Kinetic

Tatiana suddenly developing a thick accent was the easy highlight for me tonight. Such an awful person in this nauseating, student body president sort of way. It's a shame they didn't keep her around. I echo the sentiments about this year's batch seeming to be even blander than usual. Can't say that I have high hopes for this season.

I don't really see T.O. fitting on that blue collar Tennessee team. Plus, they're a running team with a pretty dicey QB situation. New England makes a little more sense, but the prospect of Brady working with that receiving corp is too frightening for me to seriously consider until I have to. Another team meeting your criteria would be Pittsburgh, but they don't really need him. I'm pretty stumped as to where he'll actually end up going. Maybe the Argonauts.

Dolphins, Vikings, Niners, Falcons, and Browns join the Redskins and Giants in saying that they're not interested in signing the guy. Jacksonville, maybe?

Fair enough. Maybe Minnesota, then. They missed on Houshmandzadeh, so there's still a need for an elite WR for their terrible quarterback to attempt to throw to.

And I understand that Lenny Kravitz is available, so that's 2/3rds of the equation right there. You pair them with the Who with Dave Grohl on drums and Mike Watt on bass and I'm sure there are plenty of boomers who'll shell out $600 a ticket to see that.

Washington and New York are both supposedly not interested, so it looks likely that he'll be out of the NFC East. Baltimore seems like an intriguing option. Same with Denver, and particularly if Brandon Marshall is suspended for any significant period of time. I can't imagine that he would want to play with JaMarcus Russell in Oakland. Ditto Tarvaris Jackson in Minnesota. Then again, I don't know if I see teams lining up to procure his services after he's been run out of three cities already. He might have to take what he can get, which could eventually lead him to the Raiders.

Think that otherwise meaningless glimpse of the four-toed statue was just to tease hardcore fans? I almost jumped out of my chair when I saw it. Two weeks! Goddamnit. This was a really good episode, but it's like we've spent the last two weeks working to the point that all of the stories converge so that the plot can actually start to move forward.

What would you call the sub-genre of music that Sublime inspired? It seems to incorporate elements of singer-songwritery nonsense, reggae, hip-hop, and surf rock. It's generally performed by suburban white stoners in shorts and flip-flops. It isn't quite stoner rock, it isn't quite frat rock. I call it coconut rock.

Watched this last night. The interviews were actually pretty good (although it helped that he seemed to be friends with both guests), and I really think that'll end up being his strong point because it's the one thing that doesn't expose his chronic inability to keep a straight face. The bits weren't anything special, but I've certainly seen stuff just as unfunny and poorly-conceived as the chair bit on Conan, Letterman, etc. It was how totally uncomfortable he looked as the whole thing bombed that made that chair segment sort of cringeworthy. But it's only his second show, and it certainly wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.

Yeah, I mean other than quickly establishing himself as one of the two best players in the league, reviving a once moribund franchise, and singlehandedly leading said frachise on an improbable NBA Finals run all before the age of 24. I mean, give credit where it's due. I cannot stand the fucking sight of Kobe Bryant and will generally avoid watching him play, but there's no sense in me denying his obvious greatness. All of this grousing about players being overhyped is, as noted elsewhere in this thread, just a product of watching too much ESPN. And because ESPN isn't going to change their winning formula, it will probably be necessary for you--the angry, antacid-popping ESPN addict--to change your viewing habits.

Bob, you've been to South Carolina and still count North Carolina as the worst place you've visited? Where'd you go, Fayetteville? I mean, South Carolina would be the asshole of the South were it not for Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and...well, pretty much all of it. But North Carolina and Virginia are both great in spots. Only nice place I've visited in South Carolina is Charleston. Anyway, states I've lived in: Georgia (thrice), Nebraska, Mississippi, Texas (twice), North Carolina (twice), Washington, and Virginia. I've visited Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington D.C., and Ohio. Certainly driven through a lot more than that and have had some airport layovers in noteworthy U.S. locales, but I can't really count those. Also lived in Iceland and Italy. Visited Germany.

In my senior year of high school, I was in a creative writing class with this frumpy fat girl who somehow managed to turn every assignment into an opportunity to write Europe fan fiction. Yes, Europe as in "The Final Countdown" Europe. This was in 2001. How she had ever even heard of Europe, let alone developed the sort of obession with them that would lend itself to composing multiple pieces of fan fiction, I never really understood. And her stories were so awful. "Ian slayed the dragon and then walked through the desert for 20 days and then stopped in a quiet town and then ate a giant boar leg and then played a guitar solo." I just had to sit there and listen to that shit.

Gaines is decent, but has been a little bit of a disappointment in his first two years. Guy desperately needs to develop an inside move of some kind, as damn near every passing situation finds him four yards behind the play as he tries to run around the tackle. Hovan is smallish and declining and Stylez G. fell off considerably last year. With the exception of Gaines, the whole unit needs to be remade--especially considering that they were the one group most responsible for the late-season collapse last year. This should be addressed in the draft, and I honestly wouldn't mind if they went after Jason Taylor, were he to be healthy and focused. Congrats to Spiff and the max for first-class jokes. I loled.

I can't whistle. Other than limiting my karaoke options by a handful of songs, I can't say that it's had much of an impact on my life.

Right, and then you end up with the sort of ratings disasters that cause ESPN.com writers and loyal TSMers alike to wring their hands in disapproval. My only real issue with the star system in the NBA is the routinely awful officiating, which goes on throughout the season but really only becomes the subject of serious debate during the playoffs. I can understand that they'd want guys like Kobe and LeBron as the focus of much of their marketing, but I wish they wouldn't allow that to influence the officiating, which in turn influences the outcomes of games.

Share tips, pool misery. Man, I'm hung over as shit today.

Uh, no. If he died, maybe.

I hope to Jesus that Tampa ends up resigning Jermaine Phillips and Phillip Buchanon. Should they do so, I could go into our so-called rebuilding phase feeling like only the defensive line and (of course) the quarterback position were areas of extreme doubt.

Hell yeah. Great pickup for the Bucs. This likely puts Cadillac on the block, although I'm skeptical that we can get much for him with his history of injuries.

Detroit sends a 3rd round pick to Oakland for LB Marquis Cooper.

Then again, I think I might like to go back in time and kill Spaceman Ross's mother at some point during her pregnancy. I'd like to kick little fetus Spaceman Ross around the neighborhood like a can for a few minutes, prior to returning to my own time and a suddenly and blissfully Spaceman Ross-free message board.

Any chance that the Houshmandzadeh signing is an indication that the Seahawks might not be targeting Crabtree with their first round pick? It's possible that they could address one of their other needs at that spot, and then either wait until they pick in the 2nd round or try to trade into the latter portion of the 1st to get a good young WR to pair with Housh.

I would decline the opportunity. I've never hated anyone in my personal life enough to actually want to murder them, and I fail to see what would be accomplished by killing some entertainer for sucking or disappointing me. Lot of angry people around here. Love, guys. Don't hate. Love.

Garcia will not re-sign with Tampa. He's done there. And regardless of the actual merits of the list (and the fact that you have every team being in more or less the same spot as they were last year is laughable), it's totally pointless to put together any sort of "power ranking" in March. A hell of a lot is going to happen between now and opening weekend.