Two dead soldiers

Yea, yea, spare me the bunko about drinking too much. My theory is the booze is a cheaper preservative than formaldehyde, and its self-serve too.

I finished the Laphroaig first, and the JW was a fast follower. I found the Laphroaig to have a very strong, earthy taste. Skilled reviewers have described the taste as peaty, but I have never eaten any peat, so I will stick with earthy. Regardless, it was excellent as long as you like a strong taste. The Johnnie Walker Blue was a gift (free booze is always best) from my old team at work (thanks guys!). In my humble, non-expert opinion, JW Blue is the best scotch made, or at least the best this blogger has ever guzzled.

Unfortunately, I will now take a step down in my drinking habits. Being the cheap bastard that I am, I was counting on Xmas gifts to re-stock my booze levels, but all I got for Christmas was a lone bottle of JW Black, which hardly compares to the Blue. Life sucks when you have cheap relatives!

hypocrisy rant

Normally the Fish Head only writes about booze, football, cigars, and the occassional weird oddity that catches his attention on the Internet. Politics, religion, or any serious or controversial topic, might be of interest, but of the private kind, not the public kind.

In recent years, the Fish Head has lost interest in professional sports due to the many and sundry forms of hypocrisy exhibited by the players. Its hard to be interested in a game when the players are making millions of dollars and at the same time bitch and moan about their salaries, demand more, and don't play hard. Why would the Fish Head pay $100 for a ticket to watch a gaggle of grossly over-paid greedy prima donnas pretend to go all-out?

Today the Fish Head learned that hypocrisy is not just a sports phenomena. While reading the week's snail mail, the Fish Head stumbled across People Magazine, which featured a quite unflattering picture of celeb Jennifer Love Hewitt. Miss Hewitt was enraged by the fact that the media was taunting and dissing her for having put on a few extra pounds. Why was she enraged? Well of course, because the public's attitude towards her, would engender unhealthy body images in the minds of young girls.

Hmmmm....lessee. Normally the Fish Head might agree with this concept, being generally supportive of women, and also generally supportive of women being naked in his presence and feeling comfortable about it. But....isn't this the same Hewitt who has, in large part, become rich and famous by flaunting her supra-natural figure in lingerie on the covers of Maxim, FHM, and various other skin mags? Yes, the same Hewitt. So when she was earning a rich living, in part by selling the viewing of her un-naturally perfect body, that was cool with her and wouldn't have engendered any body image issues for other women who could never look that insanely perfect. But now that her figure is merely nice and natural, any commentary on the change or focus on her appearance might damage the psyche of the female population.

You can look it up for yourself, but the definition is "Hypocrisy is the act of condemning another person for an act of which the critic is guilty". And the Fish Head judges Miss Hewitt's reaction as the most obvious form of it.

Google to the rescue

Fish Head googled on "Tampa Steak" and 1,230,000 hits later, found paydirt. Bern's Steak House is (or at least it was many years ago) the best steak joint in the city. The upstairs dessert room has kitschy little booths that make the visit well worthwhile.

Ybor City

Fish Head's brother Pat, whose advancing age has seriously dulled his never-all-that-sharp knife edge, nevertheless came up with the name of the party district in Tampa. Ybor City was a totally great place to party back in the early 90's when I visited, although it sounds like the local government has been striving to tone it down a notch.

Now if someone could only come up with the name of that steak joint...

Personnel changes

Northwestern Athletic Director Mark Murphy is leaving the University to become CEO of the Green Bay Packers. Murphy, who has NFL playing experience, was well-respected at the school which has enjoyed considerable success in several sports over the last few years. The Tribune gave the story an entire column on the back page of the sports section.

Hidden away inside the sports section, in a tiny little paragraph, was far bigger news. Greg Colby, defensive coordinator, will not return for 2008. Head coach Fitzgerald, himself once a star linebacker at NU, couldn't have been pleased with the defense's performance this year. Removing Colby is a good first step, and we'll have to wait and see who Fitz picks as the replacement. Tip: Get someone who understands the words "pass rush" and "blitz".

Road trip options

Bowls are great for road trips. In past years, the Fish Head has been to the Orange Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the Alamo Bowl, and the Motor City Bowl. My alma mater choked away its season and bowl chances, but the great thing about college football is you can always come up with an excuse for a road trip. Purdue? I drove past there on I-65 a few times. Michigan State? I went to a game there once. Indiana? I was born in Hammond. Wisconsin? I eat cheese sometimes. Ohio State? I think I ate a buckeye one Christmas.

So let's walk thru these games in order and rate them on their potential for a road trip.

As discussed in other entries in this blog, the Motor City is a nice road trip. While Detroit gets a bad rap for its general miserable economic condition, there is an approximately 4-square block section of downtown that's nice. Jacoby's, Greektown, the casino, and a profusion of bars make for a great time. Throw in a mini-bar and you are sure to have a blast.

The Champs Bowl is a mystery to me. What or who sponsors this one? And who in their right mind would go to Orlando for a bowl game? Take a pass on the Champs.

The Alamo Bowl is likely the best party time of any bowl. Get a hotel right on the riverwalk, and the odds of leaving San Antonio with a live liver are slim. Visit the martini bar, the cigar bar, the Hooters, and keep right on going down the list of bars. The Fish Head likes bars, and for a short break you can visit the actual Alamo which is smack dab in downtown San Antonio. And hey the Alamo Dome is nice too.

The Fish Head doesn't know anything about the Insight Bowl, but its a safe prediction that a college town loaded with hot coeds and bars can't be all bad. But Oklahoma against Indiana? Who dreamed up this match?

