The Walking Drunks

I recently had the good fortune to procrastinate on packing up my room until the last possible moment. Which is today. Meaning I'm still procrastinating with a room full of boxes and a house full of furniture just itching to go back into storage. So I'll regale you with a thrilling tale of an unfortunate task I had to perform today under unfortunate circumstances.

This being the first Saturday after classes ended, many students here at the fine Syracuse University decided to take it upon themselves to release all inhibitions and go "ALL OUT BRO!" I found myself locked in my room unable to go out and enjoy the 80 degree sunshiney weather that has eluded this campus until the last possible moment. However, there seemed to be something missing. My happy-times music emanating from my iPod sitting inside a cup amplifier was getting weaker. I checked the battery, only 20% remaining. The sustenance that my body craved to break through the boredom and sadness of removing any trace of my existence from my home these past 9 months was running dangerously low. It's okay, I thought, I'll just grab my charger and plug this sucker in. I'll be fine.Then reality did the following to me:

My charger was all. The way. Across campus.

I would need to go on a supply run through some of the most heavily infested territory around. I'd watched the news before reports stopped coming in, before the broadcasts turned to static, before all hope of rescue left our hardened, survival-driven consciousness. I knew how to tell those who had turned from those who hadn't.

Note the giant sunglasses, brightly colored shirts, unnecessary sleeve removal, vacant expressions, head tilt. What we have here are the walking drunks. Get to close to them and they'll claim you and make you one of them - mindless, fist pumping, woo-ing. I had to walk through some of the highest concentrations of these former people to get to where I needed to be. 6 blocks to my charger. 6 blocks back. And no support in sight.

I started my journey by doing what I could to disguise myself. I threw on a pair of sunglasses and put on my Terminator-indifferent-to-the world glare to ward off any attacks. I put on earphones to deaden their hellish cries. I set out to gather the provisions I would need to survive the rest of the day.

I peeked out the door to survey the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was once a thriving center of academic enlightenment. All clear. I set out on foot always aware of my surroundings. I knew this would be no easy journey. The first obstacle lay at the end of the first block: a group of no less than ten drunks spilling off of a porch onto the lawn of a house, red cups in hand throwing plastic balls at each other. I quickly looked the other way and pressed onward. As I turn the first corner, I know I will be hard pressed to make it back to my apartment at all as scattered groups of the shambling inebriated are everywhere, lying on the grass, running across streets to greet each other with no mental capacity to worry about danger or harm.

Once I reach the end of the third block, my plight becomes real. In the parking lot of an apartment complex, thousands of these mindless ghouls are raging. A sound system blares, the crowd is "dancing," bros on porches stand precariously on railings yelling, someone has gotten hold of an American flag. I make a daring escape, cutting through a park covered with the slower sunbathers. As they lay on the ground, they are far less mobile than those in line for the rental moon bounce. I go through a back alley by a parking garage and can see it - the door to the school housing the locker where I stashed my possessions. All that is left is one quick sprint across the street. I emerge from the alley, fist pump a few times to blend with the crowd, and I am safe inside a place no drunk will ever follow me: an academic building. I ascend 3 flights of stairs (the elevators never work during the apocalypse) and retrieve my precious cargo.

All that separates me from finishing packing up my apartment is the same journey I just survived. Supply runs during the apocalypse always work. Right? Right?!?!

I stop for a moment to check the vending machines. There is plenty of energy-giving goodness in them, but of course if they never worked when governments were still intact and drunks weren't roaming the countryside in packs, why would they work now? I start to leave the building. As I cross back to my shortcut alley, I make a horrifying discovery: two female drunks have stumbled into my pathway to safety. I follow them in, hoping their deadened senses will leave them blind to my presence. This proves all too true as these drunks have apparently decided to use my escape route as...how to put this delicately...a water closet. I wait for them to duck behind dumpsters "out of sight," turn the other way, and walk briskly past them.

