2007 Music

The Big A here. Today is the last day of the year, so what better time to review the year in music? With props to friends who've done this already here and here, I thought I'd post my own take on the music of 2007.

The first list is the 25 most played songs on my ipod that were added after December 15, 2006. Why that date, you ask? I usually scour various publications year-end lists (Pitchfork, The Onion, even Rolling Stone) sometime each December, and I usually find some great stuff from that year that I didn't already know about. And then it becomes part of my soundtrack for the following year, even though it was released the previous year. Obviously, thos songs from ealier in the year are going to have a higher play count, so it is not an exact science. And there are some things on here that I'm not super proud of (I'm looking at you, Regina Spektor!)

Song, Artist (play count)
25. "Young Folks" Peter, Bjorn, and John (23)
24. "Young Bride" Midlake (23)
23. "Myriad Harbour" New Pornographers (24)
22. "Wig in a Box" Hedwig & the Angry Inch (24)
21. "The Underdog" Spoon (25)
20. " Woke Up New" Mountain Goats (25)
19. "See You at the Lights" 1990s (26)
18. "You Blanks" Portistatic (26)
17. "Right Moves" Josh Ritter (26)
16. "To the Dogs or Whoever" Josh Ritter (26)
15. "Carborro" Schooner (27)
14. "Be Easy" Ghostface Killah (feat. Trife) (27)
13. "Country Caravan" Blitzen Trapper (27)
12. "Paris 2004" Peter, Bjorn, and John (28)
11. "Mama Won't You Keep The Castles in the Air and Burning?" Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (28)
10. "Hate It Here" Wilco (29)
9. "Irreplaceable" Beyonce (29)
8. "If Looks Could Kill" Camera Obscura (31)
7. "Say it All" Sondre Lerche (33)
6. " Trains and Parades" Schooner (33)
5. "We Used to Vacation" Cold War Kids (33)
4. "Read My Mind" The Killers (34)
3. "When You Were Young" The Killers (34)
2. "Fidelity" Regina Spektor (35)
1. "Stuntin' Like My Daddy" Birdman & Lil' Wayne (36)


The next list is my (slightly) revised top ten of 2007. Here goes:

10. "Ode to LRC" Band of Horses
9. "Patty Lee" Les Savvy Fav
8. "We Used to Vacation" Cold War Kids
7. "Myriad Harbour" The New Pornographers
6. "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" Bruce Springsteen
5. "The Underdog" Spoon
4. "Carrboro" Schooner
3. "See You at the Lights" 1990s
2. "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You" Black Kids
1. "Right Moves" Josh Ritter

CNN sucks

This is not groundbreaking, but I continue to get more and more frustrated with CNN. They spent weeks covering Anna Nicole's death....but when it comes to Benazir Bhutto's death, their coverage is minimal (note that I linked to the BBC's coverage).

Then, there was this summer when CNN broke away from coverage of John Negraponte resigning to show Paris Hilton go back to jail. Important!!

And, just today, there was this descriptor of the year that was 2007: "In 2007, the need to know the dirty secrets of celebrities drowned out the real headlines." Um, isn't that your fault CNN?

We got it!

It looks like the house is ours. It's not 100% done, but we've come to an agreement on price plus they are throwing in the swing on the sun porch! Do we drive a hard bargain or what?

Holy Crap!

We made an offer on a house in Indy (Broad Ripple to be exact)! Isn't it cute? I hope it works out! We'll keep you posted.

Traveling east and then east some more

Andy and I are about to head to Indiana and then North Carolina for Christmas. We're going to try to post at least once or twice while we're gone, but we make no guarantees. In the meantime, a few random items.

1) We confirmed today that you can buy growlers of Manny's at Luna Park Cafe. For those of you who don't know Manny's, I am sure that we will devote at least one 'what we will miss most about Seattle' post to this "darn tasty beer." Growlers of Manny's are normally only available at the Georgetown Brewery, which has limited hours (9 am to noon on Saturdays!). Luna Park, on the other hand, is open from 7 am until 9 or 10 pm every day! Plus, Luna Park is tasty in its own right and has breakfast all day.

2) Pitchfork has released its lists of the top 50 albums of 2007 and the top 100 tracks of 2007. Andy has been pouring over them and may blog more about these at a later date. His initial reaction: the top two songs "seem questionable."

3) Kentucky lost again. I should have sympathy with Carolina's (and to a lessor extent Indiana's) recent troubles, but it's Kentucky, so I don't.

