106-100-2
I'm out of the fantasy playoffs; Roethlisberger/Mendenhall didn't give me anything on Thursday - and then I hit Brandon Marshall and his 32 points.
I am uneasy about this week and am picking all the favorites.
Don't believe me?
Colts -3 Jags (win)
Saints -7.5 Cowboys (loss)
Chiefs -1.5 Browns (loss)
Pats -7 Bills (push)
Cards -12.5 Lions (loss)
Eagles -7.5 Niners (win)
Ravens -11 Bears (win)
Chargers -6.5 Bengals (loss)
Broncos -14 Raiders (loss)
Seahawks -6.5 Bucs (loss)
Steelers -2 Pack (loss)
Titans -3.5 Dolphins (loss)
Jets -6.5 Falcons (loss)
Texans -9.5 Rams (loss)
Vikes -9 Panthers (loss)
NYG -3 Skins (win)
Do with that what you must.
4-11-1
110-111-3
Top 10 Baseball Players of the Decade.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
By WARP3, only regular season is considered. For an alternate view, see Rob Neyer.
1. Albert Pujols
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Barry Bonds
4. Mariano Rivera
5. Scott Rolen
6. Carlos Beltran
7. Lance Berkman
8. Johan Santana
9. Jim Edmonds
10. Roy Halladay
1. Albert Pujols
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Barry Bonds
4. Mariano Rivera
5. Scott Rolen
6. Carlos Beltran
7. Lance Berkman
8. Johan Santana
9. Jim Edmonds
10. Roy Halladay
Top 10 Films of the Decade
My cinematic involvement is almost entirely limited to US films, which makes this of only limited warrant. Do with that what you will. My Top 10 TV Series are right there, those are far more solid at least in terms of my measuring what I like; I just take television more seriously than I take the full cinematic landscape. I do watch a ton of documentaries.
1. Adaptation
2. Farenheit 9-11.
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Synecdoche, NY.
5. No Country for Old Men
6. Why We Fight
7. Memento
8. The 40 Year Old Virgin
9. Juno
10. Murder on a Sunday Morning/The Staircase
I slid Juno ahead of Lost in Translation, the Dark Knight and There Will Be Blood (which is getting a lot of internet run as best film of the decade; I think I like it where I like it, right off the top ten) Sideways, You Can Count on Me, Bowling for Columbine, Once, and Chuck and Buck are all near misses. As a crazed Charlie Kauffman fan I'm tempted to put Synecdoche here also and say "Y'all just don't get his delicate genius" - but 2 Kauffman's are enough. Hey, that makes 20. I've yet to see any of the 2009 Oscar-bait, so I may amend in 6 months or so.
I amended. Synecdoche belongs. Done.
1. Adaptation
2. Farenheit 9-11.
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Synecdoche, NY.
5. No Country for Old Men
6. Why We Fight
7. Memento
8. The 40 Year Old Virgin
9. Juno
10. Murder on a Sunday Morning/The Staircase
I slid Juno ahead of Lost in Translation, the Dark Knight and There Will Be Blood (which is getting a lot of internet run as best film of the decade; I think I like it where I like it, right off the top ten) Sideways, You Can Count on Me, Bowling for Columbine, Once, and Chuck and Buck are all near misses. As a crazed Charlie Kauffman fan I'm tempted to put Synecdoche here also and say "Y'all just don't get his delicate genius" - but 2 Kauffman's are enough. Hey, that makes 20. I've yet to see any of the 2009 Oscar-bait, so I may amend in 6 months or so.
I amended. Synecdoche belongs. Done.
Top 10 TV Series of the Decade
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
The end of the first decade of the 21st century means two things (1) apparently it means even when I pay 1800 dollars to get my car fixed, my car remains not fixed and (2) there will be end of the decade lists.
Already, I've posted my Athlete of the Decade and Wrestling Matches of the Decade. This is the TV list.
No shows which debuted before the 2000s are eligible, which cuts off Sopranos/Daily Show among others. Sure, I could have said just the seasons of those shows which aired in the 90s were not eligible, but that's a lot of work for a guy whose car is currently on fire in his school's parking lot.
