KenJennings

I know, Right? IMO, Mike Portnoy is the best drummer in Rock today. People seem to have a real problem evaluating his immense talent without being distracted by his occasionally difficult personality. The guy is an absolutely incredible drummer and a prog rock genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbXy0f0aCN0 Good God, they're getting the band back together!!

Fun fact: That big monopoly board was built by Les Stroud (Survivorman). He worked several jobs as a stagehand on the Toronto music scene before deciding to go off and make his way as a producer and survivalist.

It's close. I actually quite enjoy both albums. I'd give the edge to Roll the Bones for a more consistent showing. By track: Presto (GPA 2.25) Show Don't Tell: B- Chain Lightning: B The Pass: A War Paint: F Scars: D Presto: C- Superconductor: B- Anagram: B Red Tide: C+ Hand Over Fist: C Available Light: C+ Roll the Bones (GPA 2.51) Dreamline: B+ Bravado: A- Roll the Bones: B+ Face Up: D Where's My Thing: C+ The Big Wheel: B- Heresy: B+ Ghost of a Chance: B- Neurotica: C- You Bet Your Life: D+

Manhattan by Bob Seger Shakey Davey's got a twelve gauge in his hand It's sawed off to the limit He's got a vague plan There's this liquor store on Madison There's another one down on Washington square He's pretty sure no one's ever seen him Down around there The first one's birdshot the next four are double aught buck The last one's a slug just for good luck He's got his works in his pocket He wants to score as soon as he's done He can't wait to get straight to get long gone He puts on his long coat scribbles off a short note Sits himself down and waits for the sun to go down It's right around midnight and there's still too damn many people on this street He's walked all the way from Battery Park he's got sweaty hands and burnin' feet He's desperate for a fix His body's screamin' "Get me high" He bursts through the door and lets one fly Sunrise in the park and Davey's cold as stone He got some bad merchandise and he was all alone Two more unsolved mysteries a iot of paper pushed around Most folks are just wakin' up in this great big town

:ebert: Ditto. Great call! Without looking it up..........wasn't the band that did it called Ace? Amazing Rhythm Aces 1975 I know the Sammy Kershaw version. which is excellent! I never knew that was a cover!

That's such a lame and expected response. One can participate and drink beer in any sport or activity. Is softball a sport then? Funny but I don't see the professional bowlers drinking beer . Apparently I treaded on your sacred bowling territory. But for many, bowling is a game of throw a ball, drink a some beer, throw a ball, eat some nachos. Sports are games of skill that require a physical element of strength, agility or stamina to excel. Bowling, Golf, Motorsports, Curling, Softball: all sports.

Thanks everyone!

Great pick. Love the power that the bass comes through with.

Paul Gilbert is an incredible guitarist. If you want to hear his take on a few more Rush songs; check out "Cygnus and the Sea Monsters", a live Rush tribute show put together by Mike Portnoy, where he was on guitar.

I really like the lyrical melodies that Coheed puts together sometimes. I've been a fan since Good Apollo, but fell out of touch after The Afterman double EP. I should really go back and catch up with them. Year of the Black Rainbow remains in my regular album rotation.

I'll just leave this here.

Anyone else catch this new religious/fantasy/dark comedy on Amazon Prime? Really great characters, extremely well acted, ambitious storytelling. It was just a pleasure to watch start to finish. Michael Sheen steals the show as an uptight angel, while David Tennant portrays his irreverent demon counterpart wonderfully. At just six episodes, it's a pretty quick watch. I can't recommend it enough.

Stepping a little bit off course here... but it's an interesting story. There was a band called The Jetzons who put out just one album in the early 80s before breaking up. Their keyboardist later went on to work with Michael Jackson, who worked for Sega on the audio production of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 in the 90s. Years after Sonic 3 came out, a compilation of lost tracks from The Jetzons was released, and it included a track called Hard Times that sounded awfully familiar to some music from the video game.

When Amy Schumer was a little girl, everyone laughed when she said she wanted to do Stand Up when she grew up. Well, nobody's laughing now.

