the most wonderful time of the year...

it's clementine season, folks, and i've consumed eight of them in the past 24 minutes. gluttony? sure. but sweet, fruity, easy-to-peel gluttony. and they were free [mom's the greatest], although i'll have to replenish by tuesday, i'd imagine.

very very low-key weekend. saturday I (that is, friday), saw me spending a few hours with coach and brysi at the brysi pad. probably three hours. (highlight, but not because they're not nice people: walking outside to see snow covering the street and cars. i don't like snow much, but the first one sure is beautiful.)

saturday II (that is, saturday) saw me meeting a former coworker at allstate arena for northwestern-depaul.

and that was it. otherwise, hung out with the boy and the parents, which isn't entirely bad. spent a few hours (maybe 90 minutes, actually) on the treadmill. enjoyed the notre dame game saturday night. worked on a su doku puzzle for the first time. finished an intermediate puzzle (from the trib) in two hours. two hours i can't get back. but my mom, working independently, went to sleep with enough mistakes to warrant the puzzle unsolveable, as well as a large headache. so i came out ahead, although i was also awake for an extra [wasted] half-hour.

otherwise, i watched a lot of football. (although i guess i covered that by mentioning nd-stanford.) ihsa playoffs featured some fantastic games, including a double-ot 8a game (saw pieces of it). i didn't see nebraska-colorado, which i always love, [and would have loved more had i seen it, being that slime-of-the-world gary lost, and lost bad, and would have loved it even more had iowa state done the job saturday] but i enjoyed the heck out of texas-texas a&m, where the young a&m quarterback ran around like a maniac, and kept it a game.

northwestern comments:
they did not look particularly good, and carmody quickly because displeased with the starting backcourt of jenkins and hachad. (combined playing time: 20 minutes.) craig moore saw lots of time. he appears to be another in a long line of small white guys (see: seacat, evan, and i can't think of any others) who can't actually shoot. however, he did play a pretty good "floor" game. that is, i think he understood what he was doing.

vukusic is, quite simply, the only option. the only option. nobody can score, even a bit. this is because nobody can shoot and, once the opposition packs in a zone, there are no layups to be had.

tim doyle played pretty well. it seemed like he had more than the two (i think) steals that he was credited with. he caused several second-half turnovers, and was the biggest reason that nu sliced an 11-point halftime deficit to five points early in the second half, and eventually to three.

sterling williams was hesitant, missing two layups. bernard cote looks nothing like i expected. he's a bit chubby, really, and doesn't look like the leaper i had somehow decided he was. he was a non-factor in his first start.

and vedran was, of course, spectacular at times. there was at least one occassion where, had he followed his shot, he'd've had a putback dunk. but i guess that's nit-picking.

a bit frustrated, i guess, but i'll be at the bar watching nu-virginia on espnu wednesday night. i'm a dork, if you've not noticed.

i think it's great that northwestern and depaul play, and i think it should be an annual thing. this weekend would be a great one for it. i'd also like to see uic and loyola join in in a one-site tournament. i think ten-thousand could potentially show up for something like that (9,000-plus was announced saturday), and i think it would get nice local exposure. but i'm an idiot.

entering dave letterman (his mom was fantasic thursday night, by the way) territory, it's time for regret? not a regret?

i was with a coworker at the game saturday afternoon. we arrived about 35 minutes before game time. about 15 minutes before gametime, former nu student eddie winslow showed up with an older man, presumably his dad. i thought, that's not him. but it was.

i didn't say hello. what's there to talk about?

about five minutes into the game, i realize that eddie and dad are seated behind me. one row back, three seats right. i could tell because of the distinctive voice ("yeah. i'm from schiller park." [can't type the accent]) and the incisive criticism. ("get a board, freakin' vince scott!") still, didn't say hello.

at the half, the pa announcer introduced the crowd to depaul great (now a grizzlies scout) david booth. [if you're a dork, you'll love the site. couldn't find an actual bio anywhere, although it probably wouldn't take much. still, it's got to get a laugh from someone out there. jo jo english!] i thought it was hilarious. "blast from the past" hilarious. so did he. still, didn't say hello.

after more incisive wit ("get a freakin' rebound, vince!"...quite similar to the sounds coming from my seat, of course) throughout the second half, and a disappointing finish, it was time for the mvp trophy presentation. to be presented by les grostein, chicago late night sports yakker of the late-90's... the guy who recorded lee elia's tirade... the guy who can talk about 1970's uic basketball for hours at a time [i've heard it] ... . [his site, grobbernet, comes up on google but apparently doesn't exist.] les grobstein=hilarious name. i laughed out loud when i heard it. so did eddie winslow. still, didn't say hello.

regret, not a regret.

regret, although i'll say that we're both to blame. he had to see me, right?