n.c.a.a. fails to end lawsuit

i am for almost ANYTHING that could potentially decrease the indiscriminate power, secrecy, and hypocrisy of the ncaa, esp with regards to its 2 cash cows: college football and basketball. therefore, this lawsuit brings me joy.

haggis, anyone?

i had never heard of haggis, a scottish food delicacy, until today. one reason, perhaps, for my lack of knowledge is that the united states has banned its importation for the past 21 years.

no longer.

the united states department of agriculture (my former employer for one brief summer) has lifted this ban because they have now determined that haggis does not in fact pose any signficant health risk. the initial ban was set in place in an apparent overreaction to the mad cow disease histeria of the late 1980's-early 1990's.

while the ingredients of haggis [sheep's "pluck" (=heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock] may not sound very appetizing to many people, i am now curious to give it a taste.

[aside: having lived in europe during the mad cow disease time period, i have been told by the red cross and other non-profit or government entities that i cannot give blood in america because of the potential exposure to meat i may have had during this period of my life. i now wonder if this assessment of the danger of my blood is another silly overreaction by american authorities. thoughts??]

UPDATE: perhaps my sources were a little premature....

per an email to andrew sullivan's blog:

Recently, several news articles have incorrectly stated that the U.S. will be relaxing or lifting its ban on Scottish haggis. At this time, haggis is still banned in the U.S. The APHIS rule covers all ruminant imports, which includes haggis. It is currently being reviewed to incorporate the current risk and latest science related to these regulations. There is no specific time frame for the completion of this review. Please check back with APHIS periodically for updates.

the "best" 1,000 movies of all time

the film critics at the new york times (who i rarely pay much attention to) have compiled an interesting list of their favorite 1,000 movies of all time. the list in its entirety can be found here.

i initially decided to read the list and count how many of these movies i had actually seen. i then decided to take it a step further and group the ones i have seen into a few very basic categories of my own and also highlight the movies i have yet to see that i REALLY want to in the near future. for now, i begin with the movies beginning with the letters A through L. i will continue in a piecemeal fashion through the alphabet until i finish the entire list. i am quite embarrassed by the number of good movies i have yet to see.

as always, let me know if you have any thoughts, reactions, or disagreements, with either the NYT list or my own opinions.

(1) "Superb movies which deserve to be included on the list":

Adaptation (2002)
The Apartment (1960)
Apocalypse Now (1979) - one of my top ten favorites of all time
L'Atalante (1934, reviewed 1947)
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1988)
Back to the Future (1985)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Barton Fink (1991)
The Battle of Algiers (1965, reviewed 1967)
The Big Chill (1983)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Boogie Nights (1997)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Breathless (1961)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Casablanca (1942) - one of my top ten favorites of all time
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Chinatown (1974) - one of my top ten favorites of all time
A Clockwork Orange (1971) - my favorite movie of all time
The Conversation (1974)
Death of a Salesman (1951)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Deliverance (1972)
Diva (1982)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
East of Eden (1955)
Les Enfants du Paradis (1945, reviewed 1947)
Fargo (1996)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
The 400 Blows (1959)
The French Connection (1971)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
The Graduate (1967)
Howards End (1992)
In the Bedroom (2001)
Jules and Jim (1962)
L.A. Confidential (1997)

(2) "Very good movies but PROBABLY not deserving of inclusion":

About Schmidt (2002)
Amélie (2001)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Boyz N the Hood (1991)
The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
Bull Durham (1988)
The Color of Money (1986)
Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Die Hard (1988)
Dinner at Eight (1933)
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Donnie Brasco (1997)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Gangs of New York (2002)
The Grifters (1990)
Groundhog Day (1993)
GoodFellas (1990)
The Insider (1999)
Jaws (1975)
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

(3) "Decent movies but NOT worthy of inclusion":

A.I. (2001)
Bambi (1942)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
A League of Their Own (1992)

(4) "DEFINITELY not worthy of inclusion":

Aladdin (1992)
Apollo 13 (1995)
Clueless (1995)
Jerry Maguire (1996)

(5) Movies I have not seen but REALLY want to:

Airplane! (1980)
Aliens (1986)
Annie Hall (1977)
Badlands (1973)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Blue Velvet (1986)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
The Cider House Rules (1999)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
The Crying Game (1992)
Dead Man Walking (1995)
Diner (1982)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Entre Nous (1983)
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997)
Gimme Shelter (1970)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
Ken Burns' America: Huey Long (1985)
Last Tango in Paris (1973)
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Lolita (1962)

more doubt cast on shoeless joe jackson's alleged sin

Maybe it ain’t so, Joe. For 90 years the reputation of Chicago White Sox outfielder "Shoe­less" Joe Jackson has been tarnished by the be­lief that he and seven of his teammates threw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The Black Sox scandal was seemingly validated by Eliot Asinof’s historical account, Eight Men Out.

