Edwin MacPhisto

After how ugly a lot of these games were, the fact that #7 is a full-blown LeBron/Pierce awesome-off is a pleasant surprise.

Thus, the MiB/me war continues: Portishead - Dummy My favorite trip-hop album, and host to one of my favorite songs (the opener, "Mysterons"). And I need some chick vocals, too. This was the first totally-off-the-mainstream-radar album I ever "discovered"; I listened to a handful of 30-second samples off some online review site that looked like a shitty Geocities page, found a used copy at my local music store in maybe 10th grade, and thus began my long hypothetical love affair with Beth Gibbons' voice. This whole album fuses a spooky hip-hop aesthetic with cold, scary tunes and superb songwriting. Often lost amidst all the praise for the terrifying loops on "Biscuit," "Wandering Star," and others are the surprisingly awesome guitar parts, particularly on "Glory Box." This is a very tight, constructed, and gut-wrenching album, and ultimately all the instruments are tied together by Gibbons' sultry, sad voice. The end result is one of the most distinctive albums I've ever heard.

Should've posted in sports for more hits.

He IMed me to tell me he took this, the bastard. Great choice, though I have another modern-ish pick up my sleeve, so I won't cry too hard.

I dunno about that. The guys doing a lot of the decision-making at Fox now are some of the guys who worked at FX and gave many of those shows a chance to blossom. If this thing is any good and grabs a decent amount of critical acclaim, I expect it'll at least get its initial run and another season on top of that, even if the ratings are so-so.

I didn't see the questionable charge at the end, but the calls seemed all right most of the game (I watched through the last 3 minutes of the 3rd). I mean, LeBron is a huge, fast dude. He gets smacked when he drives because it's one of the few ways to stop him. If he can get enough of a head start going, he's going to get to the hoop, and it's tough to get position on him because of how quick and just flat out good he is. Go look at the shot charts on the CBS box score and you'll notice that the Celtics are heavily a jump-shooting team this game, and that Garnett and Pierce don't take the same kind of action that's going to lead to as many fouls as LeBron draws either. I'm not going to completely say he doesn't get star treatment and I'm certainly not going to say that NBA officiating is anything close to perfect, but you're ignoring a large facet of LeBron's game and ability by wholly discounting his ability to get to the line.

Czech, I admire your use of the "Semi-Charmed Life" edited version. The summer-radio accuracy of your list is thus preserved.

Niiiiiiice choice.

I went the longest time without knowing what IDM meant. It's definitely one of the stupidest designations around.

Stubhub, though I think that's ebay-affiliated, so maybe you've already trawled that to its best end. If you're in a major metropolitan area, craigslist is pretty unstoppable with two or three days of lead time.

Now that I've gotten around to it, this is wholly accurate.

"Spectoresque" Edit: That's a bad one, not a good one, to be clear.

I think what bothers me most, even beyond the goofy paranoia and casual xenophobia, is the notion of surrendering to al Qaeda. I mean, it's not even a country or conquering entity. That's like saying "We surrender to a kickball team."

The CEO of my company told me that he thinks Barack Obama is actually a Muslim plant, and that if he wins in November, he's going to "turn" and surrender to al Qaeda. Time to accelerate my job hunt.

Pretty good guess, except even mellower. It's the kind of music people play on the beach in movies where people are sitting on the beach, and you're really supposed to be paying attention to their conversations or lithe bodies, not the music.

The Myanmar Cyclone would be a good name for, say, a middleweight boxer to come out of Burma.

Which half?

Okay, seriously, what the hell is Jack Johnson doing headlining every festival known to musickind? Bonnaroo makes sense since it'll just be a bunch of people on drugs nodding their heads anyway, but the guy already played Coachella, and now has slots headlining at Virgin Festival and All Points West. It's getting to be kind of a foregone conclusion that he's going to be a large-font name whenever a bunch of people get together in a field.

Saw Kanye's tour last night. Outstanding. The whole thing is based around a narrative wherein he's earth's greatest creative mind, traveling through the cosmos and trying to get back home to save our planet from the doldrums it's entered without him. It was both the most egotistical and the most totally ridiculous and awesome thing ever. It was like one of those nonsense morality plays Dennis DeYoung made Styx do, except with "Can't Tell Me Nothing."

Moosed! I don't think I've heard that one before.

CB Chris Cook is the other main academic casualty who also happened to be a starter. I'm actually less concerned about Lalich than I am the line in front of him. Monroe is still holding down left tackle just fine, but with Branden Albert now a Chief, the entire interior o-line will be new starters. This should be a 55/45 run/pass year for Virginia, with Mikell Simpson and Cedric Peerman probably making up the best and most versatile ACC RBs not named Spiller & Davis, but it's going to be hard to get them or Lalich moving anywhere if the interior's always crumbling. Most of the time, they won the close games last year through controlling the point of attack on either side of the ball. I think the spread for the game will be around 21, if only because Virginia is largely an unknown commodity heading into this year.

The Bears cant be that desperate for a QB that they would consider Kyle Boller. He's no better than the Kyle they already have. And I doubt the Ravens will be sitting at 5-3..they might be able to swing 4-4 but they have the Titans, Colts and Steelers in there which Id predict as losses. Why, Marvin, you're absolutely right! What was I thinking to post something so preposterous?!

I was thinking about that one at my last pick, too. I definitely agree that it's one of the better "hey, you should listen to this guy Tom Waits" picks in his catalog.

It is pretty silly. The notion of expiring contracts of useless players often being more valuable than the players themselves makes most NBA personnel deals into quite the goofy game. I guess it's nice that all these guys get guaranteed money, but I much prefer the NFL route of a big bonus upfront, a certain percentage guaranteed, and the ability of a team to just cut a guy if he's no longer producing. The recent influx of performance incentives in contracts, particularly for players with questionable remaining ability or character, is also smart. The whole NFL system is a bit cutthroat, but outside of the guys making the league minimum and trying to just stay on any team, I think it helps a lot more than it hurts. The result is an ability for good ownership to rebuild or correct mistakes pretty quickly; really, with a good draft, good player evaluation, and timely trades, a shot at the playoffs is only a year or two away for any well-run organization. In the NBA, you pay guys $15 million a year to sit on your bench, and hope you don't miss your chance to replace them with someone good 3 years later.

My intention in not bolding Boller or Harbaugh was that King had already written some other asinine section about them earlier, maybe in a retarded section on he sent Harbaugh a text after McNair's retirement and Harbaugh didn't respond. Something like "Harbaugh already has the right poker face for this league" would be the concluding line. I fucking hate that guy, but I still read his shitty columns, so I guess he's doing something right.