Crazy Tom's Emporium of Inanity

During this week's disaster

2007-11-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

I found myself wandering through the channels a bit. I came across a show on BBC- America that can only be described as "magnificent"- Top Gear. This particular afternoon, they were building a model space shuttle out of a Renault.

I find that video to be an apt metaphor for this year's ND football season, along with the beginning of the second episode they showed today:

So, apparently, this show is about a couple of British guys building stuff out of cars and wrecking it.

If I were British, I'd definitely be sending them an application to be the new 3rd wheel.

Notre Dame 2007 football highlight reel:

2007-11-04T21:14:00.000-08:00

This space intentionally left blank.

Yes, it's true...

2007-09-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

there's now a championship for everything.

http://tinyurl.com/2keqs4

And I've gotta say- this guy got hosed. A clear winner if I ever saw one.

Once is a flook, twice is a problem

2007-09-09T16:45:00.001-07:00

I was willing to write off the GT game as rookie jitters combined with a snowball effect. Then yesterday happened, and now, well... let's just say, it looks like we're hosed this year. I had been expecting that some of these so called "talented fat men" that Weis has been bringing in would be able to, you know, block someone once in a while. Maybe open a hole for a run that leads to a play up the gut that goes more than 4 yards. Might be nice. Weis isn't beyond reproach either- pretty much the entire game, there wasn't a play called with any chance to go more than about 8 yards. There were about 2 downfield throws made (though there were a couple of times when Clausen had about 9 days to sit in the pocket and still ended up either eating the ball and getting sacked or scrambling to nowhere).

On the plus side, instead of going into a top five ranked UM next week, we're playing a team that got beat by a I-AA team (which may be the equivalent of a mid- to upper-level MAC/WAC team, but these jackasses voting them in the top 25 this week need their ballots revoked) and then got blown out early and badly by a halfway decent OU team. So we have a chance. As was pointed out in an e-mail I received, this game is liable to look a little like this:

Click here for the most popular videos

It certainly won't be a battle of this kind of epic proportion (from the greatest movie ever):

I spent 3 1/2 hours each way in the car for THAT!?

2007-09-01T21:16:00.000-07:00

I guess this is why God invented Sake.

In the morning, I shall not remember...

Baseball scoring rules need a revision

2007-08-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

specificially, the save. Now, I'm not sure exactly what should constitute a save, but I'm pretty sure this ain't it:

guy comes in with a 14-3 lead to start the 7th inning. He holds the opponent scoreless, and his team scores 10 more in the eighth. He again holds the opponent scoreless, and his team scores 6 more in the ninth. Then, he closes it out with a scoreless ninth.

I'm sorry, but anytime you enter the game with an 11 run lead... there's no fucking "save". You have the opportunity to piss it away, yes, but that takes a royal fuck-up the likes of which is seldom seen. They maybe need to replace the current "save" with 2 categories: The save, in which you come into the game, and there's a realistic chance your opponent may win. Like, for instance, entering the game when it's 6-2 with 2 on and noone out in the 7th inning and finishing it out with 3 scoreless innings. Then you have the category under which this game falls, where you start the 7th inning with a commanding lead and don't lose. We could call this the "could've royally fucked the dog but didn't".

Then, we could have pitchers who, instead of getting the "blown save" in their stat line, may end up with the "royal dog fucking".

Which would liven up the box score from time to time.

Two more weeks...

2007-08-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

and we can go to halftime, where fatboy will feed us pudding.

More Psychotic Boss ramblings...

2007-08-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

"You know, if I was in charge of naming hurricanes, I'd use the same names every year"... ummm... ok...

"Yeah... I'd change all the names to Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, etc... Then there would be more people killed by all the riots it caused when hurricane Mohammed landed than by the actual hurricane. Don't you think that'd be great?"

Ummm... well, I'm not a big fan of riots, or mass murder, or generally speaking the death of those that have not lived a good, long, society improving life. If you're 90 and you somehow made the world better, go ahead and take a dirt nap. If you're 20 (or in my case, 30 something) and still haven't quite figured out how you can make the world a better place, then by all means, stick around until you have a great idea, and push it through all the yahoos that resist the changes for the better.

And if anyone has a great idea for the world that I can push through, which will leave me remembered as one of the greatest human beings ever, I'm all ears.

A few new gems from my Pschotic boss...

2007-08-14T23:53:00.001-07:00

After he walks in the office today:

"At least one good thing came from that road trip this morning- I got to see a guy with a U-M plate holder who was in a really bad car accident. Maybe I'm really lucky and he's dead. The only thing that would make it better would be if he were related to me"

Also:

"I hate human beings"

great googly moogly... I'm leaning towards taking some of my friends' advice and calling Homeland Security on this guy. After all, he did (again) profess his hope that someone would nuke the city again today. I gotta figure that's worth something- hoping someone kills 6 million Americans has to get a guy on some sort of terrorist alert list.

Apparently, this is a PSA running on BET

2007-08-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

It encourages, among other things, the viewer to read a fuckin book, drink water, buy land (fuck spinning wheels), brush their teeth... hell, just watch it and be dumbfounded...

Read a Book

Posted Jul 12, 2007

Possibly the worst advertisement for an establishment ever

2007-07-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Some good and kind reader of Sheldon submitted this to the author of said strip, Mr. Kellett, who saw fit to distribute it in his blog that he includes in his e-mail subscription service, and for about the last month I have thought of this about every 2-3 days and it still brings out at the very least a chuckle, if not an outright belly-laugh:

Really... whose idea was this? "you know, we make some decent lunches here, and we sell bait and we have a gas pump outside- go make a sign that communicates this and don't spend three seconds proofreading it".

Because, anyone who looks at this sign (or at least, Dave Kellett, the person who sent it to him, me, and everyone I've shown it to) sees it as a cause and effect. Eat here- our food will give you gas... and worms. Now, I've eaten a lot of food that gives me gas, I have no problem with that. I'll go back to those places time and time again. But seldom do they put it on their signs, or in their ad slogans ("Taco Bell- Make a run for the bathroom"(this could be followed by a flushing noise instead of their bell)) But if I suspected a dining establishment of actually giving me parasites, I probably wouldn't return. Unless maybe I were a model who needed the skeleton chic look and could use a few extra organisms to digest my food so I don't actually get any nutrition from it. But I'm not, I'm actually fairly pudgy, and thus I wouldn't, and would likely sue if the situation arose.

I wouldn't suggest it- the Knackwurst is the worst

2007-07-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

My favorite line ever, for some damn reason

Kevin White has lost his damn mind

2007-07-20T19:05:00.001-07:00

I'm sure there's a planet on which it makes sense to schedule a college football game between a team from Indiana and a team from Washington 2000 miles from either campus (and in the case of WSU, from any concentration of alumni/fans), but that planet isn't Earth. The first officially contracted "1" of the "7-4-1" candyassed schedule model, ND will be playing Washington State in the Alamo Dome. And the 400 ND alumni who live in San Antonio will likely want to go to the game. Maybe a few thousand other people who live in the area. As for the alumni... I can't imagine there will be any kind of great demand to go see this game. I for one seldom bother with any road game more than 100 miles from my house, and those have tended to be just an excuse to visit a friend who lived in the area around the game site. ND can easily sell out our home stadium, because large numbers of alumni want to return a few times a year. We tend to sell out games when we're the visitors(in fact, in most cases, people are forced to buy tickets to games they don't want in order to get into an ND game), because the other team's fans believe we're a marquee matchup.

