Edwin MacPhisto

Colorado should make a move for Jim Grobe. He does so much with so little at Wake. Give him a real talent base and he'll do great.

See, that's funny, because I'd use almost the exact same words to describe why I like the first and second so much more. Huh. Probably the miserable quality of the singles. "Just Lose It," "Ass Like That," "Toy Soldiers"? Not "Stan," which was considered pretty astonishing for the time, or anything with the vitriol of "The Way I Am." Marshall Mathers was still pretty fresh; Encore is just boring now.

Sure. Lennon and McCartney were the two de facto leaders, but Lennon was their musical leader, at least in the sense of moving forward. Most people (rightly, I'd say) consider Lennon the driving force behind the Beatles' most experimental moments musically--he's "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Strawberry Fields Forever," etc. McCartney was more of a perfect love song guy (and was great at it, mind you). Although they wrote as a team, most of the Lennon/McCartney songs from the second half of their career are actually 90% one guy, 10% the other. Their solo careers thereafter speak pretty well to this--Lennon was writing Plastic Ono Band, and McCartney was doing pretty typical stuff with Wings.

I wanna see another version of Red Dragon, with Emma Watson grabbing the tiger penis.

No one else is having the argument because the answer is obvious. Banky was being charitable. I mean, how are you going to define "die hard"? The fact is that, regardless of how many concerts they went to or how much they know about power-grooves, Lennon's fans were incredibly die-hard, and they remain so to this day--hence the 25th anniversary of his death being a big deal. You could argue that his remaining fanbase is die-hard as a direct result of his untimely death; that I might buy. Also: Having any knowledge about the Beatles, really. There's really no such thing as a pop "band." I would argue that pop is a descriptor of appeal, not style. Pop and rock surely aren't mutually exclusive. I don't know what your standards for a rock band are if the Beatles don't fit them.

Record goes to everyone involved in producing the song--performer, engineer, writer, etc. Song just goes to the songwriter for lyrics and music as writ.

You can argue that Eminem Show is better than the first album? Eminem Show has a handful of good tracks, but it's everything that's bad about "serious Eminem." It's overblown and melodramatic where its predecessors were wickedly funny, offensive, and incisive. He'd run out of things to rap about by that point, and he wasn't terribly unique anymore.

Dalton (Patrick Swayze) vs. the guy who says "I used to fuck guys like you in prison" in Road House. So much ballet, and such a finish. I'm also partial to the Warriors vs. the Baseball Furies, which is wonderful in its own way. Final note: just about the whole tournament in Master of the Flying Guillotine, and that final guillotine battle as well.

The alternative category is usually pretty good. You usually get Beck, Radiohead, or Bjork, and a few others. Album of the Year is always funny though, because who the hell notices when Paul McCartney puts out an album except for the Grammy committee.

The Grammys only have credibility as a measure of quality at the rare moment when the most popular music is also the best. This hasn't happened a lot.

Well if the player has obvious talent and is that good it's not his fault that the team sucks. I mean a QB who is awesome but plays on a team with no blocking or playmaking recievers shouldn't be penalized should he? I imagine it's much more difficult for a QB in that situation to get an award than single kicker or a receiver on a mediocre team. Less dependent on the materials around them, and a good QB with good surrounding players will do exponentially better than one without, making him much more deseerving of the award.

The Pitchfork review mentioned that there's a bonus disc available, which actually does have most of his genuinely good songs. Really, the first two albums are just enough Eminem.

Some of both. "Whatever Happened To" and "Under Control" are probably the best. Most are around three minutes, admittedly.

That shit was hilarious. As an old Giants fan, I always enjoy watching the Iggles get smacked around a bit. That was a lot more than a bit, though.

I like the Strokes. Room on Fire has a ton of good songs. I never really got why all those bands were labeled "garage-rock" or grouped together, beyond the fact that they all had "The" followed by a noun for names. They're not terribly alike, as I think even a cursory listen to their singles from around 2001/2002 shows.

