APROPOS OF THE XPN COUNTDOWN: Back in the 1960s or 1970s, the answer to the poll may have been different. Even the 1980s. But at some point, just as Rafael Palmeiro's longevity positioned him as a superior player to the Will Clarks and Don Mattinglys of the world, so, too, must we reconsider the answer to this question as the Rolling Stones have continued as a going concern for such an impressively long time following the demise of their Liverpudlian rivals. And so I ask, in the hopes that a nice, long comment thread will follow:

Greatest Rock Band Of All Time?
	Beatles
	Rolling Stones
Free polls from Pollhost.com

WE EXPECT YOU TO DYE, MR. BOND: Why, oh, why, did they go with some blond unknown as the new James Bond rather than household favorite Goran Visnjic?

(Full disclaimer: I've never actually sat through an entire Bond movie.)

J'ACCUSE! The San Francisco Chronicle asks a question for the ages: Do we really want our grandchildren to grow up in a world without customized vans?

EDMUND BACON (1910 - 2005): Sadly, the man more responsible than any other (okay, other than William Penn, whose grid design for Center City has held to this day) for the contemporary look of Philadelphia passed away today at the age of 95. (Obit #2.)

Society Hill, Penn Center, LOVE Park (which he skateboarded in protest in 2002), the replacement of the "Chinese Wall" with JFK Boulevard, the development of the Far Northeast where I grew up . . . all Bacon. "It's almost inconceivable to think of what Philadelphia would be if Society Hill weren't there," Bacon said in a 2004 interview. "I had a long-range view of what I was doing, and I held in total contempt anyone who opposed it."

One has to admire that attitude. Also, he raised a good kid (and five others).

LIFE IMITATING ART YET AGAIN: Josh Holloway (the actor playing Lost's most brilliantly named character) and his wife were apparently robbed at gunpoint in their Honolulu home on Wednesday.

Think Holloway's gonna change his name to Mr. Mahalo and walk around seeking revenge with an unsent letter crumpled up in his back pocket?

FRIDAY XPN BLOG: We're into the top fifty Greatest Albums Of All Time, and now that David Gray (WHAT? #45? Ahead of Purple Rain, Automatic for the People and Darkness at the Edge of Town?) is out of the way, it should be all about the expected, only in an unexpected order.

Figure that the top ten must include Sgt. Pepper and the White Album, Born to Run, Nevermind, whatever Dylan is left and London Calling, but what else? Joshua Tree? And how high will XPN fave Jeff Buckley place with Grace?

Let me also toss out this question: what will be the highest-ranking album by a female artist? (For the 885 song list, it was Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" at #15, followed by "Respect" at #35.)

WATCHING MY DOG, WHAT A LOVELY WAY TO SAY HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME: In general, Gilmore Girls is a show that can do very little wrong in my book. It has perhaps the richest tapestry of supporting characters on television or elsewhere, the dialogue is both snappy and poignant, and of course there's the briliant core troika of Emily, Lorelai, and Rory.

But the estrangement of Lorelai and Rory -- the core conflict of the new season -- has elicited more than a few grumbles. Grumble grumble, these grumblers grumble, the backbone of the show is the relationship between mother and daughter, and keeping them apart is destroying the fundamental essence of Gilmore Girls.

I myself am a low-level grumbler. Point one: there has been no shark jumpage. Keeping Lorelai and Rory apart for a few episodes isn't going to kill anyone. (If the show could survive the entirely unappealing Jess, it can survive anything.) However, there is also Point Two: the Rory/Lorelai feud, as written, missed a real opportunity to complete an arc that the writers started last season when Rory chose a path at Yale that represented everything Lorelai hated and Richard and Emily adored -- Logan and the sense of rabid entitlement that he and his band of merry socialites enjoy without a shred of self-awareness.

Watching Lorelai watch Rory live a more traditionally Gilmore sort of life was a heck of a lot more interesting than watching Lorelai pine for Rory from afar. DAR wunderkind Rory would gain additional nuance Lorelai were around to react with a mixture of pride and pain (as we saw last season when Lorelai watched Rory climb out of Logan's limousine). And much as I enjoyed seeing Emily rip out and snack upon Shira Huntzberger's lungs, it doesn't compare to Emily and Lorelai baring claws at one another.

Ultimately, I think that the powers that be missed an opportunity to tell a really resonant story: what do you do when the life your daughter chooses to lead, while not obviously wrong, isn't exactly the one you want for her? They didn't need to move Rory into the Gilmore pool house to tell us that story.

