Just a perfect day...
Dateline: Flint Lake, IN
Full disclosure: I have a tendency to project my insecurities and deficiencies (athletically / intellectually / psychologically) onto my sports affiliations. Which often makes game viewership problematic. Add to that my closeted belief in sports superstitions (hello, lucky underwear) and the psychoses really build, leading to a belief that my teams will almost never succeed because if you put me, personally, in that same situation, baby we are going down in flames.
I like to think that's why I'm such an ardent proponent for self-medication during such occasions.
Well, not the only reason. But, for sure, a strong driver.
Thus, I enter most ND sports viewing experiences with a 'hope for the best / plan on the worst' type mentality.
Obviously, quite often I have been pleasantly surprised with ND's success (drink up, Shriners!) -- only to have the periodic Northern Illinois Meltdown to send me spiraling back into The Abyss of Uncertainty.
Which brings me to last Saturday and the extraordinarily unique -- dare I say, singular -- experience of a near nirvana-like day, capped off by the ND-Army game which for all intents and purposes, was over after each team's first series.
Jerrence's time capsule:
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| That's Gaga's special medicine, Sloane |
- 10:30am. Brunch w a 3-egg omelet, courtesy of Defarge's chickens who are FINALLY PUTTING OUT!
- 10:45am. Bloody Mary, made with Behren's infused vodka
- 11:00am. Ohio St. vs. Indiana kickoff, and I don't really care who wins as long as someone loses big.
- 2:30pm. Ole Miss also loses!
- 5:00pm. ND Women's B-ball spanks USC
- JuJu, meet Hanna & Liv!
- Get used to this outcome, Trojans.
- 6:00pm. ND vs. Army
- Martini Time!
"Ode to Blue Cheese Green Olives" - a haiku*
Salty moldy cheese
Meaty green hollowed out orb
Sublime creamy bliss!
- 10:00pm. Alabama loses! Roll this, bitches!
A perfect day indeed.
Quote of the Week
Jeff Monken
Boy, did that self-deprecating remark by Army's head coach ever prove prescient.
Word of the Week
What a dick, Jerrence thought.
Geez, ya write one mind-numbingly long poem 200 years ago about a sailer who had a bad hallucinatory experience at sea -- whom among us hasn't had a disappointing cruise-related party debacle? -- and suddenly you think you're E. B. White Mr. Elements of Style?
Jerrence begged to differ.
Words -- especially big, flowery words that frequently even he didn't understand -- made Jerrence's world go 'round. And more pragmatically, he knew he'd have no blog if circumlocution was considered frowned upon, much less 'evil.' (Unnecessary, maybe. Self-indulgent? Absolutely.)
But never evil. That the 1st Amendment (and Elon Musk) protected him of that, he was sure -- covering Every Man's Right to use as many big words as possible to say as little as possible as incoherently as possible.
Jerrence thought Mr. Rime of The Ancient Mariner should've known that, given the amendment's ratification seven years before his overwrought poem had been written.
Game 11 Thoughts
Ooo-whee, do it one more time for me!
Can't stop... stop that girl
There she goes again
I really really love to watch her
Watch her headbangin'...
Was anyone else struck by coach Freeman's response to the NBC sideline reporter's softball question -- what do you want to see from your team? -- before Saturday night's kickoff?
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| Messrs. Bullough, Denbrock, Biagi |
Excuse me?! What happened to mutual respect?!
I did NOT have Marcus going full Clockwork Orange on my Bingo card.
Fair to say (and he might beg to differ), we've got a very different coach Freeman than we did in September -- reflecting an attitude of a guy who, at worse, might've thought he was coaching for his job but more realistically, knew every week his team was playing in a single elimination tournament: one loss and you're done.
Now? So close to Goal #1, making the playoffs. And they sure don't look like a team that's going to be denied. Or let up.
1. The Good.
- Understanding that Job #1 for the football team is always WIN THE GAME but I love that ND strives to give these guys a broader experience around wherever the Shamrock Series takes place.
- Rylie Mills is finally playing great. Hinish has been a revelation. The young LB'ers have all grown up. But one blogger's opinion: it's the secondary that continues to drive the defense's bus.
