Overrated-Underrated

The Cooking Channel: Although there were a few programs we’ll miss from this network’s former life as the Fine Living Channel (goodbye, “Radical Sabbatical”), we’re hooked on the stay-at-home usefulness behind its new incarnation, which looks to ride the foodie wave to basic cable gold. It’s off to a tasteful start — we’ve learned about a shockingly delicious beer cocktail on “Drink Up” and rekindled our love for Julia Child on reruns of “The French Chef.”

Nick Flynn: The poet, playwright and author broke through with the elliptical memoir about homelessness and his father, “Another [Redacted] Night in Suck City,” and he’s captured the same magic on his latest, “The Ticking Is the Bomb.” A raw, passionate and engrossing meditation on impending fatherhood in a world filled with terror and torture, Flynn’s way with words may not always be light summer reading, but it casts a light all its own.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s dramatic chops: Regarding the much-debated “Inception,” we’re rating it below its advance hype but well above every other summer popcorn movie. But we’re still not sold on DiCaprio, who always looks like he’s intensely emoting but somehow never lets us forget that he’s acting. And are we crazy or did his role in “The Departed” leave him with touches of Nicholson in his voice? Is Leo just a rich man’s Christian Slater?

A future of ‘dynamic pricing’: The concert industry’s woes have been well documented, and the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation already has music fans wary about rising costs. Although times are tough, the ticketing juggernaut’s recent idea to allow ticket prices to fluctuate depending on demand (much like airline tickets) doesn’t bode well. If this takes hold, you might as well start saving now if you want to see Radiohead next time around.