The Outback Bowl is named after a steak joint and is played in a town whose only claims to fame are stripper joints and cigars. Which is pretty close to perfect for a road trip - Mons Venus anyone? I vaguely recall an excellent party area in Tampa, in an old warehouse district; but apparently I was so drunk at the time that I can't remember the name of the district. And there's a great steak joint in town with a nifty dessert and smoking room upstairs, whose name I also can't remember. Maybe they have amnesia in the water.

Capital One. Deja vu in Orlando. Skip it. Altho the opportunity to see Tim Tebow destroy the Wolverines sounds good.

The Rose Bowl is in Pasadena. Which is in California. Which is full of weirdos and Democrats. No attraction here, except the possibility of seeing USC get pummelled. Which in retrospect, makes the weirdos and Democrats tolerable. But can you trust the Illini to pull it off?

The BCS title game is played in New Orleans. I've never been, but its a legendary party city and this is the biggest game of them all. A little jazz, a little spicy food, some booze, and a great football game. Oh, and Ohio State getting slaughtered. Perfect!

Big Ten bowls

On November 22, I posted my and CBS's predictions for the likely Big Ten bowl line-up. And then we had two weekends of upsets, chokes, fades, and generally vomitous play by the top teams. And the equally vomitous but inactive Big Ten leaders, OSU and Illinois, benefited greatly from the churn.

OSU has snuck upwards thru the muck to the title game; and Illinois pass/fail'd its way from the Capital One to the Rose. Hey, if you can't succeed on your own merits, the next best thing is to succeed on the failures of others!

The other lucky son of a buck is Purdue, which was on the bubble. The extra BCS game (Illinois) for the Big Ten opened a spot and Purdue snuck into the ever-prestigious Motor City Bowl. Which so happens to be a great place to spend the day after Xmas!

BCS selections

The BCS selections were announced tonight on Fox. The big loser was Mizzou who disappeared to a consolation bowl (Cotton), and the big winner was Ohio State who backed into the title game. And the surprise team of the year is Hawaii, who goes to the Sugar against Georgia.

A thief with good taste

The Fish Head is a fiscal and moral conservative in all ways (even conservatives have a few unpleasant vices) and generally frowns on all manner of crimes (except the ones he commits himself). But even the Fish Head has to admire this crook, whom the press fails to realize may have purloined the goods for personal use!

Today's sports apology

The Fish Head is a moron. Dumber than a grouper. Slower than a sea urchin.

Pitt should have given Wannstedt a 10 year extension, as Pitt upset 4-TD favorite West Virginia and threw the BCS into a chaotic tizzy. "A flat out nightmare", per the West Virginia coach. Not clear whether he was referring to his #2 team blowing an easy game and choking away their national title chances, or losing to Wannstedt.

This leaves the BCS title game to Ohio State, which of course has fond memories from last year's complete choke. And maybe the BCS will actually pick an opponent from the wreckage of all the other teams who have also choked away big games this year. Or maybe they will just pick OSU and give them a forfeit, to spare us all the embarrassment of what is sure to be a shocking but crappy game, given the nature of this year's performances in big games. Oh did I forget to mention #1 Mizzou lost too?

Today's sports news

Dave Wannstedt, beloved in Chicago, received a three year contract extension at Pitt. Why? His stellar record, of course. During his three seasons as head coach at Pitt, his teams have gone 5-6, 6-6, and 4-7, for a combined 15-19. This after going 39-23 with 5 bowl appearances during the previous 5 years under Walt Harris. Wannstedt's tenure has been marked by losing and bizarre, un-defendable game decisions. And it seems like he fits in with the Pitt administration, which inexplicably also today hired Steve Pederson. Yes, the same Steve Pederson who was just fired by Nebraska immediately after giving Bill Callahan a 3 year contract extension. Whereupon Callahan was fired, to be replaced by Bo Pellini who shoulda woulda coulda got Callhan's job in the first place. Uhhhhh.....I hope this is making sense to someone!

And the Bowl selections are starting to roll in. Penn State will play in the Alamo and Wiscy will play in the Outback. Tune in to the Pitt (lol) and Mizzou games to see if OSU can back into a miracle and play in the title game.

no wonder every one from Ipanema is happy

Try one of these bad boys and you will understand why Brazilians always seem happy. I bought a bag full of limes over the weekend and plan to hit the cachaca hard tonite!

Ate too much on Turkey Day?

Darts

I went to the local pub yesterday, drained a few Guinness's, and played darts on one of those electronic dart boards. Despite my brother thrashing me several games in a row, I enjoyed the competition and today I spent a few moments googling on "pub darts". 2,050,000 hits. Does Google provide 2M hits on every obscure topic? Who wrote that code anyway?

After I had finished reviewing all 2M URLs (not much to do today until the college football games start), I did find a few interesting ones.

Online games were common. The parkinson-esque movement of this one is most reminiscent of my own shaky throws.

Need to find a pub with darts? This site helps you locate one. Its for the UK but what the hell, listing one Chicago pub won't hurt them any. Especially since I used my brother's email for the contact. Spam anyone?

Worried about the status of the sport? Major angst in the UK about the gradual decline of darts. Apparently the younger crowd has moved onto those snazzy rollerball golf video games.

Want to win a few bucks? MacGowan's has a nice little tournament, and hey, who knew Compuserve was still running?

I'd like a nifty sign like this for my basement.

The eHow site tells you how to set up a dartboard (??) and how to win while blindfolded. Hey I only have one eye now, maybe I should enucleate the other to improve my game?

Lastly, I did the now-obligatory porn search, googling on "pub darts porn". Hits? Sure, 64,100 hits. Including information on chico1972 who likes drinking, mountain biking, darts, and of course porn. Pre-teen nudes? Yes, somehow they are involved with darts. And of course, a hit that references the Temple Bar on Calle Alvear in Buenos Aires, where the wait staff apparently downloads porn in between serving Guinness and playing darts and snooker.

