Have you ever felt the urge to hear a female robot read the true crime sensation Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson by me, Joe Hosey? Well you can satisfy that urge now on YouTube. That's right, YouTube! For absolutely no cost at all you can go to YouTube and listen to a robot with a British accent read "an audio book summary of FATAL VOWS: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson by JOSEPH HOSEY," which, by the way, is me. And we like how it sounds. In fact, we're thinking about getting in touch with that robot about doing a spoken word for some of the stuff on this …

You had an extra two days to get your taxes in, but did you? Well, if you didn't, the Washington Post gives you the good news and the bad news about being a rotten procrastinator. The bad news includes the fact that many post offices won't be staying open late tonight and that you stand a better than average chance of getting killed if you happen to be driving around, the story said. The good news is that you might find some free stuff if you look hard enough. But then you would still get that free stuff even if you filed your taxes a month ago. So there's really no good news at all. Isn't …

When they've been after you for the millions you allegedly got your hands on through your connections with a Ponzi schemer, you're probably going to have a tough time scraping together enough cash to pay for the upper echelon of baseball talent. The same goes if recent "spending sprees have ravaged the front office's financial flexibility" or if you're just cursed for eternity. But as bad as things look, anything's possible. At least until the losses start piling up. It's a glass-half-full way of seeing things, for as long as the glass has anything in it. But not everybody's walking on the …

A 15 lost to a two in the first round. And then another 15 lost to a two in the first round. The defending champs (who, we know, were supposed to lose in the first round) lost in the first round. A 10, 11 and 13 are still alive. They probably won't be after the next round, but who knows? All this devastated the brackets of smarter men and women. But fortunately we here at the Shorewood Patch are not smarter men and women. What we are is luckier, and that's why we still have a chance at winning our pool. And if we win, we will be looking at the start of a dynasty, since we won it last year. …

Everybody's undefeated, at least for the next seven or eight hours. And even then, things don't usually get messy or another week, maybe two. For the time being, let's just enjoy our pristine tournament sheets and worry about crossing out all the losers when it inevitably happens. And who knows? Maybe this year will be different. Well, different for you. We want things to be exactly the same as last year, when we tied for first place (with none other than the original Joe Hosey). Looks like that worst bracket ever wasn't so worst after all, at least compared to the other entries in the ultra-…

First there was the book, then the play and the movie seen by millions. And on Sunday, the Drew Peterson saga will get yet another dramatic treatment with the opening of Dating Walter Dante. WBEZ had a story on the new play and said this: "It's hard to imagine a comedy based on the Drew Peterson case, but playwright Jon Steinhagen is on a roll: this will be the third of his plays to go up in the past six months." Hard for them to imagine, maybe, but not hard for us here at the Shorewood Patch. But that's because we already saw a very clever play based on the Peterson story back in June. It …

It looks like a pretty sure thing for the groundhog to see his shadow today. At least if he comes out of his hole in Shorewood, where it's supposed to be sunny and 49 degrees. So if the forecast is correct, and conventional wisdom holds true, the groundhog is going to see his shadow, grow frightened and retreat into his burrow. Which means we're in for another six weeks of winter. But we've hardly had any winter weather at all so far. So what difference does another six months make? And by another six weeks of winter, do they mean another six weeks of unseasonably warm temperatures while "…

Drew Peterson: Untouchable smashed ratings records Saturday night and secured its place in the annals of television history, according to TV by the Numbers. An unbelievable 5.8 million viewers tuned in to the Lifetime original movie based on the true crime sensation Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson by me (Joe Hosey). Here's what TV by the Numbers had to say: "In its world premiere Saturday night, the Lifetime Original Movie Drew Peterson: Untouchable, starring Golden Globe® and Emmy® Award nominee Rob Lowe and Kaley Cuoco, generated record viewership, averaging 5.8 …

Rob Lowe, the star of Drew Peterson: Untouchable, has tweeted that Peyton Manning's calling it quits. Here's Lowe's tweet: "Hearing my fave, #18 Peyton Manning will not return to #NFL. Wow. #Colts" And here's what Deadspin had to say about it: "We'd tell you to be wary, after Jermaine Dupri mistakenly reported that Dwight Howard to the Nets was a done deal, but this is Rob Lowe. He's so handsome." The world premiere of Drew Peterson: Untouchable, based on the true crime sensation Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson, by me, is set for 7 p.m. Saturday on Lifetime.

