i was pretending that i was in a galaxie 500 video

I discovered a tasty mixture of soft drink the other day at work. I've got every one there hooked. Try this the next time you're somewhere that has a self-serve soda fountain:

9 parts Pink Lemonade
1 part Pibb

I swear to you, this tastes EXACTLY like a blue SweetTart.

By the way, from this point forward, the little picture of the album cover at the end of my posts will no longer link to the amazon.com page bearing its description. Instead it will link directly to a listening station for that album, provided that those samples are available.

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Hooverphonic A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular

the redhead said you shred the cello

I read some local news this morning that makes me furious. A 27-year old Forsyth County woman threw her newborn baby in the trash . Autopsies indicated that the baby was a full term, LIVE birth. This finding is critical in the interest of the State's ability to prosecute her. And I hope she is prosecuted to the fullest extent. I generally don't support capital punishment, but this kind of person doesn't deserve to live, in my opinion. She definitely doesn't deserve to have custody of her other child, who is now in the custody of DSS.
For the record, North Carolina has a Safe Surrender Law, which allows an overwhelmed mother to surrender her newborn to any responsible adult, without fear of being prosecuted for abandonment or endangerment. She can just walk away. The onus is then on that responsible adult to notify Social Services or Police, who will ensure that the baby is put up for adoption. The Surrender is completely legal, completely anonymous, and without strings. It's a reasonable alternative to shit like this. My limited research on this suggests that there are 41 other states with similar laws, but most of them require the mother to take the newborn to a hospital. The North Carolina law is very clear in that the mother can take it to any adult, provided that the baby hasn't already been harmed.
Sadly, this is neither the first time this has ever happened, nor will it be the last. I just can't make any sense of it.

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Elvis Costello My Aim is True

so there's two muffins in the oven, and one of them says...

I'm kinda creeped out by this Friendster thing. I joined the other day at the pleading of my friend Amanda. As soon as I got signed up, there was a friend request from about a year ago when someone invited me to be their friend. I guess it holds the request indefinitely if you are a non-member.
Right now I only have three people in my "friends" list, but it's downright creepy how far that gets. I was typing in the names of people I haven't seen in 10, 15 years, and they would come up as only three or four degrees separated from me. Even some folks who have lived far away or even overseas somehow are not that far removed from my very small network. Maybe it's not so strange, but to me it is. The way the connections work.

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Hayden Skyscraper National Park

more about wilco

I was thinking some more about that Wilco show last night. There were some pretty weird things going on, as there were all day long, which I am about to share with you.

Before I left town, I did my usual routine of checking my email, reading the news I care about, and checking in on my friends' blogs. On the blog of an ex-girlfriend who now lives in DC, she had posted some pictures of some friends of hers who live in Richmond. As soon as I saw the first picture, I instantly recognized a guy who used to live directly upstairs from me. Apparently she had just met Matt, or didn't know that we knew one another. Strange.
So I was standing in the beer line at Wilco, and I hear my name being said. Not yelled. Standing directly beside me is the girl who used to live right beside me in the other downstairs apartment. I haven't seen either of these people in many months, and I saw them both in the same day, both in out of town places.

Anyway, about the show.

There were little films projected behind the band all night long. Most of them were vaguely sexual in nature. Not porn, you sick bastards! There was one of birds mating, one of bees mating, another of some pollination process, and some others that were vaguely sexual. During "I am Trying to Break Your Heart", there was a film that I recognized. I hate to bring this up again, because it makes me sound a bit pompous, but I recognized it from when I attended the 2002 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. (How many times do you think I'll mention that?). Yo La Tengo was there performing their The Sounds of the Sounds of Science album, which is a group of songs written for the express purpose of accompanying the underwater films of Frenchman Jean Painleve, who was sort of a pioneer of science films, and more so of underwater films. There were 8 films in this series, each about 10 minutes in length. The one in question, for the record was "The Love Life of the Octopus".

When Wilco played "Kingpin" , they sort of Zeppelin-ed it up, sounding an awful lot like "When the Levee Breaks".

There's no need to discuss the fact that the Wilco song "I'm a Wheel" sounds a lot like it should be a Pavement song.

