Poll dancing, week 10: No Legos for me, and no soup for you.

So Sunday Holly and I went up to the Lego store in Lawrenceville, where I was going to pull the trigger -- after probably three years of pining, I was going to sack up and plunk down an obscene sum of money for the Lego Taj Mahal. We get to the counter, dude swipes my card, and . . . rejected. The problem: Wachovia switched over to Wells Fargo this past weekend, and they haven't sent me my new card yet. (Nice of them to cancel my old card on me before I was all squared away, though.)

Not everybody can know what that feels like -- you totally think something awesome is right on the verge of happening, but then it totally doesn't -- but I bet Utah, Alabama, and Oklahoma all do. I feel for you guys. But I'm going to make fun of you anyway.

Games watched: South Florida-Rutgers, Georgia-Idaho State, parts of LSU-Alabama, Arkansas-South Carolina.

Hey Jenny Slater Ballot - Week 11

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oregon Ducks	--
2	Auburn Tigers	--
3	TCU Horned Frogs	--
4	Boise St. Broncos	--
5	Stanford Cardinal	4
6	LSU Tigers	9
7	Nebraska Cornhuskers	-1
8	Wisconsin Badgers	--
9	Ohio St. Buckeyes	2
10	Alabama Crimson Tide	-5
11	Arkansas Razorbacks	3
12	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	7
13	Michigan St. Spartans	3
14	Arizona Wildcats	-7
15	Nevada Wolf Pack	5
16	Iowa Hawkeyes	-4
17	Florida Gators	6
18	Utah Utes	-8
19	Virginia Tech Hokies	2
20	Mississippi St. Bulldogs	2
21	Kansas St. Wildcats	--
22	Texas A&M Aggies	--
23	Missouri Tigers	-5
24	South Carolina Gamecocks	-7
25	Oklahoma Sooners	-12
Dropouts: N.C. State Wolfpack, Florida St. Seminoles

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Top 25 Rankings »

The next five: USC, North Carolina, Baylor, Florida State, Miami.

· Getting big bumps in the top 10: LSU, of course, for being only the fourth team in the last three seasons to vanquish the Nicktator, and Stanford for pasting a very good Arkansas team. Lemme pause to give Stanford a major plug here -- their sole loss is to an Oregon team everyone pretty much agrees is unstoppable (and in spite of losing 52-31, they still kept the Ducks slightly below their season scoring average). Otherwise, only one team has finished within single digits of the Cardinal on the scoreboard. If that's not a worthy Rose Bowl team, then I don't think there is one this year.

· Other big risers: Oklahoma State, first of all, for dismantling a Baylor team that had risen up to the ranks of the pretty darn good; Nevada, for coming within a few broken tackles of putting up a half-mile's worth of offense on Saturday; and Florida, who seems to have figured out their offense, or at least substantial parts of it, over the last few weeks. Yes, they're above Mississippi State (both here and on my SEC Power Poll ballot, of course), because I don't think they're the same team that mustered all of seven points against the Bulldogs in the Swamp a few weeks back.



· I always hesitate to drop a team by as much as I dropped Oklahoma this week, but they've lost two of their last three, with the win being a perfunctory ass-kicking of a Colorado team I think we can all agree is hopeless. Saturday's loss, on the other hand, was to a Texas A&M team that they've beaten by a total margin of 173-52 over the last three years, and their so-called "signature win" against FSU ain't lookin' so impressive these days, either. I expect they'll eventually climb out of fourth place in the Big 12 South, but that's not the kind of sentence you should be writing about a top-25 team.

· Utah and Arizona also take it in the shorts for losing by bigger margins even than their biggest detractors would've predicted this past week. Probably should've dinged Mizzou more for losing to a mediocre Texas Tech team, but they still have to be above Oklahoma, for obvious reasons.

