Edwin MacPhisto

The Hold Steady are better than their constituent parts would lead you to believe. I really dig Separation Sunday. Additionally, I'm listening to Sunn O))) for the first time. Cool.

The implication that Kavanaugh offed Patorio is also pretty creepy. Like, he's not just IAD. He'll cut your fuckin' throat. The baby/pregnant mother storyline was actually kind of terrifying and disturbing. Like, really hard to watch.

Brilliant little movie. Ebert recently added it to his great movies list, and wrote a very good essay on it.

If you can read the future, it's almost like being able to read.

M83 being used in a car commercial actually compelled me to watch it in its entirety. Way to market to the indie-synth niche, Pontiac.

To convince me of the very thing stated in this thread's title, a friend of mine made me a two-disc Morrissey comp. I'll at least hold the overall Smiths catalog and Morrissey's solo catalog in about equal estimation now.

Fury knocks it out of the park. That was awesome. Ingenius bit having Walt actually confess what he was doing to the weak-minded president to coerce him. I loved Aaron's big moment, as the whole rallying of Palmer's most loyal colleagues was a great mini-theme. Jack beating the shit out of Walt goes down as one of the best Jack scenes I've seen in a long-ass time--this was up there with him telling Kofel that he was going to take out his stomach lining with a towel in Season 1. And the big ending, with the terrorists putting a big, big chink in the "smoking gun" plan cinches these first six episodes as a fantastic prologue to the season. Great, great show so far this year. Oh, and Fook's right: Buchanan stepping up and becoming more than just "guy in charge of CTU" has been solid.

Normally I complain about flashbacks, but I'll complain about the island this time too. Though this does feel a bit like a "necessary filler" type episode, even if the Charlie storyline is about the least interesting thing going on right now. I really dislike ending last week on the whole "How long would it take to train an army?" thing and then paying no attention (or very little to it--Jack and Ana-Lucia hanging out) to that, or where the hell Michael is. But, you know, it is good to keep in touch with what's going on with everyone on the island, so I guess this is just one of those weeks. If Eko's the new Locke and Locke's the new Jack, then Jack's the new...Steve! Or Scott.

What's your thesis about? I can offer real-world insight, as opposed to the convoluted stresses of academia. It's coming much better now. It's actually about that book I jizzed over this summer on the Super Secret Club For Jerks, Ian McEwan's Saturday, which is about a day in the life of a London brain surgeon on the day of anti-war in Iraq rally in '03. Crazy shit goes down when he gets in a car accident with a twitchy, mentally deficient thug, and his work comes home, so to speak. Chapter I: Mrs. Dalloway as an intertext for Saturday Chapter II: Saturday and the contemporary sublime So it's pretty much convoluted academia, but now convoluted academia with which I'm actually reasonably comfortable. I'll probably have to wait until mid-February to get that wrathful again. Also, on this thread, the photos of this Joe guy don't impress me terribly. 2GOLD's assessment is right on.

It didn't do a lot for or against me while I was listening to it. I'm also comfortable saying that it's pretty forgettable, because I actually do forget what it sounds like.

You'll get some unique perspectives this way. I feel pretty non-hateful towards women lately, except for the one who had the gall to insult my choice of vegetables after I cooked her dinner. What the fuck is wrong with asparagus?

Then yes, I have. I'll investigate. Since the last time I posted in here, I've listened to a bunch of things. Sufjan Stevens' Illinois is pretty wonderful and might be my second favorite album of the year, behind M.I.A. The Silver Jews' album is also mega-good and I think I like it more than American Water. Young Jeezy's album is perfectly acceptable commercial rap, and is probably about as good/fun as Trick Daddy's Thug Matrimony. The Clipse's We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2 is even better than Jeezy, and actually reaches the potential they seemed to have and squander the first time out. Finally listened to Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney's Superwolf, and it has its share of great songs, especially "Bed Is For Sleeping," which punches me in the gut like only a soul-crushing Will Oldham song can. Art Brut's album is okay. Oh, and I finally listened to the Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album all the way through, and it's about half great songs and half forgettable stuff. They could be really good someday. "Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away," "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth," and "In This Home on Ice" are a cut above the rest of the disc.

I'm not sure that I've ever heard a Camper Van Beethoven song.

The one who, if I recall, ended up only being half-black or something, but who sort of still counted towards you living your dream. I could very well be making up all of this.

I mean, woman.

What ever happened with that black girl?

Yep, that's him. And the ad is a take-off on the Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" video, directed by the same guys. Very strange.

"I'm not CTU." Walt, you is f-u-cked. I love, love, love the idea that Spenser was just internal affairs, and that he had no idea what was actually going on. That's so much better than doing "there's a mole in CTU!" again, and something I hadn't thought of at all. Everything about this episode was great; it's a slow burn and exactly what I wanted out of this week. I think the nerve gas/getting at Jack Bauer are going to be the big things this season, and I'll be really happy if it keeps going like this. Martha Logan is great, too, and she was the part of this season I was most worried about after last Sunday.

I CANT BELIEVE YOU RUINED UNDERWORLD @ All I really want to know is how the guy who played Craven followed up on his performance in the first, which was seriously the worst acting job I have seen in a major film, ever.

Yeah, I was up late working on my thesis and feeling grumpy. Matt got stuck in the crossfire.

I don't follow the NFL like I follow college football, and so I decided to root for the Steelers whenever I caught their games once they drafted UVA's Heath Miller this year. Worked out nicely. This should be a pretty good game. The Seahawks actually remind me a lot of the way the Steelers have been playing lately, with the running game providing a solid base and Hasselback making big plays spread all across the receiver corps. I wasn't impressed with them against Washington, but was very much impressed yesterday. They tore Carolina apart in every facet of the game on both sides of the ball. The Steelers--and Roethlisberger in particular--have simply been playing out of their minds for the last 6 or 7 weeks, and I think they'll pull away in the second half, leaving the Seahawks just too little room to play catch-up. The Steelers' reliance on four solid receivers (Ward, Miller, Randle El, Wilson) will be a lot harder to manage than the "stop Steve Smith!" game they were able to play yesterday. Men of Steel by maybe 7 or 10 in a very good match-up that I wouldn't be surprised to see swing the other way.

That dude just looks like Matt Young after he gets an Associate's in marketing and spends 12 years working as a car salesman and going to the beach on Thursdays, which are the only days he'll get off. He's celebrating a promotion to assistant floor manager (that's the only round he's ever bought), and he's wearing that shirt because he got it with his first paycheck so many years ago, after selling a Taurus with the odometer rolled back under 50,000 miles from 120,000 to a 19 year-old kid who reminded him of himself, before the idealism faded. Matt pulls the trigger with his toe two years after this picture is taken.

I loved all those stupid Mindtrap cards for which the answer was always "it was daylight!" or "he was standing on a block of ice!"

Cars from the future look so gay. No hybrid is going to be worth anyone's money until the technology is much improved and somewhat stabilized. You have to drive a hybrid for years to actually save money on gas vs. upfront cost, and they'll become worthless in resale as the hybrid systems evolve. Who wants a 4 year-old insight when they can buy a Prius? I really love the buses that can run partly off of old vegetable oil, by the way. That's awesome.

GZA's coming to Charlottesville with DJ Muggs in February. What a great alternative to dropping that $50 on the Wu show in DC. I'm psyched. On this list, I'll buy Outkast's, check out Ghostface's album, and maybe steal a couple of the others.