Ennjay

Cruise the blues clubs along North Halsted -- great music in a very Chicago tradition. Have ribs someplace. Ribs in Chicago are like wings in Buffalo -- there are so many good places around that the bad ones don't last. Carson's is a dependable chain all around town, but don't be afraid to try a place that looks like a hole in a wall. Robinson's for Ribs on the North Side at least used to be pretty good. As someone else said, you MUST try either the Cubby Bear or Murphy's before your Cubs game.

Happy to help.

Supplemental draft picks are subtracted from next April's "real" draft. So far as I know, the Bills have all of their 2006 picks, so they could participate in the supplemental. The draft order in a supplemental is the same as in the last April draft, so if, say, SF or Miami or Cleveland thought it was going to have a good enough year to slide back to the bottom third of the first round it would be tempting to "pre-use" the team's No. 1 pick for someone who might otherewise be a Top 10 kind of player. Sometimes teams actually do this, but usually not because it can easily blow up on you. (Some years ago the Giants used their No. 1 to take QB Dave Brown in the supplemental. They'll be fitting him for a Hall of Fame blazer any day now.) You don't have to use a No. 1, however. I understand it actually works like an auction. A team could bid, say, a third-round pick on someone, and if no other team offered a better pick (a No. 1 or No. 2, or a lower pick in the third round), the first team gets the player and forfeits the third-rounder in the next draft.

Once upon a time our town had O.J. Simpson (the athlete; put aside what came later), Robert McAdoo, and Gil Perreault all in their primes at the same time. That was the golden era of Buffalo primetime big league sports.

Hank Stram is the only analyst I can remember who ever said anything BEFORE a play. He would look at the formation and tell you what to watch for, and he was usually right. ("They're overloaded to the right side. Look for a misdirection play back across the grain . . .") I wish more color guys were as into the game as he was.

I hope you're right. Two-Face is an absolutely terrific villain, full of the ambiguity and duality (literally!) that charge Bruce Wayne/Batman himself. The character was utterly wasted in the Schumacher/Kilmer/Jones version. No psychology, no complexity. I understand the new franchise intends to ignore the old one. Smart move.

I think we were focussing on Bills/Chargers history. If you're looking for big Chargers losses, there was also the AFC championships with Cinci the week after the Kellen Winslow Miami OT game. The only time SD won an AFL championship it beat the Patriots (in '63). Suppose the Bills visit the Giants in 2015 and the Giants want to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their last Super Bowl win. I don't know that the Bills wear their 1990 uniforms (if available) for the occasion. It's a lot to expect the Chargers to cut the Bills a break on this one, but who knows?

Exactly, and very cool. But would San Diego cooperate? The Chargers lost both games (in '64, in SD).

I'd love to see the Bills and Pats in their old white helmets -- the standing Bison and the colonial guy hiking the ball.

Could also be San Diego if the Chargers wear their old powder blues. There would be enough contrast between light and dark blues to let both teams wear "home" jerseys, which I think has happened in Detroit Thanksgiving games in past years. Wouldn't work if San Diego wore the current dark blues.

I agree the new-old retro's look great, but here's something else I remember from the 60's: in the old AFL, visiting teams always wore white. And Bills road games were what we saw on TV before they changed the blackout rule in the 70's. A lot of Bills (Ron McDole, Jim Dunaway, etc.) in white helmets, white jerseys, and white pants looked like giant pillows. I thought one of the best innovations ever was switching to blue pants on the road, breaking up the all-white look. That's what OJ wore (with the standing Buffalo) when he broke 2,000 yards.

Thanks to Jack in Syracuse for starting this thread. I love the show but I don't work with anyone who watches it. Tuesdays on TSW have provided a lot of detox and debriefing for all of us.