· Yeah, Iowa drops four slots for having to work entirely too hard to beat Indiana. Starting to think the previous week's shellacking of Michigan State had more to do with State being spent after a hard-fought comeback win than Iowa being particularly elite this year.



· A pair of ACC sub-entities get flushed from the system, replaced by a pair of middling Big 12 squads who won actual games of consequence. As a league, though, the ACC is still doing way better than the Big East, none of whose teams even sniffed "throwing you in there for reference while I'm putting together the ballot" status.

And the SEC Power Poll Ballot:

1. Auburn -- Boy, Nick Saban's total dominance in the state of Alabama sure doesn't look like it's gonna last nearly as long as we all thought, does it?

2. LSU -- There comes a point when the line between insanity and shrewd genius becomes so blurred as to be irrelevant, and I think Les Miles crossed it against Alabama. Actually, he probably crossed it weeks ago, but whatever the case, 8-1 is 8-1, and anybody who's pooh-poohing the Tigers' cred for an at-large BCS berth is just doing so to be bitchy at this point.

3. Alabama -- Remember when we all thought the Heisman voters' biggest dilemma would be which member of the Bama backfield they'd give the trophy to? What the hell happened to that?

4. Arkansas -- If they're pissed to be basically out of the SEC West race, they're doing an awfully good job of making sure nobody else gets to enjoy themselves, either.



5. Florida -- Well, I hope everybody had a lot of fun picturing South Carolina in the SEC title game, because it doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of point to that after Saturday.

6. Mississippi State -- Still very much in the running for a 10-win season, which even the staunchest members of the "Dan Mullen is really gonna get this thing turned around in a hurry" fan club couldn't have predicted.

7. South Carolina -- Saturday night they looked like a team that could just as easily go 0-3 over the final weeks of the season as 4-0, and that's why they're down in the bottom half of my ballot.

8. Georgia -- I'd estimate they spent about 20 minutes of last week's game thinking about Idaho State and the other 40 thinking about Auburn.

9. Ole Miss -- Another team that could just as easily go undefeated as winless over their final three games, though that's more a product of Houston Nutt's weirdness than anything else.



10. Kentucky -- As powerful as we all believe the SEC to be, does a team that finishes 2-6 in the conference really deserve to go to a bowl game? 'Cause I wouldn't be surprised if that describes the Wildcats at the end of the season.

11. Tennessee -- The whole "2-6 start with a 4-0 finish" sounded perfectly plausible in the preseason, and even that started looking pretty shaky a few weeks ago -- but now the needle seems to be headed back toward "plausible" again.

12. Vanderbilt -- You want a stat line that screams "run the triple option already"? 35-of-95, 323 yards, two touchdowns, four picks. That's Vandy's QB stats over the past month.

Manic-Depressive Preview: Climbing down into the crevasse.

It should not come as a surprise to any of you that the median mood of our manic-depressive football previewers has shifted somewhat closer to the "depressive" end of the spectrum since Georgia got humiliated in Starkville last Saturday night. However, Manic managed to coax Depressive off of a ledge with a bag of those Almond Joy pieces and a new Lego set, so the duo has survived intact to bring you their thoughts on Georgia-Colorado. (Be gentle, obviously, with Depressive Doug. It's been touch-and-go.)

Manic Doug: How you holdin' up, bro?

Depressive Doug: I ate the whole bag of Almond Joy pieces. And look! It's the Wampa cave from "The Empire Strikes Back"!



MD: Awww, hey, that's great, buddy! You, uh, ready to talk a little football for the people out there?

(long pause)

DD: I want another Lego set.

MD: Oh, come on, dude, don't do this. You're gonna make me be the grown-up here? You can't honestly think any good is gonna come of that.

DD: I'm sorry, but I just don't have a lot to offer here. We just played one of the worst teams in the SEC, and not only did we let them pound the ball down our throats, we couldn't get in the frickin' end zone until it was long past mattering. Seriously, what's my motivation here? What possible reason could I have to get excited about this weekend?