This brings us to playing WSU in San Antonio- who wants to go to this game? Alumni? Well, not really, they want to go to the games that are at ND. And a few want to go to games that are near(easy enough to drive out and back in a weekend) their houses. If the venue is a place that's otherwise a tourist destination, that would also help the draw as Domers would fly in for a week at a time in many cases. San Antonio, while I'm sure it's a nice city, doesn't quite fit the bill. Will Washington State fans go? My guess is that there are about 12 of those in the state of Texas. And the rest are in Washington, and likely don't feel like blowing the cash for the airfare to fly to Texas for a regular season game. Texans? Well, they're all going to be watching UT or TAMU (or in some cases, Oklahoma) that day.

All that said, at least it's an opponent that's fairly solidly in the middle of a BCS conference, as opposed to the quality of opponent that normally is expected to make a one off game(and despite the neutral site, this is, for revenue purposes, a home game, with ND taking the gate and TV money, and WSU getting an appearance fee). I was fully convinced prior to this announcement that any game in Tejas was going to be against Baylor or Rice or SMU, or some other team I'd expect us to beat by 50. At least I only expect to beat WSU by 20, which is a step in the right direction from the candyassed nancyboy approach we've been hearing from the Athletic Department as the goal of their scheduling. My theory is this: As long as the team is as good as it should be, regardless of how hard the schedule is, it's going to be an easy schedule.

Nothing repels recidivism like good choreography

2007-07-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

or so it appears this Filipino corrections facility believes...

Someone inform me why I find this amusing

2007-07-17T15:16:00.000-07:00

5 seconds of the greatest chipmunk acting you'll ever see:

Apparently, giving more money works

2007-07-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

Last year, I was 1/5. This year, 2/4 (2/3 for home games) on tickets I asked for. We'd better put up a better fight against GT and USC than that crapfest against Michigan last year that was my sole win in the ticket lottery. I do find it interesting that every year for the last decade I have put in requests for whichever Michigan team was a road game, and not once have I gotten tickets to one of those games through the ticket lottery. I guess the ticket office bastages don't want me to see any of these games that are nice quick drives. Could be worse though, I could be one of those poor saps that put in for 5-6 games and got the royal bubkus (seriously- how the hell did they have more demand than tickets for freakin Duke?)

Ahh, reunions...

2007-06-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

Is there anything better than spending 300 bucks on a weekend back at school to hang out with 4000 people, of which a little over a hundred were in school at the same time as you, ofwhich there were about 5 that you had the slightest recollection of, of whom 1 was someone you actually spent any of your free time, who didn't have the slightest clue who you were? (on the other hand, there were a few people who gave me the same sort of "why do I know you" kind of look, and I had no idea) Well, as long as there's all the beer in the world you can drink included and the weather's nice, it's not too bad.

Other observations from the weekend:
1: They still, after at least 14 years, haven't changed the lock code on the engineering computer lab.

2: I don't really notice it when I'm back for football games, seldom going beyond South Quad, but holy crap have they done a lot of construction lately. 4 dorms (underway, but not open when I graduated), a new science building, an addition to the old science building, the Gug (varsity athletics complex), a student recreation/athletic center (I think this is another one from the Rolfs family), a new theater building (which they won't let anyone into, not even the guy who was giving a screening of his new documentary about Iraq(titled "Brothers at War", because he was, well, following his brothers to Iraq to see what the hell this whole thing was like)- I recommend this, by the way, if it gets a good distribution to a nearby theater for you.), a new building for NDSP and the post office (for which they plowed under the old basketball courts by Stepan), the "Coleman Morse Center" (which I have no idea what that is) on the site of the old, tiny, crappy bookstore, the Eck Alumni Center (2 buildings, including the new bookstore), a new faculty office building named after the then sitting university president, Monk Malloy, in a stunning display of ego, and as I understand it, there's plans to demolish the university club building and put up a new engineering building in its place. That's 13 new buildings, an addition, and more on the way. In 10 years. No wonder tuition is continuing to skyrocket.

3: It's no wonder I was so much skinnier then (at the time, I was a meager 170 pounds)- I must have walked at least 5 miles a day around campus in those days. There can't have been any fat guys out in Carroll, which is a solid half mile from any other campus building. At least then, my shoes fit better than the ones I was wearing last Friday, when a quick loop around campus led to blisters on my heels that caused me to start walking a little funny in an attempt to not rub them any more, which in turn caused my right hip to become sore for a day or so.

4: Geez, that place is beautiful.

5. See 4. It bears repeating.

I'm not into remote control stuff...

2007-05-19T10:32:00.000-07:00

but if I were, this would be the coolest thing I ever saw.

Call your mother...

2007-05-13T10:17:00.001-07:00

or I'm going to have to sic T on you.

The first time I saw it, I didn't even notice...

2007-02-17T20:30:00.000-08:00

But they say "fuck" a lot in the Big Lebowski

My Psychotic Boss, Part something or other

2007-02-15T16:35:00.000-08:00

It's a strange thing to see a 40-something year old man throw a temper tantrum. Even stranger when he is screaming at his father, who is remaining completely calm, almost goading him into further insanity. After numerous minutes of screaming about god knows what, he started in on hoping everyone in the city would be dead. So his dad counters with "you sound like one of those Muslim terrorists". Answer?

"Yeah, well when I start killing people you're going to be my first victim, and I'm not going to be as nice as those Al-Qaeda guys about it!"

The good news is, he's leaving town for a few days, so I won't see him tomorrow. Of course, he had this little gem for me as I was walking past him to the bathroom "Maybe I'll get lucky and that old bastard will get in a car crash and die on the way home tonight". I didn't acknowledge this at all.

Another signing day come and gone, and another year of creepy obsession with 17 year old boys comes to an end

2007-02-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

Well, not my creepy obsession, as I pay little attention to such things. (That said, having heard this past fall that the ohmifreakingodgreatestquarterbacksinceever had committed to ND, I watched some of one of his games that was on the deuce or the ocho or some extra ESPN channel, but that was just out of curiosity to see if this kid I saw everyone raving about was any good. Looks like he is.)

Also, I was shocked to see that USC was recently accused of shady recruiting methods. And I will be even more shocked when absolutely not a damn thing comes of it. Because everyone knows that Pee-Wee Peet Carol, whose last name is a girl's name, would never allow anything against the NCAA rules to go on at his school. Peet runs a tight ship over there. heh.

And, perhaps the funniest answer to a question I have seen from a recruit- When asked "what do you like about Ron Zook?" "it wasn't the money".

Why is it that when someone says "it's not about the money", it's almost always about the money?

The Super Bowl this Sunday...

2007-02-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

promises to be the greatest battle since this one:

And much like in that one, good will prevail over evil. Though, I'm not sure which is which.

State of the Union tonight

2007-01-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

For those who wish to not remember any of the meaningless blather, there is a veritable plethora of drinking games for this event. I propose a new one, and a much simpler one:

Every time there's a pause during which a standing ovation takes place, slam a jigger of tequila. Guaranteed to knock you out in 15 minutes or less.

We all need an Andre the Giant in our lives

2007-01-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

Someone who makes our own alcoholism seem a little less raging. I used to think I drank a lot. Then I read about Andre in Modern Drunkard, and you know what? I don't drink shit. That man, he drank. I find it particularly amusing that Hulk Hogan served as his beer wench, and downright gut-busting that Andre used to pelt him with empties (which Hogan would count to know when it was time to get off the bus and get a fresh case).