Good-bye Talisker

I guzzled the last of my Talisker and have moved on to a bottle of Laphroaig. No, I can't pronounce that, can you? According to Wikipedia, its pronounced "la-FROW-yg". It has a reputation for having a strong, distinctive peaty taste. Check back in a week or two to see if I liked it.

Finis

And so the Big Ten season ends with a whimper not a bang, as the Wildcats looked flat and outclassed as they lost to the Illini, 41-22. NU's multi-year win streak over the Illini was broken and the Tomahawk returns to Champaign.

Iowa played itself out of bowl contention by losing a shocker to Western Michigan, and Purdue left itself on the bubble by losing to in-state rival Indiana. Indiana will go to its first bowl game in many years, living up to the Gipper hype after the tragic death of Coach Hoeppner.

While the Big Ten season is over, thankfully action continues in the other conferences. The best game for Turkey day will be watching the Sun Devils pummel Southern Cal. For Saturday, be sure to tune in to watch the resurgent Irish try to beat Jim Harbaugh's Cardinal. As you may be aware, the admission standards at Notre Dame are not up to Stanford's snuff.

Bowl chances

Click here for the running tab on NU's odds of a bowl visit. With yesterday's big losses by OSU (and corresponding win by Illinois) and Michigan, the Big Ten race has become somewhat scrambled. Best case, the Big Ten will have only one BCS participant, with the Rose selecting OSU. But OSU faces Michigan in their traditional finale to the season; if Michigan beats OSU, all bets are off.

Other games next week are equally crucial. Northwestern squares off against Illinois, and its a must win game for the Cats. A win would move the Cats to 7-5 overall, 4-4 in conference, and give them a shot at one of the lesser Big Ten bowls. Losses by Wiscy, Penn State, Purdue, and Iowa would increase the Cats chances.

Go Cats! Beat the Illini!

Un-tidy bowl

The Wildcats snuck by Indiana 31-28 to become bowl-eligible. As usual, the cardiac crew made every effort to maximize the pulmonary pressure, scoring the go-ahead TD with only 44 ticks on the clock, but at the same time leaving Indiana 44 ticks to come back. The game was finally decided when the Cats forced a Hoosiers fumble with 12 seconds to go, but an official review then elongated the suspense by several minutes. The Wildcats football games are eerily similar to professional basketball - show up with 2 minutes to go and you will see everything of interest.

Highlights of the game (not counting the thrilling finish):

Indiana coach calling a pass play for the scrub QB who was in for one play. Result: Horrible toss, interception, Cats touchdown. Oops, maybe you should have called a run.
The running game. Tyrell had 141 rushing yards on 33 (count 'em!) attempts and 213 total yards. The re-appearance of the running game is very timely.
Heineken mini-kegs. These things are the bomb.
My oldest daughter attending the tail-gate and game. After many years of tailgating, she was the first family member to make it to a game!

So the Cats are now 6-5 (3-4 conference) and technically bow-eligible. The Fish Head is too mentally challenged to fully decipher the bowl scramble, but its likely that 6-5 (especially with other Big Ten events this weekend) will not get the Cats a bowl. Oh, to have that Duke game back. Or, that Michigan game. Or, that Purdue game. The Cats maddening inconsistency and inability to close out every game has placed them in this precarious bowl position, where the Illini game on 11/17 is a must-win.

StatCounter-ing the sick pukes

Everyone knows this country is full of sick, demented freakazoids these days. But how full is full, exactly? Are there more freaks now than say, 30 years ago? I can't answer those questions, but I can provide a very small, and very bizarre little numerical tidbit.

Shortly after establishing this blog, my bloated ego insisted that I be able to monitor the size of my undoubtedly massive readership. So I installed a free utility called Stat Counter, which tracks usage statistics on your site. At first I found it fascinating to see how many (lol rarely out of the single digits) hits the site got, what countries the visitors were from, etc. But the novelty soon wore off, and my weekly usage emails from Stat Counter went unread.

For whatever reason, I read today's usage report, and was astounded to see heavy volume on my site, from of all places, Canada. What might our friends from the frosty north find of interest on Fish Head? Oh, the sickness of it all is astounding. When I drilled into the Stat Counter logs to see what the Canuckers were up to, I discovered these sleazoids were Googling for "Fish Head Porno", which grotesquely enough yields over 2M results with result #1 being Fish Head On a Stick!

Now you need to ask yourself two questions. First, what in the world would prompt some demented Canadians to combine the words "fish head" and "porno"? I don't know what your life experience has been, but mine has not included anything that would lead me to think of that combination. Second, why oh why is that combination of words so commonly juxtaposed as to yield over 2M hits?

Google it yourself, if you dare.

Calendar of the Year

There's bikinis. Playboy. Hooters.

But here's the best of all.

Looks like a Cats 4Q replay

Cheerleader Run Over By Football Team - Watch more free videos

Cats are supposed to eat Hawks

The Cats choked one away to the Hawkeyes, losing 28-17 on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. After starting 14-0 and completely dominating the first quarter, the Cats offense went into a coma, with second half drives ending with 4 punts, 3 interceptions, and yes 1 field goal. Overall the game looked eerily reminiscent of the Purdue and Michigan games.

While Iowa moved to within 1 game of bowl eligibility (who woulda thunk that a few weeks ago), the Cats remained in bowl stasis, and now face enormous pressure to win out the next two weeks with key games against Indiana (home) and Illinois (Champaign).

Spam-normous

This tidbit does not seem to have generated much churn in the press, but if you think you have issues with sneaky, pervy, or dastardly email, check this out.

Road trip

We did a road trip to watch the Cats play the Eastern Michigan Eagles at Ford Field in Detroit. The Cats looked flat but sealed the victory with a 71-yard TD pass to Kim Thompson with 2:44 to go, bringing the Cats 1 win closer to bowl eligibility.

