Let’s take on the next set of bowl games as we make our way through the New Year’s Eve.
December 28th
Military Bowl Presented by Northrop Grumman: Toledo vs. Air Force (4:30 PM, ESPN): Somehow I can never imagine Northrop Grumman as a bowl sponsor. I am not even sure what a Northrop Grumman commercial would look like. Maybe it is just “We’d like to tell you just how awesome we are as a company but that is classified information. So instead let’s just look at puppies frolicking in the grass for 30 seconds. Northrop Grumman: Any company that loves puppies couldn’t possibly be evil.” Look, it is the Military Bowl so you have to cheer for Air Force though Toledo gets points for being the Rockets.
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl: California vs. Texas (8 PM, ESPN): A less than quality matchup in the Holiday Bowl, which usually features two teams that eschew defense and encourage brining Jim Brown out of retirement for one last game. Though there is the possibility of Colt McCoy could return because, well, it’s not like he has much else to do right now and could use to get away from Cleveland for a week. Texas is having a poor year and Cal is one of those schools that are annoying in every aspect. Athletically, academically, hell, even their mascot is annoying. Their main rival is Stanford for crying out loud. I have to cheer for Texas simply so that I won’t have to feel the need to immediately take a shower after the game.
December 29th
Champs Sports Bowl: Florida State vs. Notre Dame (5:30 PM, ESPN): Here is the highlight for Notre Dame this year: we went an entire regular season without anyone dying. That is how bad I still feel about last season. Hell, I lost hope for this season five minutes into our first game when our opening drive results in a fumble that is returned 95 yards for a touchdown, followed by the game suspended by a massive thunderstorm and concluded with a loss to South Florida. At worst, we should be 10-2 with losses to USC and Stanford, resulting in maybe a BCS bowl or at least a nice game in January. Instead it is a bowl game between two teams that totally underachieved sponsored by that really crappy shoe store at the mall. I know that I could talk about the legendary rivalry between the two teams but that would imply that both teams are worthy of a rivalry. On the plus side, we do get one more game of Brian Kelly screaming at 19 year olds and that is always a good thing.
Valero Alamo Bowl: Washington vs. Baylor (9 PM, ESPN): For the record, San Antonio is an incredibly underrated city. The Riverwalk is a blast and it is a really fun place to spend a few days. The Alamodome is an odd stadium though; it seems to have been designed for every sport other than football. Anyway, this is your Heisman Trophy winner game featuring the only Heisman Trophy winner that no one actually watched over the course of a season. Traditionally this results in the winner playing so horribly that we wish we could retroactively announce the results. Washington is a state in the Pacific Northwest. Sorry, I don’t have anything witty to say besides that. Well, that and I assume that the halftime show is just a bunch of people singing “Valero”.
December 30th
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl: BYU vs. Tulsa (Noon, ESPN): This game is being played at Gerald J. Ford Stadium so expect a lot of stumbles, fumbles, interceptions and references to ending a national nightmare. Surprisingly though this game is in Dallas given that Gerald Ford a) represented Michigan, b) played for the University of Michigan and c) Michigan plays in Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Stadium. Also, this game suffers from only having Air Force make the bowls from the service academies. You can’t have a Military Bowl and an Armed Forces Bowl and only allow one military school to play. They should just let Air Force play in both games. Also, if someone could explain to me why a school in Oklahoma is nicknamed the “Golden Hurricane” when a) they don’t have a coastline and b) that nickname seems to be just asking for a double entendre.
New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Rutgers vs. Iowa State (3:20 PM, ESPN): No, I have no idea why the game is scheduled to start at 3:20. Maybe they want to be careful not to have any overlap with the exciting conclusion of the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. This is the game played in Yankee Stadium for those who like their football played the old fashioned way: in a baseball stadium that wasn’t in any way designed for football featuring a crowd made up of guido and guidettes complaining about how they can’t show off their tans under all of their layers. Has Snooki officially become the mascot of Rutgers yet? The fact that Rutgers is the state college of New Jersey but in no way associates itself with the state in its own name tells you an awful lot about the state. I almost went to grad school at Iowa State because I realized that the only places one should study for master’s degrees in electrical engineering is in cities where when you look out your window all you see is corn. That is the only thing that can make looking at circuit diagrams sound like an exciting alternative,
(Bonus Jersey Shore rant: So Kim and I watch Jersey Shore because there is no greater comedy on the air right now. The best way to watch the show is to realize the each of the people on the show is trying to get airtime to further their own careers while simultaneously trying to cash in what little fame they have. Thus you have Vinnie acting nice because he is trying to make his way into an acting career and J-Woww acts like a mom half the time because she is this close to a guest host gig on the View (or at least becoming an Access Hollywood correspondent). On the other hand, Situation is just trying to get as much airtime as possible to up his appearance fees because the second the show goes off the air he is going to drop off the face of the earth. Ron and Sammie are forced to realize that as long as the show is on the air they are going to have to alternately act like a couple or fight because otherwise they have nothing to do. And Snookie and Deena have reached the point where random strangers are about to stage an intervention for them. Seriously MTV, at some point watching people get blackout drunk in the afternoon stops being funny. Pauly D is cool, though.)
Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl: Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest (6:40 PM, ESPN): For crying out loud ESPN, you have multiple networks. Use them so that we have start times that make at least some sense. Besides, I’d recommend starting this game earlier due to the high probability that the stadium will file for foreclosure at some point in the second quarter. Ah, real estate lending humor, nothing better in the world. Anyway, Mississippi State is coached by the guy who I have heard mentioned the most often as the new Penn State coach so that might give you a reason to watch the game as well. Wake Forest is the alma mater of the legendary Brian Picolo so if you watch Brian’s Song you technically get credit for watching this game as well. It will also encourage you to dust more often as I always get something caught in my eye at the end of the film.
Insight Bowl: Iowa vs. Oklahoma (10 PM, ESPN): I always love bowl games named after general concepts. We’ve lost the Humanitarian Bowl but we still have the Insight Bowl. A Revelation Bowl would also be pretty cool though a Polite Dismissal of a Poorly Developed Theorem Bowl would probably have a hard time getting sponsorship. As an Illini I cannot in good conscience cheer for Iowa in everything including the production of corn. It really is the most hated rival for those of us who went to the school in the early 90’s and had to deal with four years of crappy basketball teams because of Bruce Pearl’s secret recording sessions. I still hate that bastard. I can’t recall the last time that Oklahoma was forced to play a bowl game in December. I don’t know if anyone has informed them that even though the game is in Arizona that it is not the Fiesta Bowl. Maybe we should all just act as if it is the Fiesta Bowl to make them feel better.
December 31st
Meineke Car Care of Texas Bowl: Texas A&M vs. Northwestern (Noon, ESPN): I understand the independence movement is strong in Texas but I don’t think that they have to go so far as declare their own sovereign version of Meineke Car Care. If the union of Meineke Car Care dealerships cannot be preserved then we are all doomed. Texas A&M is headed off to the SEC and is actually a worse fit for the conference than Missouri. Hell, they are a worse fit than Vanderbilt. At least Vanderbilt has the southern genteel style and the belief that wearing a sport coat to a football game makes it much easier to sneak in alcohol. Texas A&M games seem to always resemble one large ROTC meeting and I can’t see that meshing with schools where people hold up rolls of toilet paper and boxes of Tide at regular intervals. This is also another one of those games where the bowl decided to take a Big Ten school not named Penn State because they didn’t want to be associated with the controversy, which is just stunning if you know how bowl games work. All bowl games care about is getting people to travel to the game and how the city of Houston could think that they will get more Northwestern alums to travel to a game then Penn State is insane. And that is not even getting into the difference in ratings. Plus, given that Illinois beat Northwestern this year for the trophy formerly referred to as the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk they should be in this game anyway.
Hyundai Sun Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. Utah (2 PM, CBS): Finally a bowl game that is not on the ESPN family of networks. Utah joined the PAC 12 this year and I don’t think that anyone noticed. To be honest, Urban Meyer may have still been secretly coaching there for all I know. Georgia Tech runs the triple option offense which is always fun if you like running, pitches, a quick game and believe that Knute Rockne was completely wrong when he decided to implement the forward pass. If I remember correctly the Sun Bowl is one of the oldest bowl games in existence, which probably is nice to know if you ever find yourself in El Paso and need to start a conversation with something other than, “Hello, can you please help me find a way to get out of El Paso?”
AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Cincinnati vs. Vanderbilt (3:30 PM, ABC): Crap, I’ve already used my Vanderbilt jokes. I mean, who could anticipate Vanderbilt making a bowl game (and not Tennessee, which says something about how far that program has fallen.) Cincinnati is a) a city that I have never been able to properly spell my entire life and b) really proud of its chili in much the same way that Kansas City is of its barbecue except that Cincinnati chili is unlike any kind of chili known to man. (By the way, I’ve always preferred Memphis barbecue, which is probably why I never really fit in well in KC.) At least this game is no longer the St. Jude’s Hospital Liberty Bowl where the halftime show would often feature sick children. I am not kidding. The only thing that could compare to it would be the Rescue Shelter Bowl featuring Sarah McLachlan as the halftime entertainment. I swear to you if I ever win the lottery I am going to donate a portion to the ASPCA on the sole condition that they never use a Sarah McLachlan song in a commercial again.
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Illinois vs. UCLA (3:30 PM, ESPN): I know I said this last year but I have to say it again. Hey Kraft! You want to fight hunger? How about you, I don’t know, donate food? Or instead of celebrating record profit margins on Macaroni and Cheese why not lower the price by a nickel? Though I will support a Kraft Fight Hunger Games where the food options in the cornucopia are solely Kraft products. I am so psyched to see that movie as any book that as you read it makes you wonder just how many people you could kill if forced to fight to the death is precisely what I feel we need to use to inspire the next generation. How else are they supposed to prosper if we do not raise them to anticipate an apocalyptic hellscape where you may be called upon to murder the person you just met three days ago as a means of entertaining others?
Anyway, Illinois football… Sigh. At one point this year we were 6 – 0 and I could legitimately make a case for us to play in the Big 10 championship game or at least be 9 – 3 and playing in a nice bowl game in January. Instead we lose six straight in more and more humiliating fashion and end up firing Ron Zook who gets added to the list of coaches who couldn’t figure out how to make the Illini even a consistent squad despite having the best talent that we have had in ages. I’m not even sure where they will go for a coach now. I would like for once in my life to have the Illini be consistently decent. I’m not even talking good, just decent. UCLA actually is in a bowl game despite having a losing record which makes this possibly the most depressing matchup ever. Well, at least it is a rematch of that legendary 1984 Rose Bowl where, yeah, Illinois got slaughtered but at least the Chief got to dance at halftime. Oh wait, we don’t even have the Chief anymore. Yeah, I’m still bitter.
