Blame it on the zebras

Another week, another soulcrushing Denver Broncos loss. I am at a loss. Always searching for someone to blame for my team's failings, this time I turn to the referees. The play that led directly to Philly's game winning field goal was a sideline "catch." I believe that the ball was bobbled when the player fell out of bounds=no catch. The refs called it incomplete, reviewed it, and reversed the call. Not cool. Oh well, at least my amazing (and forgiving) neighbors were there to host us with delicious taco dip and all sorts of other goodies. Thanks for not kicking me out when I spilled punch all over the floor.

Heartbreak aside, I am pleased to say that Syracuse is asserting itself as one of the best teams in college basketball. A guy on the other team is shooting 3's from out of state and drops 38 on us. Every loose ball was apparently repeled by the color orange (makes sense, the ball is orange-ish too). Syracuse was hypnotized into thinking that their teammates were at least 5 feet away from where they actually were and ended up throwing the majority of their passes to Seton Hall. Andy Rautins could've possibly been playing drunk or at the very least on 72 hours of no sleep. But we won. And I'll tell you why. Wes Johnson is the greatest basketball player in the country. Case closed. He literally willed Syracuse to victory. The rest of the team played their worst games of the year. Johnson crashed the boards and cleaned up missed layup after missed layup. He grabbed every rebound, blocked shots after the defense fell apart. Basketball's a team sport, but this is one of the greatest individual efforts I've seen in watching college basketball. PS- my man Kris Joseph scored 16 and had some sicknasty dunks. Check them out on Sportscenter top plays.

I just got back from my church's Kwanzaa celebration. Gotta say it was pretty cool. Lot's of good music and dancing. So I think I should go ahead and talk a bit about it because not too many people know what it's about. It's got multiple days like Hannukah (7 days for 7 principles). There's gift giving like Christmas. And it was invented out of the blue like Festivus (in 1966 by Ron Kerenga). So it has the pieces of all of the winter holidays and is a whole boatload of fun. Plus, you get to learn some Swahili along the way. And if the Lion King is a good indicator, Swahili is and awesome language. These are the 7 principles the celebration is based on:

• Umoja (unity)
• Kujichagulia (self-determination)
• Ujima (collective work and responsibility)
• Ujamaa (cooperative economics)
• Nia (purpose)
• Kuumba (creativity)
• Imani (faith)

Just say those words. I know. Good stuff, much more fun than English.

It's getting late and I'm going to see Wicked tomorrow (so excited!). So I'll leave with one simple request. Cross your fingers for the Broncos. They need a couple big breaks to get into the playoffs and they can use all the help you can give them. Merry Late Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Excuses Excuses

I wasn't planning on even writing this tonight, but one thought about my tearful readers, heartbroken by the fact that they would have to survive one week without my profound prose and amazingly potent sentiments, brought the reality home to me. The blog must go on! So I am writing while sleep deprived and with dry scratchy eyes after the 2:45 marathon that was Avatar in 3-D IMAX style.

So I'll start with Avatar. It's awesome. Watch it. I've heard that people are saying that special effects are being used as surrogates for...well, you know. A plot. And in this movie that's 100% true. But it's also 100% worth it. It's like looking at a piece of artwork with all of its colors and whatnot. Except this painting has a huge helicopters vs. pterodactyls battle.

That said, it's necessary for me to recount the horror of this past Sunday. AKA the worst day of football ever. I went over to my awesome neighbors' house to watch the games. I was with my mom, a Packers fan, my neighbor, and my 'brother', both 49ers fans. And we watched all three games because they were all at the same time and my neighbors have like the ultimate uberfan superawesome package for football. So all went well, we departed for a party at a friend's house. Then it hit the fan. One after another, our teams fell like the valiant Spartan warriors at Thermopylae. The 49ers fell to a relentless Eagles attack, my Broncos lost on a last minute touchdown pass by the worst and largest of NFL quarterbacks, and the Packers lost on a literal last second touchdown that was pretty much the best thrown ball of the season by any player on any team. Oh and not to mention that the divisional rivals of the Broncos and 49ers both won. The only redeeming factor of the day was the Sunday Night Football meltdown of Brett Favre. And his coach hates him now.

*Deep breath.* Wow, I really needed to get that off my chest. Other than that, it's just great to be home. My present to you: more shopping time and less blog reading! Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, blah blah blah.

The Only Good Politician is a...Republican?

Good afternoon! It feels great to say that now that I'm not writing this in the middle of the night/Wednesday morning. I hope that the end of everyone's semester is going well. Since it probably actually matters that you guys study this week, I'll try to keep this brief and easy to read.

So I guess I'm trying to use finals as an excuse to not write very much, but the fact of the matter is, I really don't have too much to discuss this week. Tiger Woods is still the main news story basically everywhere, so I had to dig really deep to find this week's non-sports story. I chanced upon this one, which I found quite interesting. It's about the gradually lessening disdain that New Yorkers have for Gov. David Paterson. His favorability rating is up to 36%, the highest that it's been in a while. However, he'll apparently need to increase that by quite a bit more by election time next year to earn the Democratic nomination to run for reelection. I'm going to go back a bit- 1994, Republican George Pataki is elected governor of New York, one of the most Democratic states in the country. He is elected quite easily to second and third terms and declined to run anymore. This opened the door for Eliot Spitzer to win the next election, so 2006 gave us our first Democratic governor in 12 years. How does he reward the voters? About a year after his election he is busted for being caught in a prostitution ring. After being the most outspoken opponent to said rings. Not only that, but everyone started to hate his replacement, David Paterson, pretty darn quick too.

The whole roundabout point I'm trying to make here is: politics, what the hell? It was confusing enough to figure out how someone could win a presidential election with the other guy getting more votes. Now even party lines are becoming blurred. That was the one constant for politics in my (not very highly trained) view. Republicans stuck with Republicans, Democrats hobnobbed with Democrats. But looking back at New York, they absolutely loved their Republican governor and all of the new Democratic governors are becoming quickly the most hated men in the state. But, come presidential election time, nobody even bothers to campaign here because it's guaranteed to vote Democrat. I don't get it.

But, for something I do understand, Syracuse basketball continues to dominate on the court. We played Florida, undefeated and #11 in the country, on Thursday if you didn't know. Managed to beat them by 12 points too, despite Florida's uncanny ability to make impossible shots. I swear, this wouldn't have been out of place in the game:

Announcer: Boynton [Florida player] brings the ball up, stops about 50 feet from the basket. He pulls out a blindfold, ties it on. Throws the ball behind his back, it bounces off the scoreboard...and good! Three points! Thats the 34th behind the back shot that Florida's made in the last 5 minutes.

But no worries, Cuse pulled it out. And let's face it, they play up to their competition. When St. Francis (NY) came to town, we only won by like 24 points. Luckily for us fans, Kris Joseph came up with a monster slam dunk to get us to 75 points and free tacos. Looming opponents include St. Bonaventure and Oakland. St. Bonaventure: Why don't you man up and rename yourself after a saint with a cooler name. Oakland: Nobody even knows where you are. There is no Oakland in Michigan.

I hate to end on a serious note, but I came across a saying this week that I found highly inspirational and just awesome in general. "The only difference between our secrets is whether we allow them to evolve into tales of heroism or fear." Good luck on finals everyone!

At least I'm not as screwed up as Tiger Woods...

Back in business, guess you gotta read this blog again. I received some negative feedback for the first time in the history of this blog (and possibly my entire awesome life). Apparently it is not a good idea for me to get too emotional or nostalgic with my blog. Admittedly I probably could've done better than a timeline of my Thanksgiving, but I have prepared a brief defense. Number one, Thanksgiving was awesome and reliving it one more time was the least I could do for the honorable holiday after all it has done for mankind. And second, the turkey still hadn't quite worn off and I was feeling a bit lazy to tell you the truth. My bad for being human, it happens to the best of us.