As long as I'm proposing changes, here are some other suggestions for things to kill:

• Lane and the band. Or at least Zach. Why in the world would Lane waste her time with this nitwit? If she's got to have a rock star to boink (or not boink, as the case may be), at least make it Sebastian Bach. Sheesh.
• Logan the whipped boyfriend. Why exactly did they make him a regular if all he's going to do is drag Finn to the pool house and get Rory a sound system for the DAR party at the price she wanted?
• Sookie and Jackson's kids. Yawn.
• Paul Anka the Dog. Not funny.

And a few things to keep at all costs:

• Paris the Marxist Revolutionary! The best writing they've offered Liza Weil in months.
• Logan the thisclose-to-being-an-asshole-but-still-remarkably-appealing guy he was last season when he brought Rory to the secret society thing.
• Kirk. In whatever ridiculous incarnation you like, he's comedic gold.

CCHILLIN': Mellow tracks and energized surprises abound on the CCMixter.org editior's picks list of recent creative commons audio uploads. ...and holy smokes they're free for your personal use and enjoyment! My name is Phil, but I particularly recommend My Name is Geoff.

NUMBER OF ROMANTIC INCIDENTS BETWEEN IMPROBABLY ATTRACTIVE AIR DISASTER SURVIVORS (EXCLUDING INCIDENTS OCCURRING SIMULTANEOUS WITH DEATH OF ONE PARTICIPANT'S BROTHER/FORMER LOVER) IN SIX WEEKS STRANDED ON LUSH DESERT ISLAND WITH NOTHING TO DO BUT SWEAT ATTRACTIVELY AND WATCH CLOTHES UNRAVEL -- ZERO: In honor of Hurley's inventory of the foodstuffs, which KC points out may not be entirely accurate, I propose for your comment and contribution the following also-probably-inaccurate inventory of Craphole Island:

• 37 live castaways – Craphole Island Estates (46 original (including pilot, excluding Ethan), -4 on the boat, -6 dead, +1 birth)
  
• 5-7 live castaways – Lesser Craphole
  
• 3 castaway tourists from CIE slumming it in Lesser Craphole
  
• 1 mad Frenchwoman, location unknown
  
• 1 mad Scotsman, location unknown
  
• 4+ Others, location unknown
  
• 1 monster, organic, CIE (vicinity)
  
• 1 monster, mechanical with accompanying whisps of smoke, Black Triangle/CIE (vicinity)
  
• 1 live polar bear, CIE (vicinity)
  
• 1 dog, CIE
  
• boars (unknown quantity)
  
  
• 1 missing castaway (Walt)
  
• 1 missing button-pusher, presumed dead (Calvin or Kelvin)
  
• 1 missing teen, presumed petulant (Alex)
  
  
• 6 dead castaways – Craphole Island Estates (Arzt, Killed by Ethan, Poor Swimmer, Agent Shrapnel, Captain Weiss, Boone)
  
• 16-18 dead/missing castaways – Lesser Craphole
  
• 1 dead Ethan Rom/Other Man, CIE (vicinity)
  
• 1 dead polar bear, CIE (vicinity – and why didn’t they eat this one?)
  
• 1 (presumed) dead shark, branded with Listening Station 3 logo
  
  
• 6+ predeceased (2 found in cave, Nigerian smuggler in tree, Nigerian smuggler in plane, unknown but plural number of Rousseau’s crew, unknown number in hold of ship; not counting Flight 815 victims)
  
  
• 4 castaways appearing in dreams or hallucinations (Maggie, Boone, Walt, Jin)
  
  
• 2 underground stations
  
• 1 meticulously hidden and nearly impenetrable quarantine hatch designed to open only from the inside of station despite being completely buried
  
• 2 large doors to stations easily accessible to, among others, overweight man, 50-year-old woman, and gunshot victim (all malnourished), hidden by thin overgrowth of vines, penetrable by rag-tag band of air crash survivors whose tools consist of banyan-branch clubs wrapped in palm fronds
  
• 1 hole leading to mechanical monster lair
  
• 1 currently-unoccupied cave with fresh water, shelter, and medical supplies
  
• 1 currently fully-occupied beach with little shelter, no water, no medical supplies
  
• 1 In Style What’s Sexy Now waterfall with bonus dead bodies
  
• 1 2-hole golf course, or 0.11 18-hole golf courses (courtesy Bill)
  