This short article casts doubt on the allegedly definitive book on the subject by Asinof and is worth your time: American Bar Association


it is difficult for me to ignore these 2 facts:
(1)

In 1921, a Chicago jury acquitted [Joe] and his seven White Sox teammates of any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the newly-appointed Commissioner of Baseball, banned all eight accused players, claiming baseball's need to clean up its image took precedence over legal judgments. As a result, Jackson never played major league baseball after the 1920 season.

(2)

During the series, Jackson had 12 hits and a .375 batting average — in both cases leading both teams. The 12 hits were a World Series record. He committed no errors and even threw out a runner at the plate. Jackson did bat worse in the five games that the White Sox lost, hitting .286, with no RBIs until the final contest, Game 8, when he hit a home run in the 3rd inning and added two more RBIs on a double in the 8th, when the White Sox were way behind. This does not appear to be a valid argument, since Jackson only hit .066 in the four games of the 1917 World Series in which the White Sox either lost to or did not tromp the New York Giants. It is often said that the Cincinnati Reds hit an unusually high number of triples to left field where Jackson played during the series. This is not supported by the contempory newspaper accounts. According to first hand accounts, none of the triples were hit to left field

Source: Wikipedia

the intersection of law and sports

the supreme court will be hearing oral arguments tomorrow on a very important case as to whether the nfl is one business or an ensemble of 32 teams operating in concert. if it is 32 businesses operating in concert, then the entire league could be subjected to anti-trust laws. the nfl is seeking complete anti-trust exemption, a la major league baseball (to date the only american sport with such an exemption).

for a great synopsis of the case, read this associated press article.
money quote:

American Needle sued the league and Reebok in 2004, claiming the deal violated antitrust law. Lower courts threw out the suit, holding that nothing in antitrust law prohibits NFL teams from cooperating on apparel licensing so the league can compete against other forms of entertainment.

But in what sports fans would call "running up the score," the NFL is asking the Supreme Court to review the case in hopes of getting a blanket antitrust exemption that could eliminate most, if not all, the antitrust suits against the league.

"It was an odd request - similar to my asking an official to review an 80-yard pass of mine that the official had already ruled a touchdown," New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees wrote in The Washington Post. Brees serves on the executive committee of the NFL Players Association.

UPDATE (1/13/10):
supreme court justices seem skeptical of nfl's arguments

parkour, and how it relates to me

parkour (pronounced par-KOOR):

in the strictest sense, as defined by david belle, "parkour" is the art of moving through your environment as swiftly and effectively as possible using only the human body. more broadly, it might be defined as the discipline of developing the physical and mental capacity of the human being while training to overcome obstacles.


EMBED-Cool Paper Parkour Animation - Watch more free videos

as some of you may know, i consider my greatest skill to be city-walking. city-walking is all about efficiency, awareness of your surroundings, and purpose-of-task. as this video demonstrates, movement is much more of an art form than many non-expert city-walkers (such as my girlfriend) would have you believe.

40 songs from 2009

needless to say, the release of georgie's favorite music of the past calendar year has a similar impact on the music industry as the yearly publication of the michelin guide on the restaurant business. hopefully, unlike in years past, an exclusion from this list will only engender minor bodily injuries and tepid attempts at character assassination.

rest assured of two facts:

(1) these ARE the best 40 songs of the year, and there is no room for debate.

(2) the 3 guys pictured above in white pants DO comprise perhaps the greatest band of the 20th century (and a strawberry milkshake goes to the first person who correctly guesses their identity).


VOLUME 1:

------ Song ---------------- Band/Artist --------------------- Album

1) Beginner's Luck ------------ EELS ------------------------- Hombre Lobo

2) Drivetime ------------------ Echo & the Bunnymen -------- The Fountain

3) Lenin -------------------- Arcade Fire ------------------- Dark Was the Night
4) 1901 ------------------- Phoenix -------------- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
5) The Heartbreak Rides ------ A.C. Newman ---------------- Get Guilty

6) Devils in Boston ------------ Samantha Crain ------------- Songs in the Night

7) Annan Water --------------- The Decemberists ------------- The Hazards of

8) Relator ---------------- Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson ----- The Break Up

9) Man Named Truth ----- Monsters of Folk ---------------- Monsters of Folk

10) Okay ------------------- Venice Is Sinking ---------------- Azar
11) The Horizon Is A Beltway-The Low Anthem-Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
12) The Walls Are Falling Down ---- Fanfarlo -------------------- Reservoir
13) It Don't Move Me ------------- Peter Bjorn and John ------- Living Thing

14) My Unusual Friend ----------- Fruit Bats ----------------- The Ruminant Band

15) French Navy ----------------- Camera Obscura ------------ My Mauldin Career
16) At the Cut -------------------- The Cave Singers ----------- Welcome Joy