- And with the silly season starting -- portal defections, coaches being fired and others being (potentially) poached, and booster money seemingly coming out of the woodwork across the country... I sure hope ND is planning on ponying up whatever they need to keep Mike Mickens.
2. The Bad.
- Red Zone. Very weird play calling -- 4 plays running straight into the Army line, including Leonard trying (unsuccessfully) to launch himself over the goal line -- that resulted in ND turning over the ball on downs.
- Apparently, coach Denbrock was trying to execute an homage to the legendary Four Horsemen in some way. Um, coach, perhaps there are better ways to celebrate that particular centennial...
- Jerseys. I've seen worse ND uni's (see pants, white) and if the players (and recruits) like 'em then great! But as TV viewer, the numbers were super difficult to read. The NBC spotters surely had their work cut out for themselves.
3. The Ugly.
- Kicking. Houston, we have a problem.
- And by 'problem' I mean, "does Joe Unis have any eligibility left?" (Because my sciatica is acting up.)
- And FWIW, apparently getting into Yankee Stadium was a nightmare.
4. Fun Facts..
- The Irish are now a nation's best 9-2 against the spread,
- Weirdly -- or perhaps not -- their opponents are a collective 0-9 one week after playing the Irish.
- What's that say to me: 1) ND repesents each of these opponents' Super Bowl and 2) ND beats the sh*t out of 'em -- they leave feeling like they've been through a war.
5. CFP Madness.
If this seeding holds, it would be really nice to jump Penn St (which'll likely require ND pasting USC)...
Buddy's Buddy
The older one gets, the more sensitive Jerrence is to not repeating himself, which invariably requires remembering what he actually said...
And he says a lot of things.
Posing a dilemma: how can he possibly be held responsible for remembering everything that comes out of his mouth?!
Which brings us to the blog -- one of his more endearing idiosyncrasies (one thinks) is his hating to repeat content, be it the blog's weekly Word, Song(s), and award winners.
[The notable exception being in the Schadenfreude / Tools sections where repeat idiocy (and athletic loss is to be celebrated.]
But one digresses. For the Buddy Award, one tries to spread the wealth around... recognize the team, as it were. But sometimes a stud is just a stud who stands that much taller than the rest.
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| It's a bird! It's a plane! |
One could make a reasonable argument that he could be Bud's Bud every week (it'll be interesting to see if he ends up being team MVP), such has been his importance to the team, especially with an offense that took, oh, HALF THE SEASON, to find its groove.
His Army performance is a particularly curious metric of his impact:
He scored more points (18) than he actually had plays (14).
(That first ND play of the 2nd half was an especially brutal dagger for the Cadets.)
On the season, 7 yards per carry, 850 yards rushing and oh yeah, 11 straight games with a TD.
That would seem... good.
And he's only a sophomore.
I feel love...
RE-PETE (A shameless, illegal lift of Pete Sampson's weekly mail-bag)
Readers may recognize that I occasionally reference The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name...
I am, of course, speaking of the unspoken bond between Man and Dog. Pure, unconditional, often bordering on the unnatural and perhaps in some provincial geographies, illegal.
But what other utterances are there -- thoughts that we possess that we're feared of speaking, if not into existence, but in fact the opposite -- out of existence?
For example, the dreaded jinx.
For that reason, I won't say what I'm thinking... truly believing... about the present state of this Notre Dame team... but I'll let Pete Sampson do it!
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Notre Dame might be playing the best football in the country. Your eyes don’t deceive you.
And yes, the schedule plays a part in that. Notre Dame’s schedule has been one of the weakest in recent history with four Group of 5 opponents, plus a down Florida State, Purdue and Stanford.
Among the true College Football Playoff contenders, Notre Dame is downstream in schedule strength.
In The Athletic’s mock bracket, including those on the bubble, only Indiana (No. 68), Tulane (No. 85) and Boise State (No. 89) are worse than Notre Dame (No. 65) in the Sagarin schedule strength metric. But it’s not like other top teams haven’t played similarly so-so schedules. Oregon (No. 52), Tennessee (No. 57) Ohio State (No. 58), SMU (No. 59) and Miami (No. 61) aren’t exactly testing themselves every week.
