2*F4: In one of the greatest nights in Amherst College sports history, not only did the Lord Jeffs men's basketball team advance to its second straight Div III Final Four with an 81-69 win over Rhode Island College, sending the Anchormen back to their home on Whore Island (said the RIC coach, "Boy, that escalated quickly ... I mean, that really got out of hand fast"), but the women's ice hockey team also advanced to its Final Four with a 2-1 road win over Rochester Institute of Technology. Mind you, this women's ice hockey team had never beaten rivals Middlebury or Williams before this season, nor had they won a NESCAC tournament game. And then, boom goes the dynamite, wow.

The ladies travel to Plattsburgh State for their national semifinals, while the men hit the familiar road to Salem, Va., where they will face the College of Wooster (OH) Scots on Friday.

For the other Tournament, we've got a group on ESPN for your free pool entries. Group name is ALOTT5MA; neither password nor aptitude are needed.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN I FINALLY FIGURED OUT IT WASN'T A MOVIE ABOUT A BOWLING PRODIGY: I saw 300 last night, the first time I think since the Battle of Thermopylae that I had seen a film on its opening night. And just like the majority of the reviews, my thoughts are mixed. Ultimately, though, the film is nothing short of visually stunning. It's an excellent translation of the graphic novel form to the big screen. Sure the story is goofy and the politics questionable, but if like Joey, you too like movies about gladiators (and don't mind a beheading or two or three or four) this is a must-see on the big screen. (And a note to the new parents out there, unlike the couple at the theater last night who chose to bring their three-month-old to the show, you might want to leave junior at home for this film.)

Update: Apparently the packed theater where I saw 300 was hardly an anomaly.

Back to School - New York Times

"IT'S LIKE 'HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL' ON CRACK. EVERY DANCE MOVE IS GOING TO BE POPPED HARDER. IT'S GOT TO BE BRIGHTER AND MORE EXTRAVAGANT AND BIGGER THAN THE LAST ONE." The Times visits the set of HSM2.

I-N-E-L-U-C-T-A-B-L-E: I wasn't planning to begin our coverage of the 2007 Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee quite yet, but a few items about this year's spellers have come across my desk worth sharing:

• Sure to thrill Shonda -- Samir Patel is back for the fifth straight year. Regarding his regional Bee, "He says he did not encounter any words he didn't know how to spell. And, truth be told, he knew all the words the other spellers got as well."
  
• Meet Utah's Kunal Sah, who will be competing for the second time despite the fact that his parents were just deported back to India after sixteen years of legal residence in the States.
• The folks up in Easton had hoped they fixed the problem that caused so much controversy last year. They did. Indeed, it looks like the national rules were changed (see #10) to protect against such idiocy recurring.
  
• 2006 national champion Katharine "Kerry" Close has enjoyed her year on top, though her hometown paper still misspells her first name.
  

May 30-31 isn't that far away.

MY JUNK IS YOU: A topic we hit on from time to time here is the current disjoint between Broadway and current pop music. I'm pleased to report that there's now a rickety bridge at least at one point on that river in the form of the much-acclaimed Spring Awakening. No, you won't be hearing any of the songs shooting up the pop charts anytime soon, I expect, but most of the songs in the show wouldn't be out of place as album cuts from folks like John Mayer, Ben Folds, Dashboard Confessional, or Sufjan Stevens. Indeed, one could argue that Spring Awakening is the first emo musical, given its themes of adolescents wanting to find relationships and feeling guilty about finding relationships. And "Totally F**ked!" may be one of the best show-stoppers on Broadway right now--too bad that for obvious reasons, it won't be performed on TV or elsewhere anytime soon. It's a crowded year at the Tonys in the top acting categories (Raul Esparza is a virtual cinch for lead actor at this point, and lead actress features the battle of Tony-beloved divas Donna Murphy, Audra McDonald, and Kristin Chenoweth), but I hope John Gallagher, Jr. is recognized as a Featured Actor for his fine work. The show's not perfect--the last 15 minutes are rather rushed, as though the creative team said "well, we've got two hours of show now, let's wrap it up quick!," and chopped a book scene or two that would have given us a fuller understanding and resolution of a few dangling subplots, but this is still well worth your time if you care about musical theatre and can handle the "edgy" content (on-stage nudity from both genders, a number of sex acts depicted on stage, and some salty language).

UFOLOGISTS EVERYWHERE ARE MOURNING: Quick, what rock band holds the record for biggest selling debut album? The Beatles? Pearl Jam? The Power Company? Wrong. Wrong. And Wrong.

That distinction still belongs to Boston, which sold over 17 million copies of its 1976 debut album. Boston lead singer Brad Delp, a name I am guessing is familiar to very few of you, was found dead today in his Atkinson, N.H., home at the age of 55.

As my pre-teen musical tastes were evolving from stuff my parents blasted into the back of the station wagon like Peter, Paul & Mary, Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow to artists my friends' older brothers thought were cool like Rush, Springsteen, Kansas, and Seger, Boston was inescapable. By the time the band emerged from its bitter lawsuit with CBS records to release its third album in 1986, I had long since moved on the REM, U2, The Replacements, The Smiths, etc. And when the definitive history of 20th Century pop music is written, Boston may deserve little more than a blurb, it's possible the band may have had more of an influence than most give it credit for. (Judge for yourself.)

Flickgrrl

MITIGATED BY THE FACT THAT SHE BROUGHT ME TO THE CRITICS' SCREENING FOR "CHILL FACTOR", ABOUT WHICH THE LESS SAID, THE BETTER: Even if I wasn't eternally in her debt because she decided one day in 1999, "Hey, Adam, I know a reporter at the paper who might be a good match for you," I would still recommend that you check out Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey's new blog, Flickgrrl, just because it's off to quite a promising start. Join in the conversation.