Thanks for clarifying the thing about the end line--that was confusing. I still don't like the idea, though. It'll create a situation where the defender just tries to poke the ball away--I don't think that's enough of a defensive play to be rewarded with possession. As it stands, it's a live, loose ball, and if th defense can get to it first, it's theirs. That seems like quite enough of a reward.

One of the biggest tasks for Mullin and the Warriors is to find out whether the team's talent level is as high as it can look on paper--and as Mullin apparently thinks it is--or only as high as their record indicates. In other words, are they underachievers? They were not going to be able to answer that question with Montgomery, but Nelson should be able to find out. If he spends 2 or 3 years turning them into 50-game winners and then turns the team over to their Avery Johnson (Mario Elie?), that actually sounds like a plan.

The temptation is to reply to all these anti-iPod letters. (Hey, it's a great product. If you don't like it or want one, fine. I don't like mushrooms, so I don't order them.) But we'll leave that alone.

The real problem with the article is the overuse of "you." "You do this, you feel like this, you hate this about your iPod, you love this about it." Well no, not necessarily. It's lazy thinking and lazy writing to assume that everyone has the same experience. In fact, one of the great things about the iPod is that everyone can have their own experience of it.

With a daintily moistened forefinger, Anastacia tested the winds of popular culture and felt the breeze of hippie-bashing. Yes, she realized, snark sells--especially to the boho-hipster readers she hoped to build her career on! Her next article would make fun of people who tried to feed their kids as well as they could, given limited time and resources. In fact, she'd also make fun of them for having limited time and resources!

Okay, some readers whimper, but it's not a very good article. But writing a good article is just as easy as writing a snarky rant, isn't it? Let's take a look:

Good article:

1. Research subject. Maybe talk to a parent who serves it, or a nutritional expert who has something to say about the extra ingredients in Kraft's product.

2. Interview Annie or someone at Annie's company.

3. Do an honest comparison of cooking and cleanup time between making "real" mac 'n' cheese and making the boxed stuff.

4. Write a tight, focused, well-supported article.

Anastacia's article:

1. Wave away any concerns with a bunch of straw-man characterizations of parents and unsupported approval of the ingredients in Kraft mac 'n' cheese.

2. Make shit up about Annie and her motivations.

3. Compare the boxed cheese to some totally bogus "recipe" for the homemade stuff that would result in a gloppy mess no kid would eat.

4. Cover all with adjective after adverb after descriptor and hope nobody notices there's no substance underneath.

Hmm, maybe writing a good article isn't just as easy after all. Oh well.

...that homemade macaroni and cheese would be a gloppy mess. I said that the recipe the author cited, in which you just dump some grated cheese and milk onto hot cooked pasta, would be a gloppy mess. I've made homemade mac and cheese (Craig Claiborne's is my favorite recipe). I've also served me and my son Annie's as a side dish to oh, say, the chicken I was roasting. Now that he's old enough, I also let him make it himself for an after-school snack (though he currently prefers Safeway's O Organics Fettucine Alfredo).

...carrie, I try. I'm a better cook when there's another adult around than when I'm just cooking for me and the teenager, though.

I'm amused at the way the article and some of the letter writers accuse those of us who choose Annie's over Kraft of being smug about it, when most of the smugness I see is coming from those who either (1) tell us they'd never ever serve their kids anything from a box or (2) tell us we're idiots because one box is no better than another. Whereas the people who actually eat Annie's are all "Hey, we know it's not gourmet food and we know it's not the healthiest choice, but sometimes it does what we need."

I'd like to see a nutritional breakdown of the "good," homemade kind of macaroni and cheese, too. Is it really that much better for you than the boxed stuff?

Talk about spin! Heather writes that Marcel "slowly but surely enraged each and every one of his peers [ending with] his last remaining ally, Elia (who not only abandoned him but accused him of cheating in last week's episode)." Ah, but you leave out the fact that when pressed, she couldn't come up with any examples of his cheating!,/> I don't understand these attempts to prove that Marcel must be a bad guy because otherwise all these other jerks wouldn't be picking on him. Did Heather not go to high school?

Doesn't it seem contradictory to say "Apple's DRM is wholly ineffective at preventing copying" and then, two paragraphs later, say "That's $150 [spent on iTunes purchases] you kiss goodbye if you buy a sexy little Creative Labs Zen"? Either the DRM's effective and you're out your $150, or it's ineffective and you can easily get your songs on the Zen. This kind of logic is how you know Cory's "article" is really just a rant.