Kiefer Sutherland said on Charlie Rose last Friday night (that's a PBS interview show, if you don't keep up) that the Chinese embassy problem figures into next season AND that the time gap between Days 4 and 5 will be much shorter than the previous gaps. Good ending. Jack's a nameless fugitive and Tony and Michele are quitting CTU. I'm hoping they resurface (all 3) as the leaders of a successful plot to assassinate Logan.

It's the variety available -- an Arena League, three NFL teams, home, away, possible alternative (like the red Giants jersey), old Rams, new Rams, old Cards, new Cards. You could fill your closet with #13's!

Thanks. He wasn't credited in Episode IV either. Also uncredited on the website you found: Peter Jackson ("A Blue Senate Guard"). Gotta be the director of LOTR!

I'm just afraid it ends with Christianson saying, "This is CNN." But seriously, I read on a website that the character with the last line in Sith is the same as the character with the first line in Episode IV. I think that was C3PO. (It may have been R2D2.)

I haven't seen any references to James Earl Jones doing a cameo of "The Voice" at the end, when Darth is Darth. And I haven't seen any comments that he's NOT doing a cameo of "The Voice" at the end. He's still alive, he can still talk; he's GOT to be in it. Has anyone here heard anything?

I dunno ... Marwan keeps talking about making a statement to the American people. Wiping out one office building where one Government agency has an office doesn't seem to do it, although that's sort of what the Oklahoma City bombing was about. I briefly thought Marwan wouldn't detonate a nuke in the city he himself is in, but (a) he appears to have escape plans and (b) he may not mind being a martyr. Appointing a VP requires the approval of the House of Representatives. Moreover, Logan is serving under the 25th Amendment because Keeler isn't dead. Section 4 of the 25th makes it clear the VP is only "Acting President." Keeler can reassume the presidency by sending a written declaration that he's fit to take office. The 25th Amendment doesn't provide for a temporary VP. And all that aside, Keeler was the guy Palmer was running against in the last election. (There was actually a presidential debate on the day of Year 3.) Logan's not going to appoint a VP from the opposite political party. I love this show and give it a lot of leeway in its attempts to be realistic. They may trip over things like the language to describe what happens at nuclear reactors or how to respond to the Chinese embassy, but they still try hard enough at things like the presidential line of succession (which the Speaker of the House jumped on this week).

And in the Credit-Where-Credit-is-Due Department: Buchanan asks where Richard Heller is. Chloe says, "It's 4 a.m. He's probably at home asleep in his bed." Go Chloe!

Above all, the show never identifies who Mandy works for.

So I turn to my wife and I say, "they've been chasing this guy [Marwan] for 21 hours and now that they've got him they have two agents walk him out to an SUV alone. How stupid is that?" And no sooner do I finish saying that than . . .

Don't overlook the overall weakness of the NFC. I expect some dropoff in Green Bay and I don't think St. Louis and Seattle improved from last year -- and those were all playoff teams. Even if the Vikings are better (and that's still a good question, since Moss scored so much for them and affected how defenses played them in ways that won't happen in '05), there's plenty of room to rise in the NFC. A 9-7 record is likely a playoff lock, and 8-8 did it last year.

A close relative of mine recently went through complete reconstructive knee surgery (= more than Everett), and the story we got from two different doctors is this: The ACL has enough muscle sheathing around it, and other ligaments around it, that the affected leg can be reconditioned to perform the same functions it had before -- meaning an athlete can recover prior speed with enough rehabbing (and I guess dedication). If there's more ligament damage (like tearing the MCL, which happened in our family case) it's less likely because you have that much less of the additional support for the newly reconstructed ACL. That's why there was so much skepticism about McGahee. As I understand it, Everett's only injury was to the ACL. It takes time to get full flexibility and strength back, but it can be done. At least that's what I understand. Hines Ward tore his ACL a few years ago, and he seems to be doing OK.

Has anyone ever bought a ticket to watch somebody coach?

. . . and maybe for the first time ever a comic scene on 24: Chloe offering to be there for Jack. I didn't know Kiefer Sutherland could make an expression like that.