High (and low) lights from the trip.

Attendance. If there were 3,000 people at the game, I'd be amazed. The stands were virtually empty, and surprisingly, there were basically zero EMU fans in attendance. At capacity of 65,000, Ford Field was empty and lonely for this game.

Car. Yowsah, Mercedes makes a nice ride. I could spend hours fiddling with all the gizmos loaded into that car.

Battle Creek. Ouch, this town looks a bit shopworn and when did they stop making all the cereal here? Plus, the stripper club is exceptionally skanky and is not recommended.

Downtown Detroit. Jacoby's and Greek Town are highly recommended. Potato pancakes and sausage, beer, rodidis, octopus and football. Can't be beat.

Next up for the Cats is Purdue at West Lafayette.

Predictions

The FishHead rates himself 2 of 3 from last week. I warned that the Illini had to watch for a let-down. Check, they got beat by the completely useless Hawkeyes, and will now vanish from the rankings after a brief one week stay. I predicted that the Irish would return to the loss track. Check, BC stomped them 27-14. And lastly, I predicted that the Wildcats would rout Minnesota. Does 49-48 count as a rout? I think that's a little debate-able, but perhaps I should give myself credit and go 3 for 3!

So after their second thrilling OT win in a row, the Wildcats advance to 4-3 overall, 2-2 in conference, and resume their march to a bowl game - 3 wins from the remaining 5 games are required. Next up is the Eastern Michigan Eagles, who look pretty weak this year (same as every other year). See you in Detroit if you make it up there.

Numb3rs

The numbers say it all. 520 yards passing. Sacks allowed 0. 5 TD passes. 10 receivers with receptions. Final score 48-41 Cats!

Next up for the Cats are the stumbling Gophers who fell to 1-5 after being routed by the surprisingly decent Hoosiers. The Cats should show up at Dyche re-charged, re-confident, and put a horrible pasting on the Gophers.

In other amazing action. The recruiting fairy has smiled on Champaign and the Illini are looking good, beating ranked teams on consecutive weekends. Yes, Wiscy was the most over-rated #5 of all time, but still. If Juice the melon-headed can learn how to throw the ball, the Illini could be amazing. But watch out for big let-downs. Next up is this year's conference patsy, Iowa. Illinois needs to at least show up and play.

Jim Harbaugh pulled off a big one, shocking USC 24-23. Even more shocking, The Cardinal did this with a rookie QB after the starter choked on a Big Mac. Not shocking at all, were the moronic platitudes that Pete Carroll vomited up after the game. Let's face it Pete, your team is not playing well.

And the most amazing action of all. The Fighting Irish scored points AND won a game. Now some nitpickers might claim that the UCLAns lost the game, as opposed to the Irish winning. Why would they say that? Lessee....the UCLA starting QB was knocked out of the game in the first quarter, forcing UCLA to play an un-tested freshman. Who proceeded to throw 4 picks and lose a fumble. ND's offensive contribution? A 4-yard TD drive after an interception. So amazing yes, and it'll be back to the loss column next week for the Irish.

Flubber-ooski

The Cats imploded in the fourth quarter with 4 turnover's costing them the game, after outplaying Michigan in the first half. Down's? Oops, the 6-6, 7-5, 8-4 season we counted on? Not happening. Sacks? Yea the other team made them. Ups? Omar Conteh, where did this guy come from. Villareal. He's the real thing...its other-worldly to see the Cats out-kick the opponent (Michigan missed two field goals). Weather. Holy cow it was nice, and I got to spend the day with special friends and old friends. And we mostly ignored the Knob Creek and escaped with our gastro-intestinal fortitude intact.

Next up is the Golden Gophers (in Minneapolis) who got pasted by OSU, altho the Gophers looked less embarrassed by OSU than the Cats did.

MoveOnRightNow.org

Let's all just move on and forget all about the game that is not to be mentioned. We stunk, we got killed, and worst of all the Fishhead's prediction of 12-0 which became 11-1 has now become 10-2.

Since we can't discuss the game which is not to be mentioned, let's waste some time looking at past and future opponents.

The Cats opened their season with an easy win over 1-AA Northeastern. Northeastern, apparently demoralized, promptly dropped two of their next three games, routed by Richmond (?) and Cal-Davis, but sneaking in a big win over Northwestern State. Yes, you read it here first, in one season Northeastern lost to Northwestern, but beat Northwestern State. Now how many people reading the paper figure that Northwestern and Northwestern State are in the same state?

Next, the Cardiac Cats pulled one out at the last second over the Nevada Wolfpack. Nevada, fresh off a pummelling by Nebraska (lol Ball State showed us how horrific a loss that truly was), slunk out of Dyche with an 0-2 record. The Wolfpack's bowl hopes were revived the next week, as they crushed Nicholls State. Nevada can even its record next weekend when it faces in-state rival UNLV.

Next next, the Cats stunk it up against Duke. The Blue Devils came into the game holding the longest losing streak in 1A ball, and the Fishhead predicted a stinker of a rout. But the Cats rolled over dead and the Dukies escaped with a big win. Perhaps we can pretend this was less pathetic than it seemed, as Duke subsequently showed signs of actual skill by hanging tough against a decent Navy squad. Or, we can wallow in evil thoughts as we savor the thought of Duke's next game against the thugs of Miami (FL).

Which brings us to the game which we will not mention. Played at the "shoe", which btw after the megabucks renovations, looks nothing like its eponymous equine footwear, this looked like a match between the Chicago Bears and the Benet Redwings. It was quite simply a ludicrous mismatch for the ages. The Buckeyes poor performance against the fearsome Akron Zips had given the Fishhead some vague hope, which was quickly extinguished as OSU scored TDs on its first three possessions and then promptly installed the fifth string which proceeded to score another 40 or so points. So its a good thing we are not mentioning this one. Ever again. Except for the 99-yard TD return which despite sloppy tackling was still pretty exciting. It should be interesting to see how Minnesota and Purdue make out against the Buckeyes during the next two weeks.