Holiday Pets

It's Christmas time---that means pictures of our pets and their gifts.

Ramona opening her new bone.
And what's this?

Yup, it's true. Ramona finally has her own dog-pod. Thanks Shawn and Heather!

Sydney looking pleased by our tree.
And, finally, Mr. R, wearing his Hanukkah gift.

Haven't had enough pets yet? Check out Mortimer's blog. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting Mortimer, he's of the feline variety.

My Body is a Cage

Pitchfork recently posted their top 50 videos of 2007. I've watched many of them and they are all pretty entertaining. The top two are both solid and should be watched. One of them features Zach Galifianakis of the short lived, but outstanding Late World with Zach on VH1. He and Will Oldham are doing an alternative video for Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothin." The top video I can't even explain, it will just have to stand on its own. Follow the link and scroll to the bottom for the the top two videos.

Top 50 Videos, #10-1

Now the one that has stuck with me the most of the ones I've watched is a fan video that somebody put together for The Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage." It uses footage from Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, which is an amazing work of film, especially if you are into westerns. Watch this video and you'll likely want to watch the movie, though it does kind of spoil the end...

This song is pretty good, too, even though I haven't quite manged to get into Arcade Fire's new album, Neon Bible. It sort of reminds me of the Doors in the sense that it takes itself so seriously that I end up kind of wanting to make fun of it. While "My Body is a Cage" clearly takes itself too seriously, it is also a very good song. And coupled with this video, it is certifiably bad-assed.

Bad Band Names

The Onion AV Club released a list of The Worst Band Names of 2007.

Andy and I have spent hours debating the merits of various band names, once during a particularly boring set by The Secret Machines, whose name was better than their live preformance (at least on that night). One of my favorite band names is still Built to Spill. It's clever without being gimicky.

Starting a band but having trouble thinking of a band name? Try the band name maker! If Sydney were starting a band, she could name it "Sydney Gizmo Of The Assuming Gateway," whereas Ramona might choose "Ramona Hamburger." Thanks, band name maker!

Wondering the origins of a band's name? Check here or here.

I defy you to disagree with me on this...

The best game show ever is Let's Make a Deal. I admit it---every time this show comes on the Game Show Network, I watch it. I am incredibly entertained by the prizes from the 1960s and 1970s. I love they gave away things like $100 worth of grape juice or frozen meals or contemporary fashion from a store in Dallas. It's great when Monty Hall has to pass the microphone back and forth with pitchman Jay Stewart (could they really not afford a second microphone?). The real prizes definitely amuse me more than the gag prizes, though it is fun to see the look on contestants faces when they win a giant tricycle or a herd of goats. And it doesn't end until there are a few quick deals---$100 for a hard boiled egg! Plus, intellectuals like to ponder the choices made on the show. I am glad they haven't brought it back because it wouldn't be the same, but I am considering checking out the dvd game.

Pay that man his money!

If you have seen the movie Rounders (1998), you no doubt remember John Malkovich as Teddy KGB, the Oreo cookie eating, underground poker-playing, Russian loan shark. The other day I stumbled on Teddy KGB's blog, and it is pretty entertaining. His dog, Stalin, looks a lot like Ramona. I spent a particularly long time on the Soundboard.

A rout and a heartbreaker

E here.

Time for some talk about basketball. IU gave Kentucky the smack down yesterday...without their starting backcourt (including freshman phenom Eric Gordan) even playing. It was pretty embarassing for Kentucky, which is pretty much what we wanted. Plus, it was nice to see Indiana freshman Jordan Crawford outshine (and outscore) his older brother, Kentucky senior Joe Crawford. I also like new Kentucky head coach, Billy Gillespe's take on the game: "They whipped us in every aspect and did it with a short-handed team, and I don't take to that very well. I thought we did a few things a little bit better, but you couldn't tell that unless you know what you're looking for."

We only got to see the second half of that game because we were attending the Washington - Pittsburgh game. In case you didn't see highlights, the game ended with a last second drive by point guard Justin Dentman, a bucket, and a long review. When the ball went in, everyone stood up, cheered, thinking UW had pulled off the last second upset of #9 Pittsburgh. Then, the long review by the officiating crew...the basket didn't count...what a heart breaker.