Anyway, this week I'm back in full force and I'm a little bit angry to tell you the truth. I don't know if you've heard, but Tiger Woods has been in the news just a couple times over the past week or so. Show of hands for everyone who knew that...anyone? I guess I'm the only one who noticed, because I saw zero hands go up. Oh well, you'll probably catch it sooner or later. Here's my take on the situation. Tiger Woods leaves his house at 1 in the morning. He crashes into a fire hydrant backing down his driveway. Then he inexplicably continues to back up, eventually introducing his car to a tree. Now, if my physics class taught me anything, a car that backs up into a tree will have the rear part of the car obstructed by said tree. However, the early story was that Wood's wife just happened to be on hand, at 1 in the morning mind you, to smash the back window of the car and drag good ol' Tiger out onto the driveway. One problem...if the car backed up into several objects, the back of the car probably looked like the below picture, leaving no need to smash any window. Plus, I'm guessing the driver side door was probably unlocked, but that would be the smart option, and nothing in this situation could be confused with a smart idea.


I'm going to take a quick second to relay one of the greatest jokes I have heard in a long time. This was completely off the cuff and unintended by one of my group members, making it all the more awesome. "I really appreciate the irony of Tiger Woods' wife using a golf club to get him out of the car."

Ok, maybe it's just my kind of humor but I thought that was awesome. Anyway, there's more to this story than that. This is like a fricking soap opera. And I hate soap operas. The media will run a breaking news headline for anything coming out of this. And I mean anything. For instance, I'm watching ESPN and on the bottom line, in the middle of the college basketball scores, runs a headline that went something like this: Tiger Woods found at fault for car accident and receives a citation. COME ON! It's a one car accident. Middle of the night. Who the hell else are you going to give the citation to? The fire hydrant? The tree? It had better not be the tree, it is the only thing/person that acted sensibly in the situation. Seriously, it stopped Tiger from backing into his neighbor's houses, schools, children's hospitals, nunneries, and pretty much everything else that you can ram an Escalade into because the fire hydrant sure as hell didn't. But come on, I'd rather see NHL scores than learn about the mundane details of Tiger's driving history.

Lastly, there's this whole deal with Tiger's mother or mother-in-law or some random old lady who went to the hospital on Tuesday. The events aren't even related! Am I talking crazy here? This got bottom line coverage, had stories written about it everywhere, and had absolutely zero impact on anything ever besides Tiger's personal life. Sometimes I hate the media. No offense to my brother who is a part of said media.

Now that that's off my chest, I can turn to the sporting world, which wasn't very exciting but saw the Syracuse Orange beat Maine 101-55 (my favorite player, Kris Joseph, scored 14 points and had many an emphatic slam dunk). Oh and by the way, the score at halftime of this one was 60-12. Syracuse 60, Maine 12. I will now pause for effect. Done pausing. That kind of score should not be welcome in any sport. I want nothing less than to insult Syracuse, I just think we're taking it a bit far with scheduling easy opponents. Let's see some games where the other team gets within 30...could be fun, right?

Additionally, my Broncos won 44-13 over the Chiefs. I was watching the play-by-play on my computer and I have to admit, the digital representation of the Broncos' statistics looked good. Here's a breakdown of the first few possessions of the second half for the Chiefs: turnover on downs, interception, interception, punt, fumble recovery for a touchdown. Besides that punt, the only time the ball was in Broncos territory was when Denver was kicking off after scoring. Man that was a sweet game. I haven't seen that kind of domination since Jose Canseco fought Hong Man Choi. Just skip to like 1:00, 1:10 and you'll see what I mean.

I just love the opportunity to make fun of Jose Canseco like that. He's an idiot. Oh well, despite all appearences, no I don't count the Tiger Woods thing as a sports story, so this wasn't a hundred percent about sports. Seriously, Tiger has so much drama he's turning into a chick flick. A chick flick where the hero offers his wife $60 million in a revision of the prenup to stay married to him for two more years. Just sayin.

Paulus Out!

Ok, great excuse for being late yet again. I was ballin' with my main man and lost track of time a little bit. But it was worth it pissing off those punks at the gym who treat pickup basketball like it's the World Series of Poker or something. Not the best metaphor, but here's a better one. Their language makes Josh McDaniels, the Broncos' pottymouth coach, look like Shakespeare.

Now that I'm back at school, everyone's asking "How was your Thanksgiving?" So I'll take a moment now and say a few words about it in case you haven't heard about my T-Day. It. Was. Awesome. Any highly positive word will do, I guess- fantastic, prodigious, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, whatever whatever. It was the greatest Thanksgiving ever. Here's how it broke down.

10:30 AM: Wake up. Mom's already made the cinnamon rolls and the Thanksgiving Day Parade is on TV. Have some rolls, make some comments on how nice dinner smells, make fun of balloons with brother.
11:00 AM: Bring dad a cinnamon roll up on the roof where he's putting up Christmas lights. Hang out with dad on roof, help with lights, survey our kingdom, yell at passing neighbors.
12:00 PM: Go back inside, more cinnamon rolls, wait anxiously for football to start.
12:30 PM: Football starts. Yes.
1:00 PM: Dinner is served, football is momentarily forgotten. Table is sagging with weight of untold multitude of foods. Computer is set up next to table, Skype call is made (after several failed attempts) to brother in Buffalo. Great times are had by all.
2:00 PM: Watch football, nap, eat. Repeat for next 5 hours. Newcomers to the party include punch and Tollhouse Pie. Mmmmm.
7:00 PM: My "second oldest bro" arrives from Thanksgiving with his actual family, impromptu lefty ping pong tournament ensues.
7:30 PM: Go to neighbor's house for bonus dessert and Broncos game.
9:30 PM: Halftime. Back to my house for more turkey before the second half.
11:30 PM: Broncos game ends with victory. Back to my house for more ping pong.

So yeah, Thanksgiving was pretty sweet.

Segue- know what else is sweet? Syracuse athletics. Sure our football team lost 56-31, but one thing is different about the team now. Greg "No Look Pass" Paulus is officially done with being Syracuse's quarterback. Raise a glass to Paulus, the man who threw away our season the first game of the year, the man who threw 5 picks against South Florida. You will be missed.

Basketball update- we are absolutely destroying the terrible teams on our schedule. While it may not be exciting, the guys (minus Mookie Jones) seem to be having fun. And it's translating into a ton of free tacos for us Cuse fans (75 points = IT'S TACO TIME!) So we will wait until December 10 against Florida and then January 2 against Pitt until we actually face real teams. March seems so far away right now.

I think that's enough for now, finals coming up and all. I know you'd rather read this than study, but I think for your future's sake you should study for a bit. Peace out, I'm going to buy my Ryan Nassib jersey now!

Yeah, this one's gonna be a little shorter because I'm home now. And late too. Man, I guess my productivity drops off quite a bit when I'm home. So it looks like that homework that I got due the day I get back is going to suffer too. But that aside, I'd just like to let everyone know how great it is to be home.

So as you may have heard (from the last paragraph), I'm home for Thanksgiving. I am sitting in my living room with my feet propped up eating a black and white cookie from my hometown bakery. Be jealous. But all kidding aside, I should use this opportunity to reflect on the importance of going home every once in a while. Home is where you can go to decompress. It's away from all of the craziness of college-empty of bumbling drunk people and full of loving family. I don't think that there has been any better time in my life than the time spent here in the house that I've lived my entire life (no disrespect to any of you who I've had sicknasty times with at the 'Cuse).

I realize now that it's been a long time since I've made a list, so here's a list of things at home that maintain a bit of an edge over college.

