"Me fail English? That's unpossible."

Nice work, 24. Nice work. (Though, in fairness, this is the only the 17th most improbable thing that happened over the two eps on Monday night.)

On the plus side, the interest rate hike noted on the crawl suggests that the economy will be fixed by...wait, what year is it supposed to be again, Shuk?

"I guess some people never change. Or, they quickly change, then quickly change back..."

WTFIGOW You and Your Deranged Protege?

...hmmm, I've almost forgotten how this works.

Fear not loyal readers, reader, Jesse, I shall return. Exam later today (Estates), plus one next week (IP), but then I'll be back--probably next Thursday or so.

Immediately on tap:

-Best TV Shows of 2008

-Best Albums of 2008 (ranked)

Later on:

-Best Movies of 2008 (given how long it's taking me to watch films with award buzz--I think I'm still watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button--this post will very probably coincide with my Oscar preview.

-Best Movies of Our Lives: A Shuk and Kyle Team-Up

Later still:

-The West Wing: Best and Worst Episodes of All-Time of The West Wing: A Kyle and Jesse Team-Up

In the meantime...the four books I've included in the above photo are what I'm working on at the moment (though only just barely), since apparently I've been roped into a reading contest with a couple of sketchy figures. Also: Captain America, largely by virtue of this.

"I wish, too, but you're making it extremely difficult for me. I'm just trying to get these shoes back to my house so I can wear them..."

The State of the Blog: A Semi-Annual(ish) Feature

I. Since my previous SotB contained an outlandish promise (remember the ill-fated Gravity's Rainbow read-and-blog? No? Good), let it not be said that this one doesn't either. To that end, I'm proud to unveil the "Ranking the Presidents" project. From #42 (I'm only going to say this once, people, so try to pay attention: the fact that Grover Cleveland, who served two non-consecutive terms, counts as the 22nd and 24th U.S. President is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's one--hence 42 in total) to #1, in (I think) five parts, with the final part completed just before the November election (which may or may not be chronicled in a running diary, with special guests Misha and Jessica Biga-Wadstein). Tentatively, I'm looking at the the following categories:

High Points/Accomplishments: does not apply to all Presidents (I'm looking at you, Franklin Pierce!)

Low Points: always more fun to talk about, anyway...

Allowances for Instability (or lack thereof) of Time Period: TR's contemporary lament--that he would always be underrated as a President because he didn't govern during a turbulent enough time (though Lord knows he tried to spice things up!)--has always fascinated me. Accordingly, I'll look at what was going on in America during each Presidents' tenure. Essentially, this can be viewed as a degree of difficulty component.

Fun Facts: some of which may not even be cribbed from books written by hosts or correspondents from The Daily Show (no promises).

In Writing: as part of a longstanding goal to read a biography about every President, I've covered roughly half of these guys...and counting (presently, I'm reading Grant by Jean Edward Smith). This will be a brief review of those books, along with any recommendations.

In Popular Culture: fairly self-explanatory.

Test of Time: kind of nebulous...but, basically, this boils down to: does their Presidency look better or worse now than it did then? Given the potential overlap with AfI(oLT)oTP, I may fold these two categories into one.

Suggestions are, as always, welcome. (Hell, I may even get some friends to submit their own rankings.) I'll give credit where credit is due...and maybe even name the category after you!

II. Having just completed S1 of both Mad Men and Breaking Bad (note: actually a 2008 show. Rats.), I think it's time to quickly (and retroactively) rank my Top 16 Shows of 2007 (that is to say: the 2007 season--which may, confusingly, have begun in September 2006--for shows. In other words, S1 30 Rock is eligible, early S2 eps that aired late in the year are not. So, unless my math is off, things like S5 of The Wire, S1 of Chuck, and S1 of Life won't be eligible until my Best of '08 List...hopefully appearing in December. You know what? Now I'm confused. Stupid strike. Season in question in parenthesis):

16. The O.C. (S4): as an aside, does it not seem like three of four years ago that this final--and unexpectedly entertaining--season aired?

