Alabama looks unbeatable.
Ohio State looks close.
And I have no idea why I hate Tennessee as much as I do, but I just do. They are up there with Notre Dame as far as teams I hate.
Also, not enough of you read Gin and Tacos. It’s one of those inexplicable things- it is an awesome damned blog, and I read it all the time, yet I never remember to link to it. Now I have. Almost every post I walk away thinking “Wish I had said that, because I sure as hell think it.”
*** Update ***
I’m off to bed. I can’t even muster any enthusiasm to root against USC, because let’s face it, nothing done on the field by their opponents can match the dicking they got from Reggie Bush and company.
Also, I forgot to mention, no new evidence has emerged on our walks as to who the trash bandit might be. My money is on Rosie, but I have no proof.
Speaking of Rosie, I was chuckling tonight at how much she has inserted herself into my life. Lily will always be the one, but Rosalita has done her best to claim this as her home and me as her owner. It is now known by all animals in the house that the space between my legs on the la-z-boy is Rosie’s spot. Everyone else better step back. Also, she is just such a presence. Lily is so dainty and sweet, and quietly goes to bed, and then when I climb in bed, rearranges herself so she is right up next to me in between my chest and my right arm, and she stays there all night.
Not Rosie. Piglet waits until I go to bed, and then hurls her fat self (I will note that she has lost enough weight that she can jump effortlessly on to bed) on to the bed, and then plows through anything in her way (pillow, comforter, foot, Tunch) until she is sleeping in between my ankles. That is “her spot,” god damnit, and nothing better get in the way.
So it goes. There are far worse things than waking up with a stiff back because you were aggressively loved by two dogs and a cat and not allowed to move during the night.
Omnes Omnibus
Might the Tennessee hate have something to do with Peyton Manning?
jeffreyw
Feeling a might peckish?
Yutsano
@jeffreyw: That looks so much like banh mi it’s not even funny. Yum!
Risotto in oven, gonna stuff a pork chop with gruyere and fry that puppy up. Maybe some green beans to round things out. Pardon me while I drool.
Squirrel
Being a Bama fan from Georgia, I fully agree about hating Tennessee. Part of it being their damned Day-glo orange. At least the Great Pumpkin is no longer roaming their sideline. Their fans are amongst the most obnoxious you’ll ever meet too.
JGabriel
John Cole:
You anti-papist bigot, you!
In other news, I was just playing original Doom and now my wrists hurt. No, that’s not a euphemism.
.
Martin
You hate Tennessee because they’re soçialists that promote the irresponsible donation of labor, ruining an efficient free market.
Just proves Cole is a true libertarian.
JGabriel
Squirrel:
Bama, Georgia, Tennesee, I can’t tell any of you cracker southerners apart. To these Yankee ears, all y’all sound the same to me.
.
Markk
You mean UcheaT? Nobody cheats like Tenn. except maybe Auburn. The most awful fans, too.
JGabriel
@Martin:
In Tennesee? They’re ciaIists, maybe, but hardly sociaIists.
.
CJR
I second (or third?) the Tennessee hate
Anie
Go Ducks!
jeffreyw
@Yutsano: It’s true, there is a resemblance.
xcentrik debreuklyn
Re: Tennessee it’s easy for me – I fucking hate “Rocky Top.”
Squirrel
@JGabriel:
I know it sounds crazy, but if you’re from the south, you can usually tell what state someone is from by their accent and/or dialect. It really is almost like another country. I’ve been gone from there long enough now that I fell like I need a passport to go back.
SpotWeld
The fine print of my University of Michigan states that I obligated to say the following: “Go Blue!”
MikeJ
Alabama was the girl in QT’s True Romance. She was pretty fucking unbeatable.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Okee dokee I posted this in the last thread because it is genuinely related to discussions of Ground Zero, but it more rightfully belongs here, so I’mma post again:
MY BLOG GOT A SHOUT-OUT ON NICK KRISTOF’S BLOG TODAY!!
