I type this, the entire front-office staff has suddenly broken out into swoons over the young singer.)

So, once I got to work, I YouTube’d “Imagine” and, well, I was underwhelmed. Then I realized I had a poor recording, where the music and Archuleta’s voice didn’t sound in sync, so I picked a link with a higher view count. Both the recording and Archuleta sounded better, the latter still not selling me on the cover, but not sending me running from the computer, either.

Archuleta croons like Ne-Yo, but with a breathiness a la Liza Minnelli. (If you think that sounds gay, you should YouTube his renditions of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls and “Fallin’” by Alicia Keys.) It’s hard to imagine, pardon the pun, hearing Lennon’s signature song sung with an R&B tenor. And his delivery is a little too earnest. Lennon had a minimal but appropriate affectation in his original, and it matches the lyrics’ contemplative sentiment perfect. But the more I stream it, the more natural it sounds. He may just win me over — though don’t expect me to be TiVo-ing Idol anytime soon.

Judge for yourself below, and see if this kid’s talent matches his overwhelming hype.