Edwin MacPhisto

Everyone in the Coastal Division lets out a little cheer for FSU. This was a pretty good game, much better than last year's opener even though the scores were similar. For the most part, the low score this time was because of insanely fast and talented defenses, not the incompetence of two brand-new offenses. I do still sometimes wish they'd let this game go till later in the season rather than kicking things off with it. I imagine we'd see far fewer of the fumbles and gaffes that seemed to pop up pretty regularly tonight.

Some Virginia prices for 87: Charlottesville - $2.65 Random places up and down US-29 - $2.55 Gainesville - $2.41 Arlington - $2.77 All this within 100 miles. Lovely.

The 8-screen split on ESPN 2 is flippin' me out. Really though, the coach and QB cams are kind of useless. I've got Miami in this one but am rooting for FSU. My second-favorite ACC team, and not in UVA's division. Osceola 4 life.

I just finished my English MA in May and was in a similar situation to where you are now (fortunate enough to be debtless). I, however, had no designs on being a teacher--I just had the opportunity and decided to take it. I now work in the private sector using the power of English to tell other people that they're dumb, so I guess it's still somewhat akin to teaching. Anyway, my thoughts: -Grad school's kinda silly. It's an endurance test before anything else--work enough to perform adequately and you'll get your diploma. You could certainly do it while working a full-time job, though it would take you a few years. When I was finished, my first thought was "jesus fucking christ, thank god." -That being said, I enjoyed a whole lot of what I did, and the 6 months I spent working on my thesis taught me a shit ton of stuff, both in terms of academic edification and how to manage projects of absolutely any scale. -For me, a lot of the appeal was that I'd have my MA diploma in hand a couple weeks before my 23rd birthday. I probably wouldn't have done it myself had I taken time off or had it taken longer than one more year (I started during my 4th year of undergrad). -If you think you might want to teach something higher than high school/be a professor, give it a shot. One of the biggest benefits of a terminal MA program is that it lets you do a sort of trial run to see if you really want to go for the Ph.D. and lifetime academia. You'll have to write some papers to conference standards, you'll have to produce publishable-level material, and you'll get a good sense of what it's like to live in an English department. I learned that the internal politicking and current insistence on extremely, extremely esoteric scholarship isn't what I'm into now, but that I might be gung-ho for it a few years down the road. If careers are your concern, you might want to just look for more prospective jobs, too. You don't have to be a high school teacher by default. I write proposals for a government contractor, and a friend who graduated from the same program I did does web editing and newsfeeds for a think tank. I know an English B.A. who works in circulation for DC Comics, one who's an editorial assistant for a magazine, and another who's a paralegal. Lotta stuff out there for humanities degrees, even if teaching is the most obvious possibility.

If you're talking "Hova Song" off ...Sean Carter, yeah, that's dumb. If you're talking "I.Z.Z.O. (H.O.V.A.)," one of the greatest summery rap singles I've ever heard, you're nuts.

I picture this being like the scene in Robin Hood when Morgan Freeman stabs the shit out of the creepy old witch. 'Cept marginally more Australian.

I gotta start looking for some pictures of balls.

I wouldn't worry about it that much. Palko looked very good, but UVA has a way of making middle-of-the-road teams look like worldbeaters, especially towards the beginning of the season. I watched almost the whole game--UVA's playcalling was just terrible. 38 points was a combination of two things: 1) Palko getting off two huge, huge bombs, one of which was extremely lucky, and 2) UVA getting no pressure from their 3-4 defense. It's probably time to change that--the 3-4 worked in 2004, when you had 5 future NFL players between the d-line and the LBs, but this year all the veteran talent is gone and the LBs are untested. They're not getting the pressure they need and they're tremendously weak against the run. The playcalling for our new QB, Christian Olsen, was also terrible--I know he was tentative and making his first start on the road, but there wasn't a single pass play designed to go downfield more than 15 yards. Pitt looked good, not great, and'll probably finish something like 8-4 this season. Louisville will still wreck them. UVA looked like ass but with a few bright spots, and I think they'll get things sorted out against Wyoming and Western Michigan, then have a much better gameplan when they go up against Georgia Tech.

Interesting, I can't recall having someone not show up against me during this contest. Since I got 3 of the 4 Thursday games, I win as long as I get one of the four games Kingofthe909 and I differ on, right? Wake, hopefully, will be a lock against crappy Syracuse.

THURSDAY Buffalo Northwestern South Carolina San Diego State SATURDAY North Carolina Tennessee Navy Wake Forest UCLA Pittsburgh Army Notre Dame Arizona MONDAY Miami Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the California/Tennessee game? 51 Tiebreak #2: How many passing yards will Notre Dame's Brady Quinn have against Georgia Tech? 250

Even I'm a bit surprised at how much vitriol I have for the man's work when I get going. Poor Al.

This would actually make sense if Weird Al relied on nothing but toilet humor and dick jokes. Even then, this "Weird Al is teen music" sentiment you and Edwin put forth doesn't make any sense I can't conceive it being anything but teen music. I mean, it's not funny at all. That's all it's supposed to be and it fails. Parody, when done poorly, is one of the lowest forms of art. Look at this song. It's a "parody" of a really popular song. But it's not really a parody, because it just uses the beat to discuss subject matter that doesn't pertain to the original at all. This is the formula for almost all of his songs (or at least the ones I've heard--I will confess that I have never had any interest at all in listening to anything beyond the 20 or so songs he's gotten played on VH1 and MTV). Half the time his song is based on the fact that the title rhymes with the title of the original song. Internally, they're never funny either. Not being full of dick and fart jokes doesn't somehow transform this into anything tolerable. I guess my big problem is that I barely consider it music, because it's honestly devoid of content sonically, lyrically, or even conceptually. It's comedy devoid of humor and it's not even absurd enough to warrant a "what the hell is this guy thinking." My assessment: Weird Al fails to succeed as an example of any genre and isn't nearly interesting enough to get the "genre-defying" label. I'd rather listen to Pulp's "Bad Cover Version" than any Weird Al song, ever.

