Edwin MacPhisto

Even the usually dull or mismatched national noon games are looking pretty good today: BC/BYU and Iowa/Iowa State. Sure beats the usual "someone rapes Temple" slot.

I got the 60 gig color at the beginning of last summer, so I probably got it around the same time as you. I haven't filled it yet, so I'm content. I really dig the Nanos with the old mini case, though. Should help the scratches a lot. I'm very tempted to get one to take on the metro in the morning.

I was just coming on here to say the same thing. Has he actually gained weight in the offseason?

FRIDAY Toledo SATURDAY Syracuse Pittsburgh Notre Dame Louisville Oklahoma Auburn Texas Tech Kentucky East Carolina Florida State USC Florida Nevada Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Oklahoma/Oregon game? 51 Tiebreak #2: How many receiving yards will USC's Dwayne Jarrett have against Nebraska? 75

In the case of used stuff, you're paying an individual seller or company, but it's all done through the Amazon interface.

I'm really weirded out by the CGI booth that Fowler and Herbstreit appear to be sitting in.

Byron has a long way to go before he writes as well as Bizzy Bone.

Maryland tries a reverse on the kickoff return and fumbles at the 10. Fucking hilarious. Slaton, incidentally, is a fast little bastard. Edit: Okay, this offensive system is unreal. Slaton is pulling out Reggie Bush moves. On that last touchdown, the staggered blocking across the whole width of the field was brilliant.

No one's ever gotten a second chance before this. It was pretty atonishing at first, but unfortunately about 20 minutes in it was clear that both of them were gonna be gone again, making it a whole lot of fuss about nothing. The challenge itself was pretty uninteresting considering the few that preceded it, and I thought the "have to use all the fabric!" thing was kinda stupid.

Since it's not in Bored's pick-off, anyone have predictions for the WVU/Maryland game tonight? I think he was right not to include it because I'm expecting a total shitkicking. Like, 45-17, something along those lines. It's sad that this is probably WVU's 3rd or 4th toughest game of the season, but I'll be watching to see how good they really look.

lack of giant glass letters = more like genesucks am i right Looks pretty awesome. Good luck to all, and enjoy. ps strangelr blowz

stole yo honey like I stole yo bike

There are plenty of idiots here that post in that manner - Banky just happens to be the shit that floats to the top of the bowl. +3 points for use of extended shit metaphor in The Chocolate Socket -1 point for being mean

You can get through The Human Stain in a weekend if you want some more Roth. Reads very fast, much faster than American Pastoral, I think, and quite good too. Follows a similar model of starting one way and shifting utterly and completely after the first act. I've heard very good things about Operation Shylock from one of my Roth-junkie friends, too.

As far as defense goes, I'm more concerned by the two starters who are hurt and going to be out for this game. Leak is a good QB and shouldn't have much of a problem attacking the reserves. I'm also not sure about Ainge stepping up as hugely as he might have to; the Gators are a lot more skilled on D than Cal or Air Force. Homefield is a big deal but I've seen Tennessee get whacked at home enough over the past two years against decent squads to believe it's not going to be too massive a factor.

I read Anthem in 8th grade, and never picked up another page of Ayn Rand. Heard it was a good decision on my part. Ian McEwan's Atonement. I don't really know who I'm recommending it to, but what a book. I posted about it on the first page of the thread and revisited it again recently, and it's real good. It's the kind of book that seems slightly slow and perplexing at first, but everything falls into place. I don't mean that in the sense of "oh, how clever" or "shit son, he's Keyser Soze," but that what seems slow and odd becomes the foundation for two fantastic character studies, and that the whole book ends up feeling like 350 fluid pages when viewed as a whole. Great work of fiction that also manages to be metafictional and insightful. I might still like Saturday a bit more since I'm a sucker for taut, propulsive narrative, but I again highly recommend Atonement to literature nuts, especially fans of Woolf.

Yes. Though I haven't decided which is more nuts. Probably the USC upset because I can write off the Tennessee stuff as superfan talk. The way the team is right now, I don't think they match up well at all with Florida, and I'm envisioning about a 10-point win for UF currently.

That was a bit Sloppy, but you're still our mutual friend.

Agreed. The marble-mouthing has its charm but the actual singing helps the band get out of that "Pavement side project" shadow. It also makes several of the guest spots work a lot better, like on "I'm Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You"; he sounds much better harmonizing with Will Oldham than he would kind of mumbling alongside him. Banky, if you're out there, have you heard Tanglewood Numbers? I can't imagine you not liking it a ton.

I enjoy the parallelism implied by him sucking on the straw in the first picture.

Malkmus is plenty noticeable on American Water. His interplay with Berman is one of my favorite aspects from that one. That album and Tanglewood Numbers keep growing on me. They did a fanfuckingtastic version of "Punks in the Beerlight" when I saw them in February, which really got me listening to them more frequently.

Haha. Mags, I've been debating whether or not to make this thread for a year now. I'm sure you're not surprised. I love this shit. Last season was top-notch, but fucking Michael, hood gentleman, is king this year. As the most consistent competitors, I think he and Uli are locks for the final three, and that Jeffrey will take the third spot. He's hitting his stride at just the right time, and that plaid dress was fly as hell. I'll actually be very amused to see how many people on this board follow this show.

You really don't have to lead off every post with "despite what ESPN says." Nobody here likes ESPN all that much so you're preaching to the choir. It's hard for me to say which is the bigger accomplishment. Initially I'm inclined to agree with you because last year's game was so much more closely matched--it really felt like two juggernauts going toe-to-toe, with one great team stepping it up even higher to beat another great team. That'd work in favor of Texas in both directions. In hindsight, however, it's more of testament to how awesome Vince Young was, and what a huge advantage a more developed QB has at the college level. That Ohio State absolutely dominated Texas this year is in some ways a more remarkable achievement--the level of success they had outweighs the fact that the teams were perhaps closer talent-wise last year. Last year's Texas win also benefited from some no-balls decisions by Tressel, like those constant field goal attempts that really shut down any chance for long-lasting positive momentum or big points. Ultimately, any definitive comment on that will have to wait till the end of this season--we know now that last year's Texas win was over what ended up being one of the best teams in the country. If Texas 2006 goes 9-3 and then loses the Holiday Bowl, OSU's win may lose a lot of its current luster.

Slanted and Enchanted is worth a good listen. I can visualize Czech rocking out to "Loretta's Scars," maybe. Count me among the "like but don't love" crowd for Pet Sounds. I like the songs vivalultra listed and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" but rarely put the album on as a whole. Might just be a little too twee. Re "Wouldn't It Be Nice": Go Home Productions mashed it up with some dreamy, shoegaze stuff I failed to identify, and the effect is sublime. It's called "Wouldn't It Be Ecstasy," and I think it's up there with "Sexual High" (the impeccable Radiohead/Marvin Gaye combo) as one of the standards of cool shit you can do within the mash-up genre.

I took a sociology class focusing on American society and pop culture my first year of college. I wrote a paper about racial subtexts and minstrelsy in Eazy-E's work. Chalk up the A. We had Straight Outta Compton as a primary text. In fact, I think 37.5% of my final grade was related to N.W.A. in some fashion.