How ’bout them Gators? January 9, 2007

So I am still feeling a little blah, but at least I am getting stuff done. In fact, i think i cursed myself complaining about not getting anything done, because now I have an impossible amount I need to get finished.

I really did not watch much of the football game last night, because honestly, I did not care who won. I turned it on near the end of the first half and it was already lopsided, so I just went back to watching stuff on my Tivo.

Speaking of Tivo, mine has been acting really strange. Actually, it may not be the Tivo, but rather the directv. Regardless, the scheduler does not have all the shows. For example, last night, on a whim I checked the shows that were scheduled to be recorded last night and saw that neither How I Met Your Mother nor The Class were scheduled. I checked the guide (on screen) and they were both shown to be on and new. I manually scheduled them and then checked a bunch of other shows and this whole week is missing! If you look to see upcoming shows, they all start after January 12, but the shows are listed in the guide. Very strange. When I left this morning I reset the receiver so hopefully the problem will clear up.

Today I spent getting ready for class. It is hard to believe I have to teach next Tuesday. I have done powerpoints for the first 2 classes, so now I am about 1 week ahead. I want to get a little bit ahead now since the first two months of class are the busiest part of the debate season. I am a little stressed about this class, however. Not because I am not ready, but because the school is being ridiculous. I still don’t have access to their computer system, which means I can’t get parking, I can’t get my syllabus, etc. on the student website and a bunch of other nuisances. In addition, they have not listed me as the professor on the class. Which means, when I get access to the web, I may not be able to post anything to the class. Also, the bookstore has my name on the class, which means a bunch of students are going to be confused and may think the book is not the one they need. This could all be avoided if the department would just do their job. I don’t want to be a bitch, but the person in charge of all this did not email me back when I asked about the status yesterday. I still have not heard from her, so tomorrow I think I will have to try again and maybe cc her boss.

I have also been busy working on new debate cases. I like the case my policy team is going to start running, but it is a little unconventional. Which means I will spend the next 2 hours reading definitions of the word persons. Fun. Fun.

Wasted Weekend January 7, 2007

The title says it all. And no, not wasted caused by alcohol, but rather wasted like, I did absolutely nothing. Granted it wasn’t so much me being lazy, it was the mystery ailment. So where I last left off, I nearly passed out at Nordstrom. My Friday was spent in a sort-of semi-daze. I was awake, but not really functioning. Saturday was the worst day by far. In fact, it might have been the worst day I have ever had.

I woke up at 11:00 after sleeping for 12 hours. However, saying “woke up” may not be true. I tried to check my email, etc, but my head was spinning like crazy. I went and sat on the couch, and the next think I new it was 3:00. I decided to move back to bed. I woke up again at like 8:00, just in time for my stomach to explode. I spent the next 2 hours in the bathroom, half conscious just wishing it would all stop.

Finally I went back to bed and watched the end of the Cowboys game. Wow. I have not been a huge Tony Romo fan, but I felt so bad for him. The look on his face after he dropped the hold, you just wanted to hug him. He was sitting their with the blood all over his hand, and you just felt for him.

Went to bed again at about 11:00 and slept another 12 hours. So yeah, Saturday I was up for about 4 hours. Today was better. Once I woke up, I was up. My head stopped pounding. I got a little work done, but mostly I watched TV. My biggest issue today was, I did not eat anything Saturday, so I was starving, but my stomach is still not quite right, so eating too much food was not a good idea.

So that was my weekend. Not much fun, but at least I seem to be doing better. We have a busy debate week, plus my first class is 1 week for Tuesday and I am not ready for that either. So being healthy is definitely important.

Memo to Bears fans… December 11, 2006

I went to the Monday Night Football game tonight. Well I went for the first half, then my mom was ready to go. She is sick and wanted to go to feel “normal” but did not have the energy to make it the whole game.

Since I came home I have been listening to Fox Sports Radio on my XM. There has been call after call about how Rex Grossman has turned the corner and how wonderful the Bears offense is now. What is the evidence these callers and the host used to back up their point? Tonight’s game.

MEMO TO ALL BEARS FANS:

The Bears’ offense did not improve over night. Rex Grossman did not fix all his problems in the past week. You played the Rams. Yes, that is it. I hate to be the one to break it to you but the Rams truly are that bad. Don’t let the record deceive you, they are a bad team and made your offense look good.

I do not have to go to school tomorrow because we have such a small entry to the last league tournament and the one volunteer judge covers our entire judging responsibility. The one Public Forum team and 1 LDer going really need good results if they was to advance to the league championships. If things hold true to the past years results, the Public Forum team must win both rounds tomorrow to have a chance to advance and the LDer must go 1-1. While normally I would be very confident about their chances, I have to face the fact that both teams went 1-3 last weekend and those records may not have all been about us being school code thirteen. On the other hand, they worked really hard today and usually hard work is rewarded in debate.

