Kinetic

What was that shit? I have never seen a Tampa Bay defense play that poorly in all of the years that I've followed the team. They just failed miserably at the most fundamental part of defense, which is tackling. How many times did a guy--almost invariably Ronde Barber--have DeAngelo Williams wrapped up in the backfield and not bring him down? Just incredibly frustrating to watch, particularly because this is not the way that Tampa usually plays defense. Two players had good nights: Antonio Bryant and Donald Penn. Penn did have the stupid tripping penalty early on, but did an excellent job of keeping Julius Peppers contained for most of the rest of the night. No one else in any phase played worth a shit. This now makes the Atlanta game next Sunday an absolute must-win if we're going to continue to have any hope of winning the division. If they tackle like they did tonight against Michael Turner, we're going to get beat the fuck up again. From a fan standpoint, this has got to be the most demoralizing Bucs loss since that Monday night debacle against Indy back in 2003. That game tops my list of all-time most painful sports experiences. I couldn't sleep that night or eat the next day. This one doesn't hurt quite as bad, despite it being a much more significant loss. It's going to be a pretty interesting three weeks to end the regular season.

Thread of the Year: The one in Graphics Testing about marrying your cousin. Folder of the Year: Graphics Testing Feud of the Year: Jung Billz v. pbone Post of the Year: Agent's post about Taiga being known as "Moby" at her local burrito shop. Dumbshit Moment of the Year: n/a Worst Poster: Buggerhen. Funniest Poster: Czech. TSMeme of the Year: Excited Dotel.

Gus Terrific was carted off the field in the Vikings-Lions game. It's looking like this might be the week for Detroit.

Three play sequence in the Giants-Eagles game: *White Lightning has his bell rung by the swirling winds of Giants Stadium. This is followed by a two minute commerical break. *L.J. Smith makes a catch for a first down. Two minute warning, two minute commercial break. *Long Westbrook TD run. Extra point is good. Two minute commercial break. I just watched six minutes of commercials for three plays. No early CBS game here, so I had no choice but to sit there and take it. I see Michael Turner is grinding out some tough yards on the frozen tundra of the Louisiana Superdome today. A Falcons loss would be a big help, though, so go Saints.

Fat black dude on ESPN 2's First Take claims that Atlanta will win the NFC South because Michael Turner will be able to grind out tough yards in bad December weather. Atlanta's December schedule features two home games, one game at Minnesota, and one game at St. Louis.

The middle one is dreamiest. The other two look like Amnesia Glasscock.

Just ahead of the Russian L.A. forum, but just behind Singapore's commercial sex forum. Fair enough. Have you guys been to that Singapore commercial sex board? Some spectacular gimmick posters there.

A Texas judge would likely rule to have that poor long snapper executed. He should just take his punishment like a man and steer clear of the water pills in the future.

Pretty sure this is it. Say, who's Ron Barker?

"love ballets and shit." Yeah, all right. That's up there with the girl on OkCupid who claimed to love "classical music and Russian oprah." I think "Paranoid" might be my favorite thing on this album.

Oakland at San Diego All right, a totally unappealing Thursday nighter no one can watch. I can finally catch up on all those backlogged episodes of Two and a Half Men I've been meaning to get to. Jon f'n Cryer, man. Guy's a comic genius. Chargers by 6, I guess. Jacksonville at Chicago Both teams looked awfully shitty on national TV last week, although I get the sense that Jacksonville's problems run a little deeper than Chicago's. The Bears should win this one handily. Minnesota at Detroit Fuck all this talk about Detroit winning this game because the Williams Wall got suspended. Didn't anyone watch the Lions on Thanksgiving? These guys aren't beating anyone. Vikings by 20. Houston at Green Bay Green Bay is all but finished and Houston looked good against a bad Jacksonville team the other night. Still, it's in Green Bay and the Texans really aren't that good. Packers by 7. Cleveland at Tennessee Should be a beatdown of epic proportions. Cleveland is starting Ken Dorsey at quarterback? Good god. Ugly and ugly fast. Titans by 28. Cincinnati at Indianapolis Who the fuck knows what to expect from Indianapolis anymore? I say Addai runs for 12 yards on 20 carries, Manning goes 7-35 with one touchdown and three interceptions, and the Colts still somehow manage to win by 3. Atlanta at New Orleans New Orleans is dead and Atlanta is playing their best football of the year. Even though it's in the Superdome, I still have to take Atlanta. Philadelphia at NY Giants I don't really think this ends up being all that competitive. McNabb's rise from the ashes proves to be short-lived as he's sacked six times, throws two picks, and is benched at the start of the 4th quarter. Giants win by 24. NY Jets at San Francisco No reason why the Jets shouldn't get back on track against San Francisco. New York by 14. New England at Seattle No reason why New England shouldn't get back on track against Seattle. Hey, bet I'll get to watch this one. Pats by 17. Kansas City at Denver The surging Broncos run their win streak to two as they avenge an early season loss against Kansas City. Jay Cutler could help me bunches here by throwing for about 500 yards and six or seven TDs. Miami vs. Buffalo (at Toronto) The Bills are imploding, while the Dolphins are fighting for a playoff spot. Kind of a long trip from Miami, but whatever. The Fins take care of business and win by 10. St. Louis at Arizona What a shitty game. Arizona by 20. Dallas at Pittsburgh Oh, I think Pittsburgh is going to crush Dallas here. Crush them. Everyone's jumping back on the Cowboys bandwagon because Romo's back and they've beaten a couple of powderpuffs, but this team is every bit as overrated as they ever were. Dallas isn't going to know what to do on that shitty Heinz Field turf. Steelers by 19. Washington at Baltimore Washington is kind of fading right now, while the Ravens are looking better and better each week. Baltimore by 14. Tampa Bay at Carolina THE GAME OF THE CENTURY. I'm really excited for this one. I don't think it'll be as easy as Tampa's home win over the Panthers earlier this year was, but I do think the Bucs will eek out a victory. Tampa's D gets a pair of TDs and the Bucs win by 9.