Finally, the last comparison, one that I'm quite surprised that I was able to make on the fly. They were playing some silly song I didn't recognize. A song about how everyone hates the US, so we should bomb them anyway. I turned to my friends and asked, "Is this a Randy Newman song?", to which they both shrugged, indicating they had no idea what I was talking about. When I got home, I looked it up, and indeed it was a cover of "Political Science" by Randy Newman.

The drive home is 90 minutes from where the show was. After we got off the interstate, heading back to my house, we were stopped at a red light. I looked over to the car beside us, and there was my friend and neighbor from the beer line.

That's about all I have for now.

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Badly Drawn Boy Have You Fed the Fish?

wilco and stuff

So I just got back from seeing Wilco. Every other time they've played near here, I've farted around too much and missed my chance. This time, however, I got my tickets way early and made sure I wouldn't miss it.
Early on, there was a really weird vibe. It didn't feel like we were having fun, and Jeff Tweedy certainly wasn't. The first time he spoke to the audience was when he took the chance to single out one guy and rip him a new asshole. They were doing a cover of a Woody Guthrie song,a quiet song that evidently means a lot to Tweedy. All throughout the song, some guy near the front (this was a sitting-down show) kept screaming out "Dude, play "She's a Jar". Between songs, Tweedy told him he needed to respect the music and "shut the fuck up, pay attention and you might learn something someday". After that it was a little strange, but somehow the show took a turn for the better after that. It was a blast. Incidentally, "She's a Jar" actually was on the set list, but they refused to play it. "On principle". Even though the sound quality was a little spotty, and the crowd was not a real good one, the show was pretty damn good. I didn't get to hear "Heavy Metal Drummer" or "Passenger Side", but I was really happy to see "Outtasight (out of mind)"



I'm pretty exhausted, so that's about all I can post for now.

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now she's a little boy in spain playing pianos filled with flames

Try something out. Just for funsies.
The last two movies I've watched made reference to Sisyphus, who in Greek mythology was sentenced by Hades to roll an enormous boulder up a mountain, only to watch it roll back down. Then do it all over. For eternity. This is something that, quite frankly, I haven't heard anyone ever make reference to. I'm sure I learned about it in junior high school or something, but nobody ever says "that just seems like a Sisyphean task" or "that guy, he's like a modern day Sisyphus". So it seemed really odd that two movies in a row would contain this reference.
Now that I've put Sisyphus fresh in your mind, see if anyone else makes reference to it over the next few days. Maybe I never noticed people making that reference, and maybe it was just a bizarre coincidence of obscure references.

backscratchers of the world, unite and take over

Please take the time to visit The Life of a Southern Girl , a blog I found by mistake. I've been back on purpose.

shady lane, everybody wants one

Last night, I watched my latest Netflix movie, a documentary called Cinemania. I liked it a lot, and it really made me realize that I know nothing about film. Nothing.
These people carefully plan out their daily schedules in order to maximize film screenings all over New York City. They each attend about 1000 movies a year. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) they tend to avoid megaplexes and all first run theatres. Only museums and art film houses. I found their quirks to be kind of endearing, even if they are extremely neurotic. Their knowledge and the way they talk about films makes me embarrassed to have considered myself somewhat knowledgeable about films. I think it's worth a rental, if for nothing else, to show you a slice of a lifestyle that is beyond obsession. One of the subjects compared their obsession to being incarcerated. Hmm.

I couldn't help but see a comparison between these subjects and those in Stefan Fatsis' book Word Freak. These film buffs, and the elite of the elite competitive Scrabble players both become so deeply entrenched in their passion that they don't have much of a use for anything else. Many of the elite Scrabble tournament players, and seemingly all of these film buffs, are unemployed because they don't have time for a job. Of course the competitive Scrabble players win money at tournaments. Actually some of them win enough to be able to be unemployed. But I just don't understand how these film buffs pay their rent and buy food. The other comparison that's easy to make is that these film buffs and the top Scrabble players have little or no social graces. They're extremely intelligent (both groups), but they have a hard time associating with folks who don't share their passion.

Incidentally, you can also watch a documentary about competitive Scrabble, called "Word Wars". It will be released on either March 1 or April 12, depending on which report is correct. I missed my chance to see it at last year's Full Frame Documentary Film Festival because I boycotted the event, but I've got it coming on Netflix.

blah blah blah

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The Wedding Present Take Fountain

one last gripe

I hope this is the last time I bitch about this.