MD: A.J. Green's back! Wooooooo!!!!! . . .

(pause)

MD: OK, I gotta say, I was really expecting a more exuberant reaction there.

DD: OK, fine, it's great that we're getting A.J. back. I mean that. But he's not gonna be able to help us pass-protect, and he's not gonna make much of a difference in the running game, either.

MD: He will if his presence as a deep threat keeps Colorado from stacking the box against us like everyone else has been doing.

DD: You really think he's gonna make that much of a difference? For all their problems lately, Colorado's run defense is ranked seventh in the nation. They're barely allowing more than 70 yards per game.

MD: Yeah, dirty little secret there? They built that up against Hawaii and Colorado State, who just happen to be the two worst rushing teams in Division I-A right now. As in 119th and 120th out of 120. I know Washaun and Caleb have been a bit of a disappointment this season, but you gotta believe they'll be better than that.

DD: OK, that I did not know, but I'm still skeptical. I just don't think A.J.'s gonna be able to completely turn this team around on his own.

MD: Hey, I'm not saying that either. But he'll provide a bit of a spark. And call me overconfident, but this is one of those situations where I don't think we'll have to score that many points to pull off the win.

DD: It almost sounds like you're fixing to tell me how our defense is gonna suddenly rise up and get it together better than they have at any point since the opener against Lafayette, and if that's the case then I'm gonna have to cut you off right there.

MD: OK, if you keep running your mouth like that I'm gonna buy you another box of Legos and make you swallow 'em. Let's review: What did South Carolina have on offense that we just couldn't stop?

DD: A big-ass running back who never went down on first contact.

MD: Colorado's starting tailback is 5'6" and weighs 175 pounds. What did Arkansas have that we couldn't stop?

DD: Ryan Mallett, a 6'7" behemoth with an RPG launcher for an arm.

MD: Yup. Colorado's quarterback, on the other hand, has a career 13/15 TD/INT ratio and a 113 QB rating. Now, what did Mississippi State have that we couldn't quite get a handle on?

DD: Another rugged running back, and a big, mobile QB.

MD: The running back I've covered; Hansen, meanwhile, has a career per-carry average of less than two yards. See? Look, I'm not gonna act like our defense doesn't have any weaknesses, but so far Colorado hasn't proven the ability to exploit any of them.

DD: But we didn't think Mississippi State did, either, and yet we couldn't get them off the field in the second half. Their running back might be little, but it's not gonna matter if he can get outside the way Chris Relf and Vick Ballard did. They're not going to be sending him up the middle anyway.

MD: Maybe, but he's all they've got. The only guy they've got behind him is a junior who's barely any bigger than he is and has 205 career yards.

DD: Look, here's the thing: I know we've got a talent advantage here. Pass around that petition, and I'll sign it twice. But we had just as big a talent advantage in Starkville last week, and a fat lot of good it did us. The problem here isn't in the talent or in the statistics; it's in the motivation and the coaching. At a time when everybody and his brother is talking about how our program is doomed, we're playing yet another must-win game, and we gotta go all the way out to Colorado to do it. Where the air is thinner and where the crowd will be geeked up because they'll be honoring the 1990 co-championship team at halftime . . .

MD: Heh. Boy, I'll bet that pisses the Tech fans off.

DD: Be that as it may, it's a daunting situation for any number of reasons. Mississippi State was a less talented team who beat us because they just wanted it more; can you honestly say you're not worried that Colorado is gonna be the same kind of team?

MD: Worried? Maybe. A little. But not nearly enough to make me think we're gonna lose. Getting A.J. back isn't just gonna be a shot in the arm from a game-planning standpoint, it's gonna be an emotional lift for everybody on the roster. However geeked-up they are, this is the week we finally get up off the mat and match it.

DD: All right then, sunshine, tell me how it's gonna go.