I don't really think the altered memories thing is viable, though it's a cool idea (I'm a big Dark City fan). The main sticking point for me is that I don't know how the writers would explain away what they showed us just a few weeks ago: the tail section crashing into the sea. Yeah, we as viewers never actually see the front end of the plane crash, but I can't see any excusable reason to have that static, non-POV shot of the plane's tail crashing if it never actually crashed. That'd be bad, sneaky writing. I'm kinda thinking the writers don't know where they're going with it all, despite constant urgings otherwise. The odd fusion of seemingly typical and supernatural elements is going to be very difficult to resolve in an effective manner.

No, they really don't. They'll mock them for blowing the Orange Bowl so badly, but no one who actually follows college football thinks that either the 2003 or 2004 OU teams were outside of the top 10 overall teams of those seasons.

I can buy it for an individual player, especially in a big-roster sport like football, but loving the starting 5 of a basketball team and saying that you're not a fan of the team is kinda silly. I get that you're not a fan of the Pistons historically, but you love all the starters, you're a fan of the Pistons. Damn your speed, Czech Republic! Damn it all.

Woo woo. I might actually be able to go to this one, though I'm a bit fearful was to what Minnesota's "insert running back, accumulate 200 yard game" offense can do to a bend-don't-break 3-4.

This is what I was getting at referencing Carroll having a month to prepare. Mack Brown will have a month to prepare as well, true, but his team hasn't had to adapt as much by virtue of pretty much blowing everybody out. USC's close ones against Fresno and ND (and to a lesser extent, Arizona State) might actually help them out here. The gameplan didn't really have to change much against Oklahoma State. I think Carroll's a slightly better game coach (though Mack has gotten way better over the last two years) and that may be a big difference when you have two mega-talented teams.

I don't really consider Texas that versatile an offense. Excellent, yes--terribly versatile, no. Vince Young is versatile, but that's about it. Their success or failure is going to hinge on how well Vince Young passes. He's had okay days, good days, and great days this season. A great day might win it, a good day keeps it close, and on an okay day, USC walks. The offense runs through him almost exclusively, as Texas has several good RBs, but no real huge standouts that can break a game like Bush or White seem to do every other play. What I saw in yesterday's game was USC's back-seven stepping up their pass coverage to a degree I hadn't seen all season, absolutely incapacitating a top-5 quarterback in Drew Olson. Maintain that and the Trojans are really in excellent shape. They may just have had a great day, but like others in the thread, I expect Pete Carroll's gameplan to be top-notch for this one.

Since it's not 2 in the morning anymore, a brief explanation of why I think USC will win by two touchdowns (with a score very much like the one Iggy called): the USC running game. Bold statement, I know. The only times Texas has ever been in trouble this year outside of the Ohio State game were against Oklahoma State and Texas A&M, both teams who ran all over them. Admittedly, a lot of A&M's success was due to Texas' inability to defend the option. Nonetheless, a team that can run can give Texas trouble and goddamn, can Bush and White run. They're just too good. I can't see Texas holding them under 250 yards rushing with the way the USC line has been playing of late, and I think it's going to be too much to overcome.

The new drop-down menu for picking what page of a thread you'd like to read doesn't work in Firefox, at least. Not very fun for moving around the big long discussions.

I personally prefer the old ACC for two reasons: 1) I love a conference where everyone plays everyone in the regular season 2) UVA always had a good out-of-conference game against VT, and now they're scheduling more OOC cupcakes since VT has replaced another ACC team. Of course, the level of competition is now way higher, and having big-time teams like Miami and VT makes it much more notable on a national level. Also, I don't think any ACC fans really care for Boston College. Their arrival messed up the logo: Used to just be Maryland down to Florida, and looked a lot better. Stupid northeast.

Oh man, that shit was hilarious. Since VT joined, lots of ACC fans have rightly pointed out that they've managed to miss FSU in the regular season, and that they really ought to beat the long-standing kings sometime. And they didn't. Awesome. FSU tried very, very hard to give it away with that nonsense prevent defense in the 4th, though.