• 1 ship plying the lucrative eighteenth-century Pacific pirate or slave trade
  
• 1 cockpit of jet, stuck in banyan tree, CIE (vicinity)
  
• 1 main fuselage of plane, CIE
  
• 1 twin-engine Nigerian smuggler plane
  
• 1 working skiff, with gasoline (Others)
  
• 2 known power sources (Station 3, radio transmitter)
  
• 1 unknown power source (Others)
  
• 1 power source, status unknown (Girlfight Station)
  
• 1 electrical cable, unknown length (courtesy Bill)
  
• 1 radio transmitter on continuous repeat
  
• 1 magnet, large, encased in concrete with radius >10 feet
  
• 30 days’ food (for one person); or 0.8 days' food (for 37 people)
  
• 1.56 cubic feet -- approximate volume of one meal as estimated by Hurley, based on 10'x10'x10' storage room with shelves 1 foot wide and 10 feet high, 50% full, lining the room
  
• 1.0 cubic feet -- estimated maximum volume of human stomach before fatal rupture
  
• 3 Meaningful References to Apollo brand candy bar (see Bill's explanation of Chocolate Asclepius)
  
• 1 chest anachronistic dynamite (sweaty)
  
• rifles (quantity unknown, but several in Station 3, at least two with the Others, at least two with Rousseau, and one with Desmond)
  
• 1 washing machine, newish (courtesy Adam C.)
  
• 1 blender, new (courtesy Adam C.)
  
• 5 handguns (Jack, Sayid, Sawyer, other possession unknown)
  
• bullets, unknown quantity
  
• html bullets, unknown quantity (courtesy Kimsmopolitan)
  
• 100 heroin-filled Virgin Marys (approx.)
  
• 3 buckets Quickrete (partially used)
  
• 3-4 servers with reel-to-reel storage or additional Mama Cass masters
  
• 1 Apple II+ or II/e (courtesy Andrew) (changed from "Wang terminal" although this doesn't seem right to me because both the Apple II and the Apple IIe were color computers, and the Wang terminals that I remember using were not.)
  
• 5-7 Station 3 jumpsuits, perfect for DEVO lip-synch contest
  
• 4 yellow rain slickers, Captain Gordon-esque (courtesy Kimsmopolitan)
  
• 50 doses injectable Station 3 supplements (approximate)
  
• fresh fruit, unknown quantity (courtesy Adam C.)
  
• 1 bottle, notes home (buried) (courtesy Adam C.)
  
• 1 map of island drawn by Rousseau, forgotten
  
• 1 box decorative sidewalk chalk (partially used)
  
• 1 backgammon game (courtesy Kimsmopolitan)
  
• black and white pebbles/othello pieces, unknown quantity (courtesy Kimsmopolitan)
  
• 1 container, Tide
  
• 1 pair eyeglasses made to help Sawyer see straight
  
• 0 pairs eyeglasses worn by Sawyer since embarking on three-hour tour

updated to reflect comments through 10/14 a.m.

Anything else significant that I'm missing?

NEVER LIVED THE DREAMS OF THE PROM KINGS AND THE DRAMA QUEENS: I'm (yet again) off on vacation--this time to Texas to attend my ten-year high school reunion and visit family. Behave yourselves in my absence.

NEXT, HERMAN GOERING LEADS THE ROYAL AIR FORCE: There are a lot of fine candidates out there to manage the Oakland A's. But this would just be so... wrong.

A TOSSUP BETWEEN "STAY GOLD, PONYBOY" AND "CLUCK YOU": Hey, it's Lost feeling like Lost again! Flashbacks that are actually interesting and relevant to the plot! Disturbing yet oddly entertaining dream sequences! Characters besides Locke, Jack, Kate, and a soupçon of Sayid and Hurley! Four episodes since we last heard him run his mouth off, Charlie remains the most annoying and least relevant character on the show! (Anyone disagree?)

Some observations:

• Why does Claire's face look so different from last season? Did she gain weight? Lose weight?
• Okay, admit it, who thought that Bernard was the guy guarding the pit? Oopsie. Can't wait for that flashback.
• Love the sense of humor that crops up here and there. "[Fade to black] . . . bitch."
• Are there actually only thirty days of food, or did Hurley and his new sidekick concoct that story to avoid Everybody Hates Hugo II?
• What got into Ana Lucia's wheaties?
• That Randy guy? Not his first appearance on Lost. Anyone catch it? Check the comments for the answer.

