Edwin MacPhisto

2 good years and an NBA title for $60 million, and then you dump the contract and get another $20 million to either rebuild with 1) a second all-star in Marion, or 2) whoever you can get for that cash if you let him leave. Not bad, Miami Heat.

So my primary vote will actually matter next week, huh? Wasn't expecting that.

The guy who plays Slim Charles is a member of this big go-go band here in DC. He's always hanging out at the Cheesecake Factory that's down the street from my apartment. Maybe someday I'll muster the courage to buy him a strawberry lemonade.

It's amazing how sympathetic Bodie became throughout the history of the show despite the fact that he cold-bloodedly murdered one of the few innocents the show has offered us. Fantastic. After 5 episodes, season 5 is starting to pick up dangerous momentum in a billion directions. I like that the newsroom has now become an unknowing accomplice to McNulty's scheme, really through their own individual blends of laziness, pride, and incompetence. The newspaper stuff is a lot more interesting now that we're seeing what happens when it's the people on the ground level not doing their jobs properly, not just the management making cutbacks.

I think you already did.

Wow. That's like one of those things you do in the ESPN trade machine, show your friend for a laugh, and then never speak of again.

Oh my god, Marvin can't read.

Wisdom in 1080p.

It was worth watching the season premiere just to see Cedric Daniels on a major network. I've complained about the flashbacks for the past two years, and I have to admit that I like how this first flash-forward replaced them and established a very ugly sense of dread. I wouldn't be surprised if this season of 16 episodes ended right where season 3 ended, with the whole "We have to go back!" thing. I think they could do some really interesting stuff gradually narrowing the timeline, to the point where eventually you have something like the final 8 episodes of the show on the island, no flash-anythings, with everyone there and trying to escape for good.

Haha. No, that was the equivalent of me following up a Matt Young post by saying "Matt kicks ass." HOW'S THAT EMPIRE DOING FOR YOU

I would actually go see this if Michael Bay were playing Freddy Krueger.

Man, Matt's kissing his girlfriend in his facebook picture. I'm amazed there was room in there considering the usual dominance of his huge manly bicep. I wonder when this one will turn out to be the Filthiest Most Worthless Cunt in the Universe. My money would be on 3 months after the engagement.

That was a great simple moment, 30 seconds of almost pure visual that summed up everything about where Omar was, how he got there, how he was doing, etc., in the year or so since the end of Season 4. Removed from the context of a failing city and a nasty drug war, a lot of these guys could be different people. Michael and Dukie at Six Flags acting like 15-year-olds are supposed to act is another great bit in that line.

I never expected that Current Events would be the venue for the next great Marvin showcase.

no homo

Don't you guys remember the original show? That was all ridiculous positive message stuff, too.

Could be. On the topic, check out this miserable excerpt from the horrible review of the album up at Pitchfork today: I just want to teabag this guy into submission for so many reasons.

I was kind of thinking that too until last night's bit with Gus "humorously" translating Carcetti's speech, and the old bearded guy talking like human beings don't actually talk about the word "incense." I'm sure it'll all come together fine, but I'm not buying everything immeditely the way I have with every new element that's been introduced into the show previously, like the docks, city politics, and the schools.

I actually liked the first 90 seconds or so of that slower Linkin Park single that's on XM 20 a lot lately. Then I realized it was just because they ripped off the "Something Great" instrumental from the last LCD Soundsystem album, and started putting that on its place.

I just listened to it and it's not particularly interesting. Most of the album sounds effortless to a fault, and the vocals have a certain Paul Simon is assfucking the guy from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah un-charm about them (which I mean not in the sense that he sounds like Paul Simon, which a lot of people seem to be suggesting, but that Paul Simon is actually forcibly violating Alec Ounsworth and not letting him get up until he puts a calliope and three xylophones on a given track). "Blake's Got a New Face" is really lame. I like "I Stand Corrected," which is one of the only songs to get away from all the dithering "we use bongos and steel drums and flute-sounds" shit. I think these guys could do something pretty cool if they dropped a lot of the extraneous twiddling and didn't so actively push that to the forefront of their songs.

So far I'm a little cold on this season, mostly because the writing for the newsroom scenes is really bad. Of course, Simon worked at the Baltimore Sun for a decade, so maybe it's more that newspaper people are really insufferable. When I'm watching the newsroom scenes, I feel like I'm watching any old shitty TV show. The whole newspaper side of things also isn't really getting fully explored; I assume the idea is to explain why the public never finds out about all the stuff we observe on the ground level at city hall, in the drug trade, in the school system, etc., but the answers so far--an idiot caricature of a boss! A mustache-twirling fabulist! Budget cutbacks!--are simplistic and dull in a way that nothing on this show usually is. Aside from that, I'm liking this season. And I'm fully expecting Marlo to win.

1. Temptation 2. Love Vigilantes 3. Regret 4. Ceremony 5. Bizarre Love Triangle So good.

I have weird cable through a 3rd party provider that doesn't give me on-demand, so I'm just staying out.