It was nearly a year ago that the Bears let down our own Mayor Rick Chapman — leader of the one true Shorewood — and Mayor Rick had to pay off some political hack from the fake Shorewood with Portillo's rib dinners. That was a dark, dark day. And it only got worse from there. The Packers went on to win the Super Bowl, then reeled off an all-but-perfect regular season this year. They seemed destined to repeat as world champions. Even the referees looked like they wanted them to win. But then it all came crashing down and no amount of incompetent or crooked officiating, or discount double-…

Not only did Rob Lowe have to sit in a makeup artist's chair for nine hours every time he wanted to look as ugly as Drew Peterson, but he also spent an untold amount of time "immersing himself in 'hours and hours' of footage of the accused killer" to prepare for the new movie based on my book Fatal Vows, says the website Contactmusic.com. The site quoted a Lowe interview with Piers Morgan about the upcoming world premiere of Drew Peterson: Untouchable. Here was Lowe's take on playing Peterson: "I think he has a sort of malignant charm. And the question was how do you find that? I watched …

Dan Rozek from the Sun-Times got his hands on an advance copy of the new Drew Peterson movie and he says I'm a "key character" in it. "Hosey is a key character in the film, but he’s portrayed as relaxed, polite and, well, Californian," Rozek wrote. "Hosey, a native New Yorker and die-hard Mets fan, is far more brash, aggressive and intense than his soft-spoken, reel-life counterpart. Besides, the movie version of the reporter drives a boring, four-door brown sedan; Hosey actually drove a beat-up white pickup that always seemed to be parked in front of Peterson’s house or at the ex-cop’s …

Check out the trailer for the new Lifetime movie based on my book Fatal Vows. Click here to take a look.

Thanksgiving has always been one of your more popular national holidays, probably because of all the gluttony associated with the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. That’s understandable. It’s hard to beat a good meal. But Thanksgiving really has very little else going for it. For one thing, unless you are a government employee or a child, odds are you have to work the next morning. For another, the whole basis of the holiday is a bit troubling. From what Wikipedia says — and if Wikipedia says it, you better believe it — the Pilgrims threw a Thanksgiving party in 1621 to celebrate a good …

Nothing beats Columbus Day. Here at the Shorewood Patch we've already addressed the relative merits of various holidays, even going so far as to do a cursory ranking of a few of them. Well, at the top of this cursory ranking goes Columbus Day, the greatest of all holidays. It's patriotic, it celebrates ethnic and religious identity, it honors a great man, there's a huge parade in New York, and it's always on a Monday. What's better than that? Well, we'll tell you — nothing is better than that. But even though there's nothing better than Columbus Day, we can think of at least one way to …

It was well established not long ago that the staff of the Shorewood Patch sports department doesn't know the first thing about picking horses. Yes, the spring was a rough time financially here at the Shorewood Patch, but we tightened our belts and made it through. It meant a few less corporate excursions and luxurious business lunches, but we managed to right our monetary ship and continue sailing along without raising the debt ceiling or anything as drastic as that. But now it is football season, and we have the opportunity to win it all back — or lose even more. The Shorewood Patch sports …

It's Labor Day. We hope you're enjoying the day off, or the holiday pay if you have to work. And if you're out of a job or have one that doesn't compensate you at a premium rate for being there on a national holiday, then sorry. But for the lucky ones, this is arguably the greatest holiday of the year. The weather's usually pleasant, there are no religious obligations, you have a full-slate of baseball running from early afternoon until late at night, there are Labor Day sales if shopping is your thing, and it's all to honor the "contributions and achievements of American workers," says …

If you missed the Shorewood Crossroads Festival last week, it's your loss. Whether it was through some fault of your own or not, you will never experience the sheer ecstasy of Shorewood Crossroads 2011. And by "sheer ecstasy" we mean unmitigated fun, and not some illicit substance the kids today take before they run around with glow sticks and pacifiers. Or maybe we mean that too. We can't be held accountable for what everyone was up to at the festival. But by and large the Shorewood Crossroads Festival was law-abiding and wonderful, and it's too bad for you if you weren't there. Just try to …

It was very exciting to find out that they weren't just making a movie out of my book Fatal Vows: The Tragic Wives of Sergeant Drew Peterson, which is still available for purchase in hardcover, but then it came out that Rob Lowe was cast in the starring role. That was pretty unbelievable. A big star like Rob Lowe in the movie they were making out of my book. Who would have thought? And then I found out that I was going to be a character in the film. That's right — there's going to be a character named "Joe Hosey" in the movie. I was thrilled when I heard that was actually going to happen. So …

A new photograph of Rob Lowe in his Drew Peterson getup appeared on the website The Scoop. The Scoop was quite impressed by Lowe's Peterson impersonation, saying that "the resemblance is pretty remarkable, thanks to some movie magic." Well, magic and lots of hard, time-consuming work. According to People magazine Lowe "goes through a nine hour transformation every day." And all just to look like Drew Peterson. We wonder how long it took the movie magicians to work on Eric Stoltz when he was playing that kid in Mask, or to get John Hurt to look like The Elephant Man. But the kid in Mask …