POST-DEBATE METAPOST

I think it’s obvious that [my preferred candidate] won.

A CHALLENGE FOR NON-SWING BLOGGERS

As you go about your debate blogging tonight, I challenge you–no, make that dare you–to say nice things about the candidate you’re not going to vote for.

PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN, WEEK 5

Wow. Last week’s Roman excursus produced a 5-0 record, though to be fair, picking last week’s Big Ten games was like picking the results of a Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoon, without the little pink parasol. Seriously, I should channel other personalities more often.

With one whole week down in the Big Ten season, it’s obvious that the conference is weaker than Baptist coffee. There isn’t a truly dominant team emerging (stifle it, Boilers and Gophers; we’ll discuss your impending woe anon), but most teams sure have revealed an impressive array of flaws so far.

First off, my own team, the Hawkeyes. Drew Tate’s got the worst case of Happy Feet this side of Steve Martin, while the rest of the team is playing with a level of discipline that would get my wife’s preschool class extra naptime. Seriously, if you want to wow your friends, just watch an Iowa game, and every time the Hawks gain 10 yards or more, say, “This’ll be called back for holding.” They’ll think you’re psychic, or John Madden, or something.

Meanwhile, the Boilers struggled to finish off an Illinois team that doesn’t scare anyone but Ron Turner’s real estate agent, and Minnesota’s special teams are just waiting to lose a close game for them, assuming the Shiny Rats ever find themselves in a close one.

And everybody who does not think that Ohio State’s going to lose at least two conference games this year, speak up.

(sound of crickets, kookaburra in the distance)

Yeah, that’s what I thought. And then there’s Michigan, dear Michigan, where the real question must be “just how bad is Matt Gutierrez, anyway? And did all the running backs in Michigan decide to commit to Western or something?” Plus the secondary seems bound and determined to prove me wrong when I called them “possibly the best secondary in the country” in my season preview. Unless by “country” I meant “Gabookistan,” then clearly, I was wrong.

As for the rest of the Johnny-Come-Notlys and ne’ershowups, well, somebody in this conference has togets to play in Detroit in mid-December. Otherwise, who is Northern Illinois going to beat? Fresno State? Troy?

Let’s get to the games, though I must warn you, this week’s slate is every bit as leaf-raking-friendly as last week’s.

MICHIGAN @ INDIANA

The Wolverines have to be feeling pretty good after last week’s revenge-taking against Iowa. Meanwhile, Indiana was comfortably pummeling Sparty right up to the moment that a ‘93 Nebraska game broke out. Now, with the honor of Mishawaka on the line, these two titans clash in a game whose implications reverberate like ripples across the pond of college football history. And now, ‘neath the Golden Dome, under the watchful eye of Touchdown Jesus . . .

Oh. Wrong school. This is actually just another contractual obligation game. Michigan isn’t exactly great, but until the Hoosiers can string four good quarters together, this game is Tecmo Bowl Raiders v. Patriots.

HENNE PORT IN A STORM 38
HOW GREEN-ELLIS WAS MY BENJARVUS 10

MICHIGAN STATE @ IOWA

Lost in all of last weekend’s fooferaw was the unique distinction Sparty garnered for himself last week: Gang Green became one of the very few Big Ten teams in recent memory to pull off a 10-point, come-from-behind win over Indiana.

Honestly, I can’t believe ESPN didn’t make a bigger deal out of that.

“John L. Smith” (if that is his real name) has turned to the option, the last, desperate gasp of a coach who has suddenly realized he doesn’t have any skill at the skill positions on offense. While the Hawkeyes are a long, long way from an above-average football team, nobody questions their front seven, and I doubt that Sparty’s Huskerization will help them much in Kinnick Stadium.

STOPPED FOR NO GAIN 12
15 YARDS FOR ILLEGAL USE OF ADJECTIVES 17

PENN STATE @ MINNESOTA

Can JoePa buy himself seven days without “hang it up” talk? Does any other coach go from geezer to genius on a semi-weekly basis? Will the Nits recover from their catastrophic quarterback problems? And does any of this matter when not even FermiLab could figure out Minnesota’s zone blocking schemes?

To wit: Marion Barber III, overrated. Laurence Moroney, rated about right. The Gopher O-line, better than at least two NFL teams that I can think of. For once, the rodent gets the cat.

JOEPA’S GARAGE 16
HOT RATS 33

OHIO STATE @ NORTHWESTERN

I said tOSU would lose two conference games. I never said one of them would be this week.