Notre Dame’s schedule may not have been entertaining, but it’s worth acknowledging the Irish helped make it that way … by being really, really good.
Maybe there’s an argument Notre Dame’s schedule won’t prepare it for the CFP. But that applies to just about any team that’s not playing in a conference championship game.
Source: The Athletic
November 26, 2024
Cocktail of the Month
New York, New York.
A town so historically taken with itself that it needs to repeat its name, just so that we, lowly Midwestern hayseeds, fully grasp the magnitude... the grandeur... of its metropolis and its citizenry.
Not that its necessarily undeserved -- the city is arguably Finance, Cultural, Sports capital of the country, if not the world.
So what does the talent of such a town drink? Well, here's one man's go-to...
Eugene O'Neill's
Gibson
1888-1953
[In other words, a Notre Dame fan.]
O'Neill hailed from a family of roving addicts and alcoholics; his father, in particular, foisted upon him the difficult birthright of drinking to excess, visiting sex workers and generally raising hell.
[Hogwart's sorting hat... Dillon Hall!]
He was even booted from Princeton University for chucking a bottlr through the university president's window after one particularly raucous evening. (That president? Woodrow Wilson.) Through psychoanalysis, the dramatist who penned Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Iceman Cometh and Anna Christie eventually bested his familial influence and subsequent abuse of alcohol.
But -- before he did, O'Neill was known to linger over cocktails at New York dive bars. And the Gibson, smacking of brine, salinity and the cool promise of forgetting, was rumored to be his drink of choice.
* 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
* 1/4 oz. brine from cocktail onion jar
* 3 cocktail pearl onions for garnishing
-------------------
In a large mixing glass combine gin, vermouth and brine. Add ice and stir until well chilled.
Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with the cocktail onions.
Source: How To Drink Like A Writer
Writing by Margaret Kaplan
Schedule 2024
August
31 @Texas A&M W
September
7 Northern Illinois L
14 @Purdue W
21 Miami (OH) W
28 Louisville W
October
12 Stanford W
19 @Georgia Tech W
26 Navy W
November
9 Florida State W
16 Virginia W
23 @Army W
30 @USC
December
20-21 1st round playoff game at ND Stadium -- see you there?
Wager 2024
One more game.
Wins | Director - ND Equivalence | Domer |
12  Christopher Nolan | The Nick Saban of the film world - Nolan is Mr. Swing For The Fences Big Idea Guy, even if every effort isn't always a home run. But they are undeniably ... epic. Just like a 12-0 season. |
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11  Martin McDonagh | Hello, he's Irish! Solidly predictable for always being really, really good. And as his reputation has been burnished, the star talent in his cast has followed. Sound familiar? | Jerrence, Daryl Jim S, Tim C. Jerry C, Mike C. Greg R., Bob S. George, Raz, Ted, Bob J. Peter, Tim S., Dave M |
10  David Fincher |
Pretty much a stud in both film and TV formats. Always interesting, albeit with palpably dark undertones... one is never sure how the story is going to end up. Much like a 10 win season will feel like. | Pat B, Mike B. Bill, Jim B. Sloane, Alex Phillip, Randy Mike G., Jerry P Gutsch, Mark Jim T., Brian W |
9  Yorgos Lanthimos | Do I always understand what's going on his films? Nope. |
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8  Richard Linklater | Perhaps the product of recency bias - I quite liked 'Hit Man' - Linklater's films fall for this blogger into the "nice-fun-I see an interesting insight" category. They just don't feel especially memorable. Like we'd view an 8 win season. | |
7  Wes Anderson | When does quirky/idiosyncratic become tiresome? When you feel like you're watching - again - an inside joke that you're not included in. Anderson attracts an an all-star cast that no longer seems to add up to the sum of their parts. In a word, disappointing. | |
6  Lars Von Trier | Uncomfortable. Unpleasant. Disturbing. Often off the rails, his films might be 'art' but it's tough to call it many people's definition of entertainment. | |
Schadenfreude of the Week.
Continuing on with last week's wine metaphor...