• THE FOOD
• THE SHOWERS
• Let's face it: chores > essays
• THE FOOD...yeah it deserves two mentions, maybe two or three more at least
• Being able to drive places
• Frisbee games
• And...parents...because let's face it, we all need to get taken care of sometimes

So I'm going to spend every second that I'm here wisely. Only thing is, that also means maybe not catching up on sleep...but that's what Thanksgiving Day is for! Eat, sleep, watch football, repeat. Is there any better day?

From my actual home to my home away from home. Syracuse athletics! Probably the best weekend they've had since a guy named Ernie was playing football for us. First, basketball. We absolutely trash Cal and NC, ranked in the top 12 in the nation. I mean, it looked like 'Cuse wasn't even trying too hard, they just make winning look effortless. I cannot say enough about our team this year. We lost our three big personalities and turned into a team where on any given night one of five people can lead in scoring. Nothing against the guys that left, but it's like our team has turned from this into this. (Note that this section concerns the movie Space Jam. If you haven't seen it, stop reading immediately. And watch Space Jam.)

Don't get me wrong, the Monstars had great individual talent and were an offensive juggernaut. They had the physical gifts to be great. But, they were turnstiles on defense. They had absolutely no aggression when it came to defending the hoop. Additionally, they only practiced one time and that was for about 10 seconds. Seriously, they didn't even use a real ball. They used Michael Jordan. The Toon Squad, on the other hand, had fundamentals. They had a team dynamic unlike any other, with a large number of players contributing to the team's success. It didn't matter if they were knocking out the opposition by smelling bad or driving around the court on a moped distributing assists. They practiced together and ended up winning the game. By the way, the Monstars are 2007-08 Syracuse and the Toon Squad is this year's team. Just in case you hadn't realized.

Syracuse football has been wrecking chumps too. And by chumps I mean Rutgers. We got 9 sacks, and that's not counting the time that Doug Hogue tackled the quarterback before Rutgers even knew the ball had been snapped. Our defense dominated, our offense did enough to win, and our special teams...well, let's just say that only two of their kicks got blocked. Oh, and did I mention that we did all of this without:

• Mike Williams (quit): top 10 wide receiver in the country
• Arthur Jones (knee): top 15 pick in next year's NFL draft
• Derrell Smith (knee): potential All-Big East middle linebacker
• Pretty much our entire starting offensive line

And did I mention that in addition to not having all of those guys, we still have a healthy Greg "Two for Flinching" Paulus, which is an even greater detriment to the team. But we won 31-13 in which was the most fun Syracuse game I have ever attended.

And we won't mention the soulcrushing defeat (the fourth in a row) for my Broncos. But things are looking up! I've heard that if they lose on Thanksgiving, coach isn't going to let them eat any turkey or fixins. If I were in their shoes, I would crawl over broken glass in a pool of acid with electrodes attached to my head that would shock me everytime I talked about sports in order to win the game. That is what Thanksgiving dinner means to me. What does it mean to you, Denver? That's all for now, HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Sports! Sports! Food! Sports!

It's Tuesday again. That can only mean one thing: one more blog to distract you from whatever test you were were preparing for, whatever homework you were doing, whatever cancer you were finding the cure for. While I don't advocate procrastination myself, feel free to read the greatest blog ever. I guarantee that at least 2 or 3 other people are doing the same thing. Oh, and those numbers are in millions by the way.

Due to a bet with a close friend, I recently tried (and failed miserably...twice) to spend a day without talking about sports. It made me realize how they've become integrated into my personality. I grew up with them...watching them, playing them, even inventing a few. If you're ever on the racquetball court, I can teach you G-ball and if you're on a playground maybe I'll challenge you to some freestyle swinging. Anyway, it's taught me some important things about myself. For one, I discovered that my personal hell is not being able to talk about sports and then being faced with an all day marathon of college basketball. Literally all day, the first game was at 12 AM, then at least one game every two hours until midnight tonight. I also learned that asking me not to talk about sports is basically asking me to change my personality. And it really really sucked. So I now have learned never to attempt even remotely to do the same thing to someone else. So I guess even though I failed (twice) I came out the other side a better person. Thanks to the person who challenged me, they know who they are.

Allllrighty then. That's out of the way. Now let's talk some sports! I'll make this nice and dramatic. I returned to my room from a study session Saturday afternoon. It was a day like any other, except that the Syracuse temperature was 5 or 6 times higher than it normally is this time of year. I turn on my computer to check on the Cuse football game. Lo and behold, despite losing their best player on both offense and defense, Syracuse had scrapped their way to a 9-3 lead with only 3 minutes to go. I turned on the TV to watch the end of the game. Alas, the computer was updating very slowly and the televised portion of the game showed me the ugly truth, akin to the Phantom of the Opera taking of his mask revealing his gruesome, disfigured face beneath. Louisville 10, Syracuse 9 with only a minute to go.

Syracuse gets the ball and instantly jumpstarts my hopes of a victory with a long kick return. Behold, hope! An 11 yard pass! More hope! Another comple...son of a B****!!!! What would transpire but a game ending interception. One look at the play and I knew in my heart who was to blame for the loss: not Greg Paulus. Wait...my keyboard must be broken. Let me type that again. Not Greg Paulus. Wow. I did not know that was possible. To blame for this loss: Mike Williams. Yes, the star receiver who quit the team a couple weeks ago. Here's the deal. On the interception, Paulus throws a good pass to Marcus Sales, wide receiver. Sales decides to let the ball go through his hands, and if that wasn't enough, he decides to reach down and tip it towards the oncoming defender. The defender catches the ball, game over. So. If Mike Williams were still on the team, there's no way Paulus looks anywhere else on the last drive of the game. Or, even if he did, Louisville would stack all 11 defenders on Williams and if someone else dropped a pass there would be nobody around to intercept it. Williams doesn't drop that pass, Syracuse goes on to have a chance to win. Mike, thanks a lot for this one. Chump.

Two closing thoughts on the game. First thought: A wise sage (aka my brother) pointed out to me something eerie. First game of the season: Greg Paulus ends Syracuse's promising beginning to a season with an interception. Last game: Syracuse's bowl hopes are completely eliminated with a Paulus interception. Second thought: The guy who intercepted the pass for Louisville was named Andrew Robinson. Yes, that's right. Same name as the guy we started at quarterback for the start of last year before benching him and eventually turning him into a tight end. Karma? Possibly.

Alright, that's the end of that. "That" being my hopes of Syracuse not sucking in football this year. In other interesting news, look at this video. Honestly, do I even have to comment on that? I think I should just let you enjoy the amazingness that is human stupidity. I mean seriously: Who does that?


I owe you some non-sports type stuff I guess. I mean, I was really on a roll with that but I suppose I can try. Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue" came out today. I really should try to stay away from the Sarah Palin jokes. I mean, they've pretty much been done to death by Tina Fey and everyone else who has seen Russia from their house...I shouldn't have done that. But ok one more joke.

Q: What's Sarah Palin's middle name?
A: I don't know, Alaska!

Now if you want to try it out at home, it works with pretty much any question about her. What's Sarah Palin's favorite ice cream? I don't know, Alaska! What's her husband's name? Why does she hate moose so much? What's her favorite magazine? Oh wait I know what's not her favorite magazine! (Hint: Her ex-son-in-law is posing in it). Too soon? Whatevs, I went for it.

I hope this blog is better than the Broncos' performance on Sunday. Seriously, who loses to the Redskins? (Shoutout to my brother who loves the Redskins). Cuse basketball is idle until Thursday so they couldn't cheer me up. Oh well, hope everyone has a great week and I'll write again next Tuesday. Which is right before my favorite holiday! Friday, November 27, National Flossing Day! Nah, just kidding. It's Thanksgiving. Peace out.