But my lady type friend beat jury duty today, so it's not a total loss.
1. The Shield
2002-08
-Like an 88 hour long Sophie's Choice. It's the heir to the Hill St/NYPD line and better than both.
2. The Wire
2002-08
-The Wire's more important - if you've never seen an episode my suggestion isn't to start with season one - instead, it's to start with the David Simon appearance on the Bill Moyers Journal from 2009 (I assume it's available at Moyers's site) the Wire's a significant 21st century American document; the Shield is more emotionally satisfying. They're 1 and 1A in my eyes and seeing them inverted wouldn't shock my conscience.
3. Arrested Development
2003-06
-The only thing that kept it from being this decade's Seinfeld is we're dumber than we were in the 90s.
4. Curb Your Enthusiasm
2000 -
-There are misses; some plotlines/episodes/entire story arcs sometimes have fallen flat. But sometimes Larry David inadvertantly sprays urine tears on a picture of Jesus and the earth caves in with the funny. The add on to the Seinfeld-verse from this past season elevates it to this spot.
5. Mad Men
2007 -
Hardest show to rank, given how few episodes we have and the radical shift at the end of last season, with some trepidation, I put it here.
6. The Office (UK)
2001-03
-I don't reflexively think something's funnier because it has a British accent; my view of even Python isn't as elevated as other sketch devotees. This show was this good.
7. 30 Rock
2006 -
-Doesn't seem likely, given Alec's oft stated desire to quit the business and become a sherpa and the enormous weight on Tina that the show will maintain its quality for too many more seasons, but for this decade, it's number 7.
8. Chappelle's Show
2003-06
-It's better to burn out than to fade away.
9. The Office (US)
2005 -
It feels like The Office has reached its decline phase; I don't think, at this point, it's just lack of buzz, I think we've started to see a creative shortfall after the Parks exodus.
10.. Gilmore Girls
2000-07
-The poster child, on this list, for decline phase - the last two seasons of GG raise the complication of how to rate episodic television; if I say - give me a list of movies or books - then you're talking about definable works, with a largely singular creative vision - but I'm not sure what a deconstruction of the Simpsons would mean. You'd have to think of it as having phases - we may be in its blue period right now, for instance. I want to put Friday Night Lights here instead; I've been going back and forth.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Pardon the Interruption, The Colbert Report, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, How I Met Your Mother would be 12-16 and I think in that order. The Rachel Maddow Show and Big Love would probably be at the back of the top 20. I'd have to seriously start thinking reality shows at 17-18.
Already, I've posted my Athlete of the Decade and Wrestling Matches of the Decade. This is the TV list.
No shows which debuted before the 2000s are eligible, which cuts off Sopranos/Daily Show among others. Sure, I could have said just the seasons of those shows which aired in the 90s were not eligible, but that's a lot of work for a guy whose car is currently on fire in his school's parking lot.
But my lady type friend beat jury duty today, so it's not a total loss.
1. The Shield
2002-08
-Like an 88 hour long Sophie's Choice. It's the heir to the Hill St/NYPD line and better than both.
2. The Wire
2002-08
-The Wire's more important - if you've never seen an episode my suggestion isn't to start with season one - instead, it's to start with the David Simon appearance on the Bill Moyers Journal from 2009 (I assume it's available at Moyers's site) the Wire's a significant 21st century American document; the Shield is more emotionally satisfying. They're 1 and 1A in my eyes and seeing them inverted wouldn't shock my conscience.
3. Arrested Development
2003-06
-The only thing that kept it from being this decade's Seinfeld is we're dumber than we were in the 90s.
4. Curb Your Enthusiasm
2000 -
-There are misses; some plotlines/episodes/entire story arcs sometimes have fallen flat. But sometimes Larry David inadvertantly sprays urine tears on a picture of Jesus and the earth caves in with the funny. The add on to the Seinfeld-verse from this past season elevates it to this spot.
