Three things, including a three-part thing.

First, the three-part thing. There's this 'refs blew the game' sentiment that's been particularly prevalent over the last 8 days in football. It doesn't anger me, but it frustrates me. And so... To Rick Reilly [he of the gigantic ego, who devoted an entire column in Sports Illustrated to slagging the official who called pass interference against Miami in overtime of the national championship game]: The Refs did not allow Craig Krenzel, a terrible quarterback in his own right, to complete a fourth-and-fourteen just a few plays earlier. To seemingly EVERYONE [for bashing the Giants-49ers refs for the botched call on the potential game-winning field goal]: The Giants blew a 24-point lead...they've got no gripe. To Bill Cowher [who blamed his loss on an (accurate) running-into-the-kicker call]: your boy missed a tackle that resulted in the 30 extra yards that resulted in the game-winning field goal. Shut up.

The Walkmen's "We've Been Had," called the second-best song of 2002 here, is currently on a Saturn commercial. It's jarring, but, damn, the song goes with the commercial quite well. This factoid brought to you by the incredible Unstadt.

Finally, I was reminded today of a high school / junior high clique [probably the wrong word] that I had long since forgotten. I was working this event called "Bald Eagle Days," a weekend festival of sorts which features a series of wildlife presentations [and booths of unrelated companies]. The clique that I had forgotten about resides above 'nerd,' perhaps. They're certainly not cool; in fact, they're not even of average coolness. In general, they're not interested in sports, and they spend much of their time at a nature preserve, such as, perhaps, The Grove in Glenview. Often they're misshapen in some way, although I can't think of any specific examples. An oversized booty on an otherwise normal-sized person? Perhaps. "Wild about wildlife," shall we say? I'm not sure they had a name, but I'll use an old word in a new way and call them Animaniacs. In fact, there probably weren't enough of them to even consider them a clique, but I'm sure you can think of some names. Anyway, remember them? Animaniacs are present in full force at "Bald Eagle Days," as one would suspect.