Chick-fil-A Bowl: Virginia vs. Auburn: (7:30 PM, ESPN): I still think they should call this the Peach Bowl just because Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl is such a confusing combination that it makes one wonder if affordable chicken sandwiches and produce could make a pleasurable combination. I’ll have to admit that pretty much anything would go well with Chick-fil-A. The only benefit of having had to spend numerous hours at the Philadelphia airport is the fact that the Concourse B/C food court has a Chick-fil-A. Though those bastards closed on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend because for some reason God doesn’t want me to have waffle fries on a Sunday. It’s enough to question your faith.
This is the game that you have on as you face that dilemma of whether or not you actually want to go out on New Year’s Eve. Now that I am married this is a slightly easier decision as I actually have someone to be with at midnight but back in the KC days this was always the point of no return. There you are, watching an over-achieving ACC team taking on an under-achieving SEC team while cows take over the screen every five minutes and you have to decide whether to go out, face a bunch of idiot drunks to only be alone at midnight or stay at home, conclude that Cam Newton and Bo Jackson are the only two people who could make you care about Auburn football and spend the rest of the evening drinking whiskey straight from the bottle in a darkened apartment while listening to Morrissey cds. Not that I have any experience in that matter. Though I recommend Viva Hate if you are in the mood to do so.
Next time, all of the January games. Title games, Arkansas State and the best metal band in history. Stay tuned.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Bowl Preview Part One
It is that time of year again. Time to continue my annual tradition of previewing all 35 college bowl games. This will take a few days so sit back, relax, and enjoy the wonder that is modern college football.
(In chronological order, all times Eastern, all jokes intentional)
December 17th:
Gildan New Mexico Bowl: Temple vs. Wyoming (2 PM, ESPN): Fennis Dembo will be coaching Wyoming I assume. This is because Fennis Dembo is the only person I know who has ever been associated with the University of Wyoming. In fact, for males of a certain age Fennis Dembo may be all we know about the state of Wyoming. Who the hell is Fennis Dembo you may ask? Fennis Dembo was a basketball player who was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the late 80’s in a college basketball preview issue where SI ranked Wyoming 3rd and called Dembo the best player in the nation. The team didn’t even make the tournament and Dembo went on to be the last guy off the bench on one of the Pistons championship teams. Still, fame is fame and everyone has always enjoyed saying the name Fennis Dembo over and over again. Temple has a football team, which is always shocking to me, and I expect that most of the residents of Philadelphia are referring to this game as the God Damn New Mexico Bowl. Not out of spite as to where the team ended up; it’s just that Philadelphians typically use God Damn as an adjective for every noun to the fact that children are taught in grade school that “God Damn Dick and God Damn Jane ran up the God Damn hill.”
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Ohio vs. Utah State (5:30 PM, ESPN): This should not be confused with the Infamous Idaho Potato, who murdered eight in a cross-country crime spree back in 1977 in what is often referred to as the “Summer of Spud.” This is traditionally my favorite bowl game of the year as two teams, after an incredible amount of effort and toil, are forced to travel to Boise, Idaho to play on blue turf for no apparent reason. It is quite possibly the only bowl game where you feel sorry for the players. Also, this game would be much more interesting if you move the State from one to the other. This game reads like a straight to DVD knockoff of a better bowl game.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: San Diego State vs. Louisiana – Lafayette (9 PM, ESPN): It is now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which just sounds all sorts of wrong. When a stadium hasn’t had corporate sponsorship for decades it just seems bizarre to change the name like that. San Diego State will soon be joining the Big East in that San Diego is east of….the Pacific Ocean I guess. Conference realignment is going to really screw up kids sense of geography. As always, take Louisiana – Lafayette in this game as they have home field advantage as San Diego is probably one of the few cities that people wouldn’t leave for a weekend in New Orleans. I assume that R+L Carries is either a) a moving company or b) an air condition company with a slight possibility that the R refers to one and the L refers to the other.
December 20th
Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl: Florida International vs. Marshall (8 PM, ESPN): This is the Florida version of St. Petersburg and not the Russian version though a December game in Russia would actually be super cool. Or cold, one of the two. Certainly a game in Russia would allow the announcers to say, “Boy, I bet a bowl of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s” would taste good right now. Anyway, we have the fifth best team in Florida playing the other team from West Virginia in a contest to determine who will get to say that they won a bowl game this year. I will go with Florida International because of the legend of Ned (long story). By the way, I’m proud of myself for not writing a single Brady Quinn joke this entire time. Figure he doesn’t need the attention given that he is sitting on the depth chart behind a guy who everyone states cannot throw a football.
December 21st
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: TCU vs. Louisiana Tech (8 PM, ESPN): I have never understood the sponsorship behind this bowl game. Beyond the fact that it makes for the longest bowl game name and must drive the announcers crazy (and this is before we get into the whole how do you pronounce poinsettia debate) the only people who could care about the sponsorship are residents of San Diego, which is why you have teams from Texas and Louisiana involved. Maybe this will turn into a whole Occupy Wall Street game where they push people to go to credit unions, kind of like the Anti-Capital One Bowl. I’m not sure if even TCU knows what conference it is currently in but after the Rose Bowl last year I don’t think they even care. I guarantee that at one point the announcers will say “Remember folks that poinsettias are poisonous, just like the TCU defense.”