So I just remembered that it's possible to watch music videos online. She is a little gawky, isn't she.

Nah. Especially not in modern country music, which has the same sort of separation between songwriter and performer that most of rock music did pre-Beatles. If you think someone like Kenny Chesney writes all of his songs, you're sorely mistaken. EDIT: That was in response to Smartly Pretty's post. To Kreese's post, I say: Yeah, I'm not crazy about it, either.

Endearlingly gawky? And this from a guy who said he'd fuck Chelsea Lately. I'm not going to claim to be all that familiar with Taylor Swift, but she's looked quite nice in every picture I've seen. Certainly more attractive than contemporaries like Kellie Pickler or Carrie Underwood.

Yes!

Taylor Swift facts: 1. Taylor Swift has just turned 18. 2. Taylor Swift has just released her sophomore album, Fearless. It debuted at #2 on the Billboard chart. 3. Taylor Swift sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a 76ers game when she was only 11! 4. Soon, I will make Taylor Swift my hillbilly teen bride. Discuss.

Rock is dead.

It'd take a lot more than those guys getting suspended for the Lions to beat Purple Jesus and the Fightin' Frerottes. It'll definitely hurt Minnesota against real teams, though. Of the six guys who got suspended, those are the only two whose absence will make much of a difference. The Plax thing was expected, and he's really got bigger things to worry about than football right now anyway. Any guesses as to what, if anything, will happen to Antonio Pierce?

9-7 for the week. 119-73 for the year.

909's mom making him change the channel because of Val Venis made me lol. When I first became a fan in the early 90s, my dad would give me shit about it all the time. This was actually how I discovered that wrestling was fake: we somehow got into discussing an injury that Tugboat had recently suffered, and my dad opined that he was probably just on vacation or something. I was able to connect the dots from there. My mom, who actually used to babysit for Ric Flair when she was a teenager, was fine with it, and even got me front-row tickets to a WWF show in San Antonio. Totally awesome, even though I neglected to use the bathroom before leaving the arena and ended up pissing my pants on the way home. Both of my parents got into wrestling during the Attitude era, but lost interest at about the same time everyone else did.

I'm now 9-4 and likely to be the third seed in the playoffs. It seems like there's a fair number of guys in this league who have just stopped paying attention.

Oh, Christ. Tampa "hosts" New England in London next year.

At one point, they were talking about tearing down an entire side of Lexington Avenue (the side with Downtown Books & News and the new Old Europe) to build a luxury hotel for Civic Center patrons. That, to me, is really the heart of downtown Asheville, so it was fortunate that they ultimately decided against it. My ex-girlfriend worked at Segrof Video (now Rosebud Video, ugh) and also at Instant Karma for years, so if you rented a GLBT DVD or purchased an accessory for your tobacco water pipe from either of those places, chances are it was from her. Unfortunately, most of the people that I knew when I was really happy there are long gone.

When I was a dude that hung out, my primary hang outs were Vincent's Ear and the Asheville Community Resource Center (ACRC), both of which were on Lexington Avenue and neither of which is there any more. Those places being shut down, my DUI, and my nasty habit of getting completely wasted and cheating on my girlfriend conspired to take all of the nightlife out of me. I worked and ate at Cats and Dawgs in the historic Grove Arcade building. I visited Asheville not too long ago, and I admit that the place still felt very much like home to me. I chose not to move back because I'm trying to get my shit together and I didn't think I could do it there.

I happened to catch a couple of episodes of C-C-Dub for the first time last night. What was amazing to me was that no one mentioned or even seemed to notice how incredibly fucked up or strung-out Dennis Rodman looked in every scene that he was in. Just the palest-looking black guy I've ever seen and he constantly appeared to be on the verge of crying. His one animated moment came when he did the whole Hulk Hogan Superman comeback thing in his match with Butterbean. Everything else gave off the impression that he was just doing the show for drug money.