In our pre-child rearing days, my wife and I would regularly plop on the couch on Sunday nights to watch "The Sopranos." Say what you will about the stereotypes ("Hey, goomba!") and gore, but there was always something fascinating about watching that epically violent and dysfunctional family smash their way through one season after another.

It could be frustrating, too -- months, and indeed, years, would sometimes pass in between seasons. But every time Tony and his crew ambled back into primetime, they would recap the old storylines and rekindle our enjoyment of the show.

And that oddly enough brings me to "This Old House" this blog, Philly Confidential. Says here that it's been more than a month since I've taken up some real estate on this site with my daily ramblings or shared any insights (me? insights?) that I have on the Big Stories of the moment. Well, enough is enough, dammit. It's high time that I dusted off the, uh, dust on my monitor and blogged.

So .... where the hell have Simone and I been? Turns out that the main themes of the "Sopranos" -- family, sanity, death, business -- actually sum up the past month pretty well. We were sidetracked for several weeks with another dysfunctional clan: the Reid family. As you all know by now, Eagles head coach Andy Reid (hefty and surly, much like Tony Soprano) and his two oldest boys, Garrett and Britt (pictured at right in happier times) had a strangle-hold on the front page of the Daily News with their suburban exploits.

It's an old hat now, but just for the hell of it, a recap: Garrett, 23, was arrested in Plymouth Township after he ran through a red light and seriously injured another driver when he slammed into her car. We later learned that Garrett had confessed to doing heroin that day and a had a quiet history of speeding tickets and arrests for drugs and, of all things, retail theft. Britt, 21, was arrested for waving a gun at another motorist that same day in West Conshocken. His car has baggies and containers with trace amounts of drugs as well.

The stories ignited that most beloved of media cliches: a firestorm! Some readers said we were being too hard on the Reid boys because they were the son of a head coach; others said we were being too nice because, well, they were the son of a head coach. Two interesting asides: 1. On the day the story broke, yours truly thought it was a two-day story at best. (Mind you, at that point, all reporters knew was that both boys were involved in traffic mixups. In the following days and weeks, it became clear that both boys were out-of-control train wrecks. D'oh!) 2. Your intrepid DN reporters tracked down nearly every single head coach in the NFL ... and not a single one of them would comment on Andy's situation -- not even on background. That tells us that for all the muck about his kids, Andy must be one stand-up guy.

When the Reid hype died down, our attention was quickly focused on the worst murder scene the city has seen in several years. It'll be a long time before anyone forgets the name Vincent Julius Dortch. Dortch, 44, was an investor in Watson International, a New York-based company that had invested a million bucks in an old country club. When Dortch thought his partners were screwing with his money, he tied three of them up in a Navy Yard conference room and executed them. He then shot at a cop before taking his own life in front of two terrified hostages. The kicker? An accountant who Dortch "accidentally" shot seven times managed to rewire a smashed telephone and call 911. Un-freaking-believable.

Aside from these two mega-stories, we've still been busied by that old reliable, the city's sky-rocketing murder tally. (Sorry. It's been awhile since I've fired a round from the Cliche-o-Matic.) While the numbers continue to climb -- we've already hit 50, by the way -- the City's Top Cop has turned his focus to our pal Greg Gilderman from Philadelphia Magazine. Greg famously got the local hotel industry's undies in a bunch with his November story on the state of chaos on the streets.

Turns out hell hath no fury like a police commissioner scorned. Johnson fired back Philly Mag's current issue: "Your November 2006 cover story is full of erroneous statements, and your inflammatory cover sends the wrong message about the public safety of our city. Philadelphia is a safer city than it was six years ago.......we are a model to other law enforcement agencies." Greg said in an email that he respect's the commish but believes anyone really interested in our crime issues should just read his article. Me? I'll have whatever they're putting in Sylvester's morning coffee.