December 22nd
MAACO Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona State vs. Boise State (8 PM, ESPN): Some people would complain that due to a loss to TCU that Boise State is kept from playing in a BCS bowl and how unfair that makes the BCS system. I do not believe you will hear that from Boise State though as a trip to Las Vegas has to be more exciting than spending more time in Idaho. Though you have to wonder how the team adjusts to playing on fields that are actually green. You have to expect that Boise will win this game as a) Arizona State lost to Illinois this year and b) Arizona State represents the PAC-12 conference whose official motto is “Eleven fine academic institutions and Arizona State.” As for me, I’ll be at the blackjack tables for this one.
December 24th
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl: Nevada vs. Southern Mississippi (8 PM, ESPN): The annual Christmas Eve tradition. Some people go to church, some hang stockings by the fireplace while others spend the holidays by watching a game in a place they wish they could visit featuring two teams that they have never cared about in their entire lives. It is like the opposite of the Idaho bowl in that two teams underperform all year just so they can end up lounging on the beach on Christmas Day. So screw these two teams. Hope the game goes into like thirty five overtimes and they end up eating some bad poi and get food poisoning. Serves them right for getting to enjoy the holidays.
December 26th
AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl: Missouri vs. North Carolina (5 PM, ESPN2): Back in the old days you knew what bowls were about. The Orange Bowl was about oranges, the Bluebonnet Bowl was about whatever a Bluebonnet is and the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl was about how the Poulan Weed Eater played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. As George Washington wrote in his memoirs “We shall not be able to cross the Delaware unless our shipment of Poulan Weed Eaters arrive and allow us to clear a path to the shoreline. Without the economically priced Poulan Weed Eaters are cause would most certainly be lost.” Now the Independence Bowl is either about a car engine or a type of medication that you should see your doctor about a prescription for. Anyway, as I still keep up on Kansas City news for some reason I know that there is a great uproar about Missouri leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and I have to say that I agree. Missouri is just not an SEC team. When Arkansas joined I could kind of understand it but Missouri just doesn’t make sense. It does screw over Kansas City as well as they will lose all the Big 12 championship games and there is no way in the world that the SEC would ever send a tournament their way. So go Carolina I guess.
December 27th
Little Caesars Bowl: Western Michigan vs. Purdue (4:30 PM, ESPN): I have to at least give them credit for not calling this the Pizza Bowl as a Little Caesars Pizza Bowl sounds like one of the most sickening food items that could ever be imagined by the minds at KFC, who I believe are now encouraged to think up the most mind boggling items for their menu. Heck, I always felt that Little Caesars was always a little underrated in the mass produced pizza department so kudos for them for some solid marketing. Sadly, this bowl game might be the least interesting one of the year as it features a game that you would expect to see in the middle of September. In all honesty these teams may have already played this year and no one would notice. Tune in to see the world’s largest bass drum that plays a major role in Purdue’s band. Or spend the game drinking boilermakers whenever Purdue touches the ball and listening to MC5 songs whenever Western Michigan does. It will certainly make the game go faster.
Belk Bowl: Louisville vs. North Carolina State (8 PM, ESPN): Ok, new rule. Bowl games are no longer allowed to be named after sound effects from the old Batman television show. I swear that once Robin hit one of Penguin’s henchmen and “Belk” came up on screen. (By the way, I really want a story surrounding the temp agency that hires out henchmen to super-villains. Obviously someone has filled that market niche as I find it difficult to think that the Joker has his own HR department.) For those wondering Wikipedia informed me that Belk is the name of a department store as opposed to the electrical supply company that I originally imagined it to be. This will be a perfectly acceptable football game featuring two teams that you haven’t watched all year but who you know have football teams. That is the essence of bowl season, the time of year where you are so frazzled from having to spend time with family that watching a North Carolina State football game seems like a welcome respite from real life. Also, feel free to use Belk as your new all-purpose profanity. “What a Belky thing to say”, “She is such a Belk”, “What the Belk?” Works great.
Tomorrow I will go through the New Year’s Eve games and will feature rants on Notre Dame, Illinois, Jersey Shore and reasonably priced chicken sandwiches.
Best of 120 Minutes: I still have to write up something about R.E.M.’s official retirement but this will have to do for now.
(In chronological order, all times Eastern, all jokes intentional)
December 17th:
Gildan New Mexico Bowl: Temple vs. Wyoming (2 PM, ESPN): Fennis Dembo will be coaching Wyoming I assume. This is because Fennis Dembo is the only person I know who has ever been associated with the University of Wyoming. In fact, for males of a certain age Fennis Dembo may be all we know about the state of Wyoming. Who the hell is Fennis Dembo you may ask? Fennis Dembo was a basketball player who was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the late 80’s in a college basketball preview issue where SI ranked Wyoming 3rd and called Dembo the best player in the nation. The team didn’t even make the tournament and Dembo went on to be the last guy off the bench on one of the Pistons championship teams. Still, fame is fame and everyone has always enjoyed saying the name Fennis Dembo over and over again. Temple has a football team, which is always shocking to me, and I expect that most of the residents of Philadelphia are referring to this game as the God Damn New Mexico Bowl. Not out of spite as to where the team ended up; it’s just that Philadelphians typically use God Damn as an adjective for every noun to the fact that children are taught in grade school that “God Damn Dick and God Damn Jane ran up the God Damn hill.”
