a few late-coming comments about the state of espn:

- they spent actual 'analyst' time discussing a) whether 2005 USC is the best college football team of all time and b) dissecting potential matchups against the greatest teams of all time. it's one thing to have an online poll and promote it on the website [although i don't really see the point in that, either], but it's completely another to pretend like it's happening for real. and sentences like "this USC offensive line is a lot bigger than the 1988 Notre Dame defensive line" [duh] are just ridiculous.

- sunday morning's gameday gave a "best of brett favre sound bites" segment; lots of grunts and groans and yelps. and then chris berman came back with a face that looked like he had just inhaled a whole bunch of nitrous. i guess he was sad, but excited.

- i timed it on friday night. the two-minute drill took 4 1/2 minutes. berman is excruciating.

- tuesday morning quarterback made an interesting point about how the true impact of monday night football's move to espn is the fact that marks the end for nfl primetime on espn. [apparently nbc's sunday night contract gives them exclusive sunday night highlight rights.] i don't really remember 1986, so i can't vouch for its actual importance as a show, but it's an interesting bit of analysis.

the point is, sportscenter is an unwatchable mess of people yelling while masquerading as analysts; the only actual news is now provided by the crawl, i think, and those are so stat-laden that you have to wait 20 minutes if you miss a score, and then they're inevitably in a commercial. when i'm going to sleep on the couch at 2:30 a.m. [still can't walk in my bedroom; lots of crap there], i choose the same eight videos on vh-1 over sportscenter. or college football replays on espn. sadly, college football replays are done now.

sadly, there's no alternative; the comcast people are awful, and fox doesn't really have a show, i don't think. so i get my news from the tribune, and that's mostly it.

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espn radio in chicago, in conjunction with the bulls, has been running this commercial.

rough synopsis:
nappy-looking white dude climbs into a car that's not his, with intent of stealing the radio. he happens to turn on the radio, and hears an exciting segment of bulls basketball. he stops working his magic so as to not miss a play. fade-out guy, display espn radio logo.

the theme is supposed to be something like "it's so exciting you won't want to miss it - ever," but it looks more like "bulls basketball: the choice of car stereo thieves" to me. odd choice. and, it turns out, a lineup of 12 role players with no discernable role (except ben gordon, whose role is to chuck up - and miss - shots from all angles) doesn't make a playoff contender. they miss eddy - just his presence - more than i imagined, and i don't understand how tyson's disappeared so much. i no longer believe he can be an 8-14-3 blocks guy in 25 minutes a game as a championship-level sixth man. he certainly isn't an nba starting center, although we all knew that.

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first impressions of first impressions of earth, the new strokes album: i like it. it's interesting. new sounds, but still the same old julian voice.

the band is just so tight, and the guitar interplay is fantastic.

i can't really name any standouts at this point, although "ask me anything" almost sounds like the high llamas (you've never listened to them, and i listened to the one disc of theirs i own for about one runthrough...blippy and fun) but very good, with odd pauses and keyboard-y flourishes thrown in as julian sings "i've got nothing to say" and closer "red light," very 12:51-y. the only thing that strikes me as ultra-dislikeable is the end of "ize of the world," which ends with the lyric "cities to vaporize," except it's performed as "cities, to vaaaaaape-o------------------" and then everything cuts off. the only effect is that i feel like my disc is broken, and then the next cut starts.

outside of the regrettable "all black and some vertical gray and white lines, plus one red stripe" cover, the packaging is tremendous, with a different lyric page for each song.

of course, nobody cares about the strokes anymore, and they only did for about six months. but at least they outlasted the vines and the hives and the white stripes (wait...). oh well, i think they're good.