15. Heroes (S1): though, in the span of a few short months, it's become so bad that I no longer watch it, I maintain that season one (massive letdown of a season finale aside) was pretty damn good. And I say no to revisionism!

14. Veronica Mars (S3): on the plus side, in ditching this show, the CW re-committed itself to building a stable of quality programs, which has been an unmitigated succe--ohmygod, that network building is on fire!!

13. Top Chef (S3): every time I hear someone say they prefer Hell's Kitchen, I die a little inside.

12. South Park (S11): 14 episodes, 6 gems or near-gems (Cartman Sucks, With Apologies to Jesse Jackson, two of the three Imaginationland eps, Night of the Living Homeless, and Guitar Queer-0). Not bad.

11. Curb Your Enthusiasm (S6): I think we can safely say that the S2/S3 glory days are long gone, but this was a nice rebound season after a wildly uneven S5 in 2005.

10. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (S3): I'll be the first to admit that I was turned off by S1 of this show, but I'm glad we stuck it out, because, as it turns out, the show is fucking hilarious. I probably don't go a week without referencing the Dumpster Baby episode.

9. The Office (S3): to be honest, I found season three to be more uncomfortable and sad than, say, riotous. Out of 23 episodes, only three--"Gay Witch Hunt," "The Coup," and, maybe my favorite of the whole series, "The Job"--really stood out. And the much-hyped Gervais-Merchant episode ("The Convict") ended up, if not an outright dud, than at least very forgettable. Nevertheless, a respectable season.

8. The Sopranos (S6, part two): makes it by virtue of "The Second Coming" alone. The rest of the season was (and remains) incredibly overrated.

7. How I Met Your Mother (S2): this, too, seems like several years ago, likely a byproduct of S3 being--for me at least--a major disappointment.

6. Extras (S2 + the Christmas special): a lot to love here...

5. Flight of the Conchords (S1): ...yet it's eclipsed by this show, which, amazingly, manages an even better job of incorporating the bumbling agent character. The rewatchability of this show is off the charts. I'm just very fond of it.

4. 30 Rock (S1): what's left to be said about this show? Genius.

3. Lost (S3): the season finale alone ("Through the Looking Glass") is enough to get this show on the list. Throw in some killer performances from the perennially under-appreciated Elizabeth Mitchell and Henry Ian Cusick, and you get a show that is firmly back on track. That, for a time, Heroes was favourably compared to this complex and challenging show now strikes me as patently absurd. And, if you don't think there's enough Lost analysis here, please see the following.

2. Mad Men (S1): I have to say, I'm kind of in awe of this show.

1. Dexter (S2): Great season. Great show. I went back and forth between this and MM for #1, before ultimately settling on this order. Having said that, I believe Mad Men to be on better footing, as I'm fascinated to see which direction it's heading in, while, with Dexter, I'm mostly concerned that they may (may) not have anywhere else to go.

III. Patrick Hruby's latest ESPN.com Page 2 article on sports video game flaws is...amazing, and I urge everyone to check it out. Five additions I would've liked to have seen:

1. It's effectively impossible to be a serve and volleyer in tennis games now. This could very well be a nod to real tennis, but that's probably giving developers too much credit.

2. Play-by-play and color commentary still sucks. If I'm a half game out of the Wild Card race with one game to know, the commentary should indicate as much, including providing live look-ins to the other relevant game. Same goes for when it's Michigan-OSU, and the winner earns the right to lose the National Championship game by 28 points, while the loser will struggle valiantly in the Capital One bowl. They need to get much (much, much) better at the situational stuff. Hell, I'm willing to bet that if they offered a subscription mode (say $5 a month) for some personalized commentary, this would be a runaway hit.

3A. Season mode in golf and tennis games remains unsatisfying. So...you can recruit a high school punter from Pierre, South Dakota in NCAA Football '08, but you can't play in the U.S. Open Series, or compete for the FedEx Cup? This. makes. no. sense. Twenty second solution: buy the rights to the names and likenesses of the top 128 tennis players on tour, and the 125 PGA players that won a tour card the previous year. It'll be cheap. Believe me. (Hell, Frank Dancevic would probably pay you to do this.) Then make them all playable in the game. (Then add all the tournaments.) I know the trend is towards creating yourself now in sports games, but no, this is better.