A Concise Summary of the Plight of Man and His Ongoing Struggle With Identity

Proof that hackers have to man the hell up and get better viruses (see below)

I owe some mentions in this post so I guess I'll just get them out of the way right now before they get bored and stop reading or something, then yell at me for not mentioning them in the first sentence. Shoot, there goes the first sentence, guess they'll have to settle for the third. I am obligated, this is wrenching my soul to write this right now I might add, to give a shoutout to a certain RA of mine last year who happens to like a certain football team that may have put an embarrassing beatdown on my beloved Broncos. On a more pleasant note, thanks everybody who commented on the blog! I love feedback. Looking back though, this wasn't the first time I got commented...on my first post someone who goes by "L" put some positive feedback up there. No idea who they are, but your comment means the world to me!

Enough with the fun, happy stuff. Let's get to possibly the most horrible, depressing story that I can possibly think of: the tragedy of Arthur Jones. I'm going to go ahead and give some background here, so if you already know how this one ends, don't spoil it for everyone else. Bear in mind that Arthur Jones is awesome. Arthur Jones is a Syracuse football player who definitely could have gotten into the NFL and made at least $1 million this year. The last pick in the second round (TE Richard Quinn drafted by my Broncos) this year is making $930,000 for a signing bonus plus a $310,000 salary. So conservatively speaking, Arthur would've made a lot of money, or as the kids these days are calling it, "mad bank yo." In a mock draft for next year, Arthur is slated to get picked 18th overall (again by my Broncos). But miraculously, somehow, after winning only 9 games in three years, Arthur decides, "Hey, I could waste another year of my career at Syracuse."

So he comes back, mainly to play with his brother Chandler. I also suspect that he was curious about playing for a coach who doesn't suck (aka not Greg Robinson). We're pumped for the season, Arthur is going to be beastly, we have a shot at a bowl game. 9 games later, Syracuse needs to run the table to even be considered for a bowl game and Arthur gets a season ending knee injury. Arthur, you deserve better. Get well soon, play for the Broncos, and donate much money to the football program here.

I hope everyone is within reach of a box of tissues after that tearjerker. I'm shedding a few myself. I'll try to cheer everyone up with a story I read that is too absolutely ridiculous to be true. It must be. The iPhone recently got its first virus (I guess it must be flu season! No? I gave it a shot. A flu shot! Still no? Ok. I love using these parentheses...they feel like a secret conversation. Well that's enough of that.). This virus...get this...puts a picture of Rick Astley on your iPhone's wallpaper. That's right, this guy. They even have a term for it, I guess people do this a lot-"rickrolling." I think that hackers need to be more creative these days. Make my computer talk to me and refuse to do what I tell it like Hal in 2001. "Computer, open Microsoft Word." "I'm sorry Tim, I'm afraid I can't do that." If someone could do that to my computer, sure I'd get mad, but they'd sure have my respect.

I recently spent an evening learning some new dance moves via the wonderful human advancement that is YouTube. I know what you all are thinking. Tim, that's like Michelangelo taking a painting class. That's like Shakespeare going to Writing 105. That's like Albert Einstein auditing Intro to Physics. That's like...please, enough! I understand where you all are coming from, but even a master such as myself could use some new steps once in a while. For instance, I fine tuned my Soulja Boy (not a moment too soon, that dance is still popular, right?) after years of my brother yelling at me telling me I don't do it right. I also learned the Hustle, which is actually a lot of fun. I learned that the Thriller is going to take a lot more than a 2 minute clip to learn how to do it. And finally, I learned that everyone thinks they can do the moonwalk, but only like 2% of people are good at it. It's a work in progress in my case, I'll hopefully be rolling it out onto a dancefloor near you sometime soon.

I'm gonna end this one with an announcement. As you may know, I looooove frisbee. Now, I have an excellent surprise when I get home for Thanksgiving (but not really because I already know about it). Me and my beefy athletic college friends get to "play" against the high school club I once knew. I put play in quotes because it's not even a contest. Every team I play on for anything wins every time, 95% of the time. So if I come back to Cuse after Thanksgiving break even more full of myself than when I left, you'll know why.

Tim's teams-Broncos get shallacked, but not as badly as last week (faint glimmer of hope, perhaps?), Cuse football gets pummeled, Cuse basketball avenges their loss to Division 2 LeMoyne by beating up a bunch of unathletic white kids from UAlbany. Wait, I just checked, Cuse is 1-0 at basketball, so the loss to LeMoyne must have been a horrible nightmare. I must've caught some pot smoke by walking down any of the dorm hallways here. Until next time! Later.

Yep. That just happened.

The Spaghetti Monster aka Da'Mon Merkerson aka Syracuse's new #1 receiver

I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous for this post...it has to be top notch. Judging from the feedback I've received recently, the pressure is on for an amazing, world-changing, meaning-of-life-revealing blog. This past week I received an overwhelming amount of negative comments outnumbering the total number of such remarks for the entire history of this blog (one person who didn't like me making fun of DJ Hero). I also have gotten a huge amount of people who tell me that they're really looking forward to this edition of Reflexions (also one person). So I can tell my global audience (which is at least two people) that I have put an awful lot of thought into this week's post. I've got a lot to say, and I don't know how long your attention spans are, so I'll get crackalacking.

To put it lightly, being a Syracuse sports fan right now is like being repeatedly punched in the stomach and then having a nuclear holocaust. Ok, I made that up, it probably isn't that bad. But it is pretty darn close. Let's take a look at the last four days of Orange. Saturday: Syracuse plays undefeated, #8 in the country Cincinnati. We lose. Obviously. I mean, we played alright from what I saw, but Greg "Hard Work Obviously Doesn't Pay Off For This Guy" Paulus played like...Greg Paulus I guess. He gets booed every time he goes on the field and backup Ryan "I Only Throw 50 Yard Touchdowns" Nassib was cheered every time he goes on the field. Doug Marrone tears up in the post game, saying, "I've never seen an athlete at any level, including the NFL, work as hard mentally and physically as Greg has worked since he's joined us here." You know what, that's fine. But it doesn't mean he should play. An astute friend of mine said that that would be like Rudy Ruettiger starting at middle linebacker for Notre Dame. He works hard, but he doesn't have the talent to compete. To put the frosting on the cake of pain and anguish that Syracuse football has lovingly baked us this year, Mike Williams quit. Yes, the national top 10 receiver who is our offense's only consistent weapon has up and left the team. The story is long and involved, I won't bore you with it here. But long story short, he left voluntarily, wanted to come back, and wasn't allowed by Marrone because he makes everyone on the team hate each other. Ahhh Syracuse at its finest. Oh, and we lost to Division 2 LeMoyne in basketball, just in case anyone was wondering.

Now that that's out of the way, my non-sports readers who are still awake can start paying attention. Halloween was last weekend! Hooray! I think that any topic that could be written about in an angry or funny way has pretty much been done to death at this point...I mean girls using the occasion as an opportunity to dress like, well you know, everyone makes fun of that. No, to be original, I'm going to share with you one of my dreams. Every Halloween, I hope that someone hassles me somehow. I mean, if someone makes fun of my costume, I think I have the perfect comeback. Like they'd say "What are you supposed to be?" And I'd go with "Someone who punches you in the face." And they'd have nothing to say, and to stay true to character I'd follow up by punching them in the face. I mean it's foolproof right? As long as the person I'm talking to has drunk their coordination abilities away by that point.