MD: OK, first of all, the sarcastic nicknames are my department, Cowboy Woody. Second: Yes, getting A.J. back totally flips the script for us. Gives the team an emotional boost and lets us open up the offense the way we've been talking about doing for weeks now. Colorado's pass defense is very beatable, and if they try to double-cover A.J., that's just gonna open up the short game so that we can maybe start throwing to the tight ends for once.

DD: Yeah, that would be nice.

MD: We managed to put together some nice sustained drives in the first half last week before everything went completely to shit; we do that again, and manage not to fumble on the goal line this time, we'll score some points and keep our defense fresh enough to not get ambushed by Rodney Stewart. I think Colorado will come out fairly amped-up, it'll be a close game for a half or so while we kind of try to feel them out, but we pull away in the second half and win 30 to 13.

DD: Well, that's a pretty nice scenario you've drawn up there . . .

MD: And completely plausible. Come on, dude, pick the win. Feel the win. You know this losing streak can't go on forever. The time is right. The stars are aligned. Go with your heart . . .

DD: When you get that close to my face like that, it kind of scares me.

MD: Sorry. I promise I totally wasn't doing it in a gay way.

DD: OK, good, because it kind of felt like that. (pause) (hurriedly) Not that there's anything wrong with that.

MD: Oh, no, no. I mean, it's just that . . . yeah, go on. You were saying? You're going with your heart, and . . . ?

DD: And . . . I just don't see it.

MD: Uhhhhhhh. You're killing me, Smalls.

DD: The offense will look a little better, and I bet A.J. gets behind their secondary for at least one touchdown. But he can't save the team singlehandedly, and our inability to run is gonna come back to bite us even with him in the game. I think it's another close, low-scoring, fairly ugly affair for most of the game, right up until the last few minutes when Colorado puts together a sustained drive, we can't tackle Stewart, and they punch it in the end zone to win 23-20.

MD: Wow. You're really predicting that we'll come home from Colorado with a 1-4 record.

DD: I don't like it. In fact, I kind of hate it. But that's where I'm at emotionally right now, dude.

MD: Well, I've got a couple pieces of good news. First is that even with your dire, spirit-crushing prediction factored in, our predictions still average out to a 25-18 win for the Dawgs.

DD: Well, hey, if that's what ends up happening, so much the better for us. What's the other piece of good news?

MD: We still have the Associated Hottie to get to! And here she is: Casey Parker.



DD: OK, she's cute. What is she, an actress? What's she been in?

MD: Hustler and Barely Legal, for starters.

DD: Well. How proud the University of Colorado must be.

MD: Hey, we've all got a porn connection whether we know it or not. Did you know we share a birthday with two Playmates and Jenaveve Jolie, star of "18 and Full of Sin" and "Three's Cumpany"?

DD: You will be shocked to find that no, I did not know that.

MD: It's a small world, man.

DD: You know, on the one hand it's taking every ounce of muscle control I have not to roll my eyes at all that, but on the other hand I'm actually kind of impressed that it took you five whole games into the season to pick a porn star for the Associated Hottie slot. In a way, I guess that means you're growing up.

MD: Perhaps. But don't get excited, it won't last.

DD: No, I expect not. Speaking of which, I seem to recall you saying you were taking Georgia and the points last week. So are we gonna be able to eat this month, or do we need to have a talk about this?

MD: Heh, uh, actually, like I said, I was kind of drunk last week, and I accidentally put the money on UAB plus the points against Tennessee.

(pause)

DD: Honestly, sometimes I don't know how you manage to pull this shit off.

MD: Don't knock it, dude, that's where your Legos came from.

A memo from the desk of Arnold T. Pants, Esq.:Careers headed in different directions, booze, and Legos, of course.

