I know this is a lost cause, but why is there regular-season overtime in the NFL in the first place? Am I the only person left who believes that a tie is an honorable outcome after 60 minutes in which two teams prove themselves to be perfectly evenly matched? Instead, we prefer that one team will always get a cheap win, and the other will be charged with a loss, simply (in many cases) for losing a coin flip.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more coaches in Vermeil's situation play for the tie (i.e., the OT Lotto drawing) today, in both college and professional ball, than in the old days.

Nowadays, whenever a game goes into OT, I turn off the TV and pick up a book.

And don't get me started on shootouts! The only team sports amenable to regular-season overtime games are baseball and basketball.

"Old Overcoat? Perhaps you meant Old Overholt, Rye Whisky...."

-- Adam

Boy, if I weren't at work right now I'd be cracking open a bottle of 4-year-old Sweatstained Tanktop right now.

How embarrassing it is to make a lame joke about Salon's copy editors, and not realize that I've used the words "right now" twice in the same sentence. Pathetic. Mea maxima culpa.

I agree, too long. Refs should just use the acronym, IBIB. "Number 45 on the receiving team, ibib, half the distance, first down."

Whatever happened to Clipping, anyway? The word may not "describe what happens" literally, but it's short, everybody knows what it means (or knew, once), and strangely apt on a metaphoric level if you use your imagination. Two players come together from an oblique angle suddenly, like the blades of a pair of scissors. "Clip!" Rather poetic, wouldn't you say?

By whatever name, it's an annoying, energy-sapping penalty that always seems to occur miles away from the ballcarrier. Unless it's below the knee or above the shoulders it should almost never be called.

konky2000 calls the Mission District a "slum," which it has never been. Even if you exclude the rich folks in "Noe Valley" who like to pretend they are not part of the same neighborhood, the Mission has been a vibrant scene of economic and cultural diversity for decades. Contrary to its inflated self-opinion, the white upper class does not necessarily leave a cultural vacuum behind when it ceases to grace an area with its presence.

Still, konky does have a point. I wonder sometimes if those of us who complained about the soul-deadening life of the suburbs back in the Seventies and Eighties should have kept our mouths shut. Now that we've convinced the bourgeoisie of the superiority of urban life, they're all moving back, and they're bringing the suburbs with them. Even those few of us non-U residents who can still find low rents in the city are now surrounded by chain stores, rampant status consciousness, and "convenience." We might as well be in Burlingame.

As for that anonymously posted diatribe against Mr. O'Hehir's poet friends, I blame Richard Florida for confusing two types of creativity, artistic and scientific/technological (with which we can for now lump entrepreneurial, though perhaps a further distinction can be made). There is a huge difference between creating art and creating "things." Art is a much riskier enterprise than engineering. Fledgling poets and painters are rarely subsidized (as young engineers are by the corporations that employ them), and when they are, the results are often disappointing. By singling out O'Hehir's friends who never created anything worthwhile, Anonymous ignores the example of Mr. O'Hehir himself, who started out writing unread poetry and ended up producing the informative and entertaining criticism and journalism that most of us Salon subscribers look forward to each week. Engineers either get hired right out of college or they go into some other line of work, but it often takes years of waiting tables or working behind cash registers to discover whether the poetry, novels, or paintings that one produces are a valuable contribution to civilization, or an embarrassing self-indulgence. If it weren't for all that bad art out there, where would the good stuff come from?

Thanks for mentioning "Oliver Twist," which was overlooked by most critics and ticket-buyers, probably because of the assumption that the last thing we need is another Dickens film. Now if only somebody in Hollywood or London will take on "Our Mutual Friend."

Haven't seen Kong, but whenever a good director (and Jackson is very good) gives in to the temptation to remake his favorite movie, it is a sign that he is entering his senescence.

I've seen "Skeleton Key" on several top ten lists--I think it has something to do with the pre-Katrina New Orleans locations more than the virtues of the film itself.

Some of my favorites that were nowhere on Stephanie's list--

Downfall

Funny Ha Ha

The Ice Harvest

Proof

Saraband

As for her reviews, I don't expect all movie critics to be geniuses, but I do wish she would cut down on the ad-copy adjectives ("fascinating," "rousing," etc.) and not be so dismissive of movies that require the viewer to think. O'Hehir's the one who reviews most of the really good films, anyway.