I go through the park, past the rager in the parking lot, up the hill and turn the corner for home only to be face to face with one last crowd of drunks to clear before bolting the door behind me. So I grabbed my katana and beheaded them all! Nah, just kidding. I crossed to the other side of the street and went around them.

Once I got home, I collapsed from emotional exhaustion. One can put their sobriety on the line only so many times in a day, but I lived to tell about it. And finish packing.

Lou Ride Too Ride!

So I promised I would keep writing this and will keep that promise if I have to start putting complete nonsense in here to fill the space. Well, I'm out of ideas so that's exactly what I'm going to do. I was inspired by a young man who took a song and wrote what he heard rather than what the lyrics actually were. I then thought, why not steal that idea? One song full of complete nonsense. First one that came to my head was Obladi Oblada...but nobody can even understand the title. So I then thought Come On Eileen. Everybody has that one friend named Eileen that you know so little about but you keep her around because how much more fun is it to sing that song when there's someone to drunkenly yell it at? I listened to it so many times trying to figure out what the hell Dexy's Midnight Runners were saying that I started shopping for kapri overalls (you'll understand that in a minute). Incidentally, Dexy's Midnight Runners refers to a group of people who take recreational drugs in order to dance all night. In kapri overalls. So without further ado, my interpretation of Come On Eileen. Press play and enjoy. Wait! One more ado. My favorite part of the video (besides the kapri overalls) is the guy at 0:59. Just looks like the kind of guy who would be nice to discuss some Aristotle with over a nice glass of Chardonay. Or beat up hobos with.

Come on Eileen

Pool hall Johnny right

So they sat upon the radio but the billion hearts of cotton gnome

Ooh I’m mama’s twine

Sat on the mole drive then

You grew (yo mama) so brown (so mama)

Now I must have pulled the devil (come on Eileen)

Too ride, Lou ride, too ride, Lou ride aight?

I wanna sing just like a Volvo

Come on Eileen oh I swear (bully beans)

At this moment, you mean everything

You in that dress, I’m fortunate pressed

But you’re dirty, come on Eileen

Come on Eileen

Bees keep around him

But then allies suck and spunk try face and resent to what they claimed

But dump hurts, (no mama) no blunt odds (no Bubba)

Read up are too young and clever (remember)

Too ride, Lou ride, too ride, Lou ride aight?

A little hopeless chew forever white

Come on Eileen oh I swear (bully beans)

Ah come on let’s tick up everything

I put your address Eileen (Tommy guessed)

Come on let’s, come on Eileen

Come on, Eileen to Lou’s ride eh?

Come on, Eileen to Lou’s ride eh?

Now you are grown (Too rah too rah too who rah)

Now you have shown oh Eileen

Sam, you has flicked at a roof (Come on, Eileen to Lou’s ride eh?)

I know how you feel (Come on, Eileen to Lou’s ride eh?)

Now I mush up pull that’s never things round your chin

I said too ride, Lou ride, too ride, Lou ride aight? (Come on, Eileen to Lou’s ride eh?)

Come on Eileen oh I swear (bully beans)

At this moment you mean everything

You in that dress, I’m fortunate pressed

But you’re dirty, come on Eileen

Descent Into Madness

Wow. Blogging again and stuff. I feel like there may be perhaps 3 people who still would read this and even fewer who care about what I'm going to say. Also, one of them is my mom and out of the country. The only reason why I feel this post is negative is because when people ask, "How was Atlanta?" I want to give them a more coherent answer than the following: "Sucks that we lost but I got to drink beer and burn stuff." Yeah so if I wasn't clear I went to Atlanta for the Final Four. Syracuse had made it for the first time since 2003, and after years of heartbreak at the end of every basketball season of my college career we had a chance to do something great. Therefore I shelled out the 40 bucks, hopped in a car, and started the 16 hour drive down there. The following is a vague timeline of the weekend's events.