Future games? Oh, yes indeedy despite wishing the season was over after the game we shall not mention, it continues on against the Michigan Wolverines. Two weeks ago I was thinking Michigan was an easy W, but no more. After pummelling the hapless, hopeless Irish (google on FireCharlieWeis.com), the Wolverines continued to look better by beating the Mummy's squad 14-9. Tough defense, a strong running game, and a quarterback whose arm has not been amputated, will spell trouble for the Cats. Remember the big loss to Appalachian State? Well the Mountaineers followed up with two more wins, but then spoiled their Cinderalla season by losing to the Wofford Terriers (I did not make that name up).

Should I keep going? Lessee....Michigan State, they are 4-0 after beating a few patsies like Notre Dame and Pitt (take that, Wanny!). Minnesota? The Gophers are 1-3, with only a win over Miami (OH) marring their perfect record. Speaking of Kevin Bacon, Minnesota beat Miami (OH) who beat Ball State who almost beat Nebraska. The Gophers will get a beating from OSU and then face a coin toss at somewhat-improved Indiana before facing the Cats.

And that brings us to the Eastern Michigan game, everyone's scheduled W, and as far as I can stand to type. The game will be played at Ford Field in Detroit on a Friday night, and the saving grace will be the crack we smoke and the brown paper bags we wear over our heads during the game.

And hey Pat. Anytime you want to....I dunno, get the team fired up and ready to play? That would be great.

Oh the Stench...

Which emits from the rotting corpse of the NU football program. Oops, no that's for the Notre Dame blog. But yes, there was a stanky stench arising from Dyche stadium, just as predicted. The game stunk and the team stunk, but unfortunately the stinkers were the Wildcats not the Blue Devils. Link here for a vivid description of the extent of the stankery. Personally I hope never to smell anything like that ever again....so maybe its a good thing the OSU game is in Columbus and I am not!

3-0 is 1/4 of 12-0

Let's be honest about it, Coach K's team stinks. Its as simple as that, and 3-0 is guaranteed. Don't read the line, don't read the paper, they stink and it will be a rout. The Fishhead's plan is to get plenty drunk during the tailgate so that he is oblivious to the vast stinkery coming from the game. The highlight might be the first opportunity to see the real band play!

Cardiac Cats are Back

Or at least, so says the headline on the NU sports site. Personally, I did not feel any heart palpitations, but I'll admit to laughing uproariously at the looks on the faces of the Nevada fans. NU initially blew the game by failing to notch a first down needing only one yard in two plays, then got the ball back with one minute to go and drove the length of the field to win. The Nevada fans went from huge, noisy celebration to stunned silence in the space of one minute...you can only imagine the painful flight home, crammed in coach on US Airways in a middle seat with fat people on each side, the seat in front reclining into your forehead, and the knowledge that your team is 0-2, your season is wrecked, and you burned your Mileage Plus points for the priviledge of watching your team go down in flames. Have a nice year, Wolfpack fans!

Ups and downs from the game.

Down: Bacher missed so many timing routes, it was hard to fathom. Either he or Ross Lane or both, had inner ear problems in the first half.

Up: Bacher reminded me of Zak Kustok, the way he performed on the winning drive. There was simply no way he was letting the Cats lose.

Down: Both lines played poorly in my opinion. After Nebraska piled up like 1700 yards rushing on the Wolfpack, the Cats should have done better with the rush. And the Wolfpack QB hit so many sideline outs that I thought maybe the Cats D-line thought the coach said Schlitz.

Up: Kudos to Brandon Roberson who had one monster run and a TD.

Down: Attendance. Down, down, down. The Fishhead and his guppie brother felt lonely all alone in the stands with hardly an alum in sight.

Down: Coverage by the secondary. Sometimes you have to take a chance and actually cover the receiver as opposed to waiting for the opportunity to tackle him.

Next up...the Duke Blue Devils...and remember, 12-0 Here We Come!

Huh?

Here is the existential question that we must all ponder this week:

Is it somehow possible for both the inept Wolverines, and the equally inept Fighting Irish, to both start their season 0-3?

Yes, I know they are both 0-2 and their next game is against each other. But they are both so frightfully bad...that somehow I think it might be possible!

Nevada game

Next up for the Cats is the Nevada Wolfpack, said Wolfpack having received a serious beating from the Huskers last week, 52-10. Emotions should be running high for this game. Poorly coached teams are demoralized by a big loss, but Ault will have the Wolfpack fired up and looking to prove they are no patsy; and Fitz will have the Cats looking to avenge last year's painful loss to Nevada.

Click here and here to read the alumni pundits predictions for the game, with the official line being Cats giving 10 points.

If the Cats offensive and defensive lines improve from last week's poor performances, look for the Cats to pile up big yards and points and really stick it to the Wolfpack.

ouchie poo

For your enjoyment, replays of the Michigan fiasco:

First, the radio guy has a cardiac.

Next, video of the denouement:

One liners on other action

Jim Harbaugh, ex-Bear, made an inauspicious debut at Stanford, with the Cardinal getting clobbered by the UCLAn's 45-17. Welcome to the big leagues, Jim.

Adios Michigan, and adios Lloyd Carr. Michigan pulled the flop of the century by getting beat by their selected creampuff, Appalachian State. We'll see you guys in a couple weeks and you will find out how to lose both big and bad. Anyone remember Anthony Thomas's famous fumble and the 54-51 beating we put on them a few years ago?

Thank god Joe Mummy I mean Paterno is back.

