Let's take a little drive

End of Days....

Must be upon us. Religious wackos look for signs like plagues, pestilence, floods, Satan, that sort of crap.

Me? I look for the more prosaic but definitely more important signs. And all signs point to the Big End.

First, the Wildcats lost to Syracuse. Syracuse? Otto the Orange? What the Hell?

Second, in this losing effort, Mike "Demon Spawn" Kafka set a school record for consecutive completions and threw for 390 yards. What the Hell?

Lastly, Pax Americana and the greatest empire since Byzantium has come to an end with the tire tiff. Yes, that tire tiff where the US has imposed import tariffs on automobile tires produced in China. Whereupon the Chinese threatened retaliatory tariffs on imports of American....chicken feet! Yes, Chicken Feet. You know, those things upon which chickens walk? Apparently this is the ONLY DAMN THING this country produces of value. Chicken Feet. What the Hell?

Death to Otto

<- If you see this guy....stomp his face!

A win is a win...

To quote noted football prognosticator Clay Nurse of the Fighting Illini, "A win is a win". Yes indeedy and the Cats advanced to 2-0 by sneaking by the Eagles of EMU 27-24. The day was saved by Stefan Demos who nailed a monster 49-yard FG as the clock wound down; this was only Demos third career field goal and a clutch effort.

Let's take a quick look at how things are stacking up for the Cats. Looking back, the Cats pummelled Towson in the season opener. But Towson improved in week #2, avoiding another loss by having a bye week. They will face Coastal Carolina next week, who trashed Monmouth this week. Learn anything from that? Yea, if you didn't already know it, Towson was a cupcake that plays other cupcakes and we learned nothing from the Towson game other than we can beat a cupcake.

Eastern Michigan is now 0-2. In their season opener, they were beaten by Army 27-14. And Army in week #2? Crushed by Duke. Deep analysis? EMU is as much of a cupcake as Towson, thus NU's a-win-is-a-win over EMU is not promising.

Next up for the Cats is Syracuse. In week #1, Syracuse almost took down the Golden Gophers, and in week #2, they looked pretty good considering they were totally over-matched by a loaded Penn State squad. If the Cats go to Syracuse and play flat, it will not be a good result.

First up for the Cats are the Towson Tigers of Towson University. Never heard of Towson? Me either. The university is located in Towson, a suburb of Baltimore, and was founded in 1866, and is "one of the best regional public universities" in the US. Surprisingly, Towson is the second largest university in Maryland, an amazing statistic for a school no-one ever heard of.

Other amazing facts about Towson:

• The most famous alumnus appears to be a lady named Jennifer Hurt. She appears to be the main reason anyone would attend Towson.
• The Tigers play in Johnny Unitas Stadium. Gotta respect that.
• The Tigers finished 3-9 in the Colonial in 2008. Can you spell defense? The Tigers could not.
• First year coach Rob Ambrose most recently coached at UConn and has a good track record.

And that is about all there is to say about Towson. Unlike some famous universities, it seems that the students at Towson do not burn cars, stab each other, or generally do anything Google-worthy.

Check

Season tickets. Check
Media guides. Check.
Parking pass. Check.
Browse HTP. Check.
Browse LTP. Check.
Make fun of first opponent. Hmmm....I'll take a crack at that later today :-)

Everyone needs to see this at least once in their life

"The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" is indeed an amazing spectacle. The Fish Head is unclear on the un-announced attendance, but chit-chat placed it at perhaps 350,000 fans - an amazing number of people at an event.

While car racing may be the worlds most boring sport, consisting of many boring laps of loud cars whizzing by, the pageantry (and the crashes) make it worthwhile.

Like flybys? This year had a pair of vintage B-25 bombers.

Like parades? The race has a victory lap and a fan appreciation lap. Like odd rituals of celebration? The winner drinks a bottle of milk.

Like hot chicks in bikini tops? Hell yea, this race has it all.

The Fish Head and his spawn brothers (and an ex-neighbor) went to Wrigleyville to see the Cubbies. Rainy weather not withstanding, we sat in the center field bleachers and had a great time, including watching Ryan Theriot wack a grand slam.

