The Man in Blak

Hey, I don't feel bad about picking the Saints. The Bears, as a whole, have been inconsistent throughout the second half leading into the playoffs and the defense, in particular, seemed to be having some major issues. The Saints appeared to have enough balance on offense so that they would not be hampered by the inclement weather and, even though the defense was suspect, so was Rex Grossman. Even though the one-sided nature of the Bears' victory might lead you to think otherwise, I'd disagree that picking New Orleans to win this game was tantamount to stupidity and/or insanity.

The media is just sad to see two weeks of free copy go out the window - having a human interest crossover story like the Saints fall in their lap is like getting a week of vacation from work during the busiest time of the year.

Fantastic typo. Now, every time I see advertising for the Super Bowl, I'll think of a giant colon. The Bears' D from the first half of the season showed up, which more people (myself included) probably should have expected. Still, it was a closer game that you'd think for the first three quarters, only getting out of hand once they nailed Brees with the safety for an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone.

Or maybe he's just an airhead.

vivalaultra, the first TSM Baby. I picked the Saints and the Colts to win before the snow and the sleet came through, but now I'm waffling a bit on that NFC pick. weather.com has it at 31 degrees, but feeling like 22, due to the wind chill.

I can't believe I forgot Chrono Trigger. If you really look at it, from beginning to end, and consider all of the different side stories that occur along the way, it definitely deserves mention along with FFVI and Suikoden 2 as one of the best stories that RPGs have to offer.

Silent Hill 2 is a perfect mention for this thread because, even though the gameplay is a bit of wreck, the storyline makes it an experience. Far and away the best writing of its time and still probably the best in gaming today. On a tier below, I think Special Peru has it right with Final Fantasy VI, Suikoden 2, and Planescape: Torment in there. Another couple of games that come to mind are Fallout and We <3 Katamari; the latter may seem a little bit out of place, with all of these RPGs, but the storyline (with all of the meta-references to the original game) is pretty funny and the videos that detail the King's origin are deliciously surreal.

The best thing about this thread is that we can talk about the Guests all that we want, and they'll never know what we're saying.

That is one hell of a riff, though. And is the rest of the song really that unmemorable? I actually like the chorus just as much as the riff-driven verse, particularly at the end, and even the transitional sections move pretty well. If there's a "dead spot" in the song, it would probably be the "Oh, I've been flying" breakdown, but even that is enough to keep your attention throughout.

I know that it's been irreparably ruined by Puff Daddy for many, but I think I'd still probably side with "Kashmir" as their best song, though "When The Levee Breaks" is a very close second. I love "No Quarter" and "Achilles' Last Stand", but I've got to be in the right mood to really enjoy them.

Nah, it's easy, Czech. Last year, Vinatieri was considered the clutchiest clutch kicker that ever clutched in NFL History. But this year, it's now quite obvious that Vinatieri didn't do anything that Nate Kaeding, Josh Brown, David Akers or 5 or 6 other kickers couldn't have done. I'm at a loss to explain how such a change in attitude would have occurred in a single year but, surely, there is a logical explanation.

What the fuck are you talking about? Well, I'd say the latter has a lot to do with the former, considering that John Lynch had said that they were running plays straight out of the Oakland offensive playbook in the practices leading up to the Super Bowl. The Tampa Bay defense was already one of the best in the league that year; the fact that they could gameplan off of insider knowledge (and that the Oakland coaches were too stupid to change anything) was a huge factor in their destruction of the Raiders.

Of course, the fact that the head coach of the 2002 NFC Champions had intimate knowledge of the Raiders' playbook (which they inexplicably left virtually unchanged) has nothing to do with that.

This is always a bit of a trick question but, in terms of sheer talent, I don't think it would be too unrealistic to say that they would have a shot with McNabb (who you mentioned earlier), Bulger or McNair, simply because their defense and the surrounding cast on offense has been pretty good over those Super Bowl wins. (2001 is probably the weakest crew, but they also had the luxury of playing the choke-a-licious Rams that year.) You can't really deny that Brady is a great quarterback, but he's hardly the primary reason for the Patriots' success.

Weird trade for the Braves. They're trading a guy who's perceived value is considerably lower than his actual value in LaRoche and, while getting Mike Gonzalez adds another great arm to their bullpen, Lillibridge's inclusion as the big prospect of the deal seems a bit odd, since they've already got decent SS prospects in Elvis Andrus and Yunel Escobar. Someone had mentioned on BTF that Lillibridge had played some CF before, so maybe Atlanta's planning on moving him around the diamond a bit. I don't know as much about Atlanta's roster situation, but does this mean you've got a steady diet of Matt Diaz or Scotty Thorman at 1B next year? And, while this is a good trade for the Pirates, they could have just kept Craig Wilson around, if they wanted a first baseman that could hit.