I'm sort of a sentimental guy. Although it's a painful thing to go through, I like the "this is our last goodbye" stuff. However, this NHL lockout and cancellation of this season has unceremoniously brought about the retirement of some of the best players who ever laced them up. In all likelihood, fans across North America won't get to see SuperMario Lemieux, Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, Ron Francis, or Brett Hull play their last games against (or for) our home team, because we already have. Even if you're not a hockey fan, you're certainly familiar with most of these names. These guys are each in the top ten all-time in goals, assists, and points. Okay, Francis doesn't have the goals to make the top ten, and Hull doesn't have the assists or total points. But I'm talking ALL-TIME. These five guys are in the top ten in the history of the NHL in these offensive categories. They're all also into their forties, and can still make the young phenoms look silly. Francis and Messier were already on the fence anyway, so consider them done. Lemieux, Hull and Yzerman are each rumored to have said the lockout and cancellation would be enough to make them retire.

The point is, I'm just sad that we couldn't send these players off in style. Remember Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's final season in the NBA? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

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Bjork Family Tree

...and I thought at 15 that I'd have it down by 16

Wednesday will be the day.

Barring a "miracle off the ice", NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will make an announcement sometime around 2 pm on Wednesday that the NHL season is officially cancelled. There have been some pretty impressive eleventh hour compromises made by both sides, but they're still a couple million dollars off on the salary cap. Frankly, it was a huge concession by the NHLPA to agree to a cap of any kind. The league is sitting on $42.5 mil while the NHLPA is sitting on $49 mil. Really, 6.5 million is not that much when you're talking about that kind of money, so there's still a faint glimmer of hope that they can agree to something like $45.25 mil. That's the players budging a little more than the league. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. Remember, though.... you read it here first. $45.25 mil.

I know most of you readers haven't even noticed, and many more of you don't care, but this has been a big heart breaker for me. That's the main reason that I keep talking about it.

On to other things..... a big topic shift.

There's this woman who I may have a crush on (henceforth referred to as "crushy"). I don't see her all that often, but whenever I see her, we have good conversations and I sort of think that it would be fun to date her. However, she doesn't have a very good filter between the thoughts in her head and the words out of her mouth. Sometimes she'll say something kind of idiotic that I'll think is cute, but I don't know if this thing tonight fits into that category. As best as I can remember it, here is that conversation:

random person: I wanna get a bunch of people together for rollerskating.
Me: I don't think I've been rollerskating since..... well, since freakin Ronald Reagan was in the White House.
crushy: what grade were you in?
me: I don't know... third, fourth?
crushy: I was in sixth grade when Reagan was elected.
me: 1980.
crushy: are you sure?
me: yeah. The elections in our lifetime went to Nixon in '72, Carter in '76, Reagan in '80 and '84, Bush Sr. in '88, Cli..
crushy: how do you do that?
me: do what?
crushy: I'm not good at math.
me: Math?!? That's not math. That's history. And besides, I was a Political Science major. I hope I still remember something.
crushy: yeah, but all the subtracting and stuff. I have to remember it by what grade I was in.
me: Yeah, but it's not math.
crushy: for me it is.

I don't suppose I have a point. At the time, I thought it would be funny to write about this, but it doesn't seem so funny now. Oh well. I guess just the announcement that I may have a crush. I also have a huge crush on Parker Posey, but she's never going to go out with me. At least "crushy" lives in my town and we know one another.

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Red House Painters Songs for a Blue Guitar

people just don't know good TV when they see it

There's a small handful of TV shows that I really like to watch. One of them is Fox's Arrested Development. Granted, I only recently got into watching it, but I really enjoy it. It was with despair that I recently read about how Fox was going to shorten the show's run and supplant it with some new animated series during March sweeps. This led to some suspicion and internet rumor that the show was going to be cancelled. Thankfully, I read an article stating that it isn't being cancelled or anything like that. However, they are getting poor ratings, so I don't see a long life for it on Fox's popular Sunday night lineup. It's damn unfortunate. I'd hate to see it go the way of Freaks and Geeks which was the best show that nobody watched. Although it (like Arrested Development) was an Emmy-winning show, it wasn't getting any ratings. It only lasted one season. NBC didn't have the courage to stick with it the way they stuck with Cheers when it was getting poor ratings early on. By the way, the DVD set for Freaks and Geeks is well worth the price. I love mine.