3B. Ryder Cup mode! Come on, EA Sports! Just because Tiger routinely shits the bed in this event doesn't mean it shouldn't be included. This would be amazing online.

4. Post-championship celebrations continue to be a massive letdown. Given that it took five to seven years to go from the static "shots of confetti falling down and people hugging" in Tecmo Super Bowl to the evolutionary leap of actual shots of the postgame celebration (Madden and NBA Live series), I'm not holding out much hope here, but is it too much to ask for an NFL Films style Year in Review video if you win the Super Bowl? How hard could it possibly be to compile all the best highlights from your season and set it to music? I'm not asking for John Facenda to narrate anything (mostly because I believe he's been dead for quite some time). I'd even settle for a Top 10 (when my brothers football team won OFSAA, they had a Top 10 at their team banquet...and it was just about the coolest thing ever)

5. Still no good next gen beach volleyball game (non-pornographic department). How is this possible? Super Spike V-Ball came out twenty years ago this October! This is a no-brainer people.

IV. Writing Schedule

1. In Praise of Mad Men: next couple of days
2. Real World Retrospective: late next week
3. Best Books of the 90s: conceivably: the week before the wedding, though it's entirely possible I won't get to this.

After that, expect a two-week hiatus (something about me getting married, a honeymoon, etc.). Things should be up and running the week of August 18th, with some Olympic Thoughts, Best Movies of the 90s, and--my favorite--a running diary of this year's Little League World Series Championship Game on the 24th.

"Dammit! Who typed a question mark on the Teleprompter?"

Sorry for my infrequent posting (read: no posting at all) these past couple of weeks. I should have some BCS thoughts (such angry, angry thoughts) up in the next couple of days and then I'll get back into the swing of things...but, in the meantime, I have to post this, which I just saw...and which may be the greatest thing ever:

"I'm like Mozart. And you're like that guy that was always jealous of Mozart..."

(And, no, I don't care that the photo has nothing to do with this post. It was a damn fine episode.)

OK...so where were we? Apologies for my prolonged absence.

A few points...

1. NBA Playoffs: My excitement is building (which isn't saying a lot, since I probably watched three NBA regular season games from start to finish this year, down from ten or so last year, and 300 when I was seventeen), but, goddammit, San Antonio vs. Phoenix and New Orleans vs. Dallas in the first round? It seems like a bit of waste. When you have six teams out of sixteen that could win the championship (I'm tempted to include Utah as the seventh because I love the way they play, but I don't think they have a chance against L.A.), you really shouldn't have four of them facing off against each other in Round 1. So what if the NBA seeded teams from 1-16 in the playoffs, as so many have clamoured for in recent years? Glad you asked.

Rules: a regular season conference title guarantees you a top 2 spot, and winning your division guarantees you no worse than the 4th best seed of teams in your conference (which is the current rule). This first batch simply re-seeds the sixteen teams that qualified this year...

Round 1:

(1) Boston vs. (16) Atlanta
(8) Phoenix vs. (9) Orlando

(4) New Orleans vs. (13) Washington
(5) San Antonio vs. (12) Cleveland

(3) Detroit vs. (14) Toronto
(6) Utah vs. (11) Denver

(2) Los Angeles vs. (15) Philadelphia
(7) Houston vs. (10) Dallas

Or, if you don't think that the conferences need to represented equally (for argument's sake, let's say that each conference has to have six representatives...though I can't see this ever being an issue, how about this (changes in red/caps)?

Round 1:

(1) Boston vs. (16) PORTLAND
(8) Phoenix vs. (9) Orlando

(4) New Orleans vs. (13) GOLDEN STATE
(5) San Antonio vs. (12) Cleveland

(3) Detroit vs. (14) WASHINGTON
(6) Utah vs. (11) Denver

(2) Los Angeles vs. (15) TORONTO*
(7) Houston vs. (10) Dallas

*= Toronto and Portland were both 41-41 in the regular season and split the season series 1-1. I've given Toronto the better seed because they had the better conference record (29-23 vs. Portland's 26-26). Now, I do feel kind of shitty rewarding Toronto for playing in a weaker conference, but what can you do? Plus, on a neutral court, they're probably slightly better than the Blazers. Doesn't matter--both are would be fodder for Boston and L.A.

