No, I'm not referring to Two Gun Pete. I'm referring to my wife, who, as I lamented another subpar performance this weekend, offered up "It's OK, the season's almost over". It's a good thing I was not reflecting on the meaning of my life. Next time I'm laconic and lamenting, I'm calling Two Gun.
The video clip below features a campaign rally for the Penguin, who was running for mayor of Gotham city. The band pretending to be the band is 60's rock act Paul Revere and the Raiders, dressed in full colorful Raider regalia. It is painful to watch and senseless, but very colorful, and in a macabre way, entertaining, if "too horrifying to look away" can be used interchangeably with "entertaining". I have provided it here to recreate the sense of what it was like watching Memphis v. Tulsa.
It was a big upset weekend, with a lot of ranked teams getting knocked off and a few others needing heroics to win (and failing to cover, as good as a loss in our world).
The Look Who's Talking links on the right side of the page have been modified to point you to the impending conference championship games, the BCS site and the Champs and Outback bowl sites. There's also a link to Northwestern's 2009 regular season highlight video, newly minted by NUBears, the master of purple video.
**** Northern Illinois @ Central Michigan -13 WINNER
FINAL: CMU 45, NIU 31
Dan LeFevour passed for 257 yards and 3 TD's, but it was not-so-famous Frank Zombo, a defensive end, who sealed the deal for us when he intercepted a pass and ran it 27 yards for the TD that put Central up 45-24. NIU declined to go quietly, driving fast for a touchdown to bring it back to a 14 point difference, and made me very nervous when their onside kick rattled around on the ground before CMU dropped on and ran out the last two minutes of the game to secure the cover. CMU meets Ohio in the MAC championship game at Ford Field in Foreclosure City next week.
*** Navy -9 @ Hawaii LOSE
FINAL: RAINBOWS 24, MIDDIES 17
I stayed awake until halftime, at which point Hawaii had just rammed a fast downfield drive to tie the game at the half, and the announcer was saying that the Rainbows were a lot better than they had frequently shown this season. It would have been helpful to know that a few days earlier. Woke up Sunday and went right to the score to find that he was right, we were wrong, and we lost another one.
** BC -6 1/2 @ Maryland LOSE
FINAL: BC 19, MD 17
No cover. Didn't see it, went to Four Winds, did better than BC. Might have to stop betting on any Catholic schools.
* Memphis @ Tulsa -16 LOSER
FINAL: Put a Fork in Me I'm TULSA 33, We Don't Really Play Football at MEMPHIS 30
Jeez, what a weird game. Tulsa, attired in brilliant yellow/gold uniforms capped with royal blue helmets, and Memphis in their visiting whites with their own royal blue headgear, cavorting on an emerald green turf...it was a colorful display of really lousy football in front of a 2/3 empty stadium. Tulsa dropped more passes than I could count. With six minutes left and the game tied at 23--and the prospect of a cover blown 100% to hell, I watched successive displays of the Tulsa's ineptitude. One, dropped pass, two, catch pass and circle backwards to shake one tackler and run instead into the five who were headed that way, three, throw interception. The Golden Crapicanes defense rose to the occasion, allowing a 50 yard pass play on the ensuing Memphis snap. Two plays later, Memphis runner Curtis Steele danced past the two Tulsa guys who weren't headed in the wrong direction and banged in his fourth TD du jour. I was hoping that Tulsa would invoke the rarely used 18 point touchdown play, but it was not to be. They drove downfield, moving ahead almost in spite of themselves, and sputtered into the end zone to tie the game with :30 on the clock, assuring overtime suckiness. Memphis then showed its mettle on the first play of OT when the receiver tipped an easily catchable bubble pass into the hands of a Tulsa defender. Tulsa pissed away three downs and kicked a field goal to bring the sucktivities to an eagerly awaited conclusion. Craptacular.
It's championship weekend for the conferences, and time for us to get this effort headed back in the right direction. No depression this weekend, we just got beat. Penguin didn't get elected, either.
3 comments:
Aww Steve, my father and you do share a common hatred for losing. My father performed what I consider one of the most hilarious acts that I've seen in a long time- mainly because it was an instant reflex. The Alabama score came up and he instantly made the motion of spitting at the TV and snarled "You don't win if you don't cover the spread- Idiots."
Crapicanes- need to patent that (only in reference to the Tulsa team of course).
Very sad the season is coming to an end. Now I have to wait for my second-most favorite season following College football season- Mango season.
I am always so pleased to see that you have penned a missive here in our corner of the world, lately lamentatious as it has been. Your trip to the tundra was eagerly awaited and obviously highly coveted by your father. Sharing a hobby with ones relatives is a grand gift.
Our hobby is winning.
Gambling is not addictive.
Winning, on the other hand, is highly habit forming.
We have spent the last three weeks going nowhere, a similar experience to the time-trough in which we find ourselves with respect to winter and shrinking daily allotment of the sun.
The lenght of days will continue to wither for three and a half more weeks, at which time we will be at the absolute nadir in terms of daylight. It will then require three and a half more weeks of ascension, gaining average daily sunlight, to once again occupy the point at which we find ourselves today.
The same has occurred with our football investment. We have navigated the trough. We are today where we were three weeks ago. We shall continue to ascend from here, to heights previously unconquered.
Or we will spit and curse the tv set.
There is a measure of solace in the spit and curse move that should not be taken too lightly. Highly purgative from an emotional perspective, the spit and curse (the spit being, of course, a miming action, so as not to cover the surface of the all revealing screen in repulsive expectorant) gives vent to the emotional cauldron within, and is highly preferable to the ongoing torrent of expletives, a practice that tends to discourage others from joining one as a spectator.
Except in our house, where they just shake their heads and laugh.
As for mangos, to quote the great thinker Dr. Frasier Crane: "I'm listening"
Our hobby is winning? Love it. That reminds of a t-shirt I saw. It said, "Chuck Norris doesn't go hunting, he goes killing".
As for mango season, I just love them and come May I make an earnest attempt to eat my weight worth before the season is over.
I part this weeks blog with a Yiddish proverb: “Don't spit into the well - you might drink from it later”
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