Edwin MacPhisto

I tend to agree that he's a bit overhyped, but it's hard to judge since I haven't had a chance to see much of Bowling Green this year, especially with him injured this past stretch of games. It's clear that Bowling Green is pretty close to dead in the water without him, though. His performance against Wisconsin was impressive--in the first half. In the second half they changed up their coverages and the criticisms you make--bad progressions, can't pick up a blitz--sunk him. I'm not sure how much of that is him, and how much of it is playing on a MAC team with mediocre surrounding talent. Then again, Roethlisberger and Leftwich didn't have all those problems, so who knows.

He's good. I don't know if he's first-round material but really no one but Leinart looks like they are at this point.

Seamonsters is indeed fantastic. He and Plagiarism! were the big-time fans, and I've been converted too.

Try Ride's Nowhere, or the first two Jesus and Mary Chain albums. More accessible and typical than Loveless with a lot of the same noise, if that makes sense, and all very good.

Jay Cutler ought to be the #2 quarterback off the board, not Pinegar or Whitehurst.

Don't I look silly for my post in the Best Albums of 2005 thread mere moments ago! It took me a long time to really 'get' both the Stones' Exile on Main St. and Dylan's Blonde on Blonde. The latter has pretty much been on permanent rotation since I finally did get it. I'm still waiting to turn around on the Talking Heads, but I feel like I'm getting closer.

Over Low, huh? Not bad. I've listened to the Wolf Parade album several times this week. Very good; it does everything for me that I'd hoped last Walkmen album would, and, with few exceptions, didn't. Still not sure that it's the ultimate album of 2005, but it's up there for me.

Honestly, while not the mega-draw of either of Penn State or Notre Dame, Ohio State/Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl would be absolutely bonkers. Those two schools will travel just as well as the others.

Shouldn't have gone with heart in picking the VT/UVA game, or I'd already have the win. Now I'm just relying on Joe Ayoob to fuck up to keep me above .500 and all-up-ons the conference championship.

Well, it's Harry Potter. Of course it'll do well, especially with the 6th book in such recent memory. Saw it, and it was good. It lacked some of the quieter moments of the third movie (I'm thinking of Lupin and Harry on the bridge, just talking), as well as that movie's mastery of detail (the wonderful moving wanted posters for Sirius Black), but it did a really good job of cramming most of Book 4's big stuff into the picture. Newell especially did a good job shooting Cedric, Fleur, and Krum, all of whom come off pretty flat/spare in the book, and were helped a lot just by having convincing archetypal-looking actors in the roles and a few good scenes.

im new to this swf thing, but if u wanna be my partner we can tag up! my finish isr a pwoeromb JUMPING ONE

SATURDAY Missouri Boston College Virginia Ball State Iowa Oklahoma Purdue Ohio State Oklahoma State BYU Washington State Auburn Marshall Stanford South Carolina Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Ohio State/Michigan game? 38 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Washington State's Jerome Harrison have against Washington? 180

That was the best sideline interview of the year, no doubt.

That was pretty wild. Some thoughts: -So the first season was a little longer than 40 days--Boone's message on the radio came on day 41, making it more like 43 days. -I'm curious about Ethan more than ever now. He infiltrated our beloved islandgoers, but never dragged anyone off but Claire. The parallels between he and Goodwin are interesting but don't entirely match up. Also, Ethan either had to be the others' strongest guy, or someone/something totally different--Eko taking out two, and another one dying unceremoniously in the second set of abductions makes them look a lot more typical physically than we might have thought. -Goodwin: "Nathan wasn't a good person." The others taking good people? What that even means could be a billion things. -Everyone hearing the whispers in the jungle--it's probably not a disease thing or dementia, as some people had wondered.

Yargh use spoiler tags yargh. <spoiler> </spoiler>, but in [ ].

Hey, he's right, the carnival is here.

They've been calling Michigan State's upset since the middle of October. Guess they feel committed to it. I can see them playing the best they've played in weeks since this is a high-ranked opponent and for a bowl bid, but they're still going down pretty hard.

Also, it's probably going to be a Gator Bowl against Virginia Tech. That'll be a hell of a game.

Stand and Deliver.

I have no firm best album yet. I really haven't listened to much new music at all this year, mostly due to my rather overloaded hard drive. I really like Stephen Malkmus' album, Picaresque, and Late Registration, but hopefully the next month will yield something I really love.

Probably "well, it's FSU/Miami." I mean, they know what they were getting into with the championship game. Sometimes Kansas State's going to sneak up on OU. Everyone was grumpy when that 8-4 FSU team went up against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl a couple years ago, and you'd get the same thing. Of course, the ACC would still probably be sporting 4-5 top 20 teams by season's end, so the complaining would die down pretty quick-like.

Yep. The ACC took the two best teams, another good one, and was lucky enough to get VT and BC while both teams were peaking. West Virginia is a good team, as is Louisville, but both would have at least 3 losses in any other major conference this year. WVU might be all right if they were in the Big XII. As for WVU in a BCS bowl: I know they'll bring fans, but how can you not be underwhelmed by the program? Their last bowl win was the Music City in 2000, and they've gotten absolutely trounced by ACC teams (FSU, Maryland, Virginia) the last three years running.

I listen to "I Ain't The 1" just about every day.

I'm putting together a breakfast tailgate to get started at around 8:30 am for UVA/VT. This is the first noon home game in about two years, so we're doing it big. I'm happy that I'll get to catch the end of Michigan/Ohio State and most of the Iron Bowl afterwards.

Pretty much. Generally the assignments only seem to break if there are more teams eligible than spots. Any team can reject a bid, obviously, for whatever reason, but in most cases not relating to discipline (as in Clemson and South Carolina forgoing bowls after last year's brawl) there would be extreme pressure from the conference to accept and not piss off bowl sponsors. If someone's paying for the Motor City Bowl, they want their goddamn #7 Big Ten team way more than they want an at-large New Mexico team. Actually, I think this situation arose because of Utah making the BCS. Before this year, the Liberty Bowl had a contract with the C-USA and Mountain West champs. When Utah went to the Fiesta Bowl, the Mountain West released the Liberty Bowl from their obligation since no MWC team would be nearly as appealing as Utah would have been and since the Liberty had paid for their champ. The Liberty Bowl offered Boise State, and the WAC and Boise accepted since they wanted to get their conference champ out of the Blue Turf Bowl and into a high-profile game for once. Worked out great for everyone involved, really, and I'm kind of disappointed that C-USA and the WAC didn't work that out to be an annual thing. This year, the Liberty only had a contract with C-USA, and next year, it's supposed to be a C-USA/SEC match-up. I think the SEC is dropping the Houston Bowl to someone else to make room for their 7th or 8th team to go.