I think this calls for a contest:

If anyone can document themselves pelting Hulk Hogan with empties (and getting away with it, without resorting to running away screaming like a ninny), I will give you a shiny nickel.

I suppose I should say something about the end of the season

2007-01-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

But I'm not going to. The Sugar Bowel I'm pretty sure was canceled. Or at least the second half was. Our team sure didn't play in it. Reports are flowing in now that the robot genius known as Charlie Weis has been turning over the staff in the last week. A lot of people are now stating as fact that one Corwin Brown, who can be seen below missing a tackle just before one of his teammates knocks Reggie Brooks unconscious (just before Reggie Brooks scores a TD), is the new ND Defensive Coordinator. I had no idea who the hell he was as of last Thursday, but even then, I'd have been pretty sure he could have improved our defense. Maybe by calling a coverage play where, you know, our defensive backs are within perhaps 15 yards of the receiver (this would have been a good play for Minter to call against LSU).

Also of note, one of my classmates has supposedly been moved from the administrative side of the athletic department to be the new QB coach. You may remember him from such ridiculous overstatements by Beano Cook like "this kid will win 2 Heismans". That's right, Ron Powlus. Widely regarded by other teams' fans as a failure, depsite the fact that until a year and a half ago, he held most of the significant passing recods at ND. Apparently, he must have impressed coach Weis during his one month stint at QB coach back during spring practice in '05. Plus, with the most over-hyped freshman QB coming into ND since, well, Ron Powlus this spring, he should be able to teach the kid a few things about how to handle the pressure, the media, etc. That said, I'm not sure what's going on with Vaas as to why (or even if) he is leaving. The Powlus rumors right now seem to be more of a strong rumor than a fact, whereas the stuff about Brown seems a little more definite, in that there are actual quotes from him and people he knows to support it.

How sadly out of shape am I?

2007-01-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

This sadly:

New Year's Eve, I was over at my brother's house. He has one of those new Nintendo Wii things. We played the boxing on the "WiiSports" disc. 2 fights, we split. After which, I was fairly winded. Almost 48 hours later, my shoulders and neck are still slightly sore from the activity. Almost makes me miss high school, when I'd swim 2 miles and lift weights for an hour before sunrise.

Almost. That pretty much sucked at the time. Especially given the fact that once school ended, I'd have another 5 miles of swimming and 1000 situps to do. In mid-january, when my hair would be frozen by the time I got from the door of the school to the door of my car. Plus, those days, I was in school for swim practice long before dawn, and in school for swim practice about an hour after sunset. That pretty much sucked ass, not seeing the sun for 5 days a week except the 10 minutes during lunch hour I was driving to the mall for some toxic hell...

To all you ND fans going to the Sugar Bowl...

2006-12-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

When you see these folks:

Please remind them of what tiger bait is: It's something you put out when you're going to catch and/or kill a tiger. Tigers only go near tiger bait because they're not smart enough to figure out that if they try to eat the bait, the poacher in the tree is going to shoot them dead.

(besides which: don't these people have anything better to do before the game?)

So Gerald Ford died today/last night

2006-12-27T15:14:00.000-08:00

Does this mean Tom Brokaw is gay?

A bunch of people have been talking about this

2006-12-26T20:52:00.000-08:00

quote from Charlie, which apparently was said in a conversation with Ivan Maisel at the Heisman presentation:

"Listen, it's a polite thing to say, and politically correct, but if I'm happy with a 10-2 record, I'm going to get fired. The two losses were not close. We're not where we want to be. But I'm telling you, with the players we have coming in, including a couple of recruits that nobody knows are going to commit to us, we're going to be a lot better. A couple of years from now, you are going to remember that we had this conversation tonight."

Compare and contrast with our last guy:

"I believe we have a winning record" (or something like that.)

Oregon: will someone please stop the insanity?

2006-12-22T11:48:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sure your uniforms broke my tv last night. Good lord, you cornered the market on hideous 5 years ago, why do you continue to torment the eyes? I can just picture the conversation as they were preparing the bowl uniforms: "Well, we've already got the diamondplate pattern on the shoulders, a horrible black and green and yellow jersey, terrible looking numbers, and hideous pants... what more can we do with the uniform to have something really special for the bowl?" (a few silent moments as the 12 person committee ponders it over, at which point the janitor, who is allowed to leave the "institute" to come here 2 days a week walks into the room, and says...) "Why don't you paint the helmets to look like they're covered in some sort of radioactive mustard?"

Courtesy: GoDucks.com

I miss Highland Appliance

2006-12-21T13:51:00.000-08:00

If only for the commercials...

Now that's some proper tailgating...

2006-12-18T23:40:00.000-08:00

For all you Domers who are thinking of video-taping your next tailgater and putting it up on the internet, this here's an example of what to plan on doing. No dance floor, no stupid poetry, no dumbass rap songs, just a guy quadruple-fisting his beers...

I have...

2006-12-18T00:27:00.000-08:00

driven by this dozens of times, and each time the same two questions arise in my mind...

1: Why do you want a seven foot tall statue of a squirrel in your front yard, and

2: Why do you want a spotlight on it at night?

Funniest injury of the year candidate

2006-12-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

You remember the ALCS, Joel Zumaya had to sit out a couple games? Seems that it was a bad case of too much video game playing. Yep, he was injured by Guitar Hero. I think that may win this year's contest, and is probably in the running for funniest ever

In a short while, Troy Smith will be named Heisman winner

2006-12-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

and outside of the fact that he was ESPN's plan B once Quinn crapped out against UM, I have yet to see a reasonable argument as to why. He's been the season long favorite since Sept. without a single superlative game, with the possible exception of the tOSU-UM game, and even that is iffy in my mind.
Really, is this the best college football has to offer? A supremely protected quarterback in an offense with several very good/great wideouts and a hell of a line and an excellent rushing game, who throws for maybe 200 yards per game?
I don't buy it.
(and yet, I hear guys like Pete Fiutak(from CFN, the website that, if it had a crest, would have a big shield with a picture of a pile of crap on it with the words "Quantity trumps Quality") on the radio tonight going on about how there's no argument that anyone but Troy Smith can have an argument to win
the Heisman...)

Have you ever wanted to

2006-12-06T23:04:00.000-08:00

sit at a pond for 10 hours while absolutely nothing happens in the hope that a rhino will come out of the woods for a drink, and a hungry tiger will take down the rhino, all while a hippo gets attacked by an alligator and some lions eat a zebra, only to leave disappointed because none of the above actually happened? Then brother, have I got the link for you! This here's a live web cam of a wildlife watering hole in Africa, which I've watched for long stretches, and not seen anything more exciting than a bird flying over the pond. But good luck to you in your rhinocerous blood lust pursuits.

The last time ND was in the Sugar Bowl...

2006-12-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

Lou Holtz was asked the difference between ND and Cheerios. "Cheerios belong in a bowl"

I really hope Charlie gets a snarky waiter... The more things change, the more they stay the same.