As a rule, grapes are harvested, processed and get laid down for many years, until that quality bottle of wine ends up in Castellini's wine refrigerator...
...where it'll ultimately get opened and, ironically, sit for another three hours in a decanter until troglodytes like myself and Gruley will consume it without nary a single sentence of the required pretension, where one extols the wine's ambitious-yet-unpretentious nature and its surprisingly mature, artisanal humility blah blah blah.
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| That's some good swill you got there, Jer... |
Immediate consumption is required, like a beaujolais nouveau -- or a Trader Joe's Three Buck Chuck -- is more our speed.
And football is just the vehicle to provide it.
And last week's games were an excellent amuse bouche to get the playoff party started.
Pleasantly whimsical in their spontaneity.
------------------------------------
1) Indiana. This one actually hurts -- we're Hoosier Strong! -- but in the spirit of 'taking one for the team,' one of you had to lose and one supposes, whomever gets beat, make it by a big margin. And the Hoosiers did not disappoint, although if not for a nightmare flub by their punter right before the end of the 1st half, who knows?
2) Bama.
Fun fact: Maine scored 14 pts. against Oklahoma.
You scored, um, 3.
What exactly were rolling before the game, Tide?
3) Ole Miss. "Lane, We Hardly Knew Ye."
Terry's Tools.
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| The few, the proud... |
The Tool section -- like basically the rest of the blog -- has most always been a place to take the criticisms thrown out in a not too terribly serious vein.
Everybody screws up. And frequently, it's fun to call most of them out.
But usually, there's nothing genuinely dystopian about the behavior. (That's why we stay away from politics.)
This week, however, there might be a legitimatel scary Sign of the Apocalypse, as far it pertains to college sports and this 67 year old's ability to care about it anymore.
SEC Media . SEC Media spent two full weeks bashing Indiana only to see three top-15 SEC teams lose to 5-5 Florida, 5-5 Oklahoma and 4-6 Auburn.
And shall we review their leading mouthpiece, Crimson Tide apologist, Paul Finebaum? Who is, apparently, not a fan of Notre Dame.
And gee, Paul, where do the Irish sit now, after 11 games?
(Blogger checks notes.)
#5 in every poll.
Huh.
A biologist looked at videos of the alleged "bear" in a Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes and concluded sit was clearly a human in a bear suit," the insurance department said.
The suit includes metal hand claws that damaged the seats and the reputation of law-abiding bears everywhere.
In any other state - or maybe another California town -- they probably would've gotten shot. One wonders if they thought about that...
And finally...
NIL. Find a billionaire - or his wife - and recruit them to fund obscene amounts of money toward helping you buy you a national championship roster.
Click here to watch the 3 minute clip of the Bryce Underwood-to-Michigan back story.
The smug, craven self-satisfied bro attitude of Dave Portnoy aka Mr. Barstool Sports and his "dude, we're gonna so do this, we've got the 5th wealthiest guy in the world bankrolling us, just watch us... multiple natties here we come" rhetoric -- honestly makes me sick to my stomach. Yes, the fact that it's Michigan makes it so much worse but to think that a dozen other programs aren't planning to do the same would be naive.
And BTW, do I blame the athlete? Not really -- it'd be tough to turn down some of these offers that probably feel like generational wealth (even if they're not). Plenty of others to point the finger at (impotent NCAA, agents, Congress)...
But there's now no one I'm going to wish harder for failing or, sorry, suffering an injury. (Hey, Bryce, you still get (most) of your money.)
And I hate that's what kind of fan NIL is turning me into.
Name of the Week
So when a parent places a label on a newborn, piece of unsculpted clay -- or perhaps a little later while still in its infancy, it probably says a lot about both parties: the parents and ultimately the kid dealing with.
Who remembers the Johnny Cash hit, "A Boy Named Sue"?
Occasionally, I am stopped in my tracks, not knowing what exactly to think. And this week is one of those times.
Memorable Factor
Yes, this is his real name. Yes, it's kinda fitting that he goes to Duke. Academically a Junior, he plays LB for the Blue Devils after growing up in London, playing rugby (this is tracking so far), doesn't seem to play much if at all.
But he might be 1st Team, All Name.
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