5. Mad Men
2007 -
Hardest show to rank, given how few episodes we have and the radical shift at the end of last season, with some trepidation, I put it here.
6. The Office (UK)
2001-03
-I don't reflexively think something's funnier because it has a British accent; my view of even Python isn't as elevated as other sketch devotees. This show was this good.
7. 30 Rock
2006 -
-Doesn't seem likely, given Alec's oft stated desire to quit the business and become a sherpa and the enormous weight on Tina that the show will maintain its quality for too many more seasons, but for this decade, it's number 7.
8. Chappelle's Show
2003-06
-It's better to burn out than to fade away.
9. The Office (US)
2005 -
It feels like The Office has reached its decline phase; I don't think, at this point, it's just lack of buzz, I think we've started to see a creative shortfall after the Parks exodus.
10.. Gilmore Girls
2000-07
-The poster child, on this list, for decline phase - the last two seasons of GG raise the complication of how to rate episodic television; if I say - give me a list of movies or books - then you're talking about definable works, with a largely singular creative vision - but I'm not sure what a deconstruction of the Simpsons would mean. You'd have to think of it as having phases - we may be in its blue period right now, for instance. I want to put Friday Night Lights here instead; I've been going back and forth.
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Pardon the Interruption, The Colbert Report, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, How I Met Your Mother would be 12-16 and I think in that order. The Rachel Maddow Show and Big Love would probably be at the back of the top 20. I'd have to seriously start thinking reality shows at 17-18.
1st and Ten - The Weekly Tendown: December 6 -12 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Hi.
This is issue 5 of my weekly feature here at TBOR - The Tendown - where I count down the very best things that happened over the past week. In Last Week's Issue, I talked about my mathematically precise dislike for Tim Tebow, Marc Maron's brother's wife-swap, and the grilled chicken wings at Pollo Tropical.
How did this past week measure up? Let's go to the Tendown - what was the very best thing that happened this week...
First...A Vote is a Terrible Thing to Waste.
The best thing I read this week was Glenn Greenwald's reaction to Obama's Nobel acceptance speech:
Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices. Just as George Bush's Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama's complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same. To red state Republicans, war and its accompanying instruments (secrecy, executive power, indefinite detention) felt so good and right when justified by swaggering, unapologetic toughness and divinely-mandated purpose; to blue state Democrats, all of that feels just as good when justified by academic meditations on "just war" doctrine and when accompanied by poetic expressions of sorrow and reluctance. When you combine the two rhetorical approaches, what you get is what you saw yesterday: a bipartisan embrace of the same policies and ideologies among people with supposedly irreconcilable views of the world.
A friend from grad school and I are in a long running good natured debate over which of us is the more soft. That's not a reference to my expanding midsection as I near the 40th year of my life; instead it's an historical critique of the radical left. Karl Marx predicted the inevitably of western revolution; instead, what happened is the working class got bought off. The rest of the west got health care and paid vacations; in the US, we got three hundred forty seven different flavors of potato chips (I lean toward kettle cooked BBQ).
The intellectual leaders of the left were (complicit would be the pejorative term) in the early 20th century; repeatedly backing away from the type of violence which would be required to challenge the legitimacy of western governments in order to earn seats at bargaining tables. I don't have a rote answer on how favorably this should be viewed; it's easy from the safety of one's notebook to argue living wages and workplace health and safety regulations were small victories when ensuring perpetual enslavement to the corporate state, but if (for example) you're a 65 year old in the United States 80 years ago when senior citizens were the most impoverished group in the country, you'll correctly welcome the creation of the welfare state when it means a Social Security check each month.
People with full bellies don't so much take up arms against their oppressors.
My role in the great struggle is inconsequential. I'm just an average man, with an average life. I work from 9 to 5, hell how I pay the price. I'm a leftist; I see both church and state as hegemonic tools; and while I've spent the plurality of my waking hours in my almost 40 years plunged into sports and popular culture, I see all of that too as just the drug I find palatable. I don't devote my life to invisible guys in the sky - but I do have a 30,000 word piece of wrestling fan fiction. I don't tear up at displays of nationalism - there isn't a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner or an unfurling of Old Glory that will cause even the slightest lump to form in my throat - but you show me that tape of Joe Montana coming out to play that second half on that Monday night against the Lions in his last game as a Niner and I will sob like nobody's bidness.