Friday

• 2:00 PM - depart Syracuse towards Utica with a car, a trunk full of snacks, and a pocket full of dreams
• 2:10 PM - my future employer sends me a time sensitive email that I have been waiting for the last month and a half to receive 10 minutes after I am without internet for 4 days
• 3:00 PM - we reach Utica and pick up the last member of our party and turn south to drive until we can't drive no mo

Saturday

• 1:00 AM - arrival in Middle of Nowhere, VA to sleep at grandma's house (not mine, but I'm sure she's somebody's grandma)
• 6:00 AM - wake-up call, bacon, biscuits, grits, time to attempt to ford the river before one of our party dies of dysentery
• 9:45 AM - I get pulled over for speeding. This is one I'd like to extrapolate upon as that does not really tell you the whole story. I have some diagrams I'd like to show you.
  
  So if you imagine the black line is a road, there was a 60 MPH limit for a while, set my cruise control, whatever. Then, for pretty much the length of a car, the speed limit dropped to 45. Also as luck would have it, there was a police officer camping out apparently concentrating on nothing else in the world all day other than this area of road. He pulls me over and I managed to remember a fun direct quote from him.
  
  
  "I don't know what they do in New York but down here in Virginia that's reckless driving. You can be arrested for that. You're lucky not to be face down on the hood in cuffs right now."
  
  
  Following this, he painted me a verbal picture of Virginia highways.
  
  
  My view of Virginia highways:
  
  
  
   
  The officer's view of Virginia highways: 
   
  So after the fun experience of getting my first speeding ticket, we pressed onward.
  • 1:00 PM - roadwork
  • 2:00 PM - roadwork
  • 2:30 PM - roadwork
  • 2:31 PM - roadwork
  • 2:47 PM - roadwork
  • 5:00 PM - arrive at campsite 2 hours late and set up the biggest tent you've ever seen
  • 6:30 PM - arrive at Georgia Dome 15 minutes after Louisville vs. Wichita St tip-off
  • 6:31 PM - we begin our quest to find our tickets. We are told to go next door to the conference center where we are told to look for a loading dock which doesn't exist where we are told to go to will call where we are told to go to the box office where we are told to go up a 3 story escalator where we are told to go down 3 stories of escalators where we are told to go to the conference center basement.
  • 7:30 PM - we swipe our cards and enter the student holding area.
    
    
    
    
    Note that the game was halfway done by the time we got here. Note the fact that there is nothing to look at but three concrete walls. Note the fact that seating is based not on when you arrived or who you came in with but the amount of games you went to during the year. Note that had I sat where I was supposed to, I would have been two sections away from any person I had ever met before. Note that the NCAA hates kids and kicks puppies. Seriously. Here we are being held in a dungeon waiting to go into a basketball game and they can't give us a TV? A radio broadcast of the game? Mimes acting out the play by play? NCAA 1, Fun and Happiness 0.
  • 8:15 PM - we are let out of the dungeon and traverse the netherworld of the Georgia Dome to reach our seats for the last 16 minutes of the game before ours. 
  • 10:god knows when PM - Syracuse vs. Michigan tips off. This is my view. See any players? Me neither.
    
    
    
    
    This is where I'll discuss the game so if it's too hard for you to relive, you can look away or close this window or set your computer on fire or something. Ok so number one, did anybody besides CJ Fair f***ing show up? I know we're trying to showcase him because nobody believes he is our best player but that doesn't mean we need to pull everyone else and play one on five. And don't get me started on the fact that Michigan made 3 threes from far enough away that they had to call a cab for the basketball to get to the hoop. And when did we get our first rebound? I remember it being at about 15 minutes left in the half because before then the best thing we could do after a missed shot was let Michigan get it first and hope they threw it out of bounds. First half dreadful. Second half we decided to try rebounding a bit, Triche and MCW got their heads out of their asses and started trying. Finally we claw our way back to within a couple points and Southerland launches his 57th three of the night...missing for the 57th time. Later within two, Triche drives, runs over a guy, and gets hit with a charge on a moving defender and fouls out. MCW tries to take a charge at halfcourt which hasn't been called in the defender's favor since a T-Rex charged a triceratops. Foul 4 for MCW, foul 5 in about 20 seconds when a Michigan player falls down about 6 feet away from him. Not really sure what happened but we all know MCW has telekinesis so he probably did foul the guy. This leaves us with Cooney running the point. Last play is a Cooney drive. Miss obviously, game over. Left me with a bad taste in my mouth which we tried to wash out with beer but apparently in Georgia they stop selling beer at midnight. Yeah. Terrific day.
  