GUT CLASSES = As 28
BRETT BASANEZ 7

PURDUE @ NOTRE DAME

If there’s gonna be a good game in the conference this week, this’ll be it. Who’da thunk northern Indiana would produce the two feel-good stories of the college football season? Kyle Orton is putting up Heisman numbers every week, while the Boiler defense is proving much stouter than anyone anticipated. Meanwhile, Ty Willingham might–might–be having the kind of third year that separates the great ND coaches from the MAC defensive coordinators. So how to pick? I love Purdue this season, but there’s something about this Irish team that seems much greater than the sum of its parts. I say ND wins it, but it is going to be close, and if the Irish defense flinches at all, this will be the wrongest pick of the year.

ATOMIC BARBECUE 31
NUCLEAR LEPRECHAUNS 34

ILLINOIS @ WISCONSIN

Anthony Davis returns for the Badgers, which disappoints the UW geology departments, which was using Matt “The Kangaroo” Bernstein to calibrate its seismographs. But fear not; geologists will be needed to authenticate the age of the last good Illini team.

YOU WOULDN’T LIKE VEGAS, FRANK 0
YOU WOULDN’T LIKE FRANK, VEGAS 20

Next week:

• Minnesota @ Michigan: Who says there’s no conference title game in the Big Ten?
• Illinois @ Michigan State: Why ask why?
• Indiana @ Northwestern: A trip to Detroit is on the line
• Wisconsin @ Ohio State: This could be one of the two for tOSU
• Purdue @ Penn State: Tiller is going to make JoePa’s defense look older than he is

TBP NOW 63% MORE GROOVY!

Now you can keep track of what I’m listening to–just look down at the bottom of the right-hand column, under “WHAT I’M LISTENING TO” and you’ll see the ten most recent tracks I’ve played. This is a WordPress plugin which uses Audioscrobbler to track the data. You can read all about it at Lisa’s site–she’s the one who pointed me towards this very useless but fun plugin.

2

Never thought it would happen–in fact, I’d made my peace with it not happening–but two years ago, it did: Paula and I stood in front of the altar at my home church making our promises to God and each other, then we walked confidently down the aisle and into an uncertain future.

We were both unemployed at the time, she having closed down her business six weeks previous, and me having walked away from a great job to come here to Wisconsin and be with her and her daughter. (The unemployment didn’t last long; the very next morning after the wedding I was offered the job I have now.) She was living with her mom; I still had my apartment in Cedar Rapids. So, though now married, we spent the equivalent of a long weekend together, then she went back to Milwaukee, and I back to Quakertown.

Six weeks later, we moved into the little house on the big, shallow lake and started our lives together for real. It took me about a month to get used to the reality of somebody being in the bed next to me every night. I grabbed sleep in fits and starts; at work, I guzzled coffee like it was free beer. But the joy of the waking hours more than made up for the burbling sleep, and anyway, now I get my six hours without interruption.

I can confidently say we’ve not been at war with one another. Skirmishes, yes; put any two independent-minded people under the same roof for a couple years, and they’re bound to disagree about something. But we’ve done a masterful job of adapting to each other’s eccentricities. I, for one, no longer pine for the days when I bought onions by the bagful, because I could cook with them fearlessly. And she has learned that, in fact, not everybody reads just one book at a time. Some of us feel inadequate if we don’t have three or four going at once.

Now, here we are in the burbs, three short weeks from welcoming the one who will (eventually) occupy the fourth chair at our kitchen table. In celebration of this most wonderful day, we’re reversing roles: She’s at work and I’m not. Tonight, we feast on the fatted hog, with plenty of hickory smoke certain to be involved, and we celebrate the fact that we found each other. There is often great joy in finding what you weren’t looking for. Happy anniversary, hon.

YET ANOTHER HIGH-CONCEPT LIST

10 New Products For Which Market Research Is Probably Unnecessary

• Tide With A Touch Of KC Masterpiece
• Glade Fried-Onion Scented Air Freshener
• Mop ‘N Melt Kitchen Floor Deicer
• Cole Slaw On A Stick
• BBQ Chicken Jello
• Thong-Style Pampers
• Honey Nut Cheney-o’s
• The West Coast Offense for Middle Schoolers (book and DVD)
• Kohlrabi Helper
• Gee, Your Hair Smells Like I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter

PICKIN’ ON THE BIG TEN, WEEK 4

Since Jim Rome’s been on vacation all week, I’m sure there’s lots of clones out there anxious for a taste of his unique gloss. Therefore, I am departing with tradition (you’re going to pick the games correctly?–ed.) and presenting the first-ever special tribute edition of PotB10 . . . A SALUTE TO JIM ROME!