In one of my classes we're learning about how Boeing's problems in logistics and whatnot have delayed it 3 years in the manufacture of a revolutionary new type of plane, the Dreamliner. Their suppliers don't know what they're doing, they're going bankrupt because Boeing isn't paying them until the plane gets built, and Boeing isn't really being much of a help at all in terms of actually telling them how to build the parts of the plane. However, despite the fact that it's taking more than four times as long to build one Dreamliner (at least 6 years now) than it took to build the Empire State Building (about 15 months), the nice people at Boeing have designed, built, and tested a different plane called the Dreamlifter to transport Dreamliner parts in about three years. Now the Dreamlifter is pretty impressive in and of itself...It's a fricking plane that can carry most of another huge plane inside it! How does it make any sense that Boeing could design the Dreamlifter (0 orders) so quickly when the Dreamliner (600 orders) is being developed about as slowly as a mule in quicksand? I don't understand anything anymore.

One last quick thought before I get to that life-changing moment I promised. You may have heard of the movie 2012 coming out in November right? I get the premise, something I have thought about a lot. The Mayan calendar stops on December 21, 2012 and that's supposedly when the world's going to end. Good idea for a movie, WORST MARKETING EVER!!!! Sorry, I just do not understand in the slightest why this movie is coming out now. Don't know if you'd noticed, it's 2009! Would it really be so hard to wait the 3 years to release it and make that much more money, the movie actually being relevant? Seriously, release the movie on 12/21/12 and it'll be a gold mine. Better yet, do it the day before and watch the theatres sell out as people scramble to watch the movie before they think the world will end. Honestly, if the people who made Friday the 13th movies are smart enough to release their movies on Friday the 13th, why can't 2012 come out in 2012?

Here it is, new outlook on life here we come! I've been doing some thinking. Remember how I said life is like a loogie? I know that was a ways back. Well, I've also decided that life is a lot like America's Got Talent. There are drunks, stupid people, and the token angry British guy judging you. There is a large, fickle group of people yelling at you. Bad things happen to good people, like the people who do flipping dunks through rings of fire not advancing. Villains prosper, like a guy dressing like Shakira and lip syncing advancing. There are people you want to punch, people you cry for, people you root for. There is the ultimate goal at the end that you know you could accomplish if you got the chance. And for some reason Nick Cannon and Jerry Springer are seen as important even though they don't serve any purpose toward furthering humanity.

Well, that's enough deep stuff for me today, hope this wasn't too long for you guys. Quick Tim's team update: THEY ALL LOST. Ok thanks for reading!

The above is a photograph of an actual shirt worn by a Cuse fan to this weekend's game. (Ok, it was me, but how awesome is it?)

Ok I promise I have a really good excuse for the lateness of this post. I had an hour and a half long phone conversation with my best friend. If true friendship isn't a good excuse, I implore you to tell me what is. Oh, and side note, in the midst of this conversation I missed someone else's call. Have you ever been phone tagged by someone you do not know and for all you know have never met? Well I have now, with a phone from my own area code and the person actually said "Tag, you're it" in the voice mail. I do not know what's going on.

Anyways, I'm going to get the really boring stuff out of the way first. Syracuse vs. Akron. I know, I know, Syracuse won and I should be happy, and I am. Greg "I Still Play Poorly" Paulus was pretty much taken out of the game plan, with Cuse running 42 times and calling pass plays 22 times. Paulus was relegated to only throwing to people who were close enough to reach out and touch him. Meanwhile, my boy Supafly Nassib only threw one pass the entire game, a potential 50 yard touchdown dropped by former QB Cody Catalina.

Those statistics aside, I barely even feel like I watched the game because it was so nondescript. Delone Carter got the ball and ran over 3 people pretty much every play, whenever Syracuse lined up in shotgun the snaps went 10 feet over the QB's head, and Akron played awfully. I don't really know why but I kind of sleepwalked through the game. I missed the student section, I'll tell you that much. For some reason parents don't get as worked up over Cuse football as a bunch of beer-swilling, barechested, brightly colored students. So the game was so quiet I could have napped quite comfortably. But we won, and that's the important thing. Way to go Cuse (minus Paulus)!

[Insert fitting segue here] And that brings us to the origin of the rally cap. Who thought that wearing their cap inside out and at a rakish angle (I love the word rakish) could bring their team luck and an improbable comeback? Well I looked into it and here's what I found. I was extremely surprised to find that the inception of this tradition brought about one of the most catastrophic and epic FAILs of all time. In 1986, down 3 games to 2 in the World Series and trailing in the game, the New York Mets all decided to turn their caps inside out in the seventh inning. The fans followed suit. They were playing the Red Sox, who took a 2 run lead in the tenth inning, but we all know what happened after that. The magic of the rally caps let one Bill Buckner make an error that let the Mets win and go on to take the Series the next game.

I had no idea that the rally cap had such an amazing genesis. I was expecting it to be some drunk reliever putting his hat on the wrong way when he was called in to pitch or something. But this is even more awesome. Somehow, though, the rally cap has been forgotten. In baseball games when it is appropriate, very few people bother with it anymore. What I say is this. There are three things you should know about baseball. One: the Cubs will never ever win another World Series. Two: the Twins are the best team ever. And three: rally caps have worked in the past and will work for years to come.

Speaking of things that are great, how about the fact that DJ Hero is very very not a great thing? I've been seeing commercials for it for the past week, and I believe it stands next to Bill Cosby's raps as a sign of the decline of human civilization. Why do we need to pretend to be a DJ in a video game? What does DJ-ing even entail? Is it for the Zoolander-esque situations we all find ourselves in when knowing how to crossfade could save the life of the Malaysian prime minister? I guess we need to wait until the game comes out to find the answers to these pressing questions. Thank God that we don't have to actually pretend to make music anymore, we can pretend to mix music that other pretend people are pretending to make.

Decline of human civilization #2: Horror movies. Seriously, has anyone paid attention to what we call a horror movie anymore? I've taken to reading movie synopses on IMDB and I have to say- people are getting a little deranged because what is horror now is so disturbing. Compare it to 50 years ago. 1954 was Creature From the Black Lagoon, 1958 gave us The Blob, and 1960 was Psycho. A movie made in the last year, Trick R Treat is about people severing heads, a demon child with a pumpkin head, and a schoolbus full of zombie kids who dismember everybody. Saw is about interesting choices-whether to die or inflict some limb severance or maiming on yourself (or another person). The Happening is about people killing themselves in horribly graphic ways. Is the human condition changing so much that to be scared we need to cross the line of sanity so much? I guess the 50's and 60's were a much simpler time when a person dressed up in a monster suit could scare people, but now we need death in increasingly gory and imaginative ways to do it. Maybe I'm just talking crazy here, but the whole horror genre is kind of getting out of control.

Tim's team updates- the Broncos sit at 6-0 after not playing last week, Syracuse football is 3-4 now but it feels like they didn't play. I apologize if this post seemed more like me being angry than me being funny, but it'll be better next week, I promise!

Hey guys, nice to see you again! But not really, because if I could see you through this website that would be kind of creepy. So, in the interest of privacy rights that will probably go away in the future, nice to not see you! This week has been pretty eventful sportswise, but I'll try to keep you non-sports addicts entertained.

I'm going to start with the obvious topic on everyone's mind- Syracuse football. I know what you're thinking- "Tim, you talk about that every single week. And there wasn't even a game on Saturday!" Well you may be right. However, the Syracuse football team has delivered a blow that I'm not sure I will be able to recover from. I nearly slipped into a hysterical coma when I saw that Greg Paulus will in fact be starting on Saturday against Akron. After the initial few seconds of fighting off a stroke and a heart attack simultaneously, I had to restrain myself from picking up the nearest heavy object and hurling it at the TV from whence the dreadful news had come (and a good thing I managed to stop myself, the nearest TV smashing object was a person).