Such an incredible song. Have you ever heard Steven Wilson's cover?

That's just not true. Crossbow hunting is in a renaissance, and Realtree estimates that around 5.5 million hunters in the US use crossbows every year. Hell, in Wisconsin, crossbow deer kills have surpassed vertical bow kills. Especially considering their much easier operation for physically disabled and aging archers; crossbow hunting is popular, and is only growing in popularity.

Crossbows aren't archaic. There are very modern crossbows that are used for hunting in some purposes. Also, they fire silently; which is the biggest reason I can think that someone would use one.

Seriously? Sweeping two seasons of crap under the rug "makes it good"? They did nothing to take back any of the errors. They nonsensically packaged them up amid a series of inconsistencies and bizarre illogic, while launching the show off into a future that they can handle now with even less care. Rather than doing the legwork that they signed up for when they chose to tell this story, they've just ripped apart the canon and left nothing but destruction in its wake... now they're going off to tear up the future. LOL, in what world are you living. First off, the Orville regularly features some of the funniest content on modern TV, and second, Discovery's acting is forced and unimmersive. I don't get a single episode without contrived Michael Burnham angst; without ridiculously unprofessional Tilly bubbling through at inappropriate times; without an utterly unlikable and unrelatable Stamets... the bridge crew (who gets no meaningful attention until its time to die) sits around the galley having a blast playing their game of auto-antonyms! These people are off-putting, humorless, and depressing. I could never bring myself to invest in the characters Discovery chooses to portray, because they are so unrealistic and awkward... with perhaps the only exceptions being Anson Mount's brilliant portrayal of Captain Pike, Wilson Cruz's sincere and deeply troubled portrayal of Dr. Culber (stand out performances all season long from him) and a few of the minor characters like Tig Notaro's Jet Reno,... I can admit The Orville isn't delivering stellar acting performances, but each of the cast fills their role just fine. Nobody's ever going to say that the likes of Shatner or Doohan were some titans of acting... but at least they portrayed vibrant, complete and likable characters. Just like the crew of the Orville. I would legitimately like to hang out with someone like Gordon, and I think Scott Grimes has actually done and incredible job with that character. I can honestly say Seth MacFarlane deserves praise for his acting too, as his strategy to 'play his best self' makes it an easy role for him to wear. Mark Jackson is brilliant as Isaac, conveying an amazing amount of personality through body language without a face, and doing the best orchestrated display of dispassion I've seen since Brent Spiner. Even the more weakly acted characters like John and Alara are given material that still makes their characters pop. Sprinkle in a few minor roles like Norm MacDonald's brilliantly deadpan Yaphet, the over-the-top joyous comic relief of Mike Henry's Lt. Dann, or the disconcertingly ominous, but still relatable portrayal of an alienated Moclan 'housewife' by Chad Coleman; and you've got a recipe for a meaningfully diverse ensemble of people who are flawed and awesome- who you'd actually like to continue investing in. What social justice stuff? Seriously, where in Discovery's story was there any meaningful message about social justice? Where was there a lesson or parable for growth or analysis? They shoehorned diversity into the show, and awkwardly highlight it in the most inappropriate ways possible. No lesson, nothing to challenge the mind of viewers; rather just a banner to galvanize opinions exactly where they are. Nobody is dared to grow by Discovery. If you are an SJW, you're given imagery to rally behind. If you're against the SJW stuff, you're simply left alienated. All iconography, no rhetoric. Contrast the Orville- who uses alien situations to bring up parallels to modern issues. They don't simply fly a banner, they tell stories that challenge perceptions on an unbiased playing field. Where TOS taught lessons using things like white-half-black-half aliens to illustrate the futility of racism, The Orville uses the gender-challenged Moclans to illustrate the futility of gender and sexual biases. They challenged convictions of faith and pushed boundaries of tolerance with the Krill. They made a statement about animal rights with the Calivon. They spoke to matters of slavery, justice and supremacist ideologies with the Kaylon. The Orville is doing the legwork with meaningful social justice parables. I don't see ANY of that from Discovery. I see a masturbatory exercise in galvanization and alienation. Par for the course from modern Hollywood. There is no compare. The Orville is the successor to REAL Star Trek. Discovery is a poorly conceived, pandering, hollow money grab.