· Life update: So I've been at my new job for almost two months now, and things have been going well -- my affinity for Legos is already becoming well-known throughout the office, which I think is probably a good foretaste of the full-blown Georgia football obsession that will be manifesting itself in just a few weeks. I've also moved into a house, a little 1930s-era number just a few blocks off of the park. (Renting, not owning -- please, bitch, you know I'm not financially responsible enough to handle anything as complicated as a mortgage right now.) Between the park and the fenced-in backyard, Champ and Jenna are doing pretty well, thanks. I'll put some photos of the place up when I've got the place looking right (i.e. like a hobo's not squatting there), but I do have one thing set up exactly the way I want it, and it's the most important thing: the bar.



· In other Columbus-related news, those of you who (like me) were upset to see David Hale depart his role as the Ledger-Enquirer's resident Bulldog correspondent/blogger extraordinaire will be relieved to know that his successor, one Seth Emerson, gives a pretty good interview. Consider, though: Hale is leaving the Bulldogs beat to go cover the Phillies for a paper in Delaware; Emerson comes to Georgia from South Carolina after having covered the Gamecocks for five years. If there's a starker contrast between trading up and trading down, I must confess I haven't seen it. (Welcome, Seth.)

· As for the rest of my homemaking responsibilities, I've been sucked into Ikea's neon with a big assist from Holly -- I wouldn't say that I look forward to Ikea trips as much as I look forward to excursions to, say, the Lego store, but it's getting close.



· Speaking of Legos, I have a new gift idea for anyone who's interested in buying it for me -- the Tower Bridge, all 4,287 pieces of which will be hitting stores on October 1. I think it's going to be around three hundred bucks, so let me know when I should set up the PayPal account for y'all to donate to.

· Finally, this, because it's awesome.

The Friday Random Ten+5 crosses its fingers and hopes for the best in 2010.

After a protracted holiday-induced absence, the Friday Random Ten+5 is back to say . . . man, 2009 really sucked. I mean, I'm not going to say everything that happened last year was bad, but any year in which I lose my job, get sued, have three back surgeries, have to move back in with my parents, the Dawgs lose five games, and the Redskins go 4-12 is not one I'm likely to look back upon fondly. The year had its isolated bright spots, but on the whole, 2010 almost has to be better by default.

I'm optimistic about this new year, and I'm full of hopes for various things -- obviously including finding a job, getting a new car, the Dawgs hiring a kick-ass defensive coordinator and running roughshod over the rest of the SEC East, that sort of thing -- but I've also got some assorted aspirations and hopes that fall outside those usual sorts of things. These are things that I believe can benefit not just me but all of society, and in the first +5 of 2010, I'm sharing them with you -- Five Things I Hope Happen In The New Year.



The "Arrested Development" movie finally coming to fruition
First we were told it was happening. Then we were told nothing was actually happening yet. Then we were told that it's happening, and it has a screenwriter, he just hasn't actually written anything yet. C'mon, guys, make this movie so it can be hilarious and a runaway success and get the TV series re-started on a network that actually appreciates it. Like, what about an NBC Thursday-night lineup including "The Office," "Arrested Development," and "30 Rock"? That's a lineup so awesome it might actually turn Jay Leno at 10:00 funny. Well, OK, that might be setting the bar a bit too high, but we can always hope.



Slovakia making the final four of the World Cup
My esteemed countrymen from the glorious sovereign nation of Slovakia have made the cut of 32 for the World Cup this summer, and few things would make me happier than to see them make it into the semifinals. Or into the semifinals (against the USA, of course). If that can't happen, then I want the Slovak hockey team to win the gold medal in the Winter Olympics.



Lego coming out with a James Bond series
They already have Star Wars figures who carry guns of some type, not to mention the "Agents" series, in which many of the minifigs are armed as well. Why not go all the way and introduce a James Bond series to tie in with the next Bond film, due to start filming later this year? They could make the tricked-out Aston Martin from "Goldfinger," the bad guy's secret under-lake satellite base from "Goldeneye," the two airplanes from the shootout in "Quantum of Solace," the possibilities are endless. (Just leave "Die Another Day" out of it. That one sucked.)



