Best songs I heard in 2006, in random order:

Sound Team / "Born to Please"
Sound Team / "Handful of Billions"
Sound Team / "Your Eyes Are Liars"
Grand National / "Drink To Moving On" (2005)
Director / "Reconnect"
Van She / "Sex City"
The Rapture / "Don Gon Do It"
The Rapture / "Get Myself Into It"
The Rapture / "The Devil"
Guster / "Satellite"
Peter Bjorn & John / "Young Folks"
Peter Bjorn & John / "Let's Call It Off"
Your Black Star / "Oh Jesus"
Maximo Park / "Postcard of a Painting"
The Sunshine Underground / "Climbing Up The Walls"
The Sunshine Underground / "Panic Attack"
The Sunshine Underground / "Commercial Breakdown"
The Sunshine Underground / "I Ain't Losing Any Sleep"
The Sunshine Underground / "The Way It Is"
The Stills / "Baby Blues"
Emily Haines / "Doctor Blind"
Emily Haines / "The Lottery"
Emily Haines / "Our Hell"
Grizzly Bear / "Knife"
TVOTR / "Wolf Like Me"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs / "Turn Into"
Guillemots / "Trains to Brazil"
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness / "Lights"
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness / "We Choose Faces"
The Boy Least Likely To / "Be Gentle With Me"
Mute Math / "Reset"
Gnarls Barkley / "Crazy"
Gnarls Barkley / "Smiley Faces"
Metric / "Poster of a Girl"
Taking Back Sunday / "Makedamnsure"
Division Day / "Tap-Tap, Click-Click"
Husky Rescue / "Summertime Cowboy" (2005)
Husky Rescue / "City Lights" (2005)

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Pitchfork provides the album version of !!!'s "Heart of Hearts," and gives it a pretty fair description.:

!!!'s prodigiously hyphenated genre exercises-- how does "electro-acoustic no-wave post-disco-funk" suit you?-- have always been audacious, if spotty. "Heart of Hearts", though, distills everything good about !!! (relentless propulsion, lean syncopation, and dynamic convulsions) into a mighty six-minute tsunami that cascades in perpetuity. Darkly glittering scraps of guitar and concussive noises gather before quickly bursting into a wiry disco pulse, arcing between chewy bass and smacking drums. The scatty, svelte vocals are all vapid dance-floor solidarity, fleshing out the glass-brick funk.

!!! / "Heart of Hearts"

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Not everyone is in love with Tony Romo...take Drew Bledsoe for instance.

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Dallas Stars vs. Edmonton Oilers, Stars are up a goal with 12 seconds left. Patrick Stefan skates in for the easiest empty-net goal he'll ever have...

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The Onion chimes in: The College I Attend Has Just The Right Number Of Indian Dance Groups.

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John Buccigross's NHL column at ESPN has a real gem of a story this week:

My favorite was a doozy that Dave Hanson told in which he wound up going at it with none other than the great Bobby Hull. Dave, of course, was one of the famous fighting "Hanson Brothers" from the classic movie "Slap Shot."

"The most memorable fight I ever got into over my career would have to be the one with Bobby Hull, probably the biggest star in the game at the time," Hanson recalled. "I was with Birmingham and we were playing Winnipeg. I was trying to establish myself as a player in the league and make an impact, so I was playing pretty physical. Well, I am out there skating around and I run into Bobby, which was like running into a brick s--- house. He just bowled me over. So, when the next opportunity came later on in the game, I gave it back to him pretty good. Bobby took offense and dropped his gloves, so I followed suit.

"We were just going at it with lefts and rights, and then, all of a sudden, he just stopped. You could have heard a pin drop in there at that moment. So, I looked up at the crowd and it was like everybody was just frozen. I looked back at Bobby and I am thinking to myself, 'Something doesn't quite look right here.' Sure enough, I looked down at my hand and I'll be damned if his wig wasn't caught in my knuckles. I had somehow caught it and ripped it right off of his head. It was unbelievable.

"They tossed me in the box and threw the book at me. I got two minutes for elbowing, five minutes for fighting and 10 minutes for pulling hair. Well, Bobby skated off and came back out with a helmet after that. Later on, I wound up in the faceoff circle with him and said, 'Mr. Hull, I am really sorry.' Bobby just looked at me, smiled and said in his deep, raspy voice, 'Ah, don't worry about it kid, I needed a new one anyhow.' Bobby and I later became good friends, but to this day, we have never spoken of that night."

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Willis McGahee can't get enough of fatherhood.