I've seen 0-9 as the stat for dome teams playing conference championships on the road, but it's seems like a bit of a bogus number, in my opinion. Not only are you dealing with a very small sample size, but the seeding that led to that dome team playing on the road already indicates that the home team is probably a superior team to begin with, dome or no dome. By my (admittedly fast) count of the conference championship results, the road team is 25-47 in conference championship play.

That's too bad. The discussion of soup throughout the entire board has taken an alarming downturn since his departure.

I'm sure that, once we hit the slow week of sports news after the NFL Conference Championship games, we'll probably get an outcry of columnists demanding that the Cardinals make alterations to the press box at the New Busch to accommodate their coverage of the '09 All-Star Game.

There are a couple of issues that reviewers struggle with, when it comes to describing gameplay. Part of the problem is that most reviewers don't seem to have the proper knowledge or context to place a game within the overall evolution of gameplay in a particular genre. To create an extreme example, a person who writes a bundle of reviews a month for Gamepro may look at something like Final Fantasy Tactics, for example, and proclaim that it's the greatest innovation in turn-based strategy when, in fact, much of the in-game battle system leans heavily on Tactics Ogre, which many of the FFT developers (most notably Matsuno) worked on. There's a lot of ground to cover: three software platforms in the current gen, plus three platforms in the past gen, both rife with thousands of multi-platform releases... The other problem is that the language for describing how a game plays is still kind of primitive. We can sort of identify games as fitting within a particular genre (though even that's not always a given - let's have a discussion about what constitutes an action/RPG again) but providing a concise explanation for how games within that genre differ, in terms of gameplay, can be very difficult.

Even though Endy will probably come crashing down next year (I still can't believe he hit .306/.348/.431 last year), this is still a good deal for the Mets, as he gives them solid defensive depth at all three outfield positions and a decent pinch-runner off of the bench.

I like particular songs with Zeppelin but their albums, as a whole, do nothing for me. If forced to choose an LZ album to listen to, in its entirety, I would probably go with Physical Graffiti, though I think I'd rather listen to "When The Levee Breaks" on repeat for 40 minutes.

Both games have a potential to be great and, really, can the NFL complain about the matchup possibilities? New England vs. Chicago - Rematch of Super Bowl XX, with Belichick and Brady going for a historic fourth title against Rex Grossman, History's Greatest Monster. Indianapolis vs. New Orleans - Peyton Manning finally looks to win the big one against his father's old team, those Amazin' Saints. New England vs. New Orleans - The Saints try to cap off their magical season with a Super Bowl win against Brady, Belichick, and the Greatest Team of the Decade. Indianapolis vs. Chicago - Peyton Manning finally looks to win the big one against Rex Grossman, History's Greatest Monster.

How about "it wasn't a fortunate bounce", from your previous post? If it's not a fortunate bounce, then the implication is that the Patriots were somehow better prepared for the recovery of this remarkably improbable fumble, correct? Do you care to explain that with something other than "Reche Caldwell dove on that fucker"?

You can say that "Reche dove on that fucker" and explain what happened, but there's no explanation for how it happened, because there is no "how"; though players are always taught a particular thing to do whenever a fumble occurs, there is no discernible skill held by football players that makes them any more pre-disposed to making more fumble recoveries than another given player in any given situation. Statistics bear it out and, really, common sense bears that out - folks just dive onto the ball and pray. Fumble recovery is a matter of random chance, but I can understand how you might be confused, since the Patriots recovered five of them yesterday (two of their own).

Somewhat, yes. Lennon actually quit the band before McCartney's announcement, walking away in September '69, but the rest of the group talked him out of making a formal announcement at that time. When the Beatles met for their last recording session of "I Me Mine" shortly after the new year, Lennon wasn't there. Following that last recording session, there was still an implicit understanding that the group would hold off on announcing a breakup or releasing their solo projects until Let It Be went to market. When McCartney announced that the Beatles had broken up on April 10th, 1970, a week before the scheduled release of McCartney, the rest of the band was a little surprised, as you can imagine. Not only that, but Harrison was tiring from the endless squabbling during the session and the condescension from others, regarding his playing (McCartney, in particular). An argument with Paul over how to play a particular guitar line, which was caught in live detail for the Let It Be tapings, essentially led to George quitting the band temporarily. At times, they treated him more like a session musician than an actual part of the band. And, speaking of solo Harrison, has anybody even listened to anything else outside of All Things Must Pass? Gone Troppo, anyone?