  Sunday
  
  • 11:30 AM - arrive at the Philips Center for the D3 and D2 championship games. Wonderful surprise, no idea these were happening at all. 
  • 12:30 PM - D3 - Amherst University vs. University of Mary Hardin-Baylor tips off. Amherst prevails behind guard Willy Workman's 14 points, 10 rebounds, and impeccable work ethic. Amherst's nickname is the Lord Jeffs, by the way. Some dude named Jeff was the Duke of Amherst, I don't know.
  • 4:00 PM - D2 - Drury University vs. Metro State University of Colorado tips off. Drury makes a furious comeback from 17 down behind the efforts of Cool Hair Sports Goggles, Beardy McBearderson, and a couple of white guys shooting threes. They win by 1 and get away with five fouls on the last play because the refs are bored and want to go home.
  • 7:00 PM - we enter a bar full of Louisville fans watching Louisville women's basketball. Some guys who work for the NCAA start berating us about taking shots of Patron and Bloody Mary mix with them. One asks me if the S on my hat stands for stupid. I reply that no, in fact, it does not.
  • 11:00 PM - realization that beers and smores are the most glorious combination of flavors while burning stuff (safely and responsibly of course)
  
  Monday
  
  • 8:00 AM - Step one: start driving. There is no step two.
   

So as you can see it was a wicked busy weekend. It was a lot of fun, a lot of heartbreak, and a lot of burning stuff. Most of all, it was a hell of a lot of driving. I must have spent about 40 hours in the car. Moral of the story: make money so next time we make the Final Four I can charter a jet, sit in a box, and stay in a penthouse. 

Dear Technology, You Suck. Love, Tim

Hey, remember the time I wrote about something other than sports? Neither do I. Obviously there are other things happening in the world and with Syracuse football beating Rhode Island 21-14 in the world's most boring game, I started thinking about what else to occupy my time with. Then, Cuse lost 38-17 to USC which sucked, but knowing the NCAA and USC, in 10 years or so USC's victory will be vacated and the win will belong to Syracuse. Awesome.

So I've been taking a comprehensive survey about all of the problems in my life, and I'd say that about 98% of them are due to the slow and painful death of all of the technology I involve myself with. I'll start from the beginning. A couple of weeks ago, my computer shut off for seemingly no reason. As it turned out, about an hour previous my power cord had started making a high pitched "I don't work anymore" buzzing noise. I was left without a computer and hoofed it to the engineering school at 10 PM to order a new cord. Unrelated sidebar- the kid sitting next to me was engaged in a very heated, loud, and profanity-laced argument with his computer. In an academic building so late at night, I began to fear for my life because of the overall lack of sane human beings in the vicinity. Oh, and a quick addendum, all of this happened about the time that the TV in my apartment burned out. Who knew TVs could actually do that?

The second problem I experienced and continue to deal with is the internet in my apartment consistently shutting itself off to see how upset it can make me. Every couple of days, I will sit down to do some research or watch a show of some sort and my internet gives me one of those "Catastrophic Fail, the internet decided to leave and steal your computer's lunch money" error messages. I must then hit the reset button on the router to make it come back, only to repeat the cycle the next day.