I Google'd for FireTimBrewster.com today. Amazingly Gopher fans have not got the site up yet. Good luck with Mike Dunbar, ex-Cat coach running the offense.

Thank you Bill Callahan for the scouting report on the Wolf Pack for next week's game.

Maybe Charlie Weis is not the genius he has been made out to be. Considering all the fuss made about selecting the starting QB, it seems he didn't make up his mind at all since he played all 3, and his alleged starter was the worst of the 3; and they got pasted bad. Wait'll Weis pulls a Barnett and leaves for the pro's!

12-0 Here we come!

The Cats beat beat up on that other NU, Northeastern, thrashing the Huskies 27-0. Click here for the HailtoPurple analysis (those guys really work hard on the details). For me, the game left me both encouraged and concerned. Encouraged, because 1-0 is better than 0-1. Encouraged, because Bacher looked poised and effective, throwing the ball accurately and only making one poor decision in the game. Encouraged because the receivers looked good, especially previously un-heralded Jeff Yarbrough who had a big game. Encouraged, because the kicking game, led by Stefan Demos, looked much improved including the previously unseen ability to kickoff into the endzone.

Discouraged? Yea, because Northeastern is not Michigan. Oops, Northeastern is not Wisconsin. And the Huskies did pile up 260 yards and drove into NU territory regularly. Shutout? Sure, that's do-able when the opponent's kicker is so bad that they give up trying even chipshots (the Huskies missed two easy ones). Discouraged, because the defense recorded zero sacks and to be honest I can't even recall seeing a Cat in the Huskie's backfield. The secondary did look improved, but if they let a good quarterback sit back there all day...it will be a long year.

So overall, cautiously optimistic and 12-0 here we come!

Now that we talked football, let's move onto the important stuff. The tailgating was great, with sunny, mild conditions. The FishHead partied in the West lot, focusing on the Knob Creek, incredibly bad melon ball test tube shots, and Miller Chill's. Tom the Chef prepared egg sandwiches with bacon, followed by hamburgers. Tip to the Public: Don't let the sushi sit out in the sun for a later snack...that seaweed wrapper stuff is revolting in reverse. After the game, we wrapped the day at Ubaa's on Crawford where amazingly the bartender was studying Physics which we dutifully helped her with.

Who are these guys?

Michigan, Iowa, etc. NU plays some very well known schools, courtesy of belonging to a major 1-A conference (Big Ten). Duke, Air Force, Nevada. NU plays some pretty well-known non-conference teams, too.

But this week's opponent...Northeastern? Not only do I know nothing about their team, I have never even heard of the school. Ages ago, I entered a football pool at work every week. And invariably, this one girl in the office out-scored me every damn week. When I swallowed my pride and asked her how she did it, she told me she selected her winners by the color of their helmet. And I think that is what NU has done - they selected Northeastern based on its name, figuring that Northwestern versus Northeastern held some special cosmic geographical ad-sensible meaning.

So to start my investigation of this no-doubt formidable opponent, I visited the school's website. What amazing things I learned. The school is based in....well, the northeast, being in Boston. Perhaps they should take a cue from Northwestern, which....well, is not in the northwest. The website has a lot of blather about academic stuff, which was quite annoying while I looked for the team links.

And this is where I got confused. This school obviously has some kind of penis envy thing going on, as it refers to itself as NU. So we will have NU versus NU. How will we even know who won? Even worse, the team name is The Huskies...I am suspicious that this school is really NIU in disguise....is this some kind of creepy Novak plot to get revenge for the smackdowns we have laid on NIU in the past?

I'd make some predictions about the game, but that would require intelligent thought. So instead, link here to get the insider's analysis....altho I think the writer was being too polite, as I expect a huge smackdown with Northeastern slinking out the back door at half-time. Colonial Athletic Association? Quick, $100 if you can name one more school in this conference with less than 1 minute of deep thinking. Can't do it? Me either!

Yay!

Yes, that lengthy, boring wasteland referred to as the "off-season" is coming to an end and the entire world will converge on Evanston this weekend as life resumes. Look for the FishHead in the West lot with a can of beer in one hand, and a shot of Knob Creek in the other!

Down the hatch!

I've hit one of those stretches in life where you can never be sure if you are seeing your reflection in a mirror or the bottom of a bottle. Fortunately, the Great Pumpkin has smiled on my life and at least I am looking back at myself from some classy bottle bottoms. Now that my Aberlour has been fully quaffed, I have moved onto a quirky vatted scotch, similar to a blend but containing no grain whisky, Johnnie Walker Green Label. I find it to be very mild with a pleasant taste.

Out with the old, in with the new

Quite some time ago, a special friend turned me onto a glass (neat) of an excellent scotch called Aberlour. By nature I'm a bit of a cheap swill but she splurged on me and got me the best 18 year old the bar had. It was excellent (as was the company), and ever since I've kept my eyes peeled for it at the local Binny's Beverage Depot. Lo and behold, as I shopped forlornly after Balvenie left me, there it was on the middle shelf. I snagged a bottle of the 16 year old (the best vintage they had) and I've been enjoying the double-casked single malt this past week.

If you like interesting background on far-away places, click here for information on the eponymous village of this fine scotch.

Ozzie's been here

One of my favorite restaurants is the Chicken Basket on old Route 66. Its a kitschy, old timer sort of joint that serves some mean fried chicken (and also has a nice little bar). My interest in chicken lead me to stumble across this freaky information about Mike the Headless Chicken...and I verified its absolute authenticity by looking it up in Wikipedia.

Try contemplating Mike's plight the next time you are gnoshing on some chicken...switching to pasta will seem like a good idea!

