Edwin MacPhisto

Georgia a 14! Is that the lowest major conference seed ever? I have watched literally zero college basketball games this season, so my bracket is going to be about as random as it's ever been.

That's a great idea.

Amiri Baraka Obama.

Nope, Baraka from the start. I was in an MK-only context until I saw that you had post-leapfrogged me with the SSF2 reference. You must have been thinking your usual wistful thoughts about Blanka Marvin.

I wasn't terribly good at Mortal Kombat back in its heyday, so I was a big fan of Baraka. Chopping a guy up with his sword arms by smashing punch was almost as satisfying as a too-complex-for-my-stubby-10-year-old-fingers-to-manage fatality. Maybe we'll work out a trade later on. Surfer Rosa, my #15, and cash considerations for Aquemini and Vin Baker. Edit: I ripped shit up with Cammy.

Pixies - Surfer Rosa In all honesty, from start to finish, I like Doolittle better. Fortunately, I like Surfer Rosa almost as much, because if there's a Pixies song I need to have forever, it's "Where Is My Mind?" That guitar part is eternally printed on my cochlea and played a huge part in getting me to start broadening my musical horizons. The album's greatness is also helped by the fact that the first 7 songs leading up to and peaking at "Where Is My Mind?" are pretty much perfect. I would also keep the liner notes so I could remember what breasts looked like, if I started to forget after a decade or so of beachy exile.

Someone just sounded like a real live mod there. I'm very impressed, and slightly scared. (I do agree, though. It's like a Lil' Flip ziggurat.)

Being black is being cooler than being a woman, I'll give you that.

The Man In Blak is The Pain In My Ass, for taking an album I was sure I would lose a mere handful of picks before things got back around to me. I got all excited. Looks like it was worth it for Neutral Milk Hotel, though, because this also survived a whopping 28 choices: The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die One of my top-5 rap albums. At the center of it all is "Juicy," one of the most joyous songs I know and one I'd be really happy to have on call if I were stuck by myself for the rest of my life. Like Doggystyle, this is another one with good memories attached, namely back-and-forth singalongs of "Gimme the Loot" and "Warning" on long car rides that felt like 20 minutes with this as the soundtrack. Happiness aside, Big was pretty close to perfect on this, and he owns the whole thing (Method Man's unadvertised appearance on "The What" is the only guest shot). It's the rare super-long rap album that manages to entirely avoid filler. If forced to do a firm, objective breakdown of strengths and weaknesses in hip hop albums, I would probably cite Ready to Die (or Aquemini, ya bastard) as the best I've ever heard.

Why's the band on Rock Fest named Ligion? Is that supposed to be pronounced like "Legion"? Least functional rock music misspelling ever.

I'm not sure anyone would want to trumpet anything pertaining to Mississippi.

So, this is gonna make like $500 million, isn't it? I'm not sure I've actually met a person who wouldn't want to see this.

Great finale. Simon really gets clever in this one, even for him, for the reason C Dubya cited: although we have "happy" endings to some extent--McNulty and Lester don't go to jail, Daniels tells the brass to fuck off, Chris gets locked up, Cheese gets got (SLIM!)--careers are still aborted (what on earth is Jimmy gonna do now?) and the reformers are all pushed out. The newspaper keeps riding a wave of BS, Carcetti goes all the way to the statehouse with his airhead ways, and poor Dukie is shooting up in a stable. Valcheck becoming commissioner really sums it all up: Baltimore is still fucked. The silent shots of the city at 60 minutes in were gorgeous, and McNulty's fakewake was the most shockingly joyous occasion the show's ever shown us. Surprising peaks at the end of a great work of art. I'm gonna miss it, and I doubt I'll ever see another show this strong from start to finish.

Good work taking the controversial "kidnapping is bad" position while ignoring the idiotic implications of the "building a billions-dollar wall between Mexico and the U.S. will stop Americans already in Mexico from getting kidnapped" argument.

I also like that he's up in arms about kidnappings of Americans...in Mexico. "11 San Diego residents kidnapped in Mexico!" Yes, building a big wall will keep people from getting kidnapped. When they're already on the other side of the wall.

I liked the part where I searched "Americans kidnapped by Mexicans" and got a shitload of Glenn Beck links. Perfect.

You are correct. "What's the Difference" can get some party play too, depending on the scenery.

I can't say I've ever heard that album on repeat at a party--the original Chronic, yeah--but I can also say that I don't think I've been to a party since Chronic 2001's release that didn't feature at least one of the titanic three singles.

Bicycle. Keep emissions down.

The fuck was that episode? Michael Emerson was pretty hilarious throughout, but otherwise it was an awful piece of filler straight out of Season 3.

Now that's interesting. What remaster is so much better than the original that you'd pick it specifically? I can think of a few offhand that have been improved by their bonus material, but not many that have changed very significantly.

Barring Edwin, the entire Washington-Baltimore contingent of TSM should be wiped out.

The fact that this is largely true actually makes me pretty sad.

Haha. The source is The Enquirer, guys. I don't think we're going to lose Dalton just yet.

Wait, what? Marv, you predicted that: Considering that Clinton won by a considerable margin in Ohio and considering that the Republican and Democratic polling locations weren't collocated in Texas, you didn't really predict anything accurately.