Thirdly, I am currently a depositor in the renowned Bank of America. Yes, I am continuing with the whole "Technology sucks" thread, so deal with it. I actually just got off the phone with them about an hour ago. My problem goes back about two weeks to when I went on the site, went to transfer some money into my checking account to pay my rent, you know, so I don't get evicted, no big deal. Much to my surprise, I click the Transfers button and am instantly rerouted to internet hell. The top half of the site is in Spanish, the bottom is an unrecognizable mush of drop-down menus and links that go nowhere, and the walls of my apartment started to ooze green slime (wait, they already did that). So, diligent banker that I am, I tried to start up an online chat with an "online banking professional." Her name was Marie and seemed an extremely pleasant lady, intent on fixing my problem. I described the situation to her, and she immediately launches into an explanation of how to solve a completely different problem. So I tell her more about my problem saying that was not helping. So she gives me the exact same explanation that she did just a moment before. I started to suspect she was a program from the machine world. And, of course, the chat crashed, the site crashed, my computer crashed, the International Space Station crashed, etc. etc. etc. I checked back today, and yes, the site still sucked, and no, there was no hope of me ever being able to pay for anything ever again. So I called the online banking tech support whatever hotline. I was led through a maze of menus, one after another, never quite getting an option that sounded right. After a while, some of the menus started to sound familiar, and yes, the cycle had repeated itself and I had started over. Apparently there was no option that could possibly lead me to a real person. I hung up, proceeded to bash my head with the refrigerator door for twenty minutes. I somehow came to the realization that Bank of America's game of deception and mystery had a purpose. Here are the facts:

1. My account recently was updated so I get charged a fee every time I talk to a live teller. I now do all of my banking at an ATM.
2. In my online chat, the "person" on the other end had absolutely nothing to say to me that a computer program wouldn't have said, aside from "Hi, my name's Marie." Then again, who's to say a computer program couldn't be named Marie.
3. I spend a large amount of time on a customer service phone call and was led to believe no possible solution existed that would get me a real person on the phone.

What do all of these facts point to? Nobody works for Bank of America. It is a corporation that is a front for the robotic takeover of human civilization. But hey, at least my savings are FDIC-insured. So in the event of the apocalypse, I'm covered up to $100,000 of losses. Hooray.

That's all I have for technology right now. Not for a lack of effort on my part. I feel like the 3.5 loyal readers of mine have heard enough. So I won't tell you about how I got electronically locked into Kimmel Computer Lab or how I have spent an entire semester locked in a death-struggle with Microsoft Office before I finally chopped off its head and was able to make an Excel spreadsheet with its lifeless shell of a body. So, moving on, I think that's it for now. Syracuse moving to the ACC from the Big East blahblahblah. Here's that move in a nutshell. ACC teams are much less fun to hate (besides Duke) than nearly every Big East team. No rivalries = no hooliganism. Syracuse is taking proactive steps to keep SU students from becoming drunk, stupid, violent, and angry. Wait. Whoops.

Cuse on the Loose!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I don’t even know why I keep writing this like it’s a conversation, there’s obviously nobody left to read this and answer “Yes, Tim, it has indeed been a while. I concur.” And then your roommate quietly leaves the building because they discovered for the first time that you are, in fact a crazy person who talks to their computer. Who would name a computer Tim anyway? I suppose I am using this diversion as an excuse not to start writing again. That Cuse game Thursday was the second greatest football game I have ever attended. Incidentally, the best one was the last game I went to, the Pinstripe Bowl against Kansas State. So the last two Cuse football games I’ve been to have been the greatest I’ve ever gone to. And, they scored 36 points in both games. Weird, isn’t it?