Sheeple

I think I work with this guy. Click here to learn about your replacement worker.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

This is the collective sound the world makes as winter ends and...the College Football season starts! Today's Chicago Tribune ran a nice back-page article wrapping up the team outlooks for the Big Ten. I'd link you to it, but apparently either I am too stupid to find it online, or the Trib deemed the article print-worthy but not bloggable. ESPN however has a not-too good wrap-up here. Northwestern begins practices on Monday and mark your calendar the spring game is April 21. Be sure to order your tickets now before all the games are sold out.

Meet my new best friend

My new best friend....until I suck the life out of him and throw him away, empty and useless!

Hamsterzilla

My 14-year old claims our pet hamster, Scouty, reared up and hissed at her while brandishing his giant bloody teeth. Can you believe the cute little guy would do that?

MP3 verdict

It will be interesting to see if the various software products (WMP, ITunes, etc.) and online stores (Rhapsody et al) begin a stampede off the MP3 format after this news. Perhaps this will lead to increased interest in Ogg.

Unknown $&%^$#&#& Number

I love gizmos and gadgets and I'm constantly amazed by the incredible things that can be done with communications technology. Unfortunately, there is a dark side to this amazing stuff, too. My Blackberry, which is a truly modern marvel, has become the bane of my existence. Why? Because some doofus has accidentally programmed my cell number into his or her fax machine, modem, or other automated gadget.

Need to take a shower? Unknown Number calls six times. Taking a dump? Unknown Number calls 15 times. Sleeping at night? Fageddaboutit, Unknown Number calls 62 times. My personal record is one day on which Unknown Number called me over 100 times.

As much as I despise the faceless doofus who started this, I reserve a superspecial dollop of vicious, white-hot hatred for my cell provider. Whom, amazingly enough, has no way to tell me who Unknown Number is. For god's sake, how can a phone company be unable to verify what number is calling me? Didn't they know it at the time they connected the damn call? Don't they have some freaking computers with databases and crap like that? But no...their only solution to this problem is, Hey, we can change YOUR phone number. Thus forcing me to change my business cards, my email tags, call everyone I know with my new number, etc., to say nothing of all the computerized records companies have with my number in it.

Maybe I can still get my trusty old beeper back.

Go Demons!

The DePaul Blue Demons won their third straight game and have improved their post-season chances. Big wins over USF, Marquette and the Irish have the Demons over .500 in conference, with three big games to go before the Big East tournament.

Fish face

Honestly, when I first saw this, I thought, damn that is my little brother! My second thought was....wow I want a couple of those for my koi pond....

Hot new software

Linux has never had a jazzy, slick-looking media player. Realplayer, Rythmbox, mplayer, etc., have just never been up to snuff. But Songbird has the makings of a terrific media player.

And if you need to download those giant ISO's...try uTorrent....the new release is slicker than snot.

Cactus League

When I whine about the college football season being over, my brother is fond of saying "pitchers and catchers report in two weeks". Click here for the Cubs Spring Training schedule which starts March 1 in Mesa against the Giants and everyone's favorite HGH-enhanced hitting ace.

NU 2007 signings

Click here for the story on the 2007 recruiting class at NU. I'm no expert, but the apparent lack of national focus is disturbing. 17 of the 19 signees are Midwesterners, and indeed 10 of the 19 come from Illinois and Ohio. A nationally-famed school like NU should be able to attract recruits from across the country, and indeed, how can the school expect to compete in the Big Ten with a limited recruiting scope? Scout.com ranks NU's recruiting class as #56 in the nation, and #8 (of 11) in the Big Ten.

In contrast to the football story, applications for admission to NU are up 19% year-over-year, partly due to the switch to the Common Application form. But if the school can draw record numbers of students, why can't the football program?

My friend Sean drew this picture. He has an elaborate, artistic story outlined, and he is working on the drawings to illustrate it. And no, its not porno....but that may be a good second choice for him if the comic book version doesn't sell! Please vote in the comment section - should Sean do a comic book, or a porno?

Fugue State and the hope for a better (or at least longer) future

I frequently joke about the ill-mannered behaviors of co-workers who seem to conveniently fall into a fugue state. Merriam-Webster defines fugue state as "a disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts in full awareness but upon recovery cannot recollect the acts performed".

I recently suffered thru my own scotch-induced fugue state (Dewar's seems most likely to cause this), and found the experience (or, really, the lack of the experience) to be quite disturbing. Thus I was encouraged to read in this month's Discover magazine about progress being made in stem cell research. Scientists at the University of Newcastle in England have grown human liver cells using stem cells from umbilical cord blood. Thus while I have no specific cure for the fugue itself at present (maybe upgrading from Dewar's to Glenfiddich?), I do have future hope for a replacement liver so I can continue experimenting with various scotches.

Quote of the Day

"I think he thought I'd been talking to other guys." - Melinda Abell, of Blue Springs, Mo., on her boyfriend being found guilty of second-degree domestic assault for shoving a cell phone down her throat.

You can only hope it was a super-thin Razr as opposed to a chunky Blackberry.

Urban Dictionary

I know its stupid, sick, and immature, but I love to read the Urban Dictionary. Today's front page defines the term surge protectors. Go take a look and see what hipsters think this means.

2 points for playing a safety except in Washington

In today's Chicago Tribune, John Kass eloquently summarizes the growing public discontent with the ultra-cautious Democratic leadership and its Iraq strategy. Non-binding resolutions? Tough questions? There's nothing we can do? Come now. The Democratic party complained bitterly about the actions and policies of the Republican majority, and now that the Democrats are the majority, we'd like to see them step up and drive the changes they campaigned on and were elected for by the people. One might think with the apparent divisions in the Republican party, the new majority party might be able to find a way to move its platform forward?

Thank god scotch is not distilled from corn...