Sorta seeing in, what, a week and a half in-country, so to speak? Attaboy. You "swam" right into her heart! HAHAHHAHAHAHAAAHHAHA

Give up now, Supes. There are too many Cauthen cuties and Bonnycastle hos out there for you to be writing suplexes. Now you know why my one really huge run took place from May to August.

And, I know Art Brut are stupid, but I really like "Emily Kane." Awkward, stilted, minimal, and I can't stop listening.

Right fucking on! I'm glad someone else thinks so. I have a wonderful history with that album. It's one of the first I can remember actually downloading off of Napster. I listened to it once, thought "hmm," and then got way smarter and got into it insanely so my first year of college. I found a used copy maybe two, three years ago, and I started listening to it even more. Sometime this spring I realized it's unquestionably all-time top 10 material for me. I think his studio recordings are great and charming as well, but the live album is on a totally different level. Never heard or seen a performer connect with a crowd as strongly as he does on there.

Weird Al is Raffi for 14-year-olds. It just makes me sad when I hear he's put out something new. He and Dr. Demento should go start a whole foods store or something together and just stop it.

I think "Stars are Blind" is great, actually. Catchy, and brilliant outside of itself for being a debut single for Paris freakin' Hilton. Throw anyone at all in front of that and it's still a great summer jam. Reactions to it are tremendously informed by the fact that it's got her name on it, even though it doesn't sound like her and could pass for 10 other pop singers. I find that all kind of remarkable.

I've stolen the Nas joke and used it relentlessly on friends ever since this post. Also, Czech's picture: I think the bro on the far right sold me my car.

I still can't really get into Prison Break. I'll probably keep watching, but the new "figures out EVERY RIDDLE INSTANTLY!" FBI guy is really lame. He'll be even lamer when he tracks down the conspiracy and subtly begins to help the brothers, because I think this show is gonna be getting a whole lot more predictable this second season. The writers had an ingenious concept to work off the first season, but I think they're already starting to flounder on the outside.

I'm not up to snuff on my scotch. What are the rankings of the labels. Red is the schwag, right? And as far as tequila is concerned, what's a good one? I've only had Cuervo Gold and frankly, I hate it. I've heard Petron is good? Patron is fantastic. Expensive as balls, and perhaps not something you want to be giving out in shots to random visitors, but it's real good. And I generally hate tequila.

Iggy's ACC thoughts are more like GAYCC thoughts. I'll see you in Bored's pick 'em, sucka. I do agree that, overall, Miami is probably the team to beat. Georgia Tech won't get anywhere near double digit wins as long as Reggie "45% completion rate" Ball is behind center. If he somehow turns it around and becomes a Jason Campbell-esque senior year hero, I'll be stunned.

I've never heard of such lowballing on a trade-in. Even a base '99 Jetta is worth about $7-8,000. Yeah, I was surprised. I had the base, but I gauged mine as being worth around $7300. It needed about $700 of maintenance (VW A/C units have tendency to crap out frequently) so I let the guy have it for the lower cost rather than doing it for him. Worked out very nicely for me.

So, the ACC. Here's what I think is important this year in my favorite conference. -Clemson is not as good as everyone is hyping them to be. They're last year's Georgia Tech, 2004's Virginia: a good, heavily hyped team that will do fine but isn't going anywhere special. 8-4, with FSU whooping their asses hard this time. -The closest thing the ACC has to a sleeper pick this year is Boston College. -We'll get an FSU/Miami championship game this year after all. Neither will go undefeated but they'll both be something like 11-1 or 10-2. No one else in the conference is good enough to go 7-1 or 6-2 with a tiebreaker win over one of them. Having the two of them play in the first week of the season is still stupid. -Same story as always: with the exception of Duke, anyone can beat anyone any week in the ACC, moreso than any other conference, I think. -Maryland will get back to a bowl this year, and NC State will get to another. Shitty bowls, but bowls nonetheless. I'm not particularly fond of the 12-game schedule, because it's going to vastly increase the number of mediocre 7-5 teams nationwide. -Virginia Tech will drop off this year, but probably not a ton. I'd like to see them collapse entirely, miss a bowl, and have their entire offensive line jailed, but the fact is they return an excellent defense and a good if not deep o-line, have an incredibly light schedule (they miss FSU again, have 8 home games, and play Southern Miss, Northeastern, Kent State, and Cincinnati out of conference), and will probably go 9-3 or so. -Georgia Tech will get 7 wins and no more for the 5th year in a row. I hope Chan Gailey coaches them forever. -Virginia will go 11-1 with a loss at FSU. They'll then avenge themselves in the ACC championship game and beat Ohio State on a last second field goal in the Rose Bowl to finish the season ranked #3. (In other words, we're gonna go 7-5 and play in the Tire Bowl or something like that. It's a rebuilding year for my boys, and it could go terribly, but I'm hoping we'll beat Pitt or GT for a strong road win and steal a game from one of the Big Three.)

About 2 months ago I sold my 99 Jetta and started a lease on an '06 Accord Coupe. I love this thing. My parents helped with the Jetta but this is the first one I'm doing on my own and I couldn't be happier. This should be second nature for most people but: if you live anywhere resembling a minor metropolitan area, don't trade your car in at the dealer. I worked with two dealers in northern Virginia while getting my Accord, and one offered me $2500 for the Jetta and the other $3000. I got a $20 deluxe car wash, put it on craigslist with a few pictures on a Saturday afternoon, and had sold it for $6500 by Monday night.