I have come to a conclusion about Greg Paulus. He is a T3000 Terminator, sent from the future to destroy the Syracuse football program. Here's my future theory. It's the year 2050. The Syracuse Orange, under the direction of mastermind Doug Marrone, have won the past 35 BCS Championship games. College football has arrived at a crossroads. High school players only want to go to Cuse, and consequentially people can no longer go to watch Syracuse games at the Dome, the reason being that all the seats are taken up by the football team whose roster is now at 55,000 players. This leaves all other major college football programs to recruit from overseas, ending up with mostly confused soccer players who didn't see the "American" part of "American football"on the application, as well as beings from the alien races humans contacted in the late 2020's. By the way, the aliens look like this.

The scientists at Duke University create one last ditch effort to bring Syracuse back to its losing ways. The product of their manufacture is Greg Paulus. At first, selfishness caused Duke to program him to play basketball to help out their team before destroying the Orange. However, Duke's scientists didn't really succeed in this endeavour, the evidence being Paulus's performance for Duke basketball. While being good at basketball may not be Duke's specialty, turning out the worst football players ever is. Duke created the perfect weapon to decimate Syracuse football. He may look like an idiot, but don't be fooled. He has a large arsenal of weapons to make a football team suck. He has his arm that turns into an interception launcher, his legs which churn and churn but never seem to move him away from opposing tacklers, and his hands which are genetically and technologically enhanced to fumble the football with deadly efficiency. Additionally, he seems to have been implanted with some sort of mind control device, rendering Doug Marrone incapable of keeping him from playing. I know what you're thinking now. "Tim, you just blew my mind. That is the only logical explanation for what's been going on." Yes, and all I have to say is: bravo future Duke scientists. Bravo.

That's enough of that. I'm scaring myself with these all too realistic depictions of the future. Let's move on to a lighter subject. So I just saw this and smiled: Bill Cosby is releasing a hip-hop album. Nope, no typo. The lovable Mr. Huxtable is now a rapper. I am absolutely speechless. What...why...no coherent thoughts come to mind. If you're curious, you can download one of his songs for free here. I think it's about time to come up with a list of events I feel are on par with a disaster of such epic proportions (in no particular order).

• The Hindenberg
• William Shatner's album of dramatic readings- The Transformed Man
• The Detroit Lions 2008-2009 season
• The Cold War
• Greg Paulus

The list goes on, but my brain hurts from listening to Bill Cosby telling me that the world needs surgery as a truck horn blares in the background.

I have one more little thing thats been bothering me. Ok, two. But first things first. Why can't the NFL get a not awful system for playing overtime games. For those of you not familiar with it, the NFL uses a coin flip to decide who gets the ball first and then the first team to score wins, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Basketball, baseball, college football, golf, and even unicycle hockey have fair, exciting ways of settling tie scores at the end of regulation. Don't believe me about unicycle hockey? Read section 5.1 and weep! But, the NFL insists on sudden death in such a manner that one team may not even get to touch the ball! The fate of the game hangs on one flip of the coin. What if a Super Bowl goes to overtime and the team that gets the ball first scores? That hardly seems fair that chance decided the most important sporting event in the world. Imagine a coin flip deciding the following events and you'll know where I'm coming from (Yay another list!).

• World Wars I and II
• The presidential election
• Who we blame for 9/11
• Greg Paulus

I know the last one doesn't make sense, but I really don't like that guy. Seriously, chance sucks, especially when you're on the losing end. Just ask the Patriots who lost to the Broncos in overtime, never getting to touch the ball. That's right, the system benefited the Broncos and I'm arguing against it.

Speaking of which, Tim's team update! Syracuse football- somehow managed not to lose a game in a week in which they did not play. Minnesota Twins- out of the playoffs for the last month or so...it's hard to keep track of time when you don't care about baseball until next season. Denver Broncos- 6-0 baby! Put the hurt on the San Diego Chargers and Phillip Rivers, their QB, who I dislike nearly as much as Greg Paulus. Oh well, that's all for now. Keep on keeping on, and support Ryan "McNabb" Nassib, the true Syracuse quarterback!

You know your computer is broken when...

I regret the fact that this will not be posted until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. My tens of thousands of readers have been setting their calendars by my blog because they placed their undying trust in my pen...keyboard? Well, they trust my amazing wit and dead-on social commentary. And I have failed all of you. I apologize.

Now that that's over with, we can move on to more important news. My computer, as many of you may know, died about a week ago (and I survived on computer labs and my friend's computer-you know who you are). That's actually not accurate. It died repeatedly, coming back to life again and again for short periods of time, giving me false hope that I wouldn't have to get it fixed (like the two cell phones I've flooded in the past that magically healed themselves, but that's another story). But every time I turned it on, it would work for anywhere from five seconds to an hour and then give myself the proverbial slap in the face and the proverbial knee to the groin simultaneously by silently imploding upon itself in a flurry of seizure-inducing lights and a pattern of colors on the screen that I can only describe as the Devil's Safety Blanket. But, thanks to the miracles of modern technology and the ingenuity of humanity in general, my computer was fixed by the school and returned to me ON TIME. That's right. Was not expecting that.

Related sidebar: I ordered a textbook online at the beginning of the semester. August 31 to be exact. The website cheerfully let me know that I could expect it in 5-10 business days. A week went by. No book. I wasn't all that worried because a friend had the same book that I could borrow whenever we had work to do in the class. Another week goes by. No book. I'm starting to get a little worried, as more than 10 business days have passed. I send the following email:

I ordered the Supply Chain textbook 2 1/2 weeks ago and it has not yet arrived. When can I expect my book to get here?

I was asked to provide my order information, which I did immediately. No reply. A third week passes, like the gentle transition from a crisp fall to a silent winter. A gentle transition where no books arrive in the mail. I am still holding out for a reply from my polite email. How naive I was, believing that politeness could bring me my book in the dog eat dog world that is online textbook retailing. A fourth week passes. I got my book! Just kidding, I didn't. I decided to take action though, and sent another email:

I ordered this book on August 31. It has not arrived. There is no tracking number online, so I can only assume that the book has not even been shipped yet. This is unacceptable. If you do not contact me immediately in regards to the status of my order I will demand a full, immediate refund. This is the third email I have sent you. The first one you responded asking for my order information. The second one you ignored completely. Respond immediately.

And wouldn't you know it, I get a response no more than two hours later. As it turns out, the company only pays attention to those who give them a digital equivalent of a tongue lashing. And wouldn't you know it, the day I sent my angreemail, the book had already been delivered to my dorm (I made angreemail up, every time you use it you owe me a dollar). What a hilarious coincidence. But pay attention, here's where this pointlessly long and involved story somewhat has a connection to the blog. I lost all faith in anything using the term "such and such amount of business days." That's why it was such a big shock when my computer was returned on time.

Ok, I realize that this is a subpar blog so far, as much as it is a day late. I'm 0 for 2 so far. Not a good start. Just like the [insert sports team that you like here]. Oh snap, got you bad! Speaking of awful sports teams, the Syracuse Orange football team played possibly the worst half of football that I have ever witnessed in my life. Hooooowever, as you may know, they responded by making the best decision in the history of sports. No, make that the history of forever. Man decides to use fire to cook his food instead of getting salmonella all the time. The American colonies decide to rebel against Britain. Jeno Paulucci invents the pizza roll in 1968 (incidentally, check out the best website ever). All three of these were awesome decisions that I am 100% behind. But Syracuse topped them all on Saturday. It was so amazing that I'm going to tell it to you one word per sentence.

Greg. Paulus. Got Benched!!!!! Sorry, I was so excited I couldn't bear to split the last two words.