Because corn trading on the Chicago Board of Trade hit an exchange price change limit of 20 cents per day Friday, with per-bushel prices rising to $3.96. Per-day price changes are imposed by the CBOT to limit price volatility and allow time for the market to digest major news - like the Friday morning USDA report detailing strong domestic corn demand along with strong exports.

Friday's Chicago Tribune had two articles about this, primarily focusing on the root cause of the rise of corn prices: ethanol production. One article focused on the impacts in Mexico, where corn prices have driven a 14% increase in the price of tortillas, a dietary staple in the country. The other article focused on the basics of the commodity, and hinted at the possibility of further price increases as the number of operating ethanol plants in the US will increase by roughly 50% in 2007.

Flacid with rage

The Colbert Report is one of my favorite shows, and I have a friend who is an Apple fanatic. After he crowed for what seemed like hours, I stumbled across this Colbert video where he pokes fun at the IPhone (and the porn comment is funny too).

The end of all things

Yes, life as we know it and the value of living it is over the year. With their 41-14 pasting of Ohio State, the Florida Gators closed out the college football season with a bang. Ohio State peaked on the first play of the game, a 93 yard kick off return for a TD by McGinn. After that, it was not so much as Florida piled up the yards on the ground and in the air, running sort of a weird I formation with both qb's lining up. While OSU fans might be dejected, the city of Columbus was relieved as an OSU victory would have almost certainly resulted in a major crime wave there.

See you on 9/1/2007 when NU opens at home against Northeastern.

Charging blues over?

Google on eCoupled to learn about the potentially nifty new technology which is about to be introduced. Wireless re-charging in and of itself sounds great, but even better is the fact that the myriad and sundry different bricks, plugs, and power adapters could be replaced by a single gizmo. I don't know what you have, but I have a cable for my Blackberry, which re-charges off USB on my laptop. But I also have a wall adapter for it when the PC is not handy. And I have a brick for my laptop. And I have a brick for my MP3 player. And a base station for my cordless phone. I could keep going, but you see the point - replace all the power sources and recharging stations with a single eCoupled power pad or bucket, which doesn't need to be replaced each time you buy a new phone or MP3 player....its gizmo nirvana!

Toxoplasma Gondii

The current issue of Discover magazine had a brief article about Toxoplasma Gondii. Being generally ignorant, I was unaware of this parasitic creature. A female friend educated me that pregnant women who own cats are quite familiar with it, as the routine toxosis it can cause is known to be harmful to fetuses.

The Discover article focused on a different aspect. Recent studies have uncovered correlations between toxoplasma and schizophrenia, and indeed, there is some evidence that the little beast may account for the most significant cultural differences between countries and peoples. Correlations have been made between toxoplasma and male stupidity, between toxoplasma and female libido, between toxoplasma and neuroticism and schizophrenia. Click here and here for references....Google for yourself and try to decide if this is symptomatic of a medical tulip craze or totally legitimate, and then drive yourself to Walgreen's and get a test kit.

Number of the Beast

If you are a frequent reader of Distrowatch, you've seen the news that Ubuntu is the #1 Linux distro for the second year in a row. Ubuntu's growing popularity is reflected in the number of interesting variants of the distro. Want Ubuntu but prefer the eye candy of KDE? Get Kubuntu. Student or teacher? Get Edubuntu. What would Jesus download? Get UCE, Ubuntu Christian Edition. Want to run Linux but you only speak Klingon? Wait for the Klingon translation.

And now there is literally one for everyone, as Ubuntu Satanic Edition, "the distro of the beast", is now available. You can run Windows and feel like you are burning in Hell, or run USE and only look like you are burning in Hell. Its great to have choices!

The business section of today's Chicago Tribune had an interesting juxtaposition of articles. At the top of the front page was "Boeing to post record sales". Chicago-based Boeing completed its second straight year with sales of 1000+ planes, and will likely out-sell rival Airbus by 200 or more planes after Airbus posts results on January 17.

At the bottom of the page, "Toyota now No. 3 in U.S. sales". Toyota sold over 2.5 million vehicles in the US in 2006, while GM sold over 4 million. While Toyota remains far behind GM in US sales, its likely that Toyota will surpass GM in global sales in 2007.

Sandwiched in between these two articles? "Greenhouses gases to shape coal debate". The US, which has the world's largest reserves of coal, produces roughly 50% of its electricity from coal. Which leads to the dubious distinction of the US producing 20% of the world's CO2, the "pre-eminent" greenhouse gas. The article discusses various activities to establish voluntary or mandatory emission-trading schemes around the country, and includes the obligatory bow to the current tulip craze on nuclear plant construction.

How many ways can you say Ouch?

Sugar caned. Sugar smacked. Thumped. Pummelled. That's 4 to start. 4 also happens to be the number of quarters in a football game, and the Irish only played with LSU in the first 2 of last nite's Sugar Bowl. After a 41-14 pasting (that's 5), it was clear that ND was not in the same class as LSU. Before the game, ND faithful (including me) figured play calling and Quinn were the Irish's great hopes. Both were deflated as Weis made some bad calls (the fake punt was unusually bad) and Quinn was out-everything'd by Jamarcus Russell. This was not a game that inspired hope for next year either, as Quinn departs for the pros and Weis plays footsie with his job.

Hook that ladder

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the first two good bowl games would be Michigan and Boise State. I was half-right, as the Michigan game was a flop as the Trojans whomped them bad in the second half of yesterday's Rose Bowl. But the Fiesta Bowl with Boise State.....ahhhhh that was a gem. From the shock and despair after Zabransky threw that lousy interception with 1 minute left, to the masterful execution of the hook and ladder play on 4th and 18 that got the Broncos back in the game, to the brilliant play fake on the statue of liberty 2-point conversion all-chips-in-the-pot play that won the game, this was one of the best football games I've ever seen. Ignore the silly talk about the game reviving the national playoff controversy, and just enjoy the replays!