“What is up? Great to talk with you. You might want to get in early today, because we. Are. Loaded. Coming up at the bottom of the first hour, Illini coach Ron Turner, fresh off that big win over Western Michigan. Also coming in for some Jungle Karma today are Minnesota running back Marion Barber III and, while I don’t wanna jinx it, there’s a chance that Buckeye coach Jim Tressel may stop by.

“Now, about those Iowa . . . CHOKE-eyes. I don’t wanna say that that was the most pathetic performance I’ve ever seen from a top-15 team, but you just cannot. Lose. On the road. To Arizona State. I don’t wanna take anything away from Dirk Koetter’s team, cause he’s a jungle guy, but where was Iowa’s offense? The last time I saw a performance that weak, it was Carl Lewis singing the national anthem.”

(REALLY OLD TAPE) “Annnd the rocket’s (*choke*) red glare!”

“Sorry, Hawkeye fan, but don’t bother signing for the new RV with the Hawkeye logo on the back, because you. Are. Done. That team’s not gonna be playing anywhere over the holidays.”

“Dear Jim:

“Quit picking on the Iowa offense. I thought they were great.

“Sincerely, Jeff Garcia”

“OK, clones, you can quit sending me that e-mail. I don’t wanna hear from Jeff Garcia, I don’t wanna hear from Ryan Leaf, I don’t wanna hear from the 2001 Bengals, I don’t wanna hear from France. Stop. Sending me. Those e-mails.”

PURDUE @ ILLINOIS

“News flash: K-Ort is the real deal. I don’t know why Purdue should be Quarterback U, but it is.”

(eight-second pause)

“You’d better get used to it.

“Of course, it’s not like they’ve played anybody yet. Syracuse, Ball State, The Ray Charles Institute, and that art school that advertises on the back of matchbooks. That’s who Purdue has played so far. So don’t go making them into the ‘01 Sooners just yet. They still haven’t played anybody.

“They’re not going to this week, either. I’m going with Purdue.”

BEER AND A BUMP 44
YOU CAN’T HIDE YOUR ILLINI 6

MICHIGAN STATE @ INDIANA

“Meanwhile, WHAT is UP in East Lansing? There’s no way that that’s a 1-2 team. Sure, they lost Jeff SMOKER, and a bunch of guys on the defense, but come on. You have to get over on Ty Willingham in your own house.

“I just don’t think that this Spartan team is a very good football team right now.

“But how does Indiana lose to Kentucky? Especially now that the Wildcats have a normal-sized quarterback.

“I can’t believe ABC didn’t make this a Game of the Week. I don’t know who to go with, but maybe Indiana’s tremendous home-field advantage will come through for them.

“Oh, by the way, in case you couldn’t tell, I was joking. Sparty’s gonna roll.”

GANG GREEN 34
GANGRENE 13

IOWA @ MICHIGAN

“Both these teams are oversold. Iowa’s a fraud, and Michigan just isn’t Michigan right now. I don’t know, but I heard a rumor that Lloyd Carr is thinking about installing the single wing for this game. Break out the leather helmets, break out the co-eds in raccoon coats, fire up your Hupmobile and head for Ann Arbor this weekend, so you can see Michigan bring its offense into the twentieth century.

“Iowa’s defense is actually pretty good, but it doesn’t matter. Michigan will get over on the Chokeyes . . . why? Because they’re Michigan . . . and they’re on the ayuh . . . more often than Leave It To BEAVAAAAAHHHH! reruns.”

CLIPPED WINGS 10
NOT QUITE AS GOOD AS WE THOUGHT WE WERE 19

NORTHWESTERN @ MINNESOTA

“I want you clones to listen to me: Minnesota is the real deal. It doesn’t matter that their defense isn’t that great, it doesn’t matter that their QB doesn’t have experience, it doesn’t matter that they play all of their home games inside a Glad Bag in front of 38 people, that team can run the football, and Glen Mason, are you kidding me? All he does is win football games.

“Well, not bowl games, but come on. He’s pretty not too bad of a football coach.”

“Dear Jim:

“Can I watch the Gophers inside a Glad bag? It would be better than this cardboard box I’m living in.

