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.