"Congress To Raise Alpacas To Aid Struggling Economy"

I don't usually read The Onion, but that headline was just too good to pass up. Funny stuff. (Hat tip: John J. Miller at The Corner)

UM was going...

...to have their graduation at EMU? That's just silly, no matter what the reasons. It might be okay if the UM campus was literally radioactive, otherwise it's just nonsense. Nonsense on stilts. With little rockets attached to the stilts.* Anyway, good job to President Coleman for pulling the plug, even if it took input from over 4,000 students to make it happen.

*This is a Jonah Goldberg quote (more or less, I might have butchered it slightly). I've been waiting for days to use it.

Quote of the Day

Via Instapundit, hat tip to Libertas:

"Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm, and I am pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders."
-George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 1/28/2008

Awesome.

(More) Force Unleashed

Happy Winter-een-mas!

Today is the first day of Winter-een-mas. "How should I celebrate?" you might ask. Go play a video game. Tecmo would be a good choice. Or maybe the original Super Mario Bros. Mass Effect would do too (oh wait, that's only me). Even WoW would be fine. It doesn't really matter, just take a little time to enjoy a video game.

Optimism? Nope.

Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News is not optimistic about the Lions and their ability to improve next year:

The Lions have no discernible strengths, no obvious plan and no sure stars, although I'll grant linebacker Ernie Sims is a riser. They have nothing they can count on, except for a nice stadium and tragically loyal fans.

I guess you could even call him pessimistic.

Where's the Remote!?!

After watching part of PTI tonight a question occurred to me: who makes you change the channel as soon as they appear on the screen? Phil Jackson and Sean Salisbury come to mind for me, and that's just from the last 30 minutes of television I've watched. Who qualifies for you?

Cold

It was -14°F this morning when I went to work. Who says Minnesota has all the cold weather?

USMC Silent Drill Platoon

Hat tip: Jonah Goldberg at The Corner. To see more check out Our.Marines.com.

Tiki Barber

So, how is Tiki Barber handling all this with the Giants in the Super Bowl a year after he threw everyone under the bus? Do you think he'll seek to get any post-game interviews in the lockerroom after the big game? Just the idea of what he did makes me happy the Giants made it to the SB. But, I was completely pulling for Favre. Come on, who wasn't?

Heckles

Last week, Fritz asked me "what is the worst you've heard or had said/yelled at you?" Fritz is referring to heckles that are hurled at me by players, coaches, fans, animals, blind people, etc. Well, I now have an answer. Friday night I was refereeing a freshman boys basketball game at USA v Reese. USA is coached by Kevin Vermeesch (I think we all remember him) and Reese is coached by Ben Hillborg (and his dad assists him). Quick note on Ben Hillborg. I believe he graduated either with us or a year after us from Reese. But, let's go into the "way back" machine. I can't remember if it was our Junior or Senior year, but it seems like there was a Reese player who took his shirt off at the JV football game or something like that and he was a Varsity football player. I thought it was at the JV game played at CC, which would mean the Varsity would have played at Reese the following night. Well, our Junior year we played at Reese and our Senior year was at home. Anyway, that's not really the point of the story, just wondered if anyone remembered that.

So, back to the game. I may have missed a few calls or fouls. The context of the story is that this occured in the middle of the 4th quarter. Reese was getting beat by at least 15-20 points. Game is basically over. You suck. The position I was standing in during the live action was in front of the Reese bench. I may have missed a call that Ben wanted to go his way. Next thing I hear is "You haven't called anything for 3 minutes. What year did you graduate from USA?"

Seriously? "What year did I graduate from USA?" I wanted to turn around and say, "Coach, that heckle was about as lame as the plays you are calling." So to answer Fritz, that was the worst I've heard. Worst meaning any 3rd grader could have come up with a better heckle than that. I mean, come on coach. Is that really the best you've got? I can think of a million times I've heard that from idiots in the stands. You're the coach. Please tell me you've got something better. You've been hating me for a long time, that's what you came up with? That's your creativity? Well, I guess so, after seeing your play calling and how badly you teach defense. (Side note: I rip on his defense because in the 3rd quarter alone, a total of 19 fouls were called between both teams. NINETEEN!?!?! 10 on Reese and 9 on USA. In one freakin' quarter. So, 10 to 9 is like totally favoring USA. I can clearly see his argument. Nothing is going his way, right. 10 fouls to 9. Way uneven.)

