I haven’t been paying much attention at all to the media frenzy that erupted when ten captured Russian spies almost overshadowed the monumentally shattering decision by Lebron James to leave Cleveland to play foosball, or something, uh, somewhere else. Sorry, it was way too involved and dramatic for me to absorb it all. I’ll try to take notes next time.

The spy story should have been awesome, though, don’t you think? A cell of Russian spies, living undetected among us for ten years! Russian Spies! Just like in the old days! And not just any spies but moles who adopted fake identities, insinuated themselves into American society, took out an American mortgage on an American house and raised good-old American children. They were so super-secret that their own children didn’t realize mummy and daddy were transmitting secrets to the motherland under cover of their boring day jobs. Bozhe moi!

As it turned out, though, there was just one small problem with this Ian Fleming wet dream: The spy ring these guys were running turned out to be a terrific snoozefest.

Maybe they got hold of information that might one day aid the Russians in their attempt to build a bomb that goes kaboom louder than our bombs. But the way they did it was boring! They were not sneaking around CIA headquarters after hours with a pen light between their teeth, shuffling through file after file in a search for the blueprints to the ultimate kaboom. Instead, they mingled with ordinary people at dinner parties, making acquaintances and chatting them up, hoping to glean a tidbit here, a fact or two there. They networked their way toward their goals. Only Steven Covey could make covert intelligence-gathering sound more dull than this.

Then there’s Anna Chapman, the spy everyone’s been drooling over. She’s the sexy one, according to every single tabloid news outlet on the face of the planet. Seriously? She puts on a bustier, ducks her head a little and gives the camera a smoky glance, and that’s all it takes to win the title of Sexiest Spy Ever to Blow a Kiss? Sorry, honey, but Honor Blackman has you so outclassed in the sexy spy department that you could pout from now until your teeth fell out and you still wouldn’t catch up.

Finally, while I was listening to a news report yesterday on the radio, I heard the ultimate fly in the ice cream: We flew our ten spies to Vienna and exchanged them for four Russian double agents. Our ten sleeper-cell spies were worth four double agents captured by the Russians – they weren’t worth half what theirs were worth!. We really got shafted on that swap. Wal-Mart doesn’t offer bargains that cut-rate.