17) To Save Me ------------------ M. Ward -------------------- Hold Time

18) Mismanaged Skies ------ Beatbeat Whisper --------- Wonder Continental

19) Move You ----- Anya Marina ------- Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II

20) I’ll Fight ----------------- Wilco ---------------------- Wilco (The Album)

VOLUME 2:

--- Song ---------------------Band/Artist --------------- Album
1) Lisztomania ---------- Phoenix ------------- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2) Train Song ------------ Feist and Ben Gibbard -------- Dark Was the Night
3) The Right Place ----------- Monsters of Folk ------------ Monsters of Folk
4) Hindsight -------------- Built to Spill ------------------ There Is No Enemy
5) All The Kings Men -------- Wild Beasts ------------------ Two Dancers
6) House of Mirrors ---------- Doves ---------------------- Kingdom of Rust
7) Kiss With a Fist ----------- Florence and the Machine ---- Lungs
8) Bellyfulla ------------------ Ramona Falls ---------------- Intuit
9) Oh No --------------------- Andrew Bird ---------------- Noble Beast
10) So Far Around the Bend ---- The National ------------- Dark Was the Night
11) Fee Da Da Dee ---------- The Guggenheim Grotto ----- Happy The Man
12) Take A Minute -------------- K'naan ------------------- Troubadour
13) You and I ------------------ Wilco -------------------- Wilco (The Album)
14) Honey in the Sun ---------- Camera Obscura ----------- My Mauldin Career

15) Home -----------Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros-Self-titled
16) I Am Goodbye -------------- Bonnie "Prince" Billy ---------- Beware

17) Pulling On a Line ------------ Great Lake Swimmers -------Lost Channels

18) Border Reiver ------------ Mark Knopfler ------------ Get Lucky
19) Kettering ------------------ The Antlers -------------- Hospice

20) Draw the Line --------- David Gray ------------------ Draw the Line

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[if you have provided me your address, the united states postal service will be in receipt of hard copies of this compilation over the next few days.]

a little drivin' on a saturday morning

an absolute lunatic (french film director claude lelouch) drives a ferrari (or was it a mercedes??) through the streets of paris in 1976. no special effects. the visuals alone of one of the greatest cities on this planet are worth watching, but the traffic decisions the driver makes would have made even evel knievel blush. the driver obviously has a death wish. there's a pretty lady at the end. need i say more?

C'était un Rendez-Vous from Thom Graves on Vimeo.

lost coastlines (okkervil river)

will sheff (of okkervil river) and a.c. newman (of the new pornographers) perform "lost coastlines," the opening track from the latest okkervil river album, "the stand ins":

thank you, william k., for the recommendation.

i am obsessed with this song:

best music of 2008

2008 was a solid (but not great) year in music. The biggest theme for me was the arrival of several fantastic new bands. The first albums by Fleet Foxes, Frightened Rabbit, and Bon Iver were some of my favorites of the year. Noteworthy discoveries of bands that I did not know prior to this year (and who produced solid albums in 2008) included Thievery Corporation, MGMT, DeVotchKa, The Black Keys, The Walkmen, and Blitzen Trapper. The depth of new material, however, was not as good as last year or most years from the past decade.

I firmly believe that we are currently in a musical era that compares favorably with the late 1960's and early 1970's, i.e. perhaps the best era of music of all time. To be clear, there are certainly no bands today as good as The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, or Bob Dylan (well, except of course for Bob himself, who is still putting out good music), but the quantity of high-quality music in the current era is quite impressive and rivals that of any era. My favorite bands from the past ten years - Radiohead, Wilco, Arcade Fire, My Morning Jacket, etc. - are loudly building résumés that will probably one day rival the greats of the past.

Musical preferences are certainly as subjective as tastes in movies, books, or romantic partners. I love to debate the value of this movie or that book, but ultimately, you like what you like, and your own views will (more often than not) make more sense to you than the opinions of others. That being said, just because you might not agree with my tastes in music in general (what a tragedy!), my hope is that you will still enjoy many of these songs and bands.

Without further adieu, here are my favorite songs of2008:

VOLUME ONE
Song ---------------------------------Band
1 Black River Killer ----------------Blitzen Trapper
2 The Bones Of You ---------------Elbow
3 Calling And Not Calling My Ex ---Okkervil River
4 Change Is Hard ------------------She & Him
5 El Pueblo Unido -----------------Thievery Corporation
6 Electric Feel ---------------------MGMT
7 Gobbledigook --------------------Sigur Ros
8 Golden Age --------------------- TV on the Radio
9 Hot Night Hounds--------------- Annuals
10 Jesus Of The Moon------------- Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
11 Librarian----------------------- My Morning Jacket
12 M79---------------------------- Vampire Weekend
13 On the Water------------------- The Walkmen
14 Ragged Wood------------------- Fleet Foxes
15 Skinny Love-------------------- Bon Iver
16 So He Won't Break-------------- The Black Keys
17 The Twist----------------------- Frightened Rabbit
18 Undone------------------------- DeVotchKa
19 Walls---------------------------- Beck
20 White Winter Hymnal------------Fleet Foxes