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Stereolab Emperor Tomato Ketchup

death of a playwright

We, here at red and black is the new black and red wish to observe a moment of silence for Arthur Miller.



Thank you for your kind attention. This moment has been duly noted on your timecards and will be deducted from your pay. That is all.

please tell me that i'm not a sicko

I'm hoping that I'm not a freakazoid.

You, dear and loyal readers, are very normal, well adjusted human beings. Right?

Don't ask me how this came up, but at work the other day the subject of eye licking came up.

Me: "Yeah, that thing over there kinda reminds me of, ... have you ever licked someone's eyeball?"

Sarah: "Oh hell yeah"

Me: "It's not quite what you expected was it? But still kinda fun, right?"

Sarah: "Exactly!"

Somebody overheard that exchange and thought it was the grossest thing ever. I then realized that I was talking to probably one of the most perverted people I've ever come into contact with, so I asked some other folks. I got a really mixed response. Folks had either done it, or thought it was a horrifying thing. It was almost as if I had asked them "have you ever made out with a corpse?"

Anyway, help me out here. What do you all think? There's a little poll over there to the left.


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Monster Movie To the Moon

frustrating

Over the past couple of years, I've sort of lost my enthusiasm for college basketball. I used to watch every second of every UNC game, and get really worked up about it, but I'm not doing that so much anymore. Last night, however, I watched every second of the Duke-Carolina game, and I got really worked up about it.
Once again, North Carolina lost the game by giving the ball away too many times, and by playing very poorly on free-throw defense. North Carolina committed 23 turnovers compared to only 10 assists. Their season average is 17 turnovers and 20 assists. To give Duke its proper credit, they played amazingly on defense. JJ Redick and freshman DeMarcus Nelson did a really superb job of keeping the 'Heels off their game. You sort of expect that kind of play from Redick, but this kid Nelson was absolutely awe inspiring.
Again, though, the Heels allowed their opponent to be nearly perfect from the charity stripe. Wake Forest was perfect in their defeat of Carolina, and Duke went 21-22. There were guys up there who hadn't connected on a free throw since their sophomore year of high school, and they were hitting them with ease. I've said it before (and of course I was joking) but they really need to do something to prevent this kind of thing. Duke shoots 72.4% from the line for the year, and yet we allowed them to go 95.5%. WFU shoots 69.2%, and we allowed them to go 100%.

All of that aside, what it comes down to is that North Carolina had 18 seconds, the ball, and a chance to win the game. However, they failed to even get off a shot. Felton hesitated too much, as he really could have penetrated the lane, but chose instead to give the ball to May. Bad, bad choice. You're the damn point guard, Ray. You need to handle the ball in a situation like that. Penetrate, draw a foul, take a shot. Something ... Anything. Raymond had a terrible night, and that really has a lot to do with the fact that Duke was playing such terrific defense.

On the plus side, there was Sean May, playing like a freak of nature, coming down with 18 rebounds, 10 of them in the first 12 minutes of the game.

Okay... here comes my criticism of Duke. The kids who go there are supposed to be really intelligent, and the basketball fans there are allegedly really clever in their harassment of visiting teams. I saw one of these geniuses wearing a shirt that says "CAMERON CRAZIE". Hey moron, the singular of "crazies" is "crazy". Try again. Our tv coverage showed a group of these morons with hand-made "Santa Clara" t-shirts. Handmade by Helen Keller with a Sharpie. That really isn't very clever in the first place, and the fact that they were so sloppy sort of takes away from the creativity of it. Spend some of your daddy's money and have some shirts made by a professional, instead of by your frat pledges. This is the game. You should plan this out in advance.
A good example of restaurant quality harassment of rivals is the Ohio State-Michigan football game. Buckeye fans take the time to have shirts screen printed which read "ANN ARBOR IS A WHORE".

That's all I have

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obsession (version 24.2)

Dammit. I just found another thing that I'm obsessively addicted to: The Sundance Channel . I do this from time to time. I'll forget that I have it, or I'll just get out of the habit of watching TV at all. Then I'll watch one or two things, and it just snowballs from there.

Today I watched this documentary short about California surfers and how territorial they are. They like to protect their beaches, only allowing locals to surf there. Sometimes they go to violent extremes.

