Helena showed why she is THE one to have around when negotiating.

Some points from a mythology nerd: Cepheus is a king, the father of Andromeda. Andromeda was to b sacrificed to the Kraken (actually, Cetus or Ketus) but was saved by Perseus.

This. I teach an MA class. Women can generally outlast men. That is, a man will be stronger initially, but a lot of women seem to be able to go more rounds.

thanks, I see LOTR and The Hobbit on rotation at HBO lately…

I think you're also seeing though, the difference between the hair metal stuff that Nirvana (and a lot of other bands) killed off and the "real" metal-oriented stuff that stayed around. Metallica was never a chart-topper or even a heavy-airplay band for commercially oriented AOR stations in the same way the…

ask and you shall receive:

Dumb question: which is the version they show on cable channels? (I don't recall seeing any of the movies in the theater, though I might have and just don't remember…)

You remember Motley Crue, Warrant, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Guns N Roses (which initially fell into that category, if loosely) Whitesnake (whose front man went on TV and basically admitted that when he saw Nirvana he knew it was time to hang it up), Poison, Bon Jovi — all those and many others were hitting the Hot 100 in…

Yeah I remember that the CDs looked the same. And the tapes inside were the same (some were clear plastic, some the generic white or beige or whatever). The generic cassette packaging disappeared by the early 90s IIRC. Here's an example

Maybe that was why they did the generic packaging? It reminded me of "no name" brands of food. "Peanut Butter" or "Puffed Rice" in green and white labels with that army-stencil black lettering.

I remember the cassette tapes — I got a Columbia House contract in the 80s, rather before this crew started working there. One thing I noticed — and I am trying to see if they address this in the piece, but it doesn't look it — is that you could always tell the Columbia House tapes because they had this uniform look —…

I partly agree on the self-sabotage, though I suspect that had more
to do with the way record labels were then organized; after all U2 made
some pretty radical (I use the term loosely, they don't look so radical in retrospect) sonic changes around then and nobody blinked.

Yes and I think that's a pretty large omission, frankly. Christ, I graduated around the time (or maybe a year or two after) Public Enemy and NWA started to hit it big. That was in 1991. By 1995 hip hop had a powerful influence already, though a lot of white people wouldn't have acknowledged it then or recognized it,…

There is an argument that music was more diverse in the 1990s, and now it's supported by science:

Not huge into Korean MA movies, but that's a neat bit of trivia. And you made me want to Netflix those…

I just watched the first three eps and I was stoked when Bae put her fist through that desk. I was like "whoa! Do NOT fuck with this woman."

Funny to see the comments below. I moved to NYC in 1995. I was four years out of undergrad and things were sort of looking up; I had a neat job at the first bilingual NYC daily paper. I should have realized that was on its way out…

It isn't just that. In more northerly climates you tack on some leeway for snow days. @avclub-b20754d0f1e8ae843e00a8b39a667112:disqus - where I went the official last day was like the 18th of June or so, but it could get longer if we missed any days because of snow.

Yes the loss of the horns (?) and strings makes a gigantic difference.

I would agree "Long and Winding Road." should be on this list. I haven't heard the stripped down "Naked" version, but the whole thing is too lush for my taste, it reminds me more of 70s Easy Listening Muzak orchestras than the Beatles for my taste.