Let me help you coach. Try this next time, except apply it to basketball:

What were you, a lookout at Pearl Harbor!
I forgot the Milk-Bone for your seeing-eye dog!
Can I pet your seeing eye dog after the game?
Have they stopped printing the rulebooks in Braille?
Don't donate your eyes to science, they don't want em'.
Lenscrafter called...they'll be ready in 30 min.
Do you get any better or is this it?
Be careful when you back up, so you don't fall over your dog.
Why don't you get your seeing eye dog to call it for you?

Not "Oldies" 96

Per Adam and I's discussion about "Oldies" 96.1 shutting it down from November 1 to December 26 (probably at 12:01am, not a second later than they had to) so they could play 24 hours of Christmas music, Adam thought it was peculiar that they would go so long with Christmas music. I mean, I love Christmas music, but I can wait until after Thanksgiving, or the first snowfall. After explaining to Adam the commercials the station would play to advertise the station "returning to it's 'classic' music you've come to love" after Christmas, the commercials contained quick clips of music they would be playing. Those clips were not from the 50's or 60's. Adam then figured they must be doing a huge format change.

UPDATE: DING DING DING! Show Adam what he's won!!! Well, for correctly guesing what the company was doing...nothing. Here are just a few of the songs I've noticed are not quiet "oldies."

1. "Footloose" - Kenny Loggins - 1984
2. "Another One Bites the Dust" - Queen - 1980
3. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - Queen - 1980
4. "Two Tickets to Paradise" - Eddie Money - 1978

I think I heard the song "Footloose" two times in the first 2 or 3 days of the new format. I knew right away, we weren't listening to oldies anymore.

Now, on all commerical station promos, you never hear the word "oldies." They use the word "Classics." I guess we will no longer reference them as "Oldies 96."

By the way, they do still play songs from the 60's. You still get the loop of Beach Boys, Beatles, etc., but also a higher mix of 70's and 80's (albeit crappy) songs. Except for Queen. They're not crappy.

Tony Dungy...

...will return as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Dungy said he will coach at least this year, and potentially more. Of course the Colts don't have to worry about stability as they have alread named Dungy's assistant Jim Caldwell as successor whenever Dungy decides to retire.

Wow.

I was out running errands at Wal-mart this morning and happened to see this:


I was a big fan of Legos as a kid and would have went nuts if something like that was available. I mean, a giant rolling tank and a robot to fight it? It might have been more than a kid could stand.

By the way, did you know they're making Indiana Jones Lego sets now?


Madness.

The Mile High Club

I've been checking out hypothetical airline ticket prices for a weekend flight to New York for a baseball game in August. I've tried nearly every permutation (or combination) possible of airports from the state of Michigan to New York, and all the possibilities of departures (Thursday, Friday, or Saturday) and possible return flights (Saturday, Sunday, or Monday). I've even pretended that the weekend game was in April and did all the same calculations. I even tried 1 weekend from now to see if that made much of a difference in price either.

No.

The best prices I could find were for flights out of Detroit (no matter day/time) in August. However, no price was better than $203/ticket.

So, where we driving to this year? Toronto? Philadelphia? New York?

Traffic Laws

Apparently LeBron James likes to drive fast, really fast. James acknowledged to going 101 mph on his birthday.

I was doing 101," James said Monday after practice. "That's it. I was speeding. I've just got to abide by the law. I got caught. It happens."

Lawyer Colin Jennings filed a not guilty plea for James in Medina Municipal Court. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 11, when the Cavaliers play in Orlando.

So let me get this straight: James admitted to driving 101 mph but is pleading not guilty? What?!?! What is he pleading not guilty to? That he didn't lie about how fast he was going?

Here's another great quote: "I'm not going to jail or nothing like that," he said. "I wasn't drunk. I was just speeding. That's it." Right. Okay. Gotcha. Of course, not dangerous at all to anybody else on the road. And if you hit someone they'll probably be left with just scratches from your 1000 lb sled going supersonic speeds crashing into them.

Idiot.

CAFE

Something to think about: government-mandated fuel economy standards could kill you. Good to know. (Hat tip: Iain Murray, The Corner)

Damian Lewis & Steve McQueen

Blade vs. Dracula

I know it makes me a huge geek, but I think this is really cool:


Of course, at $349, it ought to be. Ouch.

If you think that's crazy, take a look at this:


That's a life-size Cylon folks, and it can be yours for only $7,900. Can there possibly be enough Galactica geeks (with excess cash) out there to make this worthwhile?

Word for the Day

Actually, it's the funny word for the day: Blegs

I heard it used on the Dr. Phil show today; it means when your butt and legs are blended together. Or, also according to Urban Dictionary, a back that leads to legs.