@#$%ing Awesome

24 is exactly that. Balls to the wall, the first 30 minutes was gutbuster ____ , James Bond all the way. The spoiler spoiler patrol did their job and the JOLTS were jarring, my nerves- immediately amped (I also had some very nice tea after dinner at Uncle Tony and Aunt Marylou's- that also contributed), and I can safely say that television has never been more thrilling (also, no torture, just some cold revenge, which I can live with in FICTION). Get on now while you can. I myself am going to be on pins and needles until tomorrow night and probably until May. Missing tomorrow night would be sinful, wrong.

Battlestar Galactica is also in this category, another hot season starting in the doldrums of winter, a perfect lead in for the long awaited return of The Sopranos in March and Deadwood in June. Bloody brilliant, Godfather style, epic, last week's battle scenes were easily the best sci-fi battle scenes I have ever had the pleasure of viewing on television*, if you go in for that sort of thing; and the emotional content: the President dying of cancer, the narrow aversion of the mutually assured destructions of both commands of the only surviving Colonial battlefleet ships, heroes at crossroads, their political idealism shattered by realpolitik- hot damn. A show that gets better and better. Are we in a golden era of television as art? Maybe.

My Morning Jacket's Z. I can't stop listening to it. Emo rock, stadium rock, soul, reggae psychedlic rock, it's all there, all distinctive and strong and genuinely soulful. I like this band. And I like the new Strokes album, a return to form for the first band in a long time to give me a boner, to actually give a ___ about 5 years ago during the dark early 2000's. Some new sounds from a band that sounds old and sharp and new simultaneously. I also enjoyed the inside access article in New York magazine about the boys who are now men on a mission to make some art and some noise, one of the few bands worth getting excited about.

FIFA 2006, the best sports game I have ever played. The roomate and I are now locked in deadly international soccer combat, in a rolling House Championship consisting of 18 rounds of best of three matches. Bloody brilliant and the music is bloody awesome, a democratic jukebox of international flavors (that you can turn on and off).

Still, I would rather put ___ in my mouth that watch American Idol or Skating with Celebrities.

And now, round 7 in the Cup, all square.

* The best space battle in a movie: the battle at the beginning of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which was the battle from the end of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi on acid, and a true homage to the analog genius of the first generation ILM wizards who boggled our minds 20+ years ago.