Post-game beers were quaffed at Murphy's Bleachers....followed by a tour of the none-too-impressive CTA and Metra to get home.

I ate what??

<- I ate one of these. It was disguised as sushi - oh yes, look at that beastie and you can guess at the epic cleverness of said disguise. Whatever you do, don't look at this picture....

Spring time in Chicago

Thank god the dreary winter is over, Spring is sprung and the weather is getting warmer.

The picture to the left was taken on March 29. As best I can tell, that ice shelf in Antartica which broke off has floated up the Chicago River and down the Des Plaines and stopped right outside my door.

March Madness...

is nothing more than a signal that the long darkness is ending and the football season is right around the corner. Northwestern's spring practice season ends April 25 with the traditional Spring Game at Noon. We'll be there in our finest purple tailgating in the West Lot.

Just in time for Easter, The Holy Trinity

You can't make things like this up

Actual sign on a swimming beach in Hong Kong. Perhaps inconvenienced is a synonym for eaten?

Post-Super Bowl Party

Pre-Super Bowl Party

Guest dead soldier

Submitted by Sean "Northern Pike" Magoo. My guess would be he drank this Talisker to an early death after sending his Laphroaig to Gitmo for incarceration.

bourbon

I have always considered bourbon drinkers to be an odd lot. Sort of like they got lost on their way to find the scotch and bumped across a lesser drink, and swilled it down in impatience.

But the Fish Head received for his birthday a nice looking bottle from one of his fellow spawn, and shockingly, realized it was bourbon.

Now one might ask, why would fellow spawn brother gift the Fish Head a bottle of bourbon? Thoughtlessness? Hoping for a re-gifting?

No, because spawn brother was wandering about in the backwoods of Kentucky, and stumbled into the actual distillery where the pictured booze is brewed. Now let's not ask ourselves what said brother was doing in the backwoods of Kentucky, as we all know the sorts of things that go on there.

Being of magnanimous spirit, Fish Head set aside his scotch, grabbed a fresh glass, and steeled himself to make good of the questionable gift. Following his normal scotch habits, two fins over rocks it was. And amazingly...its pretty damn good!

Now you might notice that a full report is not possible, given that the bottle is still almost full (Fish Head has small fins!). So look for a further update when the Woodford achieves dead soldier status.

San Antonio

Great place. 'Nuff said.

Alamo Bowl

Its taken a few days to finish swallowing the bile before I could type a post about the 2008 Alamo Bowl.

The Cats came into the game 2-TD underdogs, with virtually no-0ne giving them a chance to win. And in the end, everyone was right as the Cats fell 30-23 in overtime.

Despite the loss, it was a terrific game, with flashy TD passes galore, a punt return for TD, and numerous stellar defensive plays.

The Cats gave themselves every opportunity to win, especially with the sparkling defensive effort, which put Mizzou's high-octane offense into a deep freezer. But in the end, a few plays where the Cats failed to take advantage, cost them the game. A missed PAT. Failure to pick up a third-and-three on the last drive in regulation. A missed assigment on the O-line in OT that led to a huge sack.

An exciting but disappointing ending to the 2008 season.

Round ball

Historically the Fish Head is not much of a basketball fan, but the post-football doldrums seem to have grown in intensity over the years.

So this year, the Fish head has strived to enjoy some college hoops. Aided by the generosity of other parties coughing up free tickets (thanks Pat!) the Fish Head has managed to see one game for each of his affiliated schools - UIC, DePaul, and Northwestern.

Unfortunately, all three games were embarrassing losses but were enjoyable nonetheless.

Highlights from the three outings:

• Enjoying the surprisingly nice UIC Pavilion with my nieces and nephews - the Dragon Den being an added bonus.
• Having the entire upper deck to myself at the Allstate Arena; apparently DePaul vs. Morgan State was not a big draw with attendance at about 2,500.
• Beers at UBAA before the NU vs. MSU game.

Notice the Fish Head did not discuss the actual games. Because....maybe its an acquired taste, but basketball is boring. But just like Schlitz, the Fish Head is going to keep pouring down the basketball until he acquires the taste!