So, now UW is 4 and 4, with all of their losses coming to good teams, 3 of 4 of whom are ranked. But it's frustrating. There were some good things that came out of the game; senior Ryan Appleby was back in his first game of the season. He's lights out from 3, and continues to improve his defense, which was nonexistent his sophomore year. Jon Brockman had his requisite double double, and senior transfer Tim Morris had a good game. Which is good because they have a tough road ahead of them in the Pac Ten. There are some things that worry me, mainly sophomore forward, Quincy Pondextor. He's showed promise in some games, but he's also looked awful in other games. Yesterday, it was the latter. He looked completely lost the entire first half and wasn't much better in the second. He seemed like he was playing hungover on an hour of sleep. The thing that really got me was that Coach Romar left him in. I have always liked Lorenzo Romar, partly I admit because I think he looks like a koala. He's certainly had success at UW. But he missed the tournament last year, even with (underutilized?) touted freshman Spencer Hawes (who randomly watched the movie 3:10 to Yuma at the same theater as us). His coaching decisions yesterday (and on many other days...) brought more questions. It really seemed to us that taking Quincy out in the first half was the obvious decision, and arguably could have even won the game for them. He didn't score in the first half and seemed like a liability on the court. I am really rooting for the Huskies and Romar. Even after we move, I think I will continue to follow and pull for this team.

I can't post about Indiana and UW without saying something about Carolina. They are 7 and 0 and the number 1 team in the country in both major polls. They are also off until next weekend.

IU / UK Saturday

It's the most wonderful time of the year...and I don't mean Christmas. It's the time of year when college football mercifully goes on hiatus for a month or so and college basketball begins to take a more prominent place in our sports psyche. And perhaps the most important college basketball game each December is the annual border war between Indiana and Kentucky. Alas, this year I won't get to watch it, as we are attending the Washington-Pittsburgh basketball game here in Seattle (go dawgs!). But in the spirit of the rivalry I'm posting this gem of a video from some proud Kentucky students.

We all remember SNL's digital short masterpiece Lazy Sunday. You probably saw some of the responses to it as well. There was the adequate west coast version, as well as the insanely well done Lazy Muncie. Well some kids down in Lexington decided to do Lazy Tuesday. Maybe they did it this bad on purpose because they thought it was funny, but that sounds pretty advanced for Kentucky, where education pays. Enjoy!

Great Big L

Many of you know that a couple of summers ago I decided to listen to every song on my ipod in alphabetical order. Why I attempted this I don't know, though some of the advantages of listening to music that way are discussed below. Anyway, I didn't make it all the way through...I think I got bored sometime in the Ks. So when we got to Hawaii, I decided to start back up again with L. So for our whole trip and about a week after, all I listened to were songs that start with the letter L.

One of the nice things about this is that you get to try to guess what song is going to be next. This almost never happens successfully, but it is surprisingly entertaining. For example, when "Long-Forgotten Fairy Tale" by the Magnetic Fields came up, I predicted the next song would be "Long, Long, Long" by the Beatles. However, Long with a hyphen comes before long with no hyphen, so next was "Long Black Veil" by Johnny Cash. Then came "Long Hot Summer" (Hendrix) and "Long Live the Dead Guy" (Johnny Socko). And next was..."Long Long Time" by Schooner?? The Beatles song is long with a comma at th end, so it didn't come for another 11 songs, and that's not exactly the best song to be waiting around to hear.

This method also exposes some weaknesses of the music collection. Sometimes songs are on there more than once for various reasons. More importantly, a good song that you think of that could be coming up ends up not being on the ipod. The most glaring examples of this were "Liar" by Rollins Band and "Little Red Corvette" by Prince. I've since corrected the Rollins problem, and I may be able to get some Prince from my sister at when I'm home for Christmas. Now here are some stats from the L section of my ipod.

A total of 463 songs, just over 25 hours worth of music.
First song: "L.A." by Eliot Smith. Last song: "Lyric" by Zwan.

Top 3 Words starting with L that start song titles:
1. Love (or some form of the word) -- 59 songs.
2. Let (or Let's) --34 songs.
3. Little -- 32 songs.

Top 5 most played songs starting with L:
1. "Losing My Hair" by Crimea
2. "Little Fern" by Portistatic
3. "Little House of Savages" by The Walkmen
4. "Letter From an Occupant" by The New Pornographers
5. "Let's Get Out of This Country" by Camera Obscura

Return of the Green Fairy

Andy here with two very unrelated thoughts. First, the 15th ranked Indiana basketball team defeated Southern Illinois last night 64-51. Southern Illinois was previously 80-3 at home in over the last several seasons. This is a huge win for the Hoosiers, as they may not even have another opportunity for this big of a road win this season. Beating a ranked opponent on that team's home floor says a lot about this team, and makes me very optimistic for the rest of the year. There is a tune up at home tomorrow against Tennessee St., then the annual rivalry game against Kentucky is on Saturday. I expect double digit victories in both games. To see Kentucky's prized freshman Patrick Patterson pick his nose and eat it, click here.