It's all bread and circuses, but bread is tasty and I have a giant TV.
Where I had held out was in Presidential politics. It's no more than an eggshell, but I had drawn the line at supporting political candidates whose views I found to be corporately controlled. Over the two plus decades that I've been voting, occasionally a Democrat was closely enough aligned to my views that he received my support - but that had never been true for a winning candidate for the Presidency.
(Note the word "winning" - that's true for both primaries and the general election - I did unenthusiastically vote for Dukakis in the general election in '88, and I was even more uneasy about my vote for Kerry in '04).
Last year, I voted for Obama. My grad school friend did not. My argument was that it was necessary; that the divide between Republicans and Democrats had grown real (not as real as the public believes, but real) as the American right had pulled to an unrecognizable place that literally threatened the planet's existence.
My eyes were open about Obama, he's a businessman's President, but I did argue the possibility of growth within the office - that like FDR or LBJ, the enormity of his ability to enable some measure of economic justice would manifest in the types of policies that make softs like me feel we're accomplishing something with our lives.
But a year in, instead what we have is a President who gave a Nobel acceptance speech saying that America's mission is to fight evil using its military. A speech embraced by Rove, Gingrich, and Sarah Barracuda. And we have a President who has presided over an enormous money grab by Wall St - one which has the feel of one last round of profit taking before our company..er...country..goes belly up, but one which, in the second best piece I read this week, Matt Taibbi writes is the same type of institutionalizing of right wing policy domestically as was articulated in the Nobel speech:
The extensive series of loophole-rich financial "reforms" that the Democrats are currently pushing may ultimately do more harm than good. In fact, some parts of the new reforms border on insanity, threatening to vastly amplify Wall Street's political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer's role as a welfare provider for the financial-services industry. At one point in the debate, Obama's top economic advisers demanded the power to award future bailouts without even going to Congress for approval — and without providing taxpayers a single dime in equity on the deals.
And that's what got me this week. When right wing policies come from right wing mouths, you can retain the argument that there's a possibility of change. When right wing policies come from perceived left wing mouths, then they become normalized, embedded - they marginalize opposition, move it outside of what we allow as debate in our country. Our national debate isn't going to change for the next three years - it's going to be "is Obama too liberal" - so the degree to which his right wing foreign and domestic policies become attached in the public mind to the Democrats, the further and further and further away from my preferred version of the United States we become. Maybe the only way not to waste my vote is to vote for a candidate who can't win.
On that discouraging note. After the jump - the Ten Next Best Things that happened this week!
This is issue 5 of my weekly feature here at TBOR - The Tendown - where I count down the very best things that happened over the past week. In Last Week's Issue, I talked about my mathematically precise dislike for Tim Tebow, Marc Maron's brother's wife-swap, and the grilled chicken wings at Pollo Tropical.
How did this past week measure up? Let's go to the Tendown - what was the very best thing that happened this week...
First...A Vote is a Terrible Thing to Waste.
Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices. Just as George Bush's Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama's complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same. To red state Republicans, war and its accompanying instruments (secrecy, executive power, indefinite detention) felt so good and right when justified by swaggering, unapologetic toughness and divinely-mandated purpose; to blue state Democrats, all of that feels just as good when justified by academic meditations on "just war" doctrine and when accompanied by poetic expressions of sorrow and reluctance. When you combine the two rhetorical approaches, what you get is what you saw yesterday: a bipartisan embrace of the same policies and ideologies among people with supposedly irreconcilable views of the world.
A friend from grad school and I are in a long running good natured debate over which of us is the more soft. That's not a reference to my expanding midsection as I near the 40th year of my life; instead it's an historical critique of the radical left. Karl Marx predicted the inevitably of western revolution; instead, what happened is the working class got bought off. The rest of the west got health care and paid vacations; in the US, we got three hundred forty seven different flavors of potato chips (I lean toward kettle cooked BBQ).
