If you live in Northern Nevada, then most times you have to surf the ‘net to get real news stories with honest-to-goodness thoughtful analysis behind them. It’s not to say the folks up here don’t try, but there’s are only so many political brainfarts you can write about before they all sound the same. Same with droughts, housing problems, and gangs.

So wrapping up this always-wordy lead-in, there’s Peter Hartlaub’s article on break-up songs and he did a fine job, so fine, that it’s a pity I just present the list below. The man resists the Gannett-Newspaper-prone habit of paying attention to entertainment from the last five years and writes about songs from previous generations.
Please click on this link and read the whole thing.

In the meantime…

Share the pain: Breakup songs to die for:

5. “Cry Me a River,” Justin Timberlake (2002)

Psycho breakup line: “Girl I refuse, you must have me confused/ with some other guy/ Your bridges were burned, and now it’s your turn to cry.”

Why it’s a classic: I’m happily married, but if my wife ever got so mad at me that she felt the need to burn our mattress and spread crushed tomatoes all over the house, “Cry Me a River” would definitely be the song playing in the background. The fact that JT wrote this for ex-girlfriend Britney Spears only makes it more legendary. How glad do you think Timberlake is now that she’s someone else’s problem?

4. “Piece of My Heart,” Erma Franklin (1967)

Psycho breakup line: “You’re out on the streets looking good/ And baby deep down in your heart I guess you know that it ain’t right/ Never, never, never, never, never, never hear me when I cry at night/ Babe, I cry all the time!”

Why it’s a classic: This is the “Citizen Kane” of breakup sons. All breakup music must be judged by it. The Janis Joplin version is more iconic, but Erma Franklin’s is equally intense, and in some ways more direct. Joplin sounded a little wasted when she sang it with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Franklin sounds sober, which is much more scary.

3. “You Oughta Know,” Alanis Morissette (1995)

Psycho breakup line: “Every time I scratch my nails down someone else’s back/ I hope you feel it/ Can you feel it?”

Why it’s a classic: Where to start? Pound for pound (or line for line) this is the most anger-packed breakup song ever. Even Amy Winehouse wouldn’t think to write a song this crazy. Morissette also frequently performs an acoustic version, which is even scarier, because you can hear the lyrics more clearly. Based on this, the government should have put Dave Coulier and everyone else she dated in witness relocation.

2. “Against All Odds,” Phil Collins (1984)

Psycho breakup line: “I wish I could just make you turn around/ Turn around and see me cry!”

Why it’s a classic: “In the Air Tonight” has a better urban legend, but this song - written after Collins’ breakup with his first wife - packs more emotional impact. He sounds like such a colossal wuss that you almost want to turn the song off to save him the embarrassment. But you still have to feel for the guy.

1. “I Will Survive,” Gloria Gaynor (1978)

Psycho breakup line: “I should have changed my stupid lock/ I should have made you leave your key/ If I had known for just one second/ You’d be back to bother me.”

Why it’s a classic: It starts off with one of the best openings in songwriting history (”First I was afraid, I was petrified”) and never stops picking up speed. What’s especially great about the song - which was inexplicably written by two men - is the way the narrator grows from a shrinking violet to a self-assured take-no-prisoners love Terminator. Modern medicine will never come up with a better breakup cure than “I Will Survive.”

Why do you watch the Super Bowl? Is it the clash of titans, a bloody match of two finely-honed teams for the ultimate glory in football (which is repeated annually)? Don’t lie. We all know it’s the commercials.

Fortunately for you, SI.com gives us the list of the 10 Best Super Bowl Commercials. There’s Mean Joe Greene and his bottle of Coke, the Bud-wise-er frogs, and the Pepsi dancing bears. And Office Linebacker Terry Tate.

This was a stroke of marketing genius. Insert a large man with NFL-level intensity and anger into a white-collar, pencil-necked, Dilbert-like work environment and just let Terry be Terry. Take it away. dude, and notice there are no sacred cows. Everybody gets a little bit of his “loving.”

This spawned a Terry-verse of commercials that never got old. I stumbled across the below during my intense research and had to watch it ten to fifteen times to ensure it is worthy of this blog. Then I had to watch it for the humongous…human sensitivity training sessions.

Terry is still working in Hollywood under the name “The Mighty Rasta” and has had roles ranging from “Prison Break” to “Bachelor Party Vegas.”

And I’ll let y’all know when I’m not sleeping on the couch anymore.

Connected to this entry is a space-filler article found in IMDB’s Movie and News Report for today. Must be a slow entertainment news day:

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams acknowledged Wednesday night that he and other reporters on the program have sometimes mispronounced Nevada as “Nuh-VAH-duh,” rather than — as the locals do — “Nuh-VAA-duh” — something that angers Nevadans who flooded the network with complaints. In a lead-in to a story by George Lewis, Williams said, “We haven’t always said it the same way and there is a correct way.” Lewis then warned presidential candidates campaigning in the state that they had better pronounce the state’s name correctly or lose votes. Valerie Fridland, a sociolinguist at the University of Nevada, Reno, told the Reno Gazette-Journal, “News anchors make a big effort to correctly pronounce the names of places around the world, so when they don’t do it in their own country, people get upset.” The Associated Press quoted Josh Guenter, pronunciation editor for the Merriam-Webster dictionary company as saying, “People in other states have become upset, but I’ve never heard of a national flap over it like this.” [Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has yet to master the pronunciation of “California.”]

Say it right or pay the price. The below features one of the Bride’s co-workers and the building she works in.

The Nevada Appeal sends out an e-journal of their daily headlines.  Somebody has “some esplaining to do” about this morning’s journal.

Check it out after the jump:

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