Ahem: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/
El Cid
The Yes Men are now on Hulu, for free. I’m just now watching the part where they’re explaining to a classroom how burgers that first world consumers eat and then shit can be recycled for nutritious re-burgers for 3rd world residents.
jeffreyw
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Yay!
Objective Scrutator
I further the hate for the Tennessee fans, and I attend college here! (Admittedly, I hate all football and the fans which accompany it.)
The Tennessean commonly exhibits aggression towards other teams, but my fellow Blue Staters need not worry. Seeing things in black and white, the Tennessean despises the teams of Alabama and Florida with a passion, while largely not directing their hatred further north.
At least our wingnuts (Wamp & Ramsey) lost handily to Haslam in the governor’s race, although Haslam didn’t win a majority. Sadly, the great Basil Marceaux will not be our governor. Woe is our state!
patrick II
Robert Farley at LGM has the classic Tennesse hater video
Cacti
Peyton Manning just made it easier to hate UT.
I still laugh when I think about Tee Martin winning a national championship at UT the year after Peyton left.
Guess which one has a street named after them on the UT campus?
MattR
Surprisingly good SNL repeat with Peyton Manning
Objective Scrutator
You moonbats had best hope that we don’t have a President Glenn Reynolds and a First Lady Helen Reynolds! His governing style would undoubtedly be one of few words, and one of few actions, something which would make coastal elitist heads explode. Heh, indeed!
BruceFromOhio
I can’t wait to use this at a team meeting.
Gin and Tacos is now a regular stop. Thank you for sharing.
MikeJ
@Objective Scrutator: I uhm, dated, if that’s the word, a girl who went there back in the day when Vatican Pizza existed. I thought K-town was great fun, but it was all cheap sex and judybats and Alliwannadois.
Mousse it, gel it, I don’t care…
schooner
Ed at Gin and Tacos writes beautifully funny rants. I suggest you start with this one if you don’t know him. It’s from awhile back but timeless.
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2009/03/10/seriously-fuck-ayn-rand/
cleter
Well, I figure any place that would give Glenn Reynolds tenure is worth hating.
themann1086
I’m sitting in my nd shirt feeling sad. Mucking fichigan.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
Does it make me a bad person that I was kind of rooting for Notre Dame today? I hate those *#$!&#^, but I have an ambivalent relationship with Michigan (grew up in Ann Arbor; my father’s on the faculty there; I’m a Minnesota alum who is used to getting the crap kicked out of us by Michigan most years and finding excruciating ways to lose in the rest). I also loathe Rich Rodriguez, though probably not as much as my father does.
He better die soon, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to finish his life in prison after burning down the entire athletic department. I can’t say that I blame him.
burnspbesq
Odd, not hearing anything about the “lowly Pac-10” from any SEC fans tonight.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@MikeJ:
Why don’t I ever find towns like this?
Mark S.
@schooner:
This is my favorite:
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@burnspbesq:
Is beating Syracuse that impressive? Hell, the Gophers have done that.
burnspbesq
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
Michigan also treated Tommy Amaker like crap, which we Dookies do not forgive. Earnestly hoping for a Harvard – Michigan matchup in some future NCAA tournament.
BruceFromOhio
@schooner:
Delicious. I’m ready to dig out the bottle of Tanqueray and chop some cheese and lettuce.
sherifffruitfly
Ohio St. looks thoroughly beatable. Miami isn’t actually all that good – and they racked up points against THE Ohio State.
I wouldn’t be surprised if oh st collects 2 losses this season.
burnspbesq
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
Who do you think handed the Dog Gack Orange their asses in the Battle of the Ugly Unis? That would be your Oregon Ducks.
burnspbesq
The Duke defense gave up 54 points to Wake Forest today.
If Alabama doesn’t get 80, they should be embarrassed.
Who scheduled this game, anyway?
tesslibrarian
Tennessee never learned how to win well, even when they were able to do it regularly. You never want to attend a game there, and you just hope the clean-up doesn’t take forever after they leave. After hiring Lane Kiffin, they deserve what they get.