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Ohio vs. Utah State (5:30 PM, ESPN): This should not be confused with the Infamous Idaho Potato, who murdered eight in a cross-country crime spree back in 1977 in what is often referred to as the “Summer of Spud.” This is traditionally my favorite bowl game of the year as two teams, after an incredible amount of effort and toil, are forced to travel to Boise, Idaho to play on blue turf for no apparent reason. It is quite possibly the only bowl game where you feel sorry for the players. Also, this game would be much more interesting if you move the State from one to the other. This game reads like a straight to DVD knockoff of a better bowl game.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: San Diego State vs. Louisiana – Lafayette (9 PM, ESPN): It is now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which just sounds all sorts of wrong. When a stadium hasn’t had corporate sponsorship for decades it just seems bizarre to change the name like that. San Diego State will soon be joining the Big East in that San Diego is east of….the Pacific Ocean I guess. Conference realignment is going to really screw up kids sense of geography. As always, take Louisiana – Lafayette in this game as they have home field advantage as San Diego is probably one of the few cities that people wouldn’t leave for a weekend in New Orleans. I assume that R+L Carries is either a) a moving company or b) an air condition company with a slight possibility that the R refers to one and the L refers to the other.
December 20th
Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl: Florida International vs. Marshall (8 PM, ESPN): This is the Florida version of St. Petersburg and not the Russian version though a December game in Russia would actually be super cool. Or cold, one of the two. Certainly a game in Russia would allow the announcers to say, “Boy, I bet a bowl of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s” would taste good right now. Anyway, we have the fifth best team in Florida playing the other team from West Virginia in a contest to determine who will get to say that they won a bowl game this year. I will go with Florida International because of the legend of Ned (long story). By the way, I’m proud of myself for not writing a single Brady Quinn joke this entire time. Figure he doesn’t need the attention given that he is sitting on the depth chart behind a guy who everyone states cannot throw a football.
December 21st
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: TCU vs. Louisiana Tech (8 PM, ESPN): I have never understood the sponsorship behind this bowl game. Beyond the fact that it makes for the longest bowl game name and must drive the announcers crazy (and this is before we get into the whole how do you pronounce poinsettia debate) the only people who could care about the sponsorship are residents of San Diego, which is why you have teams from Texas and Louisiana involved. Maybe this will turn into a whole Occupy Wall Street game where they push people to go to credit unions, kind of like the Anti-Capital One Bowl. I’m not sure if even TCU knows what conference it is currently in but after the Rose Bowl last year I don’t think they even care. I guarantee that at one point the announcers will say “Remember folks that poinsettias are poisonous, just like the TCU defense.”
December 22nd
MAACO Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona State vs. Boise State (8 PM, ESPN): Some people would complain that due to a loss to TCU that Boise State is kept from playing in a BCS bowl and how unfair that makes the BCS system. I do not believe you will hear that from Boise State though as a trip to Las Vegas has to be more exciting than spending more time in Idaho. Though you have to wonder how the team adjusts to playing on fields that are actually green. You have to expect that Boise will win this game as a) Arizona State lost to Illinois this year and b) Arizona State represents the PAC-12 conference whose official motto is “Eleven fine academic institutions and Arizona State.” As for me, I’ll be at the blackjack tables for this one.
December 24th
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl: Nevada vs. Southern Mississippi (8 PM, ESPN): The annual Christmas Eve tradition. Some people go to church, some hang stockings by the fireplace while others spend the holidays by watching a game in a place they wish they could visit featuring two teams that they have never cared about in their entire lives. It is like the opposite of the Idaho bowl in that two teams underperform all year just so they can end up lounging on the beach on Christmas Day. So screw these two teams. Hope the game goes into like thirty five overtimes and they end up eating some bad poi and get food poisoning. Serves them right for getting to enjoy the holidays.
December 26th
AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl: Missouri vs. North Carolina (5 PM, ESPN2): Back in the old days you knew what bowls were about. The Orange Bowl was about oranges, the Bluebonnet Bowl was about whatever a Bluebonnet is and the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl was about how the Poulan Weed Eater played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. As George Washington wrote in his memoirs “We shall not be able to cross the Delaware unless our shipment of Poulan Weed Eaters arrive and allow us to clear a path to the shoreline. Without the economically priced Poulan Weed Eaters are cause would most certainly be lost.” Now the Independence Bowl is either about a car engine or a type of medication that you should see your doctor about a prescription for. Anyway, as I still keep up on Kansas City news for some reason I know that there is a great uproar about Missouri leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and I have to say that I agree. Missouri is just not an SEC team. When Arkansas joined I could kind of understand it but Missouri just doesn’t make sense. It does screw over Kansas City as well as they will lose all the Big 12 championship games and there is no way in the world that the SEC would ever send a tournament their way. So go Carolina I guess.
December 27th
Little Caesars Bowl: Western Michigan vs. Purdue (4:30 PM, ESPN): I have to at least give them credit for not calling this the Pizza Bowl as a Little Caesars Pizza Bowl sounds like one of the most sickening food items that could ever be imagined by the minds at KFC, who I believe are now encouraged to think up the most mind boggling items for their menu. Heck, I always felt that Little Caesars was always a little underrated in the mass produced pizza department so kudos for them for some solid marketing. Sadly, this bowl game might be the least interesting one of the year as it features a game that you would expect to see in the middle of September. In all honesty these teams may have already played this year and no one would notice. Tune in to see the world’s largest bass drum that plays a major role in Purdue’s band. Or spend the game drinking boilermakers whenever Purdue touches the ball and listening to MC5 songs whenever Western Michigan does. It will certainly make the game go faster.