Joe Lieberman being eaten by something
Wolves, bears, giant irradiated scorpions, zombie Ted Kennedy, I'm really not partial. I just want his sanctimonious ass off my TV.



A huge nationwide backlash against the Twilight franchise
Baby sis has already expounded upon why the Twilight book series is not only appallingly poorly written but also in danger of making our young girls believe some horrible, horrible things about men and relationships, and done it better than I could, so I'll stay away from the literary criticism. All I will say is that pre-teen girls are by and large the dumbest demographic in the entire human race -- it's almost like they start devolving around age 10 and don't catch back up with where they're suppposed to be until 17 or 18 -- so anything pre-teen girls like that much almost has to be idiotic by default. And while I have no doubt that the Twilight fad will burn itself out in due time (if nothing else can kill the franchise, the inevitably godawful adaptation of the final book in the series will), I'm praying that our nation comes to its meager senses before then. It just makes me sad, going into a theatre to see a good movie and having to wade through a line of teenage girls and middle-aged housewives about to live vicariously through this idiotic romance as an escape from their own shitty relationships. New rule: If you're an adult male married to a woman who would go see "Twilight" un-ironically under any circumstances, you are entitled to as many extramarital affairs as it takes to blot out that fact, however fleetingly. I really hope that if there are intelligent civilizations in other solar systems, they wait until after this fad has burned itself out to come visit us, because I don't want them thinking Stephanie Meyer was somehow the pinnacle of culture in our civilization or anything.

Those are mine . . . and Holly has one to add: "For Tim Tebow to tank at the combine, fall to 26th or wherever in the first round of the draft so that the Cowboys pick him up, he has a terrible first half of the season and announces after only eight weeks that he's retiring from football, and thus the Cowboys have lost their first-round pick and Tebow's a pussy."

Wow. That's pretty specific . . . specific and hilarious.

Anyway, here's the Ten:

1. Hard-Fi, "Hard to Beat" (Axwell mix)
2. Pet Shop Boys, "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing" (Voxigen mix)
3. Busta Rhymes, "So Hardcore"
4. 3rd Bass, "Triple Stage Darkness"
5. The Who, "A Quick One While He's Away"
6. The Dust Brothers, "This Is Your Life"
7. Patton Oswalt, "'80s Metal"
8. A Tribe Called Quest, "Start It Up"
9. LL Cool J, "Mama Said Knock You Out"
10. Roni Size and Reprazent, "Brown Paper Bag" (Photek remix)

Feel free to place your own Random Tens and/or wishes for the new year -- be they hopeful, magnanimous, vindictive, filthy, or some combination of any of those -- in the comments.

The Friday Random Ten+5 writes checks that neither its body nor any of its other possessions can cash.

As my unemployment enters its second month and the search for new full-time wages grows longer and more frustrating, I've started looking for outside-the-box ways to make some extra cash. Some, like manning EDSBS for a week, have been right in my wheelhouse and relatively simple to pull off; others, like Johnny Dillinger-style bank robbery, have been sexy and potentially lucrative but rather impractical, both from a logistical and from a legal standpoint. But then there's the lottery. Only requires a small investment, is perfectly legal, potentially has a huge, life's-troubles-vaporizing payoff -- other than the fact that any given participant has but an astronomically small chance of actually winning, it's a can't-miss proposition.

Last time I paid a visit home to Georgia, the Mega Millions jackpot was at $120 million, and since then it's rolled over to a cool $146 million. What would I do with money like that? Oh, I'd find some ways to blow it to pieces, make no mistake. Obviously my first order of business would be to take care of practical matters like paying off credit cards, making charitable donations, and investing to create a secure future for the children I will one day either father myself or purchase off the Chinese black market, but with nine figures at my disposal I'm sure I'd have a lot left over even after all that. So this week's +5 is The First Five Things I'd Buy If I Hit The Mega Millions Jackpot Tonight:



