Edwin MacPhisto

I thought it was funny that No Country had a musical theme for the night, seeing as the movie has pretty much no musical score to speak of. Did that play over the credits, maybe? The telecast producers should have just used something really inappropriate, like "Footloose."

All that above in MikeJordan23's post appears to be stuff for Episode 9. Make that clear next time. I just read the first line, but it's a quote for a new episode.

Episode 8 was, beginning to end, one of the greatest episodes of The Wire ever. It was just as perfect as can be. The last two episodes can go in so many possible directions and I'd buy them all. Can't wait. EDIT: The post below this appears to be all episode 9 spoilers.

I dunno. I know it's listed as such, but I'm not really treating it as a contest except that there's some degree of competition to make sure I get most of my favorite albums. If I really wanted to come up with a collection that I thought would "win," that'd require a wholly different angle.

Nice pull, Mssr. Coat. That was definitely in contention for my #3. Sign o' the Times was probably not the best pick tactically--who else would pick that in the first 5-6 rounds?--but much like bps said, it was one of the albums that I just would have despaired not having in the list. Gotta be true to your school now and then.

pause

The alternate cover from the Spanish release is also pretty awesome for its directness:

I would generally avoid working for any company that has huge recruiting days at convention centers and requires you to pay them to start working there. Do you really want to be a sleazy insurance salesman?

Getting largely washed up Ben Wallace in a trade is a good thing now? I think the Cavs nominally upgraded their role players. Delonte West at PG is probably the best thing about the deal, but nothing about this screams "HERE COMES THE CAVS!!!"

Prince - Sign o' the Times If I had to pick only one Prince album, it would probably be Purple Rain, just because it's so poppy and perfect. But Sign o' the Times is an even bigger masterpiece, absurd in the range of musical ideas and styles he manages to cram into 90 minutes, and the culmination of his godly 1980-1987 run. It's also probably the fastest-moving 90 minutes put down on record. It's full of weird romance ("Strange Relationship," the infamous "If I Was Ur Girlfriend"), minimalist masterpieces (the title track, "Forever In My Life"), and straight up I'm-gonna-fuck-you ("It," "U Got The Look"). And "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," my favorite song of all-time. Oh, and he played all the parts on the album himself. Are you kidding me? I could listen to this every day.

I saw them on that same tour, end of January '04, and they were great. And I think they were sober the whole time. Maybe I hit them on the hangover night rather than the induce-a-hangover night. I had to suffer through The Used opening for Andrew W.K. and Blonde Redhead opening for Interpol. I don't think I've ever seen an outright bad headliner. Radiohead and The Hold Steady probably rank as the most disappointing, though.

Well, I think the issue is more that, even a decade after the Keating scandal, the would-be champion of ethics and "straight talk" was once again doing particularly egregious special favors for lobbyists. It doesn't bother me that much since pretty much everyone in D.C. fucks around like that, but it's more hypocritical than usual. The "omg was he bangin' that gurl" stuff is pretty who-gives-a-shit, yes.

I saw the Bad Brains stuff too. For the past few months, MTV has been using a given artist's videos or performance as their "bumper" for a week, a featured artist of sorts. I figured it was some sort of variation on that for older acts, as everything else has been current. Weird indeed.

Mayhem's okay. Militia was pretty good at Earthquake, but that was a lame event anyway. I was never terribly impressed with Fury either. Give me Atlasphere and Swingshot in the rotation next time around, and I'm a happier camper.

I got my job through connections and good timing. Friend had just been hired for a company, gave me a name of someone to send my resume without any particular job in mind just for kicks, and they called back in a few days because they had an open slot they thought I might fill. If you just graduated, do you have any access to your college's career center? Generally, recent alums can get assistance on resume tailoring, working job fairs/connections/etc. for free or for a very small fee. They may also be able to point you towards some career paths you haven't thought of yet.

I hate to go off on a tangent and derail this thread a bit but why the hell are there three C-Spans? I mean only a couple dozen people watch C-Span, is there really any need for two more of them? I would have liked to see them mix things up a bit. D-Span. G-Span. Also, if anything resembling a C-Spanipedia comes alive, it's probably the project of this kid I went to college with, who I saw last weekend for the first time in a while and who apparently works there. You heard it here first. Breaking gossip on hott C-Span events!!!1

I had thought about pulling it back but I already had written the paragraph. Let's still be friends.

Grandparents whose business was irreparably harmed by the New Deal. That's my guess. Also, watching C-Span is never a good idea. Except Book TV. Now and then I can get behind Book TV.

I think you're going to have an ulcer by 25. Possibly two.

The latter, then the former. All anecdotal evidence indicates that stuff is addictive as a motherfucker.

This can only go good places.

I sort of surprised myself choosing this one right out the gate: Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde An incomparable effort and, in my opinion, far and away the best thing he ever did. Too much warmth, fun, and sadness to really even encapsulate in a paragraph or two. The album is his longest and still his most astonishingly consistent, and the high water point where his folk and rock explorations meet. As it progresses, the first notes of each track makes me think it's my favorite on the whole thing, until the next one starts. I put "One of Must Know (Sooner or Later)" on more mix CDs than I can remember, and I always stop whatever I'm doing to listen when "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" comes on. I guess the best way to put it is this: in thinking out this first pick, it became more of a priority on my end-of-the-world list than several albums that I thought would have ranked higher on my personal best-ever list. Maybe it's time to rethink #1. And I didn't realize Banky was up next until just now. He's probably going to e-kill me.

So what do you think about Obama's support of partial-birth abortions? I'm down. My 16 weeks comment wasn't to imply that anything after that was unacceptable; I just remembered that one in particular. Miniature American flags for some, abortions for all.

I actually expect this to get made within 5-6 years.

$10 laptop motherfucker Come at Obama u best not miss