“Sincerely, Silk”

“Nate in La Jolla, that’s hilarious. Anyway, if Northwestern couldn’t shut down TCU, they won’t shut down the Gophers, who I am going to guess will run for about 3,000 yards in this game. It will be over in less time than it takes for your dog to freeze to the fire hydrant in Minneapolis in January.”

53rd AIR FORCE 17
9th INFANTRY DIVISION 38

PENN STATE @ WISCONSIN

“We go to Ron on a car phone in the ‘Burgh. Ron, welcome to the jungle.”

“Thanks for the vine, Romey.” (In a halting, nervous voice) “I am so sick of people hating on Joe Paterno. The man IS Penn State football, and you just can’t say what he has meant to us Lion fans, and to that university.”

(turns over cocktail napkin)

“Everybody says that the game’s passed him by, but you know what? He helped make the game what it is. People just need to lay off Paterno. He’s had a few bad years, but what coach hasn’t? He’ll get it turned around, just give him time. Rack me, I’m out.”

“‘Just give him time’? Dude, no offense, but Joe Paterno is a hundred and six FREAKING years old. He’s not gonna turn it around.”

“Dear Jim:

“Sure, I’ve had a few bad years, but what coach hasn’t? Just give me a few years, and I’ll get it turned around.

“Sincerely, Mike Price”

“I am not sold on Wisconsin as a Big Ten contender, but you know what? Camp Randall is insane. I like Bucky in this one.”

NUMBER 1 IN THE AARP POLL 14
WE ONLY HAVE EYE FOR YOU, A.D. 26

Next week:

• Michigan @ Indiana: Six Characters In Search Of An Offense
• Michigan State @ Iowa: Look Homeward, Spartan
• Penn State @ Minnesota: The Lion In Winter
• Ohio State @ Northwestern: The Gulag Archigriffago
• Purdue @ Notre Dame: The Plower and the Glory
• Illinois @ Wisconsin: The Decline and Fall of the Turner Reich

TEN RANDOM THOUGHTS #7

1. While I think the whole thing regarding the Texas Air National Guard memos (link goes to Bryan’s roundup of blog reactions) is a totally shameful episode which destroys what little credibility CBS News had left, I also think that the blogosphere’s demand for Rather to step down is unseemly. I’ll commence to feeling differently the minute I see a blogger hanging up his or her keyboard because they got a story wrong. The recruiters for the Grave Dancers’ Union could clean up in bloggerdom. And don’t even try to tell me that bloggers spin the news less than Big Media.
2. I called it and said that my Hawkeyes would by no means be leaving Tempe with a win last Saturday. I didn’t expect the 44-7 beatdown that they took. I can’t come up with a reason for the derailing that doesn’t somehow take away from ASU’s nearly-perfect game. So I won’t. But I refuse to believe, based on this game, that the Hawks aren’t as good as everybody thought–I said a long time ago that they weren’t going to be anything special this year. Thus, the calls of “overrated” don’t bug me–I honestly feel that they were severely overrated to begin with, but I have to say, this team is better than I thought it was going to be.
3. Yes, this is one of the funniest books I’ve read in a while. It does for bad cars of the 70s and 80s what James Lileks has done for bad food of the 50s and 60s.
4. By the way, while I never finished the bad 80s car list, since I got tired of reading flame mail from Nissan Pulsar apologists, let me just say that #1 on the list was the Pontiac Fiero. And I don’t care what anybody says, or how proud you are of your Fiero, that thing was ill-designed and dangerous, mostly due to an extreme number of cost-cutting compromises forced by GM management, which never wanted to build the car in the first place. For example, they made the engine fit in the car by redesigning the oil pan so the engine always ran a quart low. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it now: it’s more than a minor miracle that GM managed to survive the 1980s intact. And I don’t understand why everybody slams Chrysler for quality control when the problems with rust, steering, brakes, and electronics which plagued every GM car from the era, almost without exception, probably cost American consumers a few billion dollars.
5. And while I’m venting some spleen, isn’t it time we all started shunning anybody over the age of 15 who admits to being a Britney Spears fan? Oh, wait, I’m “just jelus of her sucess.” Yes, I am bitterly disappointed that I never got my chance to be the butt of Jay Leno’s monologue jokes for six years running. I cry myself to sleep every night, cursing the cruelty of fate.
6. Coffeenerdness: I don’t drink lattes, but the Starbucks Fairtrade coffee is one of the tastiest cups I’ve had in a long time. The Fame Clock for the Verona Roast, however, is at 15:04 and rising. And I’d put the Starbucks cinnamon roll near Cinnabon level, personally. My wife wouldn’t, however, which makes for interesting late-night discussions around the Hasty household, most of which end with the sentence, “I can’t, honey; the mall closes in ten minutes, and it’s forty minutes away.”
7. By the way, she’s doing fine, thanks for asking, and yes, we have finally settled on a name. You don’t get to know it until the kid’s born, which is less than a month from now.
8. A restaurant near us–OK, the restaurant nearest to us–was kind enough to drop a bunch of coupons in the mail, each one offering one free meal, no strings attached. Who are we not to take advantage of such outrageous generosity? Apparently, half this town felt the same way, too, or else nobody really felt like cooking tonight.
9. Apropos of my first post today, I’m predicting that avocado green and harvest gold will re-emerge as popular colors sometime within the next five years. In fact, my favorite dress shirt is harvest gold, and I’ve got one that could almost pass for avocado green. I’d really like to see this color come back, though.
10. Apropos of nothing, I’m about this close to deciding that irreverence just isn’t funny any more.