A beach house on Edisto Island, S.C.
We first went to Edisto back when I was like 12 years old because one of my dad's patients gave us a week at his (gorgeous, immaculate) beach house there as a thank-you for having treated him so well. I fell in love with the place almost the minute we set foot on the island. It's about halfway between Hilton Head and Charleston on the South Carolina coast, which means it's close enough to those places to go shopping or get a fancy dinner or something, but far enough away that things are fairly quiet and isolated most of the time (and it's nowhere near as loud or tacky as Myrtle Beach). Sort-of-funny story: The guy who owned the house was a South Carolina grad and had Gamecock memorabilia all over the place, but this was long before I had any sort of real immersion in SEC football, so I just snickered at all the books and signs and trinkets referring to the Cocks. Heh, I really haven't matured in the last two decades at all.



A Lego room
We've been over this, right? Yeah, we have: a room covered floor-to-ceiling with those green, nubby Lego baseplates and with a giant walk-in closet full of shelves and drawers to contain and organize different kinds of Lego pieces. I certainly don't pretend to be the first person to come up with this idea, but I'd like to think I could do it better than anyone who has come before me. And that would be a major step in forging my lifelong friendship with Knowshon Moreno.



An antique Citroën DS
Preferably a fuel-injected, flush-headlamped DS23 from 1973 or so. I have to think I'd be the only person in Birmingham with one of these. And just to be really pointlessly extravagant, I might also try to find an old, scrapped 2CV body shell that I could put in the game room of my man-cave and use as a driver's seat for playing Mario Kart Wii. With all this newfound time on my hands, I have been crushing it at Mario Kart these days.



Eighties-style tabletop-cabinet arcade game
Man cannot live on Wii alone, however. If I could, I'd try to find one of those arcade machines that has like 39 games in a single machine -- Pac-Man, Galaga, Spy Hunter, Xevious, Donkey Kong, Arkanoid, all the good ones. Why a tabletop-style setup rather than an upright cabinet? Because you can't set a drink on an upright.



A big enough donation to the University of Georgia athletics association that I can get season tickets for the rest of my life
I honestly can't even fathom how big a donation this would have to be, but I'd like to see if, oh, a check for $20 million or so would be enough to convince them to name it Doug Gillett Field at Sanford Stadium. And if it was, whether they would then paint this picture in little logos on the 20-yard lines.

Wish me luck, peasants! In the meantime, the Ten:

1. Big Audio Dynamite II, "Can't Wait" (live)
2. Marvin Gaye, "Right On"
3. Gorillaz, "Latin Simone"
4. Talking Heads, "Slippery People" (live)
5. Thievery Corporation, "The Foundation"
6. Isaac Hayes, "Theme from 'Shaft'"
7. Pet Shop Boys, "Up Against It"
8. House of Pain, "Jump Around"
9. Handsome Boy Modeling School, "The Projects"
10. Pet Shop Boys, "It's Alright" (extended disco mix)

Your turn: Throw your lottery-jackpot wish lists and/or Random Tens in the comments.

My life at 31: an equation.

This + (This / This) = This.



(Hat tip: Holly.)

The Friday Not-So-Random Ten+5 begins planning for its future.

As I'm pretty sure all of you know by now, I got laid off a couple weeks ago, and after a back surgery, a few days' recovery, and a visit from some out-of-town guests for SEC Media Days, it's probably about time for me to start hunting for the next place at which I will (hopefully) be gainfully employed. There's just one thing, though: I don't like working. I realize that doesn't exactly make me anyone's unique little flower, but there are very few things I like enough to be jazzed about the prospect of doing them for a mandatory eight hours each day. Even some things I like when I'm just doing them on my own become dreary and unappealing when I think about having to spend five days a week in a cubicle doing them so that I'll get to eat that month.