In other news, I'm not sure how I missed this, but absinthe is now (sort of) legal in the United States again. I've had absinthe on a couple of occasions (thanks to unnamed sources), and it is not as hallucinogenic as big brother would have liked you to believe over the past 100 years, but it is certainly different kind of buzz than regular drinking. It also tastes really horrible, at least if you don't like licorice. Here's Time Magazine's take on the return of the Green Fairy.

Snow and Hawaii (but not snow in Hawaii)

Elizabeth here.

First of all, we got a few inches of snow today! Ramona enjoyed romping around.
Onto my last post about Hawaii. We spent one day driving the Road to Hana. Hana is a small town with only a few business establishments, but the curvy road there is littered with:

spectacular views,

waterfall pools,
interesting trees,

and 1 taco stand with delicious Kalua pig tacos and steamed breadfruit
(and espresso if you need it).

Hawaii definitely lives up the hype. It's pretty much absurd how beautiful it is there. Even though we are moving east, we are going to have to figure out ways to go back. I am ready for a trip to the Big Island---I want to see an active volcano!

Wes beats P.T. but not Maui

I took the poll down but was a little surprised to see how handily Wes Anderson beat P.T. Anderson (9-1). However, I admit I was the lone vote for P.T., and I was a bit conflicted.

Back to Maui, the Crater was amazing. I have never been any place like it and could have explored longer...but then again, we were staying here:

So coming back to the hotel was not such a bad thing. We could snorkel right off of the beach from our hotel! We saw many colorful fish and several friendly sea turtles. I was slightly appalled by the people who insisted on petting the turtles, but they were indifferent.

Our hotel was the Sheraton Maui, which was really nice. But it had a few flaws:
1) employees seemed required to say 'Sheraton Maui' at least once per sentence [For example, every evening at dusk, they have this cliff diving ceremony, which reenacts a native Hawaiian tradition. During the 5 minute or so description, they must have said Sheraton Maui about 15 times. It was distracting to say the least.]
2) they charged for everything [we paid $20/week for our snorkel gear offsite; they charged $20/day!]
3) the food was pretty mediocre and definitely overpriced.

Stay tuned for at least for one more Hawaii post---the Road to Hana

Mahalo is fun to say.

Andy here. Yesterday morning we were snorkeling in the 86-degree Maui morning. By last night we were standing int the 44-degree Seattle night waiting a little too long for a shuttle bus back to the parking lot. This trip rendered a massive amount of pictures, so we're going to break it up into a few posts. Here are some highlights from day 1.
The first day we woke up early and drove from our hotel at sea level to the top of Mt. Haleakala (10,000 feet). This is a 38-mile drive that takes a little over two hours. It is the only place in the world to get from sea level to that elevation in a car. Elizabeth will likely have more to add about this, because she was particularly fascinated. It was a very cool experience, one I'd recommend to anyone. Here's a picture of the two of us at the crater.

On the way back we took some rickety, one-lane, two-way, fall-off the-edge-to-certain-doom, blind-corner-laden road that was fun (if nerve racking) to drive on. Plus, it had some incredible views. Like the one under here. That's all for now, but there will be more pictures of paradise up soon!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. We hope everyone has a great time over the holiday and gets to spend some valuable time with friends and / or family.

We regret to inform you, loyal readers, that we will not be updating the blog until Wednesday, November 28th. But at that time you should expect to see some pictures of the beautiful island of Maui. We made the tough decision to go to Hawaii over the Thanksgiving holiday. Moving back to the Midwest in February means that if we were going to get to Hawaii while it was a shorter / cheaper trip, now was the time to do it. Sucks to be us, right? See you Wednesday with some fresh pics!

Wes Anderson

Andy and I finally saw The Darjeeling Limited a couple of weeks ago (not sure what took us so long since we are both huge Wes Anderson fans). I was really impressed with this film, though I am unabashedly in the bag for Adrian Brody. Wes Anderson has a unique way of creating a setting and putting mildly dysfunctional characters in it. By the way, you can read Andy and Ryan's review of The Darjeeling Limited here (and you can expect a new review every Tuesday).

