Edwin MacPhisto

THURSDAY Oregon State FRIDAY Washington SATURDAY Colorado Connecticut Virginia Georgia Tech Boston College Mississippi BYU Georgia Kansas Purdue California New Mexico Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Tennessee/California game? 53 Tiebreak #2: How many receiving yards will Oklahoma State's Adarius Bowman have against Georgia? 110

Hemingway's so hot that he's blazing 18 jams in a row. TSAR is one of my favorite books--it does the jaded socialite malaise thing even better than Gatsby--but A Moveable Feast is even better: bashing Fitzgerald, ditching his first wife for his second wife, and being weirded out by Gertrude Stein in France. I also like his short stories as a general rule, especially everything that's from In Our Time. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (not from that collection) has one of my favorite titles ever.

I know you disagree, but I'll also always go to bat for "The $20 Sack Pyramid."

Haven't invested in any of them yet. I've had a PS2 since launch, played it in fits and starts, but only after playing Resident Evil 4 this spring did I really get back in the gaming mindset. It just seems odd to me to suddenly drop over $700 on hardware, even though I could and kind of want to.

There's a great place like that in Charlottesville. It used to be called "Asian Buffet," but I think it's moved since and taken on a less generic name. Decent to good sushi, great hibachi, and a copious chinese buffet. I long for something similarly tacky and tasty up in D.C.

The 360 and Wii need to stop finally releasing games that make me want to buy the systems. Balls.

So if I buy an Xbox to play this, will it explode cruelly on me, as the internet has led me to believe?

So what do you wear when you go someplace reasonably nice? Do you have little cufflinks for the velcro, maybe? As for women's shoes--good women's shoes can be had for relatively cheap, and women generally have a much wider range of styles and clothing items to match against. Men wear pants, shorts, or jeans; women wear those plus formal dresses, informal dresses, long skirts, pencil skirts, mini skirts, leggings, etc. To keep in the theme of the thread, I'm angered by the discrepancy between Verizon's wonderful wireless customer service and abysmal DSL customer service.

I don't feel so strongly about "Another Sunny Day" now, though I still like it quite a bit. Also, I hate "For the Price of a Cup of Tea"; "Funny Little Frog" is fine by me. I love "For the Price of A Cup of Tea"! I always enjoy listening to it back to back with "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)." A year and a half later, this album has held up really well, and I've gotten a little further into the B&S back catalog, too. My concerns about excessive tweeness have largely gone by the wayside.

South Carolina isn't a bad pick. They're only half a step behind the three perennial winners in the division this year. I think whoever comes out of the SEC East this season will be doing it with 2-3 losses, so it's more or less anyone's game. I'm tremendously impressed with Urban Meyer, but have 3 question marks on UF this time around: 1) Close games last year. They often won by less than a score, and had a lot of things go their way (although the Auburn game was a distinct case of things not going their way, so there was a bit of balance there). 2) The defense. The superstars and big-play guys who really drove those close wins are mostly gone, and the new guys might need a little time to get to top-level. 3) Tebow. Leak wasn't all-world by any means, but he was a capable 4-year starter. Since Tebow was basically a fullback who only threw maybe 25 passes against real defense, I expect him to go through plenty of growing pains.

Funniest movie I've seen in ages. My face actually hurt afterwards.

Last month my mom mailed me a handful of books she'd picked up at a 3-for-2 sale at Borders. Absurdistan was one of them. I think I'll give it a shot after I finish Pale Fire, which I just started this morning after owning a copy for about 4 years. I've read most of Nabokov's catalog, and I think I already like this more than everything but Lolita. I just finished Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, which is pretty good if you're into being terrified by Mormons. I borrowed it from my roommate after having to to step away from Gravity's Rainbow again after another 150 pages. This thing and I are having a war.

Jeez. Hope you've found something more stable by now; I think I would have killed myself had I managed to get fired by Kmart, Walmart, and Babies R' Us in one lifetime.

I remember that he had an unhealthy infatuation with Cthulu, and that he had a maddening signature: the text "Every Rose Has It's Thorn!," apparently designed to showcase his love of both Poison and irritatingly misplaced apostrophes. One of the reasons I turned signatures off, actually.