VOLUME TWO
Song ----------------------------------------Band
1 I Will Possess Your Heart------------------ Deathcab For Cutie
2 Old Old Fashioned ------------------------ Frightened Rabbit
3 Tiger Mountain Peasant Song------------- Fleet Foxes
4 Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms -----------------Frightened Rabbit
5 Time To Pretend ------------------------- MGMT
6 Weekend Wars --------------------------- MGMT
7 Psychotic Girl ---------------------------- The Black Keys
8 Furr ------------------------------------- Blitzen Trapper
9 Flume ------------------------------------ Bon Iver
10 Danny Callahan-------------------------- Conor Oberst
11 Along The Way -------------------------- Devotchka
12 Head Honcho ---------------------------- Devotchka
13 Hymn #101 ----------------------------- Joe Pug
14 Highly Suspicious ------------------------ My Morning Jacket
15 Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl) ---------Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
16 Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur ------------Sigur Ros
17 Hare Krsna ----------------------------- Thievery Corporation
18 Many Shades of Black --------------------The Raconteurs

If you would like a copy of these two CDs, please email me, and if I don't go to school with you, let me know your home or work address, and I will mail you a copy.

Thanks for all the recommendations throughout the past year that have helped me discovery many of these bands. Keep 'em coming!

choke

i just saw the movie "choke," and it was very funny and insightful. sam rockwell, in the lead role, was fantastic. this movie is very sexually-explicit. do not go see it if you (or others who might go with you) are easily bothered by such material, but the sex is used primarily as humor and is not disgusting in any pornographic way. do not believe rotten tomatoes, which only has this movie at a 56% approval rating, or roger ebert, who only gave it 2.5 stars out of 4. these two often-reliable sources have it wrong when it comes to this movie. the characters are believable, and the psychological puzzle is intricate.

THE BASIC PLOT: Victor Mancini is a medical-school dropout who has devised an ingenious scam to pay elder care for his Alzheimer's-afflicted mother: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be "saved" by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor's life, go on to send checks to support him. When he's not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park.

THE TRAILER:


do yourself a favor and go see this movie.

fleet foxes

i really like fleet foxes' debut self-titled album. they remind me of a folksier, more orchestral, and slower version of my morning jacket. check them out ASAP.

my greatest skill

there are very few things that i do very well in life, but there is one thing that i think i excel at: city-walking.

as a matter of fact, i'm probably in the top 10 in the entire world. i did my apprenticeship in europe as a young lad; mastered the trade in manhattan; and became a world class figure in the industry in DC.

i truly believe that this skill of mine is far too often undervalued, underappreciated, and sometimes even flat-out ignored. my girlfriend has attempted to ignore my city-walking skills from day one of our relationship, but i have not let her negativity affect the truth: that i have a special skill. i have never met anybody who combines the following skills with more consistency than i do:

a) avoiding cars/buses/trams while not being afraid to walk/run in front of cars/buses/trams when the time calls for it;
b) crossing the street in anticipation of avoiding waits at pedestrian walkways;
c) overall sense of direction; and
d) sheer efficiency in getting from point a to point b.

that is all.

vicky christina barcelona

woody allen still has it. the writing in "vicky christina barcelona" was crisp and funny, the plot was logical, and the characters were well-developed. i liked this movie even more than "match point," which i also really liked, mainly because the characters were more believable. javier bardem was on top of his game, penelope cruz exceeded my expectations, and scarlett johansson was beautiful as always. go see this movie, and let me know what you think.

i hate mockingbirds

i have developed a hatred for the mockingbird, and i now understand why harper lee chose the title of her famous novel.

here is why: i went over to a friend's house yesterday for a few drinks after work, and we sat outside on her front porch the entire time. i was floored to see the interaction between a healthy, young cat and two annoying mockingbirds.

i've never seen anything like it, but this cat just sat in the yard the entire time i was there and let two mockingbirds hover over and attack him for a couple of hours. the cat just sat there, seemingly uninterested in two loud, annoying birds who just flew back and forth, over the cat, and actually bumping into the cat's body time and time and time again.

LET ME REPEAT MYSELF: THE BIRDS LITERALLY FLEW INTO THE CAT AND HIT THE CAT WITH THEIR WINGS AND FEET. AND THE CAT DID NOTHING. HE JUST LET IT HAPPEN.

my thoughts:

1) i am no hunter nor do i take any pleasure in killing animals, but i want to kill these birds. they are loud, obnoxious, and mean.

2) why does this cat not attack these small birds????? granted, the cat has been de-clawed, but he easily could have bitten these tiny birds and eaten them whole.

3) why are the birds not scared of the cat??????

