Darth Drabek

I have just the thing! Might I suggest some Kipling? "If" If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream--and not make dreams your master, If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Nice. David Bowie - Hang on to Yourself

I'm waiting for Halo 3 to thin out all the older 360s on shelves. Then I'll swoop in and buy a nice new one with HDMI and the extra heatsink, just in time for Mass Effect!

I, too, read a handful of these books before losing interest. I don't remember how far I got. In fact, I don't remember anything about them at all. Given, I read them probably seven or eight years ago, but these books left absolutely no impression. I remember when I heard Stephen King got hit by a car, I thought, "Well, looks like Roland's never getting to that Tower, after all." I believe King wrote in one of his prologues that that incident was what prompted him to hunker down and finish that series. Otherwise, we'd probably still be waiting for book five.

The Pogues - The Broad Majestic Shannon

One benefit to living in northeast Ohio: my local CBS affiliate gave me the gift of that Browns/Bengals game on Sunday afternoon. Normally this is a very bad thing, and not something about which you should be excited. But for the first time in years, I actually enjoyed watching a Browns game. After the Steelers made their offense look like the JV team last week, who expected a 51 point explosion? Hey, maybe the papers will stop blabbering about Brady Quinn for a week!

Cracker - Don't **** Me Up (With Peace and Love)

Kanye by a mile. His rhymes are better, his beats are better, and he's got Jay-Z on his side.

Billy Shears covering the Posies? I didn't know Ringo made any albums in the 90s... Matisyahu - Jerusalem (Out of Darkness Comes Light)

The National - About Today

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Messiah Ward

1 - Reese's Fast Break Seriously, head and shoulders above the rest. 2 - Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Raspberry bar 3 - Any kind of M&Ms 4 (tie) - Twix/Snickers 5 - Airheads!

It was the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Specifically, the water temple.

Ryan Adams - The Bar is a Beautiful Place

Haha, yeah I remember watching Lorenzen play college ball at Kentucky. The guy is a tank. I think I heard the announcers list him as 6'4" and 295 lbs -- numbers more suited to an offensive lineman than a QB. I couldn't believe he was still in the NFL, and then there he was running the Giants offense. He even scrambled once, and slid when a headfirst dive could have got the first down and prolonged the drive. @ Gfted1: I'm a Steelers fan in an office full of Browns fans, and let me tell you, this morning's e-mail chain was prolific. That number one pick which is now in Dallas' possession came up a few times, as well. You'd think I would be gloating today, but most Browns fans have given up on the rivalry (Eight straight losses will do that to you). There wasn't really any office trash-talking, because most of my coworkers expected Sunday's beating. For Browns fans, the burning hatred is still there, but the hope of actually achieving a win against Pittsburgh is completely gone.

Well, Tony Romo singlehandedly won my week 1 fantasy football matchup for me. Four TD passes, 345 yards, and a rushing TD just because he can. All hail Romo. Although the fact that the Giants' secondary was just terrible helped a bit. That was a pretty fun game to watch. Eli played well (even Tiki said so), so maybe the NY media won't rip him to shreds this week. I read that the Jets fans were cheering when Pennington went down. Classy, guys, real classy. The Browns would love to have Chad Pennington right about now. That program is just doomed. All the optimism from the draft and preseason just evaporated after their first offensive series. Three and out, then a 15-yard punt, on which the Browns committed FOUR penalties. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2007 Cleveland Browns!

Teenage Fanclub - I Need Direction

Happy belated birthday, DC! Man, I played so much NBA 2K1 back in the day. Virtua Tennis, too. This reminds me ... where's my Hydro Thunder sequel? Get going, Midway!

Uh.... ditto. After a rockin night of cheap rock and roll and $2.50 Genessee tall boys along the Erie shore. Let's hear it for the Midwest! Southeast Engine deserves to make it big. They probably won't, but damn it -- they should. Passing out.... now.