I put Sundance on my tv listings on my homepage, and I noticed that there's some really good stuff coming on over the next couple of days. Namely, some movies that I've been screaming about and one that doug mentioned over at his blog. If you've read this blog recently, you've heard me rant about Pieces of April. It'll be airing all this month on the Sundance Channel, including this Wednesday night (opposite the Duke-Carolina game). Click the link to see showtimes. You may have read Doug's blog and seen his posts about The Battle of Algiers, which will also be showing this month.

What I'm even more excited about, and what you should all fire up your DVRs for is that they'll be showing The Last Just Man , which I saw in its theatrical debut at the 2002 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival , where it won the Audience Choice Award. I strongly urge you to DVR this film, or stay up late or skip work, or whatever it takes to watch it. You are not a good person if you don't watch this. Seriously, watch this film. It might alter your fond memories of a certain former President of the United States, and it might make you question your support of a neo-isolationist foreign policy but you shouldn't let that stop you from watching it. It's quite good.

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a blast from the not too distant past (plus another silly super bowl statistic)

Yeah, so after reading Doug and Hans rant and rave about The Dandy Warhols, and more specifically, their new record, I decided to dust off my copy of The Dandy Warhols Come Down . Honestly, it's probably been at least four years since I've listened to this. I forgot how good it is. Sure, there are some tracks that I don't care for, but the songs "Boys Better" and "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth" make it so much worth while. Actually, in a really weird sort of way, they make me think about the Stone Roses.

I was checking it out, and in Super Bowl history, there have been 26 matchups of human v animal. That is, one team's logo/mascot/nickname is an animal while the other's is a human. More bad news for Eagles fans, because the humans are 19-7 in these matchups. Please, though, take this for what it is. It's just a silly statistic. I'm sure you could come up with some statistic about the age of the starting left tackles, or the number of siblings had by the starting punters that would favor the Eagles.

That's the last thing I'll say about the Super Bowl.

Now playing:
The Dandy Warhols ...The Dandy Warhols Come Down

more movie stuff

Last night, I finally got around to watching Knife in the Water, which I've had from Netflix for about a week now. It was really good. Simple and good. Strange though. For a number of reasons. It's a lot like Rashomon in that when it's all over, you ask "So what does it mean?", but the only answer is the one that you choose.
There's only three characters, (husband, wife, hitch-hiker)and there's some funny stuff going on with how they manipulated that. The wife is played by a non-actress who apparently had to be coached how to do every little thing, from how to pick up a cup to how to move her hair. They found her at a swimming pool and gave her the job. I guess they didn't like her voice because they dubbed another woman's voice for her. Roman Polanski wanted to play the role of the young hitch-hiker, but the producers wouldn't let him. They did, however, have Polanski dub over the voice. So out of the three characters, only one actor speaks with his own voice.

The cinematography and editing are fantastic. The bulk of the film takes place on a sailboat out on the water. So many things could go wrong to make it a nightmare to film. Changes in wind direction and cloud cover from take to take could cause so many continuity problems, but I didn't notice any on first viewing. One thing that leaves a bit to be desired was the subtitling. There wasn't a ton of dialog, and there didn't need to be, but early in the film there was a significant section of dialog that wasn't subtitled.

Anyway, it's a really nice and really simple film. Well worth a rental.

I'm on a big foreign film kick. Up next is The Bicycle Thief. I'm too much of a dunce to figure out how to post my Netflix queue to this blog, so I'll just write about them as I see them.

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too bad i missed it

I haven't posted anything in a while. Mainly, I've been too busy watching NCAA division III basketball on ESPN. By now, you've all seen the improbable 90 foot shot made by Jordan Snipes of my alma mater, Guilford College. It seems like it's all ESPN can talk about. Then last night, ESPN2 was airing a division III game between Grinnell (Iowa) and Beloit (Wisconsin). I watched a bit of that, as I was curious to see how in the world Grinnell is able to average 125 points a game. They couldn't do it last night , as they lost 86-85. It was their lowest scoring game all year.
One interesting thing about Grinnell is that they had to play their first 15 games on the road while their new state of the art arena was being built. A division III school with a state of the art arena?? I don't know if any of you saw the game or heard about what their scheme is, but basically, they substitute en masse every 45-60 seconds, attempt 100 or more shots per game, try to force 30+ turnovers, try to out shoot their opponent by 30 shots, shoot within 12 seconds, plus some other goals that are just absurd. This frenetic pace usually wears out the opponent and they can score at will late in the game. Last night, though, ESPN messed them up. Their plan sort of depends upon wearing the opponent out, but since the game was televised (which NEVER happens in division III), there are like 8 additional time-outs over the course of the game. They were unable to wear Benoit out.

