Edwin MacPhisto

You still don't get it. Nearly all campaign rhetoric is bullshit. From both sides. Get over it. Focus on the actual issues and the platforms as best you can - not the dick-waving either candidate uses in stump speeches or TV ads. It's meaningless crap designed to win votes in a specific state. When the debates come around, they can put up or shut up for probably the closest thing to 'real' we'll get.

Damn. Troy was one of the five or six possible upsets I thought about picking, but in the end I decided to play percentages and went with all of my favorites. They're off to an impressive start after getting bushwhacked consistently last year.

A hard week to call, but here's what I'm going with. Thursday, September 9th Missouri Friday, September 10th Miami Oregon State Saturday, September 11th Wisconsin Arizona State Nebraska UCLA Kansas State Michigan Ohio State Washington State Virginia Texas A&M Georgia Oklahoma USC Clemson Penn State Alabama Texas Tiebreaker #1: 31 Tiebreaker #2: Brad Smith makes 314 yards.

Whedon fans will tell you that it was, but the fact still remains that he still wrote it. He also wrote Toy Story - and last I checked - that was a pretty big success. Yes he did, which is why I said I'm waiting for the script before damning him to hell... The writers of TOY STORY are Joss Whedon and Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow. Can people please quit forgetting the rest of the writers? They do this same crap with Buffy, acting like David Fury, Marti Noxon, David Greenwalt, and others never wrote a page. Whedon wrote parts of TOY STORY, he wrote TWO feature films all by himself. Those two films are "Buffy" and "Alien:RS" and soon to add "Serenity". The rest, much like the many seasons of Buffy/Angel were written by a TEAM. There is a difference between me being a fan and blind loyality. His feature film track record as a writer by himself is just miserable. Except that the Alien Resurrection script was not at all close to his original approved drafts. The statement of "writing by himself" should be amended to "writing by himself and then dealing with a goofy French director who barely spoke English." I read the original way back, and I'll look for a copy somewhere on this hard drive. For one, the hybrid alien was nothing like the retarded "newborn" we ended up with - I recall it being essentially similar to the typical alien, with a larger jaw and that bone-white color. The final encounter took place on Earth, not with the little saggy-tits humanoid alien getting sucked through a hole. Most of his more imagistic scenarios were deleted, 2 characters were excised, most of the actual dialogue scenes were sliced, and a ton of ridiculous humor was added. That shit was Jeunet; take a spin through City of Lost Children and the hack-job of Alien Resurrection feels much more familiar. Whedon does good work, and I think he'll do well with X3, if this is true - I've yet to see it confirmed anywhere but Production Weekly, and their scoop is old news that for some reason only broke this week. He's still not nearly as good as Singer for the project, but I can't think of any other realistic choices that I'd rather have lined up to try to salvage the series.

Puzzling.

Yeah, putting 9/11 on a list of sports tragedies is a pretty big stretch. I don't mean to trivialize the deaths of Earnhardt and the like, but c'mon.

Manson actually likes the Smiths, though. That's the fun part.

What I've learned from this site is that, shockingly, the difference in every single state that anyone thought might have a chance of going either way is still in the margin of error 2 months before the election. Someone wake me on November 3 when the numbers are actually something close to definitive.

Without question. Five or six of the games have such upset potential that I could see them going either way almost equally. Should be a fun weekend.

The Smiths are #1 with a bullet on that list, with New Order close behind. London Calling was released in December 1979, and I can take or leave the Clash after that. The list is representative of what many people remember of the 80s (synth, pop, and sap), but not of what the music was really like. Prince, the Smiths, and the Pixies are my stunningly controversial favorites for the decade, with Tom Waits and U2 riding shotgun.

I saw some of it, but it's nothing to worry about. Bowling Green isn't a pushover. Oklahoma was always in control, but they still had to play a good team. They looked fine, and I'm not surprised if they were relaxed - it was the first game of the season, and, ranked #2 in the nation, they had very little to prove. As for not going for "unnecessary roughness" to intimidate, well, good. Less thugs, more football.

Nope. You're in the clear.

The weekend is almost over, with Fresno State taking a chunk out of Washington and Tennessee starting to put away UNLV. If Tennessee holds on, the big surprise for me will be that we got through the entire weekend without any top-25 upsets. Memphis over Ole Miss and BYU over Notre Dame are our only real "surprises," and those aren't even big stretches. Fun start of the year, if a bit pedestrian.

Pure coincidence, but man, jungle cats do blow. I've always hated the "we need a mascot...let's make it a cat!" mentality that has resulted in about 18 Tigers, a handful of Panthers, and even a Bobcat here and there. Ass for creativity, people.

It was an awful week for kickers. Missed PAT's and stuff all over the place. Clemson/Wake was my favorite match-up, though I was disappointed that Wake didn't hold it together. Get those Tigers an ACC loss, dammit! Ultimately, the end results mean not a lot of surprises so far, but Clemson's struggle and especially LSU's troubles have made for a fun week thus far.

Utah has a good chance of being MWC champ again this year, and even has an outside shot at the mythical mid-major unbeaten season. San Diego State is another strong contender, with what are apparently a really good set of linebackers and a strong secondary. I think Utah will still win the conference, but probably miss out on the undefeated route by taking a conference loss against SD State or one of the perennial wild cards like Colorado State.

Some dogs are dogs who have tails while others have tails that wag more.

Obviously UVA's debut against Temple is my #1 priority, but once that gets into rout territory, I'll be checking out Michigan to see how this year's team looks. Being the game of the week for the whole country, FSU/Miami is obviously the ACC game of the week, but I'm looking forward to Clemson/Wake as well. I think Clemson will pull it off, but Wake is not a bad team and could start Clemson on the path to be this year's Auburn.

As I said in Downhome's protest thread, these aren't all of "Kerry's people," nor a significant fraction. 500,000 people in New York, however many making jackasses of themselves, will be about 1% of the people who vote Kerry in this election. 50,000,000 votes for Bush in 2000, another 50,000,000 for Gore. Probably won't be too far off this time around. If you don't want to be associated with such irrational lunacy, don't be. Swallow some pride and vote with the policies you like, not the people who compose the constituency.

It's turning your vote to Bush? I'd hope you'd make your decision on who to vote for based on something more than convention protests associated with neither candidate.

You should move, period. At 24 you can afford to pull up roots and plop down anywhere that there's a better market. No way I'd take this job without a helluva lot of training. Even without the falsfied sexual harassment angle, it sounds like a deathtrap waiting to happen.

I think you're a nutbag if you can vote and don't. You can certainly afford to take 30 minutes out of your life to find a candidate that you think is kinda cool. It's not that hard to be even basically informed.

Dear god, no.

I'd like to point out that both fucking and killing are far more basic expressions of human nature. Imbecilic dance party 9000.

Yeah, chalk me up to the "nothing going on" receivers. What's happening inside MSG is getting all the coverage. If it ain't front page, it won't matter after this week.