MikeJ
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): Now you’re a co-conspirator. I know that whatshisname, the singer from the judybats, who wrote a hojillion great songs, hates being known for that stupid, catchy, fun tune. And you repeated the title.
But if you like stupid 90s pop songs, the judybats were hard to beat.
schooner
@Mark S.:
That’s a great one too.
It must be hilarious to take a class with him.
Villago Delenda Est
My Oregon Ducks RULE the horrible uni competition with any team…Oregon is the test bed for Nike’s fashion atrocities.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@burnspbesq:
They aren’t my Oregon Ducks.
I may have an ambivalent relationship with Michigan athletics, but I have no problem rooting for them over Sanctimony U and Saint K of Durham. I used to root for Duke. Really, I did. They lost me over the years, though, and I now can’t stand them. At all. Go Tarheels.
Amaker was treated poorly, and I did feel kind of bad for him despite his alma mater. If he’d spent any time looking into the history of Michigan basketball, back to the Bill Frieder days, nothing that happened to him should have come as a surprise. Fortunately, I barely consider basketball a sport (any sport in which the announcers start screaming, “THEY NEED TO FOUL!” has at least one serious problem) and don’t follow it at all, so whatever goes on within it mostly doesn’t resonate with me. Except that I hate Duke. And Kentucky. And Bobby Knight.
mcd410x
@cleter: I really can’t understand how Instapundit living off the public teat isn’t a scandal. Not to mention blogging on the state’s dime and probably on the state’s equipment.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
There are far worse things than waking up with a stiff back because you were aggressively loved by two dogs and a cat and not allowed to move during the night.
Very true, my friend. Rock on, all four of you, with your bad selves!
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@MikeJ:
I did? Uhm, where? I’m just curious.
I was really just commenting on the cheap sex part. You can have the rest, since I don’t know what it is.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@jeffreyw: Thank you!
/does Snoopy dance lacking all dignity.
schooner
@BruceFromOhio:
He faithfully posts Monday to Friday once a day with Fridays reserved for non politics (he even gets some hockey stuff in there so as a Canadian it’s a bonus for me.)
I found him thru TBogg’s blogroll and have read him for a couple of years.
Hopefully John’s plug will ramp up his traffic.
jharp
@sherifffruitfly:
I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t. As a matter of fact I’m all in that Ohio State doesn’t lose two.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
Can I still find Doom or, better yet, Doom II around anywhere? My copies are long gone, but I used to have a hard disk filled with hundreds of add-on levels collected from all over. Would love to go back and relive the action, assuming they’re available somewhere on the Intertubes. Also Heretic, which was built on the Doom II engine, I think. That was also very good and spawned a ton of add-on levels.
Ah, memories . . .
ImJohnGalt
I just saw “Inside Job” here at the Toronto Film Festival, and I’m surprised everyone inside didn’t rush out, buy every torch and pitchfork in the city, and storm Bay Street (our equivalent to Wall St.). It was devastating in its attempt to direct our anger at the people who are culpable in the financial meltdown.
Nobody escapes here: The banks, the Congress, the ratings agencies, the presidents (Republican AND Democratic, including the Obama Administration), the Fed, and even (something I hadn’t really considered) the academics and economists who are completely in bed with the banks and are molding the minds of the profiteers of tomorrow.
It was amazing to watch a lot of the people interviewed stammer when asked direct questions about their role, and see their shock when they are not allowed to lie or spout complete bullshit as answers to these uncomfortable questions. Some of them get hostile when they realize they’ve been ambushed, especially the current Dean of Harvard University, who comes across very badly.
No matter what your political ideology, I think it will be difficult to walk out of the movie without thinking that the government and the financial lobbyist, when it hasn’t directly contributed to this problem, is at best trying to solve it with a tepid, ineffective response.