SAVE THE WHALES!

You see the most amazing things at small-town grocery stores sometimes. The other day, I stopped at the grocery store in Horicon for a bottle of chocolate milk (shut up, I like to pretend I’m ten years old sometimes) and there it was, parked right next to me: a simply gorgeous 1971 Buick LeSabre 4-door. No collector plates, no car-club stickers, just a clean, semi-shiny, unmolested, rust-free survivor from my birth year. Avocado green, of course.

I wanted to stick around for a while to see if I could spot the owner, maybe ask them a couple questions. When you see a car like that in the rural Midwest, it’s safe to assume that the owner’s had the car since it was new. But 33 years? My gosh, that’s almost stretching beyond the point of credibility. However, I was running late for an appointment, so I didn’t wait.

Time was that the Big Green Car was a universal indicator of poverty or ruralness or studenthood or all three. The newspapers used to be full of them. My two favorite classified ads of all time read as follows:

1971 PONTIAC, must have sense of humor, $125.

1972 FORD LTD, old, ugly, will run forever, $250.

Note that neither ad mentions color. But why guess? They were either avocado green or harvest gold. They just had to be. Was it something about the pigmentation of the paint that made anything and everything painted either of those hues–not just cars, but appliances, furniture, et al.–last just shy of forever? Because that stuff held up much better than all the almond or gunmetal-grey colored stuff people bought in the 80s.

Truthfully, the Big Green Car wasn’t a bad choice for people at the desperation levels of poverty. Body-on-frame construction and rear-wheel drive, combined with severely outdated technology, made the Big Green Car both reliable and cheap to maintain, something you have to think about when $500 is all you’ve got to spend on a ride.

But times change, and not even a ‘72 LTD lasts forever. By the time I graduated high school, Big Green Cars were being replaced in my downwardly-mobile neighborhood by Chevy Citations and Renault Alliances, two rides that quickly became the Poverty Specials of the American midwest. The Alliance didn’t have enough power to get out of its own way, while the Citation and its ilk were rushed to market so quickly that they might as well have called it the Chevy Beta Test. Both cars cost a fortune to fix, the Renault because nobody under American skies could get parts for it, and the Citiation because most routine maintenance tasks began with the instructions “After removing the transaxle . . .”. Still, both cars were overrepresented among the parking lots of my alma mater.

I will admit to owning a Big Green Car myself once, a 1974 Ford Gran Torino which I drove exactly thrice, costing me $66.67 per trip. The latch on the glovebox was the only piece of metal in the entire car that wasn’t rusted, pitted, or corroded. It was this car which taught me an important life lesson: Never buy an unlicensed car from the back entrance of a trailer park. If not for a catastrophic wiring failure, however, I’d have driven it more. I am that rare person who actually prefers haring around in an ugly old car to motoring confidently in a newer one.

But alas, the lumpy, loping rumble of a giant, low-revving, out-of-tune V8 is a sound not much heard in this country any more. In its place, we have the flatulent buzz of a thrashy little four-banger with a rusted-out muffler. Now the people who have the most to lose financially from a car crash wind up driving cars that can’t survive a 6 MPH fender-bender. You can drive a car that’s not firing on all eight cylinders; good luck with one that’s not firing on all four.

