It what ESPN has dubbed the most "bizarre and unusual" season of college football, it's only "normal" that the (No. 4!) Mizzou Tigers and the (No. 2!!!!!) Kansas Jayhawks would face off for the Big 12 North title.
Though KU hung 76 on the Huskers earlier this season, I have a deep hatred for Mizzou stemming from the 2003 season when I witnessed in Columbia the Tigers beat the Huskers for the first time in 25 years, thus, I was cheering for Nebraska's neighbors to the south.
So while KU is the team coached by Jabba The Hutt (see photographic evidence below), Mizzou are actually this year's B12N Evil Empire.
(Which they then lost, sending Nebraska's program into a tailspin which saw two coach casualties--Callahan was fired at 7:30 a.m. CST today. Hopefully that is all about to change now that Dr. Tom is back to right the ship. That way when friggin Musburger and Herbstreit and all the other pinheads I can't stand talk about the "return of the Big 12 North," they won't sound like jackasses since they're overlooking the demise of the B12N's greatest program of all time.
Katie Holmes (aka Joey Potter on Dawson's Creek; aka wife of crazy, couch-jumping Scientologist Tom Cruise) competed in the New York City marathon yesterday.
Now, I'm not bragging or anything (OK, yes I am), but apparently her crazy-rich hubby and uber-weird cult religion are only enough to give her a flat stomach after she (allegedly) gave birth to a child, but not a super-fast marathon time.
Not that her time was bad or anything--especially for her first(?) marathon. However, her time of 5 hours, 29 minutes and 58 seconds is 40 minutes slower than mine. No big deal. It makes me feel a little bit better that celebs (and more importantly, the girl who got to make out with both Dawson and Pacey) don't get to be the best at everything. Ha.
And while I do admire her homage to the FDNY, girl needs to get herself a sports bra. 26.2 miles with only that much support? Ouch. I think that's why all the pictures show her with her lips pursed like that. Hottt.
(Also, I ran my entire race with no music. Just sayin'.)
Having swept the Rockies, the Boston Red Sox are the 2007 World Series Champions. I think two in four seasons officially proves the "curse of Babe" is broken, the 2004 season wasn't a fluke, and the Cleveland Indians--the only team to win any games against Boston in the post season--are officially the second best team in baseball.
What does this all mean? Nothing, other than I have to wait until April (or March 31, as the case may be), to see Grady in his baseball pants again.
Of course, perhaps the off season will give me some chances to spot him in "street" clothes, similar to what he wore to Travis Hafner's wedding last year:
I'd be OK with that...
Happy Halloweekend! (Man, I totally bought into the marketing campaign on that term, huh?)
So, fall is without a doubt my favorite season, and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. The leaves, the air... The candy. The potential for a slutty costume. You know, the usual. Though I'm not (technically) dressing up this year, I've still been incorporating Halloween-related activities into my schedule, particularly this weekend.
Friday night I saw the Weakerthans at the Grog. This isn't really Halloween-centric in any way, but it was an awesome show. I highly recommend them to anyone--they're super fun and good and Canadian. Oh yeah, the frontman used to be in this little band called Propagandhi. No big deal.
Saturday morning, I was able to convince Chris to drag himself out of bed super early (i.e. 7 a.m.) and join me at the Lakewood Great Pumpkin 5K--running in costume optional. We decided we didn't want to be the only ones without getup, so I ended up running with a big pair of black wings made out of fabric with a spider web pattern, and Chris ran with demon horns and a spear. Turns out, the most popular costume was that of a 5K runner. Oh, well. I think we had more fun...
Later that day we went down to the West Side Market and picked out pumpkins to carve. I'd found those awesome patterns where you carve a big picture on the front and a small one on the back, and the back ends up casting the shadow of the shape on the wall behind the pumpkin. My dad had found them one year when I was in high school, and I had never seen them again, so I was fairly excited.
While carving pumpkins, I watched the Nebraska v. Texas game which fortunately was on ABC in Ohio. Though not directly Halloween-y, I'm pretty sure the Huskers gave the Longhorns quite the scare--at one point we were leading 17-3. In the end, Texas pulled it off, but the final score was only 28-25. Considering the way we've been playing this season, I'm basically putting this one in the "W" column. At least I wasn't feeling completely defeated for the fourth Saturday in a row...
After the football game, I went to see Ryan Adams play at the Lakewood Auditorium with my friend Brigit. The Lakewood Auditorium is literally the auditorium in the high school, so the setting was interesting, but the music was great. Crowd was weird--but definitely not as bas the at the meat-head frat jocks who kept pushing my mom and I around when we saw him at the Avalon in Boston... And though most people were at costume parties last night, I'm counting this as a Halloween-related activity as there's a song on his new album called "Halloweenhead."
Today I roasted pumpkin seeds (some with sea salt and some with my dad's homemade "magic BBQ dust"). I also made another "adult" purchase. No, not that kind of adult purchase. I finally got an upright vacuum. My handheld Dust Buster thing just wasn't getting the cat hair out of my rugs anymore. Gross, right? Anyway, say hello to my new Shark:
She's a beaut, eh?
Yeah, this is my exciting life, but actually, this was a really great weekend. The first in awhile were I haven't had work-work to get done, which was really nice, especially considering we're starting production tomorrow. And though Halloweekend is over, there's still two days before Halloween. Pretty sure that gives me time to carve at least one more pumpkin and hit up a haunted house. And I get to display my pumpkins/help distribute candy to the trick-or-treaters at John and Brigit's, which I'm really excited about. I think it's been six years since I've lived in a house that got trick-or-treaters, so that will be fun.