So, in a few hours, the already annoying whining

2006-12-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

will reach a massive new volume, as the BCS bowels are announced. And ND will go to the Sugar Bowel to play LSU, and the masses of fans of every school in the top 15 will scream about "They don't deserve it". Here's the thing they miss: The bowl games are meaningless exhibitions. The teams that "deserve" to go are the ones who will make the bowls money. Always have been. You know how this whole bowl thing got started? Some guy in Pasadena decided that he could make some money by inviting a couple teams to play at their little New Year's Day Rose festival, or whatever the hell they call it. And he was right. And ever since that day, people in charge of bowls invite teams that they think will make them money, giving preference to the team that will make them the most money. That is ND in a nutshell.
I guaran-damn-tee you that ND will ahve the highest rated of the non-"championship" games. And if you want to talk about "well, the highest rated teams should go", then get rid of the conference championship guarantees. Why the hell is, say, Wake at #15 more deserving than ND at #10? So, in short, all you people whining about ND getting in instead of your team (and worse, those of you whining about how ND isn't a buncha damn pinko commies like your team and keeps all the money rather than distribute it to the proletariat ranks of the conference) need to just shut the hell up. And remember, in the words of the great William Munny, even if ND doesn't "deserve" to go based on your shoddy knowledge of football... "Deserve's got nothing to do with it". If deserve had anything to do with it, Wisconsin would be going. But they don't want three teams from a conference going. That's not a football decision, that's placating the greedy conference commissioners who want their crap-ass #2 to get in over a better #3 from another conference so they can get more cash. So don't blame the Sugar bowel for doing the same damn thing and choosing ND.

Well, with the football regular season over

2006-11-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

I have this to say: This year was wholly unfulfilling, and has left me pissed off at missed opportunities.

I am highly grateful for that. Because being pissed off at missed opportunities is much, much better than the prior years where the year ended, we sucked, and I didn't give a rat's patoot. I'm much happier to be pissed off that we got whooped by USC than I was in, say, '03 when I had 4 tickets to the USC game and decided it wasn't worth the effort to go, and was proved right.

Now, it's on to the bowls. And everyone and his brother has said that ND is going to the Sugar Bowl, to face the SEC champ. But here's the thing: I'm not so sure ND won't go to the Rose, which everyone and his brother has said Michigan is going to go to. And I'm certain ND will not face Michigan. Because we already have. I have an odd feeling like the Rose, knowing that UM has been there most years since 2000, may decide to take ND, which hasn't been in the Rose since 19-dickety-six(we had to say dickety then, since the Kaiser had stolen our word 20), will be the more interesting team with a more interested fan base (Michigan folk have spent half of their new year's eve's this century in LA, they're looking for a new place to go, whereas ND has been here and there and everywhere but LA for a bowl...). So, with that said, I'm kind of thinking it'll be ND vs. the SEC champ (maybe second place) in the Rose, and UM vs. another SEC team in the Sugar.

Of course, I'm not that bright, so if you're smart, don't use this to be making your travel plans.

Coincidence? Maybe...

2006-11-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

It seems that on about Thursday, I added a link to Sheldoncomics.com (a very amusing comic- read it). A day later, I see that one of my very few hits is from someone tracking back the links to the sheldoncomics.com site. In my description of the comic, I make mention of the fact that Sheldon is a billionaire. a day or two later, all of the sudden, after at least a year without being mentioned(I've been reading, you should too), billionaire Sheldon's multibillion dollar software company makes a re-appearance in the strip.

Seems convenient... (Dave, if you're reading this, keep up the good work. I still remember when Sheldon was merely a young lad weeping for the republic in Bridget's)

Well... ND lost. By 20. That doesn't piss me off

2006-11-25T23:48:00.000-08:00

What pisses me off is that I knew we had lost by 20 before USC even touched the ball. The first play was nice, but then it was followed up with several ill conceived and worse executed plays that left us in 4th and 9. In field goal range, if we had a kicker, which we don't, so we went for it, and predictably failed. And that was when it was over. And because it was over so soon, I couldn't even enjoy the good things, like Quinn running for 60 freakin yards one play (Really... that actually happened). And I was just hacked off that I knew nothing was going to work. And worse... I didn't even bother to watch much of the game. I lost interest. And causing me to lose interest is the true failing of the team tonight, and angers me more than nearly anything else they could have done.

meh... at least they're not the Lions.

Will you freakin candyasses get off the field

2006-11-25T18:23:00.001-08:00

and let the actual ND team play?

Goddammit, I don't think my TV's going to survive the night at this rate.

One more day...

2006-11-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

and pee-wee Peet Carol, whose last name is a girl's name, will meet his doom. Maybe. But there will be a ton of talk about "USC hasn't lost at home in 5 years" and "Pete Carroll is undefeated in November" during the game. Guarantee you, some variation on those two things will be said 50 times. Unless Musberger is doing the broadcast. Then it'll be 500. And, after spending quite a bit of last week's UM-tOSU game practically begging for a rematch, they will bill tomorrow's game as a play-in for both teams to Glendale. Why? Because they think we're stupid. Both of those statements are simply geared to make the game you're watching seem more important to the national championship, and thus more interesting.

On to other things, like the Heisman. I'm not going to say Brady Quinn should win it. But I will say that Troy Smith should not. Smith played one great game this year, that coming against UM. Other than that, Ohio State has had a far superior team to every team they faced with the possible exception of Texas, and I'm not even sure that's an exception. When I've seen the Buckeyes, defenses haven't been able to get close to Smith. And still, against some crappy teams (e.g., Illinois, aka "the traveling bye week of the big ten"), they've played close games due to crappy offensive performance. So, to say that Smith is the most outstanding player in football when he can't even really RUTS a crappy team, is a bit of a stretch. And that's before I get into the fact that he's a damn cheater who took money from boosters, and knew damn well he was taking money from boosters, and if I were king of football, would not even be playing. After all, we have rules here. Am I the only one that gives a shit about the rules?

Well, it appears that Sparty has made his decision

2006-11-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

Rumor has it the DC of the Cleveland Browns will soon be announced as the new MSU head coach.

Good luck buddy. And SPARTY ON, DOOD!

That said, it's now time to move on to more important subjects, which I shall elaborate on tomorrow night, but for now will sum up merely with the following sentiment:

I absolutely loathe the University of Southern California.

(PS- You chose a mascot with no balls. Does that accurately represent your team? My informants say yes.)

OK, the DORKS won tonight

2006-11-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

Good job DORKS. And for your efforts, you will likely be rated as a worse team than the team you beat tonight, and the team they beat last week. Sorry, but that's just the idiocy of the polls. Also, I will say that it was clear at halftime that you guys had won. It's odd to say that about a team that's behind by more than a TD at the half, and which didn't just score, and which hasn't injured any key players on the other team, but the Knights were clearly going to win the game when halftime started. It's a combination of momentum, emotion, and the fact that the crowd was making the game into a "big time football game". when you have a game that's a BTFG, you have to bet on the home team if the crowd is into it. And those guys were. From about 5 minutes left in the second quarter, I think Loiusville had about -197 yards in offense over the course of the rest of the game (I have to look it up to verify the exact number).

Anyway, good job DORKS, and when the time comes, don't bitch about getting screwed out of the championship game, just beat whomever they set you up against in the bowl game, and do so badly, and insure a split title between the AP and Coaches' polls.

At this point, I'd just like to make a note about my psychotic boss (though, for a change, this is not about his psychosis...)

Have any of you ever worked for a guy who delegated stuff that should not be delegated? Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about: A couple days ago, I was at a meeting in the morning, and got back to the office about 1 in the afternoon. I found on my seat a hand-written note telling me to go to a website, download about five 4-6 page .pdf files, and print and staple them, and give them back to my boss. Now, the first sign of inefficiency is that it took him an entire page to convey this message. The second sign of inefficiency is that to write that amount clearly took about 3 minutes, which is about 2 minutes longer than it actually took me to do the tasks assigned. Fuckin moron. Then, today, he took about 3 minutes to explain to me that he wanted me to send a 1 fucking sentence e-mail to a guy, and copy him on it. This took all of 12 seconds to actually do.