When it comes out, take your Republican family members with whom you can’t talk about this stuff to see it. If they can’t at least concede a few of the points the movie makes, they are irredeemably lost.
Steeplejack
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Kudos on making the big show. Now it’s only a matter of time until you’re co-opted into the MSM Borg.
Mr. Upright
Cacti @23:
Ooh, I know! Both Peyton Manning and Tee Martin have streets on campus named for them, as do Chamique Holdsclaw and Todd Helton.
BruceFromOhio
@MattR:
He may be a nice guy. He may even be funny. He might even be arguably one of the greats. But his agent went batshit fucking crazy with the teevee deals last season, and the motherfuckers face was in my living room every time I powered up. If I ever have the misfortune to see PM in person, I’ll want to just punch with both fists until the cops taser my ass into oblivion or I die, whichever happens first.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Steeplejack: Oh man. From your mouth to FSM’s ear.
Mark S.
Speaking of video games, I just finished Batman Arkham Asylum. It was pretty good but I have a few nits. One of the big parts of the game is solving, well mostly finding, things left by the Riddler. There are like 200 of them. I inadvertently beat the game before I found every last goddamn one of them, so I looked on the Internet for what I would get for finding all of them. An Achievement Trophy. Whoopee.
Well, you get experience points that go to upgrades, and some of them are pretty vital but some of them unlock moves that require you to press about six buttons simultaneously to execute, which is a tad unnecessary since you can dispatch about 80% of your foes by mashing the X button.
Well, it gives me an excuse to link the funniest game reviewer in the world.
asiangrrlMN
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Oh, Emily, that’s fantastic and well-deserved. A hearty congrats to you!
Cole, I love story of the animals, but I’m DYING for a Tunchie pic. A vid of his reaction to Rosie bowling him over in her eagerness to get to her spot would be appreciated, too.
MattR
@BruceFromOhio: Heh. The opening monologue had a bit about how he accomplished both of his life’s goals recently. He was appearing in half of all commercials on TV and his team won the Super Bowl.
Steeplejack
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
Just please remember us little people over whose backs you clawed your way to the top.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Hi, Steepman. How you be?
@Mark S.: I love this comic. That is all.
Violet
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Very cool! Congrats!
Love the stories of how your critters live with you, John. Rosie seems like quite the determined dog. That’s her place, dammit. Everyone else get out of the way.
moe99
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt2BAfhUHX0&feature=player_embedded
This guy says it best, why Tennessee is so hateful.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: Didn’t someone recently mention cameras that had been set up in John Cole’s bedroom? Surely they must have caught the Rosie action! I demand to see the tapes!
(And thank you! Squee!)
@Steeplejack: You got it. I’ll bemoan the blogosphere and all its pajama-wearing minions every chance I got.
Oh and now I see Violet! Thanks to you, too!
Yutsano
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I’m just warning you right now these things get started and they can be demons to deal with. The rabbi who wrote this is also an old dear friend of mine. I was supposed to meet up with him when I went to Atlanta but that is its own (rather entertaining) story. Oh and last I heard he was still single, so if you know any good gay Jewish boys in their mid 30s to mid 40’s, feel free to play matchmaker. Josh is too sweet to be single.
@asiangrrlMN: MUAH!!
I might have more but I’m starting somewhere. Oh and I got to link to a Weird Al song.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Very, very tired, but very, very happy, because I am starting my weekend. Yay. Already +2 and ready to keep going until dawn, if necessary. Although I reserve the right to keel over and go to sleep at any moment.
Tomorrow’s weather looks perfect: high in the mid-70s, rain in the morning. Me likey. I may not get dressed all day, just orbit from the computer to the TV to the bed. Ecstasy.
BGinCHI
Cole, after reading your update I have no idea why you aren’t killing the ladies.
asiangrrlMN
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: Cameras in Cole’s bedroom? I am intrigued. Do tell. And, you have really made the big time, bay-bee. I love the story of how your husband told you!