Fiancee, eh? Enoch popped the question! And apparently, she said yes! Did hearing about "the family's trip to Hawaii" speed up your desire to become part of said family? I'm not being very productive at work today. It's a Friday, plus last night my buddy and I attened a local bar's open mic night we recently discovered. We weren't planning on playing, we just wanted to scope it out and talk to the guy who takes care of booking. But they had a house guitar, and the booking/sound guy wanted to hear us play, so we both played four songs. I decided to play all covers: Lemonheads, Jayhawks, some Warren Zevon and the Stones' "Dead Flowers" to close it. My buddy played two originals and two covers. It went pretty well, and the guy asked for a press kit (ha!) and demo. So, I burned a CD last night and I'll write up a quick band bio today. I figure I'll drop it off tonight after going out for some happy hour festivities. One of my coworkers is leaving to work for a journal in D.C., so we're going to send him off in style.

Has anyone ever heard of OverClocked Remix? It's an online community devoted to arranging and re-arranging video game music. They've got some seriously talented people over there. I've downloaded a handful of their remixes of Street Fighter II songs, and I have found some complete and utter gems. So far, my favorites are the "Go Home and Be a Family Man" remix of Guile's theme, the "Freestyle Dojo" mix of Ryu's theme, and the unbelievable take on Ken's theme. "The Ken Song" actually has (well done, if a bit cheesy) vocals, and the production values are worthy of Top 40 rock radio. Highly recommended for fans of the Street Fighters... or the Foo Fighters for that matter. Download it here! Seriously, it rocks.

On frats, college, etc. Pledging was never an option for me. Even with my modest scholaship, college was expensive enough without paying astronomical "dues" every quarter (I guess they have to pay for all those kegs somehow). I honestly wouldn't have wanted to join anyway. At my university (number two in the Princeton Review's party school rankings my senior year), the fraternity types were not the type of people with whom I would want to associate. I'm not saying it's like this at every school, but at my university the overwhelming majority of them were spoiled rich boys with popped collars and expensive cars. These guys were stereotypes. You'd see them in class once in a great while, and you'd know by the amount of effort they put forth that there was no way they were paying their own way. For crying out loud, if your parents are going to shovel that much money at the diploma factory, the least you can do is try to learn something. So there's another concrete reason for the negative image. Maybe I've got blue-collar bias, but my pontificating is based solely on my own experience. I have friends who attended smaller schools where pretty much everyone who lived on campus was in a fraternity or sorority, and they've loved it. All I know is that on a medium-to-large campus, you don't have to join a frat to meet girls or get drunk. You can do a damn fine job with either on your own, if you've got the inclination. If there were "alternative" fraternities at my college, they didn't publicize themselves very well. There was the black fraternity, the community service fraternity, which was mostly girls, and a plethora of other clubs and organizations. The clubs are where the real diversity on campus can be found. Hell, there was an "Anime Club" at my school. They met in one of the big lecture halls every Friday night and watched anime films from 8 to midnight on a huge projection screen. Pixies, I guarantee you there are people in your residence hall who will have "Heroes" parties when new episodes are on. If you keep your eyes open, you can let your inner geek out and find some new friends in the process. I love how this thread has become part advice column, part nostalgia bender. "Heed my words, pixies, Muso, and whomever else may be venturing off to the land of keg stands and communal showers! For I have been to the apex of the mountain, and I have lived to tell the tale! Like that one time when Bill drank half a jug of Carlo Rossi and started yelling at passersby from the roof...good times."

The Buckeye state is still rejoicing from the Big Blue getting cut down last weekend. Also, I'm pretty excited for the Chicago/San Diego game. I guess the Bears feel slighted about that Nike commercial that has LT slicing their defense into pieces for a very cinematic touchdown run. Apparently it has become the dreaded "bulletin board material." As for hometown ball, conventional wisdom has the Steelers mauling the Browns week one. However, no Steelers head coach has won his first game against the Browns... ever! It's true! The Steelers have had eight head coaches since the turnpike series began in 1950, and all of them have lost their first game against the Browns. So, there's some nice fake drama for a "rivalry game" that Pittsburgh has won in 13 of the last 14 meetings. LT's Nike spot offends Bears

Oh, the guy from Television! That makes sense, then. Matthew Sweet - Someone to Pull the Trigger Very, very good stuff.