With the completion of his 5th movie, I thought I'd post our top five lists. For me, 1 and 5 are definite, but the other 3 shift depending on how recently I've watched them and my mood.

Elizabeth
1. Bottle Rocket
2. Rushmore
3. The Royal Tenenbaums
4. The Darjeeling Limited
5. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Andy
1. Rushmore
2. Bottle Rocket
3. The Darjeeling Limited
4. The Royal Tenenbaums
5. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

I also thought it was high time for the newly added poll. Who do you like more: Wes Anderson or P.T. Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love). One of my all time favorite movies is Magnolia, so this is a toughie for me, but Andy said it was easy...

Meow.

And the winner is...

The circle city: Indianapolis, Indiana. We should arrive there in mid-February. See you soon, Hoosiers!

Unconnected Thoughts

ESpalt here with a trio of ramblings.

Career Counseling---In the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in an unusual position. I’ve had two people asking me for career advice. One was “junior” staff where I work, and the other was someone just starting the searching process and looking for input on consulting firms. I feel completely unqualified to offer career advice since I have absolutely no idea what I want to do right now. That’s a bit of an overstatement. I know I am ready to get out of consulting (I can’t wait to be free of my bill rate!). And I think I want to try the public sector for a while, but I can’t decide if I want to stick with “hard science” or move more into the public health arena.

MLB Awards---Bob Melvin of the Arizona Diamondbacks won National League Manager of the Year. Here was my reaction to Andy: “I don’t care what anyone says-he still sucks.” This reaction seems pretty unreasonably given he took his small market team to the NLCS, but I have some basis for it (sort of). Bob Melvin was the manager of the Seattle Mariners when we first moved to Seattle, and he seemed so incredibly complacent, which was reflected onto the team. But is this fair? He took over a team of aging players past their prime, some of whom had to stop taking steroids (Bret Boone). And he only had the job for 2 years. So it is probably completely unreasonable, but I can’t help thinking that Bob somehow found himself in the perfect situation in Arizona, that he lucked into a great team and is surrounded by the right people.

Impressions---A couple of weeks ago, we went to see The Hold Steady and Art Brut play an early, alcohol free yet kickass show at the University of Washington. The thing I was most struck by is how surprised I was by the appearances of the lead singers. Listening to this music for the last year or more, I had (unconsciously) developed definite impressions of how these bands would look, but when I saw them, I was completely wrong. The lead singer of Art Brut (who sings in a British accent, Liz!) was pretty sloppy, had stringy dark hair, and a small gut. And then, the lead singer of The Hold Steady looked like an accountant. I was expecting someone with more presence, with a big gut, and maybe a worn leather jacket, someone, well, who looked a lot more like our Portland friend, Hal. It was shocking. This has happened to me before. I always expect Britt Daniel of Spoon to be attractive, but he really just looks like a young Gary Busey. I think this adds to the appeal of seeing a band for the first time for me. I get to find out just how wrong I am about the image of a band.

You'd think I just turned 14 or something...

Andy here. A couple of orders of business before I get to the point of this post. First of all, there are some pretty sweet pictures of us posted at the bottom left of the page. Scroll down to check them out. Second, Elizabeth said I wasn't allowed to post about sports again until I talked about something else, but I have to briefly mention some college basketball first. Hats off to (Roy) Williams for scheduling Davidson on a neutral court to open North Carolina's basketball season. Many people might not know it, but Davidson is a really good team, and that game had trap written all over it. UNC won a very close game, 72-68.

Now, down to business. I was riding the bus to class this morning, listening to my ipod, when War Pigs by Black Sabbath came on. I've never really gotten into Sabbath, but for for 7 minutes and 58 seconds this morning, it was the coolest song in the world. I know this is the sort of revelation most people have around 9th grade, but for me it was this morning.

So anyway, I got to thinking about an assignment Jack Johnson (no, not that one. not that one either...our high school Music Appreciation teacher and eater of questionable fruit) used to have us do: the listening guide. Because I'm currently in a War Pigs love-fest, I thought I'd do a listening guide for it now. If you have a copy of the song, feel free to play along.

This should probably be listened to pretty loudly to get the desired effect.

:01-:57 The opening is admittedly boring, though the crank-style siren sound effect is pretty cool.