Congratulations! You made it past the first extremely awful paragraph! Only 47 extremely awful paragraphs to go! Another sentence ending in an exclamation point! To tell the story of the game, we must travel back in time, all the way to right before the game. I decided to do something I’ve never done before in my entire life. I ate a sit-down meal at Dinosaur. I agree. I am really weird for living in Syracuse for three years and visiting for copious amounts of time before and never doing that. Oh well. Unfortunately, I felt like a chump sitting there with my half chicken when two of my friends were splitting the Bigass Planet-Sized Multisteak Combo that Dinosaur claims is a two person dinner but could really feed about five and a half people, with so much food it took our waitress multiple trips to deliver just their meal, let alone the rest of the table’s food. My food was delicious, but I was disappointed that I was able to get up from the table and walk afterward instead of slipping gently into the welcoming arms of a food coma right there in the restaurant.

So for the reason of delicious food and loving friendship, I left my beloved Orange to fend for themselves for a quarter. By the time I got to the game, the first quarter was ending, with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons leading 6-0. Ok, I can’t go on like this. Wake Forest shall henceforth be known as the Oxymorons. Couldn’t let that one go. It was either the Oxymorons or something like the Wake Forest Slash and Burn Farmers. So back to the game. The Oxymorons are backed up on their own 2 yard line and Syracuse keeps stopping them, so they punt to us. Four or five plays later, Cuse scores because they give the ball to an unathletic and fairly slow player who slow-motions his way into the endzone in style. So here I am, less than 5 minutes at the game and Cuse takes a 7-6 lead. Obviously it was all because they were waiting for me to show up, right?

What. The. Hell.

Wrong. The kickoff gets shanked about 30 yards out of bounds and the next play is a 60 yard touchdown for the Oxys. Cuse led for all of 10 seconds of game time before going back to its old, awful tendencies. After bashing my head repeatedly on the bleachers, I took a moment to take in the scene. The marching band was playing Cee-Lo’s “F*** You,” which was a nice response to Wake stealing our players’ scholarship money and girlfriends on the last play. Never let anyone say that our marching band isn’t badass. Looking at the student section, I saw a sight that should never be seen on the Syracuse campus. As far as the eye could see were Class of 2015 shirts, the mark of the freshman. What I’ve learned in my time here at Cuse is that the worst thing anyone could ever find out about you is that you’re a freshman. When meeting new people as a freshman, the conversation goes something like this:

"Hello, my name is Robert."
"Hello, my name is Phillip."
"Tell me about yourself, Phillip."
"I recently got released from jail for robbing a bunch of hospitals and setting fire to some orphanages. I constantly curse and have been know to sell drugs to kids. I enjoy talking on my phone in movie theaters and running down pedestrians in my car."
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Phillip. I think we'll be great friends. Oh, by the way, what class are you?"
"I am a freshman."
[Robert spits on Phillip and leaves in disgust.]

I guess I should have expected the freshmen to show up en masse for the game for two reasons. Number one, they haven't yet realized that any Syracuse home football game is a painful one to watch. Number two, when freshmen go anywhere, they take a group of about 75 of their closest friends with them. One more comment about the crowd during the game that I would like to make. Sitting one section over from me was a junior high or high school football team, all wearing their jerseys. I took a few glances at them, trying to figure out who played which position and would you imagine my surprise when I saw that #66 was a girl. Not only is it very rare to find a girl on a football team at any level, this girl played line. She was no doubt the team's enforcer, like Icebox from the little Giants (anyone?). Now we are faced with a dilemma. The technical name of the position she plays is either offensive or defensive lineman. Is she a lineman? A linewoman? Lineperson? It's just like the time they stopped calling the people who bring you food in a restaurant "waitresses" and "waiters" and started using the term "servers." We are going to need a whole new term to describe the phenomenon I have witnessed.