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Sunburst Fire Lake Manhatttan Lock and Load Til it Shines The Mountain American Storm Ship of Fools Fine Memory The Famous Final Scene

I thought the finale was a total mess. For one, after they killed leland and neutralized control; why did they continue into the wormhole? Because plot? Why would they classify the entire ship, including the spore drive and associated research. That had nothing to do with the creation of control. In retrospect it seems a pretty massive slap in the face to Janeway and the Voyager. The visual and technological updates are total nonsense. When they made Enterprise a prequel, at least they had the decency to downgrade the technology to fit the timeline. Discovery upped the ante on all this to a pretty ridiculous degree... the Constitution class starship is not carrying around 200 freaking auxiliary craft! Still no explanation of the frog klingons. The writers of this show have a few major problems- one is that they continually write plot without creating supporting facts. They never bother to take the time to challenge their own ideas. Nobody in that writing room seems to care. Another is that they only use canon for branding, not meaningful world building or service to a legacy. They want to tell their hacky story, be damned what came before (or may come after). Discovery is a cash grab, not a piece of art. It all reeks of disrespect for everything that's been crafted for the last 50 years. I would rather see Star Trek die as a franchise than continue down this road. "If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for who we really are!" Now Fox needs to renew The Orville.

I'm seeing Garth Brooks in Minneapolis tomorrow night.

Has anyone mentioned "Driven"? I love Geddy's bassline in that track.

Reba McEntrire's version of "Fancy" is really powerful stuff. I remember it all very well lookin' back It was the summer I turned eighteen We lived in a one room, rundown shack On the outskirts of New Orleans We didn't have money for food or rent To say the least we were hard pressed Then Mama spent every last penny we had To buy me a dancin' dress Mama washed and combed and curled my hair And she painted my eyes and lips then I stepped into a satin Dancin' dress that had a split on the side clean up to my hip It was red velvet trim and it fit me good Standin' back from the lookin' glass There stood a woman where a half gown kid had stood She said here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down Mama dabbed a little bit of perfume on my neck And she kissed my cheek Then I saw the tears wellin' up in her troubled eyes When she started to speak She looked at a pitiful shack And then she looked at me and took a ragged breath She said your Pa's run off and I'm real sick And the baby's gonna starve to death She handed me a heart shaped locket that said "To thine own self be true" And I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across The toe of my high heel shoe It sounded like somebody else that was talkin' Askin' Mama what do I do She said just be nice to the gentlemen Fancy And they'll be nice to you She said here's your chance Fancy don't let me down Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down Lord forgive me for what I do, but if you want out Well it's up to you Now don't let me down you better start movin' uptown Well, that was the last time I saw my Ma The night I left that rickety shack The welfare people came and took the baby Mama died and I ain't been back But the wheels of fate had started to turn And for me there was no way out And it wasn't very long 'til I knew exactly What my Mama's been talkin' about I knew what I had to do but I made myself this solemn vow That I's gonna be a lady someday Though I don't know when or how I couldn't see spending the rest of my life With my head hung down in shame you know I might have been born just plain white trash But Fancy was my name Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down It wasn't very long after a benevolent man Took me off the street And one week later I was pourin' his tea In a five room hotel suite I charmed a king, a congressman And an occasional aristocrat Then I got me a Georgia mansion In an elegant New York townhouse flat And I ain't done bad Now in this world there's a lot of self-righteous hypocrite That would call me bad And criticize Mama for turning me out No matter how little we had But though I ain't had to worry 'bout nothin' For nigh on fifteen years I can still hear the desperation in my poor Mama's voice ringin' in my ear She said, here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down Here's your one chance Fancy don't let me down Lord, forgive me for what I do But if you want out well it's up to you Now don't let me down Your Mama's gonna help you uptown I guess she did