Goddammit, I need a new job.

"In America, your game shows reward knowledge...

2006-11-01T08:52:00.000-08:00

Here in Japan, we punish ignorance."

A bit about TV...

2006-10-31T23:09:00.000-08:00

If you like to watch TV and you don't watch Boston Legal, you should. It appears most people call it a "drama", but it's funnier on the whole than any sitcom out there, and more interesting too. Plus, it's got the Shat. You can't go wrong with Shatner. Especially if he's in full self deprecation mode. (For further evidence of this beyond what's available on ABC every Tuesday, rent "Free Enterprise", which may be difficult to find, but has perhaps the best movie reference to Logan's Run)

I'm Denny Crane, dammit, and when Denny Crane talks, EF Hutton listens!

A few minor thoughts on the last weekend...

2006-10-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

First off, Texas sucks. That game really exposed to the world how weak they are. Or at least that's what they'd be saying about Texas if Texas were ND. Instead, it's Texas had a courageous comeback against an upset-minded Texas Tech team. Because of their courageous comeback, they get moved up in the standings (well, their courageous comeback and USC finally actually choking one away to a crappy team instead of almost choking one away to a crappy team as they have been doing the last month or so.) And ND is the perpetually overrated media darling. Of course, noone's going to listen to me when I say this, but I have a theory:

ND is always overranked. Until the season starts. At which point, when they lose the first one, because there's a mindset of "ND is always overrated"(which is something that the same half the AP voters putting ND in the top five were writing as they were casting their ballot with ND written in at #1...), ND then gets dropped about 4-5 spots below where we would otherwise be. ND lost to Michigan, and after close wins against MSU and UCLA dropped in the minds of the voters. I note that at no point in either of those games was it a full three TD lead (and in the case of UCLA, never was ND down by as much as a TD, and I'd take even odds at worst in a UCLA-T.T. game).

Ah, hell... now I'm pissed at myself. I hate people who bitch and whine about getting screwed by the polls. But I've already started, so I may as well finish:

Goddamit, these poll voter asswipes are fucking us over.

A caption contest...

2006-10-23T21:58:00.000-07:00

I started this over at ND Nation, and gave those folks their shot at it, but this is a photo that needs a good caption... I don't know why.

Troy Hurtubise is my hero...

2006-10-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

If you've never seen it, you need to rent the documentary "Project Grizzly". This is a movie that follows around a guy for several months whilst he completes construction of and tests his 6th attempt at a bear-proof suit. There are a few scenes of pure physical comedy genius as the guy (Troy Hurtubise, if you forgot to read the subject line) brings out some archive footage tests of prior models. But far better than that are his monologue scenes, especially towards the end. Without the delivery, or the setup, it doesn't sound that great, but when a man talks about threatening a grizzly bear that "as sure as god made little green apples, I'm going to take both of these (bowie knives), and shove them right up your ass, and that's a fact"... that's not something you soon forget. So, my advice to you, again, is to rent "Project Grizzly". If you're a little off kilter, or at least find amusement in other people who are, you'll love it.

Well, my bowling league started last Friday...

2006-10-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

the genius of this particular league is, we bowl during happy hour. 2 buck 24 oz. drafts, and I get out of work 2 hours early to get them. And, I apparently have turned into a halfway decent bowler over the last three years or so, upping my average from ~135 to somewhere a little over 180 (as of the end of last year).

As for football, ND won, so I am happy, and I would bitch about the polls like all the other ND folk are likely to do, but I don't really give a shit about that. If we wanted to be higher, we should've beaten Michigan. Instead, we got our asses handed to us. That said, what I don't see so far in the reports of the game is this: Credit to Quinn for a pump fake that froze the defense and allowed Samardzija to break free for the easy reception, after which he only had one tackle to break on the way to the game winning TD. I have the game Tivoed, and watched that play about 15 times, and it's a thing of beauty to watch him set up about 3 UCLA defenders who had Shark bracketed, freeze the lot of them, and then roll out of the pocket and make the sure pass into a ton of space.

And then there's the Tigers- World Freakin Series! Woo-HOO! (ok, so they're only 1-1 in the WFS at the moment, but that just means they have to win 3 of 5. They can do that.) But Todd Fucking Jones (I'm pretty sure that's his legal name) is a damn heart attack. Why is it that this guy can't come out of the bullpen with a three run lead, get three quick outs, and go home? No, you've gotta come out, get 2 outs, put the winning run on base, then get that third out. Fucker. Maybe next year, Zumaya can be the closer. I have no doubt he can blow 12 pitches past 3 guys and get out of the ninth without a baserunner.

My Psychotic Boss, Part 2

2006-10-16T19:10:00.000-07:00

Pretend for a moment that my psychotic boss's name is Smith.

Heard today at the office... "You know, I think I'm going to start hunting the Smiths. Not a one of them is anything other than a waste of human life".

So Miami had a brawl last weekend

2006-10-16T18:59:00.000-07:00

The beauty of it is, they apparently had a group of several hundred utes (several hundred what, Mr. Gambini?)... youths there as part of a program/event entitled "join the team, not a gang".

What on earth posessed anyone to bring a group of kids to MIAMI, of all places, under that guise? Maybe for the "don't just join a gang, join a gang that plays football" event, but that doesn't have the proper cheesy PSA sound.

More than one way to skin a cat...

2006-10-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Why can't men and women come to the same conclusion through the same means?

Why are the polls taken on Sunday?

2006-10-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

Especially the coaches' poll. It's freakin ridiculous. Your typical coach wakes up Saturday, spends the morning preparing for his game, the afternoon at his game (if he's a halfway decent coach, he pays attention to his own game to the point of obliviousness to all others), 2 hours after the game in press conferences/team/coaches meetings, and if it's an away game, the rest of the night traveling home. For home games, they probably spend the rest of the night looking at the film of the game again.

And... they have to vote the top 25 teams early enough that the results are released by noon the next day. So, essentially, we have a group of people determining the rankings who are completely clueless to 117 of 119 teams they're supposed to know about until they wake up Sunday morning, which is going to be perhaps as much as 5(probably 2-3 for PAC-10 coaches) hours before the ballot is due. Five hours in which they're probably still spending most of the time looking over bits and pieces of their own games and those of their next week's opponent. So how are these people supposed to make an informed decision? Apparently, they're not, which is why you have things like Georgia Tech ranked ahead of Virginia Tech the day after GT stomped VT, and then the following week through the magic of the bye week (and someone actually informing the voters by that time of the result of the game) GT passing them.

This particular issue is easy to fix- release the polls (especially the coaches' poll, the AP guys are supposed to pay attention to a lot of games for their Sunday morning columns anyway) on Tuesday. That way, you can at least rest assured that all the voters will have had a chance to settle themselves for a little while and, perhaps, even had the time to check a newspaper for some box scores on which to base their votes. Of course, this does nothing to alleviate the conflict of interest inherent in the coaches' poll, namely, these guys all work for institutions that stand to benefit financially if their peers/conference members get the good bowls, and thus they have an incentive to vote those teams higher. But that's an argument for another day.