I suppose for old time's sake, I should talk a little bit more about the game. I'd say that in hindsight, it was poorly played by Syracuse for about 51 minutes of the game and by Wake for 9 minutes, but those 9 minutes were all we needed. For most of the game, the Syracuse defense looked like All Saints Day (because it was so HOLeY!) The Oxymorons threw pass after pass over Orange players that must have had their eyes closed or were drunk or something. The bad guys were winning 26-14. This prompted the drunk guys sitting behind me to start talking about Syracuse's chances for the rest of the game. One of them said "Hey, all we need is a touchdown and a field goal and it's all tied up. I looked sideways at him, wondering if he would correct himself, but no enlightenment showed through his glassy gaze. Those guys had been entertaining all night long, sometimes saying exactly what would happen seconds before it did, but mostly just saying stupid, drunk-guy type stuff. I really got my enjoyment that they left the stadium saying Cuse had lost after a play that ended up not even counting anyway. Wake got a long pass called back because of a penalty but they didn't notice and left. Wake ended up with a field goal, making it 29-14. Then, Syracuse decided enough was enough, they'd had it with the motherf***ing snakes on the motherf***ing plane and started trying.

Ryan Nassib had 3 of the most pinpoint and wonderful passes I have ever seen him throw and Van Chew was catching footballs like Rocky Balboa catches punches to the face. Antwon Bailey had one of the most improbable touchdown runs I have ever seen, a 53 yard tightrope act that had me thinking he stepped out of bounds like three or four times. If you can remember, Antwon is my favorite player on the team, mainly because he is awesome, also because he never really punches anyone in the face like some Syracuse running backs last year that I won't care to mention. I have come up with a great combo name for the two biggest weapons on the Orange- Vantwon Chewy. You heard it here first.

Syracuse scored 15 points in 4 minutes to tie with 7 minutes left. They then proceeded to get an interception and had the ball on Wake's 32, tie game, with 5 minutes left. They gained some yards, milled the clock down to 2 minutes. Then the fun started. First, the field goal team didn't get set up in time and got delay of game called on them. Then, they had the field goal blocked. Wake ball, now we should start worrying. Luckily, Wake decided it was going to take a nap for 2 minutes and the game went into overtime.

Long story short, Cuse gets a touchdown, and I (having made friends with a guy two rows behind me so I would have someone to high five) high fived a guy two rows behind me. I screamed until I sounded like a five year old girl. I clapped until my hands felt like a George Foreman Grill that had been left on for too long. I jumped up and down until I felt like an idiot (didn't take that long, actually). It was a fun time. Except for one thing. In the middle of the game, I saw someone across the stadium from me wearing a "The Devil Wears Orange" t-shirt, an artifact of the short-lived Greg Paulus era. COME ON! Do you have no other orange t-shirts to wear? I feel like I'm talking crazy here. Next time I see one of those shirts, come find me. I'll be in the fetal position in the corner of my closet.

BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Woke Up in London Yesterday

So as some of you may know I split from that whole "living in the United States" thing until that money laundering thing gets forgotten by the municipal government of Lower Merion, PA. So I'm spending this semester in an undisclosed location where I can write in peace. So I guess it'll have to be mainly pictures because I suck at describing things, but that's ok. My camera tells stories better than I do, and it has a British accent.

Here's my apartment...or flat as they say in London where I may or may not be staying.

The cleanest the room will be for the semester probably...

Living room during the only sunshine of the semester

The kitchen-yes, we actually cook here. Shocker, I know.

So that's the grand tour of Flat 5. The two places I've gone so far are the British Museum

And St. Paul's Cathedral, shown here from Millennium Bridge

And here's the view from the top of the dome, just 620 short steps from the cathedral floor

So that's pretty much what I've been up to this week, check in later for whatever I think is interesting about one of the politest and coolest cities on earth.

Syracuse, #29 in the AP Poll, #1 in your hearts!

Hello everyone. It's been far too long. I guess we're both to blame, me for not writing my blog and you for not reading it. It's ok though, I'm back. At least for this week. I can't promise that you'll be interested in the content, or that it will be well organized, or that it will be funny to anyone besides me. So yeah, it's pretty much the same as it has always been.