The intellectual leaders of the left were (complicit would be the pejorative term) in the early 20th century; repeatedly backing away from the type of violence which would be required to challenge the legitimacy of western governments in order to earn seats at bargaining tables. I don't have a rote answer on how favorably this should be viewed; it's easy from the safety of one's notebook to argue living wages and workplace health and safety regulations were small victories when ensuring perpetual enslavement to the corporate state, but if (for example) you're a 65 year old in the United States 80 years ago when senior citizens were the most impoverished group in the country, you'll correctly welcome the creation of the welfare state when it means a Social Security check each month.
People with full bellies don't so much take up arms against their oppressors.
My role in the great struggle is inconsequential. I'm just an average man, with an average life. I work from 9 to 5, hell how I pay the price. I'm a leftist; I see both church and state as hegemonic tools; and while I've spent the plurality of my waking hours in my almost 40 years plunged into sports and popular culture, I see all of that too as just the drug I find palatable. I don't devote my life to invisible guys in the sky - but I do have a 30,000 word piece of wrestling fan fiction. I don't tear up at displays of nationalism - there isn't a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner or an unfurling of Old Glory that will cause even the slightest lump to form in my throat - but you show me that tape of Joe Montana coming out to play that second half on that Monday night against the Lions in his last game as a Niner and I will sob like nobody's bidness.
It's all bread and circuses, but bread is tasty and I have a giant TV.
Where I had held out was in Presidential politics. It's no more than an eggshell, but I had drawn the line at supporting political candidates whose views I found to be corporately controlled. Over the two plus decades that I've been voting, occasionally a Democrat was closely enough aligned to my views that he received my support - but that had never been true for a winning candidate for the Presidency.
(Note the word "winning" - that's true for both primaries and the general election - I did unenthusiastically vote for Dukakis in the general election in '88, and I was even more uneasy about my vote for Kerry in '04).
Last year, I voted for Obama. My grad school friend did not. My argument was that it was necessary; that the divide between Republicans and Democrats had grown real (not as real as the public believes, but real) as the American right had pulled to an unrecognizable place that literally threatened the planet's existence.
My eyes were open about Obama, he's a businessman's President, but I did argue the possibility of growth within the office - that like FDR or LBJ, the enormity of his ability to enable some measure of economic justice would manifest in the types of policies that make softs like me feel we're accomplishing something with our lives.
But a year in, instead what we have is a President who gave a Nobel acceptance speech saying that America's mission is to fight evil using its military. A speech embraced by Rove, Gingrich, and Sarah Barracuda. And we have a President who has presided over an enormous money grab by Wall St - one which has the feel of one last round of profit taking before our company..er...country..goes belly up, but one which, in the second best piece I read this week, Matt Taibbi writes is the same type of institutionalizing of right wing policy domestically as was articulated in the Nobel speech:
The extensive series of loophole-rich financial "reforms" that the Democrats are currently pushing may ultimately do more harm than good. In fact, some parts of the new reforms border on insanity, threatening to vastly amplify Wall Street's political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer's role as a welfare provider for the financial-services industry. At one point in the debate, Obama's top economic advisers demanded the power to award future bailouts without even going to Congress for approval — and without providing taxpayers a single dime in equity on the deals.
And that's what got me this week. When right wing policies come from right wing mouths, you can retain the argument that there's a possibility of change. When right wing policies come from perceived left wing mouths, then they become normalized, embedded - they marginalize opposition, move it outside of what we allow as debate in our country. Our national debate isn't going to change for the next three years - it's going to be "is Obama too liberal" - so the degree to which his right wing foreign and domestic policies become attached in the public mind to the Democrats, the further and further and further away from my preferred version of the United States we become. Maybe the only way not to waste my vote is to vote for a candidate who can't win.
On that discouraging note. After the jump - the Ten Next Best Things that happened this week!
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