Anyway...how's this for a potential 2nd Round?

Boston vs. Phoenix
New Orleans vs. San Antonio

Detroit vs. Utah
Dallas ("upset" pick) vs. L.A.

Followed by...

Boston vs. NO/SA (too close to call--that quarterfinal would be amazing)
Detroit vs. Los Angeles

Then...

Boston vs. Los Angeles.

Now, what we'll actually likely end up with is: Boston-Cleveland, Detroit-Orlando, LA-Utah, NO-SA....which is still pretty compelling (well...except for the Eastern Conference), but, man, that crossover draw is sexy.

2. This comes courtesy of Ken Jennings's blog (which I've recently stumbled upon and am enjoying immensely): Match the MPAA rating warning with the appropriate film. (No googling the description, either. I didn't...honest.)

1. 1999: “R for graphic shark attacks, and for language.”
2. 1998: “R for pervasive extreme drug use and related bizarre behavior, strong language, and brief nudity.”
3. 2006: “PG for boxing violence and some language.”
4. 2004: “R for graphic crude and sexual humor, violent images and strong language - all involving puppets.”
5. 1996: “PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather.”
6. 1999: “R for disturbing and graphic depiction of violent anti-social behavior, sexuality and language.”
7. 1997: “PG-13 for disaster related peril and violence, nudity, sensuality and brief language.”
8. 1998: “R for intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence, and for language.”
9. 2003: “R for drug use, self destructive violence, language and sexuality - all involving young teens.”
10. 1995: “R for grisly afterviews of horrific and bizarre killings, and for strong language.”

My answers (highlight to reveal): (1) Deep Blue Sea, (2) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [FYI, the tip-off is "pervasive extreme drug use."] (3) Rocky Balboa?, (4) Team America: World Police, (5) Twister, (6) Fight Club, (7) Titanic, (8) Saving Private Ryan, (9) no clue?, (10) Natural Born Killers?

Actual answers found here (I think).

3. The Bachelor: while I've enjoyed this Bachelor season (officially: Carrie makes me watch it) more than most (the final five girls seemed more or less reasonable which happens--approximately--never, and Matt, the Bachelor is easily the most likeable Bachelor in the show's history--by, like, several orders of magnitude), I have to say that Matt, in sending home Amanda yesterday, committed a grievous error. Here's why:

-Shayne, finalist #1, while undeniably attractive, has revealed herself as truly vapid. You know what's a dead giveaway that you're kind of dim? When you make statements like "I'm aware of what's going on in the world. I know about politics" in an interview...and then provide no follow-up information. Also, can we stop with this whole "Shayne [who is Lorenzo Lamas's daughter] is a big-time actress conceit? An 18-episode stint on General Hospital, a cameo on Air America the series (which one presumes not at all coincidentally, starred her father), and a billing in the upcoming Endless Bummer ("Red Bikini Girl") which completely smacks of porn does not a resume make. (On the plus side: there was an Air America series?? It only lasted eight episodes--or: seven longer than I would've guessed--but don't you just feel better knowing this existed? Has there ever been a movie that was less in need of being made into a weekly series? Maybe Mannequin?).

-Chelsea, the other finalist, spent more than half of her last date with Matt acting like he had leprosy. She's generally fairly pleasant (and the one, I suppose, that I'm rooting for now), but clearly has relationship issues. This seems like a good enough reason to send her home.

-Amanda, who was sent packing, was responsible for this (six minutes...but well worth watching)--far and away, the greatest moment in Bachelor history. She deserves to win for that alone. (Although, again, on the plus side, her departure led directly to another Bachelor first: the dropping of a "douchebag" bomb during her tearful goodbye. Carrie and I watched that part again today to see if it actually happened...since it was bleeped out. Verdict? Yup.)