Belk Bowl: Louisville vs. North Carolina State (8 PM, ESPN): Ok, new rule. Bowl games are no longer allowed to be named after sound effects from the old Batman television show. I swear that once Robin hit one of Penguin’s henchmen and “Belk” came up on screen. (By the way, I really want a story surrounding the temp agency that hires out henchmen to super-villains. Obviously someone has filled that market niche as I find it difficult to think that the Joker has his own HR department.) For those wondering Wikipedia informed me that Belk is the name of a department store as opposed to the electrical supply company that I originally imagined it to be. This will be a perfectly acceptable football game featuring two teams that you haven’t watched all year but who you know have football teams. That is the essence of bowl season, the time of year where you are so frazzled from having to spend time with family that watching a North Carolina State football game seems like a welcome respite from real life. Also, feel free to use Belk as your new all-purpose profanity. “What a Belky thing to say”, “She is such a Belk”, “What the Belk?” Works great.
Tomorrow I will go through the New Year’s Eve games and will feature rants on Notre Dame, Illinois, Jersey Shore and reasonably priced chicken sandwiches.
Best of 120 Minutes: I still have to write up something about R.E.M.’s official retirement but this will have to do for now.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Paying for noise
As always, I swear I am not making any of this up.
Kim has introduced me to the wonders of using a sound machine to fall asleep. It is something that took a little while to get used to as the first few nights resulted in my lying awake in bed trying to find the pattern in white noise. I mean, it couldn’t all be random static, could it? Anyway, after a while it just became a part of my routine to use a sound machine.
This led to several years of buying sound machines and then having them come to rather unfortunate ends. One blew up when I plugged it into an outlet in Iceland where, despite the fact that the converter I purchased specifically stated that it could be used worldwide, apparently has an electric grid developed by magical elves. Another was destroyed on a cruise shi[ when I mistakenly set the ourlet to European voltage instead of American. Yes, that does cause Kim to question just how I earned a degree in electrical engineering. On other occasions I have been forced to purchase a sound machine for an infant’s room as it was the only one that I could find. In that case I recommend not using the heartbeat or womb noises because they are incredibly freaky and will give you nightmares. It might explain why we are all so screwed up.
In any case I always end up buying sound machines, which typically meant a trip to Brookstone to be the only person who isn’t there just to sit in the massaging chair. Then a few weeks ago Kim was out of town and had forgotten her sound machine. I thought, “Hey, we have free mobile to mobile minutes, why don’t I just put my phone next to my sound machine and she can put her phone on speaker all night.” That didn’t work well and she spent the night sans white noise. In the middle of the night I wake up and go, “Hey, I bêt there is an iPhone app for a sound machine. She should download that.” I then immediately had three thoughts come to mind.
1) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that four hours ago so I could have helped out my wife.
2) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that a year or two ago so I wouldn’t have spent several hundred dollars on machines that have since broken.
3) It would have been even better if I had written the code for this app a few years ago when I, you know, happened to be making a living by promoting apps on cell phones.
I am still not sure which one of these three pissed me off the most, though I am most upset about the first one. But I couldn’t believe that I had missed such a simple market opportunity. All a sound machine is a speaker with a recorded sound loop on it. It probably takes five seconds to write the code for the app and someone did it and made a ton of money and I could have done it if I recognized the opportunity. It’s really upsetting to realize that you were dumb as a rock in your past (even though I realize that I am done in the present every day.)
The interesting thing about this, and why I am telling the story, is that when people talk about taking advantage of opportunities the challenge is less having the courage to take advantage but being aware that the opportunities exist. I’ve been on the cutting edge of two of the major technical revolutions in my lifetime: I was one of the first people on the web using Mosaic at Illinois and then I worked in mobile data just as cell phones were taking off. In both instances I recognized what was happening but didn’t really figure out how to take advantage of it. The web was just a neat toy and even I didn’t quite grasp the ubiquitousness of cell phones (though I think my argument that no one will ever watch TV on a phone has taken hold.) Sometimes you need the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture and realize where the gaps are.
By the way, anyone need a sound machine suitable for an infant? It has two settings: soothing lullabye or gurgling hellbeast.
Kim has introduced me to the wonders of using a sound machine to fall asleep. It is something that took a little while to get used to as the first few nights resulted in my lying awake in bed trying to find the pattern in white noise. I mean, it couldn’t all be random static, could it? Anyway, after a while it just became a part of my routine to use a sound machine.
This led to several years of buying sound machines and then having them come to rather unfortunate ends. One blew up when I plugged it into an outlet in Iceland where, despite the fact that the converter I purchased specifically stated that it could be used worldwide, apparently has an electric grid developed by magical elves. Another was destroyed on a cruise shi[ when I mistakenly set the ourlet to European voltage instead of American. Yes, that does cause Kim to question just how I earned a degree in electrical engineering. On other occasions I have been forced to purchase a sound machine for an infant’s room as it was the only one that I could find. In that case I recommend not using the heartbeat or womb noises because they are incredibly freaky and will give you nightmares. It might explain why we are all so screwed up.