@Yutsano: Um, you are a good gay Jewish boy, and single (only fake-married to moi and to FH#1 by extension) in your thirties. I’m just sayin’. Oooooh, you may have more? Color me intrigued!
@Steeplejack: Good for you! Did you ever find the perfect beer?
Objective Scrutator
@MikeJ:
What’s wrong with that?
Knoxville actually has a very fun Downtown area. The Sunsphere at the World’s Fair Park is pretty cool, too, and the town isn’t as socially conservative as you’d think it is. Other than that, it’s nothing special, but not as bad as Johnson City. That’s a town of slobbering rednecks.
@Gin and Tacos: It is appropriate that they refer to Brownback’s opponent as literacy.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Josh and I liked each other a lot, but our biggest issue was distance. He was very settled in Atlanta and I’m a Northwest kid through and through. One of the reasons I went to the wedding was to see if I could live down there or not. It was all right, but it wasn’t home. We did discuss a potential relationship, Josh really is a big sweetheart. Here’s the funniest thing about him: he’s also a competitive bodybuilder. Go ahead and wrap your gourd around a gay bodybuilding rabbi. It’s like the end of some weird joke or something.
Steeplejack
@BGinCHI:
No room in the bed would be my guess.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: That is funny, but I like people who break the stereotypes. Aw, what a romantic story. Sniff sniff. Star-crossed lovers separated by geography (and yeah, he’s cute).
El Cid
Thomas Friedman has a sad because all us regular folks out here don’t have the Ben Franklinesque Greatest Generation gumption & values to compete with those glories of successful development, India and China, the latter being the one with 700 million peasants to this day.
You know, because the way the Chinese went from being a (relatively) isolated Communist economy to the offshore base of US corporate manufacturing was, um, the, uh, values of its people, or something, or maybe there was one or another government policy involved, but, I’m sure it was more about them reading Thomas Friedman and other pop sociologists talk about values.
I feel so bad about my role in deregulating financial regulations and allowing banks to become gambling institutions with trillions of fictitious investments in CDO’s and derivatives.
I feel so bad that the government has failed to ask more from me.
I feel confused that the Chinese had “Confucian” values both before and during the Maoist revolution as well as after the opening of the economy to capitalist investment, and weren’t doing well in Western investment before them, but now somehow their Confucian values turn out to be profitable. Oh well.
If only I’d had better values.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Careful, you’re touching a nerve there. I was very irritated last night and this morning, then finally got over it and laughed about it. I never did get an answer to my (I thought) simple question, but I got a ton of lifestyle advice on buying a bicycle, etc. Communication on the Intertubes–or the lack thereof. Right now I’m sucking down a perfectly adequate Sam Adams Irish Red.
Your advice was probably the best: stick with gin and tonic (or rum and tonic). Or champagne. There is always champagne. (Got a bottle in the refrigerator, but I won’t touch it tonight. Saving it for later.)
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: It’s the hypothetical couch for you tonight for making me read Friedman. I can actually feel my brain cells diminishing (don’t want to use the abbreviation in case I rouse slumbering trolls) as I skimmed his words. He and McArdle should go run off together and leave the rest of us alone.
@Steeplejack: I know. I thought it was funny how everyone gave you all kinds of advice except for what you actually requested. Me, too, but at least I have a valid excuse–all beer tastes like piss* to me.
*How I imagine piss would taste.
El Cid
@asiangrrlMN: The cure would be to watch The Yes Men on Hulu.
These guys have gonads the size of Kansas. If you haven’t heard of them, you really won’t believe it when they get in front of the meeting of trade panel discussants as the WTO representatives and demonstrate the gold suit with the giant inflatable phallus to remote control sweatshop workers, or when they’re acting as WTO representatives telling a classroom how we can help the 3rd world by recycling the fast food we 1st worlders eat and shit out as brand new food for the poor, you see some really bizarre reality warping at work.
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: OK. But, if I am not impressed, then I’m coming back to give you the fish-eye. Goddamn it. It’s for ‘mature audiences’, which means I have to register. Don’t wanna.