:58-1:44 The first verse begins with just Ozzy's vocal while Bill Ward keeps time on the high-hat. The lyrics are typically ridiculous heavy-metal sounding stuff about war, but they're not important here. At the end of each line we get a teaser drum fill or guitar riff from Tony Iommi. But thing don't really get going until...

1:45 Ozzy yells something that sounds like, "Oh, lord, yeah!" and then it hits its stride. This is where the song really pays its bills, first with some fat drum fills and then some sharp, little riffs.

2:17 Ozzy's vocals come back in with more political-metal lyrics and a vocal that Chris Cornell must have listened to endlessly when he was 14.

3:08 Ozzy yeahs us into another instrumental section - the absolute strength of the song in my opinion.

3:30 Here a pretty cool guitar solo kicks in. It's longer that I usually want a guitar solo to be, but I'm not going to doubt Tony on this one. He's on fire.

4:30 Finally back to the verse. Ozzy's lyrics really kind of crack me up here. They're so "tough." "Satan laughing spreads his wings...oh lord yeah!" (5:17) takes us back to pretty much the same instrumental we got at 1:45, but it's good enough that you want to hear it again.

6:34 The coda guitar solo takes us to the end of the song. Appreciate the thickly layered, vintage heavy-metal sound of the song here. I can't hear this part without thinking of the neon pink, sword and shield wielding warriors on the album cover marching into the woods to slay the level-18 Dragon Lord that awaits....but I digress.

Moving Polls

If you are so inclined, vote in our polls.

Pirates

Elizabeth here.

So, I know it's not baseball season. It's actually the start of college basketball season! Indiana won last night, Carolina plays its first game tomorrow night (against non-cupcake Davidson), and as I write this, UW is about to win its first game (against non-powerhouse NJ Tech). Yet, this post is still about the Pittsburgh Pirates, the worst baseball team in MLB over the last 15 seasons (can't argue with 15 straight losing seasons).

The Pirates have completely overhauled---new president, new GM, new manager. Hopefully, they'll keep Oliver Onion in the Great Pierogi Race!!

The hiring of the new manager was incredibly underwhelming---some guy this same organization fired 2 years ago who has never coached in the majors? Yikes! And former manager Lloyd (base-stealing) McClendon, his former boss, has no comment?!?

And now there is talk of trading Jack Wilson and Jason Bay. I understand that they want to start from scratch, and they can get something in return, especially for Bay. But it seems like Pittsburgh fans have had to start over almost every year. It's really hard to support a team if you can't name any of the starters. For me, Jack Wilson and Jason Bay are my two favorite players and are really the only players I have a real attachment to on the team. With the team set to break the MLB record for most consecutive losing seasons next year, it's going to be harder to support a team filled with no names (and it's not like Wilson or Bay are exactly A-Rod or Ichiro).

I think even Andy ($Cubs$ fan) can agree that the baseball system is messed up. The Yankees payroll is about about 8 times the team with the lowest payroll (the sad, sad Devil Rays). Teams like the Pirates (4th from the bottom last year) are at a huge disadvantage. Yet, 3 of the 4 teams in the NLCS/ALCS this year were in the bottom 10 in payroll and came from small markets. Small market teams are capable of competing, so the Pirates can't blame their lack of success completely on lack of dough. The management of this team over the last 15 years has been awful. Maybe this shake up will turn it around, but I can't say I am hopeful. We need to bring Stargell back!

But like I said, it's college basketball season! Let's go Heels! And Hoosiers! And Huskies!

Scary Good

Andy, here.

Indiana beat Tennessee-Chattanooga last night 99-79. Eric Gordon, perhaps the best freshman Indiana has had since Isiah Thomas, put up 33 points in the victory. I've been reading the hype about this guy on Peegs for years now, and the early indication is that he's better than I thought he'd be.

In spite of the win, the Hoosiers looked exposed in a few different areas. The defense in the first half was a joke (allowing 50 points in a half at home!?! Inconceivable!). DJ White was disappointing down low (he needs more than 4 rebounds, especially against a small team). And when Gordon wasn't on the floor, the offense looked a little confused. The good news is that these are all correctable issues, and it is only the first game of the season. And it was a twenty point win. At this point there seems to be no limit to the amount of success this team can have.

Bloggin'

Andy and I have started a blog. We plan to post about a variety of topics: music, sports, travel, movies, and much much more. We'll also be posting our moving plans here! Be the first to know where we are moving! Decision to be announced by Sunday, November 18th.