Thoughts on yesterday's football

2006-10-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

Well, now that I've had time to eliminate the remaining alcohol from last night's drinking, it's time to gather a review:

ND fans, or at least the subset thereof over at ND Nation are a strange bunch. Last week, ND trounced Purdue pretty good, holding a 3 TD lead most of the time after the mid-2nd quarter. This led to people screaming for defensive coordinator Rick Minter's head(granted, there were almost 500 yards for Purdue, but the game was over well before halftime). After yesterday's Stanford game, there was all sorts of handwringing about how we were going to get screwed in the polls because we "only" won by 21. Never mind that Stanford never threatened to score other than that first quarter field goal and the TD they got by suckering in Ndukwe with a sucker play.
Sadly, we seem to be succeptible to sucker plays, as that was pretty much the same thing that happened early agaisnt Michigan State- everyone chased after the ball after a handoff, forgetting that he was still allowed to throw.
The John L. Smith death march is going to come to an ugly end. I'm thinking this could be a potentially winless Big Ten season for the Spartans. Mr. Smith, from now on, I suggest you concentrate on next week's opponent, and not some perceived slight from a week and a half ago, hell, you were still talking about ND at your post-Illinois press conference.
Michigan looks pretty good.
Go Tiggers!(ok, so that's baseball, but hey, the Yankees are out, so all is well in the world)
UGa- you stink.
Auburn- You too. Mr. Tuberville, shut the hell up about these playoffs, because you wouldn't make it into a playoff most years anyway, so you're not getting screwed. Also, it might help if once in a while, you played an actual team that isn't in your conference.
I said it several weeks back, and I'll say it again: I don't think anyone's particularly good this year. The Big Ten(sic) is awful outside UM/tOSU, so those two should run the table. Outside of that, I see no real contenders to finish undefeated in the BCS (I figure Rutgers, WVU, and Loiusville will go 1-1 against each other, and Florida will choke one away to someone. USC doesn't look like they have the stuff to win out). So there's going to be about 12 1-loss teams and the winner of UM-tOSU, and a whole lot of whining about getting screwed come the end of the season. This is going to be a fun two months.
As a final note on ND, someone noted that 19 freshmen made the field against Stanford. That seems like a lot. Maybe it's because we have no sophomores or juniors on the team, and Weis figures he has to get these guys some time now, because next year, they're going to be on the field all game, every game, all year(high school seniors, take notice- this means there's a lot of space for you to work your way in early). At least most of these guys look pretty good.
I'm normally not one to take potshots at Ty, as now that he's at UW, he's not our problem anymore. But yesterday was the first time this season his incompetence really showed through. When the referees spend 20, 30 seconds getting ready to spot the ball, your play should be in, the players lined up, and the QB under center before the whistle is blown, and the ball should be snapped at the whistle. I've seen it done a hundred times. Yet your team let the final seconds tick off without so much as even an ugly clusterfuck of a miscommunicated playcall, and the game ends with your team standing around doing nothing, while having possession of the ball and down less than a TD. Good going.

My psychotic boss, part 1

2006-10-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

I expect this to be a running series, but there's something really wrong with my boss. The guy is angry. I mean, really angry. All the time. And I'm not talking about your typical boss who gets pissed when you're five minutes late, or the micromanager who gets in the way. I'm talking about a guy who, when the phone rings, has a tendency to give a nice little "god-DAMMIT!" that the entire office can hear. For some reason, he has this irrational hatred of the telephone, and has threatened on numerous occasions to desecrate the grave of Alexander Graham Bell. (yes, I'm serious). But, for today's lesson, I present the following evidence of why my boss is a total psycho:

"You know that combination iPod/cellphone? I want to get one of the ads for those things, and paste it to the wall and use it for target practice. 500 points to shoot the iPod, 1000 if you can shoot the buds out of the girl's ears without killing her."

Yep... taking target practice at cellphone users in the ads. That's real healthy. At least today he was talking about doing this to a piece of paper. at least, I think he was. Better than some other days...

Hey, DORKS

2006-09-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

This is why you don't chase the points. You may hold on to this game, but had you just kicked the extra point instead of going for two to go up by 7 with 13 minutes left, you wouldn't even be sweating it right now.

Never go for two unless you have a crappy kicker and you're able to average better by always going for two, or if it's to get a tie/up by a FG very late in the game (<2min).

I guess it was kicked...

2006-09-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

From CFN's Big Ten(sic) week 5 predictions comes this gem:
"Who to Watch: ...Linebacker George Hall ...coming up with a great game against Minnesota last week. After undergoing surgery in August on an injured keg, he appears back to normal and should be the team's leading tackler over the rest of the year."

Surgery? I usually just head off to the corner stor for a new one.

If your team is in a conference

2006-09-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

and you like it, you're a pinko commie america hating bastard. Why? Revenue sharing. Lenin liked it. Stalin liked it. You apparently like it to, comrade. Take, for example, the Big Ten(sic). You play in the Big Ten(sic), you get 1/11 of the Big Ten(sic)'s TV contract. This is utterly ridiculous, as the contract was signed by the network to get UM, tOSU, and the occasional Iowa/MSU/Wisky game. They don't give a rat's patoot about you, Mr. Hoosier. Nor you, the Illini (errr... in keeping with the NCAA's mandate on politically correct team names, the "Fighting Illini" shall henceforth be known as the "Angry Indigenous Woodlands People", or AIWP for short. ($1 to Lee)). So, the conference signs a contract that they are able to obtain because of 2 teams ("From each according to their abilities") and distributes to the entire conference ("To each according to their needs"... where have I heard that before?).

Likes revenue sharing

So if you're one of these down in the dumps teams that can't win, can't recruit to your school because you're out in the middle of nowhere, can't sell out your stadium because none of the students from your school actually gives a crap and they're all unwilling to road trip back, then by all means, join a conference, and take the money that some team from a school with actual football talent earns. But if you're a good, God-fearing, red-blooded American, take your cue from the Black Knights of the Hudson and leave your conference immediately. If you don't...

He wins.

mmmm... pudding

2006-09-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

Someone over at ND Nation found this wonderful rant of Detroit radio guy Mike Valenti- it starts about 7 1/2 to 8 minutes in. Truly one of the better on-air meltdowns ever.

Mike is as mad as hell, and he's not gonna take this anymore.

Among the gems spewed out:

"you had them by the throat, and instead of cuttin it real deep and watching the blood spurt all over, you let them get to halftime so 'fatboy' can feed them pudding"

"I did my job! I did my job!"

"I'm not going to call out individual players" (immediately preceeded by five minutes of Drew Stanton bashing, and immediately followed by some more).

"Note to John L. Smith: Learn the f-in rules and understand that your timeouts are not like cell-phone minutes! they don't carry over!"

"Pucker! Pucker! Pucker!... 34-17 against Michigan... pucker pucker pucker!"

There's another file that has the entire show (4 hours), in which Terry Foster loses control during the call in segment immediately following this while trying to get Mike to calm down. It's truly a beautiful day to be Irish.

You know when a punt goes out of bounds

2006-09-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

and you see the ref running up the sidelines, then slowing to a walk, with his arm over his head, and you're wondering where he's gonna stop... Am I the only one who starts yodeling?

"ooohhhh-dee-oooo-dee oooohhhh-deee-ooo-deee ohhh-dee-ooooh-deee-ooohhhh..."

It's been nearly a week

2006-09-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

and I'm still laughing at this. Of course, had this guy's kid been in the stands with me on Saturday... there would've had to be a much, much larger caption balloon.

Dammit, I hate when that happens...

2006-09-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, I was in the grocery store, and I had a sudden hankering for Planters cheese balls. No other would do, they had to be Planters, and they had to come in that cardboard can. But there were none to be had, and I got home, and found out they are never to be had again, as the product line is discontinued.