In any case I always end up buying sound machines, which typically meant a trip to Brookstone to be the only person who isn’t there just to sit in the massaging chair. Then a few weeks ago Kim was out of town and had forgotten her sound machine. I thought, “Hey, we have free mobile to mobile minutes, why don’t I just put my phone next to my sound machine and she can put her phone on speaker all night.” That didn’t work well and she spent the night sans white noise. In the middle of the night I wake up and go, “Hey, I bêt there is an iPhone app for a sound machine. She should download that.” I then immediately had three thoughts come to mind.
1) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that four hours ago so I could have helped out my wife.
2) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that a year or two ago so I wouldn’t have spent several hundred dollars on machines that have since broken.
3) It would have been even better if I had written the code for this app a few years ago when I, you know, happened to be making a living by promoting apps on cell phones.
I am still not sure which one of these three pissed me off the most, though I am most upset about the first one. But I couldn’t believe that I had missed such a simple market opportunity. All a sound machine is a speaker with a recorded sound loop on it. It probably takes five seconds to write the code for the app and someone did it and made a ton of money and I could have done it if I recognized the opportunity. It’s really upsetting to realize that you were dumb as a rock in your past (even though I realize that I am done in the present every day.)
The interesting thing about this, and why I am telling the story, is that when people talk about taking advantage of opportunities the challenge is less having the courage to take advantage but being aware that the opportunities exist. I’ve been on the cutting edge of two of the major technical revolutions in my lifetime: I was one of the first people on the web using Mosaic at Illinois and then I worked in mobile data just as cell phones were taking off. In both instances I recognized what was happening but didn’t really figure out how to take advantage of it. The web was just a neat toy and even I didn’t quite grasp the ubiquitousness of cell phones (though I think my argument that no one will ever watch TV on a phone has taken hold.) Sometimes you need the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture and realize where the gaps are.
By the way, anyone need a sound machine suitable for an infant? It has two settings: soothing lullabye or gurgling hellbeast.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Forgotten MTV Personalities: Volume One
Inspired by the book “I Want my MTV” I am starting a new recurring feature in which we examine some of the legendary characters of the Golden Era of MTV…
VJ’s always came in different shapes and styles. There were always the cute girl next door types or the comedian or the guy who is best known for his hair (few people know that widescreen TVs were invented solely to fully capture the glory of Adam Curry’s mane.) But only one WV existed solely to be the grunge DJ and that is our old friend, Steve Isaacs.
Featuring a look that screamed either “Seattle” or “That guy who sits in the fourth row of your English 103 class” Steve Isaacs ushered MTV into an era of Pearl Jam and Nirvana and left once we reached the era of Bush and Silverchair and completely disavowed all knowledge of the network by the time of Limp Bizkit. He was an example of 120 Minutes becoming mainstream as we no longer require a British accent to denote what was cool or not. Even if that was by having a kind of goofy, skinny guy with long hair act as the representative for an entire generation.
I have to be completely honest here, before reading I Want My MTV I could not for the life of me remember this guy and certainly not his name. But I guarantee that once people my age look at his picture we all immediately remember him. That was one of the wonders of MTV where even the minor celebrities became an integral part of our lives because they were always there. But more accurately, Steve Isaacs was probably the first VJ that I can remember who I legitimately thought that I could know in real life.
Because that really was the way a group of us were in the early 90’s. Ok, maybe I did not have the long hair and I wore less flannel but the idea of being young and really into this new type of music and having an almost childlike enthusiasm about it. We hung out at record stores at 11:55 on Monday nights just so we could get the new releases at midnight because we just had to have that new Breeders CD immediately. We made mixtapes and spent our free time rummaging through used CD racks trying to find some hidden gem. We thought we were unique but really we were just enjoying the thrill of youth and experiencing life on our own terms.
So cheers to you, Steve Isaacs. Once Pearl Jam no longer required MTV neither did you or any other member of Generation X. And who could sit through a Bush video anyway.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I’ve been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell recently. He is a former member of the Drive-By Truckers and might be one of the best songwriters around today. Give him a listen.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Cursive! Foiled again
It was in the news last week that Indiana lawmakers were looking to pass legislation to require that the Indiana Department of Education require the teaching of cursive in schools. This raises numerous questions like “Are these the same legislators that decided that daylight savings time did not exist until three years ago?” or “Didn’t they once almost pass a bill that stated that the value of Pi was three?” or “Wow, I didn’t even think Indiana had a department of education?” But mainly it makes you wonder about writing in cursive and what skills from my youth are no longer necessary.
(By the way, I am not kidding about the whole Pi being equal to three thing. There literally was a bill that nearly passed the Indiana legislature which would have made that true. One of my favorite pieces of math trivia ever. Also, I must be the only person who not only has a favorite piece of math trivia but also has numerous lesser quality pieces of math trivia in his repertoire. Sigh.)
I don’t know about anyone else but I was taught how to write in cursive in third grade on that weird three line paper with the light line to show how high to make the smaller letters. I will say that I was taught cursive but I don’t think I can say that I ever mastered it. My handwriting was always atrocious. I knew what all the letters looked like (including the fact that a capital Q looked way to much like a 2 than it should) but I could never write them in any manner that anyone else could read. I’m pretty sure teachers never read anything that I wrote, they just assumed that I was smart and graded appropriately. Throughout grade school I was forced to write in cursive and once I was given some more flexibility in high school I started printing everything. My handwriting still sucks but it is at least vaguely legible now. The only thing I write in cursive is my signature.