There's only one thing that could make my Halloween better: Sugar Daddy's (the mini ones). They're my favorite Halloween candy of all time, and NO ONE seems to be carrying them this year. The last couple years I've only been able to find them at Target, and even they let me down this year... If anyone's seen these things, puh-lease let me know!
Well, the ALCS starts tomorrow at Fenway, and all week I've been fielding this question: "For whom are you going to root?"
It would be feasible that I would root for either team, having lived in Boston (including during the infamous 2004 ALCS come back of the century and anticlimactic World Series victory). I am a big fan of captain Jason Varitek, owning a shirt with his name and number. And when I first moved to Boston, I empathized immediately with Red Sox fans, having had the Cubs be my default baseball team for as long as I was old enough to understand following sports teams (which is pretty long, considering I'm a Husker and they teach 'em young in Nebraska). Plus, the history and legend alone is enough for anyone who enjoys the sport of baseball to cheer for the Red Sox.
Now, having moved to Cleveland mid-summer 2006, I've experience about a season and a half of Tribe baseball. The Jake is a great field, and Cleveland supports its sports teams with unbelievable tenacity considering the general success(or lack thereof) of most recent teams. You get the feeling that everyone's sort of holding their collective breath, waiting for it to be like the "good ol days" (aka 1990s) when the Indians were a challenging foe on the diamond. However, like the Cleveland Cavs appearance in last season's NBA Championship, a sports renaissance may be dawning in Cleveland, and that's an exciting thing to be a part of.
But my real reason for choosing a team to root for is a lot simpler than that. This guy was on my fantasy team in 2005, well before I moved to Cleveland (or knew too many players who weren't Cubs or Red Sox). This fact alone I believe disqualifies me from any "band-wagoning" accusations. You need look no further than center field... (
Grady Sizemore. *le sigh*
GO TRIBE!
Like hand-washing and waxing your brand new car. ;)
Last weekend I brought home the new Toyota. Woot woot! So far it's going really well. I am particularly fond of the sun roof. We'll see if my good luck continues when I head to the DMV (I refuse to use Ohio's term: BMV) to try to convert my Nebraska Purchase Contract into an Ohio Car Title. At least I'm paying the sales tax in Ohio... that should hopefully save a little trouble? We'll see.
In non-car related news, ran in the Akron Marathon this weekend as part of a 5-person relay team. I only ran a 10K, so no biggie. But it was a lot of fun being at an event again, though I felt a little nostalgia about having a pink relay team number instead of a yellow full-marathon number. I'm considering running the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati in May, which would mean training during the winter again, which turns out I enjoy a lot more than training in the summer. So, we'll see.
And I couldn't mention this weekend without saying ho-l-y crap, college football. Five top 10 teams lose (two to Big 12 North teams, mwahaha), plus a handful of other Top 25 losses means there's been quite a shake up at the polls. This is what I love about college football: the heart of the underdog and the possibility for anything. Now if only Nebraska could bring back the Blackshirts... Guess anything could happen.
Exciting news: I bought a new car! Like, a brand new car. The official odometer reading in all my official paperwork says "18 miles." Eighteen! Eeep! It's a 2008 Toyota Corolla S in phantom pearl and it has a spoiler and sunroof. Ow! Ow!
Say hello to "Betty":
I'm a little nervous about the swap/having other people drive my car. Although, if there's anyone I trust it should be my parents, of course. And I'm a little bit bummed that I won't get to see all the "baby" miles tick off. But it's a small price to pay for the really good deal I got. It's just a lot of driving for one weekend...
And that's the other part of the story. Plans are still sketchy, but it looks like I will be spending at least a bit of the weekend in the QC. I haven't been back once since I graduated. I drove past the far northern outskirts of the Iowa QCs twice--once two weeks after graduation after I had flown to Chicago to drive the Explorer my brother bought off of eBay home, and again when I moved from Nebraska to Boston. But I've never stopped or been back near campus.
It's going to be so weird. I'm interested in how the campus will look and seem. And it'll be nice to see one or both of my parents. But it'll be really rad-sauce to get my car--the first "major" adult purchase of my life. Crazy!
Well, Carm and Tone got shut out of the "best actor/actress" Emmy's tonight, but Sopranos took home the Best Drama Series award. Thank goodness. I mean, come on. Swan Song. Hello!
Regardless. I'm pretty pleased this show won (yes, even over Grey's Anatomy). Regardless of a few stumbles (c'mon, who doesn't make a mistake or two over 10 years?), it was a brilliant show, if you ask me. Those characters will be (and are) missed.
OK, I am officially nervous for tonight's game against USC. It's in Lincoln. ESPN GameDay spent the morning there. Brent Must-bucket and Kirk "whiney little girl" Herbstreit are calling the game. Ugh.
We're not supposed to win, so if we don't, it won't be devastating. But I know in my heart of hearts (yeah, I said it) that we can. So the game better be close. Seriously. Close.
My new favorite blog, Fire Mark May dot com, has the venerable Trev Albers saying exactly what a lot of Nebraskans are thinking: "Bill Callahan, don't effing chicken out."
Nebraska (+9.5) over Southern Cal (800et ABC)
I want to speak directly to Callahan, again, for just a few moments. CALLAHAN! If you play this game close to the vest, I will end you, and that is for serious. I'll get me one of them LSU werewolf chainsaws, hitchhike to Lincoln using only my wits, a tin of beans, and my chainsaw member, and I will cut your desk in half! You've got Southern Cal, you've got a good team, you've got them at home, at night, in front of hordes of Americans for Nebraska! Open it up! Punch that Poodle right in his smug mouth and never let him up! Of course....this falls on deaf ears, and the Trojans will narrowly escape a worthy death.
Trev's pick: Nebraska to cover, Southern Cal to win
I am hoping his last line isn't true, but I fully support the rest of the sentiment.
HUSKER! POWER!