Thus far I'm quite pleased with Lost's sophomore effort, except for one thing: the flashbacks in Season One were uniformly much more interesting and plot-advancing than the four we've seen so far this season. I suspect it stems from the fact that JJ and the gang, now knowing that they've got a bona fide hit on their hands, have realized that they need to stretch out these backstories for a while because the show's not going away anytime soon. So I'll be surprised if we get too many big reveals via flashback this season.

See ya in the comments.

THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF CELINE DION THUS FAR IS A PLUS: WXPN is now into the top 100 of their list of Greatest Albums, with some bands making surprisingly high showings (Dave Matthews Band's "Before These Crowded Streets" at #94, Damien Rice's "O" at #115?) and several bands clearly having reached their high points ("Rites of Passage" at #102). So, let's see if we can collectively generate what's left. I can come up with about fifteen here:

• DMB, "Crash" and "Under The Table and Dreaming." Slim chance for "Everyday," but given that other DMB albums have made the list, those two, especially "Crash," would seem to be cinches.
• U2, "Joshua Tree" and "Achtung Baby"
• R.E.M., "Automatic For The People"
• Coldplay, "Rush of Blood to The Head"
• Beatles, "White Album," "Sgt. Pepper's"
• Springsteen, "Wild, Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle"
• The Police, "Synchronicity"
• The Clash, "London Calling"
• Paul Simon, "Graceland"
• Tori Amos, "Little Earthquakes"
• Counting Crows, "August and Everything After." If the other two albums made it, this one certainly should.

Safe to say we'll also see entries from Dylan, Ray Charles, and the Beatles beyond what's already been there.

EVEN MORE KILLER SWEET: Have you waited before getting your iPod? Wait no longer: the new iPod plays video in addition to the music.

What's more, you will be able to purchase video content on iTunes including "episodes of hit shows 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Lost' for $1.99 apiece, making them available the day after they air on television" as part of a deal with ABC/Disney.

SOMETIMES I LIKE THE RIGHT THINGS FOR THE WRONG REASONS: Today, I'm all-out for the new UNICEF campaign to rescue child soldiers in Africa.

IT WAS LBJ'S FAVORITE SOFT DRINK: Random question--am I the only one vaguely bothered by the rebranding of Fresca? I mean, it's not like the prior packaging was anything particularly special, but the "electronic age" thing I think they're trying for just doesn't fit into my image of Freca.

A METAPOST IN WHICH I YAMMER FOR A WHILE WITHOUT INCLUDING ANY MEANINGFUL POP CULTURAL COMMENTARY WHATSOEVER: Wow. This blogging thing is hard, yo. First I go on vacation for a week without realizing that I should have given my ALOTT5MA colleagues notice that they'd be called upon to cover Lost and Alias. Many thanks to Isaac for picking up my slack, although his coverage raised two issues in my mind: (1) Isaac is way deeper than I am. I need to find my notes from sophomore tutorial in college to refresh myself on all the philosophers. (Although I agree with the folks who think it's Kelvin, not Calvin. Perhaps he was just an absolute zero of a guy.) (2) I wonder if I could've gotten him to cover the So You Think You Can Dance finale if I'd remembered to ask nicely and perhaps send his wife a nice gift in the mail.

So then I come back and my TiVo and FauxVo inform me that I have something like 15 hours of television eagerly awaiting my return. Which would be lip-smacking good, except that I now know the pressure of a deadline. Six hours into the catch-up period, and the only shows I'm caught up on are the aforementioned Lost and Alias! Still awaiting a little extra free time are: Prison Break, Desperate Housewives (have y'all seen the DH backlash out there?) Gilmore Girls, America's Next Top Model, Threshold, How I Met Your Mother, Arrested Development, The O.C., My Name is Earl, and The Not-So-Amazing Race. (I meant to start watching Grey's Anatomy this season as well, but, um, the free time? Not so much.)

If anyone would like to offer me an ALOTT5MA Fellowship enabling me to take a hiatus from my day job and dedicate myself to writing witty television commentary on a full-time basis while continuing to support myself in the manner to which I have grown accustomed, kindly let me know. Thank you.

BIG SHRIMPIN': There is not much good to say about tonight's episode of The Less-Than-Amazing Race Across America, because there just didn't seem to be that much skill involved in the whole thing. This seemed especially true at the end, in which randomness determined the order of performing the final (not terribly photogenic) Roadblock, and nothing, nothing of skill could affect one's ability to complete it or reach the final mat.