That's right. The Greg "A Bounce Pass is an Incompletion?" Paulus Era may just be at an end. Ryan "Supafly" Nassib was inserted as the quarterback after Paulus was 5 for 9 for 30 yards and an INT in the first half. Nassib promptly responded by throwing a picture perfect 50 yard touchdown to Mike Williams. No offense to Doug Marrone, but why haven't we been playing our not godawful quarterback? Sure playing Paulus is interesting, but so is a guy skiing into a tree. Neither of them end up to well. Nassib will hopefully keep playing and get ready for next season when Paulus can't even make our team worse by sitting on the bench in an unskillful way. In other news, Syracuse still lost by 21 points, allowed 34 points for the third time in a row, and most likely will not be doing the whole bowl thing at the end of the year. Whatever...[sniff]...bowl games are stupid anyway. We don't need them.

Hey, did anyone happen to see the Broncos-Patriots game on Sunday? No I'm not going to gloat about our obviously superior team and our incredible overtime victory and the fact that your defensive backs couldn't find a football in a stack of footballs. No, I won't mention any of those things. I'm more concerned with the Broncos throwback jerseys. You saw it near the top of the page. I'm obviously going to order a box of those suckers. I'm always short on rags to clean up vomit with in the dorm bathroom, and firestarters are a must-have for the holiday season. Apparently, though, they are a gateway through which we can peer into 1959 (careful, don't fall through it, 1959 was a rough year). Picture this: an upstart football team in a new league, trying to create a fearsome image that opponents would fear. They chose those uniforms because they could get them secondhand from the Tucson Copper Bowl College All-Star Game. True story. And, as if that wasn't enough, it is widely believed that the yellow color was an attempt to buy only one set of jerseys for both home and away. At least those vertically striped socks made the players look taller. And maybe some of the other teams thought they went to the wrong stadium because the Broncos looked like circus performers...or homeless people. Consequentially the other team would leave in search of the real team and end up forfeiting. Genius. But seriously, those jerseys are even worse than the Philadelphia Flying Swedes monstrosities.

You know what, for all of the apologies and boring stories, I think this post was a success. I put two hyperlinks in there, those make it look important. And look how long it is! You know what, forget what I said earlier. I don't apologize for it being late, calendars should revolve around me anyways. Tim's teams update-Cuse football falls to 2-4, the Twins get swept out of the playoffs quicker than you can say "You can never count out the Twins," and the Broncos improve to 5-0. I don't understand-every week every journalist who ever even thought about sports once is saying that the Broncos aren't for real. Well, here's a mini-tirade for you. We beat 3 teams who everyone thought sucked. One of them is 4-1 after beating the Ravens and the Steelers. The other two suck very much. But, we then beat the Cowboys, who everyone likes to say are good. Then, we beat the Patriots. Come on, now they're going to say that the Patriots aren't good this year. It seems that every team we beat seems to automatically get shunned by the media, instead of the Broncos getting some credit for having one of the best defenses in the league.

Ok, that's over with. Sorry for the sports focus this week, but you know me. Y'all come back real soon!

This week's blog is not going to be nearly as cohesive as my last two were. Both of them had some kind of theme that tied them together, but this one is just a bunch of random stuff that happened to me/I thought about over the weekend. Come to think of it, I was wrong just then. This will be exactly like the other posts. The only central theme this blog needs is myself and my awesomeness, which is not in short supply if I do say so myself.

However, all of you were almost spared the ordeal of having to read this yet again as I was almost jailed last Thursday. Ok not jailed, I was interrogated as a suspect in a slingshot incident based on the fact that both the perpetrator and I had orange sweatshirts on. At Syracuse. What are the chances? 1 in 2? 1 in 1 and a half? So the cops had pretty long odds on finding the actual wrongdoer but proceeded to talk to everyone on the top 4 floors of Booth who were wearing orange sweatshirts. Gotta admire determination like that. Still being able to do the good cop/THIS IS PROBABLE CAUSE!!! cop bit after interrogating 48 people in the space of an hour and a half. I can't decide whether this gives me confidence in the Syracuse police force or if I should be scared that they're looking for someone who "almost hit someone with a slingshot" when there are two guys robbing every college student in sight at knife/gunpoint. We'll call it an impasse.

Thinking about lawbreaking and justice and whatnot, a piece of an article I read last week comes to mind. It referred to the whole Jay Cutler-Josh McDaniels saga in Denver as McJay Gate. The name was jaw-droppingly stupid. I think enough is enough. There should be a law against using the word gate in the title of a scandal. It is so widespread that it is not even funny. Search suggestions when I typed in "gate scandal" on Yahoo (note: Watergate was the number 2 suggestion, just infuriating me more):

• Gloria-Gate scandal-something to do with the president of the Philippines and expatriates of said country in the Middle East
• Spy-Gate scandal-Bill Belichick stole defensive signs in football games from opposing coaches
• Diploma-Gate-Iran's newly appointed Interior Minister was accused of having a forged doctoral degree
• Monica-Gate-Bill Clinton is accused of having sex with an intern
• China-Gate-Bill Clinton is accused of accepting large amounts of campaign contributions from the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which has strong Communist ties

The list goes on from there. Now let's look at where "gate" came from. The root is of course Watergate. Look at it. It's the second half of the name of a complex of buildings. It's not capitalized, it's not even hyphenated. I'll tell you what it is. It's an excuse to not be creative and to have a name for the headlines as soon as possible. Whatever happened to the pun? Bill Belichick spying on people...call it the Patriot Act or something. Just don't keep slapping gate on the end of every fricking thing that goes wrong ever. Oh no, I just got a B on my math test. Exam-Gate! Give me a break.

Speaking of things that go horribly wrong, Syracuse faced South Florida in football this weekend. Tssss, burn! I have never seen 5 turnovers in 4 minutes of football. Never has my team made me cry and scream myself hoarse so many times in so short a time. At least we stayed competitive in the first half because of that. USF played down to our level, which was so low that it was past subterranean. It was somewhere in outerspace below the other side of the planet. They didn't run a play where they didn't turn the ball over until their third drive. But, when they started not giving us the ball, they scored fairly quickly and easily. Why couldn't our offense respond? I'll tell you.

Because Greg "Eskimo" Paulus sucks! I've gone through this all year. He had one good game against Northwestern, according to the stats. But anyone who has watched this guy can tell that he is not cut out to be a college quarterback. He was a point guard- doesn't that mean he should know when not to throw and when not to get sacked? He doesn't run well at all, despite his quickness. He doesn't find holes, isn't decisive on when he's going to take off, and his running style looks like someone told him he dropped a $100 bill on the ground. Either that or he's trying to sniff out a trail to the endzone. Sorry Greg, the only trail on the field is the 5 yard long crater that was formed when your body was driven into the ground by the four 300 pound defensive lineman who were chasing you. Wow, I didn't think it was possible but I spent an entire paragraph bashing Greg "Is That USF Guy One of My Receivers" Paulus without once mentioning the fact that he threw 5 interceptions.

The bright spot of the game (yes there was only one) was a certain receiver named...well you probably know who he is already because he's the only guy who got the ball all game for Syracuse-Da'Mon Merkerson. No, I'm just kidding, it was Mike Williams. 13 catches, 186 yards, 2 touchdowns. Not only was he the only Orange player not named Ryan "Ulrich von" Liechtenstein to score, he was the only Orange player with more than 53 yards from scrimmage (rushing and receiving). He dominated so much that I was in disbelief that the Bulls wouldn't just undecuple cover him. For you non-Latin speakers, that means put all 11 defenders on him. Even so, Williams has his defects. How can one receiver do so much damage yet be so inconsistent? He's getting over 100 yards and 1 touchdown per game but he can't seem to catch the short ball. Oh well, Koren Robinson and Darrell Jackson made good livings in the NFL dropping most of the balls that came their way. Even if catching a football is what they are paid millions of dollars to do. Is the only thing they have to do. That's like...a chef giving someone salmonella half the time. I mean, that's ok, because if it was baseball, 50% of the time is unbelievably amazing.