The definitive version of Saw 3? I can't wait! These are pretty much the shittiest movies ever, but I've still seen all of them the opening weekend. I just love retarded shit, and they're all so wonderfully over-directed.

Haha. Terrifyingly accurate prediction. I probably wouldn't have been interested in the movie--I think I mentioned in the Book Recommendations thread that I've forgotten most of Youth in Revolt despite enjoying it in 9th grade--but a healthy injection of George Michael improves things quite a bit. I think he'll make the rather thinly written Nick Twisp a lot more appealing and sympathetic for people who aren't 14.

The Western Atlantic was just too mighty. Chris, you've been relegated to Joey Bishop status.

Speaking of breakfast, I made an impromptu frittata yesterday for some of the warm bodies that spent the night on my couch. Half a dozen eggs A little less than half an onion A red pepper (any regular pepper works, but I had one of these in my fridge) A couple of mushrooms Some spinach leaves Some thin slices of cheddar cheese (any cheese you have would probably work, as it just adds some fat and texture) Chop up the onion, plop it in a 10-inch sautee or frying pan on low heat with a bit of olive oil. Slice the mushrooms and add them about 5 minutes later, and add the pepper (sliced) a couple minutes after that, adding oil as necessary. Drop the slices of cheese on there once everything's warm enough to get them melting. Meanwhile, beat the eggs, maybe add a little milk and salt, and then slowly pour the egg mixture into the pan. Layer the spinach leaves on top, switch to very low heat, and cover for about 10-12 minutes. The spinach should start to wilt and sink down into the mixture a bit. Once the egg is solid, separate the edges from the pan and flip it over onto a serving plate. You should end up with a nice crustless quiche with a slightly crispy layer of onion on top. Serves four especially well if you make some pancakes to go along with it.

Most US companies, at least that I know of, make you sign a contract wherein the statement of the company being able to "fire you for any reason" is located. So no, we don't. Though a lot of the food-service companies seem to have something close to what you're talking about, but none of the companies where you could actually make a living do. The language might be in there but it's generally not necessary. I believe at-will employment (you can leave at any time for any reason, you can be fired at any time for any reason) is the standard in all 50 states. Of course, there are legislative protections for various sorts of discrimination, some federal, some specific to individual states, but you can ultimately get shitcanned for just about anything. Someone could be wearing a monocle, say "I don't like the cut of your jib," and you'd be done.

When did "the SEC is boring" become a meme? I thought that was reserved for the Big Ten.

I wasn't exactly being serious with the 7-5's all around. I spent a good chunk of taxpayer money this afternoon reading up on rosters and how the new coaches are doing, so I'll get around to it. That said, I'll never have confidence in Georgia Tech until Chan Gailey shows me he knows how to coach a team. With Calvin Johnson and Tenuta's crazy-good defense last year, they had no excuse to blow as many big opportunities as they did. Much as I hate his goiter-having ass, I'll take Beamer.

I was going to break down the whole ACC, but realized that, less than a month away from the start of the season, I still don't know enough about this year's teams to really distinguish between the 5-7's and the 8-4's. So, I'm going to predict that Duke goes 1-11, and everyone else goes 7-5, except for Virginia Tech. They'll go 10-2 and lose the Orange Bowl.

Darren McFadden did the same thing with his car. I really hope the trend continues. Though Darren McFadden didn't have Ben Franklin smoking a blunt on the hood. I guess that's the difference between the pro and college games.

CFN's undying boner for Georgia Tech continues. I think they'll go about 8-4, play in the Music City or Champs Bowl, and lose there to make sure that Chan Gailey pulls off his trademark 5-loss season.

This works, but in my experience it doesn't work quite that well. You can get 'crat or Bowman's up to Smirnoff levels; that's about the best results I've had. In terms of vodka, I'm a big fan of Chopin, which I'd put on the same level as Grey Goose (though it does taste considerably different, probably since it's a potato vodka). Tanqueray #10 is probably my favorite booze overall. Disaronno is another big favorite, and I always like the versatility of a nice fifth of Jack. My favorite drink to order in a bar is probably a dirty martini, because I never seem to have a jar of olives in the fridge at home.