But still, someone's probably got something decent to say before we get to what looks like an unnecessarily ghoulish task next week. What's next -- make the Schroeders fend off water-bound looters?

I DON'T THINK THAT WORD MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: NBC has cancelled "Inconceivable." Its replacement, for the moment, is "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" reruns.

BEING CALLED THE "KENNY G" OF ANY FIELD CAN NEVER BE CONSTRUED AS A COMPLIMENT: If you, like many of us here at ALOTT5MA, take a perverse pleasure in reading a bad review, may I point your attention to Bryan Burrough's takedown of Professor and the Madman author Simon Winchester's new book, A Crack in the Edge of the World, in the Sunday Times.

Among the highlights:

• "This is history as it might be written by Austin Powers. "Crack" is a book that bears the faint whiff of smoking jacket and brandy, as if the author had curled up in some leatherbound study with a few dozen previous books and his memories and banged out this one between puffs of pipe smoke."
• "If your idea of a nutty Friday afternoon is sitting through Geology 101, then this book's for you."
• And the kicker: "I wanted to drop-kick this book across the backyard. If Doris Kearns Goodwin or David McCullough can lay claim to being the Miles Davis of popular history, Winchester is becoming the Kenny G."

SAFE BET BONO WAS NOT NOMINATED FOR THIS ONE: Tomorrow, the Nobel Prize in literature will be announced. The list of prior winners is filled with names everyone knows (Rudyard Kipling, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner) and, more recently, names with which I am not particularly familiar (Gao Xingjian, Imre Kertesz, and Elfride Jelinek). Wikipedia provides some rumors, ranging from the completely sensible (Margaret Atwood, John Updike) to the left field (Bob Dylan, Tomas Transtromer (who's more than meets the eye)). In the words of Kornheiser--"Who ya got?" I'm saying Atwood, since North America hasn't won since 1993, and it's accessible enough for people to get the political statement being made.

I'M WAITING FOR "PHOENIX WRIGHT II: DOCUMENT REVIEW:" OK, is it wrong that I find the idea of a "lawyer video game" somewhat exciting? Still, gotta be better than the "Vin Diesel is a lawyer" movie.

"AN ENGAGING AND ERUDITE ECCENTRIC:" In a subject close to the hearts of a couple of this blog's readers, the Times today covers the new Gretchen Worden Room at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. The Mütter (aka, that museum with all the weird medical stuff) is a fascinating example of what in the 19th century would have been called a "Cabinet of Curiosities," featuring a variety of strange and unusual exhibits that might seem to be more Barnum and Bailey than an art museum. Worden and the Mütter also feature prominently in Sarah Vowell's recent Assassination Vacation, which is worth the read or listen.

HOW COME HE'S SO GOOD AT KILLING PEOPLE? I could describe the plot of A History of Violence in a sentence which would sound indistinguishable from any number of B-movies you've already seen and forgotten, but that would miss the point. I could tell you everything that happens in the movie and yet not spoil anything, because this is the classic case of a movie that's great not because of what it's about, but rather how it's about what it's about.

Still, I want to avoid all that by focusing on one detail that I found fascinating: William Hurt's performance, because it called upon him to do the world's worst (or best) Tony Kornheiser impression, and given the role he plays, it's just chilling. And hysterical. Worth seeing.

BE A LEAF ON THE WIND: For those of you still waffling about potentially seeing Serenity, the (excellent) first nine minutes, featuring exposition, explosions, and sword-fighting, are available online for free. If you haven't seen the movie and think you might even possibly be interested, take a look-see.

AT LEAST "NASH BRIDGES" IS STILL IN REPEATS: There were several people who took a double or nothing or a similar bet that "Just Legal" would be the show that followed "Head Cases" down the toilet. They were right. The WB hasn't announced their plans for the slot yet, though they're rerunning the premiere of "Related" tonight (for all you Graham Chase fans), and I wouldn't be shocked to see "Everwood" move back into a less competitive, and more logically led-into, timeslot on Mondays.

NO, THE TEXAS MASSACRE REFERRED TO IN THIS HEADLINE DOES NOT REFER TO YESTERDAY'S EAGLES-COWBOYS GAME: Rather, it means that 1974's Texas Chain Saw Massacre has been voted the greatest horror film of all time in a poll done by the UK's Total Film magazine. But what is a nice family film The Shining doing in the top 10?