So I'll go into the reasons why I need to get back to writing a little bit more regularly. I no longer have a no holds barred, say anything I darn well please vent for all of the pent up anger and aggression that you all know I am so filled with. But not really. Second, nobody else really cares about the Broncos, so this is my forum to discuss them where you can just scroll past the whole thing and then I can pretend you read that section. But most of all, the reason why I created the blog in the first place, Syracuse football, is having their best season since their war against Carthage in 300 BC. For serious, at this point in the season, not only have we won the most games we have won in a season since 2004 when we went 6-6.

It's starting to come back to me now a little bit. I did put some non-sports stuff in here now and then, didn't I? Well, in honor of my fellow blogger Frank Warren, creator of Post Secret, I'll give a shout out. He came to speak at Syracuse last week and I have to say that he is one of the most normal people I have ever met. I mean that as a compliment. He is known by millions, trusted with their deepest secrets, and he doesn't let it go to his head at all. Every person he talks to is the most important person to him, every secret worth his time. I stood in line after his talk in which he reminded me of myself fidgeting and moving around during class. In the first 20 minutes I moved forward about a foot, maybe less because the line was going so slow. A friend involved with setting up the event came to talk to me while I was in line and said that Frank's itinerary had him going back to his hotel in about 10 minutes. I looked ahead of me and saw about 75 people in line. I am proud to say that Frank got to every single one of them, never making any impatient gestures, never turning aside anyone who wanted to talk to him, and giving his full attention to each person. When it was my turn, I talked to Frank for about 30 seconds. He kept eye contact, made me feel like I was the only person in the room, and just listened. I left the short conversation in awe of the fact that after 5 years of secrets from thousands of people, he could make me feel like he truly cared. I applaud Frank and all that he does, hoping I can find something in my life that means as much to me as Post Secret does to him.

Moving on, remember how I said I wasn't getting my hopes up about the Broncos this year? Like how I knew they were going to suck and I would wait until they got good players? Well, long story short, I lied. My hopes got high, and they've been dashed again and again. The most recent triumph of the universe over the Broncos was a game that I have and will describe as a sledgehammer to the nuts. Oakland Raiders 59, Denver Broncos 14. I first saw the score about 8 minutes into the game, Denver down 21-0. I thought it was a mistake, or a horrible system malfunction, or the Matrix taking over my mind or something. But alas, it was true. I tortured myself by keeping an eye on the game, but now I know what our true goal for this year is. Suck a lot, get a good draft pick, and spend it on a kicker or a blocking tight end or something. Gotta love them Broncos.

Howwwwwever, the Syracuse Orange have been a bright ray of sunshine into the F5 tornado that is my sports world. Going into this year, I had higher hopes for the Orange. My arch-nemesis Greg Paulus had finally thrown his last no-look bounce pass for the Orange. We had a solid defense comprised mainly of converted running backs and wide receivers. We play in the world's suckiest football conference. The only potential downside to this year is that our starting running back was a jerk who punches people in the face and gets away with it. I'm talking about you, Delone Carter. No matter what "punishment" you got for your actions, there's nothing that can be done to make you an upstanding citizen again. On the absolute contrary to Carter is Syracuse's other RB, Antwon Bailey. I have got to say that I'm terribly impressed by him. My experience with athletes in class is that they never go. Not even if it is the world's easiest class and you don't have to do any work for it. So when I found out Bailey was in my Sport Finance class, I had low expectations for him. To my surprise, he has actually showed up to class, answered questions, and, as far as I know, contributed to his group project. To be a key player to a college football team (now ranked 29 by the AP I might add) and to still feel like class is a priority is a pleasant surprise to me in a world where academics come second at nearly every Division 1 school to sports. It is a world of polar opposites in the Syracuse backfield, with a drunken idiot and an upstanding student. My opinion is this: Carter stinks! Support Antwon Bailey, the true Hogwarts champion! And now that Carter is injured, my painful second thoughts about the team might finally be relieved.

I think that's enough for today, thanks for still coming back after all we haven't been through over the summer and the beginning of this year. Stay classy, Syracuse/Boston/Philadelphia/Clifton Park/anywhere else you might be!