As I have nothing real planned for tomorrow, I am going to try to figure out how to knit socks on two circulars. I have knit several pairs on double pointed needles, but I have always been interested in learning to knit on 2 circulars. I I bought the book Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles by Cat Bordhi and hopefully will be knitting socks using this method in no time.

Did somebody say practice? December 4, 2006

This afternoon we have our first practice after all the snow and ice. Last week was laid back since the Public Forum and LD debaters had to write new cases. Originally my plan was to do rebuttal redos and ballot review from the KC tournament this past weekend, but since that tournament did not happen, none of that can happen.

Decembers are so weird in the debate world. They have 2 more League competitions (next two Tuesdays) and a really big tournament this weekend and then we shut down until January. They have already been to 6 or 7 tournaments and just want a break, but this last tournament is perhaps one of the most important of first semester. So the pressure is on to do something that will help them for this weekend but that will not be that boring. Plus, I really want to try to get out close to 5 pm, rather than being there until 7 or later.

So the question remains, what to do today? I am thinking maybe some practice rounds, a little prep for Congress tomorrow and who knows what else. Who am I kidding- this is going to be a wing-it day, which is always interesting.

A quick note from my rant yesterday. I was listening to Fox Sports Radio on my XM when I was going to bed last night and the host made an interesting point. He explained that before this weekend, the BCS standings were as follows:

1. Ohio State, with a big lead over
2. USC, who had a small lead over
3. Michigan, who had a huge lead over
4. Florida

So, if USC had managed to win, the standing would have been something like this:

1. Ohio State, with a big lead over
2. USC, who had a small lead over
3. Michigan, who had a smaller lead over
4. Florida

Which brings me to the punch-line, how did Florida jump Michigan just because USC lost? There is no logic that can explain that.

Ok, I promise I am done with the BCS rants, at least until the games actually get played.

Football, Football and more Football, plus a quick rant December 3, 2006

Today was a football day in my house. I woke up early but was really dragging. So I put on my sweats read the paper and settled in for a lot of football.

What I learned today:

1. The Rams are really really bad. They made the Arizona Cardinals look like one of the best teams in the NFL. While I think Leinart will be a good quarterback in the long run, he is not as good as the Rams made him look. Plus, Edgerrin James has been having such an awful year until he played the Rams, then he finally goes over 100 yards. Plus, Shipp scored 3 TDs. Craziness I tell you. Thank goodness we gave away our tickets, I don’t think I could have sat through the whole game. We will go to Monday Night football against the Bears, but I just may wear a Bears jersey.

2. Tony Romo looks like the real deal. The Cowboys just may be the sleeper team to watch. Romo had a rough start but remained calm. And who would have thought that Martin Gramatica could hit a 46 yard field goal? We were watching over dinner and we really thought his range was about 35-40 yards.

3. Along the same lines, Vince Young may also be the real deal. All the experts were equating him to Micheal Vick, but I think he may be more like a Randall Cunningham or Warren Moon. For the second week in a row he lead them back from a huge deficit. I have always respected Norm Chow and when he said Vince Young was legit, I guess I should have given him more credit, but now I am willing to say, he deserved to go as high as he did in the draft, though I still think the Titans should have taken Leinart.

4. Following up on last years draft, I am watching the Bronco-Seahawk game now. The weather is so cold, so it is hard to judge how Cutler is doing, but he has not made any huge mistakes and Denver seems to be moving the ball. I think in five years, history will show he was the best quarterback in the draft class.

5. If the Rams keep sucking it up, maybe they can get Brady Quinn in this years draft. Well, I guess they have to lose more than Oakland, they are the only really bad team (worse than the Rams) who really need a quarterback.

And now the Rant…

After the last game Fox had their BCS announcement show and they announced that the championship game would be Ohio State vs. Florida.

Let me just say, WHAT THE FUCK???

It is completely ridiculous that this is the so-called National Championship Game. Unless you live in Florida or went to Florida, you can agree that heads up Michigan vs. Florida, on paper Michigan wins. That should logically mean that Michigan is the second best team in the country. In fact, from the time the USC game ended, all of the “experts’ I heard agreed that Michigan was the second best team in the country. So why are they not in the championship game? Because of some sort of bogus notion that their can not be a rematch in college football. First of all, where in the world did that “rule” come from? If Michigan had played Ohio State in September or even October, nobody would care if they played again. Michigan is being punished for playing Ohio State late in the year. Second, these same experts say that if Ohio State had lost, a rematch was called for and the National Championship game would have been Michigan-Ohio State. Again, WTF? That is like saying A plus B equals C, but B plus A does not equal C.

If this does not spur people into thinking we should have an 8 team playoff in college football, it will never happen. And don’t even start telling me that the kids can’t afford to miss school. Figure out how many classes a college basketball player misses and then tell me with a straight face, that adding a playoff at the middle-to-end of December will cause a football player to miss more class (on average) than a basketball player.

I personally will not be watching Ohio State beat up on Florida.