I'm upset. But even worse, now, for some reason, I have a hankering for one of the steak sandwiches they serve outside the Knights of Columbus building before ND home games. At least that's something I can get in a week's time when I go to the Purdue game. But it's going to be a long week's wait. Oh, and Sparty is going to get it worse than we got from Patrick Swayze and Lea Thompson last week.

a memo to the ND student body re: tailgating

2006-09-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Tailgating, and drinking at a tailgate is a serious business. Take it seriously, you sonsabitches. Enough with all the damn cornholing. The name alone should keep you from playing. But what really sickens me is that when I see it set up in the parking lot, there's only one thing I can think of: Reggie Dunlop and the Hansons. I'm Reggie, I've been doing this tailgating thing for 15 years... and then these kids show up, and THEY BROUGHT THEIR FUCKIN TOYS WITH THEM! Look. A good tailgate has no props. There is the beer, and the grill, and a bunch of people drinking and a few having some burgers and sausages and maybe some chips or something.

Old time tailgating... like Eddy Shore

A non-sequiter...

2006-09-18T21:19:00.000-07:00

I must post this, because it still disturbs me to know of its existence. And if something disturbs me, I must pass it on and disturb others. And I wish I had a digital camera at the game last weekend, because as I was leaving the game I saw something which was nearly as disturbing. There was a chick who was about 10 feet behind me who was fairly attractive and seemingly pretty tall, for a chick. Until I got off the ramps that let one down from the upper deck of the stadium, and I realized I was looking at her, on level ground, she wearing flip-flops, me being about 6'2"... and I was looking eye-to-slightly-below-chin with her. That's just flat not right.

Sometimes, those guys at "College football news" piss me off

2006-09-18T18:09:00.000-07:00

They do so again this week with their rankings. Well, not the actual ranking, but their little snippet next to it. "With a joke of a schedule ahead, a win at Michigan State will mean a 10-1 record going into the showdown with USC."

I'm used to the standard crap about "Is ND going to win the CIC trophy this year?" But let's look at this rationally: ND's schedule is the three academies (an oddity to play all three, though many would have you believe it's an annual occurrence), 1 middle of the pack and 1 bad ACC team(GT/UNC), 4 Big Ten(sic) teams spanning from the perennial top to the perennial just above IU(UM, PSU, MSU, PU), and 2 mid-PAC-10 teams, followed by the semi-annual post-thanksgiving USC game. So, that's the academies (who are actually decent this year), 6 mid-level BCS teams, 1 bottom feeding BCS team, and two teams which have a combined 50 Rose Bowel appearances, including at least one in each of the last three. Now, is this a schedule that's the equivalent of 1989, where ND played something like 4 of the final top 10 and 8 of the final top 20? No.. but this isn't by any stretch a "joke". The only thing that makes it seem that way is that the two teams that seem most likely to be conference champions happen to come at the beginning and the end of the schedule.

(and, I might add, with the apparent suckage of the ACC, I wouldn't doubt GT could take that crown, leaving ND with the potential to have gone 11-1(bear with me in my little fantasy for a few minutes, this team is more likely 8-4 to 10-2, and a key injury or two from an absolute disaster) against a schedule including 3 BCS representatives. Of course, if this were to come to pass, many would still bitch that ND got a bowl slot it didn't deserve, and ND needs to join a conference. But conferences are downright un-american, as I shall prove without a doubt in a post in the next few days.)

And on top of it all

2006-09-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sergeant Tim McCarthy was almost as off as the team was. I don't remember what he said, but it wasn't nearly as good as "If you have one for the road, you may have a policeman for a chaser" or even "The automobile may have replaced the horse and buggy, but the driver should stay on the wagon".

Man, that whole weekend sucked.

The view from South Bend was at least as ugly as it must have looked on TV

2006-09-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

That was certainly worth driving 220 miles each way, paying 60 bucks for a ticket, another hundred for a hotel, 10 bucks to park in some guy's yard a mile off campus, and getting a blister on my foot from walking probably 7 or 8 miles yesterday.

On second thought... no, it didn't. And what I saw of Sparty's game on TV in the JACC lot (some guy had his Directv setup hooked up to a small generator with a ~27" high def flat screen in the back of the truck, much better than having an aggee sturgeon re-wire the TV and using an old power cord (with one end stuck in someone's pocket) for an antenna) wasn't encouraging for next week. A couple of observations from the stands:

1: The OL can't block. Maybe UM has some great DL (and they probably do), but this has been a recurring theme for about 8 years, with a slight reprieve last year. Even then, much of the success had to do with Quinn finding a little bit of space in which to move about 1-2 steps to make a guy miss, re-set his feet and hit someone with a pass.

2: Quinn isn't sharp. Hasn't been all year so far, other than a couple really nice throws to the TE against PSU last week and the closing drive of the first half the last two weeks. Maybe now that he's considered to be an overrated flop instead of a surefire Heisman winner, he'll loosen up a little, relax, and make the throws he made all last year.

3: The receivers are still dropping passes when they actually get there. This seemed to start in the Fiesta bowl last year, and is starting to become a really annoying pattern.

As an aside, I know what the ESPN angle is going to be all week: "This is just like Ty Willingham's second year..."

Which, if ND happens to lose 5-6 more games, it will be. I don't see that happening. Maybe 2-3. Besides which, unlike Ty's second year, we actually have a halfway decent recruiting class forming (including future 32-time heisman winner "Jivetime" Jimmy Clausen). And, unlike that team, despite getting blown out, it still appeared that there was some small chance of winning even into the late 3rd quarter (if we'd just stop screwing up, which didn't happen).

This year, I'm still pretty optimistic for a nice season, I can actually picture this team winning out, which would be nice. Next year... well, we're going to field a team with I believe 9 seniors, about 15-16 juniors, and 53 underclassmen. (see the above note about poor recruiting after Ty's first year- next year's junior class had about 6 members when Ty was put out to pasture, and Charlie was hamstrung to an extent in recruiting by having other responsibilities right up until signing day).

So over at Blue Gray Sky...

2006-09-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

they have a ranking of the top 9 mohawks. I'm just outraged at the oversight that left off perhaps the greatest of them all:

Stripe.

I'm sorely disappointed- usually those guys are on the ball.

Every now and then, I have to get this out of my system.

2006-09-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

IT WASN'T A CLIP, DAMMIT!

Ok, all done.

It's Tuesday, and there's no football tonight.

2006-09-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have beer though, so all is well.

And the Tigers won, so they're that much farther from choking it all away. At least it keeps the people who've been waiting for the other shoe to drop since mid-May quiet for another day or so. Relatively speaking anyway.

Keep the faith, and Bless You Boys! (and if anyone has a link to an audio file of the "Bless you boys" song from 84, pass it along. (and to the RIAA- I'll gladly pay a quarter to whomever owns the rights to this if need be, but I know damn well I'm not going to find it anywhere but on the internet, you money grubbing bastiches))

It was true then, just as it's true now...

2006-09-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

He knew the score...

All proper credit to (I believe) NDN's FightonforMorrissey. And of course, your local NRA kook.

NBC Sports does something right for a change

2006-09-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Once the game with PSU was finished, they took their tape, edited it down to just the actual football (cutting out ~15 seconds per play for the officials to make the spot, stop/start the clock, etc) and now have it up on their site as a streaming video, such that the entire game can be watched in about 42 minutes. A couple of the bigger plays, they left the replays in, but generally, it's just show the play up to the tackle, then cut to the teams lining up for the next play.