THE CALIFORNIA RAISINS LIVE: Sad news--the fine folks at Aardman Animation, well-known in the U.S. for their Wallace & Gromit series and Chicken Run, have experienced a large loss-their warehouse burned down, destroying the sets (and possibly the figures) from the W&G shorts and Chicken Run, as well as other pieces of animation history.

STILL NOT A THERAPY GROUP: In honor of today's movement of Blue Man Group Vegas HQ from the Luxor to the Venetian, the Times sent a reporter to Blue Man boot camp, and let the Blue Men explain how they actually have not "sold out."

THE THRILL IS GONE? Bill Carter asks in Monday's Times whether the reality tv boom is over. While it's certainly true that ratings are down this fall (why, oh why, can't they dislodge Dr. Hizzy from Tuesdays at 9?), the fact remains that the economics of reality tv strongly suggest it's going to stick around for a long time. It is cheap to produce, easily conducive to lucrative product placement and, when done right, as gripping as the best-written dramas and funnier than the best comedies, often within the same episode.

Where reality still has to prove itself is in terms of the subsequent revenue streams -- do the Survivor or TAR DVD sets sell? What about syndication revenues? Will people watch again when they already know who won?

We've seen the "strategic competition", "talent show" and "who wants to be the next [X] career" concepts in various formats. We're due for the Next Great Reality Paradigm -- and if I ever figure it out, unlike my other ideas, I'm not giving it away for free here.

CRISP AND CLEAN: Director Michael Apted's Seven Up, which I have always meant to see, has been named the greatest documentary of all time in a new poll of filmmakers. Michael Moore shows up twice in the top 10, but Hoop Dreams fails to make the cut. If you haven't seen Nos. 2, 5, and 9, put those babies in your Netflix cue pronto.

What's your favorite doc not in the top 10?

A HERO PASSES: This breaks my heart -- Stefan Presser, for twenty-one years the executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, succumbed to brain cancer Friday at the age of 52.

People tend to think of "the ACLU" as a monolith, but much of its litigation work is actually done by the independent local chapters. Under Presser's leadership, the ACLU of PA won huge victories in such diverse areas as freedom of speech on the Internet, separation of church and state, racial profiling, prisoner's rights, and reforming Philadelphia's treatment of abused and neglected children.

As former U Chicago Law Dean Geoff Stone noted last week, "The ACLU isn't a decision-making body. Its function is not to decide what the law is. It is, rather, to advocate points of view that are fundamental to American freedom, views that would not otherwise be adequately represented. Its function is to ensure that judges and legislators as least hear the civil liberties side of the argument. I might not want to live in a society in which every ACLU position was the law, but I know I would not want to live in a society without the ACLU."

Stefan Presser advocated those points of view to the best of a lawyer's skill, and, better still, he won. For his having fought these battles, we've all won; sadly, today, we've all lost.

CAN YOU DENY THERE'S NOTHING GREATER . . . Philadelphia's WXPN 88.5 FM, not satisfied with ranking the 885 All Time Greatest Songs, has set its sights on letting listeners like me (but not me -- I forgot to email my ballot) determine The 885 All Time Greatest Albums, which they have been playing in order for a week already.

How wonderfully diverse is a list (and a radio station) that has a section like this?

# 333 – STEVIE WONDER – Talking Book
# 332 – A TRIBE CALLED QUEST – The Low End Theory
# 331 – PATTY GRIFFIN – Flaming Red
# 330 – MARC COHN – Marc Cohn
# 329 – FOUNTAINS OF WAYNE – Welcome Interstate Managers
# 328 – FRANZ FERDINAND – Franz Ferdinand
# 327 – THE REPLACEMENTS – Pleased To Meet Me
# 326 – STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN – Texas Flood
# 325 – BRIAN WILSON – Smile
# 324 – PAVEMENT – Slanted And Enchanted

At least one album in that block is criminally underrated -- the one with the protein-delta strip, of course.

There is much to debate and discuss here. I mean, Sign O' The Times and Surfer Rosa make my top twenty -- but here, #266 and #263, respectively?

THAT'S AGRI-TAINMENT! No article has produced more angst in our house in recent days than this NYT piece on faux pumpkin farms. It's a peek behind the veil that's really troubling for those of us who go to places like this every year where, come to think of it, the pumpkins are all gathered for us in large boxes in one area, and not just out there in the field . . .