4) my mind was baffled by this display of counter-intuitive and seemingly unnatural behavior by these animals!!!

2 great acting performances: richard jenkins in 'the visitor' and heath ledger in 'the dark knight'

1) the visitor: this is the second movie by writer/director tom mccarthy. i was a big fan of his directorial debut in 'the station agent' in 2003, which was one of the most underappreciated movies of the past five years. like 'the station agent,' don't expect a complicated plot from mccarthy or much real action at all. mccarthy's brilliance shows up in his portrayal of the daily grind of our every-day activities in a way that is both artistic and psychologically-insightful. he also does an amazing job of getting the most out of his actors. richard jenkins (the dead father from 'six feet under') was phenomenal in the lead role as an aging, widowed economics professor who walks into his rarely used manhattan apartment one day only to find two illegal immigrants living there. on its surface, the movie is clearly an attack on america's post-9/11 immigration system, but it is so much more than that. it really is just a story about friendship and jenkins' evolution from a bored, boring, and melancholic old man to a man who rediscovers that his life is worth living.

2) the dark knight: believe the hype! it is not an overstatement to say that heath ledger outdid jack nicholson's 'joker' performance in the original batman. this movie exceeded my already-high expectations. this is probably my favorite superhero movie of all time. go see it on the big screen! ledger stole the show with his scary, funny, smart, and believable portrayal. his death is a loss to us all. it will not merely be a publicity stunt if ledger wins a posthumous oscar for this role. christian bale was slightly disappointing, but his character was very well scripted and even more complex than it was in 'batman begins,' which was also a very good movie.

the most talented french rapper on the east coast?

the spanish mime was a brilliant touch, don't you think?

my brother is an only child

i saw this italian movie this past weekend. if you do not mind subtitles, you will surely enjoy this funny and intense movie about two brothers who grow up quite differently.

in addition to a great cast, screenplay, and direction, this movie sheds light on some of the grandest themes of recent european history, politics, and culture:

nature vs. nurture.
socialism vs. fascism.
sibling rivalry for affection.
adultery.
murder.
individual vs. society.

i have a huge crush on diane fleri, who plays the role of francesca.

let me know if you have seen it and want to discuss. . .

another great mixed CD

georgie is always looking for new music! please email me at dayofthefight@gmail.com with any music recommendations. thank you to my friend j.k. for the CD below:

Song Artist
Gemini (Birthday Song) - Why?
Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend
Ski Jumper - Hafdis Huld
The Opposite of Hallelujah - Jens Lekman
I Wish I Had An Evil Twin - The Magnetic Fields
Seventeen Years - Ratatat
Consoler of the Lonely - The Raconteurs
Everything is Exactly What It Seems - Michael Flynn
Seventeen Dirty Magazines - Modern Skirts
Going to a Town - Rufus Wainwright
100 Days, 100 Nights - Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Soft - Kings of Leon
Paris is Burning - St. Vincent
your ex-lover is dead - Stars
Swimming Pools - Thao Nguyen & the Get Down Stay Down
The Reasons - The Weakerthans
The Jeopardy of Contentment - What Made Milwaukee Famous

the savages

i went to see the savages last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. phillip seymour hoffman and laura linney were amazing as usual, and i'm glad i knew NOTHING about this movie before i went to see it because i probably would not have gone had i known the primary subject matter of the movie. the movie is almost exclusively about a brother and sister dealing with their father who is suffering from dementia and who is incapable of living on his own. the decision as to whether to place the man in a retirement home and how to interact with a person who is often in another world is so morose, but despite this subject matter, this movie was actually very, very funny. if you have seen it, please let me know, and we can further discuss.

an injustice of epic proportions

i exaggerate, of course, with the title of this post, but i really am still in shock with an event i personally witnessed this past friday night.

for the video, go to:

http://videos.thestate.com/vmix_hosted_ ... id=1746217

then click on the summerville vs. spartanburg 4A highlights for a 3mn video of my high school team (spartanburg high) in the 4A state championship basketball game against summerville (with a.j. green, a very highly recruited wide receiver who's going to georgia - by the way, georgia fans, if green is better in football than he is in basketball, the SEC better watch out. he's an unbelievable athlete. dam$it, why didn't you stay in state and come play for Spurrier?!?!?!).

back to the injustice at hand - i was at the game. 5th row seats at midcourt at the colonial center in columbia, sc. it was a great game which my team should have won. and we did win it had the refs not screwed us over. on the very last shot (65 foot shot buzzer beater when we were down by 2 pts) i heard the horn go off as the ball was in the air. granted, the judgment call was much closer on this video than i remembered it, but it still looks to me as if it was out of his hands before the red light went off. regardless, wouldn't you think that when the refs had to spend about 2 or 3 minutes making a decision as to whether the shot was on time or not, that the tie would go to the shooter????? i think it should.

