Fair enough, Sherm. Darling Of The City Fathers and BdubU got the music conversation started, and I would have replied to Darling directly if avclub allowed replies to replies.

Dubstep and drum n bass are two entiurely different things, of course. Like Darling, I agree the best DNB is from the mid-90s, but people who make blanket dismissals of dubstep are almost always johnnies-come-lately unable to come to grips with the idea that an entire genre of music may have started, reached its peak,…

Jeez, I hope you're not right. I've only read Perdido Street Station and The Scar. I thought PSS was fantastic, but The Scar was just barely ok. I liked the characters  (which is more then can be said even for some of the book's fans), but the ending was kind of weak and the whole idea of Armada just seemed too…

Ah ba boop bop, eh gah go gah, ehhhhh gando gando!
Oh be bope dup deh deh doe dop, ohhhhh gando gah!

See also: AC/DC, Slayer, Ramones, Motörhead, James Brown

Here we go. This nails it:

The whole enchilada. That means no Filipinobodies, no Australiantics, no Taiwanna Rock, no Chinasty, no Bruneighbors, no Indonesiattitude, no Vietnamateurs, no Tongalactic, and for God's sake, no rappers named Peruthless!

The whole enchilada. That means no Filipinobodies, no Australiantics, no Taiwanna Rock, no Chinasty, no Bruneighbors, no Indonesiattitude, no Vietnamateurs, no Tongalactic, and for God's sake, no rappers named Peruthless!

The more I listen the more I like it. It's infectious as hell. I'd call it my album of the year, so far, without reservations, if doing so didn't make me feel a tiny bit embarrassed.  That's only because, having been born in January 1976, what I like to refer to as my "childhood proper" (ages 4-13) coincided almost…

Fair enough, but that says more about you than her, doesn't it?

Fair enough, but that says more about you than her, doesn't it?

I'm sorry, but this guy
http://img.thesun.co.uk/mul… 
looks like he should be running a kebab stand on a street corner in Damascus.

5000 years ago the centers of unchecked prosperity were in Egypt and the city states of Mesopotamia. Europeans were bone-through-the-nose savages at the time. After roughly a millennium of Greco-Roman dominance, the Arabs had the richest and most advanced culture for most of the Middle Ages. Northern Europeans didn't…

Well, there are European Jews who don't really look white (think Jeff Goldblum or Sacha Baron Cohen), and even fair-skinned Jews can have this "mouthy" look to them that can set them apart (before anybody goes nuts: I'm a "mouthy" looking guy with Sephardic Jewish ancestry), but I see your point.

As an American of Mexican, German, Basque, Bolivian, Italian, French, Moroccan, and Sephardic Jewish ancestry, I'm appalled by the fact that my demographic, that is, um, my brother and I, continue to be  ignored by the tv industry. Seriously, we could do some kind of minimalist two-character comedy. Like Samuel…

Yes, Danny Boyle made it to the top without having to compromise. That scene bookends nicely with the toilet diving scene in Trainspotting.

Kind of like Bill Murray eating the candy bar from the pool in Caddyshack.

I nearly hurled when that kid jumped in the pit full of shit in Slumdog Millionaire.

Great actor. Omar was so laid-back—dangerous as hell, but laid back—but ODB was a real spazz. It'll be interesting to see if he pulls it off.