smells like flowers

Dogs. Not any particular one, just the species in general. With a special nod to the short-haired, floppy- eared, vaguely houndish ones. Extra points for a freckled belly or black "eyeliner."

I'm with you. Time to sit back, spin the Frank Sinatra Christmas LP (for some reason, my daughter loves it!), eat the cookies, drink the nog, take a walk in the cold woods. I find the weeks before to be torture, but I stopped doing cards and entertaining and it's a bit more manageable that way.

Yeah, a friend and I encountered one while hiking a few months back. We heard the rattle before seeing the snake. That sound hits you on some primal level. I kept replaying the scene while trying to fall asleep at night. It was my first rattler-- made me feel like a true Floridian since the state is crawling with them! But scary as shit!

When I first heard Robin Thicke's hit, I did a double take and immediately wished I was back in 1978 and could go skate to it at the local roller rink. When I actually listened to the lyrics and saw the video, I decided it was misogynist trash. With a good beat.

Can't we finish the Halloween candy first?

I think live is the best way to enjoy AD. John and Pat really shine. But if you don't have the slightest affinity for the soft rock sounds of the early seventies, stay home and help put the kids to bed! They're channeling some serious Bread, America, etc.

I counted going to see local bands (some crappy, some not). So I'm at 6-10 per year.

Those are some great songs! The backup female vocals are terrific. They pop up on the college station once in a while and I think it's the best solo stuff he's done.

Yes, pop culture is so incredibly in love with violence. My daughter and I were at a library pumpkin-painting program aimed at small kids, and the Scooby Doo cartoon they were playing had Fred wielding a machine gun against vampires. Zoinks! That's nothing like the Scooby Doo we grew up with! But then, I loved Breaking Bad, which was the bloodiest TV show I've ever watched. So the hypocrisy starts at home.

Don't give up on your Musical Youth!

I put that one down just before the chapter on slaughterhouses. Gots to have a burger or a steak sometimes.

Oh man, taking a sail with John Stirratt (okay, his wife, too), watching the sun set, gettin' a little high and listening to some yacht rock.... heaven IS for real!

So the shitty little motels would be charging $400/night instead of a measly $199/night like the last Solid Sound? That would pretty much be a deal breaker.

Wild Horses?

Okay, I finally saw the whole thing. Just finished watching finale. My only question is this: over the course of the whole show, all those intense scenes shot in the desert, and not one rattlesnake anywhere? For some reason I kept expecting one and it never materialized. Too obvious, maybe.

Agree. I feel that way about many of the songs on Summerteeth. That record is magical.

I lived in New Orleans in '98-99 and read A Confederacy of Dunces shortly after moving away from there. It was hilarious! But a couple months ago I thought I'd revisit it and was dismayed to find it didn't resonate the way it had before. Timing is everything!

Green with envy!

This is going to be a fun thread! I'm a big fan of Cooks Illustrated and Fine Cooking magazines. I love to make the occasional elaborate recipe, but mostly I love how those publications give you so many tools to be a better cook and not just follow recipes. My weeknight repertoire has improved greatly in the past year or so, and I credit all the food-related reading. Little tips like sauteeing onions longer and salting them at the start of a recipe makes a big difference in flavor! Speaking of chili, I found a vegetarian recipe that I started making for my daughter -- it uses a bottle o

Thank you! Didn't realize -- that helps things a bit. I also got thrown by how Benjy refers to Quentin alternately as he and she in the first chapter. It doesn't help that I'm usually reading at the very end of the day and can barely get in 10 minutes before my eyes are closing. Just gotta get through those last four episodes of Breaking Bad and then I can devote my evenings to reading again!

Working on this: All this time and I've never read any Faulkner. It's a bit of a struggle so far, but people keep telling me about how beautiful they found the book, which is helping me stick with it. Still waiting for things to make a bit more sense.

I think Season One was the best... all the plot twists were surprises, Jesse was so young and dumb! I loved the cook scenes in the RV. Ah, the olden days...

Tail end of a Superchunk song from the last record. Never get tired of Mac's nasal-y crooning!

When dinner includes a glass of wine, it's the best meal of the day.

Cheapskate that I am, I checked it out. $22.99 on itunes for complete season 6 vs. Amazon's $1.99 per episode (there are 8). So only about $16 on Amazon. Thanks, though!