there were at least 6 or 7 video monitors at the game that i saw. i can understand not mandating video review at the high school level (probably too expensive to justify), but when it's for the state championship, and you're playing at the colonial center, video replay should have been used. it wasn't. and there were 4 senior starters on the spartanburg vikings who will never forget the injustice that was done to them b/c of a moronic devotion to the letter of the law (not allowing video review), when the spirit of the law (finding out if the shot was released on time) should have prevailed.

i realize it was just a high school game, but man, i think my team was robbed. . .

monster jam 2008

if you have never been to a monster jam, your life is incomplete. i think these pictures tell it all:

there will be blood

i don't think i've been this pumped to see a movie since "the royal tenenbaums."

i've been a subscriber to the new yorker for about 8 years now, and although i love the magazine, i usually don't pay too much attention to their movie reviews. they're usually way too snobby/arrogant, and i often disagree with their assessments, both with the movies they say are good, and the ones they tear to pieces.

but when it comes to "there will be blood," adapted and directed by the one and only, paul thomas anderson (of "boogie nights," "punch-drunk love," and "magnolia" deserved fame), i'm willing to bet i will be in complete agreement with the immense praise upon which this film was bestowed. although i'll have to wait and see, because, unless i'm mistaken, it hasn't made it past new york and l.a., even though it was released about 3 weeks ago. . .

the text of the review is pasted below, and the full article is here:

Early in “There Will Be Blood,” an enthralling and powerfully eccentric American epic (opening on December 26th), Daniel Plainview climbs down a ladder at his small silver mine. A rung breaks, and Daniel (Daniel Day-Lewis) falls to the base of the shaft and smashes his leg. He’s filthy, miserable, gasping for breath and life. The year is 1898. Two and a half hours later (and more than thirty years later in the time span of the film), he’s on the floor again, this time sitting on a polished bowling lane in the basement of an enormous mansion that he has built on the Pacific Coast. Having abandoned silver mining for oil, Daniel has become one of the wealthiest tycoons in Southern California. Yet he’s still filthy, with dirty hands and a face that glistens from too much oil raining down on him—it looks as if oil were seeping from his pores. The experience chronicled between these two moments is as astounding in its emotional force and as haunting and mysterious as anything seen in American movies in recent years. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but after making “Magnolia” (1999) and “Punch-Drunk Love” (2002)—skillful but whimsical movies, with many whims that went nowhere—the young writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has now done work that bears comparison to the greatest achievements of Griffith and Ford. The movie is a loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!,” but Anderson has taken Sinclair’s bluff, genial oilman and turned him into a demonic character who bears more than a passing resemblance to Melville’s Ahab. Stumping around on that bad leg, which was never properly set, Daniel Plainview—obsessed, brilliant, both warm-hearted and vicious—has Ahab’s egotism and command. As for Daniel Day-Lewis, his performance makes one think of Laurence Olivier at his most physically and spiritually audacious.

At the start, Daniel and a small group of workers, wildcatting for oil, give themselves entirely to their perilous labor. There isn’t a word of dialogue. Again and again, Anderson creates raptly muscular passages—men lifting, hauling, pounding, dragging, working silently in the muck and viscous slime. Yet this film is hardly the kind of glory-of-industry documentary that bored us in school. “There Will Be Blood” is about the driving force of capitalism as it both creates and destroys the future, and the film’s tone is at once elated and sickened. A dissonant, ominous electronic wail, written by the Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood, warns us of trouble ahead. Once the derricks are up, Greenwood imitates the rhythmic thud of the drill bits and pumps with bustling passages of plucked strings and pounding sticks. “Blood” has the pulse of the future in its rhythms. Like the most elegiac Western, this movie is about the vanishing American frontier. The thrown-together buildings look scraggly and unkempt, the homesteaders are modest, stubborn, and reticent, but, in their undreamed-of future, Wal-Mart is on the way. Anderson, working with the cinematographer Robert Elswit, has become a master of the long tracking shot across still, empty landscapes. The movie, which cost a relatively cheap twenty-five million dollars to make, has gravity and weight without pomp; it’s austerely magnificent, and, when violence comes—an exploding oil well, a fight—it’s staged cleanly, in open space, and not as a tumult of digital effects or a tempest in an editing room.