I've also been watching a lot of TV in general. Late last night, I happened to see Ken Burns being interviewed on the stupid Carson Daly show. He was, of course plugging his latest doc, Unforgivable Blackness about the boxing career of Jack Johnson a the turn of the last century. I had the misfortune of missing it when it aired, and it doesn't look like it'll air again anytime soon. Looks like he had more bravado and charisma than Muhammad Ali, and 60 years ahead of him! I'll have to wait until it comes out on DVD.

Time for work.

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jinx/no jinx, part II (it gets even worse)

Okay, my research was a bit sloppy. Turns out there were Super Bowl preview issues for all but two of Super Bowls I-XV. For these 15, SI chose to feature one team over the other 13 times, picking the right team eight times. The first 15 "preview" covers are seen below. Worth mentioning is that in 1970, they featured the Vikings BEFORE they actually won the NFC title and then in 1972 did the same with Miami before they had won the AFC. Again, you can mouse-over the thumb to see how things turned out.

jinx? what jinx?

I've got bad news for Eagles fans who see Tom Brady on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week and think "Hell yeah... They're jinxed!" I did a little research, and I found out that the Super Bowl preview issue doesn't really have that much of a bad history. In fact, there have been 19 preview issues featuring one team or the other, and ten times, that team has gone on to win. Nine times they went on to lose. That's a "success rate" of 52.6%. Doesn't sound like a jinx to me.

Up until 1982, (Super Bowl 16) there was no preview issue. In that year's preview, they featured Joe Montana. Giants won 26-21. In 1983, the Redskins graced the cover, then won the big game 27-17. 1984 featured Joe Theismann, whose team went on to get crushed by the Raiders 38-9. 1985 featured a split cover. '86 featured the Bears D, who helped their team win 46-10. LT graced the 1987 cover, then his Giants beat the Broncos 39-20. The following year, John Elway was on the cover, but the Broncos were losers again to the Redskins 42-10. 1989, the Bengals' Ickey Woods was on the cover, but the Bengals fell to the Niners 20-16. The next year, SI got it wrong for the third straight year as they featured Elway again. Broncos were crushed by the Niners 55-10.

In 1991, SI got back on track as they featured Otis Anderson and the Giants, who beat the Bills 20-19. The following year, they chose the Bills, who fell to the Skins 37-24. In 1993, the cover proudly proclaimed that SI's Dr. Z predicted the Bills to win. They didn't. In 1994, SI resisted the urge to feature the Bills again. Emmitt Smith and the Cowboys were featured, then went on to give the Bills their fourth straight loss 30-13. Steve Young, whose 49'ers went on to beat the Bolts 49-26 was on the cover in 1995. Then in 1996, Emmitt Smith graced his second Super Bowl preview issue, and again his Cowboys won, beating the Steelers 27-17. The next year, Favre and Holmgren were on the cover before they beat the Pats 35-21. SI ended their streak as their cover featured the eventual loser in 1998. Antonio Freeman and the Packers weren't good enough as the Broncos won 31-24. The next year, SI was right as they featured the Broncos' Shannon Sharpe. They went on to win over the Falcons 34-19. In the year 2000, SI's cover featured Jevon Kearse, whose Titans were just inches short as they fell to the Rams 23-16.

The cover of the 2001 preview issue was split by the Ravens and Giants. The Ravens got away with murder against the Giants 34-7. In 2002, SI ran a story about the "SI Jinx", and had no team on the cover. Pats won anyway. In 2003, for the third year in a row, neither team was featured. After a split cover, the Bucs went on to beat the Raiders in the "Pirate Bowl" 48-21. In 2004, the Panthers clawed their way into the Super Bowl, and the cover of the preview issue, but they lost to the Pats 32-29.

This week's issue features Tom Brady. There's a lot of talk about a jinx, but look for yourself, and you'll see that there really isn't any data to prove that. Below, you'll see thumbs of the Super Bowl preview issue covers for every one since XVI. Mouse-over the thumbs for details.