This could catch on. And you only have to watch the stupid Vonage commercials they showed approximately 6.02 x 10^23 times during the actual broadcast once per quarter.

Memo to College Football:

2006-09-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Fear the DORKS!

AP and Coaches polls out...

2006-09-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

no big shockers, seems to be the standard "take last week's poll and adjust everyone who lost down 3-5 spots." Teams move up almost solely according to which teams were in slightly in front of them and lost. ND, tOSU, and USC appear to control their destiny now, everyone else has to hope that one of those three loses a game. Kind of a sucky system, but it's what happens when you take something like the old jumbled up system of bowls and try to force a championship on it without throwing it out entirely and putting in an actual playoff. I say, bring back the bowls, and do them properly. Finish this thing on Jan 1 the way it was meant to be, keep 1 conference tied to each major bowl (the rose can have the Pac-10 and Big-10(sic) back if they want.), and get rid of all but a few of the consolation prize bowls. Anyway, now is a good time for me to be starting to think of why I hate U-M. More later.

That was one ugly game by ND...

2006-09-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

well, the first half was ugly. The second half, it seemed hard to screw up. And they didn't. Big play early by the defense put the game mostly away. Then in a seemingly bastard move, the Robot Genius went for the fake punt on about 4th and 3 from the PSU 40-something. It worked, got ND down to the PSU 4, from whence they eventually scored. And that pretty much was the end of the game. But still, how ND went into the half up 20-0 is a bit of a mystery. It seemed like every running play PSU had went for 5-8 yards. Morelli threw something like one incomplete pass in the half. Oddly enough, I'm more upset/worried about the season now than I was last week after the 14-10 win over GT. And ND won by 24. And at one point held a 38 point lead. Maybe I'm just nuts. More commentary on this game and others and the world of college football in general when the beer wears off.

Those were the days, my friend...

2006-09-09T08:20:00.000-07:00

Used to have this as a poster. I have to find another copy.

Counting down to the doom of PSU... just a few more hours now.

An odd and morbid thought...

2006-09-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

How is it reflected in a team's record if their plane crashes on the way to the game? Do they forfeit the rest of the season? And how do Vegas and the bookies handle the bets placed on those games?

Another minor note on today's BSU- (an) OSU game

2006-09-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

It struck me, as they cut to the BSU band playing, that they were playing the old Budweiser commercial music. And then I took a second and realized- there probably isn't a one among them that remembers when Budweiser used that music. (And on top of that, they probably don't even know what follows the words "Here's to good friends...". Or what an Energizer commercial was like before the bunny.)

Damn, I'm old...

(Oh, and for those of you who have forgotten the pre-bunny Energizer ads... Say hello to my little Aussie football friend...)

And with that, the last of the respect for the non-USC PAC-10 goes away

2006-09-07T20:12:00.000-07:00

Wow. I mean... wow. Losing to a second tier conference team is bad enough. But to get blasted to the tune of 42-14? That's just awful. And they're probably going to be a middle of the PAC-10 team. After Cal's recent bend-and-submit, things aren't looking good for that conference. But enough about the irrelevant teams who play on thursdays and saturday afternoon after the rest of the civilized world has gone to the bars, it's time to talk important things. Like ND. And their upcoming domination of the crotchety undead from State College.

I see an awful lot of extremely confident State Pen fans these days. I really don't know why. They like to ridicule ND's offensive performance last Saturday against GT, but don't seem to realize that they have a guy who managed 50% completions and somewhere south of 300 yards of offense. Against Akron. I don't care if it was raining, if you can't move the ball against a middling MAC team, you don't scare me. And for all the talk of "617 yards"- that was one game. A game in which we gave up 4 of the 6 longest scoring plays of the year. Penn State doesn't have Troy Smith, Ted Ginn, Santonio Holmes, or whatshisface the running back. Matter of fact, they averaged a little under 3 yards per rushing attempt. Again- this was against AKRON. So, I really don't think there's a whole lot to worry about as far as the zombie's lad's scoring. Maybe 14.

As for the gentleman warrior princes of Notre Dame (kudos to Marco for that moniker), they had an ugly start against GT. But, after about a quarter and a half, they figured out the blitz package, and moved the ball right down the field for a TD to close out the first half. Then did so again to start the second half (after a quick defensive stop). Then had a couple of drives with moderate success (though one ended in a punt) and took the ball back with a little over 5 minutes left. And, as was the clear goal of the second half gameplan, ran out the clock. I have a feeling the opening night jitters are done with, and that was really the only thing keeping the GT game from being a blowout (well, that and the fact the refs were on the take and called several early penalties that noone in the stadium saw but them, killing ND's opening drive- they tried to cover this up by later calling a questionable incompletion on Calvin Johnson from the replay booth, but really, that ball moved when he landed so it's not much of a makeup.). So, since ND is home, I figure the boys in black and white won't be so anxious to screw us over. ND will thusly put up about 35, a little sub-par from last year, but still respectable and still handily winning the game.

And as a final note, the mighty Chippewas of CMU will appear to be giving Michigan a good game, but will do themselves in with a retarded play call like last Thursday's decision to go for it on 4th and 8 from their own 27, and this will turn the tide and they'll lose by about 31. (with UM's final TD coming after they convert an on-side kick up by 24 with 2 minutes in the game, just so CCLoyd* can appease those who feel he didn't pound Vanderbilt by enough last week).

* L=50, C=100... 5 L's =CCL

Well, it's another college football season (at last)

2006-09-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

And now that I've let the beer, gin, and whiskey wear off from the long weekend, I suppose I have some thoughts on the subject. For starters, I will pick on Michigan State. Wow- that was a weak performance. You guys were playing Idaho. I-da-freeking-ho. Yeah, their coach is buddies with John L and you don't want to be known as a bunch of RUTSing bastages piling on points late in games you've already won, but when you're playing a crappy team, win the game early. You guys aren't making it any easier on the 3-4 teams you're going to beat that are going to finish well ahead of your 5-7 record.

And Michigan- well, at least you picked an SEC bottomfeeder to beat up on to start the year as opposed to the usual MACrifices, which I suppose are bracketing the ND game. Watch out for that CMU team, were their coach not mildly retarded, they'd be coming into your stadium with a win.

Florida State and Miami- will one of you guys please buy an offense? I mean, yes, your defenses are very good. But to combine for under 300 yards? Sheesh, I can do that on my Playstation in a quarter.

And of course, the only important game of the opening week- ND/GT. The good guys won, and there was much rejoicing (yay!). It's interesting to see the amount of bitching about the officiating in that game, especially considering the majority of it is coming from GT fans, who neglect to mention several horrendous calls that went in their favor, 2 of them going against Rhema McKnight alone. Couple of notes for our Big Ten(sic) referee buddies out there- "holding" involves actually making some sort of grasping motion toward an opponent. Hitting him in the chest, knocking him on his ass, and continuing to run up field doesn't qualify. And it's usually pass interference when a player is attempting to catch a pass and the guy on the other team reaches around from behind him and pulls his chest down with one arm while ripping his helmet off with the other. All things considered, a horribly officiated game (and I think Johnson caught the ball your guy in the booth overturned, but unlike some, I realize that that was not going to be a game-changing play anyway)

My impressions from watching 1 full game and about 9 halves over the weekend? I'm pretty sure everyone sucks this year. This is going to be fun to watch.