GoGo Yubari

Vanney's almost certainly going to the Galaxy to try and rebuild them, it looks like. Anyway, on to the Western Conference finals! Dallas is tough, a thing I forgot is that nearly every time we've faced them it's been determined by a goal or less (the away goal tiebreaker year, for example). I hope we get Minnesota, both because it means we get home field and because I just like them.

Bruce Arena vs. Caleb Porter in the Eastern Conference finals, a true smug-off for the ages.

"Lover, You Should've Come Over" would have been a "we're picking the song that we think is better over the song that's more culturally relevant" pick for Jeff Buckley that I would have been 100% for. "Hallelujah" is a song that I just barely want to hear any rendition of anymore, even the ones I think are good (which is basically just Cohen, Cale, and Buckley).

Oh! I'm up to 1999 myself so I'm pretty sure I know which one it has to be. More on that in 2021 then, probably.

I like Unplugged but I do echo the sentiments about the mythmaking surrounding it being frustrating. In a lot of ways it felt like the band was using it as a roadmap for people who checked it out to listen to other stuff they might not have heard and I like it, sometimes I'm in the mood to hear those songs but quieter, but it's really just a neat acoustic set rather than something that really reflects the band. Also, I don't really like the Meat Puppets (I listened to the album that the songs they cover here are on for 1001 Albums last month and had a real bad time), so that's a problem. If th

Honestly, this book does a kind of bad job with the '90s. It's only going to get weirder too, I think. Anyway, "End of a Century" is the best of what I think are the big four from Parklife (that, "Girls and Boys," "To the End," title track). I was happy to see that get in, I think it plays to Blur's strengths the best.

Happy the Sounders won the 83rd and final Sounders/LAFC match of 2020. Dallas next in a rematch of one of the most stressful games I've ever attended in person.

Tim Melia now has a 58% success rate for stopping penalties after shutting out the Quakes today. Jeeeeeez. also the Timbers are out. A good day.

This thread has a good breakdown of what exactly happened during that shootout. Truly crazy stuff, even for MLS:

And that's that. Congratulations to the best expansion team of 2020.

Yeah, Nashville isn't a compelling team but Gary Smith's won an MLS Cup this way before (admittedly in an era of MLS where there was way less talent on the field) and, uh, it definitely doesn't look like Miami's gonna be the team to stop him tonight.

Inter Miami will be without the Higuain brothers and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez for COVID reasons. also holy shit, what an insane stretch of stoppage time in this Revs/Impact game that's ended with a great goal for the Revs in the last thirty seconds to put them through.

Yeah. While sometimes the book's decision to go with a less recognizable song by an artist rather than their biggest one doesn't quite work for me, "Into Dust" over "Fade Into You" (another great song) is a wonderful call. I definitely had "Fade Into You" in my music library for a long time and I don't even know when the first time I heard "Into Dust" was (it would have been either turning up on shuffle after I bought the album or on an internet radio station) but it blew me away and is a playlist favorite of mine now. It's an interesting one in that I think Beck has a lot of better so

Oh, yeah, to be specific; I'd rather see it in theaters at a period of time where it's plausibly safe to do so, which is absolutely not the case for a blockbuster film in America in the near-future.

Wonder Woman 1984 will be released on HBO Max on Christmas Day in the US on top of whatever movie theaters are still operating in whatever pockets of the country are still allowing that. I would much sooner see it in theaters, but I think my window for seeing a movie in theaters again this year slammed shut today after they'd been reopened for all of like a month. I'll try to make a fun movie night of it regardless.