Yutsano
@El Cid:
U no want this. Trust me very much on this point. Whatever else happens, you do NOT want this.
El Cid
@asiangrrlMN: The only problem with the movie is that a lot of it is the background to the absurd public events. I’m sure the prime selections are on YouTube. But you just can’t get too much more ridiculous than this.
Keep in mind that this is all happening in front of a sober audience of people involved in world trade and financial and regulation affairs. They think Andy is really the representative of the WTO about to give one of the standard presentations with PowerPoint and what not.
El Cid
@asiangrrlMN: Truly fresh fish have beautiful, clear eyes.
Mark S.
@El Cid:
I think sometime around 2003 Thomas Friedman and David Brooks merged into the same person. They are practically indistinguishable now.
And I am sick of the mythologizing of the Greatest Generation. They were often isolationist and paranoid. They were sure as hell racist. We didn’t get out of the Depression because everyone listened to their leaders and sacrificed; we got out of it because the war finally provided the Keynesian stimulus we needed. And the war in Europe was decided on the Eastern front, not at D-day.
El Cid
@asiangrrlMN: By the way, if not the Yes Men, there’s always Olde English (not the malt liquor).
Cacti
@Mr. Upright:
I must have missed Tee Martin’s street last time I was at UT, or maybe it hadn’t been named as such. It was several years ago.
El Cid
@Mark S.: What are you talking about? People just up and volunteered to fight in WWII, and self-organized the missions and battles via their person values of thrift and gumption.
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: I no could find golden phallus on YouTube. Why must they oppress me from viewing auric penii? #Fish-eye stare#
@El Cid: Bwahahahahahahahaha! #Retracts the fish-eye stare and accepts you back in the bedroom. Break out the Ommunist!#
El Cid
@asiangrrlMN: You like that one, try Stephen the Vegan.
I found a 4 gallon jug of Ommunis at CostCo.
asiangrrlMN
@El Cid: Hehehehe. That’s chuckle-worthy, but not as funny as the first one. A gallon jug? Oh, bayyyyyy-beeeeee!
Ecks
I can’t believe that you lot got 87 comments in without anybody noticing that our hosts admits to being “aggressively loved by two dogs” all night long.
You can take the man out of the Republican party…
;)
Swellsman
About ten years ago I lived with a woman who had two cats. I had two English Bulldogs. It took a while for the four of them to sort themselves out, but they did eventually.
Anyway, I still remember waking up on some mornings with the giro, next to me, the two cats sprawled between us, and both dogs slumbering on our feet. I always liked those mornings.
Comrade Mary
I’m trying to envision something, ANYTHING, that could plow through Tunch and live. Do you think you could loan Rosie to the miner rescue operations? I think they could use her sheer kineticism to cut down the timeline by a couple of months.
El Cid
Okay, that was weird. I just saw a Red Bull commercial in which a kid asks his mother if he can go to ‘the gentlemen’s club’. She says, “When pigs fly.” Of course, next there’s the cranked-up pigs on Red Bull flying past the window. Next thing you know the kid’s in front of a stage with what is clearly a stripper in front of him dancing.
What the fucking fuck?
spudvol
Not exactly feeling the love from you ACC’ers. Oh well, you’ll always be ACC’ers so I guess that is punishment enough.
JGabriel
Steeplejack:
I’m pretty sure you can, but I don’t know where. I loaded it from old CDs that were lying around. You’ll need DOSBox, or some other DOS emulator, to run it in Windows.
… And a quick glance shows that you can get Doom and Doom II at Steam for $10 each.
.
Dog is My Co-Pilot
Sheesh, I thought we had it bad by having one, little 13-pound dog sleeping between us all night.
Steeplejack
@JGabriel:
Thanks. I should have thought of that.
Amir_Khalid
I keep having this horrible thought: What if John Cole finally finds the tinsel in his own poop?
Bob L
So anti-colonialism is anti-American? I guess we need to make George Washington a non person now.