What do I like to do? That's a question a lot of people have asked me over the past couple weeks, in an attempt to begin honing in on something I might like to seek out for my next job, and I can actually think of a few things. The +5 below is where I reckon I'll be starting my job search: My Five Ideal Jobs. Following that is a Not-So-Random Ten that will basically constitute the bulk of my job-searching, future-planning soundtrack over the next few weeks, but let's get to the jobs first, just in case any of you helpful readers might know of some openings for any of these:



Freelance Lego sculptor
I would hope that my Lego design/construction chops have already been well established on this site. "Freelance Lego sculptor" is actually the alter ego I use for myself when I'm in a new and unfamiliar city and roaming bars to pick up chicks. Sure, it probably sounds dorky at first blush, but there's a lot you can do with it. For instance, I tell girls I just got back from spending a month in Switzerland, where I earned $15,000 for building a 2:1-scale version of the Peugeot 5008 for a display at the Geneva Auto Show. Laugh all you want, but that story earned me a night of passion with Katherine Heigl last month. OK, not Katherine Heigl, but her personal assistant, which is practically the same thing.



Rick Neuheisel's sweater-vest coordinator
My fandom of Rick Neuheisel is also well established at this point. After maybe Jim Tressel, Neuheisel is also one of the sharpest-dressed coaches in Division I-A, with a wide variety of wondrous sweater vests at his disposal for any given game. As something of a sweater-vest aficionado myself, I feel I would be highly qualified to select the most appropriate vest for each situation, helping to ensure that Neu's reputation as one of the slickest ladykillers in college football remains intact.



Lucy Pinder's personal hand bra
Being an internationally famous, 32G-equipped glamour model means you spend a lot of time with your hands posed coyly in front of your boobs. Only problem is, that doesn't leave you with any free hands to do things like play video games, shift a manual transmission, cook flapjacks, or what have you. I would be happy to offer my services as someone who could handle the boob-covering while she tends to those other important activities, and I think she'd find that she was now able to handle her daily chores more quickly and efficiently than ever before.



Proprietor of the world's first human petting zoo
I don't see how someone hasn't come up with this idea already. A hygienic, safely monitored place where people can pet the kind of beautiful women or men they might never get to come into contact with otherwise? Way better than a lap dance, and way better than some regular old petting zoo with farm animals. Which would you rather pet, a supermodel or a billy goat? You shouldn't have to think too hard about your answer to that question.



James Bond supervillain
Living in the lap of luxury in a concealed mega-hideout, extorting billions from the world's governments -- heck, I could do that. Only I'd have two advantages over the supervillains Bond faced in movies like "You Only Live Twice" or "On Her Majesty's Secret Service": One, I wouldn't actually have to tangle with anyone as clever or capable as James Bond, since he's a fictional character. Two, I'd have the advantage of watching all the mistakes those villains made and knowing better than to repeat them. As satisfying as it might be to trap an enemy spy in an elaborate, slow, excruciatingly torturous (but theoretically escapable) trap, I would resist the temptation to leave him in something like that; as Bond has proven time and time again, you're really better off just shooting him right away and getting it over with. So I think I've demonstrated that I have the cunning and foresight to be quite a nefarious villain -- all I need now is a hefty infusion of venture capital so that I can build my secret lair and city-destroying laser and what have you. Anybody looking around for sound investments in a troubled economy? Let me show you my prospectus.

And now the Ten, which, as explained, is Not-So-Random this week:

1. Mo' Horizons, "Hit the Road Jack"
2. The Farm, "Hard Times"
3. The Beatmasters, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
4. Underworld, "Two Months Off"
5. Beck, "Deadweight"
6. Miles Davis, "Freddie Freeloader"
7. Public Enemy, "Brother's Gonna Work It Out"
8. Pet Shop Boys, "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)"
9. The Smiths, "Stretch Out and Wait"
10. Avenue Q cast, "I Wish I Could Go Back to College"

Your turn, folks. Help me out! Let me hear your job suggestions, and/or random or not-so-random tens, in the comments.