4. American Idol: despite some truly horrific theme nights orchestrated by Nigel Lythgoe and company--all together now: a second Beatles night that was destined to fail, Dolly Parton, songs from the year you were born, inspirational music (for the virtually unwatchable "Idol Gives Back" telethon), Mariah Carey, Andrew Lloyd Webber (which was actually kinda awesome), and Neil Diamond (which was not)...I mean, really, if you were deliberately trying to make people less interested in your show, you probably wouldn't be able to do better than this...--I'm actually enjoying this season quite a bit. That said, it's almost completely inconceivable that it won't come down to the two Davids--Cook (who, simply put, is fantastic...and wayyyy too good for the show) and Archuleta (who is technically perfect, but in a boring way...to the point where he might be a robot set to "adult contempo." I heard him tonight and thought "he'd be great on Star Search." Forty minutes later, I discovered that he was on Star Search and won $100,000. Oh. Well...that proves my point then, doesn't it?). In other words, it's going to be a dull three weeks until we get to the finals.

5. Real World: Hollywood: having seen the first two episodes, I can safely say: when MTV said that they were going to go back to their roots and cast "real" people for their 20th season, I did not realize that they were only picking from the smaller subset of the "absolutely fucking clinically insane." Should be interesting.

6. A few McSweeney's links that I highly recommend: one on bomb defusing, one on first drafts of biblical parables. (And this one, which I came across while procrastinating with this post.)

7. Up next: since I actually get to, you know, read actual books (instead of staring at page after page of statutes and procedural rules until I go blind), there should be more book reviews up in the coming weeks and months.

On tap immediately is (at Taylor's request) the Top 10 video games of the 1990s. After that, I'm hoping to assemble my Wire vs. Sopranos post. That one is bound to be a long one, so it may take a while.

In addition, stay tuned for a post on the wedding blog this week (topic: most memorable/best TV weddings).

"Even Immigrants Enjoying Measure of Comfort..."

In light of yesterday's Dow downturn, here's my favorite Onion headline ever:

And this is pretty funny, too:

Some Old Man Still Churning Out Marmaduke

MONTGOMERY, TX—"I love what I do," said the elderly cartoonist, his body and mind crippled by an endless and repetitive stream of doodles featuring the Great Dane.

"...but I was only in there to get directions on how to get away from there..."

In all seriousness: is this supposed to be ironic?

In Treatment review should be up tomorrow night.

"Limitless Paper in a Paperless World..."

Odds, Ends, Musings, Upcoming Projects

Taking a break from slogging through my Evidence textbook (put it this way: if someone even so much as uses the word "privilege," I'll flip out) to come at you live from the confines of my bed with my new wireless router, which I love so much I want to take behind the middle school (you know the rest...). Nothing here to warrant a full post, so off we go:

a. Random Notes

• Horrible news.
  
  
• Been playing my brother's copy of Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and if it's not reason enough to buy a PS3, it's damn close.
  
  
• In a similar vein, here's a link to a kickass trailer for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, set to "Dissolved Girl" by Massive Attack.
  
  
• Granted, I did just crush my brother in fantasy football (60+ points victory) and I'm now 5-4 after opening a disastrous 0-3, but, I have to ask: is my cash game fantasy football team cursed? Thus far this year, I've lost the following players to injury: Andre Johnson (out since week 3 with a mysterious leg condition--ever since week 6 most news sources have said "he'll likely be back next week," only to repeat that exact assessment days later), Ronnie Brown (one of the top 3 pointgetters in the whole league before being felled by an ACL injury), Larry Johnson (hurt his ankle on Sunday and is now out for at least a week), Marvin Harrison (knee), Anthony Gonzalez (no clue). The last two are especially strange...and here's why: Harrison--my first round selection--is renowned as one of the most durable players in the league, having missed only six games due to injury in his previous eleven seasons (186 games), yet has now missed two of the last three games entirely and was virtually useless in the one that he did play in. So, anyway, hearing that there was about a 25% chance that Harrison would play this week against the Patriots, I picked up Gonzalez (Harrison's backup) to take his place. And, sure enough, A-Gon went down with an injury less than halfway through the game. The fuck? I now have a sneaking suspicion that Johnson is dead and/or has had his leg amputated and Yahoo! doesn't have the heart to tell me.
  
