SOUNDING OFF A WISE DECISION: GET YOUR QUESTIONS READY.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH

Mr. Wise Guy, blogging under several assumed names since the late '90s, was recently picked out of a police lineup and accused of the crime of setting his TiVo to record every program that Chris Berman has been on since 2003.

He denies the charges. We tend to believe him. He's never showed any extreme masochistic behavior, except perhaps for those seizures brought on by Skip Bayless' voice.

As part of his community service, Mr. Wise Guy has been ordered to submit answers to questions about pressing matters in the world of the sports media these days.

You remember the drill from back in the day? Try to come up with something intelligent, and he'll stare you down like Mel Gibson trying to size up a Malibu cop.

Enough yacking. Start hacking:

Q: Someone told me that since I had Time Warner Cable -- and don't get me started on this NFL Network fiasco -- I could start getting Dodger games anytime I felt like it, on demand, on one of their channels. Where do I sign up?

A: So you're the one who still buys Cracker Jack for the prize.

Here's the deal, Beavis: Time Warner has locked in about 2 million suckers in the greater L.A. area to provide their TV pleasures, and about half of them have ponied up for digital cable, so Time Warner has set up a pseudo channel for the Dodgers as a broadcast sponsorship/promotional deal that really has nothing to do with any fresh game programming.

``Dodgers on Demand,'' as they call it, is something on TWC's Channel 1, where you click through a menu on your remote control if you've got time to kill and wanted to see things like a condensed classic Dodger game, an interview with a current players, highlights of a news conference and some other stuff that the great Geoff Witcher will talk you through.

Everything you could want -- except an instant replay of the game just concluded. That would really seem to be the only need we'd have to demand for such a thing, right?

``I'll never say never about that, but that's not in the plans for the time being,'' Dodgers chief operating officer Marty Greenspun told us when we broached that subject.

So the reality is, it's just one big blue commercial for the team, and one more way to lure subscribers to the company's digital cable tier of pay channels. Take it for what it is, then stop slowing up the traffic trying to get around the accident.

Q: I'm very concerned about this ``Monday Night Football'' switch to ESPN. Will my cable bill go up now? Does the ``Monday Night Countdown'' show start Saturday morning? How will this team with Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser, Joe Theismann, plus Suzy Kolber and Michelle Tafoya running around on the sidelines, have room for anyone to get in a decent comment or two?

A: Have you finally been weaned off thumb sucking?

Watch the show for yourself. The first exercise in this mega-mouth fest is this Monday, a broadcast of some players wearing the jerseys of the Oakland Raiders playing at the Metrodome against some other guys wearing the Minnesota Vikings' shirts.

``This will be a richer and broader telecast,'' Jay Rothman, ESPN's senior coordinating producer for the show, has been going around saying.

Less rich, more broads will satisfy most males in the audience.

J-Ro bases his assessment only on the fact this broadcast team has had two practice sessions -- one last May, and another two weeks ago, both in the ``PTI'' studios in Washington D.C., where the group watches a game on tape and then pretended to announce over it. There's one more rehearsal tonight in Baltimore (Ravens vs. the N.Y. Giants) before they all jet out to Minnesota.

And about this flying thing: Kornheiser really is a basket case when it comes to strapping himself in a tin projectile that has no emergency exit. His performance Monday could be interesting.

``I'll take as many drugs as the law will allow,'' Kornheiser said, echoing our thoughts about how we tolerate Michael Irvin on the pregame show.

Q: Poker?

A: Poker. To the extreme.

ESPN, which carried Thursday's final table at the World Series of Poker on pay-per-view ($24.95 a pop) before it starts chopping the whole tournament up into 32 one-hour segments starting Aug. 22, will do a story on extreme poker for Sunday's SportsCenter.

This version was played 15,000 feet above the Las Vegas desert last month. Five players started. The four losers were each pushed out of the airplane as they lost all their chips.

There were allowed to wear a parachute. Unfortunately.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(2)Hank Williams Jr. returns as the ``Monday Night Football'' opening act. You've been warned.

Gene Duncan/ESPN

(2) VASGERSIAN

Box:

(1) WHAT SMOKES

(2) WHAT CHOKES