I should get going soon, the Twins are playing and without me to root them on they aren't doing so well. That's right, 1 miraculous comeback later and the never say die Twins are in the running for the playoffs. Don't laugh at me if they lose after I write this, I'm just happy they've done so well so far. That means you, Yankees fans. Just because you guys clinched a playoff spot like 5 games into the season doesn't mean you're better than us. Ok, maybe it does, but we try harder.

End note: My Broncos are 4-0. Where have all the critics gone? Oh wait, they're still here, saying we're like the worst 4-0 team ever. Well, that's still a lot better than the Super Bowl defending champions (Steelers, 2-2) and the runner up (Cardinals, 1-2) and the team with the best record in the league last year (Titans, 0-4). So until we lose, shut up basically every football journalist ever.

Road Trip!

I apologize to my thousands of readers expecting a rant on the Syracuse vs. Maine throwdown that happened over the weekend. This post will not be including Cupcakefest '09 because I was out of town and could not attend the game. There's no way to tell how many people have read this, so I'm just going to assume the best and think that 75% of the greater Syracuse area are avid followers of my work. I know this is shocking to many that I could miss a Cuse game after my previous comments, but a ride to Boston for the weekend presented itself.

Now, I'm as pro as you can get for mass transportation, but a car ride is a car ride and a bus ride is a $100 hell that you get to spend 11 hours in on the way to your destination. That's why I'm pro mass transit- if I support it enough maybe it'll start to suck less. That's why I was so pleased when I found out about the Pittsburgh-Philly maglev line (currently in the planning stage and miles away from construction). I'll get absolutely no use out of it, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. I'll even provide a link to an article about it, as long as you promise to read it after you finish this. Pinkie promise? Ok, here it is.

So I arrived in Boston more or less in one piece after getting up at 4 AM to make the 7 hour trip. I was immediately in awe of the city. It is, for the lack of a better word, nice there. I'm used to the rough and tumble world of Syracuse. People find live hand grenades in our parks, you can't walk anywhere without fearing for your safety, and now 6'0 and 5'8 individuals are teaming up to rob all the groups of students that they can get their hands on. Sounds like your classic crime team- the short witty guy named Mugsy and the big dumb muscle named Louie.

Boston is absolutely nothing like it. It's so clean that it's almost sparkly. And let's face it, who isn't attracted to shiny objects? Walking around, there's some open plazas that are paved and have fountains and such, as well as green parks with plenty of open grass to throw the old Fris around. Oh, and not to mention the tall imposing buildings. I cannot tell you how amazingly fun it is to go up to the 22nd floor of a building and to spit out the window. Who knows why, maybe I'm a romantic, but I feel like the loogie fluttering in the breeze as it slowly descends earthward is a metaphor for all of us. Inevitably traveling towards some destiny, making small course corrections of our own design but ultimately ending up where gravity says we're supposed to be. I know what you're thinking, but I never took philosophy so it's the best I could come up with.

Out of all the sites I saw, I probably enjoyed the Boston Public Library (BPL) the most out of the sites I saw. (You mean you didn't enjoy shopping with three girls at H & M Tim? No, of course I did, but I thought the BPL sounded manlier...like some kind of obscure sports league- the British Pro40 League. It's a real sport. Look at this. Wow this is a long parentheses. When is this idiot going to get back on track? How about...now) Yeah, so a blog and a penchant for visiting large libraries. Ladies, please. One at a time. Ok now to get back on track for real. I think the library was awesome because it had a section for pretty much every language you could think of. Mandarin? Ta men you. Spanish? Ellos lo tienen. Icelandic? ......Umm they had it. Who knows how to speak Icelandic anyway? Even languages I'd never even heard of. Punjabi, which is apparently an Indian (in Asia, not American Indian) dialect, had a section. And they had books in the language, not about the language. So you could see all kinds of character systems which I thought was very cool.

Another thing that kept me entertained for a while was the indexes. People will write about anything, I know. But the things that so many people write about that need to be indexed are pretty eclectic. Here's what I found:

• Index to Jewish Periodicals
• And to counter...The Catholic Periodical and Literature Index
  
• Index to Handicrafts
• Pollution Abstracts
• Garden Literature
• And finally...the Great Soviet Encyclopedia

This kind of makes me think. If you can fill up volumes of giant books with just references to these things, you could literally pick any subject on the face of the earth and write a book about it. Or, as I just realized, a blog. I think I'll stick to the latter because they'd never let me write a book and then say it was by "The Puma."

Wow, I just realized how long this is getting. I should probably knock off for the week. I'll sum up. Syracuse is 2-2. Bowl game perhaps? Boston is a great city and I hope to go back soon, this time with an actual plan on places I want to see. I would like to give special thanks to my awesome roomie who drove, my awesome best friend who put up with me for the weekend, and her crazy friends who made my weekend that much more interesting.

PS- On the way home I got myself some BK onion rings. I did not find any BK fries in them and it was AWESOME.

Syracuse wins. Finally.

My ideal Saturday is a lovely sunny day spent indoors watching Syracuse win a football game. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened too often in recent memory. In fact, until last Saturday, my beloved Orange had won 10 games over the past four years. Thanks a lot, Greg Robinson, you jerk. The "one yard and a cloud of dust" offense was not very effective.

However, the time was ripe for Syracuse to start winning. After going 3-9 last year, Syracuse finally manned up and fired G-Rob. His replacement? Disciplinarian Doug Marrone fresh from an offensive coordinating gig with the New Orleans Saints. Apparently from what I've heard, he came out of the womb with a headset and clipboard. This man was born to coach and all he ever wanted was to coach the Orange.

Admittedly, the first two games didn't go too well. First, a heart wrenching overtime defeat at the hands of Minnesota, with the Orange stagnating in the second half. Next came Penn State, which I had the misfortune of attending. Greg "Unnecessary Longsleeves" Paulus had himself a terrible game and the Orange got shallacked.

Then Northwestern came to town. Begging to get beaten after a narrow escape against Eastern Michigan the week before. Syracuse was all too happy to oblige. But not before they sent half their fans home with heart attacks. They got out to a 17-0 lead thanks to some passable play by their quarterback (pun 100% intended) Greg "College Brett Favre" Paulus. And then the defense got bored with the game and decided to make things interesting by allowing 3 straight touchdowns. Syracuse responded by scoring 10 more points to come within a field goal of equaling the score against fellow compass school Northeastern the previous year. It was not to be, however, as kicker Ryan "Ulrich von" Liechtenstein decided to kick a field goal as low as he possibly could and it was blocked.

The defense continued its "Let Northwestern score" tactics, enjoying success similar to the first half. Northwestern gets 2 more touchdowns to make it 34-27. And misses the extra point. Who knew something so simple as letting a team drive the ball down your throat and letting them miss the extra point could charge up the fans so much? Well, it did. Syracuse scores a touchdown to tie (with everyone waiting with breath held during the extra point). Northwestern gets the ball back and can win with a field goal. Unfortunately their quarterback unleashed a Greg Paulus-esque pass to Syracuse safety Max Suter with no Northwestern receivers in sight. Syracuse drives, kicks a field goal, wins. Pandamonium.

It's awesome winning a football game at a school that sucks at football. We appreciate it that much more. It's like finding an onion ring in an order of Burger King fries. You don't expect it, but you're wicked excited because, let's face it, nobody likes BK fries. I apologize to whoever read this blog who doesn't like sports. Sucks to be you, because this one was entirely about sports. But, at least you read it. Your life is now better that you included me in it.