In fact, I am probably old fashioned in the way that I still write down anything. At least at work I have my daily notes for the day written in a notebook and I will always write my to do lists on paper. Most people would just use their laptops to keep notes and text or email messages. I know that I am the last person to have actually written a letter and I bet most students would rather take notes electronically than in a battered notebook. Cursive seems like a completely foreign skill.
I’m not sure where I fall in the debate, though. You certainly do not need cursive in order to survive in modern society. I honestly can’t remember the last time that I have needed to read cursive in real life. From a practical matter it is a completely useless skill that does not provide you with any measurable advantage. But there is a part of me that still remembers learning cursive as being a major portion of growing up for one reason…
As a kid I would go to the library and check out collections of Peanuts cartoons. I would read them and always be upset when I got to a series of strips with Charlie Brown writing to his pencil pal. Since he wrote in cursive I could never understand the strips. Learning cursive in third grade allowed me to get the jokes. In some way that made me feel like I was growing up. I think kids need to have those little victories. Makes life a little easier to handle.
Monday, December 05, 2011
A return of sorts...
On the plane tonight I finished Julian Barnes’ “The Sense of an Ending.” In and of itself that probably is not reason enough to restart the blog. If what I read is the inspiration for posting again then my devouring “I Want my MTV”, the oral history of the first decade of MTV, would be the top choice. But the book has put some thoughts in my mind that tie into what I’ve been thinking about recently and why I wanted to start writing again.
The novel, which is a very good read, focuses upon perception and memory and how we interpret our own past. We each consider ourselves to be the hero of our own story and we have created a mythology of our own legend. These memories define who we are but as we get older the question as to whether those memories are real or not become more and more in doubt. As Barnes writes, “History can be viewed as the lies of the winners or the self-delusions of the defeated.”
This made me think about how we document our lives, whether through pictures or videos or words. One of the reasons that I write is that I find it therapeutic to keep a record of my thoughts. Not that I feel that there is any historic value to them. In fact, for years I kept all of my writings to myself. It is not really what I write that is important as the pure act of writing and getting my thoughts out. For some reason I best express myself by looking at a screen and letting words flow from my fingers. I am more thoughtful and eloquent in this form and when I stop writing it effects who I am as a person. And I’ve spent too long of a time not writing and it is really becoming noticeable.
Battling the Current really is a record of who I am, or more accurately who I was. I wrote constantly from November 2004 until March 2011, which would just happen to correspond to when I got married. Now there are a lot of reasons as to why I stopped writing (mainly getting married, moving and switching jobs in the same week made my life so stressful that I can’t really describe it) but one major point is that the story behind the blog had come to an end. I started the blog to document my journey of being on my own, going out and trying to find the woman of my dreams. Once that story was completed I had no idea what the new story would be, which is a fancy way of saying that I was really wondering where my life was headed next.
I think I have it now. I still have a lot of growing to do and striving to become the man that I want to be. For years that was about creating that image as I sat at the end of a bar and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Now it is about more being than image and to stop paying lip service. The stories of our own histories that we tell ourselves are not always true. Sometimes you have to face some harsh lights. But that is how we grow. And that journey is what the next phase of my writing is going to be about.
So yes, I am back to writing every day. And yes, it will be the usual mix of pop culture and discussions of a bizarre world and the occasional derogatory reference to the state of Kansas. Some things never change. But the story has changed directions.
The novel, which is a very good read, focuses upon perception and memory and how we interpret our own past. We each consider ourselves to be the hero of our own story and we have created a mythology of our own legend. These memories define who we are but as we get older the question as to whether those memories are real or not become more and more in doubt. As Barnes writes, “History can be viewed as the lies of the winners or the self-delusions of the defeated.”
This made me think about how we document our lives, whether through pictures or videos or words. One of the reasons that I write is that I find it therapeutic to keep a record of my thoughts. Not that I feel that there is any historic value to them. In fact, for years I kept all of my writings to myself. It is not really what I write that is important as the pure act of writing and getting my thoughts out. For some reason I best express myself by looking at a screen and letting words flow from my fingers. I am more thoughtful and eloquent in this form and when I stop writing it effects who I am as a person. And I’ve spent too long of a time not writing and it is really becoming noticeable.
Battling the Current really is a record of who I am, or more accurately who I was. I wrote constantly from November 2004 until March 2011, which would just happen to correspond to when I got married. Now there are a lot of reasons as to why I stopped writing (mainly getting married, moving and switching jobs in the same week made my life so stressful that I can’t really describe it) but one major point is that the story behind the blog had come to an end. I started the blog to document my journey of being on my own, going out and trying to find the woman of my dreams. Once that story was completed I had no idea what the new story would be, which is a fancy way of saying that I was really wondering where my life was headed next.
I think I have it now. I still have a lot of growing to do and striving to become the man that I want to be. For years that was about creating that image as I sat at the end of a bar and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Now it is about more being than image and to stop paying lip service. The stories of our own histories that we tell ourselves are not always true. Sometimes you have to face some harsh lights. But that is how we grow. And that journey is what the next phase of my writing is going to be about.
So yes, I am back to writing every day. And yes, it will be the usual mix of pop culture and discussions of a bizarre world and the occasional derogatory reference to the state of Kansas. Some things never change. But the story has changed directions.
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