One of the workers holds and kisses a baby, then dies in an accident, and Daniel raises the child, whom he calls H.W. (Dillon Freasier), as his son and partner. The movie skips to 1911, when Daniel and H.W. are travelling around California in a tin lizzie, buying up land leases, at bargain rates, from ranchers and farmers who are sitting on underground oceans of gold. Daniel takes advantage of their ignorance to pay them less than they deserve, and, as he addresses a group of them, Day-Lewis’s performance comes into focus. He lowers his chin slightly, and his dark eyes dance with merriment as he speaks in coarse yet rounded tones, the syllables precisely articulated but with a lengthening of the vowels and final consonants that gives the talk a singing, almost caressing quality. It is the voice of dominating commercial logic—an American force of nature. Day-Lewis, at fifty, is lean and fit, and his scythe-like body cuts into the air as he works or stalks, head thrust out, across a field. Much of the time, he projects a wonderful gaiety, but his Daniel never strays from business. He ignores questions, reveals nothing, and masters every encounter with either charm or a threat. He has no wife, no friends, and no interests except for oil, his son, and booze. He drinks heavily, which exacerbates his natural distrust and competitiveness. Even when he’s swimming in the Pacific, he looks dangerous. In his later years, however, Daniel disintegrates, and the iconic associations shift from Ahab to Charles Foster Kane.

Upton Sinclair was a longtime socialist, yet he understood that nothing in American life was more exhilarating than entrepreneurial energy and ruthlessness. The movie retains the novel’s exuberance, but turns much darker in tone. H.W. becomes a victim of the oil rush, and Anderson drops Sinclair’s moral hero, a Communist who organizes the oil workers. Sinclair was a reformer who wanted to ameliorate the harsh effects of capitalism, but Anderson apparently reasoned that social radicalism did not—and could not—stop men like Daniel Plainview. Sinclair, the garrulous, fact-bound literalist, has been superseded by a film poet with a pessimistic, even apocalyptic, streak.

But Anderson does retain Sinclair’s portrait of an unctuous young man who thinks he has the word of God within him: Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), who creates, in the oil fields, the revivalist Church of the Third Revelation. Dano, who was the silent, philosophy-reading boy in “Little Miss Sunshine,” has a tiny mouth and dead eyes. He looks like a mushroom on a long stem, and he talks with a humble piety that gives way, in church, to a strangled cry of ecstatic fervor. He’s repulsive yet electrifying. Anderson has set up a kind of allegory of American development in which two overwhelming forces—entrepreneurial capitalism and evangelism—both operate on the border of fraudulence; together, they will build Southern California, though the two men representing them are so belligerent that they fall into combat. The movie becomes an increasingly violent (and comical) struggle in which each man humiliates the other, leading to the murderous final scene, which gushes as far over the top as one of Daniel’s wells. The scene is a mistake, but I think I know why it happened. Anderson started out as an independent filmmaker, with “Hard Eight” (1996) and “Boogie Nights” (1997). In “Blood,” he has taken on central American themes and established a style of prodigious grandeur. Yet some part of him must have rebelled against canonization. The last scene is a blast of defiance—or perhaps of despair. But, like almost everything else in the movie, it’s astonishing.

for whom does urban meyer work?

last i checked, urban meyer was the head football coach of the university of florida gators? why, then, was he also a commentator for fox at the b.c.s. national championship game last night? he didn't just do an interview or two during the lsu-ohio state non-game in which the s.e.c. once again showed its preeminent status in college football. rather, he was a part of the pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows. i would not want my college coach focused on such a job, but maybe that's just me. . .

best music of 2007

there are so many lists out there (good and bad) about the best music of the year, but i don't think i've run across any better ones (and by "better," i mean closer to my own musical tastes) than the 2 great cds that were recently mailed to me by a friend of mine who is now in his sixth year of taking this task of musical compilation very seriously. and i'm very thankful for people like him! please email georgie with your favorite musical discoveries!

best of 2007:

night windows - the weakerthans
slow show - the national
is there a ghost - band of horses
either way - wilco
kreuzberg - bloc party
what would jay-z do? - ben lee
your parents living room - shout out louds
our life is not a movie or maybe - okkervil river
say it to me now - various artists
underwater (you and me) - clap your hands say yeah
closeness - wheat
cheaper than therapy - rogue wave
poetaster - miracle fortress
all my friends - lcd soundsystem
sweetly undone - sam baker
apartment story - the national
missed the boat - modest mouse
virtute the cats explains her departure - the weakerthans

newly discovered 2007:

harmonium - rogue wave
left and leaving - the weakerthans
girls in their summer clothes - bruce springsteen
long live the future - only son
crumble - dinosaur jr.
new york this morning - roman candle
it froze me - the mountain goats
there goes my outfit - the dears
setting forth - eddie vedder
ode to lrc - band of horses
breakfast in bed - dntel
just apathy - tally hall
a wooden horse - british sea power
one hundred resolutions - sundowner
impossible - shout out louds
talking in code - margot and the nuclear so and so's
jane, i still feel the same (demo) - matthew ryan
all the wine - the national
life's a song - patrick park

and here is the best of 2006 according to this same friend of mine:

"Cars and History" - Strays Don't Sleep
"The Crane Wife 3" - The Decemberists
"10 Minutes" - Human Television
"City vs. Country" - Mobius Band
"You Come and I Go" - Hotel Lights
"The First Song" - Band of Horses
"Before" - Richard Buckner
"Hindsight" - The Long Winters
"Woodland Hunter (Pt. 2)" - The Appleseed Cast
"Enough to Get Away" - Joseph Arthur
"Insomnia" - electric president
"Woke Up New" - The Mountain Goats
"Bleary Eyed" - Annuals
"Neverending Math Equation" - Sun Kill Moon
"Light Pollution" - Dirty on Purpose
"Saturday" - Built to Spill
"Chill Out Tent" - The Hold Steady
"With You" - Stars of Track and Field
"Never Ever" - The Hold Steady
"Strange Lands" - Hudson Bell
"I Will Be Grateful For this Day" - Bright Eyes

before the devil knows you're dead

what an intense movie!

i finally got around to seeing before the devil knows you're dead today, and i was not at all let down. of course, phillip seymour hoffman was amazing as always (for further discussion of my favorite actor, read here), but i would have to say that the man who plays his father, albert finney, stole the show.

finney succeeded at portraying an old man in grief to perfection. the honesty that is expressed when he subtly apologizes to his older son (psh) for how differently he raised him and his younger son (hawke) is one of my favorite scenes of the movie. hawke was good as well, but, surprisingly, despite looking unbelievably hot, marisa tomei was unspectacular in the role of psh's wife who is cheating on him with hawke.

the direction by sidney lumet (the man who directed the classic 12 angry men in 1957) was superb. lumet brilliantly used a technique i first saw in gus van sant's elephant where the audience sees the same series of events from multiple points of view and at different times throughout the movie, without going overboard and boring us with overly technical cinematography.

this movie is not for the faint of heart. the movie opens with a very graphic sex scene, and there is a lot of violence. this is also one of the saddest movies i have ever seen. but not in a predictable fashion. yea, people die, but it's the completely empty state of this one family that has gone through a series of self-inflicted wounds that is just almost too hard to take. do NOT go see this movie if you're in a bad mood. . .

the first campaign

the caucus results from iowa yesterday were a pretty historical event, and i would like to take this opportunity to suggest a great new book written by a close friend of mine, garrett graff, that is very a-propos to the success of barack obama (and to a lesser extent ron paul as well).

obama has seized the moment of this first election in the information age in order to increase fundraising and awareness of his own campaign to a much greater extent than any other of the politicians in this year's field.

here is an amazon.com link to this very reasonably priced book, 'the first campaign.' in case you want to learn more about my buddy garrett, here is a link to an hour-long interview he had yesterday on the diane rehm show.

NOTE: georgie's admiration for obama's realization of the importance of the internet does not necessarily mean that georgie supports obama to be the next president of the united states. . .

best movie (that i saw) of 2007

no country for old men. i'd say it's the second best coen brothers' movie that i've seen, behind the big lebowski. i really want to see charlie wilson's war, once, there will be blood, and before the devil knows you're dead, all of 2007 as well, but as of today, NCFOM was hands down the best movie of the year.

funny as hell. thrilling and suspenseful. great acting (although tommy lee jones was nowhere near as good as javier bardem). great plot. meaningful. i cannot come up with enough praiseworthy adjectives for this movie.

georgie's 2008 presidential predictions

democratic nominee - hillary clinton
republican nominee - mitt romney
mike bloomberg prediction - he WILL enter into the race and spend close to $1 billion and will fare better than most political prognosticators now think.

NOTE: these predictions do NOT necessarily represent georgie's desires to lead this nation, merely an attempt to predict the future political landscape. . .

2K8 resolutions

i have never been big on new year's resolutions. in fact, i have often mocked others for making ridiculous ones of their own. losing 30 lbs in a month; giving up smoking without taking any substantive measures to really prepare oneself for the physical and mental difficulties involved in giving up the nasty habit; no longer drinking diet cokes even though you previously drank 8 or more a day; no longer eating fast food after you happened to watch 'super size me' in the month of december. et cetera, et cetera. . .

and despite all this, i am now attempting some bold changes in my gastronomical intake because i would like to shed a few pounds and not get winded when i walk up to the 3rd floor of a building. my birthday is in early april, and until that date, here are the following things i would like to avoid:

1) all meat and fish (i will attempt to avoid meat products as well, but if i happen to eat some green beans that have been cooked in a little pork fat, i'm not going to be too worried about it)

2) beer (this shouldn't be too difficult. i can easily drink wine or liquor over beer, although i do love that first lager on a saturday afternoon)

3) french fries (going to be quite difficult)

4) chips (going to be quite difficult as well, especially dorrito's)

this blog offers me the opportunity to make my goals public so as to add a little bit of peer pressure fear so as not to humiliate myself by giving up on these alleged changes over the next week or two.

be prepared for an update on april fool's day. . .

just your average jump out an airplane...

http://www.madskies.com/70/extreme-skydiving-burning-parachute/

dying professor's last lecture

i don't know whether to cry or go climb mount everest: