Month: December 2003

Red and Swollen?

The NY Times surveys the demographic and electoral changes to the red state/blue state map going into 2004, and apparently Dubya states have picked up 7 electoral votes since the last go-around. Well, unless you’re going to presume that all the people that have moved to the red zone in the past four years vote Republican, I’m not sure this tells us all that much.

The End of All Things.


Peter Jackson received a hero’s welcome in New Zealand yesterday as the Return of the King officially premiered in Wellington. I’ve been reading a number of online reviews lately, which I won’t link to as they’re so spoilerific. But so far the consensus seems to be (a) RotK is easily the best of the three and (b) some of the Theatrical Edition streamlining will aggravate Tolkien fans. I must admit, I was disturbed to find out some of the many scenes that have been edited out of the film, but I presume they’ll all be back for the EE next November, so I guess I really can’t complain. And if RotK is half as good as everyone is making it out to be, then I probably won’t care once the film starts anyway. At any rate, only two weeks to go… Update: Here’s a relatively non-spoilerish review that gets the consensus point across: The film is stunning. Amazing. Frightening. Breathtaking. Heartbreaking. Epic and intimate all at once. Booyah.

The Dyess Man Cometh.

(Ok, I cribbed that from the Post, but it’s still a great headline.) After two years recovering from injury, former All-Star Antonio McDyess returned to the Knicks last night in their OT loss to the Pistons. He looked pretty lost out there (2 points, 3 boards), but I’m sure he’ll find his sea legs after some more minutes. In the meantime, Scott Layden has just lost his last excuse. If we can’t make the playoffs in the lEast now, heads should roll.