Whiners and ingrates

Whiners: Steely Dan.

The veteran group behind such jazz-rock hits as "Rikki Don't Lose that Number" says Wilson ripped off its Grammy-winning tune "Cousin Dupree" for his title role as a slacker in the new comedy "You, Me and Dupree."

In a 10-paragraph letter posted July 17 on Steely Dan's Web site, and addressed to Wilson's brother Luke, band leaders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen asked Owen Wilson to appear at a show in Irvine, California, to apologize to the band's fans.

In the song, a slacker named Dupree returns home to take up space on his aunt's couch and immediately decides that he wants to shag his cousin.

In the movie, a slacker named Dupree crashes at the home at a friend about to be married.

Actionable? Hardly. Belated? This movie was in the works for at least a year; why are Becker and Fagen just now getting around to complaining about it? If a word of acknowledgement was all they wanted, they could easily have negotiated that months ago, maybe even gotten their song worked into the soundtrack. Put down the bong and pay attention to current events, dudes. Becker and Fagen are bigger slackers than Dupree, and utterly unsympathetic.

Ingrate: Ken Jennings.

"Jeopardy!" ace Ken Jennings, who won $2.5 million during his 74-game winning streak, has a few unkind words to say about the show -- and dapper host Alex Trebek.

"I know, I know, the old folks love him," Jennings writes in a recent posting, titled "Dear Jeopardy!" on his Web site.

"Nobody knows he died in that fiery truck crash a few years back and was immediately replaced with the Trebektron 4000 (I see your engineers still can't get the mustache right, by the way)."

Jennings also takes aim at the show's "effete, left-coast" categories and "same-old" format.

"You're like the Dorian Gray of syndication," he says. "You seem to think 'change' means replacing a blue polyethylene backdrop with a slightly different shade of blue polyethylene backdrop every presidential election or so."

Jenings can dish it out - all in "humor," so he claims - but apparently can't take it, as evidenced by his plaintive bleating on being spanked by Michael Starr in the NY Post.

Game show contestants for $100, Alex.

Answer: Fairly characterized as a thankless wretch or ungrateful person; also a classless jerk.*

Question: Who is Ken Jennings?

*See also "a cynical self-promoter," as suggested by NPR's Mixed Signals:

Why would Jennings decide to drum up a little controversy now? Could it be because he has a book coming out in September? Naaaah.

(Cross-grumbled elsewhere...)