It’s kind of sad how this element of our automotive heritage is getting bypassed. I think, for example, there are now more 1970 SS Chevelles on the road than there were in 1970. Great car, but you know what? I’ve seen ‘em. I’ve seen enough of them that I don’t even think that admittedly-cool car is particularly cool anymore. And I just wonder, who’s preserving the legacy of the plain, big, haul-the-family sedan from the 60s and 70s? An awful lot of these car have already been crushed and recycled; many have given their lives to provide restoration parts for the more-ubiquitous muscle cars lurking in Boomer garages. Will that ‘71 LeSabre be the last one I ever see on the road? Will we ever convince our children that people used to haul their families around in giant 2-door cars with Brobdingnagian overhangs both front and rear? Or that dashboards used to look like larger versions of the radios they contained? Will my little one never see a thing as lovely as a fake tree? Is elk-grain vinyl more endangered than the elk?

Or will our kids remember family cars as the things Mom and Dad rented when the Explorer was in the shop?

I like fast cars as much as the next person, but there’s a lot more to automotive history than Boss Mustangs and Z28 Camaros. Somebody save the Big Green Car!

SEARCH ENGINE ANSWER GUY #5

If it’s the late-middle of the month, it must be time for the living anti-404, the Search Engine Answer Guy. Give me your tired, your poorly-parsed, your befuddled masses yearning to download free bad music . . .

Since there’s maybe one or two of you who haven’t read SEAG before, let me tell you how this works: Like every blogger, I get a bunch of throughly bizarre search phrases cropping up in my referral logs on a regular basis. I could just post them here and let you get a kick out of the messed-up things people search for, the lost causes they champion, the astounding inability to spell simple words like “picture” or “greatest”–but no. I have too much love for my fellow man to do that. Instead of just mocking these beknighted individuals, I’ve decided to try helping them instead by answering their queries the best I know how.

Of course, if my answers inadvertently make a mockery of the original request, all that stuff about peace and goodwill still applies, right? Right. On with this month’s inquiries!

ford tempo won’t start in park?

It’s been my experience that, in fact, they won’t start in the driveway or the garage, either.

cheap tickets to nebraska huskers

Generally, on Sunday mornings, tickets to the previous day’s game are available at a substantial discount.

muskrat jokes
jokes about dennis franchione

Why don’t muskrats eat Bama fans? They’re just too bitter.

wine made with juicy juice

Got a six-year-old’s birthday party coming up, eh?

what is a political endorsement

It’s somebody who can’t think providing justification for those who won’t.

comeback stirrup-pants

Crimony, we’re just getting over all the weird-looking torsoes getting exposed, and you wanna bring back clothes that accentuate bad legs? What is wrong with this world? Can’t we all just wear carpenter pants and XXL t-shirts and get on with our lives?

chicago sports bears team needlepoint

Considering how they stuck it to the Packers today, perhaps they have been practicing the textile arts.

most christians are hypocrites

Most? Try all. Some people even think this is a bad thing.

what side of the road is even address

There is no definite rule for this. Our last two houses have both been on the west side of north-south roads; one was even-numbered, and the other was odd. Sadly, there’s still no substitute for looking at the numbers on houses.

why didn t amos zereoue play in sundays game

Uhh . . . you do know he’s not with the Steelers any more, right?

puffy cheetos

Get off my web page, you freak.

someday we ll know about milwaukee?

At the rate human knowledge is expanding, this seems all but inevitable. Yes, someday we’ll all know about Milwaukee.

what is wrong with gutierrez michigan

Lloyd Carr is calling plays for him.

theme park rules that people hate

That whole “no spitting from the top of the ferris wheel” thing has always been a major buzzkill to me.

the name of the next pixar motion picture coming out in late 2004

We Know You Have A Small Child, So Just Hand Over Your Wallet

michigan wolverines instrumental fight song notes

“Hail To The Victors” is a totally diatonic melody in the Locrian mode. Don’t ask me why I remember this; I just do. I got a C-minus in music theory when I was a freshman in college. I got an A in accounting, but do you think I can balance a checkbook?

gender differences in shampoo marketing

Women will stand in the aisle for seven or eight minutes, carefully reading the list of ingredients and trying to recall what one of their friends told them worked really well for limp hair like she’s got. They will smell every different brand, trying to find something that won’t clash with their shower gel, body mist, or hand lotion. If they’re not convinced–absolutely convinced–that they’ve found the right product, they will move on to a different store, maybe even several of them, and if they still can’t find the right shampoo, they’ll go to the salon and ask their hairdresser’s advice.

Men buy Pert Plus, because it’s always on sale.