Edwin MacPhisto

Now that we've gotten this far, I want all the 1 seeds to win. That way, the story for next year's tournament will be "the best-ranked seeds will cruise again!", and I'll be able to get back to picking upsets that people in my brackets miss.

Wow, Tim Floyd makes the meltdown even more memorable. This is program-embarrassing stuff. The game is ending on a 25-5 run!

Billy Packer, why won't you just die?

Wow. This is just savage. Roy Williams: he crushes your dreams.

My god, why have you forsaken me.

I dig the Stones. Exile and Sticky Fingers are greazy and nasty and awesome. Coincidentally, Matt Young is a dismal cumshot from a homeless man's shriveled, unloved crotch who would fit well as a side 2 afterthought on one of those albums. EDIT: I don't really feel that strongly about Matt, but he seemed like a good whipping boy for the metaphor I wanted to use.

Bank shot! Chalk weekend continues. My all-chalk bracket on facebook is cleaning up right now.

Yeah, Locke's proven to be a fucking tard. Everything in that episode--like, everything--was telegraphed and predictable, but at least some shit blew up.

Two tracks/artists I'm yet to really 'get'. The Ladyhawk one is the best song of its kind I've heard for a while though. I haven't heard anything else of theirs. My understanding is that it's pretty mediocre-to-blah stuff, so my love of this one track is kind of holding me back from diving into the rest of the catalog and being disappointed.

totally. it sounds like everything new order attempted to do over the past 20 years. and failed. this whole album is great. i originally hated the s/t, but i've softened on that stance, too. I was going to write up a New Order lovin' rant here, and then I did the math and realized, oh my god, 20 years ago is 1987, which means 1) that you're mostly right, and 2) that I feel old. I actually just finished downloading the album and I'm about to listen to it. Thoughts forthcoming. EDIT: On the second track, and man, this is great. Between this and !!!, rockish dance stuff is on the upswing. EDIT 2: Wow, "Something Great." I'm totally buying this over the weekend. EDIT 3: WOW with capital letters at "All My Friends." I'm seriously totally and utterly blown away.

Schaub gets to play! I guess I have to start watching Texans games now.

Man Who Sold The World, you're very creative.

Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney's "Bed is for Sleeping" off their Superwolf album is one of the most remarkably simple and gorgeous songs I've ever heard. One guitar, maybe 5-6 notes, no real distinction between rhythm and melody line, if the song has either of them? Totally great.

Good refutation.

Dude, I voted already, on the first page. My favorite thing I've seen today, right here.

I had both those thoughts--that she's either not dead, or not dead and evil. Frankly I'd prefer she be dead, though--could make the second half of the season more interesting. I also saw something I liked last night between Gredenko and Fayed. With the exception of the short-lived Salazar brothers, the show's never really had villains working in tandem but slightly at odds with each other too, not for any length of time. I expect one of them to kill the other within the next couple hours though, so another interesting dynamic goes by the wayside.

We have some good ones right by my office. There's this one guy who lies on a little courtyard shelf all day no matter what the weather is, and occasionally barks at children. And right outside the Archives metro stop, there's this guy who always says "Rule #2--let the women get what they want!" He also yells at people for being white. My favorite is probably the extremely skinny woman with a crustache who hangs out in front of our building protesting the FBI. We're next door to the FBI building, but the FBI people told her she had to leave, so I guess the next logical solution was to protest the FBI near the FBI building. She doesn't wear a sandwich board or anything, or hand out flyers, just walks around and occasionally mumbles.

Georgetown remains gorgeous, and the rest of the city is tremendously cleaned up too. Gentrification like whoa since '92. You'll still get your ass robbed on the outskirts, but areas that were mostly drug dens 15 years ago sport $400,000 condos now. I still live outside the city, but moving inside is at least modestly palatable.

Why, you'll be here just in time for the Annual Cherry Blossom Festival! In all seriousness, I don't think there's really anything special going down besides opening day. We sure do have a lot of buildings and monuments to go stare at, though.

Yes, especially at a festival. I'm impressed with how well their arrangements breathe and spread on a big stage in the open air. I've seen them in both a small club and an amphitheater, and the outdoor set was definitely the best. They're fun when they toss aside a bit of the claustrophobia in their sound and lean towards some of their bigger, almost-arena-rock tendencies.

Ladyhawk - "The Dugout." Love, love everything about this song. It's really nothing unique, but talk about 5 minutes of anthemic yearning. And now, Joanna Newsom's fantastic "Cosmia." I still go back and forth on my opinion of her, but this one's a slam dunk.

What a weird episode. Absolutely no mention of Logan, Mrs. Logan, Aaron? Jack defeats a nuke with the power of Microsoft Flight Simulator? Yeeeeah... One 24 pet peeve: "Fayed's country," "their country," etc. They did the same shit in Season 2. They can call out Russia but can't pick a Middle East nation to diss? Also, this season already feels miles away from the Evil Bauer Family.

That's rough on Eno. Track 9, "China My China," is one of my favorites of his.

Self-defense.

Oregon really ran away with that one, and Virginia Tech is getting visibly frustrated as Southern Illinois repeatedly knocks them over. It looks like UNC will be the only ACC rep in the Sweet 16.