  
• TV tip for those, like me, that tape Chuck from 8-9 while you watch HIMYM, but then have nothing to do from 8:30-9 unless you're willing to debase yourself and watch the truly awful yet--amazingly--moderately popular The Big Bang Theory (insert your own "well, I guess the one good thing about the WGA strike is..." joke here): tune in to the second half of the surprisingly watchable Dragon's Den on CBC, which combines the most addictive elements of American Idol (the perennial willingness to embarrass yourself on national television) with, say, Mathnet. (I know, I know. You thought you'd go the rest of your natural life without hearing "Mathnet" again. Sorry, friend. You were wrong.) Hell, throw in a little bit of the wheeler-dealer aspects of Dallas while you're at it.

b. Upcoming Projects

• Gravity's Rainbow: I've decided that the best way to handle the book that's haunted my dreams that I've started multiple times without coming anywhere close to finishing it is to shamelessly copy Ryan and blog about my reading experience. Note to Thomas Pynchon and his controversial National Book Award winning novel (but skip the section on the plot, dammit!): you're on my list...of things to do. Shit. That doesn't sound tough at all. Rather unhelpfully and yet not at all surprisingly (as Pynchon is an inscrutable fuck), Gravity's Rainbow, 885 pages all told, contains no chapters, but is rather broken down into a series of (unnumbered in the text, of course!) episodes--81 in all. The plan is to read two or three episodes at a time, resulting in 35 total blog entries. Regular features will include Progress (how far I am into the book), a brief Plot Summary, pithy (I hope) Analysis, and Approximate Level of Irritation with the (notoriously difficult to read) Book (1 = actually looking forward to reading; 5 = semi-dreading my next go-round; 10 = throwing book against the wall, then jumping up and down on its pages, while pulling out my hair and screaming "fuck you, Pynchon! Fuck you!!")



• Best of the Decade: inspired by Misha's challenge to me to create a list of the top 10 albums of this current decade [note: challenge accepted], this project will entail a series of "best of" lists for the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s. Tentatively, I'm looking at listing the best films, TV shows, albums, books, and video games for the five decades in questions. Disclaimer: I'll need to find an alternative for video games for the 60s and 70s (unless we can all agree that cup and ball is eligible)--this may end up being best sports moments, or potentially something a bit more esoteric. The plan at the moment is to tackle one decade a month, starting in January. There may or may not be an upcoming poll posted on my blog to let reader(s) vote on which decade they'd like to see first...which may or may not be shamefacedly removed from the site by me after receiving fewer than four votes total.



• The Wedding Blog (official title pending): that's right, we're barely three months in to my career as a blogger and I've already gone mad with power. The first manifestation of this: did someone say spinoff? More on this another time.



• The Top 25 Sports Movies of All-Time: hopefully fairly self-explanatory.



• Shuk and I have talked about doing a Top 25 Arrested Development moments, but one of us (me) has been pretty derelict in his duties, so this one will have to wait until '08.

c. Upcoming Posts
Carrie and I are off to Ireland on December 20th, which, by my count, is roughly seven weeks away. That, combined with the vagaries of school--three exams, studying for said exams, and one paper--means that my blogging year is rapidly drawing to a close. (Carrie swears they have the internet in Ireland, but I remain unconvinced.) What you can count (more or less) is the following:

• The Top 15 Movies of 2007
• The Top 15 Albums of 2007
• The Top 15 TV Shows of 2007
• The Two-Thirds(ish) NFL Recap
• A Kid Nation Season (slash--probably--"series") Finale Running Diary
• The first (of--in theory--35) Gravity's Rainbow entry

The first three are certain; the next three are subject to time constraints and/or availability of material.

And, when I get back in January (presumably): The Top 25 Ways I Embarrassed Myself and My Fiancee's Family in Ireland (just kidding, baby! Five, tops. Maybe seven). Failing that, count on a blathering (not to be confused with "blistering") review of Joyce's Ulysses, which I plan on reading on the trip.