But this isn't someone else's debut; this is the fifth album by a band who started their career with what many of us consider to be the best record to come out of the mid-2000s post-punk revival, and perhaps one of the best albums of any genre for the entire decade. When "Silent Alarm" came out, I legitimately…

That's part of it.

"I went to a parody with the faint hope a satire would break out."

They're playing at the Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta in May, which I may attend if several of the bands I'd like to see all line up on the same day. Bloc Party is not one of them, and I wouldn't believe it if you told me that in 2007.

Legitimate question: How much of "Silent Alarm" can be accredited to Bloc Party, and how much of it can be accredited to Paul Epworth? That album, and the B-sides from those recording sessions, was Epworth's big break as a producer; since then, he's become the most successful producer of the last decade in popular…

Guitars that could break through glass and a rhythm section that never let up was what made early Bloc Party great, and for whatever reason, Kele has spent a decade steering the band away from that. Their discography is the textbook example of diminishing returns, and I don't see any point of following them now that…

I was hoping for a thought-provoking deconstruction of the idea that African-Americans are more kink-averse than other groups, and the unfortunate implications of BDSM culture when a black person assumes a sexually subservient role.

They're CBS dramas. Everybody you don't know watches them.

Jim Brown may be 78 years old, but he's definitely going to find you and beat your ass for that comment. On roller skates.

Early voting isn't a cure-all. I live in a very Republican part of the Atlanta suburbs; when I voted early in 2012 and 2014, I was in and out of my polling place within ten minutes. At the same time, Atlanta news stations (and a few of my friends who live in the city itself) were reporting several-hours-long wait…

I'm not even from Michigan, but I say it's an issue worth being concerned about.

Like a lot of depressed industrial cities in Michigan, Flint effectively has no elected local government. An "emergency manager" law gives Governor Snyder the right to strip local governments of their executive power, and appoint someone who has full control over that city's finances. This law was defeated by…

Of course, enacting a law that gives the governor unilateral authority to suspend local governments, and then grant full executive power to an appointed emergency manager who answers only to him, is a fine way to disengage the public from representative politics.

"Bill Cosby's Tapper!"

I liked his cameo in "Tin Cup." He was a fine golfer, but it's the only way he would have won the U.S. Open.

In context, Obama clearly intended to say 47 states (all but one, save AK and HI), and had a slip of the tongue. Portraying it as anything else comes off as sad and desperate.

I was somewhat shocked by her physical appearance during that speech. When word got out of her endorsement, the photos of her meeting with Trump during the 2012cycle (when she was mulling a presidential bid and he was beating the birther drum) circulated through the news media; she looked like the Sarah Palin I…

I so wanted this link to be for the "Mac & Me" clip Paul Rudd always plays when he's on Conan.

Randi must go down in Jeopardy history as a lesson for anyone who wants to appear on the show: wagering strategy is part of the game, and ignorance of that fact has consequences. She made three terrible wagers in this game:

With the passing of Alan Rickman, yet another of Adomian's sterling characters has bitten the dust.